Reese: ER visit #2

Two trips to the Emergency Room before the age of two…

Reese came down with a fever two nights ago.  No other symptoms to indicate she had a cold (no cough, no runny nose).  She had a loss of appetite and was lethargic all day - just wanting to be cuddled.  

Yesterday, with a temperature of 103.5 degrees, I took her to the doctor to get checked out.  The pediatrician diagnosed her with Coxsackievirus.  No treatment other than Tylenol, as a fever suppressant.

At dinner time, I could feel that her temperature had returned, so I went to give her a second dose of Tylenol.  She hates getting medicine, so I had to hold her in my lap and restrain her in order to get her to take it.  While I was giving her the medicine, her body started to convulse and her eyes started to flutter.  After a few seconds she went limp in my arms.  

I flung her over my shoulder, tossed the two kids in the car, made a panicked phone call to the doctor (to say that I was on my way over), made a panicked phone call to Mike, who was still at work (to tell him to meet me at the doctor), and made a panicked phone call to my mom (to have her talk me through driving myself and the kids to the doctor).

Reese had a febrile seizure.

[A febrile seizure is a convulsion in young children that is caused by a spike in body temperature. A simple febrile seizure (which is the kind that she had) isn't dangerous and doesn't cause brain damage or any other long-term problems. It also doesn't mean that there is a more serious underlying disorder.]

We were at the ER for about 4 hours.

Everything else checked out fine.  Virus and a febrile seizure.  Nothing we can do but stay on top of the fever so that it doesn't spike again.

Today she was in much better spirits.  Still had a slight fever, but was 85% back to her happy, energetic self.

I'm done with Emergency Rooms.  Hear that Reese?  Colden?  Done.

~~~~~

(Click here to see Reese's 1st trip to the ER and CHOP - when she came down with a virus at only 1 week old)

Reese: 2 Months Old

I know...I missed Reese's 1-month-old post.  But don't worry, I still took the pictures and recorded her measurements.

1-month checkup at the doctor's office:

Weight:  9 pounds, 8 ounces

Length:  22.25 inches

2-month checkup at the doctor's office:

Weight:  11 pounds

Length:  23 inches

And now, what I know you've all been waiting for...

The bunny pictures!

3 days

1 month

2 months


Reese is doing well (although, sadly - for me - still not really taking a bottle).
However, she is sleeping in her own room and for about 6 hours at night:

  We actually had to move her into the crib in her own room when she was around 6.5 weeks old because we had to take down the crib in our room in order to show the house (see "For Sale" post).


Our happy little girl has really started to smile:

(This was her first smile I was able to capture on camera.  She was ~5.5 weeks old)

And Reese is turning into quite the talker!


(Click here for "Reese Cooing" video")


She's also gotten pretty good at tracking things.  She will turn her head to follow a voice and she loves her mobile:

She also loves to lay on her back, and much to Mike's chagrin, sometimes prefers it to being held.  Especially when big brother Colden is there to entertain her:

What she doesn't like is tummy time!  Although, we've tried to spice it up for her by making it a family activity.  Tummy time for Reese = pushup time for the boys!

My sleeping beauty:

And just for fun...for those of you who think that she looks like Colden...what do you think now?  Here is a comparison between their 2-month-old bunny pictures:
(And yes, the bunnies on the right are different bunnies.  They each have their own white bunny.  The bunny on the left was mine when I was born)

Colden

Reese

Is there any hope that Reese will look like me?!?  We all know that Colden is a carbon copy of Mike. So far, she has kept her brown hair...

Bottles

We gave Reese her first bottle at the Children's Hospital of Philadelphia (CHOP) when she was only one week old because she was so worn down from a virus that she was having trouble nursing (see "CHOP" post).  

She...has...not...taken...a...bottle...since!

Pictured below is Colden giving Reese her first bottle since the whole CHOP nightmare - when Reese was around 5 weeks old.  I snapped this picture right when Colden started feeding her.  Two seconds later, the bottle was spit out and Reese was hysterical.

A million different bottle brands, a million different nipple types, and a million different feeding positions = the same one response:

One ticked-off baby!
(And two frustrated parents)

I even gave Reese a deadline by which she had to learn to take a bottle: the night of my office holiday party.

The deadline came and went.  I was able to enjoy the party for three hours.

She wouldn't even take a pacifier...

...until Christmas Eve, when finally...

 Yay!  She accepted a pacifier at bedtime!
Which gave us hope that maybe, just maybe...a bottle would be next.

And then, our Halloween baby gave us a Christmas miracle:

She drank from a bottle!

Girls' night out - here I come!!!

Holidays

Wow.  I didn't realize how far behind I fell with my blog posts!  

Halloween

Thanksgiving

Hanukkah

Christmas

All in one post.

HALLOWEEN

Because Reese was born on Halloween morning, Colden went around trick-or-treating in the evening with Mike, my mom and my dad.  I spent the holiday snuggling with my baby girl in the post-delivery room in the hospital.

Colden dressed up as a firefighter.  A firefighter who likes Elmo.

A firefighter who likes pink boots!

If you are wondering - no, the pink boots are NOT hand-me-downs.  My mom and I took Colden to the store to pick out rain boots and we came to a huge display of boots.  Every color in the rainbow neatly in a row.  He went right for the pink boots.  I asked if he wanted red or black boots to match his fireman rain coat.  He ran over to the pink boots, put his arms around them and said, "I love pink boots. They are so pretty".  My mom and I texted a picture to Mike, who was at work at the time.  His response?  "NOOOOOOOOO".

But, my boy loved the pink boots.  So, he got them!  And those boots are his favorite!  He wears them all the time and couldn't be happier.

When we came home from the hospital with Reese, two days later, my dad had fun taking pictures of our little Halloween baby with Halloween props.

Reese dressed up like a tiger:

Our "Little Pumpkin" was smaller than the pumpkin we picked:

THANKSGIVING

Thanksgiving this year was at my mom's house.  At only 3 weeks old, this was Reese's first Thanksgiving

Unfortunately, the whole family couldn't be together this year for Thanksgiving - but for a happy and great reason...Reese's cousin, Gabriel, was born on the very same day as Reese (twin cousins!!)...so part of our family was out in Arizona spending Thanksgiving with Gabriel.

Of course, we wouldn't let a couple thousand miles keep us from spending the holiday together!  We Skyped!

Hello cousins in Arizona!!  (Thanks, cousin Alex for holding the iPad)

The rest of the family had a great time together in New York!  It's great to see our family growing!

HANUKKAH

We hosted a latke-eating, menorah-lighting party at our house on the first night of Hanukkah.

Colden made fun Hanukkah decorations to display in the house

Mike made scrumptious latkes (not pictured here because we were all too busy eating them to take pictures)

And we lit the menorah.  Four of them to be exact:  Colden and Reese each have their own; the 3rd was a gift when Mike and I got married; and the 4th one I made in Kindergarten (just for fun).

(Colden sitting in front of his sports menorah and Reese in front of her butterfly menorah)

And of course it was fun to see how many adults it took to put together Colden's presents:

I'd say it was a fun first night of Hanukkah!

(So would Colden!)

CHRISTMAS

This year we were lucky enough to have a somewhat white Christmas

Christmas involved a lot of cooking and baking:

 Breakfast:  Buttermilk biscuits shaped like gingerbread men
(to go with our homemade biscuits and gravy)

Dinner:  Pumpkin-filled ravioli

Dessert:  Molasses cookies (What a disaster!  A yummy disaster!)

(Click here: "Molasses Cookies" video)

Happy holidays!