Ten Months

I'm writing this in tiny pieces, taking breaks quite often to chase after a newly-mobile and slightly-punchy-because-it's-almost-bedtime baby as she chases the cat, grabs handfuls of fur off the dog, tries to stick her fingers in the back of the fan (it sounds more dangerous than it is), pulls herself up on the coffee table to grab hard drives, and crawls down the hall in search of the vacuum cleaner cord. 

Yep, our lives have changed pretty drastically in the last couple of months! When I think back on parenting in general, so far, I think about phases like this:

1. Leaving the baby on the couch to do things in the other room, many hours to do my own thing while she sleeps

2. Leaving the baby lying on the floor to do things in the other room ('cause she'd roll off the couch if she could), some time to do my own thing

3. Leaving the baby sitting on the floor playing, not as much time to do my own thing as she's clingy

4. Chase after a mischievous crawler

I'm sure #5 will be RUN AFTER A MISCHIEVOUS TODDLER! We have a little time before that happens though.

We had quite the week last week. I was terribly sick the weekend after we got home from Florida, and Ivy followed suit pretty quickly. I felt like I was racing against time, because right before I got sick I'd called her surgeon for a checkup, which was scheduled for that Thursday. I wanted to ask about a couple of episodes Ivy'd had, where she'd swallowed a bit of food and had thrown it back up a few minutes later. I was concerned she might have a stricture and need a dilation. 

Luckily, she was mostly better by Tuesday, so on Thursday we made the trek up to the hospital and had a quick meeting with the surgeon. She recommended an esophagram, which they scheduled for the following day, to see if there was a stricture. (They also doubled her omeprazole dose - it's an anti-reflux medication that protects the surgery site against developing too much scar tissue.) And then on Thursday night, her fever came back, so on the way up to the esophagram appointment I made an appointment with her pediatrician for the afternoon.

This was her third esophagram. The first two times she did really well, but this time she was hungry and did NOT want to stay still and drink the barium. I don't blame her. Luckily, the technician got the x-rays he wanted, and the doctor said everything looks great - in fact it looks better than last time! So that made me feel better. It still didn't tell me why she's getting food stuck, but now I think it probably has more to do with the motility of the esophageal muscles - they stop and start up again at the stricture site, rather than move the food down in one fluid motion. So we continue to watch and stay careful when we feed her pieces of food.

After the esophagram, we stopped in at the pediatrician. I had mentioned that she had those episodes of food being stuck, and then the nurse tried to get a blood oxygen level and ended up with a measurement of 75. So the resident came flying in, thinking she had aspiration pneumonia, but once they saw that I wasn't worried about her they did another O2 check and it was normal. Sorry for the heart attack, doctor. Turned out she had croup! I feel awful, because now I realize I can't tell the difference between her floppy trachea barky cough and croup. Anyway, she got some steroids and felt better the next day. Boy, it's amazing the difference in her demeanor when she's not feeling well - she's always such a happy girl that when she's not feeling well it's super obvious.

Let's see, what else... she is waving like crazy, to everything. It takes her a little bit of time to warm up when she's in a new place or around new people, but she's not afraid of being held by people she doesn't know. She's starting to do the "I'm shy" head-on-mama's-shoulder thing sometimes when new people (or people she doesn't remember) say hello to her. She's definitely teething; I can feel her left lower front tooth right under the surface, and she's been biting my nipple quite often the last week or so. I was going to say that she's sleeping great - all the way through the night, like 9 hours - but that was short-lived, heh. Last week it started taking her upwards of an hour to fall asleep, and she was pretty bitey. It's probably a combination of teething and going through another mental leap (and learning how to crawl and stuff changing her brain). She's constantly babbling, but no "mama" yet. She can't stand hats; they come off within seconds of being put on. This is unfortunate because it means I can't take her out in the sun for very long - but it's OK 'cause I don't like being in the sun either; we can stick to the shade together.


My lettuce wrap worked well as a hat too, but I couldn't get a photo of it before she started ripping it off her head!