Emma: June 2016

Here is what Emma was up to during the month of June.

The first Friday in June was my last day of school/work for the year! We started off summer break by celebrating Rachel's birthday with Sunday brunch.

She also tried her first lemon. The video is pretty funny. She actually loved it though and ate the whole thing. 

I got really sick and passed out for a minute. Not sure if it was the Texas heat or what but I was down for pretty much the rest of the day. 

The next week we didn't do much, just hung out and played. It was so nice not having to get up super early to get ready and then get Emma ready and then to daycare and work. 

 She loves her some whip cream and will even let me spray it in to her mouth from the can.

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She loves to eat, so far her favorites are green beans, tator tot casserole and roast. 

 She really started exploring this month. Just crawling around everywhere by herself. She also started going through some major separation anxiety which have made car rides miserable. The only way she is happy in the car is if someone is in the back feeding her puffs or singing songs.

 She has also started to try to climb things. It takes her awhile but she rarely gives up. She also loves to dance. Anytime there is anything that makes noise she is bouncing away.

 She loves the water. While she prefers the big swimming pool she still has fun in our little kiddie pool.

 She is still not a great napper. One day she takes great naps at a certain time and the next day she won't go down at similar times at all. It is driving me crazy. We did sleep train at the beginning of the month for night time sleep. We unfortunately had to use cry it out because she was throwing tantrums. No tears, just screaming and throwing herself around the crib. It took a couple of nights, but she is officially out of our bed and in her crib and she sleeps all night. Roughly 12 hours. It is so nice to feel rested again.

She got really good at walking with her elephant push toy.

She had her first play date with 2 little girls whose moms were in our birth class. 

We also went to the lake for a few days so I could get my online professional development done for work. 

One day we went to Target and when we were going to leave it started pouring so we sat in Starbucks and watched the rain. 

We moved at the end of the month and the new house has laminate floors. She loved bouncing the balls and listening to the echos while it was empty. 

 She loves the new rug. She would crawl and then lay down and then crawl and then lay down over and over again.

 We were shopping to get stuff for the new house and saw this Emma sized desk, Couldn't resist getting a picture of her with it.

 Unfortunately our move was less than great. First the house wasn't ready when it was supposed to be. Then our movers couldn't move us on the day we had reserved because they had drivers not show up and we didn't find out until an hour before. So, we had to wait two more days and unpack boxes to get to stuff. Then we moved in and a bunch of stuff in the house wasn't working and we had sewer issues. All this is going on and Emma has full blown hand foot and mouth disease and an ear infection.

This is what she looked like on Friday when we realized what it was. The bumps showed up on Thursday,

 This was on Saturday. We just did Tylenol every four hours, oatmeal baths and Calamine lotion every couple of hours and she seemed okay. She was a little fussy, but the Tylenol helped a lot.

 Her lovely right ear draining the gross infected puss. It started yellow and turned brownish red after a couple of days.

So June started off great, but the end was rough. Hoping for a better July!

Emma: 10 Months Old

Emma turned 10 months old on May 30th, 2016. Here is were she is developmentally according to "What to Expect the First Year"

Most babies will probably be able to...

• She can do:
• Stand holding on to someone or something
• Pull up to standing position from sitting
• Say "mama" or "dada" without meaning
• Play along in a game of peekaboo and other anticipation games
• She can't yet do:
• Exchange back-and-forth gestures and sounds with you
• Object if you try to take a toy away

Half of all babies will be able to...

• She can do:
• Walk holding on to furniture
• Pick up a tiny object with thumb and finger
• Understand "no" but not always obey it
• She can't yet do:
• Clap hand or wave bye-bye

Some babies will be able to...

• She can do:
• Say "dada" or "mama" with meaning
• Stand alone momentarily
• She can't yet do:
• Stand alone well
• Say one word other than "mama" or "dada"
• Point to something to get needs met

A few babies will be able to...

• She can do:
• Indicate wants in ways other than crying
• Drink from a cup independently
• Play ball (roll ball back to you)
• Use immature jargoning/gibberish
• Respond to a one-step command with gestures
• She can't yet do:
• Pick up tiny object neatly with tips of thumb and forefinger
• Walk well (without holding on to something) 

Emma: Tubes Surgery

Back in December 2015 Emma got her first ear infection. Since then she has had an ear infection each month leading up to May 2016 which means six ear infections in six months so the pediatrician referred us to an ENT. Each infection we were put on antibiotics and it would get better and then it would come back within a couple of days. I'm not 100% convinced that it ever actually went away.

Anyways, we had her ENT visit on May 6th, right after her 9 month well visit. He agreed that she needed tubes and we scheduled the surgery for May 17th.

She couldn't have any solid food after midnight, no breastmilk after 3:30 am and no water after 4:30 am. I woke her up at 3:00 to nurse and then at 5:45 we just transferred her to her car seat and headed out. She stayed asleep until we had to take her out to be weighed. We had to be there at 6:30 am and she wasn't scheduled to have her surgery until 7:30 am.

She was actually in a pretty good mood considering she hadn't eaten in 4 hours. I was able to hold her for a while, but then Bobby had to take over since me holding her just made her upset since she couldn't nurse. 

They took her back right after 7:30 am and we got to see her again at 8 am. Coming out of the anesthesia she was really fussy but once we started nursing it calmed her down and she dozed on and off for about 30 minutes. Everything went really well. The doctor did say that she had a double ear infection so he drained the puss and to expect a lot of drainage. We were discharged at 8:30 am.

 She was in really good spirits the whole ride home and she loved her little lion that she got out of the whole ordeal.

 We went home and ate breakfast and played for about an hour and then she passed out for four hours, which allowed me to get a nap as well. We had to do these antibiotic drops twice a day for 7 days in her ears. Those things were expensive, $200 for a tiny bottle.

We had her follow up on May 27th and she still had an ear infection, which we thought she might because her ears were still draining a lot. So she got another round of drops, this time for 10 days, and the doctor was nice enough to give us a sample so we didn't have to spend another $200. She also got an oral antibiotic for 10 days to make sure we got rid of it.

Because she still had an ear infection at her post-op check up we had to do another one on June 9th. On the 9th she still had fluid in her right ear so we had to do three more days of drops. So after several months of constant ear infections she was finally well on June 12th. But, two weeks later her right ear started to drain again and sure enough she had another ear infection in her right ear. Six more days of drops and another oral antibiotic later and as of July 8th she seems to be infection free. I am really hoping we are over the days of ear infections but who knows what going back to daycare will bring in August.