So Many Hairbows!

Tessa is famous for her hairbows! When she was teeny, I had headbands in her hair with bows and flower everytime we left the house. Since she's gotten a little bigger and has more hair, I have started putting little ponytails in her hair and topping it off with a bow. Thanks to one of my students' moms, I found out about this store called Butterflies and Bugs which have the sweetest little sheer hairbows that I have fallen in love with. I just went a bought a few more the other day, and decided I would really get Tessa all decked out. She looked so cute with all her hairbows, and what was funnier was that she didn't seem to know anything was different. What a sweetie!

A Kiss-y Sandwich & a Tooth

Last night, David and I were very much enjoying Tessa being in a much better mood. After her bath, we were playing with her on our bed. She was trying to crawl away from us, laughing the whole time, and we were chasing her and bouncing her. It was a fun time. And like I've said before, we were just appreciating so much that she is feeling better, that alone is priceless. One of things we did while playing on our bed was give her what we called, kiss-y sandwiches. She was cracking up. David gave me the camera and I did my best to capture one right as it was happening. These are moments we will treasure, forever.

Tessa's first tooth showed up 6 days ago. It started with just the corner poking through, and over the last week has gradually broken all the way through her gums and is making its descent. It's hard to see the tooth in these pictures, but look really closely, and you'll be able to see it poking through.

A long, sick week.

This has been the longest week since Tessa was born. My poor baby has been sick all week. I already posted about the fact that we went to the doctor last weekend, then ended up in the ER on Sunday. Well, Tuesday we did a follow up with Dr. Natalie and she said to stop the prednisone because she had been on it long enough and to stop the antibiotic because her ears looked fine. We figured she must have been misdiagnosed in the hospital with the ear infection. We had to keep up with the breathing treatments every 4 hours which has been a nightmare. Tessa just screams and throws herself around and whips her head back and forth to keep the mask off of her face. I finally took the mask off and just let th medicine blow toward her without having the mask on, but I didn't feel like she was getting much medicine that way so we went back to the mask. By Thursday night, she was really not herself, she was really irritable and really lathargic, wouldn't sleep, wouldn't eat, wouldn't suck her thumb and she just worried me. Friday morning she was even worse and running a fever, so I called back to the doctor's office again. Dr. Natalie wasn't in, but we got an appointment to see another doctor in the practice. By the time we got in, she had a 100.9 fever and could hardly hold her head up. The doctor checked her out and said she had a double ear infection. So apparently, she was not misdiagnosed, her previous ear infection just cleared up quickly and we should have stuck with the antibiotics. Now we're back on the meds and she is FINALLY doing better. She is much more like her old self again. Last night, she was jumping like crazy in her jumperoo (which lately she just sits in and hangs there) and she was laughing and playing with David and I. We both couldn't stop saying how wonderful it was to have our Tessa back. It feels like so long since she's really been herself, that we are appreciating her laugh and her smile more than ever.

Never too early to Share

Tessa has been sick for almost a week now. She has had a lot of fussy days and a few good moods here and there. This morning, my mom came over to check on her around lunchtime because she wasn't sleeping or eating. Tessa did take a short nap, then when she woke up she was in a better mood. She was sitting with my mom on the floor and all she wanted to do was suck on the baby wipe that she pulled out of the container. I figured there were better things for her to have in her mouth so I went and got a teether out of the freezer. She was glad to take it and every time it would go into her mouth she would make this sweet little sound that just told you how good it felt to have that in her mouth. Then, she pulled it out of her mouth and reached it toward my mom's mouth. Mom pretended to put it in her mouth, then Tessa put it back in her own mouth. Before we knew, she was reaching it to my mom again. Once again, she pretended to put it in her mouth and Tessa took it back. This continued on several times. It was so sweet that she was sharing her turtle teether with her grandma. I hope that sharing heart continues for all the days of her life.

Tessa's first tooth!

We finally did it!! This morning, as I was changing Tessa's diaper, I noticed that her top right tooth, which has been very white on the bottom for a while now looked a little bit different. I got her to open her mouth and I ran my finger nail across her gums and sure enough, I hit the hard corner of her first tooth! We have been waiting for this tooth for a very long time. Usually babies get their bottom middle teeth first, but not Tessa, her top tooth is here first, and it looks like the top left tooth will be here before long. Hopefully, in the next couple of days, this first tooth will break through all the way across and she can get some relief. What a week it's been!

A (not so) Happy Valentine's Day

Oh, where do I begin. Let's back up to Friday evening. I noticed that Tessa wasn't feeling the greatest on Friday. She started coughing and her nose was runny and she was sneezing, so I knew she wasn't feeling good. I put her to bed, but she was up a couple hours later with 101.5 fever. So to say the least, it was a long night. She was up coughing and crying for a good portion of it.

Saturday morning, she wasn't appearing to feel much better, so I called the doctor's office to see if I could get in. Dr. Natalie was not in, and the earliest appointment with with another doctor in the Dreyer network, Dr. Skurka at 10:30, so we took it. We went to see Dr. Skurka and he said that Tessa had croup. He put her on the prednisone medicine to reduce the inflamation in her bronchials, and we went home. We got a cool mist humidfier for her room, put her on motrin every 6-8 hours and hoped she would be feeling better soon. She actually slept really good Saturday night, I was rather surprised.

Then that brings us to today. She woke up this morning and seemed to be feeling better. We didn't go to church since she had croup, so David, Tessa and I just stayed home and had our Valentine's Day at home together. After her first morning nap, I got her dressed up in her Valentine's Day dress and she looked so cute. We gave her the gift we got her which was a couple outfits, a Mickey & Minnie plate and bowl, a book and a Baby Einstein toy. She really enjoyed it. Then after church, Grandpa Wayne and Grandma Vicki stopped by to wish Tessa a Happy Valentine's Day. They brought her a v-day present which was a book and her Easter dress, sweater and headband (which Tessa broke 10 minutes later). As the afternoon wore on, I started to notice that her breathing was becoming very labored and she was wheezing quite often. I watched her for a good part of the afternoon and it didn't seem to be getting any better so I called the on-call doctor in the Dreyer pediatric group. He called me back and I explained what had happened yesterday and how she was doing today, and his suggestion was to take her to the ER, so...we...did.

We left home around 4 and got the Rush-Copley ER around 4:30. We waited a while in the waiting room, then they took us to triage with the first nurse, then she took us to another triage where we went through the whole thing with a second (rather creepy) male nurse. He then took us to a trauma room to wait for the pediatric doctor. We waited forever in the trauma room before yet another, very nice, nurse came in. She listened to her lungs and said she could definitely hear her wheezing. Then we waited forever for the ER doctor to come in. She came in, we gave the whole story again, she listened to her lungs and checked her out. Right away she told us that she has an ear infection (which Dr. Skurka did not find or it wasn't there yesterday) and she said her lungs sounds tight and wheezy. She wanted Tessa to do a breathing treatment and get a chest x-ray. We did the breathing treatment which you would have thought was a step below prison torture. She screamed and screamed and screamed. She was dripping with sweat by the time we were done. Then we had to go to get the chest x-ray. I got back in the room with her and there was a little chair that she had to sit in. It honestly looked like an electric chair, it was a metal straight backed chairs and she had to sit in in then they put a big velcro strap across her chest and one across her lap. As if that didn't upset her enough, I then had to hold her arms above her head by her elbows during the picture. So finally we got back to the trauma room and waited again, forever, for the doctor to come back. She came and told us the chest x-ray looked clear, but that she was absolutely certain that Tessa has RSV. She didn't want to the do the test for RSV because it involves sticking a tube through her nose and she was already worked up enough for the night, but even without the test, the doctor was absolutely sure it was RSV.

So, 5 hours later, we finally made it home. Tessa was a wreck, so tired and really not feeling well. So let's recap - 5 hour hospital trip, Tessa with croup, ear infection and RSV, and now 3 meds that she has to be taking over the next few days. Oh, what a memorable first Valentine's Day for my sweet Tessa Charlotte. I love you baby and I hope you feel better soon!

Here's a few pictures from our memorable Valentine's Day!

Early in the day, Tessa was feeling better and having fun celebrating Valentine's Day!

Mommy and her sweet little valentine

Tessa is opening up her Valentine's Day present

As a way to get some extra fluids in her, the doctor suggested some all fruit juice popsicles. What a fun Valentine's Day treat!

Yum! I really love popsicles!

Please don't take my popsicle away!

This sums up how she's been feeling this weekend, kinda sad and always wants her thumb.

How sad it was to see her strapped to the mask to do her breathing treatments. She fell asleep in the middle of her treatment one time. My sweet, sick little girl. Feel better soon my love!

Was that the Skid-steer?

I totally forgot that I wanted to blog about this until I saw a similar post on my cousin Sarah's blog. Thanks for reminding me Sarah! What an experience we had Tuesday night this week. To start with, let me say that we got a decent amount snow Monday & Tuesday.

Early Wednesday morning, I was woken up by the clanging sound of the skid-steer clearing off the driveways in our subdivision. I was so irritated. As I laid there, I just kept thinking, "so help me, if all that noise wakes up Tessa, I'm going to go out there and scream at that guy." I looked at the clock, this was about 3:55 am. A few minutes later, as I was laying there, trying to go back to sleep, I experienced something I had never experienced before: my house started shaking. This was serious shaking. Our headboard was banging against the wall, the baby monitor fell off the nightstand and I watched as our bedroom shook all around!

I immediately grabbed David and shook him (who slept through the whole thing) and said, "David! Wake up! The skid-steer just hit our house!" He was totally confused, and had no idea what I was talking about. I just kept saying over and over that something hit our house because our house was shaking. Then I got up out of bed and looked out the window and saw that the skid-steer was all the way down the street and couldn't have just hit our house and gotten that far away. David proceeded to tell me that I was dreaming and that I should go back to bed. He certainly did.

I went down the hall and checked on Tessa, she was fine, so I went back to bed. I just laid there, trying to figure out what had just happened. The thought that it was an earthquake immediately came to my mind, but I thought that was just crazy, so I was trying to rationalize what had just happened. I started thinking that maybe our house was just "settling." But then I thought, no, it wouldn't have shook that hard. I just laid there for the longest time trying to figure out how I was going to tell people the next day that my house was shaking in the night. I figured that no one would believe me. Then I started doubting myself, thinking that I actually had been dreaming. Eventually, I fell asleep.

I got up at 5:15 when my alarm went off and went straight downstairs to put on the news. At the same time, I logged into facebook and saw on both the computer and the tv that there had been a 4.3 magnitude earthquake that was centered somewhere near Dekalb at 4:00 am. I was just so glad to know that I wasn't losing my mind! I survived!!

One Bad Decision after Another

Last night, I decided that I didn't want to wait any longer to lower the mattress in Tessa's crib. When I was watching her during her nap earlier in the day, she was really pulling herself up a little on her bumper pad, so I figured I really needed to drop the mattress. David wanted to do it weeks ago, but he didn't have the right tool for it, so I borrowed the Allen wrenches from my dad that I needed during the day, and I kinda forgot about it until shortly before her bedtime. Bad decision #1: deciding to lower the mattress by myself when I really didn't know what I was doing in the first place. Have I ever used an Allen wrench before? Not once! Bad decision #2: Deciding to do this 15 minutes before Tessa's bedtime when she is very clingy and just wants to cuddle. She cried pretty much the whole time as she creeped around following me around the room. Bad decision #3: taking on this task with an empty stomach. My patience for learning how to use a new tool and my tolerance for a screaming baby is greatly lessened when I am starving! In the end, I managed to get her mattress lowered and I was able to go to bed feeling like a responsible parent who's child was not at risk of pulling herself out of her bed. Would I do it again the way I did it last night? Not a chance!

Happy Birthday David!

Happy 26th birthday David! This Saturday, February 6th, we celebrated David's 26th birthday. We had a great day. Tessa and I let Daddy sleep in and went early to go get groceries. Then, we went and got Tessa's pictures taken at the Picture People in the mall. She did a really good job and we got some really nice pictures. Then we went down to my mom and dad's for dinner. Chris and Alissa made Cuban sandwiches for David's birthday supper, (his choice). They are the most heavenly sandwich ever made.

Recipe for a Cuban sandwich: teriyaki marinated pork tenderloin + sliced spiral ham + grilled pineapple slices + swiss cheese + yummy roll = the sandwich I would choose as my last meal if I were on death row. They are soooooo delicious!

Alissa also made a fantastic apple crisp for David's birthday dessert. For his birthday, Tessa gave him a copy of Twister on Blu-ray. He really enjoyed it. It was fun for him to celebrate his first birthday with Tessa here to enjoy it with him. She makes every day more special.

After dinner, Alissa and I decided that both Tessa and Cole needed baths so we cleaned out Grandma's kitchen sink and let them play in the bubbles together. They had a lot of fun!

Too Tired to Eat

Trust me, I wish I had taken a picture of this, but my description will have to suffice. Let's back it up, this afternoon, Tessa had a terribly short nap and she woke up crying, whining, and just very discontent. I figured it would be a long afternoon because she clearly woke up before she was ready to. She was getting fussier and fussier as the night was progressing, so I decided to give her dinner and see if that would help her mood a big. I put her in her high chair, and she was not happy from the "get-go." I had to fight her for every spoonful of food because all she wanted to do was suck her thumb, (which is what she does when she's too tired to eat). I soon realized that her head was sinking lower and lower to the side with every bite and before I knew it, she was sitting in her high chair, leaning to the side with her head laying on the tray of her high chair with her mouth half open waiting for the next bite. It was so pathetic. I kept trying to sit her up, and she just kept tipping to the side and laying on the tray. My poor baby. So so so tired.