August 2005 Archives

Sophie went to the emergency room this morning with Strider - unfortunately not the Dunedain Ranger of the same name, but the advanced stage of croup where her windpipe swells shut and she has trouble breathing. The showers and cold air weren't doing the trick, and once she coughed so hard she vomited.

Around 6am she was really straining to breathe in and out so we called the advice nurse, who directed us to the emergency room at the hospital here in town. Sophie's breathing improved to a mere wheeze upon arrival at the hospital, but after she was given an oral dose of steroids it worsened again (she got upset from taking the medicine) so she needed epinephrin mist. They have to monitor her for 3-4 hours afterward the epinephrin, so we were at the hospital until about 12:30pm.

Thanks to the steroids and epinephrin Sophie's breathing sounds almost normal now. Her voice is still very hoarse and she's sleeping a lot, but she's almost back to her usual self and doesn't sound like Darth Vader with his mask off anymore.

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Sophie finished off her recent throat infection (a 102-degree fever for three days last week) just in time to catch croup. She developed the barking cough Friday night and had a pretty good wheeze by Saturday, when the pediatrician confirmed her thankfully mild case of croup.

Afterwards we drove around to four different stores looking for a better quality humidifier with no luck (Sears employee: "What's a humidifier?"), so we resorted to running hot showers and taking her outside at 4 this morning to breath the cool foggy air.

She's a little clingier than normal but otherwise doesn't act sick, however she can't sing or yell as loud as she likes to.

The picture of John holding Sophie doesn't have anything to do with the headline, I just thought it was a funny pic. I missed taking the one where she had her head on his shoulder by only a few seconds!

And congratulations Ashleigh & Matt! We're happy to have you in the club.

Lately Sophie's been giving "kisses". These involve pressing her open mouth to something for a second or two, sometimes accompanied by an "mmm" sound, then pulling back with an "uh!" sound - all the while with her mouth open.

We believe her first efforts were on her own reflection in her Mirror Me book, and she's since been seen kissing the oven door and the metal mixing bowl she plays with on the kitchen floor (both are also reflective). Lately however she's advanced beyond her early narcissism and has been pretty free with kissing Mom, Dad, our dining room chairs, the couch, her toys, and possibly the dog.

Then today, the folks at daycare informed us Sophie had KISSED A BOY. On the cheek. Nicholas. 10 months old. You're on my list, buddy.

Today Sophie & I watched the Concerning Hobbits and Long Expected Party chapters of The Fellowship of the Ring Extended Edition. It was right after she woke up from a nap so she was groggy enough to sit still with me. I think we've got a fan!

We hope your Big Day is as big as they come!

As you can see Sophie's career in crawling has begun in earnest, and she's already displaying a knack for getting into the things she shouldn't. She's also really learned to pick up speed, and will go after the cat or dog at a moderate shuffle then really scoot for the open refrigerator door, the open stove and the open dishwasher. Lots of "caught in the act" shots in this latest batch of photos, clearly we're due for another round of childproofing.

Sophie's nicknames have also settled down some. At the daycare the name "So-So" seems to have stuck. At home it's still "Sophie Jean" or rarely "Jeanie". Lately she's taken to sticking out her tongue to one side when she grins, for a very Michael Jordan mid-dunk-like effect. She especially likes it when you build up the anticipation to a fake sneeze (ah-aH-AH-CHOO!), that really makes her giggle.

She's not spending as much time in the bumper jumper, mostly because she'd rather be zooming around the floor.

Hope you're having a great summer as well!

We miss you and the antics.

We want you too, Big Guy: Happy Birthday from us and The Gipper, and congrats on the new gig!

Hope your birthday was as relaxing as this appeared to be!

It feels like our little birdie is learning to fly! It is all so exciting and sad at the same time. I have a hard time deciding if I should celebrate or cry with each of her milestones. Below are a few of her new developments.

Crawling!
She is "crawling" and what I mean by crawling is something similar to "the worm" that my friend Katie Maloney used to do on the dance floor. She gets where she wants for sure. She can go from flat on her tummy to sitting up. She spins, she scoots! Time for child proofing! So far her favorite item to prod is the dvd player open button since it produces such exciting results (the tray moves!). Her main motivation to crawl across the room is to reach Eliot and his taunting swishing tail. He keeps trying to scratch her and I'm sure it will happen some day but to date, we've been able to keep her scratch free.

Eating Cheerios!
We recently allowed her to try out some Food Puffs which are Gerbers safe version of Cheerios. They melt in your mouth after a bit so there is less likelyhood of choking. After she mastered those and had the chewing motion down we threw some Cheerios on her high chair. She is a very focused child to start with so this process is quite serious to her. She wrangles one of the cheerios into her closed fist then slowly brings it close to her face and opens her hand to see that the cheerio is indeed still there. Once she verifies that it is still stuck to her slobber covered hand, she smashes her open hand onto her face (roughly over her mouth). I would say she gets about 1/3 of the cheerios in her mouth using this method. I got a little over zealous and dumped 15 or so cheerios on her tray the first time. She grabbed an entire handful and tried stuffing them all in her mouth. Bad Mommy!

Dancing!
She sits on her own (as you already know from Sophie Upright!) and will bounce and rock when music plays. This makes me very happy as I love to have music on and dance around with her. Now we sit and rock out together. If you can rock out to a Tiny Love toy, which I can.

Singing!
When Sophie is content she starts singing now. Not GWAR or Celine, but just "daaaaaa, daaaaaa" or "laaaaaa, laaaaaa". She really loves making these noises to hear herself and be happy. I really love it. It's one of the things that has shown her personality the most.

She's also fully weaned now and is drinking formula and eating three meals a day. We have given her turkey and will start her on some chicken this week.

Lots of big stuff this month! Can't wait to see what next month has in store for us!