What's going on? cont'd

First off...here's a picture of Joshua's rash/hives. He'll probably kill me someday for posting this one, but at least he's covered. As you can see, it was concentrated around his waist. He actually scratched through it once to where it started bleeding. Poor guy!

After he got on the steroids and off the antibiotics, he started clearing up pretty quick. Probably took about 3-4 days before it was cleared up for the most part. On Tuesday, as Joshua was starting to get better, we noticed Abigail starting to get a temperature *sigh*. It seemed to get into the 100 range pretty quick. But we tried not to panic and just figured if she still had it after a couple days, if it didn't get higher first, we'd take her in. By Wednesday afternoon, it had stayed in the 100's and would occassionally creep into the 101's and 102's. Once it hit 103.0 and that's the magic number for sure. We also figured, even before the 103 reading, that since we're planning on heading up to Big Bear that weekend (more on that later), it'd be good to get her on antibiotics as soon as possible, if that was the appropriate course of action.

So, Danielle took her into Urgent Care and of course, they first read her temperature at something like 99.6! But since she really didn't have any other symptoms, they really couldn't do much. Later they took her temperature and it was in the 102's, so we felt more justified. They decided to try and take a urine sample in case she had a urinary track (or tract?) infection. Weird to think she could have that at such a young age. To do that, they had to put on this contraption around her private area in hopes that when she pee'd, it would catch some of it. Of course, she wouldn't go, but they did get enough to test positive that she had one. Now, they had to get more so they could do a culture and figure out what kind. That was more difficult. To make a long story short, they sent Danielle home with a couple more of these bags and explained how to collect the urine and put into the tube. If we didn't get enough to do a culture, they'd have to put a catheter in, which is not very pleasant for a baby. Fortunately, we got it, though it took us until about 2AM to do it! Oh and they gave us some antibiotic...the same kind Joshua had. Nice. We explained what happened to Joshua and they said don't worry about it, she'll probably be fine.

Friday, we went up to Big Bear with my brother and his wife and 4 year old son. We share a cabin up there and that was our week to use it. Here's a picture of the lake from the living room. It was beautiful that weekend. By that time, Abigail's temperature had come back down and she was generally doing better. Seemed she was getting congested some, but maybe that was the altitude change. The hardest part about that weekend was not realizing how much effort would have to go into taking care of our kids. Even on the way up, they were both a handful. Joshua was having meltdowns. *sigh* What a great start. I knew I wouldn't get much rest. But they've been sleeping so well in general, I didn't expect the struggle we'd have with them sleeping at night. That just made the days seem that much harder. We do look forward to going again, especially with family. But we'll have to make sure we're emotionally ready and have a better plan for handling meltdowns and such.

Nonetheless, it was fun seeing Joshua play with his cousin, Jefferson. I think Jefferson really enjoyed it. Joshua is in an imitation phase right now and I think Jefferson learned that pretty quick. One of the things he did was let out this loud high-pitched screech, which of course Joshua followed right behind. For the most part, it's quite humerous...unless you're in a restaurant or when Abigail's nursing or trying to take a nap. And of course, Joshua likes doing it on his own, even without Jefferson's help. But we all managed. Just before we left on Sunday, we all went to a place that has a long slide where you ride down in little carts, similar to bobsleds, except with wheels. Danielle and I each took Joshua down and he seemed to enjoy it a lot. That was a good ending to a long weekend. Not only that, but on the way down, the kids slept practically the entire time...a far cry from how it was going up. Joshua was especially funny...he slept so hard, he had bed-head...or is it carseat-head?

One final note concerning Abigail. When we got home, we had a message that told us the results from the urine culture and that they came back negative to having any infection. So, the original test was a false positive I guess. And we could stop giving her the antibiotic, which was just as well. Not only were we having trouble giving it to her, but Danielle thinks she started seeing a rash begin on her. But since we stopped it, we won't know till next time whether she really is allergic to it, like Joshua is. While it's nice to know that Abigail didn't have that infection, it's still a mystery is why she had such a high temperature in the first place. Another question for heaven I suppose.

So, it took us a few days to recover from that weekend. Not sure if Danielle ever fully recovered. But this past week has been pretty good. The biggest thing I realized this past week is that it's been the first time in a couple months that we haven't had to give our kids any kind of medicine. For so long, we've had these droppers and medicine bottles collecting on our kitchen sink and we've finally been able to move all those upstairs and not have to think about them. The other fun thing is that Abigail is really starting to show more personality, is smiling a whole lot more and is now starting to laugh. It is ADORABLE!! Talk about bringing joy, just like her name.


Joshua has begun to get into bugs more. He loves going just outside our patio and looking for snails, pillbugs, whatever. Here's a couple examples. Joshua also seems to be gaining more and more energy and has a huge need to expel it, despite his parent's inability to keep up sometimes. Actually, he's probably always had this much energy...but he seems to really enjoy just running around the entire complex. It's really fun watching him run because his arms just flail around, I'm sure to help keep his balance...but he looks so out of control too. Every few seconds, I can just envision him losing that balance and BLAM! Face plant into the sidewalk. I hate to say this, but I'll probably have to keep myself from laughing when it happens.

Enough for now...will share about my weekend later.