Worst blogger updater ever

I'm not very good at this blogging thing. One, I don't remember to do it often, or I don't have much time. Two, I don't think most people care about the mundane things that occur in our lives. Not that I think our lives are boring-I like things calm and predictable, so our "ordinary" life is fine with me. So all you get today are some pictures of Andy, which is what most people want to see anyway. The first one looks like he is upset; I caught the moment right before he smiles. And in the second picture, he looks like he needs to be powdered. Andy has very mild eczema, so we slather him with cetaphil after a bath and use aquaphor on his face, which leaves him a little shiny. That plus the ever present drool will make you reflect light like a beacon. But, the cetaphil-aquaphor combo works great to keep his eczema away.

The ball pit is the best $30 we have spent. Andy LOVES it.

Not enough hours in the day

I always knew that juggling a career, marriage, and motherhood would be difficult.

It is so much more difficult that I imagined.

I feel like I start everyday already behind in most of those categories. And it's not that I lack time management skills (which could be better, but by necessity, I don't really waste a lot of time. Except for right now).

It's the emotional part of it. Something or someone always gets left out: my patients, Coby, Andy, parents, friends. And carving out time for yourself is doubly hard. At the end of the day, I am frustrated with what I didn't get done, which just adds more to the to-do list for the next day.

Will I ever catch up?

And don't let this post fool you-I wouldn't change my life for anything. Even more free time. I just have to learn to reorganize my priorities and create a shorter to-do list. I've been a parent for only 8 weeks, so I feel like I am still learning how to juggle life. And it is getting easier...I think.

Scout

Our sweet 9 year-old Boxer, Scout, is sick.

She has been slowly losing weight over the past 6 months, but it seems to have accelerated recently. She has never been overweight, always weighing in around 60lbs. But she is now 50lbs, almost 20% of her bodyweight lost! Her appetite, activity level, temperment, etc... is the same. Nothing unusual going on except the weight loss. Coby and I put off the vet appointment for at least one month, because we knew it couldn't be good news. The beginning of the end of our other Boxer, Oscar, started the same way. All lab work is okay, but her xrays show two large tumors on her heart. The vet says they are likely hemangiosarcomas, a malignant cancer seen in Boxers, especially on the heart. There is no treatment. So she is now on prednisone twice daily to help with inflammation and hopefully slow the weight loss. She is such a sweet girl, and I don't know what we will do without her.

ORL visit

We took Andy to a pediatric ORL specialist this week. He confirmed what we thought was going on, saying that he looks great and should grow out of his "loud breathing" without any long-term issues. Yea!

He is enjoying the limited amount of daycare he has attended, although he cries for a couple of minutes when we leave. He is definitely attached to Coby!

Life is good. Only complaint is there are not enough hours in the day.

Andy's 1st Birthday

Andy had is one year-old pictures on Friday. He was amazing during the photo shoot, just smiling and playing. He can be so patient! I'm sure Coby, my mother-in-law, and I looked completely ridiculous trying to make him smile. But it worked, and we have great pictures to show for it.

My favorite photos from the day.

For the Christmas card (I can't believe I actually convinced Coby to do this...parenting does change a person, I guess):

We had a great time yesterday celebrating Andy's 1st birthday with friends and family. We got Andy his own cake, which he was very interesting in playing with, not so much with eating it. It was basically like fingerpaint for him. He scored some really neat toys and cute clothes. I have no idea where we will put all this stuff, especially since Christmas is next month. Maybe it's time to start building that house??

Tracheomalacia

What is that, you might ask?

It is the answer to what ails our Andy.

The last post details our bout with Croup (which is still the devil). Andy has also had three prior hospitalizations for bronchiolitis. We assumed he had asthma, so we started pulmicort last week with albuterol treatments when he wheezed.

But something strange was happening. The albuterol did nothing. NOTHING. We were holding him down for these nebulized treatments for no perceived benefit. And Coby and I would listen to him, and we had been saying to each other that it sounded like the wheezing was coming from his upper airways, not really in his lungs. But with babies, it can be difficult to tell what part of the airway is making noise.

Then it all clicked into place yesterday. Prematurity + multiple hospitalizations for lung infections + almost daily "noisy breathing but not quite wheezing" = tracheomalacia. It is when the muscles that surround the trachea are not as strong as they should be, so they are floppy. Babies will breathe loudly, wheezing a lot of the time. These noises are made as air is inhaled or exhaled, vibrating the floppy muscles. But the baby is fine and happy, despite what sounds like a respiratory problem. And it is usually self-limiting, so no therapy is needed. He should grow out of it sometime this year.

So he doesn't have a lung problem so much as a trachea problem. We are hopeful that it is mild, as he doesn't have the other issues that can arise with severe tracheomalacia, such as poor weight gain, cyanotic spells, or reflux. Which means we can stop the pulmicort for now, as well as the liquid steroid and albuterol.

You would think I could have figured this out sooner. It only took 9 days and a dozen doctors' opinions (seriously, at least a dozen...most of my friends are doctors) for us to figure this out.