Kendall's Summer Fun

Well I have to say Kendall hasn't had no where near as much fun as Taylor has this summer (see next post) but I thought I'd cap Kendalls summer as well. Really this is just the month of June.

She was finally diagnosed with reflux and we just started our third medicine for it. Luckily this medicine seems to be working (most days) but we'll take it for now. She also is on her third formula but it seems to be doing okay for now (most days). She's still a high maintenance baby - gassy, refluxy, colicky, rotten baby. I always knew she would be my cuddly baby because Taylor wasn't... but I didn't realize what that meant as an infant.
Her biggent event this month was her weeklong hospital trip. I'm sure most have heard about it but it was pretty dramatic. I came home one evening from swim lessons with Taylor and Kendall (who had slept the entire day) was running a 102 fever. I knew this was a big deal for a 5 week old but I wasn't prepared for what was ahead. THe nurse on call told us to go to the Children's hospital and be prepared to stay the night. So we left at 8:00 that night (snuck away from Taylor as she was already asleep) and headed to the hospital. What the nurse didn't tell us what that it wasn't for one night but for three nights. And they weren't concerned about her dehydrating as much as her having spinal meningitis. They ended up taking blood, uring (both to culture) and having to do a spinal tap to test for meningitis. It was quite traumatizing.... but she seemed to take it well. They kept us in the hospital until the culture results were back, which takes 48 hours. Obviously they were negative. Meanwhile, I spent the most exhausting week of my life. The doctors went ahead and started treating her as if she had some kind of bacterial infection so she was on two different antibiotics around the clock and an antiviral. Night shifts were horrible. She would wake up to eat at 1:00 and 20 minutes after she got back to sleep the nurses would walk in to do her medicine treatment. This would happen atleast twice in the night. It was rough!

We were able to come home on day 4 and she seems to be all better. She ended up having a virus. In fact, the same virus (Fifth's Disease/Slap Cheek?) Taylor had the week before that caused a fever and rash. When Kendall developed her rash, we knew for sure what it was. We are just hoping for no more fevers for a while. THey tell us we will have to repeat this mess if she develops one again in the next two weeks.





She is starting to smile and coo more.... on her good days, which she seems to be having more of these days... but that can change at any minute.


Sleeping with Mommy...

Lastly, we have battled with thrush since she was born. Thrush is an absolute pain in the butt... for those of you not familiar with it, it's basically a yeast infection in her mouth. It can be painful to eat, suck,etc and shows up as white patches in their mouth. We've gone through three prescriptions of Nystatin with not much luck. The antibiotics in the hospital didn't help either. Finally, I resorted to Gentian Violet. I have heard of this stuff and Kristin used it with Ava Grace. I didn't realize until last night that it's an herbal/natural remedy and you don't need a prescription. Luckily our local walgreens had a bottle so we did our first treatment tonight. It does dye everything purple, so Kendall will look ridiculous for a while but if it rids of her thrush we'll all be happier. Here I dressed her in her purple out fit and she looks so pertty... purple really is her color.



Kendall starts daycare on Monday. We are looking forward to it. She will do well at Lisa's. She's in desperate need of a schedule and I'm not the best person at establishing that. Hopefully she will adjust/transition well. I return back to work on Wednesday... hopefully I'll adjust/transition to that as well.

Taylor's Summer Fun

Even though most kids summer's are just starting, I'm afraid Taylor and ours is coming to an end. I go back to work on Wednesday so the trips to the park, library and CiCi's house must come to an end. We are sad about this but will enjoy having some stability back in our lives. This post will be devoted to some of the activities that Taylor has enjoyed and pictures to go along.
First we have the zoo... Taylor enjoyed her first trip to the zoo... twice. I know we are bad for not taking her before now but what can I say... I've been pregnant. She seemed to have a good time and still talks about the animals. Her favorite part though was the carousel with daddy.


Afternoons at CiCi's house - Since I was pregnant and basically immobile, I spent every Friday at my mom's house. That didn't change much when I had Kendall. We'd pack the bags and car and head to Gilbert. Of COurse we slowed our trips down, the night we walked into CiCi's house and seeing it broken into. These pictures are of swim time with Caedyn and Eli.


We also have been to the park several times some with mommy and daddy and other times with CiCi, Melissa (Sasa), Caedyn and Eli ("Li"). These pictures are from the Springdale park and they have a spraypool during midday.




She spent many days at Nana's and Pa Allens but I don't have any pictures to post. She talks about the geese that go bye bye all the time and learned about planes. She also visited her grandpapa and grammy some. Here grandpapa is pulling her in his new wagon to feed the chickens.

She also took swimming lessons which she loved. She only got 6 lessons and they weren't really swimming lessons ( I have to say that for Adam... :-)) But she became familiar with the water. She learned to kick and splash, put her face in the water and throw herself into the pool (seriously). Really all she learned was a false sense of security of the pool. But she had a great time.
Lastly, she spent many days at home with Mommy and Kendall playing dress up and hanging out.






Lastly is a picture of Taylor's new 'night night' attire. One night she decided she wanted to sleep with her toy Elmo head (in her hand) and both baby dolls along with two blankets. This stuck and she still sleeps with a stuffed Elmo (we lost the Elmo head), blankets and one doll. She is definitely my child.

Edventure Adventure

On Memorial Day, Melissa, Gary and the kids came by to visit and afterwards we all went to Edventure. Adam and I have never been but I've wanted to go for a long while. The first half of the trip was great and the second half was miserable.

We got there late in the morning. There was so much to do it was almost overwhelming. I'm not sure who had more fun - Taylor or Adam. I was 'stuck' pushing the baby stroller most of the time, so I just had to watch. The funniest part of the day was at the 'baby grocery store.' It was the cutest concept. These tiny shopping carts they can push and shop. THere are cash registers to ring up and isles of groceries, a bakery and frozen section. Taylor grabs her cart and as serious as she can be starts shopping. Somehow she went straight to the bakery section and look what she picked out all by herself....

A cake and pecan pie. Not another thing in the store appealed to her... just desserts.

I laughed so hard. It was priceless. But then again... kind of sad. I mean we dont' eat THAT much junk food around here. And if we do it's in the form of cookies - not cakes and pies. I will say though with all the recent birthday's she learned REAL quick what a cake was. But I'll have to be more careful about my food choices around her.

She also enjoyed the firetruck with Daddy.


At this point in the day, Momma had checked out. Kendall had awoken with a vengeance wanting to be fed. It was a complete nightmare trying to hold her, feed her and push the stroller. After that she ended up screaming the rest of the trip.
Adam and I passed her back and forth trying to calm her but not much worked. Oh the colicky days began. We were worn out by the time we got home.

Memorial Day Celebration

We don't usually celebrate Memorial Day except for sleeping in. That was before we had kids, of course. But this year, my neighbor, Jessica wanted to have a party. So the Sunday before, three houses on the street got together and had a blast. Jessica did a great job. We had planned on grilling out but an hour before the party started the sky dropped. She baked everything instead. There was tons of food: stuffed green peppers, steak and chicken kabobs, baked chicken, deviled eggs, banana pudding and cake. There was one other little girl, Sierra, there. She lives next door to Jessica. Taylor and her got along real well. I think Taylor thought she was as big as she was.




Sierra, is this how you lay on it??




After the sun came out (kind of), we pulled out the slip n slide. Taylor only went down once. Apparantly, she didn't like it. But she had a ball playing in the water and pool at the bottom.





Kendall slept through the entire party. This was back in her 'bili' days when she slept 23 1/2 hours a day (literally).

The Best Birthcontrol

I swear the best birth control out there has to be actual exposure to a newborn around the clock for atleast two weeks. After nights of no sleep and endless crying on both mom and baby's part, any sane or insane person would wonder why they did this to themselves.

I walked into the doctor this morning and told my pediatrician I wanted a refund. Could I bring her back?

Kendall will be three weeks tomorrow and as Adam says, she's had a rough life - so far. First she was jaundice and had to see the doctor and get pricked 4 times her first week. Not to mention sleep on a baby tanning bed - minus the burn of course. She caught a nasty cold from her big sis on Day 3. So since then (and still going) we traumatize her with the nose suction bulb several times daily. THen she developed thrush, which has returned and so we are on our second round of meds for. About the time she developed thrush she started with diarrhea and vomiting daily. Her mood went from sleeping and eating all the time to sleeping, eating and screaming. We've switched formula to soy and she seems to do better on it - at times. The doctor seems to think (as of now) that it is reflux. We are on our second medicine for it to see if it'll help and he's checking for blood in her stool (which will rule out a forumula allergy). It's crazy. The worst part is her DAILY middle of the night scream fests that last atleast 2 hours.

Despite all her 'problems', the child hasn't altered her appetite. She came into this world starved and ready to suck. Day 2 at the hospital, we had to give her formula after 8 full hours of crying and discontentment. She hasn't changed a bit. She eats and wants to eat non-stop. She's taking 3 oz of formula every 2 - 3 hours. She's gaining almost a pound a week for the past 2 weeks. She's huge! It's halarious and so unloving that we make fat jokes about our 3 week old. I realize she's really not fat, but it's so different from Taylor. Taylor was so tiny and gained weight so slowly and was always so slow. Kendall is already outgrowing her 3 month old clothes. Ha ha!

Seriously, I joke about all this now but it has been rough these past weeks. Kendall doesn't get all the jokes... adam jokes that I now have to take my sanity in a pill form. Taylor has become aggressive toward Kendall - trying to yank her limbs off, sit on her, push her over, scratch her, etc. Not to mention all the toddler attention getter tactics she's learned - throwing herself onto the floor (pretending she fell) and then fake crying, refusing to go to bed at night, etc.

So we'll take our laughs in any form we can get these days. Even if it is making "This little piggy went to the market, This little piggy had gas" jokes about my baby.