Dear Baby

(My sweet Everly, wearing her pajamas and trademark bedhead, waving goodbye as I leave for work in the morning)

I wanted to give you all a few updates on some things and figured I’d squish them all into one post.

1. Why Everly got so sick.  Those who read this post about Everly’s sickness last month will remember that I was questioning if it was caused solely by her flu shot. During the week after her seizure, she was so irritable and cried constantly, her fevers continued, and she had very red gums and several sores on her tongue which we thought were from biting it during her seizure. Her breath also had a strange, metallic smell to it which she had never had before. Then we learned that her best little buddy, Mylah, had come down with these same symptoms and had not had a flu shot. Both girls had acquired Stomatitis around the same time. The virus takes about 10 days to work it’s way out of the system.  We have no idea where Mylah and Everly picked it up (neither is in daycare or had been around other children other than each other) but their pediatrician said it had been making the rounds recently in local toddlers. 

Everly wasn’t showing any sympoms of the virus when she got her flu shot, but her severe reaction was most likely a combination of her immune system dealing with both the Stomatitis and the dead-virus flu vaccine at the same time. I wanted to share this as I think it is important for my readers to understand the reason behind her reaction. I heard from many people in the comments of my original post who were for and against the flu vaccine - but in Everly’s case there was an underlying reason as to why she reacted the way she did. She received the flu vaccine last year with no reaction and when I wrote the post, I was so confused as to why her experience had been so different this year. It’s brought me peace of mind to know that there was indeed something else involved.  Will I give my kids the flu vaccine in the future? I’m still not sure but I do still believe in the importance of vaccinating children against life threatening diseases (althought we only do one vax at a time over multiple visits) and I wanted to provide an update now that we have the complete story on her reaction. (On a related note, I wrote a post last night for Babble. Febrile Seizures: What you should know that I didn’t)

2. An update on Arlo’s Eyes Over the last month, Brent and I have had a chance to really consume all of the information that is out there about OA. We’ve heard from many parents of children with this disorder. And we are feeling really, really optimistic and less scared/overwhelmed/heartboken and ready to jump in a do what we can to set him up for success. We have a vision therapist scheduled to come to our house soon to evaluate Arlo for several state programs created for children/infants with vision impairments. Arlo’s next appointment with his opthamologist is January 5th and I am so eager to talk with him again. Brent and I feel like Arlo is seeing pretty well - he is continuing to meet his vision milestones on time and we work with him every day to track us from further distances, we make a lot of facial expressions without sound to encourage him to react to our faces and we continue to stimulate his eyes with pictures of high contrast objects. Time will tell, but we’ve decided that until he tells us otherwise, we’re going to believe that this beautiful little boy of ours isn’t missing out on much of the visual world.

3. Houses and things. Well, we think we found our house. Last time we got our hopes up on a house, the inspection was a mess - but I am keeping my fingers and toes crossed that this one will be the right fit for us. It’s the best of both worlds - a charming little bungalow close to downtown (YAY!) but on a quiet street with hardwood floors, a fireplace, a covered front porch (!!!!), tons of storage (a whole giant basement worth plus an attic!), and room for us to grow a bit (you know, should we be blessed with another little Jordan one day down the road). The backyard is a nice size, but needs some serious attention and the kitchen - OH THE KITCHEN - it needs major TLC (probably hasn’t seen an update since the early 80s) - but it will be just fine until we are able to afford a remodel and I think it’s the main reason this house is priced reasonably enough that it’s even in our price range in the first place. (You know how they say kitchens and bathrooms sell houses!). So we are praying about this house and hoping that it is the right one for us - I hope the next time I talk houses with you guys, it will be as a homeowner with the key in hand!

Love,

M