A Smile is worth a thousand words

Lauren reached a major milestone today.  One that I wasn't quite ready for.  Daddy pulled her first tooth tonight after church!!!  When I picked Lauren up from school today she told me her tooth was really loose.  I had just brushed her teeth that morning before school and I didn't notice any difference from when we first discovered the loose tooth.  She went to the dentist last week during spring break and the dentist said it could come out in a week or months, depending on how much she wiggled it.  I hadn't noticed her wiggling it a lot.  She had kind of gotten used to the idea of a loose tooth and wasn't obsessed with it.  But today after school when I got home and looked at her tooth, it was really loose.  We wiggled it and I pulled gently on it, but it didn't come out.  After church when Bill got ready to brush her teeth, we asked her if she wanted Daddy to try to pull the tooth and she said yes!!!  She is such a brave little girl.  Bill wiggled it a little and it started to bleed some.  That scared her a bit, but she wanted him to keep trying.  After just a couple of quick pulls with a Kleenex, the tooth came out!!!  She was soooo excited.  It was just two weeks ago yesterday, March 8th when we discovered the loose tooth.  That seems kind of fast for a tooth to come out to me.  I don't know.

Both Lauren and Allison are quite excited about the tooth fairy visiting tonight.  When I told Lauren I would check on her tonight, she told me to be careful not to disturb her when the tooth fairy came.

Lauren's loose tooth right before Daddy pulled it

The hole in her mouth



Lauren's first baby tooth to come out



That precious smile



Another sweet smile



Big sister sharing the moment with her little sister

My baby is growing up way too fast.  I can't believe that she has less than 9 weeks of kindergarten left.  I am so thankful to Bill for supporting me and wanting me to stay home with Lauren and Allison.  It truly is a blessing to be able to enjoy these brief years that are passing so quickly.  I love my husband and my girls very much!

Drugs and More Drugs

It's very sad when you have to record all the medicines you are giving, just so you make sure you give everything you need to give at the right time.  Poor Allison has accumulated quite a lengthy list of medicines she has been taking for the past couple of weeks.  She is my little high-maintenance child.  Her daily medications for her Reactive Airway disease include Flovent (an inhaler) given at bedtime and Patanase (a nasal spray for allergies) given at bed time and again in the mornings.  When she first got sick two weeks ago we had to add another inhaler Xopenex every four hours, plus mucinex for her cold, plus Tylenol or Motrin for her fever and eventually an antibiotic for her ear infection!!!  With all those medications, I had to start recording everything I gave her to make sure I was giving her the right medicines at the right time.  Bless her heart, I think she is finally well enough to just go with the Flovent and Patanase....and her antibiotic for 3 more doses.

But now it's my turn.  I finally went to the doctor today and I got to start my antibiotic for a sinus infection.  I wish I had asked the PA if I could have had the bubble gum flavored liquid Amoxicillin instead of the horse pills I get to take!:)  I'm already feeling better just knowing that I can hopefully get rid of this sinus mess that has been lingering for so long.  I haven't been to the gym in 2 weeks.  I have missed church, our parenting class, and even grocery shopping.  Bill had to do that Sunday after church while Allison and I stayed home.

Fortunately, Lauren and Bill have managed to stay well.  I am praying Lauren does not get sick because she has her kindergarten program at school this Thursday evening.  She is so excited for this program.  They have been practicing for a long time.  She loves the songs they are singing and has a small speaking part in the program.  We can't wait to see her show.

Another very exciting thing that happened to Lauren tonight.......she discovered she has a wiggly tooth!!  Her first!!!  I was surprised she could go to sleep because she was sooooo excited.  I don't think she understands how long it will be before the tooth actually comes out.  She did tell me that her teacher, Mrs. Israel pulls teeth!  That's good to know!:)

Allison's Prayer

As I was putting Allison to bed tonight, her prayer started like this,
"Thank you God for giving me a sister........"

My prayer,
"Father, thank you for the tender heart of my baby.  Please let the girls' love for each other only grow stronger and deeper as they get older.  May they always share a special love for each other through out their whole lives." Amen

Lauren's Story

 Lauren has really taken an interest in writing stories lately.  Her kindergarten teacher has done a marvelous job at teaching Lauren how to stay on the topic of her story when writing.  Lauren loves to make up stories in the car and illustrate this point by throwing in a sentence that is off the topic.  She gets a big kick out of that.  (It does not take much to entertain this little girl!)

Here is one of Lauren's latest stories she brought home from school.

There was a really cute illustration for her story, but it was on a large sheet of construction paper and I couldn't scan that big of a paper.

I have also convinced Lauren that she does not have to know every single word in a book to be able to read that book to me.  Therefore, she is really starting to read more and more to me. 

I got this little paperback book, Read to Your Bunny by Rosemary Wells at a class I went to when Lauren was just a couple of months old.  The book is about the importance of reading to your child and at the end it says, "Read to your bunny, and your bunny will read to you."  Well, my bunny is reading to me.  I just can't believe it.

Allison is also getting very interested in reading and words.  She loves to spell word family words.  She has mastered the "at" family.  I am trying to get her to broaden her horizons and try other word families, but she really loves those "at" words.  She also has her own book that she can read, The ABC Book.  She loves to read it frequently to us.  She is also starting to "read" (recite from memory) familiar books.

Allison is enjoying writing as well.  She loves to write her name, Lauren, Cindy, Bill, Madison, Mommy,and Daddy.

We are very proud of our little girls.

Olivia



We love Olivia!!  We found a new (to us) Olivia book the last time we were at the Library, Olivia and the Missing Toy.  While both girls enjoyed the book, Allison wanted to read it every night.  I found out through the Knox Moms newsletter that I receive weekly, that Olivia was going to be at Barnes and Noble for story time on Saturday.  Since I needed to clean house for our H2H group to come over on Sunday, my sweet husband took the girls to see Olivia.

Lauren hugging Olivia



Allison hugging Olivia



Playing Simon Says with Olivia





The girls with Olivia





Getting Dressed

As we were getting dressed for church this morning, Allison came into Lauren's room where I was and asked, "Mommy, can you help me get my "jumprope" on?" 
She was trying to get her jumper unbuttoned so she could put it on.

Allison

I started this post last night, but was too exhausted mentally and physically to finish it.  I took these pictures of Allison sleeping peacefully tonight.  There's nothing more precious than a sleeping baby!!

After a trip to see the pediatrician today at 12:45 and then a visit to Children's ER this evening, we  came away with a diagnosis of Reactive Airway Disease for our sweet Allison.  At the dr.'s office today, Dr. Abbie referred it as Nocturnal Asthma.  I had never heard of that, but it made sense to us when trying to figure out what causes Allison's problems with coughing at night. 
From an early age, Allison has had more than her share of restless nights due to coughing.  Before she was a year old, the nurse practitioner said she suffered from allergies and suggested we give her Zyrtec.  Bill and were not comfortable giving her that medicine at such a young age, so we just tried to manage the symptoms as best we could. 
Anytime Allison got a cold, she always seemed to have a cough that was very difficult to treat.  A cough that would keep her awake for nights in a row.  Quite a few of the colds turned into ear infections.  It wasn't until we started going to a new pediatrician (when we moved into our new house) that we actually got some medicine that helped her cough which in turn helped her sleep better.  Boy, was I thankful for that.
After another episode with coughing and no other apparent symptoms this past fall, Dr. Greg confirmed that Allison does suffer from allergies.  He said we could do some testing to find out what she was allergic to, or we can try to treat the symptoms and see if she outgrows the allergies as she gets older.  He prescribed her the nasal spray, Patanase.  The first night we used the nasal spray her cough stopped.  It was a miracle drug for us.  I couldn't believe the difference.  With the nasal spray and the cough medicine we have managed to make it through the fall and winter so far without a single ear infection!!  Yay for no antibiotics!!!!
For the past four or five nights, though, Allison has been coughing all night and the nasal spray has not worked and neither has the prescription cough medicine that has been so effective in the past.
Tonight right before dinner Allison started coughing and could not stop.  After about 15 minutes of non-stop, hard coughing, Bill and I got worried.  I gave Allison the Xopenex (inhaler) the pediatrician prescribed for her which was supposed to be used at night to see if that would help.  The cough persisted and seemed even worse.  After 30 minutes of coughing with Allison doubled over as she coughed, we called the pediatrician and the nurse on call told us to take her on to Children's Hospital.
I love having Children's Hospital so close.  They are absolutely wonderful there.  As I checked Allison in they went ahead and checked her pulse-ox and triaged her immediately.  They told us to have a seat in the waiting room, but Allison and I went to the bathroom.  Before we got out of the bathroom they had already called for her to go on back to a room. 
They did a chest x-ray and a sinus x-ray to rule out pneumonia and a sinus infection.  As the dr. was listening to her lungs right before we left, she heard a wheeze from Allison.  I have not been able to hear any wheezing from her when she coughs.  But hearing the wheeze made the ER dr. feel even more confident in the diagnosis of Reactive Airway Disease.  We left with a prescription for an oral steroid and orders to use the Xopenex inhaler every four hours for 24 hours and then taper off the inhaler as symptoms improve.  We are to follow up with our pediatrician in 2-5 days. 
I hate the word disease!!  It sounds so, so awful.  While I am thankful to have a name for her persistent cough, I hate for her to have a disease.  While I am also thankful for medications that help her symptoms and allow her to sleep, I hate to be giving her so much medicine.  But, with the medicine, she slept all night only coughing once or twice.  I had to wake her up at 8:00 to get ready for school.  I honestly cannot remember the last time I woke that child up.  She's such an early riser, and she always comes and crawls in bed with me, before it is actually time to get up.  I can't say that I mind that, because she is such a great snuggler.  She will just cuddle up next to me and sometimes go back to sleep, or other times be perfectly content to snuggle.
I pray that this is something Allison will indeed, outgrow.