January & February

So, the past couple of months have been pretty busy for us. January was not a good month. We were all sick at some point during the month. It started out with Bella. She just had a runny nose and cough for about a week. I thought Taylor was somehow going to avoid it, but she eventually caught it, too, and her cough would get so bad that she would throw up every night when she went to bed. Of course, there are really no medicines that you can give them at this age. It used to be if they were over two you could give them cough medicines, but now they are raising the age limit. Some friends told me to give her honey, and that seemed to help her, but poor Bella couldn't take anything, and her little cold and cough eventually turned into a sinus infection and ear infection. She did really well through it all. I only took her to the doctor because her snot started to turn thick and yellow and she developed a fever and then found out she had an ear infection, too, while we were there.

Then I started to have cold & sinus symptoms which led to a sore throat. The sore throat wasn't so bad, but I started to notice white spots on the back of my throat. I figured I better go to the doctor to make sure that it wasn't strep since Taylor is constantly eating or drinking after me. My doctor wasn't in the office, so I saw one of his partners who said that I qualified for antibiotics anyway since I had had the sinus symptoms for a week, and IF it was strep, the antibiotics would cover it. By the next day, my sore throat was better, but I started getting body aches, hot flashes, chills, fatigue, and a little shortness of breath. I would try to rest a little and would start to feel better, but as soon as I got up moving around and doing stuff, I would start feeling horrible again. By the weekend, most of the symptoms were gone except the shortness of breath started to get worse. At times, it would get so bad that I would feel very anxious. I've never experienced anything like this before in my life. It felt as if I had asthma and needed an inhaler. Bella had her 9 month check up the following Monday, so I scheduled an appointment for myself as well. My doctor said my lungs sounded great, my white count looked fine, I was negative for mono, everything looked fine as far as the physical exam went. He said he thought it was probably just something viral from the very beginning and to give it another week. If I wasn't better in a week, come back in and he would test for more rare things. That day, I went home and felt incredibly short of breath and was brought to tears just thinking about having to endure this for another week, but it gradually got better, and sure enough, after another week I was feeling much better. So, yeah, the month of January was pretty much a waste for us... haha. I think we missed 3 out of 4 weeks at church.

February was incredibly busy because we were getting our house ready to put back on the market. We (well, in all fairness, I should say Jared because he did most of the work) spent a lot of time packing things up to remove clutter, cleaning, etc. Then, about halfway through the month, we decided that we would just move in with my mom while our house is for sale to try to avoid the stress of having to keep the house clean all the time when you have little kids at home.

So, our house is officially for sale now. Hopefully the second time is the charm! I hate being in limbo. I just want to get this house sold so that we can start looking for a new house. I've had some sentimental moments thinking about moving. I don't think I'll miss the house itself- it's just the memories, it was our first house together, it's where we brought both girls home from the hospital, etc.

So far, things are going well at my mom's house. I've been worried about Taylor becoming extremely spoiled because Grandma lets her do whatever she wants, which is great occasionally but not on an every day basis.. haha.. but in all honesty, I'm going to be extremely spoiled as well. My mom does so much. She always does the dishes and cleans the house- even when I tell her not to and to let me clean my own mess ;-) Plus, I always have someone here to help with the girls (she only works a few hours a day), and it definitely helps my stress level with the girls. I am very grateful for all that she does!

We had been at my mom's house for less than 24 hours when we had our first accident. My old bedroom is directly bedside the stairs. I was upstairs in my room putting things away in the closet, and Bella was in the room with me. My mom and Taylor came in the room to tell me something, and when they left, Bella went crawling after them. By the time I realized it, it was too late, and she had already fallen halfway down the stairs. I just screamed and ran after her, and then my mom came running. She fell down about 10 wooden stairs, and when she stopped, I picked her up and just started bawling. She had a knot and a bruise on her forehead and was crying, but she stopped crying after only a few minutes and was back to her normal self. Her pupils looked fine; she was moving everything well and was crawling around and being playful. I was so torn up because I don't like to mess with head injuries... you just never know. I felt like she was fine, but I would have hated not taking her to the ER (this was on a Saturday, so we couldn't just take her to our doctor's office) and then something happen to her. So, I called our doctor's office and spoke to the on-call doctor. I just needed the doctor to give me permission to monitor her at home. He asked if she cried when I pushed on the bruise/knot on her head, NO. Does it hurt when you push on her spine? (oh yeah, C-spine precautions-- the whole nurse thing went straight out the door and I went straight into mommy mode) No pain on the spine. He said that we were probably fine to just watch her and wake her every 2 hours for the next 24 hours and just go straight to the ER if her behavior or anything started to change. Anyway, things turned out just fine, but we are definitely more careful and trying to adjust to having stairs. I don't want to experience anything like that again.

So, if you know anyone who is looking for a house in our area, let us know ;-) and please pray that we'll be able to sell it quickly!