13 months old!!

Malachi, you are now 13 months old and here are some of the new "happenings" in your sweet little life!

• You now have 5 teeth (two on top and 3 on bottom) and have never given us an ounce of trouble with ANY of your teething...
• You LOVE to swallow Cheerios whole, but mom and dad have stopped giving them to you because of this very reason...
• You grind your teeth (mostly when you're sleepy) and we are working VERY HARD to break you of this VERY BAD habit...not sure where you picked it up!
• You BIT for the first time yesterday at daycare...Lolli called to tell me that you bit your friend Collin after y'all were fighting over a toy, but when we dug a little deeper, it appears as though Collin put his hand in your mouth trying to push you away and that he's pretty bad about that...STILL, though, looks like we'll have to keep an eye out for this nasty habit too!! ;o)
• You are pulling up and "cruising" on EVERYTHING and last week you took two steps to me (from the desk in daddy's office to the chair I was sitting in) - but for the life of us, we can't get you to do it again - AH WELL...all in good time!
• You have started to crawl like a bulldog and it's hilarious...Then, you'll come up to your knees and then FALL ever so dramatically with your hands down and then start crawling again...VERY FUNNY and entertaining! (on a side note to that, when I dropped you off at daycare this morning, Lolli was sitting in the TV room with all the kids so I put you down...you pranced in front of all those kids laughing like you were Mr. Big Shot!! They clapped, you clapped, you laughed, and then you pranced some more! You are such a cutiepie)
• You are saying mama, dada, nah nah (no no), uh oh, ball, bye bye but you STILL won't say Lolli...haha!
• You LOVE to hear yourself scream!
• You are eating table foods great, so much so that we are beginning to let you eat even more lunches at daycare...I can't believe you're growing up so fast!
• You're still not sleeping through the night consistently, but most times if you do cry we just give you your paci and you go right back to sleep...so it's not bad!
• On that note...this month we're working on you ONLY getting your paci at night (or naptime) and we're going to start REALLY working on weaning you from the bottle!
• You take your sippy cup GREAT and drink 2-3 full sippies of juice/crystal light per day! You're not dribbling it like you used to and you've finally learned to tip it up as HIGH AS YOU CAN to get every last drop!!
• You LOVE to BEAT ON EVERYTHING - your highchair, the floor, daddy's belly when he's laying down (haha), the end table, the TV cabinet...EVERYTHING!! Last night you even got a spanking at Feldman's because you wouldn't quit banging your cup on the table after mommy told you no...your xylophone is one of your favorite toys!
• You've learned what night night means and you'll lay your head down on a pillow or blanket anytime we say that!
• Your stranger anxiety seems to be at an all-time high right now and you love to lay your head on my chest if I'm holding you and a stranger comes around!
• You LOVE puppies! (But no, we're not getting one anytime soon! You'll just have to enjoy Daisy, Aunt Gra's puppy!)
• You're starting to fight sleep at night, thus, you cried yourself to sleep last night. (It only took about 10 minutes, though...you were VERY sleepy!)
• You eat oatmeal every morning for breakfast (and this morning momma sweetened it with some ground cinnamon though most of the time you get a flavored oatmeal so I don't have to do that!)
• You like Curious George and Syd the Science Kid on PBS - you're not so much into Veggie Tales yet - we're working on this though! Mommy wants to get some more videos and also wants to get some Praise Baby DVDs to see if you like that!
• You will dance to anything - music on your toys, us singing to you - ANYTHING!! You rock from side to side and clap your hands and it's SO cute!
• You love to play Patty Cake and are JUST figuring out how to "pitch 'em in the pan!" and you REALLY like the "Itsy Bitsy Spider" but you can't quite figure out the hand motions!
• You play peek-a-boo with your blankie in the morning when mommy changes your diaper before breakfast!
• You love your Daddy SO MUCH and me and Lolli don't exist if Daddy or Pops are around!
• You are the light of my life and you have GOT to be the hammiest, sweetest, happiest baby I've ever met!

Here are some pictures of you from our recent outings with your cousin, Angela!

You and Angela's Daughter, Sophie of sophiessassystitches.com

Cousin Haha, You, Lolli and Grandmommy (kind of...haha) at the park while mommy had to work :o(

Eating a cookie with Cousin Haha and a better picture of Grandmommy (well, kinda)

Oh yeah...and one more thing...You DON'T like it when we take food away from you! (I think you were trying to eat too much at once so they HAD to take it away...haha!)

Tough week!

For the second time in his short little life, our sweet baby Malachi is dealing with some sort of illness that has baffled doctors. Let me back up...

3 weeks ago, mommy and Mali went outside for 5 minutes to check on daddy who was weeding the yard. Seems pretty harmless right? Well, the next morning when he woke up, we noticed two small red bumps on him...one on his right temple and one on the top of his head. They were little, but immediately I was thinking either mosquito or spider. We watched them for a few days and nothing bad ever happened, so we thought he just had mosquito bites. After 3 or 4 days, the one on his face almost started to look like a small burn, but the one on his head had all but disappeared. So, we started religiously putting 1% hydrocortizone - the secret to smooth baby skin - on both spots and they eventually started to go away. Fast forward 2 weeks - last Wednesday when he woke up, the spot on his face had gotten irritated and red and the spot on his head was back. So, instead of 1% Hydrocortizone, we used some antibiotic cream trying to figure out what the heck was going on and treat it as best we could. By that evening it was pretty swollen and I told Thomas that if it got any worse, I would call the Dr. Turns out, the next morning, it was MUCH MUCH worse. It looked like a white puss pocket with a red ring around the outside and it was VERY swollen. I just KNEW he had Staph or something, so I immediately called the Dr. When we went in on Thursday, I explained to the Nurse Practitioner what had happened and she asked if she could pull the Dr. in for a consult. She thought it was Staph as well and prepared me just in case we had to lance/drain it. The Dr. came in, and when he heard the story, let me know that he thought it was just a mosquito bite and that somehow the histamine had gotten irritated again somehow and to give Malachi Benadryl. We were sent home with strict instructions to give him 3 doses of Benadryl (6 hours apart) and then call back the next day and let them know an update. When I got home that night and Thomas and I were trying to figure out WHY it took 2 weeks to get so nasty, we started to put 2 and 2 together. We had Malachi on allergy medicine starting right around the time that he got the mosquito bites and we stopped the allergy medicine on the Tuesday night before he woke up Wednesday morning with the reaction that prompted the call to the Dr. So, Benadryl it was! He woke up Friday morning and it did look MUCH better so we figured that was that! NOT SO MUCH!

Friday afternoon around 2:00, my mom called me from the daycare to let me know that he had a fever of 102.7 - taken on 2 different thermometers. I was fixing to call the Dr. anyway, so I called them and let them know what was going on. Again, they wanted me to bring him in. We saw the Nurse Practitioner again, and again, the Dr. came in to look at it just to make sure it was getting better! Since it was, they did a Strep and Flu test. The Strep test came back positive and they gave us the option of giving him a shot or doing 10 days of oral antibiotics. We opted for the shot thinking that the short term pain would be WELL WORTH getting rid of the Strep that much faster. Saturday morning, we got up and took Malachi to Aunt Dena and Uncle Jim's house to watch Malachi because we were having a HUGE garage sale! Aunt Dena called around 12:00 to let me know that Malachi's fever was up to 104, but that he had been asleep so he didn't get his Tylenol/Motrin dose until 45 minutes late. I called her about 30 minutes later and she said it was already back down to 101 so I didn't worry too much. We ended up picking him up around 2:00 and kept him wet/stripped down and fed him lots of pedialyte bottles Saturday night into Sunday. Sunday he was consistently running 103 and his fever wouldn't drop below 102 even right in the middle of a dose of Tylenol or Motrin, which we were rotating every 3 hours. So, again, I called the Dr. They called in Augmentin thinking that the Strep must have been protected by some sort of antibody and that if it wasn't better by Monday morning, the Dr. would probably want to see us again.

So, Monday morning Thomas stayed home and I went to work. But, at noon, he called and said that Malachi was VERY lethargic - couldn't hold his head up and was sleeping a LOT. So, I told them just to come to the Dr. and we'd be there when they got back from lunch. The Dr. immediately did another Strep test to see if this was all we were dealing with and it came back NEGATIVE. We then went back to the mosquito bite, which still hasn't cleared up even today, and the Dr. told us that we were going to have to get some bloodwork drawn and to watch out for stiffness in the neck, problems moving the head...etc. as these may be signs of Encephalitis/Meningitis. He was worried that we may be dealing with a West Nile TYPE of virus. We went and had the bloodwork drawn and I went back to work, thinking that if something did happen, I'd need all the sick leave I have. I only had 2 hours left anyway at that point and Thomas and my mom were going to watch him. He was in good hands!

30 minutes after I got back to work, the nurse called me and told me to get Malachi BACK to the hospital because they found something abnormal in his bloodwork and we would need to get a blood culture done. So, I immediately called Thomas and told him to head back up to the hospital and I would meet them there. While at the hospital, I spoke to the nurse again who told me that we were also going to have to go up to the PICU to get a Rocephin shot, just in case it was a bacterial infection. So, more bloodwork was done and we headed upstairs for the shot. They numbed his leg with Emla cream and gave him a 500mg shot of Rocephin...That's a HUGE dose of Rocephin for a 23 pound baby...

We brought him home and his fever FINALLY broke Monday night at midnight, only to kick back up again Tuesday afternoon. We have kept it under control with Tylenol and Motrin and it broke last night at midnight again and hasn't come back. However, NOW he has a rash ALL OVER his body...Originally I thought it was just a viral rash/strep rash/fever rash, but now that it's actually gotten WORSE today, I don't know WHAT it is. The Dr. said there's nothing we can do at this point except wait for the blood culture and see if it grows anything. Thankfully, though he's sleeping a LOT more than usual, Malachi seems to be feeling much better. He's eating regularly and drinking a ton. So, other than the rash (which doesn't seem to be bothering him) he's almost as good as new. I'm just terrified that the Dr. knows something and isn't telling me...or at least suspects something. I know God knows what He's doing, but when it's your baby, how can you NOT worry? I've spent the last few nights waking up every hour or so to crawl out of bed and hear him breathing in his crib...I've slept beside his crib on the floor for 3 or 4 hours at a time just for comfort and I've cried more than I have since the LAST time he was so sick and we didn't know why!

This too shall pass - I know...but I'm so ready for him to be better and for us to KNOW what's wrong! It's the unknown that's the worst!! Please Lord - protect my baby and heal his sweet little body...I'd give my life if I thought it would help!

More 1st B-day Pictures

Okay so I've finally gotten around to getting pictures off of MY camera (no, not the lost one, the big one that we rarely pull out anymore, unless, of course, mommy lost hers...ah well, how thankful we are that we are blessed enough to worry about WHICH camera to use...) But I digress!

Here's Mommy and Mali right before the party started!

Aren't his monkey ears just the cutest?

And here's the whole family! I know I'm biased, but aren't we cute? haha!(Oh, and here's a MUCH better view of the T-Shirt Angela over at http://www.sophiessassystitches.com/ made us!)

Here's Mali on his little turtle Lolli and Pops got him! He LOVES to ride on it, even though he can't push himself on it just quite yet! Oh well...Daddy's a GREAT pusher! Can't you just see how much fun he's having? (Okay, how much fun they're BOTH having!)

Cheeks just don't come any more kissable do they??

And - here is Malachi's cake AFTER he tore into it! Once he got past the icing, there was no stopping him!

I wonder if Lolli got rid of that blue ring around her tub??? Just Kidding - it came right off, surprisingly! We sure thought we'd be sending a little boy who looked like he ate a smurf to church on Sunday morning!!

Does anyone ELSE see a future Senior Yearbook picture here?

Mom...enough with the naked bath pictures already!

And, last but not least, mom tried to get creative, but it didn't work! Still...it's a cute picture of Mali all wrapped up in Lolli's beach towel! What a great day! (And, hi to Holly and Collin who got in this shot with us!)