Update and Happy Valentine's Day

o  BJ is doing better, although RSV hangs on for quite a while.  He is only barely wheezing now, and only has minimal retractions, but his cough is gone.  He is working on sleeping better at daycare- yesterday actually had a great day with a nap that was 1 hour long and one that was 1.5 hours long!  Yeah!!  His ezcema looks so much better now that I've cut out dairy- but we definitely hope that will be a temporary insensitivity- I love my cheese and milk (plus I'd hate for him to have dietary restrictions when he is older.)  He is growing up so fast and definitely has his own personality.  He LOVES to talk and will jabber for minutes on end- so much so that he has to go to the nursery at church because he interjects to much in the sermon- which our pastor likes, but needs to be timed right! :)  He has started rolling over (somewhat inconsistently) from his belly to his back, but of course just got mad the three times this morning I tried to videotape it!  (Little stinker)  He is a favorite at daycare we are told- and evidenced by the fact they all missed him while he was sick.  He lost a little weight last week with RSV, but is quickly putting it back on (I think).  So that is good.  

Otherwise, the week has been somewhat chaotic- I had jury duty on Monday- but got dismissed, they didn't want to give me pumping time.  Then Wed. night we spent 3 hours cleaning up doggie diarrhea on our new carpet downstairs- it looks great now, but I need to do a little bit more since you can still smell it when you put your nose in that space- (good thing we love our dog because we just about lost it when that happened).  Thursday was my birthday and I had a nightmare of a schedule at work and my breastpump stopped working- a bit of a crisis.  I got some milk out with a handpump and then went to see my next patient who argued and yelled at me- I walked out and just cried.  (Being a mom makes an already emotional gal even worse).  My program was very accomodating and made arrangements for me to be off early (around 1:30) so I could go buy a new pump.  I got the latest and greatest model which is portable (the size of a large palm pilot) and is hands free- which I enjoy.  We went out to eat with BJ and had a nice evening at home- which salvaged the day!  

Brandon and BJ are developing quite the bond- Brandon keeps saying how cool his son is- which is great to see, but they also work against me sometimes- saying all Brandons in the house need to go to bed now (8 p.m.) which makes me laugh, but I am outnumbered!  Brandon is doing his first Sat. morning at work today, which was definitely a change having him leave for work on the weekend, but I don't think they were supposed to be very busy.  Anyway, we have our typical weekend plans of working on the house and playing with BJ, so I better get to it.

Here are some recent pics.

Opening Grammy's card for V-day (his shirt says my heart belongs to mommy- Thanks Aunt Maria)

Daddy and BJ at the SuperBowl party- BJ rooted for the Bronco's (ok not really but it is his only NFL shirt)

Playing with his horse

Prayer for our little one

This will be quick given all that is going on at our house.  It seems that BJ now has RSV (respiratory synctial virus).  It is a bronchiolitis or a virus that causes inflammation in the smaller airways in his lungs.  It has been causing him to cough, wheeze, suck in the skin around his ribs when he breathes (retractions), and have a hard time breathing.  I took him to the doctor on Tues. and found his oxygenation level (O2 sat) was at 88%- low even for Denver.  He got an albuterol neb and got back up to  99%.  So for the last two days he has had nebulizers every 4 hours.  Yesterday he was seen again, and they recommended we treat his infected face ezcema with an antibiotic with the hopes that we will avoid an ear infection while treating his face.  Also, since his ezcema is so bad they recommended I try cutting out all dairy for 2 weeks to see if that might help.  We also got a steroid cream for his skin, but I'm going to try the dairy thing first- otherwise I won't know if it helped or the cream did.  So he gets nebs every 4 hours, antibiotics every 6, on top of trying to eat, sleep, and oh yeah, breathe.  Luckily he is still mostly playful and smiling, but many kids need hospitalization for this virus.  I guess another baby at daycare has it too.  The other sad thing is that there is some belief that this puts him at a higher risk for developing asthma- so you can pray we avoid that- although his genes aren't helping him out there.  Asthma, allergies, and ezcema are a triad called atopy and both his parents have the latter two.  The doctor's office is watching him closely- appointments daily until he gets over the hump- and Brandon and I are keeping  a close eye on him as well.  Nights are worse for his symptoms, although he slept a little better last night.  I'm still fighting a cold (which could also be a variant of RSV- it looks different when you aren't an infant), so all the prayers would be great.  Luckily work has been flexible, knowing I need to be with my litttle one.  Thanks for your prayers, I'll try to keep you updated.