The Summer of the Cough

I feel like one of us has had a cough all summer.  For weeks, it was our whole household including Brady.  The cough prompted a doctor's visit in early/mid July for Brady at which we were told it was nothing.  At his 2-month checkup on July 25 (two weeks early because of going to Nova Scotia), they still said it was nothing.  Meanwhile, he STILL has a cough.  It seemed like it got a little bit worse over last weekend so I decided to take him in again.  Now let me say that despite having this cough, he still seems very happy and I don't think it's bothering him at night or anything.  Nor does he have any other symptoms like a runny nose, fever, etc.  Nonetheless, I just wanted to be sure there was nothing going on.  The doc listened to his chest and his breathing and diagnosed him with something called bronchiolitis although honestly, when you look at the symptoms, he really has none of them except the wheezing sound when he breathes.  Of course, there's nothing you can actually do for this diagnosis (and probably any other) so I suppose its a moot point.  At any rate, the doc wanted to make sure there wasn't something else so she ordered an x-ray for him.

Tuesday was the day of the doc visit so the next day, Wednesday, I loaded the troops into the van for a trip to Florida Hospital Orlando for the x-ray.  On the way, I explained to the girls how Brady was going to have a picture taken of his insides and it wouldn't hurt.  Aubree quickly stated that she would hold his hand during it (Ahh, that would be a 'no.'').  A minute or two later, Aubree then says to me, "Hey, do you remember when we went to SeaWorld and saw the x-rays??" At any rate, the appointment went well.  We had to wait in the waiting room for about a half hour but the girls (well, Calleigh particularly) were happy because they had a kids waiting room and a movie playing.  I tell you, some of the things they target to little kids just bugs me.  The movie showing was Lilo and Stitch (a cartoon for those not up to speed with kid movies) and I didn't think it was a good thing at all to be watching.  The part that I saw the little girl(?) was yelling at her caretaker and vice versa.  Then I hear the caretaker call someone a "fathead".  I don't know that these are things I need my four year old seeing.  Fortunately the sound was really low and you could barely hear it.  I suppose we could have moved to the adult waiting area but Brady was pretty fussy and I was distracted with keeping him quiet.  But I digress.  So we finally got to the actual x-ray and it went fine.  They took two pictures.  A few hours later I got a call back from the doctor who says nothing showed up which was a very good thing and so the original diagnosis of bronchiolitis stands.  Hopefully it will be over soon.

I never wrote on here after Brady's 2-month appointment so I will mention that now.  He weighed 11 lbs, 3 oz (50th percentile), length was 22 3/4 inches (75th percentile) and head was 38.6 cm (25th percentile).  He definitely outweighed the girls who were both in the 10's at two months and of course, this was two weeks before he actually turned 2 months.  The one advantage of going to the doctor this week is that he was weighed (although I do have a scale here).  He weighed exactly twelve pounds.  That tells me that his growth rate has slowed down since he gained 13 ounces in 3 weeks.  I'm guessing he wasn't eating as much, or something, in Nova Scotia because we weren't in a regular routine.

As I had mentioned, while in Nova Scotia, he slept really great.  But for some reason, the first few nights that we were back, not so much.  Again, he never cries (strange) but he kept waking up and making noises.  I started to think I needed to put him in his pack-n-play and lower the temperature by about 20 degrees.  Since last weekend I haven't had him sleeping in his crib but instead, have put him back in his rock 'n sleeper so that he's not flat on his back due to the cough.  We start out in his room (with the humidifier going) and then end up in the swing for the rest of the night.  The last two nights, he's woken up about 4 am, I've brought him downstairs to the swing, and he promptly goes back to sleep until almost 8 am.  And I'm the one waking him up (I want to feed him before the girls come down for breakfast).  He's not eating at 4 am so I know he can go all the way from 11 to 8 without eating.  I just need to figure out how to keep him from waking up in the middle!  Once I get that mastered, we'll start moving his bed time earlier and earlier, hopefully to be comparable to the girls.  The one thing I'm REALLY happy about is that he continues to take a very long afternoon nap while I'm working.

In other news, yesterday we had a lovely time at Trotwood Park where the girls frolicked (that's such a fun word) in the splash playground, fed the turtles and ducks, went on the regular playground where they had fun with a girl named Peyton (so sad that Peyton Manning had to ruin that name because it's pretty cute), and had a picnic.  This morning we went to two yard sales (can't wait until fall when there will be a lot more out there) and went to Publix.  I rearranged my shopping schedule so that we could be freed up this evening to go to Chik-fil-a for a kids event they were having there.  This was only the second time in my life (the first was to use their facilities) I've been in a Chik-fil-a and the first time I've ever eaten in one.  We met the Bergherms there and had a nice time socializing.  Calleigh got her face painted and Aubree, her arm.  Calleigh was obsessed with the cow mascot and kept stalking him.  I thought my salad was good but it was strange - - the menu seemed to have a lot of chicken on it.

One of the best things about being a parent is getting to laugh at things the kids say.  One such chuckle this week was when Calleigh bumped her head when she was under the table and declared, "The table bumped into me."  You know, as if it was alive or something.  And then Duncan has been teasing Aubree for the last few days about the word "tomorrow."  They were having some conversation and Aubree said something about "tomorrow." Only she pronounces it as "tomo-whoa."  Duncan repeated the word back to her as she says it but she quickly corrected him.  "No, not tomo-whoa. It's tomo-whoa."  Every time she corrects him, of course, she's still saying it wrong.  But somehow she gets that he's not saying it right.  Now Duncan can't help but say the word to her every discussion they have because she's so doggone cute when she tries to correct him.  The other thing that makes us laugh is her binky lingo.  There's one particular binky that she tells us is her "crunchy" binky and she doesn't like that one.  I gave it to her the other day and although I think it looks exactly like all her other green binkys, she threw a fit.  "No, not my CRUNCHY binky.  I don't like my crunchy binky."  She's referred to a crunchy binky for months and it's bugged us because we had no idea what she means.  Well, Duncan finally unraveled the mystery a few days ago when he figured out that the crunchy binky is so named because if it gets a little water in it it makes a squeaky noise.  How that became known as "crunchy" I do not know but there you have it.

That will put a wrap on this week.  I'm in a little bit of a crisis because I can't find the charger for my camera.  So right now I'm just relying on cell phone pictures.

Have a Happy Sabbath!