The sick house

Well that was a fun long weekend! Owen got sick with a stomach virus Thursday night and that started all the fun & games. The poor little guy had the tummy thing until yesterday (Monday), although the good news is that he only threw up that first night, so it could have been worse. I got sick Saturday night, but mine only lasted about 10 hours and then I was pretty much back to normal. Then of course, Dada got it Sunday and was still feeeling pretty icky yesterday. We took Owen to the doctor yesterday because he has also been running a fever since Friday night so I figured he probably had another ear infection. It turns out I was right. He's also got this nasty congestion and wheezy cough and she said he has a sore throat. So, in other words, the poor little guy has got almost everything wrong with him all at once. Since I started doing ear drops and antibiotics he seems to be coming alive a little bit. He's not just laying around all day anymore, which is good to see. He even ate 2 pieces of pizza last night for dinner which is the first substanative food he's eaten in 4 days. I think he's slowly starting to feel better. With all of this going on, we've had to postpone his surgery for his tubes. We've also decided we're gonna go see a pediatric ENT for a second opinion. We're pretty certain he needs tubes but we want to make sure nothing else needs to be done like adnoid or tonsil removal so he doesnt end up needing 2 separate procedures. We'll report back after we see the new guy. He comes with high recommendations from a friend, so hopefully he will pay more attention to us while we're there. The other guy didnt seem to care all that much about what I was telling him about Owen's various issues. He just seemed to be in a hurry to get out of there which irritated me.

I hope your weekend was better than ours! I'm just so very thankful that my sickness only lasted a short bit and we all seem to be on the road to getting better. Keep your fingers crossed that sister makes it through!

Playtime!

Ella is getting so big! In the last week or 2, she's started playing with toys and really interacting with things. We have this little Looney Tunes toy that Owen loved and Ella seems to like too. It's a little swingset that you can position over her bouncy seat and she can play with the toys. She seems to prefer Sylvester just like Owen did. Perhaps it's just the black and white.. who knows. :) She also enjoyed her carseat toys for the first time this week. She pretty much always sleeps in the car, but yesterday she stayed awake for the full trip to brother's school and back and played with her little toys. It's so fun to see her growing up. I can't wait to get to know her more and more! :)

New words & phrases

We are slowly, but surely, starting to understand more of Owen's words. :) I'll try to think of some of the new things he says, but I'm sure I'll forget most of them...

"Oweeeee" (Yes - that's his name)
"Thank you" (he usually includes the persons name too - i.e. nana, dada, mama, tee-choo, etc)
"Do it me"
"Eh-Uh pee-pee poo-poo" (He says this when I'm changing Ella's diaper and he always brings me a clean diaper for her.)
"Cooo" (aka School - he recognizes it when we're driving up to it now and also says bye bye to it when we leave every day)

I'll add more to this list if/when I think of them.

ENT for Owen

Well we finally made it to an ear, nose and throat specialist for Owen. His recommendation is for Owen to get tubes in his ear, so we're going forward with that and his surgery is scheduled for next Tuesday. I'm very anxious, yet timid about this whole thing. The doctor didnt seem very interested in understanding all of Owen's issues as a whole and mostly just focused on his ear infections. He didn't seem to want to address his allergies or eye infections, so we've decided to find a new pediatrician for 2 reasons: we need someone closer to our new home and we want some fresh eyes on Owen's history and a new opinion on what to do with him. So far, we've seen an allergist, an opthamologist and an otolaryngologist (ENT). Our pediatrician and the opthamologist say we need to get his allergies under control to fix some of the other problems like chronic congestion and chronic eye and ear infections. The tubes in his ears should help with the ear infections and should improve his hearing according to the ENT. My next issue is his eyes. I'm very worried about the fact that we have to give him antibiotic drops almost every other week for eye infections. Meanwhile, the allergist just tries to convince me that all of Owen's problems are because he's in day care and she's not convinced he has allergies at all... right... As you can tell, this is all getting very frustrating for me because 1) my son doesnt feel well most of the time (poor little guy), 2) he keeps getting kicked out of daycare and the church nursery and 3) I dont have time to take him to the doctor every other week. I'm hoping everyone is right when they say he might just grow out of all of this.... please soon!! :)

All that said, we've started him back on Zyrtec for the allergies which our pedi recommended, so we'll see how that helps. I'll report back on his ears once that's all done. Please pray for a smooth procedure!

"Do it me"

The time has come. Owen's favorite new phrase is "Do it me!" which means "Let me do it!". He wants to do EVERYTHING on his own. We try to stop him from climbing into his high chair, but there's no stopping him (just waiting for him to bonk his head on the floor or table one day). He gets into his car seat on his own now and buckles the straps. He carries his own bag to school. He likes to feed himself most things (although he still gets upset when he makes a mess - especially if something gets on his hands). He's also decided this week that he likes to hold Ella. He tried to pick her up out of her rocking seat the other day. Luckily I noticed in time. :) I let him hold her sitting in the recliner and he enjoyed that. Sister wasnt so happy about it, but it was really cute. Later on, he said "hold me seee soo" so I let him hold her again. He's been very interested in her this week and it's so much fun to watch him interact with her. He brings her toys (and usually puts them on her face) and covers her up with blankets, etc. It's wonderful. :)