4 Months!

Eating 1st solids on 2/27!

4 month portrait

My babe is 4 months today! Well - technically she doesn't have a 4 month birthday this month - freakin February is cheating my child out of her official day to be 4 months. But I guess I will let that one go. This month has had some big milestones for her. She rolled over, graduated to her own crib in her own room, grasps at toys (especially her friend Mr. Glow-worm), and has found the upper register of her voice and likes to "fake" cry with it. This makes both MS and I wince at the ear-piercing sound (as well as laughing during the process). She got her first real sickness this month and scared us half to death, but all in all is really a great, lively, personable little baby who we can't seem to get enough of! We love her oh so very much, and I can't wait for what the next month has to show us about our little girl!

Sick Baby = Heartbroken Mommy

Kaitlin got her first real cold this week. Let me rephrase - it wasn't a little tiny cold it was PNEMONIA!! ohmygosh - I never known the depths that frightened could take until they told me my daughter would have to be hospitalized and possibly taken by ambulance up to be admitted. I kept thinking to myself, "she can't be that sick, she just has a LITTLE cold!" Sunday she had a stuffy nose and some congestion, but nothing I was really alarmed about - she has had a stuffy nose a couple of times and the Dr has both times told me there is nothing I can really do about it but saline nose drops and suction her out. So Monday I took her to daycare and told Sheila about her congestion and told her to call me if anything else happens. 10:15 I get a call from Sheila saying she isn't eating because her nose is so stuffed up, so I called the Dr and had an appointment set-up for 1:30 that day. When we got to the Dr, she didn't have a fever and was just having a little trouble breathing out of her nose, so he sent us home to simply monitor her and keep checking her temp and make sure her breathing was normal. Monday night she did OK - I went out and bought a humidifier for her room and just put her down to sleep, which she did ALL day. This was GREAT for me, because the inlaws were coming in on Wednesday. I did all the laundry, cleaned the windows, swept the floors, vacuumed the room, made sure their room was free of cat stuff, and pretty much puttered around the house for cleanliness and organization. Scott got home around 600 and I had dinner ready and the house cleaned - it was awesome! Tuesday AM I checked her temp again, and it was a little high, but nothing I could have called the Dr again for, so I let her sleep a little more and tried to get her to eat, which she sorta did (she was eating like half as much as she normally does) and then I checked her temp again at like 300 and sure enough it was 101.7 - time to call the doc again. I talked with her a little bit about her symptoms and what was going on and by the time she got to "take her to ER - like right now" I started bawling crying on the phone with her. I felt like a complete wimp of a mom (although I am sure she gets it all the time). I rushed her to the ER, and they had her seen right away. They did a chest xray on her and some other tests and came back to me saying that she was RSV+ (meaning she has pnemonia) and took her temp again, this time it was 103. They then drew her blood - more tears for me and then the talk came of her being hospitalized because her oxygen saturation levels were not what they would like them to be. More tears from me. Scott finally talked me out of the tears and told me that since I was the MOM I had to be the strong one, able to make good decision for our daughter and that she was going to be OK, "K - she is going to be ok, the Dr said this happens to almost all kids before they are 2, she's going to be OK" he kept on saying to me. After all the ambulance and hospital talk, about an hour later they told me that we could actually take her home that night because she was boarder-line for being ok. I thought - awesome, my daughter is boarder-line for being able to breath or not. Needless to say, I was up like every half an hour that night just checking to see if she was breathing. So Wednesday I made an appointment with her regular pediatrician to check her out. The whole day, she looked like she was so uncomfortable and so I was just counting down the minutes until I could get her to the Dr at 130. By the time we pulled up to the Dr - I was simply relieved that if something were to happen to her - we were at the Dr where they would know what to do. As a parent, it is so hard to know when to call the Dr and what the right decision is, especially when they are so young and cannot communicate with you. After the Dr looked at her, she said to me, "you know, she just doesn't look right to me. It looks like she is struggling to get a good breath and that is just making me uncomfortable" So she called over to the hospital and we were admitted on Wednesday afternoon. They hooked her all up (IV and everything) and had a ton of wires and tubes going into her. This is the most break breaking thing to witness as a parent - your child so helpless, in pain, uncomfortable and unable to communicate with you. She doesn't really know what's going on - everyone coming into her room had to be completely garbed up with masks, blue suits and all since she is super contagious. After everyone would leave, I would just cry for a little while, knowing that the reason this is all happening to her is mostly because I have to go to work, and she is around all these other sick children all day long - my little helpless 4 month old is helpless in the hospital because of me. Heart breaking again. As a parent, you truly want only the best for your children and when you can't provide that, it is one of the hardest things to come to grips with. I know that I am doing all that I can for her, and that it is necessary for me to be at work, and provide for her. I also know that the chance that she were going to get something like this before she was 2 is almost 100%, but I still can't help but feeling like I didn't do all I could to protect her. I also know that this is an irrational thought - but as a mom, you can't help but be irrational with some things - this child is something you created, out of your own flesh. How could you not be irrational??

A picture update...

1st Day of Daycare! She is so ready to go!

You lookin' at me??

Look ma - no hands!!

Loving airplane with daddy - but loves those hands even more!

"Oh glow-worm, how I love you so!"

Good Samaritans

This week, our growth group has started a video series labeled "The Good Samaritan". MS and I tried to go to study last night, after work, but baby had a different plan in mind. Everything was going as planned until I needed to put her to bed so we could start group. She cried and cried and would not fall asleep, so we ended up sneaking out during the middle, and I only got to sit in for about 5 minutes. But, even though I wasn't able to listen to the video, or hear the discussion, I couldn't help but feel incredibly thankful for all the "good samaritans" that we have leaned on in the last couple of weeks. A post about how lucky we are to have such wonderful, and helpful friends has been floating around in my head the last week or so, but last night I realized that we have been blessed by people who are ACTING upon the Lord's call - they are actually BEING the Good Samiritans to us. We were in need, they saw the need and jumped in to help, without complaint or wanting anything in return. I realized last night that THIS IS THE WAY IT GOD INTENDED us to live, as a community who help each other out. There are times in everyone's life where we need each other to lean on, in our lives, we have relied on people to do a load a laundry for us, lug a faulty washer back to the store to be returned, help pick up a couch at 9:00 at night on a weekday, come over to sop up the flooded kitchen from the broken washer on a Monday night, watch our daughter for 28 hours straight while moved and unpack the essentials to live, or just lended a compassionate ear so I could talk and cry about the craziness of my life. We are community of people all needing each other. We need to lead with love, compassion and willingness to help out instead of turn crossing the street and turning a blind eye to our neighbors who are in need of our help. Without these good samiritans in our lives, we wouldn't have survived these last two weeks. I can only hope that I can soon someday the Good Samiritan for someone else. My challenge to you is how are you going to BE the Good Samiritan to someone this week? How can you help?