Dan's B-day!

Last friday was Dan's 27th Birthday! For his birthday he got a new golf bag which he's been needing for awhile. I also invited some friends over for a surprise birthday party for him. We had quite a few people here and we had a lot of fun! We have such great friends here, thanks to everyone for making Dan's birthday so special!!

Dan's Cheesy smile while wearing his new golf bag!
Dan's cake, I was pretty proud of this masterpiece!

Allergic Reaction

I've never been very sympathetic to people with allergies because i've never had one. That is until now. I now understand what it's like to have an allergic reaction. I havn't been able to smell anything for over 2 months now so the Dr's had me on this antibiotic to see if I had a sinus infection. So, apparently I'm allergic to this antibiotic. I went out on the lake saturday and got a sunbun on my arms and legs, then by Saturday night I had a fever and my sunburn turned into this awful rash. So I went to the clinic and he thought maybe I was just reacting to the aloe vera I put on the sunburn. Then I went home and the rash spread all over my body. It is an unbearable itch, I can't even sleep it itches so bad! Anyway, so when I went back to the dr. they thought maybe the antibiotic made me super sensitive to the sun and triggered the reaction. Weird huh? Anyway, I feel a little like a freak right now, so hopefully it goes away soon so I can start going out in public again!

Crawling!

So, it only took her 9 1/2 mo. but Callen finally started crawling!! She started out doing this bear stand where she would get up on her hands and feet and would try to propel herself forward. She would even pull herself up and cruise the furniture, but no crawling. She did this for the longest time until one day she finally learned to put her knees down and now she's getting better and better every day. She hasn't been too adventurous yet, she likes to stay close to me, but i'm sure that won't last too long and she'll be into everything.

Trying to Crawl

Yay for crawling!

New CAR!!

ok, so we actually got the car over a month ago, but I hadn't got around to blogging about it yet. Dan and I both had an SUV when we got married and we've been thinking about getting a car everytime we fill up at the gas station. So.. we finally traded one of ours in and bought a car. We decided on a Nissan Altima, it's a 2008, and it's awesome!! I absolutely love driving it! Yay for new cars!

I know these are bad pictures but I didn't feel like backing it out just to take a picture :)

Stealing from Cosmo..

So, I set Callen down on the kitchen floor while I warmed up a bottle for her, and she creeped over to our cat Cosmo's food dish and started throwing cat food all over the floor, I thought it was funny so I ran to get the camera. Well.. when I got back she had two fists full of food and I saw her little jaw chewing... yuck, I should have known that was going to happen. So I grabbed her and got the cat food out and she was quite upset at me for taking it away. I suppose with a cat that was bound to happen sooner or later!!

Neurologist

So I took Callen to the neurologist today because when she had her MRI done they found a cyst by her pituitary gland. Well, the neuroradiologist looked at the copy I had and thought everything looked fine, they wanted to input it in their system so they could take a closer look and manipulate the images more just to make sure it isn't affecting her hormones or optic nerve and she may have to have a repeat MRI down the road to see if the cyst goes away, but they said as long as she isn't having problems then there probably isn't anything to worry about. YaY!! I really wasn't expecting any bad news since Callen has been doing so great lately, but it's always good to hear it from a Dr. Also, on a side note, she was such an angel for having a long day going to San Antonio. I had to go by myself because Dan was flying and she was so good for me!

Air Dry

So, Callen and I went to the pool the other day. She loves it, despite the baby pool being cold. When we were ready to go I just wrapped her in a towel to change her when we got home. Dan was here when we got home and I wanted to talk to him so I decided to change her in the living room. She is in this phase where she wiggles and squirms everywhere and I can hardly hang on to her. She also likes to stand while hanging onto the furniture. So I get her swimsuit and swim diaper off and and she squirms away. I decide "that's fine, i'll let her air dry" so I set her down and she just stands in front of me while hanging onto the couch. I left her there and after a minute or two I feel this warm wet sensation on my foot... yes, she peed on me. I was grossed out, however Callen was quite amused,.....and you thought only boys could pee standing up :)

Weekend in Austin

Last weekend for the 4th, Dan and I decided to go to Austin to visit his Aunt and Uncle. It was a great weekend!! His Uncle Doug and Aunt Sue really went out of their way to show us a good time. We had a driving tour of some of Austin and we hiked up to Mt. Bonnell (The highest point in Austin). It was gorgeous, it looked out over the lake and the Million Dollar houses right on the lakeside, I of course picked out a few that I would love to own. Then we took Callen to the community pool, they had alot more children's things there than they do here on base, so Callen had tons of fun. We of course then went to a fireworks show and surprisingly Callen was not scared. In fact, she watched for a few minutes and then got bored and went back to her own toys.
Our second day there was a relaxing morning hanging out and then Aunt Sue was so nice, she stayed home and watched Callen while Dan and I went and rode Wave Runners with his cousins Lauren and Zach, it was super fun. Of course Dan had to throw me off a couple times, which was fine until I swallowed a bunch of water and couldn't breath. I tried to throw him off but was unsuccessful. Our last evening there we went to an outdoor theatre and watched a live production of Beauty and the Beast.
It was a fabulous weekend!! Thank you Doug and Sue!!

Callen at her first fireworks show

Splashing in the fountain at the pool

Silent Night!!!

I had the best night last night. Callen has Never, Never been a good sleeper. First it was days and nights mixed up then it was...well I don't know why, she just didn't sleep. Then, with being sick she was up at least once every hour..ugh, I know. I would have just enough time to climb into bed, pull the covers up and get "this" close to falling asleep when, you guessed it, crying from the other room.. Anyway, enough griping, last night was great! She went out like a light at 8:00, woke up briefly at 10:00, I stuck the binky back in and she was out again and didn't wake up until 5:00 a.m! Yahooo!!! But wait, it gets better. I fed her and she fell back asleep, I put her down and she slept until 8:00. It was incredible. I of course woke up at 4:00 and had to run into her room to make sure she was still alive... but it was still alot more sleep than i'm used to!

Finally enjoying motherhood

So, for the first time in almost 9 months, I am finally enjoying being a mom. I know this sounds awful but this adjustment has been super hard for me. For the first 4 months I was still in pain from the labor experience, once that finally passed I still had this baby who refused to sleep... Ever. She would not nap unless she was being held and she would wake up every couple of hours at night and want to be up for a couple hours. This made her a cranky baby all the time. Then, just as things started to look up at about 5 1/2 mo. Callen randomly started vomitting. Not just the normal baby spit up, but full on dry heave vomiting upwards of 6 times a day. She was barely keeping anything down, she was finally admitted to the hospital for dehydration. She was on IV fluids for a couple of days and then released. The vomiting eased up and she started to get better for about a week.

Then the vomiting started again. The Dr. admitted this time that it wasn't just a virus and decided it was acid reflux, gave her some medicine and sent me home. The vomiting continued to come and go, she'd be good for a few day and then it would come back. Obviously the medicine wasn't working. After a battle with the referral dept. on base we finally just drove to the ER at Lackland AFB in San Antonio and got an appointment with a Gastrointestinal Specialist. We saw him and he switched her medicine. She continued to vomit for a week and then got better for about a week so we assumed the med. was working. Wrong, she then started vomiting just like before, by this time it had been almost 2 months since this started. The specialist got her in for an endocsopy and a CT scan. While they were getting her ready for the endoscopy she had to be sedated, we were able to stay with her until she fell asleep and then they made us leave. It was awful to watch her get that blank look on her face and when they made us leave the room I couldn't be strong anymore, I just lost it and Dan and I sat and cried until they brought her back in to us to wait for her to wake up. She is such a little trooper.

The endoscopy showed she had a hiatal hernia. So he asked us to try a certain formula and sent us home. Callen kept getting worse and we were not able to contact the specialist as he was TDY. Callen was not keeping anything down and she was lethargic and got to the point where we couldn't even get her to wake up enough to try and feed her. By this point she was almost 8 months old and she weighed 12 pounds, which is about what she weighed at 3 months, since she had gotten sick she had lost almost 3 lbs. She was not even on the growth charts. I was giving her pedialyte from a syringe every few minutes just to keep liquid in her, then she threw all that up as well. So, for about the 5th time we took her to the ER again. They admitted her immediately and got an IV started.

The Dr. here at Del Rio finally took us seriously and stopped telling me it was my fault for not being consistant with the medicine he had prescriped the first time (which didn't work). He set her up on a feeding tube. That was so hard to see. While the nurses were holding her down sticking the tube down her nose she looked at me across the room and gave me this heartbreaking look like she just didn't understand why I was letting them hurt her like that. It was awful. She was on the feeding tube for a few days until we could get in with a different specialist. The Dr. also asked me to switch to a hypoallergenic formula, so I stopped nursing. That was tough since we hadn't been able to get Callen to take a bottle, but I guess she decided she was hungry enough. So we drove to see the specialist in San Angelo this time, who doubled her medicine and ordered a bunch of tests to be done, such as an MRI and sweat test. So the next day we drove to San Antonio for the MRI, which they ended up not doing because they couldnt' get her sedated. So, we drove back another day, got the Sweat test (testing for Cystic Fibrosis), that came back fine and we got the MRI done as well. The MRI acutally came back to show that she had a Cystic Structure on the Sella. I don't exactly know what that means, other than the Sella is the bone that surrounds the Pituitary gland. We go to see a pediatric Neurologist in a couple weeks to find out about that.

ANYWAY, now that i've written a novel lets get back to the name of this post. For the last few weeks Callen has not thrown up. She has been great!!!! I don't exactly know what worked, whether it was the formula, or she's outgrowing whatever it was, ??? I dont' know. To be honest I don't care as long as its gone. For the past few weeks, I have had a happy healthy normal baby girl. Callen is almost 9 months old and for the first time I am enjoying life. She is eating and sleeping better, and she is playful and happy and has gained 3 1/2 lbs. She is a beautiful fun little girl and she finally has the energy to show it. I still have more Dr. appointments coming up but for now i'm just trying to enjoy being a mom.

Callen waking up from General Anesthesia after her Endoscopy

The Feeding Tube (Dan says she looks like a little Elephant)

At the Hospital

healthy Callen!! She Loves the Swimming Pool!
And the Cat!
Isn't she Cute!