Abby's First Trip to the Science Center!

Since Abby was feeling so much better last saturday, we finally got her out of the house. Abby had never been to the Science Center before, so we decided to take her there.

She was in heaven. I'm not sure if it's because she hadn't been out of the house for three days or if she's in love with science like her daddy, but she sure had a good time. It's so nice that she can walk with us in public places instead of having to drag a stroller around or carry her everywhere. She was just running from exhibit to exhibit. Here's some of the highlights:

- I'm quite afraid of the plexiglass floor that is above the highway (if you're not familiar with this, you need to visit the St. Louis Science Center sometime). But, because I'm weird, I always force myself to at least walk over one of the pieces of glass. Occasionally I even jump on it. I guess it's my weird way of proving to myself that I'm not actually afraid of it. Anyways, I tried to get Abby to walk on it with me....no way! She wouldn't go anywhere near the plexiglass....smart girl.

- Then we got to the architectural part. She loved building the Arch. They even have a new "mini" arch that is smaller than the older two they had. It was a group effort.
The best part of course is knocking it over:


- After that, it was on to the huge marble roll thing in the main lobby. She was pretty impressed.

- Then we headed down to see the dinosaurs. We were pretty worried that she would freak out. But, she was actually very happy to see T-Rex. Below is one of the next exhibits they had. I think she was pretending she was a dinosaur. Rarrrrr.....
- Our next stop was the earthquake machine. Again, we thought she'd freak out, but she actually thought it was pretty cool. She even wanted to go again.
- We then headed upstairs to the optical illusions section. This video makes me laugh....A LOT! There was an optical illusion of a spring. You basically look into this thing and are looking at a curved mirror which has a spring projected on it. But, it looks like the spring is right in front of you. Clearly, Abby was fooled. Enjoy....


We saw plenty more, and then headed out for a late lunch at Applebee's. Overall, it was a great Saturday.

Christmas

Grandpa Bo and Aunt Sally drove down to visit from Wednesday to Sunday. Unfortunately Abby started getting sick on Wednesday night. We had big plans while they were here, but most of Wednesday to Friday was spent at home with a sick baby. Sorry Bo and Sally!

Our sick baby spending all of her time with her mama. She was burning up, so we stripped her down to her diaper. Her fever didn't get quite as high this illness as last time, but it still got up to 103.3.
Did somebody spike that drink Abby?
Hangin with Grandpa Bo on Christmas Eve (one of the rare times Abby left mommy's arms)
She felt pretty good whenever she was opening presents though! Here's her new tower of blocks. She likes to help us build the tower (she's even pretty good at getting the block on top of the other one without knocking the tower over).....but as soon as the tower gets too high, she just wants to knock it over (not to worry, this practice came in handy at the science center).
Abby finally got over her virus on Saturday morning. She woke up a happy baby. We were all very relieved. I'm guessing her ears aren't quite clear yet since she's only been on antibiotics for a few days now (she LOVES taking her medicine!....makes our job a lot easier). So, we took advantage of her feeling better and went to the Science Center (post coming soon) and Applebee's for a late lunch.

Poop

If you're freaked out by baby poop, stop reading now....you've been warned.

As all of you know, we use cloth diapers. By the way, we still LOVE them and would recommend them to anyone. Are they extra work? Sure, but soooo worth it.

Anywho....Since Abby is up and mobile so much more now than she ever has before, we don't always get a chance to clean Abby's diapers right away. Usually we'll put two or three of them in a pile and clean the poopy ones and send them down the laundry chute together. So, after changing Abby's poopy diaper on saturday morning, I put the diaper on top of Abby's dresser like we always do (it's the only place within reach of the changing table to put it). I then took Abby to the kitchen to give her some breakfast.

Later that morning, I went to clean the two or three diapers we had on the dresser. I went to the bathroom to spray off the poopy one. The only problem? There was no poop in the diaper. I knew it was the poopy one because there were small remnants of poop (I told you to stop reading at the beginning of the post if this freaks you out!). But, the main chunk was gone.

I searched all over the bathroom for several minutes. I couldn't find the poop anywhere. Then I got distracted because everyone was running around crazy getting ready for the science center. I told Peggy about the missing poop, but for some reason we weren't too concerned. Looking back, we probably should have looked more at that point, but oh well. I guess after doing the cloth diapers for so long, poop really doesn't freak us out.

So, we got home later and remembered about the missing poop. I figured it was probably sitting atop her dresser somewhere (gross, I know). Looked all over the dresser, no poo. Looked on the floor, no poo.

And then it happened, I looked in Abby's hamper (right next to the dresser). And there it was....mixed in among Abby's dirty clothes, a nice big turd.

I love being a daddy.

A Rough Christmas

In case you haven't heard by now, Abby's sick again. Yes, before you ask, she was sick on thanksgiving, and she's now sick again over Christmas. Wednesday night we knew something was up. She was just "off."

Then thursday morning she couldn't stop coughing. I've never heard her cough that much before. She was very hungry, but whenever she would eat, she would just cough it all back up. So, Grandpa Bo (Peggy's dad) and Peggy took her up to urgent care. They diagnosed her with a double ear infection and a viral infection in her chest. Ugh, not one but two sicknesses. Personally, I think that she's had a lingering ear infection for a couple of weeks now. She's just been incredibly crabby for about a month. Of course, that could all be her teeth. She just cut her first couple of molars. She's working on more molars and her incisor teeth. Yeah, that on top of the sickness is not much fun.

So, I went to Christmas Eve with my family while Peggy, Abby, Grandpa Bo, and Aunt Sally stayed home. I'm not sure why Abby likes to get sick on holidays so much. You can either look at it as we're really lucky or really unlucky. Unluckily, Peggy and Abby keep missing the holidays. On the lucky side though, she keeps getting sick when neither of us have to take off of work. Peggy had a three day weekend, and Abby was sick the entire time. Since Abby almost exclusively wants her mommy when she's sick, it's actually worked out quite well.

So, today she woke up at 2:00 AM. Yeah, what a start to Christmas! I know kids are supposed to wake up early because they're excited to open their presents, but this was just ridiculous! She woke up screaming and begging for food. We fed her, changed her, gave her some medicine, and brought her in our bed (something we never do!) But, we break a lot of the "rules" when she's sick, like a good mommy and daddy should :-)

She slept on and off in our bed as Peggy was holding her until about 6. We ended up opening presents around 7. She was just as happy as could be when opening presents. It was almost like she wasn't sick at all. After that she spent the rest of the morning alternating between taking a couple of quick naps and being crabby. Around noon she woke up and was pretty happy, so we decided to take her to grandma and grandpas to open more presents and see the family. Again, she did very well (maybe we just need to keep wrapping presents so she can open them when she's sick). Tonight, she did pretty well until around dinner time. She threw a huge fit because she was tired, but didn't want to sleep. I ended up laying her in her crib on her belly and rubbing her back for a good 15-20 minutes until she fell asleep (broke another rule :-). We got her up about an hour later, and she was pretty happy until she fell asleep for the night around 8:00.

Here's to hoping she'll sleep through the night!

We'll be posting pictures in the next couple of days of the sickness and Christmas.

Merry Christmas to all! Hopefully yours was better than ours!

Festivus 2009

On Saturday we hosted Festivus, a holiday made up for the "Jerry Seinfeld Show." You celebrate around a silver pole, there is an airing of grievances, and the feats of strength... an alcohol.

This year there was also three small children, so Santa stopped by. Last year Santa visited us for New Years, but since we are not hosting New Years this year, Santa came early.

Here's a look back at Abby and her pal Charlotte, last year.

And this year....

And our new pal, Gavin, joined in on the fun. Gavin's mom works at Fox High School with Dave.

Festivus was a success, although there was no feats of strength, and I'm not sure Santa will ever want to do that again. But still a success.

Using a Spoon

We're starting to introduce Abby to using a spoon on her own. She's already pretty good at it....I think they practice at school.

Here's Abby eating a snack of some applesauce this morning at 6:15 (she already had breakfast around 5:00). She's a hungry girl (and an early riser)!

Diagnosis

Abby's doctor called back yesterday to talk about her low blood sugar. He diagnosed her with hypoglycemia. This isn't the best news in the world, but it could definitely be a lot worse. I guess we were correct when we figured last week that's what she had.

Basically we are supposed to now feed her 5 or 6 small meals a day as opposed to three big ones with snacks in between. We're also supposed to drastically cut back on processed foods. We don't give her a ton of those anyways, but it was always so nice to be able to throw some graham crackers in a bag to take out places for when Abby needs a snack. What parent doesn't do that?!? Well, the doctor says no to snacks of graham crackers, animal crackers, pretzles, etc. Basically all the "easy" snacks have to go I think.

If she has any more of these shaking episodes, the doctor wants us to see an endocrinologist. If she continues getting the shakes, he thinks it could be some other metabolic disorder.

We don't know what to think exactly. This has all come up in just the last two weeks. It seems she's eating every minute of every day. And when she's not eating, it seems that she's thinking about eating. Her teachers tell us everyday just how much she's eating, and it seems like a TON! We just don't know if she's going through a growth spurt, or if it's the hypoglycemia, or something else. Something has just been "off" for the last couple of weeks.

We're thinking we might try to see a nutritionist to give us some snack and meal ideas that would be good for her.

Jingle Bell Ball

Last night was Abigail's "Jingle Bell Ball." She was great, well at least she didn't scream.

The night didn't start off so well. Abby put on her pretty Christmas dress and quickly went from happy....

to this...

She did recover

The show was great. Each class sang two songs. Here is her class....

For fun

Here's video of Abby yesterday, after her nap.

Dr. Appoinment

It's been a long morning at the Pleimann house. Abby woke up at 4:30, the high winds knocked over the neighbors trash cans. She quickly went back to sleep, and stayed down until 6am! Which made the morning go a little faster. We spent the next two and a half hours playing, watching PBS and looking out the window. Anything to stay out of the kitchen.

We got the pedi's office at 8:30 and were quickly ushered into a room. Abby did great while the nurse pricked her finger. It took about a minute for her to react to the sting. She did have the shakes by this point, not as bad as Sunday but the nurse noticed them. After giving Abby a new bouncy ball, and 3 stickers, (which she tried to eat) the nurse went to find the pedi. After looking at her levels he decided they need to do more tests, requiring four tubes of blood drawn from Abby's tiny arm. It was AWFUL.

A second nurse came in the room to help hold down Abby down, I had to stand at the edge of the table by her feet. Abby screamed the whole time. I'm glad I remembered to bring teddy, she was able to hold him and that brought a small amount of comfort, I think. After getting one tube, they struggled to get another half tube. So after a minor discussion the nurses decided it would have to be enough. There was no way they could get anymore to come out. Even though her finger was still bleeding from the prick. The nurse said they would call tomorrow (Thursday) with the results, good or bad. So now we just wait.

Once we were back in the car I climbed in the backseat and let Abby have her milk and a granola bar before driving home. Once home she went to town on some french toast sticks and carrots, I know sounds gross but she loves it.

Afterwards she had some graham crackers and chilled out with a few books. Within an hour of getting home she went down for her nap. I think her eyes were shut before I left the room.

One more day, hopefully we'll know more tomorrow.

Worried

On Sunday, Abby woke up from her afternoon nap very hungry. She woke up in sort of a daze. She didn't say "hi" or "mama" or "dada." She just wanted to eat. So, we put her in her high chair right away to eat an afternoon snack. We couldn't shove food down her throat fast enough. Her hands were shaking and started to turn kinda purple (but she wasn't cold). We were worried.

She didn't say much of anything for another 10 minutes or so (which isn't incredibly unusual right after she wakes up). But she didn't stop shaking for about 15 minutes after she woke up. This is what concerned us most.

Of course our first thought was some sort of blood sugar issue, but we're just not sure what to think.

Peggy called the doctor yesterday, and they want us to bring her in tomorrow. Not a big deal, right?!? WRONG! Abby has an appointment at 8:40 tomorrow morning. The only problem is that she can't eat or drink anything from the time she wakes up until her appointment! This is the same girl that on sunday when I went to get her up in the morning was doing the sign for eating when I walked into the room. She's been a hungry girl for the last couple of weeks. And the first thing she wants to do every day is eat.

The other problem is that she usually wakes up around 5:30. That means she has to be up for over three hours without eating or drinking. We're pretty worried....not so much about what the doctor is going to say, but more (at least for now) about her fasting for over three hours.

Goddard Christmas Party

Friday night was the Goddard Christmas Party. The kids were encouraged to wear their pj's and enjoy crafts and Mrs. Claus.

Abby was more interested in watching everyone else. We helped her a long with decorating multiple ornaments.

She also attempted to decorate a cookie... yeah she just wanted to eat the green frosting.

We stopped in the snack room for a powdered donut, a huge treat for Abby. She chowed down while listening to Mrs. Claus read a story. We don't know this other girl, but she did tell us her name was Abby, too.

"need a donut?, they're over there"

The powdered donut kept Abby until 8p, which was a nice bonus. Too bad she was still up at the crack of dawn the next day.

1 Year Doctor Appointment

Yesterday Abby had her 1 year appointment. She is 20lbs (20%), 2' 5.5" (58%), and her head is huge - 47cms (92%). Thankfully she is very healthy and proportional.

At one year she still has hive breakouts, her pedi says she just has super sensitive skin. New surroundings, new people, clothes, almost anything can make her break out.

We also talked about shots. Every time Abby has had shots she ends up with a fever and misses a day or two of daycare, so we discussed putting off a shot this time. So she only had four shots, ugh. Her pedi says this is because Abby has an overly healthy immune system, which means its even more important that she gets her shots. He explained it that say she has a bad reaction to her chicken pox vaccine, it means she would have an even worse reaction if she actually got the chicken pox. Scary thought. We put off her pneumococcal because it is just a booster.

Abby has six teeth and she is cutting her molars, plus two more on the bottom. The pedi was very impressed with Abby's vocabulary, her eye contact and mobility. Hopefully we can get through the rest of winter without another visit and will return in the spring for her 18 month appointment.

Abby also started in the "Waddling Wonders" room this week, the 1-year-old room. She loves it. She now is taking only one nap a day, 2-3 hours in length! She has art class everyday, and music class too. They have been practicing for their "Jingle Bell Ball" next Thursday. Each class sings two songs, I'm not sure how much Abby will sing, but she's got a really cute dance when we practice at home. Watch for the video late next week from the concert.

Look at that hair!

Decorating for Christmas

We put up the Christmas decorations this past weekend. Abby had a great time walking around taking things out of the storage bins. Trying to help decorate.

The girl loves hats. What a difference from just five days earlier when we could hardly get her to eat.

She also loves this sandbag snowman. She's been carrying him around all week.
Too cute.
Close to bedtime and discovering all the lights.

The finished product

Good day at work

Some days at work are good. Days when the lead story isn't a deadly fire or a missing child.

Today was a good day. About a week ago I ran across a story on the Associated Press about three guys touring professional football stadiums in honor of a fallen soldier. I found their website and was able to get in contact with one of the guys. It happened they were going to be in St. Louis this weekend.

So this morning Teresa my anchor did a live interview with the three guys outside their RV. And after the show she did a more in-depth interview for a package we are going to run tomorrow morning before they tailgate at the Rams game.

The guys Nate, Nolan and Aaron tailgate before every game to raise money for families of fallen soldiers. But they do not have a cooperate sponsor for this tour, so they are always trying to get people to help pay for the tailgates, places to park the RV and home cooked meals. They even bought all tickets to the football games.

But GUESS WHAT!!!

The owner of the Rams was watching this morning, yeah a viewer! And decided to invite the guys down on the field before the game and honor them. They are getting signed jersey's and sitting down on the field. I hope they have a blast.

Meeting Santa

Last Sunday we had an unique opportunity to meet Santa at a private party at an area mall. The party was great. Abby's (free) picture turned out great. She wasn't sure at first about the jolly old man but she warmed up quickly.

He offered her a high five and some "knucks" (knuckles) making the transition to his lap much smoother.

The picture is a little blurry because I took a photo of the photo. There was also caricature drawings, cookie decorating, and lots of treats.

Thankful Thursday, week 4

I know I missed last week but here is what I'm thankful for day.

1. Tylenol - It helped Abby's fever so much this week. She may still be sick but she would be a lot worse without it.

2. Nurse line - When Abby got the chills yesterday, the doctors office had already closed. But thankfully we had a great nurse on the exchange who stayed on the line. While we took her temp, stripped her down to look for spots and talked us through all her new dosage.

3. Dave -Abby just wanted mommy this week, leaving household chores up to Dave. He helped me make our Thanksgiving dessert, after Abby went into meltdown halfway through its completion. He also brought us juice, milk, blankets and made sure all the ringers were off on the phones.

4. Extended family - Mary Kay & Jim thanks for feeding us on Thanksgiving even though we couldn't be there. The food was excellent!

5. Abigail - The funniest sick kid around. Although she had snot pouring out of her nose and she was very vocal the last few days. She still kept us laughing. She went from throwing a fit every time we cleaned her nose to today - she just stood still and let me suck the nastiness away. The screams, Abby has developed a very loud scream. Not a cry but a scream. For no reason. She just likes to hear her voice. It's loud. Dave doesn't like to be in the same room when she screams. Hopefully it will pass.

Happy Thanksgiving

Happy Thanksgiving to everyone.

It's a quiet holiday at the Pleimann house. We were going to Dave's aunts house for the holiday but....

Monday Abby came home from daycare a little under the weather.

By Tuesday morning it was obvious something wasn't right. Thankfully I was furloughed and we stayed home together. Abby was really clingy, running a low fever and a very snotty nose.

This is Tuesday morning.

Wednesday morning she seemed to feel a little better but after her morning nap her fever jumped to 105.1! It was scary. We had to wait almost two hours to hear back from the doctors office, apparently all of his patients were sick Wednesday. We upped her Tylenol dosage and within an hour her fever was back down to 102.5. She was having a hard time sleeping in her crib because she was so congested so I let her take her afternoon nap laying on my stomach. Abby woke up starving, but she wouldn't eat much. We quickly realized we had another problem. Her fingers and lips were turning purple. So we plugged the space heater in her room, bundled her up and gave her another dose of Tylenol. Dave called the nurse back she said if she didn't have red circles on her body (a sign of meningitis) she was just sweating out the fever. About 40 minutes later her color was back and she was herself again... or at least the cranky sick version of herself.

She stayed up until 9pm last night, which is very unusual for Abby. She slept through the night, until 5a. She's been more active today, but still pretty sick. She went down for her morning nap, only to wake up 15 minutes later coughing. Then she was exhausted, and couldn't sleep. She then screamed while I held for for the next 1.5 hours. Her fever hasn't been as high as yesterday, but most of the day she didn't seem much better.

This is her in between the screaming/fussing....

Dave is out picking up our Thanksgiving dinner from his Aunt Mary Kay's house right now and dropping off the desserts. Not the ideal way to spend the holiday but it could have been much worse. Hopefully it's coming to an end and by next week she'll be back to normal.

Happy Thanksgiving

Happy 1st Birthday

Friday was Abigail's first birthday. I can't believe our little girl is already a year old. She had a big weekend, Gram's and Marty came to town and we had a birthday party for Abbers. Friday afternoon Abby opened her presents from us. This is the only picture we took. She's checking out her new abacus.

Friday night Gram's and Marty stopped by before going to their hotel. Abby had more presents to open.

Saturday Grams and Marty came back over and we went out to lunch. They took Abby on a long walk so we could finish cleaning before the party. When they came back both Abby and I took naps.

Abby had a great time at her party. She loved opening presents. Trying on her new clothes.

Saying thank you for her gifts.

Abby was a big fan of her smash cake. We learned she's allergic to chocolate frosting, yep. As soon as we started to clean her up it was very apparent her face was covered in a bright red rash.

Proud parents

You can kind of see her red cheeks here, and she leaned in really close to the fire, thankfully she still has all her hair.

More cake please!

Sunday we tried to swim at the hotel but it wasn't heated and after about 10 minutes Abby was done swimming. We hung out with Grams and Marty for a while before they hit the road.

Today Abby came home from daycare with a note that many of the kids in her room have the flu. She was cranky and in bed by 6:15p. Tomorrow is my last furlough so if she needs to stay home we can both have three day weekend to recover.

Happy Early Thanksgiving to everyone, and safe travels to those of you hitting the roads.