19 months

While I was away for the 24 hr period, Laura was very sick and having a lot of difficulty breathing. Hubby took her to her doctor on Monday and he thinks that she has asthma. Very disconcerting. She improves during the course of the week. Hubby stays home with her for most of the week.

1st week of May: Rain, rain, rain and then on Thursday: Gorgeous 74 degrees. We go to the playground after work. Hubby makes pizza for dinner.

May 7th: Sunday
Picnic at Arnold Aboretum. The day is sunny and gorgeous. A bunch of us bring food and have a great time. In the shade is cold but in the sun, it's warm and pleasant. The lilacs are in bloom and glorious. Laura doesn't nap at her usual time so she is a bit cranky then slept in her stroller for about an hour. We spend most of the day from 1pm to 5pm. By 5pm, it abruptly becomes chilly and we all sped home.


May 12th: Friday evening. I take Laura to the Atrium mall (against my hubby's request) b/c I am burned out from the week and need her to just run around so she will tire. It has rained nonstop for the whole week so she has not had a place to play except her home. Of course she gets sick!

May 14th: Mother's day.
Happy 2nd Mother's day. Laura is sick, her breathing worsening during the course of the day. The rain is just nonstop. Hubby is working all day. Laura begins to cough nonstop and appears short of breath even though she does not appear distressed. I start to freak out. At about 2pm, I call hubby to try to get home early. He says he'll try but is busy. By 3:30pm, Laura is getting worse so I pack her stuff and put her in the car. Drive to Boston Children's hospital and call hubby from the car.
What a fantastic ER. Triage is efficient and we're whisked to a room right away. The ER doctor sees her in a timely fashion. She gets some oral prednisone then 4 nebulizer treatments. She improves dramatically. Diagnosis: Reactive Airway Disease (aka Asthma). Hubby gets there about the same time. What a miserable day.
Here is a picture of Laura after I brought her home. She was so tired, she just wanted to sleep on the floor in the foyer.

Rain, rain, rain. Record rainfall and massive flooding in northern part of Mass,NH and Maine.

May 17th: I take Laura to her pediatrician. Dx: Asthma. He gives us a nebulizer machine and then wants to give a steroid every day for a YEAR. Preventative measure. Ugh. Hubby makes and appointment with a pediatric allergist for the end of the month for any alternatives.

Here's a picture of Laura coloring a card for her grandmother.


Tidbit stories:
It's amazing how fast she is growing and how quickly she is learning. Every night while I am putting her down, she points to all the various parts of my face and names everything. Nose, hair ('air'), eye, ear are easy for her. She has to think and be reminded about new words like eyebrow, chin, cheek.
She loves Ernie and Elmo. I bought her a sippy cup with Elmo, cookie monster and Big Bird on it. She says "Elmo!", "Cookie!" and "Chicken". She now calls Big Bird by the correct name. However, when she is outside and she sees all the birds chirping, she points to them and says "chicken". This is so cute that I don't even correct her.
I bought her a pair of sunglasses. She loves it b/c she thinks they are like the glasses I wear. I put them over the stereo and forgot about them until later on that day, I was standing over them. She was reaching up to the sky and kept saying "I, I, I" and crying. Huh? There was paper and junk on the counter and I kept picking up stuff, "Is this what you want?" but she was getting frustrated and said "I, I" until I looked on the stereo and saw her sunglasses. She was saying "eye, eye, eye".