Xander and Emilie

Thu, Apr 30, 2009 8:47 PM

EM WENT PEE PEE ON THE POTTY!!!

This is the happiest, most exciting day at Motel Minch in a long time!!

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grandma cindy: way to go Emilie!!!!!!!!! I knew you could do it

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Sun, Mar 1, 2009 8:57 AM

Miss Emilie has big news--She's now sassy (her name for her pacifier) free!!! WOO HOO!! Naptime on Friday at Donna's was her first sleepy time without it (and without complaints). She has now gone all weekend without it. It hasn't been easy and she still cries at bedtime because she doesn't get it but we're all being strong and not giving in. Our hopes are that she will have forgotten about it by the end of the week.

Now we just need to master sitting on the potty and sleeping in a big girl bed!

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grandma cindy: she has lost her ball and chain she can be free free again! sounds like martin lluther king doesnt it

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Sat, Jan 31, 2009 2:38 PM

More drama at our house. Emilie had a cold last week (runny nose and a dry cough but no fever). Not unusual for January. It lasted only a week and was gone by the weekend. We were celebrating the quickest cold in history!

Then Daddy picked the kids up from Donna's on Thursday and was told that she had started coughing and a low grade fever (99.5). By the end of the night, the cough sounded worse, was accompanied by a wheezing noise, and panting between coughs. Great! We knew a doctor's visit would be necessary.

By morning, her fever was up to 101. A little Motrin and she bounced back and was playing. If she wouldn't have been coughing up a lung, you wouldn't have known she was sick! :o)

She wouldn't budge off my lap when we got in to the office. Dr. Duck came in and listened to her lungs--for what seemed like forever. We went in with the expectation of bronchitis, antibiotics, and breathing treatments. Mommy was caught off guard by hearing double pneumonia! She still got the antibiotics and breathing treatments but also a chest x-ray. Other than the My Little Pony sticker she got, she hated every bit of that experience!

We did finally receive some good news that afternoon. We got her in early so the x-ray only showed pneumonia on the left side. If we'd let it go longer, she would have probably had it full blown on both sides and been hospitalized...again.

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Mon, Jan 26, 2009 8:02 PM

Xander has some big news:
HE SLEPT IN HIS UNDIES ALL LAST NIGHT AND WOKE UP DRY!! He's been napping in his undies for awhile now but we haven't been brave enough to try it at night. Granted, he only has a wet (damp actually) Pull-Up once every couple of weeks. It's not like he isn't able to do it. Mommy and Daddy were the ones that weren't ready for this step! Neither of us wanted to deal with changing his sheets in the middle of the night. (OK, so we'd be changing our sheets since he still mysteriously materializes there every night.) Since he's down to only 2 or 3 Pull-Ups left in his bathroom, we thought we'd let him try to skip it last night. And with success! YAY XANDER!!

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Wed, Aug 27, 2008 1:12 PM

For those of you who haven't heard, Emilie was in the hospital Monday and Tuesday. Here's her LONG story (both because Mommy is wordy and because of the long lead up to her hospitalization).

On Friday (Aug. 15) she started having diarrhea. We weren't too surprised; she was cutting all 4 of her eye teeth. On Sunday, it had gotten really bad. Our friends, the Johns, had given us tickets to tour Lucas Oil Stadium when the first poopy of the afternoon hit. We only planned on being out for 2-3hrs and had packed 4 diapers in the bag and had another in the van. We figured we were over prepared...wrong. We ended up leaving after less than 2hrs because we needed that 5th diaper in the van!!

Emilie stayed at home on Monday with Mommy and Tuesday with Daddy. The frequency had died down so we figured she was safe to head back to Donna's by Wednesday. Especially since we thought this was only teething poo. We only kept her home because we didn't want to tie Donna up all day changing diapers. She was still drinking and eating some, less than normal but no big surprise with a sore mouth.

Her food and beverage intake had continued to dwindle all week until she got to the point where she wouldn't drink a drop of anything (and trust us...we tried it all) except milk, which just caused more nasty diapers.

By Friday we thought she was done because she had no dirty diapers all day long...wrong again. No more than 10sec after I walked in the door, up came her cheese cracker snack (note to others: they stain HORRIBLY so don't feed them to a sick/teething kid!). Chad and I thought it was a fluke...maybe she just choked on a cracker. Then we sat down to dinner and minutes later we had a repeat episode.

Saturday morning, the hunger strike continued. We had planned on calling Dr. Duck but figured we'd just hear that she had a virus and to force fluids. Nothing more they could do. But by mid morning she was begging for a cup of water. By lunch she was bring Mommy food to make her. Before dinner she was running around and playing. We thought the virus had finally run its course. Then she sat down by the island in the kitchen as we were making dinner and lost her lunch.

Sunday was the worst yet. She wouldn't touch a bite or drink a drop. She sat around and watched Xander play. We debated whether to wait to take her in on Monday or make a trip to the ER. Chad was still suffering from the stomach bug he had apparently caught from Miss Em so a Sunday trip didn't seem logistically possible.

Monday morning we dropped Xander off at school and brought Em in for her appointment. We were given two options: admit her or try to treat her on an outpatient basis, which would just delay the inevitable. An hour later a room opened up in the surgical ward (the pedes unit was full again). Four horrible, blood curdling scream filled sticks later (all tearless), her IV was finally in and she was asleep from exhaustion. That had to be the hardest thing any of us have ever been through!! :o( Then came her chest x-rays and KUB (x-ray of her abdomen to check her kidneys and bladder).

When we got back to her room, they finally started her on fluids. About 20min later, she was smiling and talking to us. [Huge sigh] Later that evening, she saw food commercials on TV and asked to have some food. Since she was on a clear/liquid diet, she got to feast on Jell-O, which she loved! We found out from Dr. Duck that night that her bicarbonate level was at 15 (24 is normal) but no other tests were ready yet.

By Tuesday morning, she hadn't vomited anymore so she was allowed to progress her diet (try solids). She ate some bacon (our meat loving daughter), jelly toast, and some cheese omelet. Her 4am blood draw showed that she still wasn't completely rehydrated (up to 20 now) and that her potassium level had dropped. They put her on fluids + potassium for the rest of the day and told us that if she ate and kept everything in, she could go home that night. All of her other tests showed nothing (although they never did get a stool sample) so her diagnosis was a nasty virus that knocked her down more than it should have. By 5pm, we were packing up her room, changing her into clothes, and escorting our baby to the van.

She was sooooooo excited to be home and playing with the balloons Daddy and Xander got her! She still looked a little weak but she played all night. Before dinner, she finally made that much desired poopy--another messy one. Fantastic! Back to the hospital. Luckily the on-call doc told us it was okay as long as the frequency didn't pick up, she kept having wet diapers, and she didn't start vomiting again. So we headed to bed after reading every book she could find and got so much needed rest. Amazingly, Xander hasn't shown a single symptom through this whole ordeal.

Today we have our old Emilie back--bouncing around as if she was never sick and taking care of Baby. She was given a doll at the hospital with yellow, curly yarn hair that has become her new best friend. They gave her juice to drink in a sippy cup (that she would never touch) that she now feeds Baby with only after she puts a bib on her. Em also had to wear a soft cast looking contraption to protect her IV that Baby now has to wear, too.

Gotta run. I'm sitting on the couch in the living room and I can hear Sully's stomach gurgling. We don't need to be cleaning up sick doggy messes after all of last week's messes!

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Mon, Jun 30, 2008 9:44 PM

I'm REALLY hoping this doesn't jinx things! Xander has been wearing underwear since Friday evening!!

[The heavens part] ALLELUIA!!! ALLELUIA!!

We've been making him change into a pull-up when he sleeps (naptime and at night) but otherwise he's in undies the rest of the day!! And he's been doing fantastic!!! He's actually doing much better than when he wears a pull-up. It seems to be a safety net for him. If he knows he has it on, he pees in it. If he has on undies, he knows he has to run to the potty.

Over the now 3.5 days, he's had 2 accidents of the liquid type. And they're just as much our fault as his--we didn't get him to the potty soon enough. We've been making him go every 45min-1hr and that seems to be working pretty well for him.

He's even running with clenched cheeks to the potty when he has to go #2, which has been a continuous struggle with him. Normally he runs and hides behind the couch or goes to another room to try to hold it in. To combat this ongoing problem, he's still taking his fiber supplement once a day and we don't see that going away anytime soon. That just adds to the fact that we couldn't be more thrilled or proud of him when we see him run in to the bathroom!!!

One of his biggest motivators to ditch the pull ups was being told that he had to be wearing big boy underwear to get to go to his Tummy Bunny lessons (a tumbling class) with his buddy Alli. They start on Wednesday, July 2. Although it's not true, it seemed to be the final push that he needed. Don't get me wrong, he didn't ask to stop wearing them; Mommy told him he was done and was only wearing undies from now on. We've tried that before and 3hrs later and 3 puddles later, we scrapped the effort. This time he finally seemed to be ready!!

And to top things off, Miss Em has become interested lately!! Probably 2mo ago now, she wanted to start sitting on the potty. We thought it was cute, but we'd strip her down and try to set her on it anyway. But she hated that! She'd go completely rigid. We think she was scared of being so high off the ground and nothing much being under her fanny. Still trying to take advantage of her interest, we bought her a potty chair (the idea of her using it still grosses Daddy out!). At first, she was reluctant to sit on it, but now it's fun for her.

Lately she's been telling us more and more that she wants to sit on the big potty. We still haven't found her a potty ring that suites her (only sports, no pink) so we may be shooting ourselves in the foot. Especially since twice she's told Mommy she wants to sit on the potty, gets scared (?) and gets off, then stands beside it and pees on the floor. After sitting on the potty on Saturday, we put her in one of Xander's pull-ups before naptime and she woke up with four out of five spiders in the front!! Okay, so that may be a bit unfair if boy and girl pull ups measure liquid in different places but still impressive at 20mo (FYI—Xander is 3yrs 3.5mo)!!

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Sat, Feb 16, 2008 10:48 PM

As if poor Emilie hasn't had a rough enough time lately with being sick, add teething on top of that! And not just front teeth but molars!

The sinus infection/bronchitis just didn't seem to be getting any better. In fact, after a week on antibiotics, she spiked another fever! She was running a 101.5 fever at Donna's on Friday (Feb. 7) and was tugging at her right ear. Great! Now an ear infection!! By Saturday, her fever was up to 102.3. We called back into the doctor's office first thing and explained everything she and Xander had recently and the meds she was on. Dr. Gill said dto bring her back in. She listened to her breathe and said her lungs sounded clear (no pneumonia crackles)--YAY! She checked her ears and said they were clear. Huh. Then she checked her throat and said it was a little red but nothing to worry about. But she also commented that she had some molars bulging. What?! She said that her fever was too high for just teething so she figured she probably had a virus on top of the bacterial infections.

When we got home, sure enough, she had one molar completely in on the bottom right side and another with 1 point through on the top! (We had no idea!!) Not to mention the other 3-4 that are trying to come in...and that stubborn front tooth on the bottom that she had been working on for about a month. Poor baby!! Today we noticed that the stubborn bottom right incisor finally cut through. That makes 3 teeth in 2 weeks (although probably longer)!!! Hopefully she'll get a break from all of this soon!!

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Sat, Feb 2, 2008 8:08 PM

Not wanting to be out done by Xander’s case of pneumonia, Emilie couldn’t let another week (actually only 3days) go by without getting sick herself. Dr. Duck told us at her well big girl visit to call back if she started getting worse. When I picked up Emilie from Donna’s on Friday, she reported that Em was having a lot of trouble with her cough, which she thought sounded a lot like Xander’s, and was choking on all the sinus drainage she had. She was also running a fever. By the time we got home, the doctor’s office was already closed so we dosed her up with some Motrin and hoped the fever was just due to teething. (She had been working on a bottom tooth now for over a month and it was sooo close to finally cutting through). Unfortunately that wasn’t the case. Saturday morning she woke up on fire. She was running a fever over 102!

Daddy made the call back into the doc’s office and explained everything. Hoping to head off whatever had led to Xander’s pneumonia, she was put on 10 days of Omnicef for the infections, Dallergy (prescription Benedryl) for the runny nose and eyes, breathing treatments 3 times per day for the bronchitis, and to alternate Motrin and Tylenol for the fever and aches. I think that pretty much emptied out Kroger’s pharmacy!

Cross your fingers and hope that this is the last of it for poor Em! She has been so miserable lately!! I don't think spring can get here soon enough!!

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Thu, Jan 31, 2008 3:57 PM

Emilie had her 15mo well baby, excuse me, well big girl visit on Wednesday. As always, the ladies at the desk ohhed and ahhed over her, telling how much they loved her blue eyes and blond hair and how pretty she is. Emilie gave them her normal response by acting all shy and smiling sweetly. The next stop was measurements. She’s now 23lbs 12oz, about the same weight she’s been for the last few months, give or take a few ounces. She measured in at 32in. That puts her at 50-75th % for weight and 90th % for height. And she’s our small child!! :o)

Dr. Duck came in for a quick exam and opened the floor for questions. We updated him on her progress in physical therapy. She’s still not crawling but she does try. She’s also now able to sit up from being on her belly or back, she’s able to pull up on her own, she voluntarily kneels now, and she will plop down on her bottom. Those are HUGE advances for Miss Em! We also told him that she can walk on her own but she lacks the confidence to let go of our one finger and go. (Most recently she walked halfway across the kitchen from Daddy to Mommy on her own!!!) At that point of the exam, he was checking her hips and legs and said he can’t find a reason that she shouldn’t be able to crawl but was concerned that she still couldn’t/wouldn’t. He said to give PT another couple of months and if she still wasn’t crawling, he’d refer her to another pediatric physical therapist. She specializes in kids with major physical problems/delays (such as kids in wheelchairs). Em would be a special case for her, obviously. We’re pretty satisfied with her progress so we have no intention of sending her there.

Mommy also asked about how much she should be saying at this point. He asked what she can say—daddy, doggy, no no, uh oh, whoa, Donna, and mama. We told him that she used to be able to call Xander and Mama by name but now everyone (Xander, Mommy, Grandmas and Grandpas) is daddy. He laughed and said it’s not uncommon for second kids to speak less and later than the first child. It’s normally because the older sibling speaks for them. He suggested Mommy picking out a few books and Daddy picking out a few different ones and reading them to her repeatedly. I told him that Emilie’s idea of reading a book is flipping 1 or 2 pages and throwing it on the floor and grabbing the next one. Making her sit still to listen to one almost always results in a fit. He then suggested SHORT books and to use funny voices while reading to hold her attention and to name the items in the pictures for her. So far we’ve identified 3 books that she loves to read and she even tries to mimic the animal sounds now (and is very proud of herself when does it—it’s soooo cute!!).

We also pointed out the fact that she was coughing pretty bad and had a runny nose again. Since Xander was also in for his pneumonia follow-up visit, he gave her a thorough exam to make sure she wasn’t coming down with the same thing. He listened to her breathe, checked in her ears and nose, and looked down her throat. He said that she didn’t appear to have anything more than a virus but to call back in if she started getting worse.

Next was Xander’s follow-up. We told him that his fever broke by late Saturday-early Sunday after starting the Zithromax. His appetite still wasn’t back to normal but it was getting better. In general, he was acting more like himself (wanting to play again, energy level returning to normal) but the cough was still terrible. He listened to his chest for quite awhile and said he didn’t hear any pneumonia crackles anymore!! YAY!! Although the cough will take a few weeks to go away, he offered an alternative treatment to help. He grabbed a few samples of a (steroid) inhaler and showed us how to use them. He explained that this steroid was a little stronger and would get into his lungs better. He would need to take 2 puffs twice a day. He also said that we could start weaning him off the breathing treatments. Cut back to 3 per day for a week or two, then down to twice a day, then stop them altogether (if he’s doing less than 2 per day, it’s not worth it). If he starts to have trouble again, start them back up. Keep using the inhaler and treat it the same as the breathing treatments—use as needed. So far we haven’t used the inhaler and he doesn’t seem to need it. The cough has been getting progressively better so we’re weaning him off the treatments now. Woo hoo!!

Next came the shots for poor Em. She is such a trooper!! A few tears in the office and that was the end of it. No sign that they bothered her AT ALL afterwards (other than a swollen, bruised thigh).

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Tue, Jan 29, 2008 2:08 PM

A quick…OK…VERY long update on the illnesses that just won't go away!

Poor Emilie came down with a sinus infection on the same day the physical/occupational therapists came in November. Daddy had one tissue for her nose and another for her eyes. Our lover of medicine didn't seem to mind the antibiotic at all! In fact, she got made when each dose was done!

That was November, nothing compared to December. I already posted an updated on Xander's bout of the 24hr stomach bug. We thought Emilie was in the clear when she didn't have it the same day or next day. Ha! We were wrong! She woke up SCREAMING around midnight and I sprinted in to check on her, fearing what I might find. Yep, she'd tossed her lasagna all over herself and her crib. (In hindsight that wasn't the greatest meal choice. Pasta was always a meal she couldn't get enough of but has just now started to eat again.) Poor Em got sick every 14min on the dot for the next few hours. I held her in the kitchen and Daddy would run up with a bucket as soon as she moved (she was otherwise motionless). About an hour in, she starting crying whenever he came near her! ;O( By the end, she was doing nothing but dry heaving. It was heart wrenching!

Xander was having a great time though! All the activity obviously woke him up and he thought it was play time! At about 4:30am, she was finally done and resting. It was another night of sleeping in the basement on the couch bed for Mommy though. The next day we all stayed home. Daddy was also not feeling well but luckily it wasn’t as bad for him.

Then came another round of sinus infections. About a week before Christmas, they both had runny noses and eyes—both clear at that point. We took them in, knowing that they were still colds at this point, so that we could prevent a mad dash back to Brownsburg at Christmas time this year. (Remember 2006 was a mad dash back that resulted in Em being hospitalized for RSV and pneumonia and in 2005 X was in the ER with croup.) Thinking that we were just going to get scripts to fill when/if we needed to and sent on our merry way, we were told that Xander’s had already progressed into a sinus infection but Em’s was still a cold. However, Em was all green with gooey eyes by Dec. 23rd so she got her script filled in Portland. Note: This was sinus infection #2 in 2mo for Em.

Everybody seemed to be recovering okay until we got back to Brownsburg. A cough usually develops at the end of a sinus infection as all the drainage moves into the chest. We weren’t surprised when X started coughing. But then they became coughing fits that would last ½-1hr in the middle of the night. Nothing stopped it. And he only did this at night. He really didn’t cough much, if at all, during the day. After battling this problem for about 2wks, we started to wonder if he was allergic to the down pillows and comforter on our bed (we don’t battle him anymore—the only way any of us sleep is if we’re in Mommy and Daddy’s bed). We stripped the bed that night and his coughing almost immediately stopped.

We thought we were geniuses! Then we starting getting reports that he started coughing all day long at Donna’s and would sleep fitfully, if at all, during nap time. At about the same time we noticed Em had a tooth that was really trying to come through. It wasn’t bothering her but she spiked a 102 fever at Donna’s one day, which meant another trip to the doctor.

Once again we were told that it was probably a virus. It was too high to be teething (notice—he acknowledged that there are fevers associated with teething!) but everything was still clear. If it went green again, we were supposed to bring her back in. That would be sinus infection #3 in 3mo. He didn’t realize that and said we’d start treating her for allergies if that were the case. AAAHHHH! Mommy is looking into the future for her, knowing her family history. Food allergies (Grandma Cindy is allergic to just about everything other than rice and Aunt Jenny has some), seasonal allergies (check again for Grandma and Aunt Lisa), allergies to everything else on the planet (check again for Grandma Cindy).

While there, Xander was also examined to figure out his cough. Dr. Duck could find no sign of an infection so he put him back on breathing treatments—Xopenex 3 times a day and Pulmicort once a day. He’s also supposed to have another during the night if he has more coughing spells. Dr. Duck is basically treating him as if he has asthma. Great! These are a blast!

He does really well with them at Donna’s. He sits on by himself and holds the mask while they all get to watch cartoons. All the kids are fascinated by the machine. They say he’s a fire breathing dragon! :o) But at home is a different story. He fights us tooth and nail most of the time. He absolutely refuses to hold the mask by himself and he doesn’t like the string on it. The one good thing is that we’ve gotten to watch most of our stock of Disney DVDs (that means a movie other than Disney Cars!).

Just when we were starting to settle into this routine, he throws us another curve ball. Friday (1/25/08) at 3:30am Daddy wakes up and notices Xander is on fire. He was running a 103 degree fever! Another trip back to the doctor. I told him that the cough hasn’t improved any during the past 3wks of treatments so he upped them to 4Xs a day. After his exam, he reports a crackling noise in his chest. He ordered 3 days of Xithromax over the weekend followed by another round the following weekend. Then he said he was also ordering a chest x-ray. I knew that meant he suspected pneumonia. I didn’t realize until after the x-ray that he’d already diagnosed him with pneumonia! (X wanted to go to the hospital cafeteria—he remembered it was there when he went with Daddy a year ago!—so I read his sheet while he drank some milk.)

Saturday morning he had to take breaks while building blocks with his Legos! It was too exhausting! Thankfully his fever finally broke late that afternoon. That night he was running around playing with Andy and Lisa—you would have never known he was sick! The cough is still there and he’s still not eating. He has to go back in tomorrow for a follow up visit, the same time as Em’s 15mo well baby appt. While we’re there for those 2 things, we’ll also have Em checked out for the cough she’s starting to develop!

WILL IT EVER END?! :o) Can you see why there haven't been many updates lately? Not to mention that our laptop is also about to be trashed!

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The Mitchels: Well, we're so sorry! No wonder you haven't met Bree yet!!!!! We will look forward to seeing you all soon, when everyone is healthy-good luck! Alli really misses Xander!
:)
Love, The Mitchels

Heather: :-( So sorry you are having so much trouble! Hope everyone feels better soon! Take care of each other and know we are thinking about you.

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