Of All the Bad Luck

So, yesterday I woke up at 4:00 am with a horrible sore throat and the worst body aches I can remember having. Yup, you guessed it: I have strep throat. I got a couple shots in the bum, an antibiotic and a pain killer and I felt somewhat better for a few hours. Then this morning happened. My throat is killing me. I can barely talk or eat. This strep throat is no fun. Luckily, I got someone to cover my shift for tonight so I can rest. Hopefully I'll be better for my 5:00 shift tomorrow evening.

Now the countdown starts again to see if Gwen comes down with it. She's been exposed by Jonathan, Grandma, and me. I don't think the odds are in her favor. We'll just have to keep a close eye on her because a 14 month old can't really tell you that her throat hurts. Well, that's all the energy I have right now. I have to go lie down some more. Ugh.

Gwen's First Trick-or-Treat

First off: thanks to all who sent good thoughts and prayers in our direction for Jonathan. He's feeling nearly 100% better. He's actually eating and hasn't missed school this week. Gwen and I are showing no signs of having it yet. Incubation is about 7 - 14 days so we're not out of the woods yet, but I'm still hoping.

Yesterday was Gwen's second Halloween and her first chance to go trick-or-treating. We dressed her up as a lady bug. Jonathan dressed up as a wizard and I was a tiger. I had to go to work so Jonathan got to take Gwen out by himself. He found out that it's not that easy to wrangle a now mobile one-year-old while trying to film it for your working wife. Gwen only made it to a few houses but she really loved that she got to knock on the doors and the people there gave her "num-nums" - her word for candy or treats. We didn't get a single trick-or-treater at our house. Oh well, we'll just have to find something to do with all our candy.

Front of my little lady bug.

Back of my little lady bug. We bought her hat and just cut out black felt spots and glued them on a pair of red sweats that a friend from work gave to us.

Roar. I'm a tiger. We didn't have too many patients at my work but it was fun to dress up. None of our doctors dressed up but some of the other nurses did.

Gwen thought that my costume was so funny. I got lots of hugs and snuggles because I think she thought I was a giant stuffed animal. I love this picture because we are both giggling hard. I don't have a picture of Jonathan in his costume. He had a fake beard and a tall wizard hat that he wore with his old graduation gown. Gwen liked his costume too.

Strep Throat

Over the last week our family has been dealing with Jonathan's strep throat. It started last Sunday with body aches and fevers. He had no other symptoms at all so I was thinking that he had a bad cold or the flu. Then on Tuesday he spiked a temperature of 103. He was miserable so the next morning we took him in to my urgent care clinic and tested him for strep throat. I had told him on Monday that he smelled like strep - it does have a smell and since I'm around kids with it all day I can usually pick out the ones with bad infections. He didn't have a sore throat though. Well, I looked in his throat to swab it for the test and almost lost my lunch. It was GROSS! Of course the test was positive so the doctor put him on antibiotics and a cough syrup with a pain killer in it. Two hours after being at the clinc, Jonathan's throat finally started to hurt.

Over the next few days, Jonathan didn't improve even though he was taking the antibiotic. He continued to run high fevers and his throat got more swollen and painful until Saturday night when I came home from work to find him running fevers and nearly in tears from the pain. We got through the night and first thing Sunday morning we went back to the InstaCare for some IV fluids, IV steroids, and IV pain medication. All that plus a mouth wash with lidocaine in it and he was finally starting to feel a little better. They also started him on another much stronger antibiotic. We took him home and let him rest all day and this morning I think he's finally turning a corner with this illness. He's even headed off to class this morning. He's still very weak and his throat hurts a lot. If you remember, we'd really appreciate any prayers you can offer in his behalf.

Now only time will tell if Gwen or I will end up with this killer strep throat. So far, we're feeling okay, I hope it stays away from us because this has been a really hard week for all of us and I can't imagine doing it much longer.

Gwen Climbs On and On

Gwen now walks up and down the stairs like a big person. She's getting much better at her toddling and can go about 15 feet before falling. She did fall outside on the sidewalk the other day and got her first big scrape, right on her cheek. She loves to be outside so hopefully the nice fall weather will stay for a long time. I'm not looking forward to having to be indoors more once it gets cold. It will be fun to watch her play in the snow for the first time though.

It's so neat to watch Gwen change from my little helpless baby to a very helpful toddler. She has to be right in the middle of whatever it is we're doing. She loves to load and unload the dishwasher. Here she is in her jammies putting her still full sippy cup away after breakfast. Speaking of sippy cups, Gwen weaned herself from her bottles this week. I went to give her her bedtime bottle as usual on Tuesday and she threw it at me. She hasn't picked one up since. I guess she just decided that she didn't want them anymore. What a relief that was. We've been trying to get her to give them up for the last month and weren't having any success. I fear that this is probably how things will work with Gwen. We'll try to get her to do things and she'll resist until she decides to do it.

Anything and everything is a toy to a one-year-old. She loves to crawl on her stroller, or in it if it's set up. She treats Boot the same way. That poor dog puts up with so much from her. Gwen tries to ride Boot at least a couple times a day. Gwen now says "Boot" sometimes. I think we'll have to count that as her first word. She also says "Sit" pronounced "Shet" and will hold her hand out with a fist (that's the hand signal we use for sit) and command Boot to "shet". If Boot does, then Gwen gets to give her a treat.

Did I mention that Gwen loves to get into things? The other day she got into the fridge and found an open bag of carrots. Yummy. Of course, when eating carrots, it's best to have one in each hand. Another one of Gwen's favorites these days is the Itsy Bitsy Spider song. It's the ONLY thing that keeps her remotely still for her diaper changes. It also cheers her up if she's having a mini meltdown about something. She does some of the hand actions too. Sometimes when we're driving I'll look back and she'll be doing the actions in her car seat. It's really too cute.

Couch Potato

Immitation is the sincerest form of flattery, right? We're such good role models for Gwen.

I love this picture so much because all you can see of her is her cute nearly bald head focused on the TV.

Our Little Pedestrian!

So, after my last post I went with Gwen and Grandma Buckholts to visit Heidi, Sam, and baby Jami in Layton. Sam had a cold, but Gwen was going stir crazy and I really wanted to see my newest niece again. Jami is so cute. She has so much hair and is so little. I can't believe that only a year ago Gwen was almost that little. She seems so big now. Well, after our visit we were packing up to leave and I handed Gwen her sippy cup and walked away to get her diaper bag. I turned around and she was walking after me. I started to yell "you're walking! Hey, Gwen's walking!" That startled her and she fell down but she had taken about 10 steps all by herself. I had forgotten to grab my camera when we left but Heidi had hers handy and captured Gwen's second attempt. It was a couple more steps this time before she fell. Each day she practices and gets a little better. She's taking it slow but I think we can say that, "We have another pedestrian in our midst."

Random Pictures

I was looking through my pictures and found some more cute Gwen ones. I thought that I'd just pile them all together and give brief explanations for them. Mostly, they're from moments where you go, "grab the camera, Honey! You've got to see this!"

Also, I forgot to update about Gwen's 12 month check-up. No, that's not a check-up that takes 12 months to complete. She weighed in at 26.6 pounds. No wonder my back hurts if I have to carry her for more than a few minutes. She's in the 97% for weight. The doctor told us to put her on 2% milk instead of whole and to really encourage her to start walking so she won't get too flabby. Being too rolly can make it harder for her to walk and do the other big motor movements. She's in the 75% for height and head circumference. Ideally her weight should be in the 75% or there abouts. He told us not to worry because most toddlers stop gaining weight for the next year or so and start to thin out after they start walking.

Yeah, so no, Gwen's not walking yet. These last few days she's really been more focused on staying on her feet though. She'll cruise for much longer distances and hold out her hands and "ask" you to help her stand and walk to where she wants to be. She still reverts to a crawl if she wants to get anywhere quickly. Her doctor said she's actually right on target for her age - most babies don't walk until 13-14 months. Gwen's also not talking much. She doesn't use any words, but instead jargons at us. Jargoning is where she strings sounds together and uses inflection to sound like what she thinks we sound like. It's more complex than babbling, which is just repeating sylables without the pauses and tones that are included in jargoning. Most babies Gwen's age have 3-4 words by now. Her doctor was a little concerned about that, but asked if she points and shows enthusiasm for something. She does do that and she seems to understand quite a bit of what we say. He said that the ability to point and show enthusiasm for an object is a big determiner for autism. Most autistic babies her age don't do that. He thinks she's just a slower talker but she'll catch up.
For her actually birthday, we took Gwen out to eat at Fazoli's. She loves spaghetti.See.Gwen's been trying to use utensils lately. She can get the food on the end sometimes, but then she picks it off with her fingers and puts it in her mouth. When I'm at work, Jonathan gives Gwen piano lessons. She's very good at eating sheet music and banging as loud as possible. She's a genious!When we went to visit Heidi and baby Jami at the hospital, Gwen found a nice place to climb into and hide. She was so happy with herself until she realized that she was stuck. Then Daddy had to rescue her.Gwen gets attacked by prunes and loses the battle.This is why all our toilet paper rolls are empty and we seem to go through the stuff so much faster these days.