Sleep update Monday night

Last night, we all slept at least 6 hours straight. Eddie went to sleep at about 11 pm and didn't wake up until 5 am. When he woke up at 5, I did nurse him because I wanted dad to continue to sleep. Dad fell asleep at about 9:30 pm. I hope he feels well rested today. I feel like I slept well.

Improvement: Eddie did not wake up at 1 am!

Let's hope this continues.

Sleeping update

Eddie got sick, almost 2 weeks ago and since he has been sick with congestion all last week, I have been nursing him at night Oy Vey! We are back to where we were before. BUT, I am thankful that at least there was a way for me to comfort him and help him sleep, after he got out of the hospital.

We started to remove the night feedings as of Saturday night. So far, we are doing ok. He still wakes up at 1 am,  and between 4-5 am for night feedings. I say we are doing ok, because he HAS fallen back to sleep after crying for a while in my arms. It was really bad Saturday night. Sunday night was slightly easier.

I am literally insanely tired. I know Gerardo is too. I rarely have energy for much and I feel terrible for not being a good housewife, for not exercising regularly and for not cooking regularly. But I know how important it is to rest and fit naps in when I can. I feel drained.

Driving every day and having to go to work, can really be dangerous.

I hope we can get back to where we were a few weeks ago and remove the night feedings again.

Thanks for checking on us.

Eddie is 20 months old

I can't believe how quickly Eddie is nearing 2 years of age. This is really getting ridiculous, how time flies.

Eddie is all over the place, full of strength, energy, plenty of determination, pursuasion abilities and strong in mind power games known as The Force-Just kidding, but he sure is convincing!

In September, Eddie's favorite activities have been to mimick what we adults do

For the past week or so, Eddie has been extremely into playing with appliances, turning on lights and opening doors. In this video, he pretends to push the buttons. Sometimes, he will even make beeping sounds while he presses them.

He knows exactly how to hold and use a cell phone, as well as how to charge a cell phone. He docks my cell phone every night, several times. Here is a video of Eddie holding on to my phone and climbing around in the kitchen. At the end of the video, he spins my cell phone on the counter!

Thanks to tio Carlos and tia Natalie, Eddie now has a toddler bed for his room. He will be using this bed for his naps, as we continue to co-sleep.

Yesterday, we put him down for a nap and I couldn't help but almost tear up at how he looks like such a big boy in this bed. Dad and I quickly ran for the cameras and started taking snapshots of Eddie's slumber. Look, dad even put blankets on each side to protect him from hurting himself! ahahaha!

Eddie continues to have no interest in DVD's or any other sit down television shows. It's tough to get things done around the house, when the only thing we can do to entertain him for a long period of time, is to let him play with appliances or have him play outside.

Eddie does like to brush his teeth or have his teeth brushed. He continues to enjoy fruits and vegetables. I am waiting for the day that he will say no more to them. But for now, he is ok with them.

Ever since Eddie had his hand stamped with a star at his friend's birthday party, every time you ask him where the star is, he looks at the back of his hand for the stamp.

He understands what certain shapes are. He also has become very good at identifying where the alphabet shapes belong in our floor mat. His two favorite letters at the moment are K and T. I don't know why he is attracted to those two letters.

I am glad that he continues to understand and speak certain words in Spanish and English.

Here are some pictures of Eddie in the past year. Can't believe we are nearing year two.

12 months

13 months

14 months

15 months

16 months

17 months

18 months

19 months

 

20 months

Thanks for checking on us!

Eddie's room completed!

My sister came over last night and finished the room. She is amazing! She should really do this as a side job, but poor baby sister is super busy with work. My jaw dropped when we walked in to the finished room. It looks amazing.

Now, comes the part where we start to populate the room with some nice furniture.

She did a WONDERFUL job!
I know as Eddie grows up in this room, he will love it too.

I can't stop saying amazing, beautiful, wonderful :D

A trip to Toys R Us

I never grew up with a tradition of naming someone a godparent. But, as I have grown to understand the concept, I have decided that I LOVE the idea :) We didn't do the catholic traditional ceremony to obtain the godparents we chose. We just decided to designate people who we hope Eddie can run to for anything that his parent's are not able to offer. We hope that in the future when/if Eddie not comfortable discussing life's troubles with us, that he will feel comfortable with his godparents. Should he feel that he needs to run away from us, that he has two safe places to run to. In reality, Eddie has many family members (grandparents, aunts, uncles etc) he can run to and we are truly blessed.

As you know, we chose Adrian as Eddie's godfather. For Eddie's godmother, we chose my cousin, Deborah.

She is here, visiting on business and staying at our place. Last night, we took a trip to Toys R Us together, to buy Eddie some new things. Here are some cute images I got of Eddie bonding with the person who has been chosen as his nina. Being a nina is new for Deborah too. We didn't have anything like this when we were kids .

And here is a toy we decided to get for Eddie, since he has been so obsessed with our home light switches for a long time. We hope this will relieve his desire to climb on chairs or other furniture, to turn on light switches!

He really likes this toy!

Thanks for checking on us.

An update on Eddie

It's been a week since the episode. A few people are asking me how Eddie is doing now.

He is finally going through the cold, just as his pediatrician said he would. She said he would either have a viral cold or he would get a rash (roseola.) He didn't get the rash-Thank goodness.

His cold doesn't let him breathe at night. But, dad put on the humidifier in our room and he did breathe better last night. The night before last, he kept waking up because he was struggling to breathe.

But overall, he is happy. He plays with his toys and asks for his cousins a lot.

Thanks for checking on us.

Look at who's getting better

He was laughing because he climbed up on top of the picnic table, to get my soy nut butter away from me and started eating a spoonful of it. He has been himself today and thank goodness there have been no fevers today.

Thanks for checking on us.

Eddie got very sick

It took me a long time to decide to write this blog. I am writing it for 4 reasons:

1) When something like this happens to you as a child, when you grow up, you want to know the details. It's hard to remember the details years later.

2) You want to know the solutions so that it doesn't happen to your offsprings.

3) It's a little therapeutic to write about it. Yes, this is selfish, I know.

4) It's easier to write about it and refer family and friends to come here, if they want to know the details of what happened. I don't have to keep retelling it.



Reason not to write it: We want to forget this.



On Wednesday, Eddie had a nice day. I even wrote a blog about him and posted a short video clip. At night, dad came home from work and after hugging Eddie, he told me that Eddie felt a little warm.

I touched him and confirmed, he did have a slight fever (this was about 7 pm.) Our Tylenol on hand was expired, so dad made a quick run to get some. While dad was out, I opted to put Eddie in a luke warm bath with the heater turned on low so that he would not get chills while bathing. The heater was broken, so I decided to cut the bath short. While in the bath, Eddie started to get very lethargic-he couldn't sit up straight and his eyes were sleepy, so I pulled him out right away. On the way out of the bath, he had very terrible chills. The kind of chills I remember getting when I feel horrible with a flu or if I have had food poisoning. I knew it wasn't normal. So, I called dad and told him what was going on. I told him that I was going to call the on call nurse. The thermometer read 102 degrees by the way.

The nurse asked a lot of questions and ended the call by instructing us to just keep the fever down and keep wiping him with a wet cloth. Eddie was fine and walking around once the call was over with the nurse. Dad arrived while I was on the phone with her. After the call, we gave him his dosage of generic brand acetaminophen (PS: all Tylenol was on recall and not available.) At that moment, we received a call, so I stepped away to answer. I could still see them in the next room. Eddie hates taking medicine, so I saw dad struggling to give the medicine to Eddie. When Eddie was done taking it, dad let out a happy "All done!" to let him know he didn't have to take anymore.

Suddenly, Eddie started to have a convulsion/seizure. It was 8 pm.

I ran over and picked Eddie up to make sure there was no medicine/liquid in his mouth and held him in a position to allow him to breathe. I yelled out to Gerardo to call 9-1-1. Eddie was turning blue and not breathing. I remembered in CPR/First aid class they told us not to use our finger to open up a person's mouth when they are having a seizure because they can bite your finger off. But I also could see and hear that he was struggling to breathe. I put my finger in the back of his tongue and pressed it down. That caused him to let in a deep breath and he slowly he changed from blue to yellow as he came out of the seizure. His body went limp and he was nearly passed out. I want to erase this image from my memory. I want to stop playing it over and over.

Paramedics arrived about 2 minutes after we called. They immediately put an oxygen mask on him and an IV. Eddie struggled to cry while the IV was inserted in him. But he did cry and that was a good sign. They took us in an ambulance to the Emergency room.

At the emergency room, he arrived asleep. They hooked him up to another IV by his bed. They drew blood and ran tests. They injected him with antibiotics and then wanted to insert a catheter to get a urine sample. We asked them not to do that and instead give him a baggy.

We were at the emergency room until 2 am.

The emergency room was a blur for me and hopefully, Gerardo will feel comfortable enough to come in and write more details (in this blog) later. If he does, you will not get an email notification.

All, I remember is being by Eddie while he slept/rested and messaging some family members for prayer requests.

The paramedics were very nice. They kept assuring us that Eddie was ok and that this was typical and normal. They told us that he would recover and be ok. That him being weak was because his body was tired and stressed. That it was ok that he was sleeping. All nice things that calmed me down about 1%.

Eddie woke up and started asking for his primas: "Zsa!" (aka Sofia and Penny) He also asked for his great grandma, Cochita. He kept looking at the monitor that was attached to his hand that glowed a bright red light on his finger. He followed the chord to the monitor and noticed they were related-But he didn't take it off. Occasionally, he had bursts of happiness that turned into cries and a desire to be held and hugged. The IV needle in his arm was pretty large and they asked us not to allow him to bend his arm. So hugging and holding him was difficult, as Eddie fought to bend it. He did end up messing up his arm a bit.

Grandma and grandpa were there too. A lot of family members wanted to come, but we asked them not to because it was very late. Also, they didn't allow more than 1 person to see Eddie at a time. We did manage to sneak in together a couple of times.


They released us and basically the Emergency Dr. and our pediatrician (who we saw the next day) told us that we didn't need to call 9-1-1. They told us that we should let the febrile seizure run for a maximum of 10 minutes before worrying. Eddie's lasted for about 30-60 seconds. They said these fever convulsions do not cause brain damage and are typical of children under the age of 5, with high fevers. The solution is to not allow the fever to get over 99 degrees (yes, even such a low number.) I figure because the fever does go up fast, so 99 degrees is a good number to allow room for control. Our pediatrician said that pressing his tongue down was fine, as long as I had gauze wrapped around my finger to prevent a cut from his teeth.

Grandma stayed the night and held him in her arms. She didn't really sleep so that she could often to monitor his temperature. Dad says he was asking me questions in the middle of the night, when they got up to give Eddie his medicine, but I don't remember talking-I remember waking up. I didn't sleep well either. Since that night, we have not slept well and have been holding Eddie, touching him every few minutes, checking his temperature often. Thursday to Friday, Grandma came over again and we did the same thing. This time Eddie slept in my arms. We all slept in the living room again. So far, we have had his occasional fevers under control. Also, dad bought a new fever reducer that Eddie has been ok with taking as long as it's in a spoon-Advil for children's fever.

His pediatrician said he is ok to go outside.

What Eddie had is a febrile seizure. "A febrile seizure is a convulsion in a child triggered by a fever. These convulsions occur without any brain or spinal cord infection or other nervous system (neurologic) cause."



Febrile seizures are usually triggered by fevers from:

Ear infections

Roseola infantum (a condition with fever and rash caused by several different viruses)

Upper respiratory infections caused by a virus.

He has a virus and he was contagious before Wednesday and through Friday, but that by Saturday, he should be ok. She said he probably has some type of viral cold OR at worse, it could be roseoala.
http://webcache.googleusercontent.com/search?q=cache:xHD_WkzZYooJ:kidshealth.org/parent/infections/skin/roseola.html+roseola&cd=2&hl=en&ct=clnk&gl=us I put a link to the virus, in case you don't know what it is. If it is roseola, by the time the rash arrives, the illness will be over. "The viruses that cause roseola do not appear to be spread by kids while they are exhibiting symptoms of the illness. Instead, someone who has not yet developed symptoms often spreads the infection." I wanted to emphasize this because I am all for keeping away from others, when you are sick, so that you don't spread viruses. But in this case, taking him out will not spread the virus, IF he has rosela. It is not confirmed it's what he has, since he has not had any rash breakouts.

Today is Friday, and he seems to be better. No signs of rash. We think he may have just had a bit of an infection that his body was trying to fight off.

We are monitoring him closely and are trying to remain positive. This blog will be updated later.

Thanks for checking on us.

All day gibberish

Our little guy is a non stop talking machine. Lately he says hi to all plants: Hi plantita!

This is what he sounds like from morning to night and sometimes even while dreaming.

Lunch with dad (near work)

Last week, I had a day off from work. I decided to bring over some lunch for dad and stay to visit for a little bit. We took our lunch to a very, very nearby park. Dad and I took turns watching Eddie, while the other had our lunch. It was nice.

Eddie had been asking for dad that morning, so I felt good being able to grant his desire to see his dad for a little bit.

Before we knew it, dad's lunch break was over and we had to say good bye.

I guess all that playing made our little boy sleepy.

Thanks for checking on us!

Another sleeping/weaning update

Eddie slept in his crib all night a couple of nights ago.

Last night, he wouldn't fall asleep.  He kept saying "Hi!!!!" to everything when dad was trying to rock him to sleep. At one point, Eddie fell asleep. Dad put Eddie in the crib. Suddenly, Eddie wakes up and says HI!!! outloud again. Dad had to be at work early the next morning, so I took over this time-dodging Eddie's attempts to nurse.
I ended up bringing Eddie with us to bed, as I started to feel light headed and very tired.

It was midnight and in our dark room, Eddie was trying to tickle me. He kept giggling and trying to climb out of bed. I ended up holding him down and singing quietly into his ear, although he was frustrated and trying to get out of my hug.

He finally fell asleep about 5 minutes later. Didn't wake up until it was nearly 6:30 am and time for all of us to get up.

Not bad.

I did nurse him at 6:30 am. He went back to sleep-Um so did I for about 15 minutes.

He woke up at about 7:30 am, as I was trying to get some floor exercises in.

We are making progress I think; For a little over 2 weeks, he has not nursed to fall asleep at night. He still wakes up at 1 am, but he doesn't nurse to go back to sleep. So, I think we can say we have removed all night feedings. Still not a time to make it official. But we have completed step 1 "removing all night feedings."


Now, we move onto step 2, "removing morning feedings"-I sort of started this step this morning, when Eddie officially woke up. I took him to the high chair as he signed for "milk" with both of his hands. I had some snacks handy and put some in his mouth. He quickly forgot about nursing and began to munch on his snacks.

There you have it. That's where we are in our steps to wean him off. Again, we understand we can regress at any time :)

Thanks for checking on us.

Making friends is easy when you are 1 and a half

We went to watch Eddie's godfather play soccer. As the game went on, Eddie wanted to walk around the track. As Eddie and I walked around the track, we watched families who were also there watching the game.

On the other side, was a family of siblings (about 5.) They were close in age and just playing imaginary games with sand and sticks. The youngest one was about 1 yr old. As we approached, Eddie just walked over and sat next to the 1 yr old. Eddie started speaking in his toddler language and leaning forward to look his new friend in the eye. His siblings quickly surrounded their little brother to make sure Eddie was not a threat.

Once they saw Eddie's friendly intentions, they started asking me questions about him:
"Can he talk?" "How old is he?" "What's his name?" They giggled when Eddie and his new friend talked to each other.

I am happy that Eddie is friendly and can approach other children this way.

Eddie's meals

I just want to document one of Eddie's meals as an example of what he currently eats. With time, I know his diet is going to change and it's interesting (to me) to look back at what we were feeding him.

Here is Eddie's lunch today:

Steamed broccoli topped with a small sprinkle of melted, shredded cheddar cheese

1 slice of whole wheat toast, topped with cream cheese (softened) and then drizzled with honey and a pinch of cinnamon

A handful of grapes

A cup of water

I also have to note that I have to feed Eddie in "courses." The broccoli goes  first. When I see that he's getting bored of it, I put the toast  on his plate. Once he is almost full, I place the grapes down. This is the best way to ensure he eats a little bit of everything.

Earlier today, for breakfast, he had 1/2 banana sliced, a handful of Kix cereal and a serving of danonino yogurt, his favorite. 

That's it. 

Little climbing guy

The other night, dad and I were in the living room hanging out. Because we have "toddler-proofed" the house, for Eddie, he moves almost freely around the house. We make sure to close the doors to the off-limit rooms and lock up cabinets we don't want him to get into. We also are constantly aware of when he is not in our sight.

Well, on accident, we forgot to close our bedroom door.  He had been gone for not one minute, when we both decided he was too quiet. Dad went to check on him and called me over. Dad sure did find Eddie standing on top of our bed, leaning over his crib, that sits next to the foot of our bed. He was pushing buttons on his music toy. As I approached the room, Eddie said "uh oh" and began to sit down. He knew it was wrong.

We didn't know he knew how to climb UP on the bed. We knew he was able to climb down. He usually asks for help to climb up.

After this incident, I observed how he climbs up the bed and it literally takes him about 3 seconds!

He is getting to be so strong and courageous.

We have to be more careful now. Oh boy!

Eddie's Disney Mickey ears hat

We went to get Eddie's very first Disney Mickey ears hat yesterday. It was perfect; He fell asleep right when we were leaving the park. Glad we waited to buy it when he fell asleep, because it took well over 40 minutes to complete!

Now, if only we could get him to wear it for more than 5 minutes. 

Thanks for checking on us.

A little fun with mom

I love spending time with Eddie doing the things that he loves to do. Yesterday, we met up with Eddie's aunt and cousins. When they left, we stayed a bit longer. The place was almost empty, so we took advantage of that. I loved letting Eddie run around this place. Usually, it is so crowded with people.

He tried out different games...

 

He got a dinosaur!

We walked into the glow golf room and just let him run around. Not a single soul was in there.
Eddie and I played a game of "Can you do this?" I walked and then jumped. I looked back at him. He walked and then jumped. I walked around a decoration, he did the same and so on.
We also played our version of tag in here. 

I have tried to teach Eddie how to play ski-ball, but he insists that THIS is the way to do it :D 

His version seems more fun anyway. 

Thanks for checking on us!

Frozen Danonino

I know a lot of moms that read this blog, give their kids Danonino yogurt. Here is a something you can do to make it fun. I took a popsicle stick and stuck it into one of the containers then I froze it over night. This morning, I was able to give Eddie his yogurt, frozen on a popsicle stick! I only did one, just in case he didn't like it.

It's a litte less messy too.

"Old McDonald" is one of his favorite songs

Eddie likes it when we sing Old McDonald to him. He falls asleep to it sometimes-even at 1 am, when he wakes up for a few moments. Here he is singing it with me.

Here he is trying to take the phone away from me again, but singing another verse of this song. 

It's fun. He's totally repeating any sound we make right now....
I am in heaven.

Thanks for checking on us.

Eddie's antics

This is the funny stuff Eddie likes to do to make people smile.
 

• Walk like an old man.(We call it viejito-spanish for old man)
• Walk backwards. (We call it the moonwalk)
• and do the Happy Dance!

In this video, he did all 3 for me!

I started recording him because he was playing with a piece of plastic. As soon as I turned the camera on, he threw it on the floor. I thought he was upset that I was recording him, but actually he was willing to do more.

I know how to wash my OWN hands!

Lately, a lot of things around here get done by "Mr. Independent." I let him do as much as he wants on his own. Washing hands usually turns into a 5 minute long event. Five minutes because that's as long as I can stand. If it were up to him, he'd climb into the sink each time he had to wash his hands. 

Here is Eddie "washing" his own hands. 

Thanks for checking on us!

A sleeping update

Not a time to celebrate yet, but just wanted to let you all know that Eddie slept from 9 pm to 5 am. He woke up crying at 5 am. I brought him to bed with us and sang him to sleep. He woke up again at 7 am. That is about 8 hours of sleep uninterrupted! Will it happen again tonight? I don't know. I really don't know what to expect.