Amazement

I never knew how surreal it was to watch a baby develop.  Braylea is doing more and more and understanding more and more every day.  I can tell her to go get about any toy she has (and believe me, there are plenty) and she knows which one I'm talking about.  She LOVES bananas, so she knows how to say 'nana' when she wants one and 'baba' when she wants a bottle. (Yes, haven't been able to break the bottle when she is tired and wants her milk)  We can ask her if she is ready to go 'night-night' and she will repeat it and grab her blankey and walk to her room.  She has also become the lil monkey.  She finds things to crawl up on to get to a higher destination.  We caught her just in time standing on our coffee table the other day..just a smiling like she was the coolest person alive. :)  She figured out how to stand on her princess chair to climb up on the table..no good!
Her favorite two things right now have to be books and music while dancing, of course!  She could walk around with my cell phone playing music all day if I let her!  She isn't too hard to please except when exhaustion hits her..then the attitude comes into play.  Yes, my princess does have an attitude and a big one at that!  It is pretty humorous at the time being..I know that won't last long though.
We are definitely enjoying every moment with her...

Change of Plans..

Friday the plan was for Bryson to go to work out of town and Bray and I were headed to Marion for a family visit.  God had different plans for us...

Bryson had called in the morning and said that their maintenance vehicle was not out of the shop in time for them to leave so they post-poned their trip til next weekend...thank God!  He just had to finish out his day in Parsons and he would be off for the weekend.  He agreed to come along on the trip with us, which I was very excited about.  I had us all packed and loaded into the car and just waiting on Bry to get off work.  Braylea woke up acting like she was getting a cold and after her afternoon nap she started to act a little whiny.  Once I felt her, I immediately could tell she had a fever.  Trip cancelled.. Her fever never broke without the help of tylenol.  By Saturday, late afternoon, it reached 104 degrees.  That was all I needed to see and we headed to the hospital.  After blood work, chest x-ray, and RSV test, they came to the conclusion that she didn't have RSV, lungs were clear, no flu, white counts were fine, but the only thing off was her liver count which indicated to them that she was dehydated slightly.  They said she must have had some virus that gave her diarrhea, then she got another virus which caused the cold in which created the fever and dehydration set in.  They recommended admitting her to put fluids through her overnight and retest in the morning.  The blood being drawn was bad enough, but they had to try 3 TIMES to get the IV in her..mommy and daddy were getting a little upset at this point.  Then, to try to keep a 1 year old from walking around and trying to teach her that she couldn't go far because her IV would pull. 

Fever continued Sunday but her counts went up so by the evening Doctor released us and just told us to watch the fever and keep the tylenol down her if it spiked.  I stayed home with her today to keep an eye on her and luckily we haven't had a fever since.  The hard part has been trying to keep food and fluids down her.  That is something I have never had to fight with her.  I literally drove to Sonic today to get her a sprite to see if that would bribe her to drink and it did work fairly well! 

Tomorrow we are going to try to go back to daycare and see how the day goes...

We haven't started the year off too healthy..I pray February will be a better month!  I'm very happy with the daycare we are going to now, but the only times Braylea has been sick has been while going to daycare!  Ugh!  I think I'm really believing that since she didn't go to daycare for the first 8 months of her life that she never acquired the immune system that others do.  Oh well..it was well worth it!

The Test Begins..

As I've mentioned back in December, Bryson started a new job within the same company.  It has been AWESOME so far.  He only has had to travel one time right before Christmas and then he had his 4 weeks home where he just worked day shift Monday through Friday.  So, I've gotten used to him being home and now tomorrow begins his route away.  He will be gone every Friday through Monday until April.  It will definitely be a test to see how we like it.  The plus is that he doesn't go too far where we couldn't go visit him.

Hopefully this weekend Bray and I are going to go visit my cousins that we haven't seen in quite a while, so that will make the weekend fly by.

Doctor Visit

Braylea has been fighting the dreadful diarrhea since Friday.  The odd thing is that she doesn't act like anything is wrong with her.  So, we just thought she was teething since she has done this in the past.  It kept getting worse and her bottom was obviously raw.  Daycare called yesterday and said her bottom was getting worse and she was just screaming when you changed her.  I thought enough was enough, so I called the doctor to make an appointment...Nothing serious but they think she might have some kind of virus that just needs to run its course.  I am glad we went though because her bottom had produced a yeast infection from the rash..poor thing!!  So we got some cream to help with it and after having it on overnight, it already looked 10x's better..thank God!

A Long Week..

Monday was a big day for us.  We had to open our trust again and start a new daycare.  I'm not going to lie and say I was fine because high anxiety did take place that day but I made it and Braylea did as well.  I'm really pleased with the provider so far.  She has two older girls that are 7 and 8 in which Braylea really likes to follow around.  Then she has two twin 18 month girls that Braylea has become friends with.  She also keeps two twin 9 month old girls during the day so Braylea is right in the middle.  I think it will be really good for her.  She will have to learn how to share, play with others and help her socialable skills.  I walked in to pick her up the other day and the two older girls were playing dress up and had Miley Cyrus on in the living room and they were singing and dancing to the song.  I look over and Braylea is right in the middle of them dancing along!  She loved it!  It really helps to see my little girl smiling when I pick her up and as long as the 18 month old girls are up in the morning, she will walk right into the playroom and start playing.  I can really tell that the provider doesn't just do this for a job but because she loves kids and that's so important with daycare.  I just hope this positive feeling lasts!

Now..on to the reason this was such a long week.  Monday we started daycare and she said Braylea was good but just quiet and slept a lot and wouldn't eat that well.  This isn't normal for her at all.  We got home and she ended up getting sick that night.  It was so sad to see my little girl get sick!  I liked the 'spitting up' so much better..  So, Bryson took a personal day and stayed home with her Tuesday.  She was fine by the afternoon, so I took her back to daycare on Wednesday.  Wednesday morning I started feeling not so hot.  I ended up going home sick from work and staying in bed all day and night.  That is the most horrible feeling not being able to take care of my baby!  Even though Bryson is a great daddy, Mommy isn't supposed to get sick.  We go to bed and Bryson wakes up in the middle of the night sick!  Ahhhh..By Friday, we were all better..thank God!!

A Day in with Mommy!

Sunday Braylea and I had a lazy day.  Daddy had his last day of duck season, so we stayed in our pajamas all day and played hard.  Here's a few pictures of my silly girl!

Bring on the New Year!

I'm going to play catch up because our internet has been down for awhile..
New Years was pretty quiet this year.  We decided to lay low and have some family out.  Braylea was running wild showing off for everyone that she actually made it until 12:30 that night!!  I couldn't believe it.  Her 'normal' bedtime is between 8 and 8:30.

Now they are kissing cousins..hopefully it will last!  Kari and I are best friends now but I had a stage where there were no kisses..just biting!!  I know..I was mean.

Kamden turned 8 months old at midnight!  He is getting so big.  Hard to believe he was 3 months early..he is definitely catching up with Bray.  He started crawling this month..so cute!

Happy New Year!  Braylea was zoned out at this point.  Bedtime!