Thanks for the Update, Doc

We went to see a new allergist today for Lucia's breathing/allergy issues. We were excited about seeing this guy; our new pediatrician, who we like, had recommended him. We got there, and I asked a bunch of questions, namely is this asthma? Before we were calling it reactive airway disease. Now it's asthma. He said the difference between the two is like the difference between cola and coke. So. Yes. Asthma.

So we talked about doing the Pulmicort until May, and he said we could take her off in April, but if she started wheezing again, put her back on. We explained that her first symptoms weren't necessarily wheezing, it was more getting every little cold that comes along. He agreed the Pulmicort would help prevent that.

We talked about the potential for gluten to be (as I have read in several books) creating an system-wide inflammation, which in turn is fueling the allergies and asthma. He said no, gluten has nothing to do with allergies. Which is contrary to what I've read, but I don't pretend to be an expert (on everything anyway).

We took more tests, and surprise, she's allergic to eggs and milk still. She had a hard time with the tests today; the nurse was scary despite having a Cat in the Hat shirt on. She cried and cried but managed to stay still for 20 minutes after the serums were applied so we could get a good reading.

On the left: milk at the top, then egg, then the bottom is ragweed. The one on the right is the control (histamine).

The doc came in and announced the results and informed us she absolutely could have her MMR vaccine (the nurse at Kaiser told Pete it had egg in it) because there's no eggs in it. He gave us some handouts from the Interwebs.

Overall we weren't impressed. He seemed like a nice enough guy, but he seemed kinda missing a sensitivity chip. He's retiring in June, so we probably won't see him again. I don't really understand the point of us going.

I guess it couldn't have gone well, given the news. Little Miss has asthma. I'm terrified. We are going to meet with an asthma educator (should be interesting, but I'm trying to keep an open mind) sometime in the future to learn how to identify her triggers and course of treatment. Giant sigh.

Little climber

Not quite ready to climb all the way on her own but she is enjoying the height.

Captivated

Television = toddler crack.

Reunited and It Feels So Good!

When Lucia started at her new daycare in early January, our daycare provider forgot to give her pacifier at nap, and said that she really didn't need it and it was best to give it up. This was earlier than I had wanted, but feeling sheepish and wanting to listen to someone with a lot more experience than me, we gave it up. For me, extremely reluctantly. I just didn't feel like she was ready. 

People? 

Since then, Lucia has been so unbelievably challenging to get to bed. We have tried EVERYTHING. You name it, we tried it. It's been extremely stressful; her bedtime was 8 p.m., and some nights she wouldn't get to sleep until 9:30. So we started backing her bedtime up to 7:30, then 7, because of the epic battles. She still wasn't getting to bed at a reasonable hour (meaning 12 hours of sleep, as she requires) and worse? She was waking up in the middle of the night, as I posted earlier today about. She could not get settled down and was DESPONDENT. Frankly, so was I. I would start tensing up at dinner, awaiting the battle that was around the corner. 

I thought about it all day and a light bulb came on when I was writing to Eddie's mom. Bring back the pacifier. We did not have these problems when we had it, and enough is enough. Pete and I went back and forth on it, and I talked to other parents. He was very reluctant to introduce it, and thought it would confuse her. But we agreed to give it a try. The decision was made. 

You should have seen the look on her face when I presented the pacifier to her tonight. Sheer and utter JOY. She immediately put it in her mouth, then took it out and gazed at it longingly, as if to say, could it be? Is it really you?? 

I shut the door at 7:33 tonight. By 7:40 she was asleep. The house is quiet. She's soothed. 

I know other toddlers might not have them, but I really don't care what other toddlers do; I care about my kid and her needs. We will wean off the pacifier when she is ready. I am certain that time is not now. 

Bruised breakfast - UPDATED

Enjoying a clementine for breakfast. She launched herself off the chair she is sitting in right there in a rage only a 2 year old can muster and hit her head on the table.

Here is another picture of her tonight, showing last mornings little goose egg in all its glory :

Embracing her Two-ness

Welp. Lucia is really embracing the whole two-year-old thing, complete with spazzing out and throwing tantrums in the middle of the night. To the point where she launches herself out of her chair and bangs her head on the table corner, resulting in a vertical line on her forehead that looks like it's bruisy Ash Wednesday. 

As a result, tonight's required reading will be Positive Discipline, a book recommended to us by our daycare providers, and the Healthy Sleep Habits Happy Child book, specifically the chapter about freaking out in the middle of the night and demanding peanut butter, water, meat, rocking, monkey, no monkey, bunny, no bunny, Daddy, Mommy, No Daddy, Just Mommy, Only Daddy, blanket NOT THAT ONE, no blanket, pajamas, no NOT THOSE.

Bafftime

Fun with teepee!

Still loves it!

First shopping cart

I don't think Lucia had seen one of these before but she claimed it and was very helpful throughout the store picking out all the things she would like to have.

Dinner with Lucia

Happy President's Day

Lucia and her new friend at daycare Benjamin show off their new hats made for President's Day.

Better

I took this Monday night at dinner, as we pleaded with Lucia to please eat just a bit of food. She got a new car on Sunday, and proceeded to learn how to roll it here. 

Respite and then Yucky Night

Lucia developed a fever Friday night and started getting progressively worse over the weekend. Yesterday we started breathing treatments, but loaded her in the new stroller with blankies and took her on a walk over to Piedmont Avenue, which has lots of stores and restaurants. On the way home she absolutely refused to ride in the stroller, so we alternated between carrying her and letting her walk. My favorite part was when we got to walk through the municipal rose garden, which is very close to our new place. It's so beautiful, and Lucia enjoyed it too.

It was a nice respite from the worrisome morning and what turned out to be an upsetting night.

Unfortunately she took a turn for the worse when we got home; her fever spiked to 102 and she seemed out of breath despite having albuterol. After calling the advice nurse, she told us to take her to the ER. We got there, and they took her stats, and her pulse ox -- the level of oxygen in her blood -- was a little low, so they were concerned. We waited a bit longer, then saw a doctor who prescribed prednisone, the same necessary evil drug I've had to go on several times this year, and they gave her a breathing treatment. She was absolutely wired when we got home (around 9), but we managed to get her to eat some dinner and go to bed easily. Well, somewhat, if you count banging on the door and crying. Which is basically every night since we decided to take away the pacifier. But I digress...

The doctors aren't sure if she has asthma or what, but she has asthma-like symptoms whenever she gets sick. So we'll be using the nebulizer to give her breathing treatments until the end of May (and the end of flu season!). It is also likely that the dairy challenges we tried leading up to the weekend did not help, so we won't be doing that again until we have the green light from her allergist.

We know it's just asthma-like, and I'm trying really hard not to jump to conclusions and stay calm. As for Lucia, she's absolutely fine. She was jumping on the beds in the ER during last night's visit -- despite not being able to breathe -- and seemed generally unfazed by the whole thing. Though she did break down at dinner and sobbed her eyes out. I sympathized. Going to the hospital is STRESSFUL.

Early Play Date and Chapped Lips

Lucia and I went to meet some other moms at a park this morning to plan our other friend's baby shower. All of our kids played nicely in the fenced in playground, and we had a nice "meeting." But I did notice Lucia's lips are super chapped, making them seem even redder than usual. People routinely ask me if she has lipstick on, to which I often jokingly answer, "yes, and just a touch of bronzer." 

So anyway. She crashed on the way home, but I did my special chapped lip remedy when we got home and she was awake and hopefully they won't be flaky and angry lookin anymore. 

Cheese!!

Uh literally! We read the story in the New Yorker (someone got me a subscription recently) about allergies, and decided to try small bits of dairy to see if Lucia had a reaction. We tried some butter one night on vegetables. Then butter on bread last night. Then actual, real live cheese today. Here she is eating parmesan. With no reaction. Any of the times. Terribly terribly exciting!!!

Humor Me

Oh Em Gee here she goes again about Lucia's hair.

Yep.

Here I go again. Humor me here. Giggle with me as we discuss the more mundane aspects of life.

Tangles, I got you beat. I've mentioned it before, but her hair was a tangly tangly mess of ratnest/cotton candy. I tried a 2 in 1 thing. Then a separate shampoo + conditioner + detangler. NADA. No change. Still tangles. Still the cries of OW MOMMY. I was starting to really sympathize with my mom, who basically said eff it and cut my hair off when I was 3. For which I may or may not have trouble letting go of.

Ahem. So anyway. I started using the fancy hair product on her -- no shampoo, nothing else, just this, and VOILA. Tangle free bouncy curl hair. Feeling jubiliant, and ok, a little cocky, I decided to comb it out last night, while it was dry. It looked really, really pretty when I was done. This morning it looked kind of unfortunate: straight in the front and curly in the back, so I propped up the front with a ponytail and she looked immediately like her name was Sabrina. Cute!

When she came in the door from daycare tonight, it was all kinds of Barry Gibb. I mean.

Look.



This is a cute kid (at least we think so), and look at this unfortunate, unfortunate hair. Somewhat curly. Somewhat stick straight. Overwhelmingly poofy. Note: yes that is Trader Joe's grapeseed oil in the shower. Highly recommend as a shaving cream and eye makeup remover.

Good news though! She's been washed and glammed up and is back to bouncy curls. I suppose I should have a picture, but I didn't want to appear a little nuts about my kid's hair. Perhaps I'm a bit too late on that?

Hatty

I can't tell if I'm in love with this picture because of her smirk or the mere fact her hat is orange. Tough call.

Hitting the bars

We went out for dinner with our friend Jonathan Friday night. Lucia was pretty well behaved, but even more so when we let her watch sesame street on my phone. Here she is pre-crankster.

New stroller

The new big girl stroller is much easier to collapse, wheel around than the old stroller and is generally much liked around the house.

On This Day

Five years ago today Pete and I met. Here is the story.

I reluctantly accepted my friends Chris and Yaro's invitation to a superbowl party. I had just come back from a weeklong business trip that was incredibly stressful, to the point where I subsisted on only Luna Bars, which left my face covered in zit-hives. It was attractive. I put on my favorite jeans, my Whatchoo Talkin Bout Arnold Drummond shirt, and a black cashmere cardigan. I had sworn off dating so I didn't care what I looked like. It was a chili cookoff, so I brought spicy blue corn muffins.

I talked to the people I knew (not many, I had only been living in San Francisco for 5 months) and spotted a group of guys over in one corner. I looked at their clothes and rolled my eyes and thought, Europeans. They were dressed nicer than American guys; hipper. More daring.

Later I went into the kitchen and the dude in the velvet blazer asked me if I could open his beer. Which I did. He said he was from Norway. I impressed him with my geography "savvy" -- I knew it was near Finland. We chit chatted about the promise of nuclear energy (!) and I offered one of my muffins. That's not a euphemism for something else -- I mean the blue corn muffins. He thought they were blueberry muffins, and I'll never forget the look on his face when he bit into it. Priceless.

I went on my way and back over to the fireplace area and was holding someone's baby (I literally cannot remember whose) when he came over again, and kept talking to me. I remember thinking, this guy is not intimidated by a 30-something woman holding a baby, hmmm. We kept talking. He loudly announced to his friends that he didn't need a ride home, then immediately asked me if I could give him a ride home. Hilarious. We crossed the Golden Gate Bridge on the way home and fumbled for the toll; I took him to his car and he asked for my number. I gave it to him. He immediately called me to make sure it was the right number, which I thought was slick. He hugged me goodbye. I remember thinking what a sweet but slightly odd foreign guy. We dated and broke up, then got back together and knew this was it. It was like we were floating on a giant cloud. Blissful. Here were are in July 2006:

Four years ago today, on the beach below that same Golden Gate Bridge, we said I do. It was miserably foggy and cold, despite being perfectly clear and sunny just a few hours before. Pete had been horribly sick in the hospital days before, so he was on quite a few painkillers, but we still made it and I think he remembers the vows. I wore a $24 dress from Loehmann's, with my great grandmother's brooch on the side.

We celebrated with champagne at the Mark Hopkins Top of the Mark, which has incredible views of the city.

We had dinner afterwards at Gary Danko, which was delightful. I flew to Knoxville the next day for a business trip.

Happy Anniversary Mr. Hansen. My love for you grows richer and deeper each year. I love this ride we're taking and look forward to navigating the bends of the roads to come.

Anniversary

We thought for a while that the video Mary and David made from February 2007 was lost but I found it. And here it is:

Dreams of a Widdle Elf

I drooled over these Thursday night when we went for a walk. So. Cute. 

Sunset

Heather took this nice image last night walking home from work.