Happy 18 Months!

Weight: 25 lbs. 15.5 oz (let's just say 26 lbs.)...72nd percentile
Height: 35.25 inches (just shy of 3 feet??)...above 97th percentile
Head: 19 in...89th percentile

This child has had a major growth spurt in the past three months!  He's still in size three diapers and will be for a little while longer because he's so lean, even though the suggested weight limit on the diaper box for size three is 27 pounds.

His favorite thing to do is still "cooking," whether it's pretend or helping out.  It's become a regular thing to make pancakes together on the weekends, and he loves dumping in the ingredients and mixing.

Cooking packets of tea

He graduated to a toddler forward-facing car seat last week.  We had a Chicco 30 pound car seat that we've used since the beginning, but Weston's way too tall for it now.  I know, the new recommendations are to keep them rear-facing until they're at least two, but this is what we could swing right now.  I think he enjoys the new view in the car.

He melts my heart on a daily basis, but the other night was a good one.  When he's ready to go upstairs for his bath, I always tell him, "Say 'Goodnight, Dada.' " as we head up.  He usually responds and says it, along with a super cute wave.  I also tell him to say the same thing to me when I put him down in the crib.  Well, last night as I was putting him in the crib, he said all on his own in an adorable sleepy voice, "A-night, Mama."  

Sigh.  Makes a mom forget about all the food thrown on the floor, the endless mess of toys downstairs, the crying, the early morning wake ups, etc.

He's also repeated some not-so-desirable phrases, which is always really funny, and I know I'm not supposed to laugh.  But, there's something so cute about hearing a toddler try to say, "Oh, shit!"

We've also got continued good news on the lead poisoning front.  His latest lab work shows a 6.8 μg/dL, which is nearly a 10 point drop from when he first was diagnosed back in May.  We have the lead abatement work currently being done on the outside of the house, and once they're finished with that, they'll begin their work indoors.  Thanks to a grant through the city of Cincinnati, we're able to get the work done so that we're not in some horrible financial situation.


I had to take down the sign on the front door on Halloween so that we'd get some trick-or-treaters, and I've not put it back up:

One of three bright yellow signs on our property...

Sick.

By some grace card that we've been dealt, Weston has been one healthy little dude for the past 14 months.  He's had a slight cold here and there, but nothing serious, other than the lead poisoning we've experienced (which, by the way, has gone down significantly to 10.6 μg/dL, so we're doing well).


All is good, until Wednesday.  I was on the phone with a friend around 4 pm, and he got super fussy and crabby all of a sudden.  I picked him up to quiet him down, and noticed that he was really hot.  I took his temperature and it read 102.3.  Yikes.  I gave him some Tylenol to bring the fever down, and it helped a bit, but he was very clingy, irritable, not really eating, and just wanted to be held.  More teeth??  Those one-year molars are a doozie...  He did okay that night with some more Tylenol, but woke up early Thursday and still had a really high fever.  That whole day, he kept putting his head down on my shoulder and was not like himself.  Oh, the whining!  He took two really good naps, but was still burning up every time the Tylenol or Ibuprofen wore off.  There were no other symptoms, and now I was beginning to suspect roseola after reading up on it.  I also remember reading a blog post from a friend whose daughter experienced the same thing as Weston.

I figured this whole illness would pass soon, and he'd be on the mend by Friday...

Not so much.  We actually ended up bringing him to the doctor on Friday afternoon because his behavior was so unusual--playing fine, but then frequently crying out as if he were in pain; not napping; eating very little.  His fever was down in the 100s, but fearing an ear infection, we took him in.

Of course, they couldn't find anything wrong with him other than a slightly inflamed throat, so we were told to keep doing what we were doing--alternating Tylenol and Ibuprofen, cool washcloths to bring down his temp, offering lots of fluids, and rest.  We put him to bed on Friday night with a dose of Tylenol.  At 12:30am, Nate was up playing online poker or something like that, and woke me up to the sound of Weston softly moaning and crying out.  We went in to check on him, and as soon as I took him out of his crib, I knew his temperature was going to be really high.  My little guy was cooking at 104.3.

I love my husband--we worked together to get him some Ibuprofen, water, cool washcloths, and we were able to bring his temperature down to 103, and he fell back asleep, but woke up again at 4:30.  Somehow, in his fever induced craze, he was able to put it together that waking up and crying in the middle of the night brings Mama in very quickly!  He fell back asleep for a little while, and the rest of the day on Saturday was a lot like the previous two days, except that I was getting more and more exhausted...  Let me say that dealing with a sick child is somehow quite similar to dealing with a newborn.

Sunday rolled around--nearly four days after the onset--and he had a rash covering much of his torso and neck.

Yup--roseola, a very common childhood virus, was the culprit.  He had a low-grade temperature, so that was improving significantly.  His appetite isn't quite back yet, and I think that has a lot to do with a sore throat, because he's hoarse.  It sounds super cute when he talks, but I know it's probably painful.  He also has some swollen lymph nodes on the back of his neck that will resolve in a week or so.


Here's to hoping that we can stave off any other illnesses for the rest of 2012!

I Hate Lead

It's was difficult to enjoy Mother's Day this year.  We had Weston's one-year physical last Monday and they did a finger prick to test for anemia and lead.  We got a call Tuesday from the pediatrician telling us that we had to go to Children's to get a venous draw because the first test came back positive for lead.  Not good.  So we went to Children's on Wednesday and Thursday (the first draw didn't yield enough blood so we had to go a second time).  Saturday our pediatrician called and said his blood lead level (BLL) was 16.4 μg/dL (micrograms of lead per deciliter of blood).


To make a long, worrisome story short, Weston's BLL is elevated.  Anything over 10 μg/dL is cause for concern, but after my hours and hours of researching lead poisoning on the Internet, there is no such thing as a safe BLL.  We have an appointment at the lead clinic on Wednesday, and from there they'll walk us through what our next steps are.


How did he get this??  No, he didn't get it from eating paint chips like is commonly thought...

Did You Eat a Lot of Paint Chips as a Kid?

I'm actually amazed at how babies and toddlers can pick up lead.  Because they're crawling around everywhere, exploring, and putting everything into their mouths, they can gradually accumulate lead in their system.  It's most easily obtained through ingestion.  Lead dust is something that occurs from lead paint that's been disturbed and not been properly removed.  We just moved into a completely renovated house that was built in 1892....lead paint was banned in the late 1970s...so it's most likely from the renovation dust that settled all over the house.  Of course, we cleaned before we moved in, but with a non-HEPA vacuum, which can just suck up the lead dust and blow it right out the back again.  I did wipe everything down with a wet rag, but obviously not well enough.

It's not easy to do either, especially keep calm

I really had no idea of the dangers of lead dust, or even what is was for that matter.  I'm more than angry about this whole situation, but we're getting it resolved.  The clinic works with the local health department and they will come out and do an assessment of the house to figure out where the lead is coming from.  In the mean time, we're washing his hands constantly and trying to mop the floors without vacuuming.  Our new Dyson HEPA filter vacuum should arrive on Wednesday...