We figured it out

We figured out why Lauren had such a terrible night Saturday along with being a drool monster. She has Coxsackie A (a relative to hand foot and mouth.) She has a (tiny) red blister like rash, white blisters on her tonsils and is apparently contagious. I don't know how this crap happens. I didn't take her anywhere last week (after the birthday bash, I just needed a break from people in general.) Where does this stuff come from? UGH!

So we were planning to take her to Bismarck with us, but last week decided that 14 hours in the car with a baby who hates the car just isn't fair to her (not for our pleasure of showing her off, it's awfully selfish of us actually.) So she's staying home (and now it's looking like she would have HAD to stay home anyway, as she's contagious.)

Meanwhile, I had a fever of 103 last night (up from 100 the night before.) Luckily it has gone down (yes I went to the doctor yesterday, so did Lauren.) My strep test came back negative and my bloodwork looked good. I'm just wondering when the T. family is going to GET A BREAK!

Anywho, my new laptop should be arriving next week giving me something fun to look forward too (new software to learn and finally the ability to update without stealing Kev's macbook.)

What's cookin'?

I'm what's cookin'!! Here's a picture of me today playing someplace Mommy didn't want me to be. She let me hang out in the bottom of the oven long enough to take this picture. I don't know why I can't play down there. I like to open and close the drawer. It's a lot of fun.

I'm the biggest!

Check out how big I've grown in the past year....just like Mommy says, I'm "soooooo big!" She put me in my old bouncy seat to compare how big I was when I was a week old with how big I am now. I don't even remember being that small. Gosh I was tiny!! Scroll down a few posts to check out my one week picture to compare with today's.

Not so good day

Lauren had a not so good day Saturday. She was running a fever and just didn't seem herself. She went to bed at 8:30PM but woke up again at 10:15 ish and didn't go back to sleep until after midnight. After midnight, she was up pretty much every two hours after that. It was a rough night.

This morning, after her morning nap, she woke up very upset and crying. This is pretty much the only thing that would calm her. Poor baby. She seemed to improve over the course of the day, thank goodness. Although, she's screaming out again right now and it's about the same time as last night, so I'm hoping we don't have a repeat of last night! :)

HAPPY BIRTHDAY LAUREN!

We love you so much!!

Bouncy movie

Here's a video of Lauren riding the zebra...I hope it holds you over until I can get more time.

52 birthdays

Our sweet baby has celebrated 52 birthdays this past year. Here is her final weekly picture: 52 weeks. I'm thinking I may have to take a 1 year picture in the same bouncer in which I took her very first weekly picture. *tear*

My sad computer...

has finally breathed it's last. I just ordered a new laptop (sadly I didn't get the macbook that I REALLY wanted, but that's another story.) The new dell should be arriving sometime after we get back from Bismarck. Expect slow updates until then... :(

Ouch!

My mouth hurts a lot right now. I feel like chewing on a lot of things. Mommy says I might finally be getting those top two teeth. Tonight in the grocery store Mommy picked up a frozen pizza for Daddy and I thought it looked yummy so I turned around in the cart and started chewing on it too. It was cold and felt good on my teeth. When we got home they decided to give me one of these instead of a biter biscuit. I really liked it and ended up gumming up the whole thing. YUM!

I love books!

I got some new books at my birthday party last week too. Here I am reading (playing/throwing) them. Mommy is still waiting for the right slipcover for my pottery barn chair, so the big glider chair is still in my bedroom for now. Once the right slipcover comes Mommy says she's taking the glider chair out of my room and my PBK chair will replace it. I'm not sure how I feel about that as the PBK chair is in the living room right now and makes a great ladder for me to climb on to the loveseat with. Have I mentioned how much I love the couches, especially the PILLOWS? I LOVE PILLOWS!! They're so much fun.

I don't have my shorts on in this picture yet because I was so excited to go play with my books I squirmed out of Mommy's arms before she could put them on me.

An uneventful day

Mommy and I didn't do much today. We went for a walk around the neighborhood and then had to return a couple of things to a couple of different stores. Grandma and Grandpa got me a blow up penguin that wobbles like a weeble for my birthday because they though it was going to be like a toy that Mommy had when she was little. Unfortunately, it was much smaller and not as cool, so they said Mommy should take it back and get me something else. I was a little cranky in that store though, so she didn't have time to pick out a new gift for me yet.

I can get on and off of my zebra all by myself now. It took awhile to get the hang of it, but I love it now. Mommy's crazy foot is in this picture too. Hahahahha!

The Day after

We didn't do much today. I think Mommy and Daddy were pretty wore out from yesterdays festivities. I had fun playing with all of my new toys today. Here's a couple of pictures of me and my bounce and spin zebra. Man, that's a lot of fun. I'm also wearing a new outfit (birthday gift) in the pictures.

This is pretty much all that Daddy did today.

More from my birthday party

Click to expand the pictures!

My birthday cake

Mommy had to import this clip into iMovie and compress it so it could be uploaded. I had a great birthday party. So many friends and family members came out to spend the day with me. I wish I could have a birthday party everyday!!

Uncle Noel

Today was the day that Uncle Noel came to visit me. I was really excited to meet him. He was a lot of fun and liked to growl and oink at me. They were silly noises. We went out to lunch and I even got to order my own meal. I was sad to see him go, but he had to get back to Miami.

Later tonight Mommy, Daddy, Grandpa and Grandma decorated the entire driveway for my birthday party tomorrow. It said "Happy 1st birthday Lauren." It was really pretty, but I didn't want grandpa to put me down, so I was a little upset in this picture. That's all for now.

Sooo Busy

Sorry I've been away, this is what I've been up to:

Mommy has put me to work cleaning. She said something about earning my keep.

I'm really excited for tomorrow. My Uncle Noel is coming to see me all the way from Miami. I have never met him, so it's about time! Daddy and Mommy are super excited to see him too. I probably won't have too much to tell you guys between now and Sunday, so check back later for what's been happening in my life.

My Ghetto Bib

Mommy and I made a trip to Windom today. She needed to get her hair cut and colored and we needed to pick up Grandma. Yaaay, Grandma is coming to stay with us for a little bit. I haven't seen her very much in the past 3 weeks (the longest ever!) as we've been busy and then they went on vacation. I love to hang out with Grandma, she's a lot of fun.

So anyway, Mommy forgot to pack my usual bib and was all out of the disposable kind, so she had to fashion a "ghetto bib." I'm not sure what that means but it's the word she used to describe it. I was wearing a brand new outfit so Mommy stripped me down to my diaper and put this on me. Notice the high chair...it was Mommy's when she was my age. She likes to make fun of it, but it works just fine for me to eat in.


I also love to play the hiding game. Great Grandpa Jack came to visit me while I was in Windom and I played the game with him. I didn't have any pillows to hide under so I had to make do. Check it out:

Wanted

I want Mommy to make me a cool "Lauren's Life" title header for my blog, but she doesn't know how. She told me she would like me to have one too, but I'll have to wait until she learns how to do it. Check out some of my friends' blogs to see what I'm talking about.

Griffin
JM Photography (Jess & Baby Kate)
LL

Can anyone help her?

A Wagon

One of my friends just turned one and got the neatest wagon ever. It looks like so much fun. I haven't got the chance to ride in a wagon yet (because we don't have one.) I guess I'll have to put this on my birthday list too. Check it out:

The petting zoo

Mommy was super excited to take me to the petting zoo today. She told me she had been looking forward to it all weekend. So when she got home this morning I was very excited to see her. I was so excited that Daddy said I squealed with joy. I may have missed Mommy a little. She hardly ever leaves me.

Ok, so the petting zoo. It wasn't what I expected but it was still fun. Mommy tried to take me into the cages but a woman told her she couldn't come in because it was too crowded and only the children were allowed. Mommy told her I couldn't walk on my own, so they brought the animals to me on the outside.

Fun Days

This weekend is North Mankato "Fun Days." I slept through the parade this morning but was able to go to the park for some rides and fair food. I shared a yummy hamburger with Mommy and Daddy took me on the Merry go round. I was having so much fun on the horsey that I may have gotten a little angry when the ride ended. I also may have headbutted Daddy. Whoops! Sorry Daddy.

Tonight Mommy is going to Auntie Kate's birthday party in the cities. She's a bit nervous about leaving me with Daddy. I told her to go ahead and have a good time and that Daddy and I would be fine together. We'd probably go for a walk, or go outside and play on my swing. Gosh that sounds like fun, I hope he takes me for a walk. Ok, I'm waaaaay overdue for a nap. I better get going. Bubye!

The Waseca Waterpark

Mommy and I went to the Waseca Waterpark today. It was one of the MOMS Club activities so there were other friends there too. They do something special on Friday mornings for the little kids. They turn off the water slides and you have to be under 7 years old to play.

I had a lot of fun. There were geysers shooting up from the zero depth entry, a turtle waterslide for little ones, and water spraying mushrooms to play under. They even had a deeper area of the pool with a diving board. Mommy wouldn't let me play on that but I did get to sit on a floating lily pad.

Overall, it was a really good time. I crawled around in the water with my friends Elliot, Marleigh, Keana, Siri & Aiden.

I didn't really like the ride there and I threw a fit because I wanted out of my car seat. I don't really like to ride in it for long distances during the day (unless I'm sleeping.) It was much better on the way back because I was so sleepy from playing hard. Mommy & Anna stopped for lunch and Elliot was already sleeping by the time they hit the restaurant. I didn't sleep the whole way, but I was quiet, and Mommy says that's much better than the screaming.

Sooooo Big

I'm getting to be such a big girl. I'm 50 weeks old this week. Yaaay for me. You might be wondering why that picture on the left only says 49 weeks? Well, it's because Mommy is forgetful and forgot to take my 50 week picture on Wednesday. (She takes it every week on Wednesday since I was born on that day.) I think she may have forgotten what day of the week it was because today she mentioned something about swimming in a "couple of days." We're actually going swimming tomorrow (Friday) so I'm thinking she may have skipped a day or two in her head. I have to forgive her though. She's so busy planning my birthday party (and continuing to buy me lots of neat things.) She took me to Sweet Pea's today and left with a couple of new things. I overheard Mommy talking about Melissa and Doug toys and how they're wooden and non-toxic. I'm not sure what that means but I think she liked it. Mommy said I can't have them until my birthday though. That's not fair, I want to play with them now!!


It's been a fun day today. Have I told you how much I LOVE pillows? They're so fun. I love to bounce on them. I also love to hide underneath them and play peek a boo with them too. They're just so much fun. Here are some pictures of me playing with all the pillows Mommy will allow. If you click on the pictures they will get bigger.

My Birthday

Mommy told me that she's been asked by a few people what I might like for my birthday coming up. She thought I should maybe write a blog about things that I need. I told her that I didn't want to sound like I was asking for a gift, but she assured me that people were asking so it's ok to tell them when they ask.

I love to play outside but don't have a lot of outside friendly toys. I would really like some sort of ride on toy. They have them at ECFE and I love to play on them. Here's an idea of what I'm talking about.
Let me think here...I'm all set on things like bibs, bottles, sippy cups and silverwear. Something I could always use is a gift card to gymboree. I just love all their cute clothes (I think Mommy may like them even more than I do.)

Well that's all I can think of right now. I'm just so excited that so many friends and family members will be coming to see little old me next weekend. I can't believe I'm already almost 1 year old. Well, I have general mischief to go achieve, I think I may go play in those curtains that Mommy always says "NO touch" to when I reach out to them.

I'm worried about Daddy

Daddy always means well, but today I overheard Mommy asking him if he was trying to kill me. I guess he was driving home from work on Stadium (he drove the car not the scooter today since it was raining this morning) and saw something inflatable on the side of the road. I guess he must have been thinking about me because he saw it was girly and was curious what it was. He backed up, stopped the car, got out of the car, picked it up and then brought it home.

When he got home he brought it in the house and said he got it for me. I guess Mommy gave him a funny look and demanded to know where he got it. Of course Daddy got that silly grin on his face (the one he gets when he's trying to be sneaky or tell a lie) and said, "I don't want to tell you or you won't let her have it." After that, Mommy thoroughly inspected it and asked again (she noticed some dirt and stuff on it.) After pointing the spots out to Daddy (who insisted it was clean and perfect) he finally admitted to picking it up from the side of the road, upon to which Mommy said, "Are you TRYING to kill our bean? For crying out loud Kev, she already has a crazy bacterial infection, why not make it botulism or worse while we're at it here?" Daddy just laughed and said she was right.

Mommy was serious about not letting me have it either. It didn't even make it past the baby gate. She allowed it to rest on the steps while she took a picture. After the picture, she threw it in the trash and washed her hands. Here's a picture of the toy I almost had. I'm not sure what the words hideous and tacky mean, but Mommy used them to describe the toy.

I'm not contagious

Hi everyone. I'm feeling better now. It was a long day yesterday but Mommy took me back to the doctor and luckily they found out what is wrong with me. I have a bacteria infection similar to travelers diarrhea (what's that?) The name of the bacteria was so hard to say that my doctor didn't even try it. Here it is: Aeromonas Hydrophilia/Trota/Veronii

Mommy has been feverishly reading about it online all morning and has worked herself into a frenzy. I think she's just trying really hard to figure out how I got it. It can be in water that is both chlorinated and unchlorinated. My doctor seems to want to blame the sand bottom pool that I swam in (and ate a lot of dirt at) the day or two before it started. She's probably right.

Mommy also talked to my doctor again this morning to make sure my friends would be safe to be around me. She was also worried about friends that have seen me in the past while I still had the diarhhea. The doctor said unless they licked my hiney they should most likely be ok. She's pretty funny that doctor.

I can't wait to be back to 100% again (and I bet Mommy & Daddy can't wait either.)

We have a cause

WOW! It was a long afternoon at the doctor but after her stool sample came back my doctor had to do some research as she had never heard of what the lab came back with (neither had another Dr. fresh out of med school. I guess this is something relatively newly discovered and a couple of years ago would not have been found.) So on with it.... apparently she has some weird kind of bacterial infection (a form of traveler's diarrhea.)

The crappy party is we can't specifically pinpoint how she got it. It could have been from improperly cooked meat, veggies, or seafood (she said it's more common during grilling season with mishandled food) or from feeces. She seemed to think it was from the sand bottom pool
that we went to. She told me that she highly suggests we avoid it at all costs as it's a breeding ground from bacteria and nastiness even though it's chlorinated (goose poop city as she called it.)

However, it could have been from something as simple as a cook at a restaurant not handling meat properly, or it could have been from us, although we're very very careful and pretty liberal with the anywhere sanitizer spray, so I'm fairly doubtful it was from us.

So L is now on a "3rd or 4th generation antibiotic" to properly kill this thing. Apparently the cephalexen and amoxicillin are 1st gen antibiotics and won't kill it off. It was not the cheapest scrip either, so let's hope it does the trick quickly and our beanie can be back to normal.

Update

Lauren has a follow up appointment with her doctor at 3:10 today. I'm not sure if she'll be running any more tests or what will happen. Her bum is looking less angry today so I'm hoping it's on the mend (however, it's healed itself once before only to be 2x's as bad when it returned.)

Daddy's new office

Today was a fun day. It was much better than yesterday. Mommy, Daddy and I made a trip to the place where Daddy works. Mommy had the idea that they should start working on his new office. (Have you heard the news?? If not, you better talk to Daddy, he's very excited about it.)

Daddy got some tools out of a special room and started taking the weird plastic bumpers off the wall. Then the room needs to be emptied out so they can paint it a nice new color. His new office used to be a small conference room, so there will be some big changes going on inside of it. Mommy is really excited about decorating it. Here are some fun pictures I want to share with you.Here's my head. I really like Mommy's camera so I have a hard time staying far enough away to pose for a picture. You can see Daddy in the background using a drill to remove the weird plastic bumpers from the walls. They were ugly (says Mommy, I don't really have an opinion on them.)

Here's a better picture of the color of the office. Mommy said something about an office in Cloquet and enraging yellow, so I think the new color will be something other than yellow. That's all for now.

Worst day ever

Hi, it's Misty here. I need to vent. I'm pretty sure that Lauren had what could quite possibly be her worst day ever yesterday. I feel so bad, sad, mad and angry all at the same time. She's only been alive for 11 months but I feel like she really went through the ringer yesterday.

I should start at the beginning though. Her problems started about 11 days ago. It was a Wednesday and after her lunch she had a very interesting diaper. (Disclaimer: I'm a mom. I talk about contents of diapers...you'll have to deal with it.) It was very watery and I could see all the details and a bunch on undigested food. I thought it was odd and chalked it up to a new brand of mandarin oranges. Later that evening, it continued. I started to worry. That night we packed everyone up for a long planned trip to Duluth. I assumed her bum would be better in the am since I had been gooping it up well.

It was not... she was miserable and after a call to the nurse line I had a prescription for something that was supposed to help. It did. Her runny diapers continued but her bum was on the mend. Or so we thought.

Fast forward to this past week. It looked pretty good on Tuesday and we thought the runny diapers were just an effect of teething (so we have been told by EVERYfreaking one, so at this point I guess I'm starting to believe it too, even though there's no sign of a tooth or even any excess drooling.) Well anyway, her bum started to get worse again on Wednesday. Thursday was even worse and I decided to take her in, but for some reason talked to a nurse before scheduling the appointment who encouraged me to wait it out (you know, that darn teething.) By the end of the day on Thursday (about 30 minutes before closing time at the clinic) I put in a frantic call to the Dr. it was getting worse and she was inconsolable at this point. (I should mention that we had not been using wipes on her for a week. So, every diaper change had involved a mini sitz bath or a spray out in the sink, and pretty much every diaper was a messy one.) Just reading this right now makes me think to myself, what the heck about that is normal, why did you wait so long?? Well I guess I had been bamboozled into thinking it was normal (Heck, at this point we STILL don't know the cause, it could be normal.) Anyway to make a long story short the Dr. called back and said to try adding hydrocortisone cream to help with the inflammation and come in Monday if it's not better.

At this point I'm going to skip the 3am scream-fest and skip to Saturday and a trip to urgent care. I demanded (politely) to see an MD, I wanted an actual doctor and luckily it was dead so we didn't have to wait long. She asked all the questions that I had been going over in my head for pretty much a week now. No new foods, no antibiotics for a month, no allergies, nothing that we could think of (we switched back to regular formula a month ago, but that was probably too far back to matter at this point we think.) She was very concerned about the redness and sores. So, she gives us a prescription for a compounded butt paste, an anti-biotic and an antibacterial paste. She also ordered some tests and this is where the worst day ever part comes in.

We headed down to the lab for Lauren's first ever blood draw. She did so well with the finger stick that the phlebotemist couldn't get enough blood from her finger and had to move on to the butterfly and the needle. (EEEK!) She was sitting in my lap and he wasn't confident in the vein so we took her into the room next door and laid her down. I'm very thankful he was quite skilled in his job. I have to admit I was pretty nervous when I saw him, but he got the job done. I had to hold L's arms down and Kev had her chest. The scream was pretty terrible but luckily she's a good bleeder and it went quickly. The kindly man asked me if I needed a tissue as we were leaving but I had managed to blink back my tears. It was terrible.

The blood tests have already came back and everything looks good. We brought her stool sample back yesterday but it takes awhile to culture so the soonest we'll hear anything is tomorrow, but most likely Tuesday. The doctor told us if she spikes a fever or if it gets worse we're to take her to the ER. She even called us today to check on her (she's not better, but it's not worse and she's not screaming as much when we hose her off.) Our plan is to take her in to her regular pedi tomorrow as the loose stools have not stopped and she may want to run more tests. So, we have no answer yet as to why our preciousness has had the water poop blues for almost 12 days now.

The other part of her no good very bad day. Last night she was getting her bath and again was wanting to stand up (no matter how many times we sit her back down, tell her no.) Well this time she slipped and bonked some part of her face on the porcelain. I heard a thud, "expletive" from Kev and a wail from her. Needless to say I stormed in to see what was wrong only to see a trickle of red blood streaming out of her mouth. It stopped almost immediately and we have yet to see where she actually hurt herself. It was a rough night in the Thompson house. And THAT, is the bean's worst day ever. UGH!

Happy Independence Day!

I had a fun time celebrating our independence from those darn British (LOL!) I went swimming and my friend Elliot came over to play and have dinner. After that our mommies gave us a bath together. It was a lot of fun. Elliot likes to stand up in the bathtub, but he usually listens to his mommy when she tells him to sit back down. I like to try to stand up against the edge, I'm not very good at listening to mommy yet. Maybe that comes with age. Here are some pictures of my adventures on July 4th, 2008.

"Peek-a-boo!" I like to play games with Mommy & Daddy. Peek-a-boo is one of my favorites.

Here I am playing behind the curtain. It felt nice to have the wind blowing in my hair. Could someone tell mommy she needs to iron those darn sheers?

Here's Elliot and I playing in my new school bus tent. It's a lot of fun!

Here we are in the bathtub. I was having fun playing with my Alphabet soup letters. I usually take a bath in a smaller blow up tub (my ducky) so getting to hang out in the big tub was a real treat for me. I can't wait to try it out again sometime!

What a fun time!

Mom, Dad and I went to Duluth last week. Mom says that I haven't been there since I was 7 weeks old. I don't really remember that, so I'm taking her word for it.

It was a pretty fun trip. I got to see a lot of very special people and as Daddy says, "rekindle my spirit." He's a funny guy that Daddy.

As you can see, we had to make a trip to Mommy's favorite place in Duluth, Canal park. She was really looking forward to letting me play in the water, but they put a fence around it now. She was sad that the fun had to be ruined for everyone. I still had fun looking at the water fountain though.

Here's Daddy and I waving at a boat coming into the harbor. I've been working on my wave, one of these days I'll do it at the right time.

Here I am with "Uncle Ryan." I'm not sure why Mommy calls him Uncle Ryan, because he's not my uncle, he's my Godfather. He loves to tease Mommy and me. Just before Mommy took this picture he was playing with my sippy cup and pretending to drink from it. I like Ryan, he's fun!

Here I am with my Special Grandma Georgie. I was making a silly face here. The doll she has in her other hand really crawled and cried. I was so surprised when I first saw it that I crawled as quickly as I could over to check it out.

Grandma Georgie isn't feeling well and won't be able to make it to my birthday party coming up here. She decided to celebrate early with a cake and gifts and everything. She sure is thoughtful. I've already wore the pretty dress she bought for me and enjoyed some of the yummy snacks as well.
Here I am in the Rose Garden. I wasn't exactly cooperative with the momarazi here. Ok, I'm tired and need a nap, maybe I will post some more pictures later.