A Not So Fun First

Last week, we experienced Ryan's first (and hopefully last) overnight stay in the hospital. Ryan is doing fine now, and I'm not sure he really needed to stay there so long, but I appreciate the doctors being overcautious.

On Thursday night, Ryan and I got home from daycare and I noticed that he was wheezing pretty loudly. He didn't seem to be distressed in any way, but I called the doctor's office anyway just to be safe. I was fairly certain they would just tell me to schedule an appointment in the morning, but instead they told me to take him to the emergency room. So the three of us took a trip to Winchester Hospital and were seen right away by the triage nurse. She said he sounded fine but didn't know if the brief time in the cold air had opened his airways so we still needed to be seen by a pediatrician. We barely settled in the waiting room when we were brought to an exam room and seen by the resident. He didn't seem all that concerned, so I was pretty sure the doctor would take a look and send us home shaking her head at the overprotective first-time parents. Instead, she took one look at him and told us he was struggling to breathe. He didn't seem like he was struggling, but she showed us how to tell by examining his neck and belly. She also said he sounded very wheezy in his lungs and needed treatment.

We were told Ryan would get 2-3 nebulizer treatments to open his airways and a dose of prednisone to help with the inflammation. She gave us a 50-50 chance of going home that night. After the treatments, Ryan was still wheezy, so we were admitted to the hospital. It took some time for them to get us a room because they needed to find us a baby cage big enough for Ryan. We finally got to the room around 1 am and although there was a perfectly nice cot for me to sleep on, Ryan insisted I sleep with him in the baby cage. Not comfortable at all. We tried to sleep on and off until around 4 am when I buzzed the nurse to get me the hell out of there. I've never really been claustrophobic, but that cage was a little much.

Justin came back in the morning and we saw the pediatrician around 9 am. Again, since Ryan seemed fine, I expected the new doctor to let us go. But instead she listened to his lungs, examined him, and told us he needed more treatments and MAYBE we could go home in the evening. Ugh. Ryan was getting nebulizer treatments ever 2 hours and the only way we could go home is if he could make it to every 4 hours. So Ryan and I got to hang in the hospital all day long. For the local people reading this, it's worth mentioning that Winchester Hospital is pretty nice. The nurses and staff are caring, the rooms were clean, and we even had a "child life specialist" come in several times a day to make sure Ryan had enough toys, books, and dvds to keep him happy. The only problem was the pediatrician only rounds twice a day, so if the morning doc didn't discharge us, we had to wait until 9 pm for the evening doc.

Josh, Rachel, and Zach came to visit in the afternoon and Ryan really perked up then and started breathing better. I don't know if it's coincidence or not, but I think he's pretty social and likes to be around other people. He seemed happy to have company to play with (I was too exhausted). A third pediatrician showed up around 9 pm and on initial assessment, told us Ryan wasn't ready to go home. He then listened to his lungs, talked to us for awhile presumably assessing our intelligence and ability to give treatments at home, and changed his mind. Yippee! Apparently Ryan's lungs sounded much better than he anticipated, and we passed the "smart parents" test. We were discharged at 10 pm with the condition that we continue his treatments every 4 hours and see our pediatrician first thing the next day.

We saw the Saturday pediatrician the next day and he said Ryan sounded fine and we could withhold nebulizer treatment until he needed it. Right now he's getting one every 6-8 hours while we wait for the prednisone to do its job. The doctor also said that one incident of wheezing does not necessarily mean asthma, and there's no reason now to treat him any differently. He's probably pre-disposed to asthma and has a higher chance of having it, but if and when that comes, we'll deal with it. Right now we're just happy to be home!

1st Birthday Celebrations!

Ryan's 1st birthday celebrations started in St. Louis where he got some new presents from Gi-Gi. On the actual day of we had a quiet family celebration at home where Ryan opened the presents he received from his daycare family. Like most 1 year olds he was much more excited about the tissue paper than the toys...



The celebration continued over the weekend as Ryan's Nanima and uncles came in from Chicago. We had a Sesame Street babies themed party complete with giant balloon Elmo and a Cookie monster and Elmo cake.

We gave Ryan some cake but most of it ended up on him rather than in his tummy.

Although I know Ryan won't remember the party, we had a great time and are thankful to have so many great friends and family to come and celebrate with us.

Here are more pictures from the festivities!

The Boys are Sick...

We just got back from a great vacation at the Jersey shore which I promise to post about and upload pictures from later this week. Right now I'm busy taking care of my boys... :-( Ryan and Justin both caught a bug from one of the other kids on vacation. While Ryan has had the occasional cold here and there, this is his first true illness. He has a bad cough, mild temperature, and an ear infection. He's absolutely miserable although the one positive side effect is that all he seems to want to do is cuddle in my arms.

The one thing we've learned so far is that Ryan HATES medicine. (Which by the way is "medicina" in Spanish and not "drogas" as I learned when I apparently told one of the daycare assistants that I was picking up hard drugs for Ryan.) Last night we tried to give Ryan antibiotics for his ear infection with a spoon which resulted in pink sticky stuff everywhere except in his mouth. So this morning we tried to mix it into 1 oz of formula. Ryan, who eats everything, refused it. Since they only give you enough medicina to give the entire 10 day dose, we had to get him to take it. If you haven't had to do this yet, let me say that holding your baby down while you dropper in an ounce of pink formula .8mL at a time is NOT fun. The poor guy screamed the whole time but managed to get it all down.

So, not a fun "baby first" but I guess we should be glad he waited until 7 months to get sick.

Road Trip!

Ryan had his first road trip this weekend to my brother Arjun's high school graduation in Lakeville, Connecticut. A two hour drive each way is apparently perfect for a 6 month old as he slept pretty much the entire time both ways. He gets a solid A (even Daddy the hard grader agrees) for the car rides. He didn't fair as well at the graduation festivities which included a dinner and awards ceremony that lasted about 4 hours during fussy time, but that was to be expected. (Changing Ryan's diaper in the girl's locker room was apparently HILARIOUS to the giggly high school girls that walked in. I can only imagine their reaction had they seen me breastfeeding minutes earlier. I walked around a bit looking for a changing table only to realize that there wouldn't be one in a high school gym cause that would send the wrong message.)

The trip was short, but we did get to spend some time with my parents and brothers and Ryan got to stay in his first hotel - the Holiday Inn (way to travel in style buddy!). Here's Ryan sitting on the ginormous hotel bed.

An interesting factoid of the trip is that we were served dinner at the awards ceremony by a sophomore with the last name of Ford. As in Henry Ford, Model T Ford, family owns the Detroit Lions Ford. Apparently if you watch the Lions Thanksgiving football game, and they show the owner's box, you will see our little teenaged server sitting there enjoying the game.

First Attempt at Solids

This has been a busy week for Ryan - first plane trip, Ferberization, and now the first step towards eating real food: rice cereal. As you can see by the look on Ryan's face, he didn't exactly find it appetizing. Or maybe it just freaked him out. Today we mixed it with water instead of formula and he may have swallowed a teaspoon full. Not sure since about a tablespoon went in and slightly less than a tablespoon ended up on his bib. Next week we're going to try pureed carrots and see how that goes.


Click here for more pictures from Ryan's First Solids and our recent trip to Chicago.

First Plane Ride

Ryan had his first plane trip this past weekend when we flew out to Chicago to visit family. Both the flights there and back were almost identical. The first 1+ hours were flipping between curiousity, happiness and flat out crying. Luckily each time he cried (about every 15-20 minutes) the bottle calmed him down. For the last 45 minutes it was lights out through turbulence, descent, blabbering captains and flight crew, landing and taxiing.

Overall grade: B- (mom the light grader gives a solid "B")

Crossing Lines

I'm sure Ryan will cross many lines in his life, most of which will get him into trouble. This time, it merits a celebration. He left his home state for the first time last weekend and travelled to Rhode Island (we figured we'd start small and work our way up - you know, like the smallest state...ehn nevermind). We took an afternoon trip so that Ryan could have another "play date" with his friend Xander while Koss, Stef, Saru, and I watched over them by playing Rock Band, a game we have all been addicted to for a couple months now. We rocked out and Koos and Stef served up a BBQ meal complete with burgers, hotdogs, and macaroni salad.

In addition to the awesomeness of Rock Band, we also found out that Ryan travels well in the car, which bodes well for us in the coming months. He slept the whole ride there and back, with the exception of about 10 minutes at the end of the ride when he was insanely hungry. We didn't feed him for almost 4 hours and he was not very understanding. Apparently telling him that we're just 5 minutes away doesn't work yet.

This weekend we're off to Chicago and, consequently, testing him out on a plane.

Cause and Effect

Ryan has learned a new trick - he can roll over from his back to his stomach. The problem? He hates being on his stomach. And he insists on rolling over EVERY time he's on his back. This includes in the middle of night, when he wakes up. He used to soothe himself back to sleep with his thumb - but now he rolls over and then cries until we flip him back. I guess this is one of those of 2 steps forward, 1 step back kind of things right?