Urent Care... now Emergency Room

Two trips with the doctors this week. We started off Monday with a trip to urgent care with Connor's allergic reaction to peanuts, and end the week with tonight's rush to the ER. Connor has been feeling perfectly fine all day... his normal happy self. He went to bed tonight without a problem. But at 11pm he woke up crying a little. Usually I just let him cry it out for a moment and he goes back to sleep. But before long, he started crying a little more, and then making a funny coughing noise. Then the cries turned into screams. So of course I go into his room, and he's sitting up in bed, gasping for air, in between cries and coughing, and hysteria. So of course I call my Mom (because she knows all!) and she told me to take him to the ER.

So... the whole drive there (about a 5-7 min. drive) he's crying and coughing and wheezing, etc. But as we get to the ER, he calms down a bit, and they listen to his breathing, and he's all of a sudden not wheezing, and nothing seems wrong with him. But they put us into a room anyway, and give him a steroid, and he's all smiles and talking to the nurses and happy as can be. No one hears much of anything coming from him. So they leave the room again, and he starts whining a little. So with all the medical people outside the room, I knew someone has to be listening. And then Connor wants my phone, which I usually would just let him play with... but I thought "when he cries, he starts coughing.... I'll just let him cry." So I don't let him play with my phone... he starts crying... he starts coughing and having trouble breathing. RIGHT away I hear "oh wow, he sounds bad in there... sounds like he has croup." So someone comes in a few minutes later and said "I heard him coughing out there. We're going to do a breathing treatment right away."

I swear before that moment... they thought I was making it all up!!! Well, giving a breathing treatment to a 14 month old isn't the easiest of things, but he was pretty good, and was even holding it up to himself.

Finally the wheezing and breathing calmed down, and he was just having a blast playing on the bed...

Then the doctor came in, and said that it sounds like he's got asthma and croup. But she wasn't going to say "asthma" and classify him as asthmatic this young. (Not sure why... if he's got it, he's got it). She asked if either of us had it and I said yes, that I do, and she said "ok, well then yeah, he probably does. But I'm not writing it in his record. We don't like to classify that until they're at least 5. But he does have croup." Poor baby. She said that it's not contagious though, so that's good. I read online that there are 2 types of croup.... was caused by a viral infection, and the other by allergies. The viral one is contagious, the allergy one isn't. So, like I've thought/known since Connor was a month or two old, is that he has HORRIBLE allergies. Yet no doctor would admit it or do anything about it when he was under one. But now that he's 14 months, I'm going to set up an appointment with his doctor to get a referral to an allergist, to see if there's anything I can do to prevent this from happening again.

P.S. That was the shortest trip to the ER I've ever had.... we were only in there 2 hours :)

My faithful subject...

In anticipation for my new camera lense that should be arriving Monday, I am continuing my practice with manual settings. My wonderful and beautiful baby boy is such a trooper with helping me on that :)

Happy St. Patrick's Day!

I've been testing out my manual settings on my camera lately. I've been way too chicken up until now to do anything other than automatic. But I realize that the pictures are 100% better when you know how to do your own settings. So that's what I've been working on. Of course Connor is ALWAYS my main subject. I LOVE this picture, because it's VERY VERY rare that he looks directly into the camera, and I actually caught it this time! We were taking pictures out in the backyard because the grass is REALLY long, and I thought it would be a good setting. He HATES the grass though, so he was refusing to smile. And then the sun started going down, and it got too late to do any more pictures.. but at least I got one! I wanted a couple of him standing in the grass, but hopefully we'll catch those ones some time this week, before Aaron mows the lawn :)

P.S. I LOVE his eyes... you can see the beautiful night sky in them :)

No More Peanut's for Connor!!!

So who knew that something so small would create something so big???

Aaron had some Whoppers (like the picture below) and I decided to give Connor one. The doctor's said to wait until he was one to introduce nuts, so I thought I was okay (he's almost 14 months old now). I had even given him some almond butter last month, and he hadn't had a problem. So I figured peanut butter would be fine too. I was wrong...

This was the outcome...

(sorry for the horrible pictures, I only had my camera phone with me)

Within 30-45 seconds from eating the candy, his eyes started getting red. Then his mouth, cheeks, neck, etc. started getting red and puffy. And then he started getting blistery hives all over his face and neck. So of course Aaron and I rush him to Urgent Care and he's seen right away (sorry to all those who were ahead of me... but this was an emergency)... then it started getting worse and his eyes got all swollen, and hives started spreading to where his hair is. My poor little baby... and he was so good. He just sat there taking it all in, not even crying. All he kept doing was trying to rub/scratch at his eyes. Luckily after the meds, it started going down. After waiting about an hour to make sure he was still ok, we were sent home with strict rules...

NO PEANUTS!

Officially Walking!!!

Connor has been "walking" for about a month and a half now. He started a few days before his first birthday. BUT... it was always only a step or two, and not that often. He wouldn't do it on his own... he'd only SOMETIMES do it when I bribed him, lol. But about a week ago, he just decided to take off and start walking, and now he won't stop. I was trying to get pictures of him walking, but he'd only walk away from me, so there you have it :-)

And here are two cute pictures of him... just because! :-)

Connor's First Haircut

I've been wanting to get Connor's hair cut for a while now, but everyone kept telling me to wait and not to cut it. Everyone always said how cute it was, because he has this little curl. But that curl is ONLY present like 1 day out of the week. All the other time it's a rat's nest and it was getting so long I thought he looked like a girl, lol. So finally I just decided to cut it.

I was a little worried about him staying still though, because he's NEVER still. But he did really really good. I sat him in the sink of our bathroom. I turned the water on, so he could play in it. And I gave him a sucker, lol. He was in heaven!

Fruit Photo Session

My brother-in-law, Nathan, asked me to photograph their family farm and their products to put pictures onto their company/farm website. I'd never photographed fruit, but I figured I'd give it a try. I actually had lots of fun doing it! (and learned lots about Navel oranges from Nate) They said that if product sales pick up, they might add other fruit to the site that they grow, so I might get hired back to take more pictures :-)