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.