Altoid & Other Cuties' Thread

[Schmeelkie]

Oh yeah, and my now 11 year old nephew is taller than me! 5' 3.5" at last check... And he's wearing mens size 11 shoes - bigger than his dad and uncle! We figure he'll be taller than my husband (5'9")in 2 years, tops, then taller than his dad (5'10.5")by the time he's 14. His little brother who is only 9 months older than Bella is almost a head taller than her...and she's not small for her age!

[piqaboo]

Congrats to pumpkin and bella!
Jetfuel (altoid's cousin) recently got instructed to 'write a subtraction sentence using 10, 6, 4.'. They wanted the other side of 6+ 4 = 10.
Instead he gave them 6-10= -4. He's in first grade.

[Schmeelkie]

would appreciate any prayers, good thoughts, etc you could extend our way. Bella's got pneumonia - I've been sitting with her in bed for two days waiting for the antibiotics to kick in. It's a bit painful listenting to her breathe fast and cough and not be the talkative fun kid I'm used to. She's so tired she barely talks... it's a bit scary, but I'm staying calm for her. If she's not improved in the morning we're going back to the doctor. Thanks in advance!

[Haggis@wk]

would appreciate any prayers, good thoughts, etc you could extend our way. Bella's got pneumonia - I've been sitting with her in bed for two days waiting for the antibiotics to kick in. It's a bit painful listenting to her breathe fast and cough and not be the talkative fun kid I'm used to. She's so tired she barely talks... it's a bit scary, but I'm staying calm for her. If she's not improved in the morning we're going back to the doctor. Thanks in advance!

How's she doing. You shoulda taken in at the time (hindsight parenting is much easier the older I get) But how is she now??

[Shapley]

She has my prayers.

[jamiebk]

Schmeelkie....hope all is well and speedy recovery. lung ailments are tough. Hang in there

[Trumpetmaster]

praying for Bella

[dai bread]

Good luck! I expect all will be well, but you'll have an anxious time until it is.

[DavidS]

Best wishes for a full and speedy recovery.

[Schmeelkie]

THANK YOU ALL for your prayers and good wishes!!!

On the third day, Bella sat up in bed and asked for buttered bread. The sitting up (without just drinking some water and collapsing) was a big improvement, as was her coming out with 3 sentences in a row. So we spent Friday still on her bed, but eating, reading and watching movies (gotta love the portable DVD player!). She was pretty pooped again by the end of the day, but so much improved! Saturday she was up and around and playing. Still tired easily, but in all other ways much more herself. By the end of the day she was bickering with her brother, so I KNEW she was better!
Monday I didn't mind taking her out of school around 12:30 for a dental appointment - she crashed 1.5 hours early that night, and didn't appreciate when we had to wake her for her antibiotics, but she's been getting through school fine all week. I'm thinking our 'something fun' this weekend will consist of a visit to the library and maybe a movie. Get us out of the house, but do something low key.

All I have to say is that pneumonia is scary - I don't recommend it.

I'm still getting caught up at work, but everyone here understands.

[Shapley]

All I have to say is that pneumonia is scary - I don't recommend it.

I remember having 'walking pneumonia' many years ago. I do recall that it was no fun. That was back in the days before the antibiotic-resistant strains were common, too.

I'm glad to hear she's doing better. Take care!

[monkeymd2b]

Hey Strangers! Thought I'd poke in and see what everyone has been up to!

As for me, I'm growing my own classical music appreciator. She is due July 3rd but you know how well babies respect their due dates. Her nickname we gave her from the beginning was Beaker since we needed IVF to make her (gotta love it when you're completely normal and yet doctors still can't figure out what the problem is) I told my husband that technically she was made in a petri dish but he preferred Beaker and since we're both science geeks, that works fine too. We also found a youtube video of Beaker (as in Bunsen & Beaker) performing the Ode to Joy, which was the what the symphony played at one of our early dates we went on. I know research is limited in how much it benefits babies to hear music in the womb but I love listening to it too so if it helps her, then hey, why not, right? Other than that, nothing much is different. 3.5 yrs out of residency training and work is still going well. So, here's a picture of Beaker:

[Shapley]

Congratulations!

[Selma in Sandy Eggo]

Yay Beaker! Yay Dr. Monkeymama! Good health and joy to the three of you!

[dai bread]

Congratulations! Also congrats on getting a good photo. That's the first I've seen where I could make out the baby without peering closely.

[BigJon]

Yay! Congrats!

[monkeymd2b]

She is a very cooperative baby. She was in perfect position for her 12 wk genetic screening ultrasound as well as the 20 wk anatomy scan. Now to hope she stays that way outside of me! She is currently breech so I keep telling her the exit is in the other direction. Still lots of time for her to figure that out though. Tonight we had our first hypnobirthing class and one of the things the instructor recommended is finding songs that can help me stay calm and relaxed...well, I have an ipod full of relaxing classical music! I discovered that the moonlight sonata works well for that when I nearly passed out during my lunch break last week. The ipod randomly decided to go on one song repeat mode on that song. I was wondering why it kept playing over and over again...my ipod is developing a life of its own and I guess is a fan of that song. I am going to have to create a play list though that excludes the more exciting pieces.

[jamiebk]

Hey Monkey Doc...congratulations on the next stage of your life! best wishes for a smooth pregnancy and delivery. My kid was a Frank's breach delivered vaginally (wife not happy). My best friend was the doctor and I was there for the whole thing. He made quite a splash at the hospital on that delivery. lol

[Schmeelkie]

Congrats Monkey! I can see how cute she is already! Rub that belly hello for me! It so doesn't feel that long ago to me, but my little Bella is 5 1/4! I am one of those crazy people who really enjoyed being pregnant. Helped that the first time, during the first tri when I was feeling crappy most of the time, I'd be lounging on the couch and my husband would walk into the room, look at me and say, "Wow - you're pregnant....we're going to have a baby....wow!" Made it easier to get through the rough patches. I'd guess that even with your more complete than most people's knowledge of what's going on, it's still an awe-inspiring thing to be pregnant. Enjoy it!

Bella's been enjoying 'Dr. Suess week' at school. Monday, for 'Green Eggs and Ham Day', she wore green (got her into a 'girly' green shirt she's been avoiding all winter); Tuesday for 'Cat in the Hat Day', she was supposed to wear a silly hat, but just wanted to wear her Yankees hat (that we couldn't find), but was happy with a Rochester Red Wings hat (our AAA baseball team); Wednesday was 'Wacky Wednesday' - dress silly: so she wore one of her usual 'boy' shirts, with a blue skirt, mismatched sneakers (apparently a popular idea), and sock on her feet. Apparently her teacher, who is usually well-coifed and dresses very professionally, was in sweats and had her hair in about 10 ponytails. I'm hoping someone got a picture of that for the class website! Today is 'Fox in Socks Day' - she just wore one white sock and one orange sock as we didn't have any silly socks. Should have asked my mom - she has some 'holiday-themed' socks... Finally, Friday has a sleep theme (can't remember the book titles), so she'll be going to school in jammies and bringing her Bun-bun. she's VERY excited about that!

Pumpkin just had a good Feb break week at Zoo camp - this is the last year he'll be able to go for these mid-year breaks. We counted and figured it was his 8th week of zoo camp. It apparently doesn't get old for him even when he has duplicates of various crafts now. The April break was opened up to Kindergartners (they'll have two age-group classes), so Bella will get her first Zoo Camp experience. She keeps vasillating between being excited about it and wanting to go to the daycare instead...we'll see how that goes.

One of these days I'll get a couple of pictures up here. But now, I should really get back to work!

[monkeymd2b]

Dr. Seuss week sounded like fun! I need to add some of those books to our registry.

I am certainly loving this pregnancy! After the issues getting pregnant, I've been blessed with an easy pregnancy so far. No nausea at all, no constipation (i was worried about that one), baby is growing well and even though it's a little weird and slightly disturbing to feel her kick/punch my rectum, it's nice getting the reassurance of a living baby in there. Not too fond of having to pee frequently but nothing like a swift kick in the bladder to tell me it's time to empty. LOL! Actually, had a surprise scan on tuesday and she was head down. I think I felt her flip monday night. Had a lot of spicy salsa at dinner and I swear she was going nuts that night. The scan was because a radiologist was visiting our clinic to talk about her latest business news and one of those is offering portable ultrasound. Her techs go to primary care offices and do scans which are transmitted to her at her main office so she reads them and the docs get access to the reports and images online. All secure, of course. So they wanted to know if we wanted to see the image quality so I volunteered (not that they had to twist my arm!). They didn't bring in the printer and I forgot to snap photos with my camera. Doh! So almost everyone in the clinic came through to see the little girl and the providers of course got to see how awesome the image quality was. It also does 3-d so got to see a 3D image of her face along with the foot and hand near by. Very cool! She was sucking her fingers at one point. My coworker is due a week behind me so we scanned her too. She isn't finding out what she's having so we had them avoid the crotch. Her baby isn't as cooperative with the profile views. Head is burrowed into the placenta or wall of the uterus every time she's had a scan but the 3D view did manage to get a good shot. I guess for a profile 3d image, they actually need a frontal view of the face and then an image is constructed that way. Well, it could be dangerous if we end up having them come in and do scans for our patients. They can either print images for patients or give them a CD of the images. The quality is so great that you can enlarge them to 8x10 without getting pixelation. Yep, it could get dangerous. LOL!
And there are many things about experiencing pregnancy that they just don't teach you in med school and residency so it's been a learning experience! I laughed and told my friend that I think I needed a partial refund on my education since they seemed to leave out some important things.