Well, we are all back home now. After being down in the cabin for a while, I’m really not excited to be back in the city! I definitely like it down there.

So, I mentioned yesterday that I thought I might know what was the irritant that caused Emma’s apparent Reactive Airway Disease to flare up. While I had been down at the cabin, she was sleeping in a play pen that Preston’s parents had in storage for a while. I had noticed that it smelled slightly like mildew, but I didn’t pay much attention to it because it’s old and didn’t have any visible mold so I just assumed that it smelled “old”. I covered the pad with a blanket and the smell wasn’t strong or anything, just noticeable if you had your nose down by it. Well, duh Sarah, she was LAYING in it. I feel really bad now because it dawned on me last night what a big mistake I had made by putting her in that play pen. The doctors at the hospital had asked me several times if she had been exposed to anything that could be highly allergenic and I said no. I didn’t even think about the play pen!

Mold/mildew of any kind is highly allergenic and I’m convinced now that that is what caused her to get sick. She must have an allergy to mold, which wouldn’t surprise me. My Dad is very allergic to mold as well. He told me that it doesn’t matter if you can see mold or not, if the smell is there then it’s there. Which of course makes sense. I just didn’t even think that it would be a problem since it wasn’t “that bad”. So anyway, Emma has a check up with her pediatrician next week so I’m going to mention the possible mold allergy to him.

Anyway, we’re having visitors for the 4th of July and I’ve been gone several days so I need to get started on house cleaning. Fun.

Thanks everyone for the thoughts and prayers!

Preston and I decided to bring Emma home today. The doctor said he wanted her to stay for “a couple more days” but we really felt like she would be better off at home. She didn’t like the hospital at all, and she especially didn’t like people coming in and waking her up every hour or so. It seemed like every time she finally fell back to sleep someone was coming in to check on something! I know they were just wanting to make sure she was ok but she really got hardly any sleep. I really think the lack of sleep was making it a lot worse for her.

With the antibiotics, steroids, and breathing treatments, she started feeling much, much better so this evening we asked if she could be allowed to go home. The nurses were the ones coming in and taking care of her, and everything they were doing we could be doing at home where Emma could be much more comfortable. So they let us come home with all her meds and the nebulizer for her breathing treatments.

The doctor also thinks that aside from the pneumonia, that Emma might have Reactive Airway Disease. So, based off of what they told me about it, and what I’ve read online, I can only come up with one possible thing that could have been an irritant. But, I’m not 100% positive if my suspicion could be it so I am going to ask around.

Anyway, I am going to bed early tonight. I haven’t had much sleep the last couple nights.

So, Preston came down yesterday to pick us up but we decided that I should just stay down here with the girls since Emma was sick, flying wouldn’t have been good for her. So Preston had to get back home, so he left and then I decided around 3pm to take Emma to the ER because she was getting worse and started wheezing pretty bad. Turns out she has pneumonia. So I was in the ER until about 9pm and then they moved us to a room. Preston drove back down here in the middle of the night to be with us. Grandma is watching Ava.
So, she is doing good right now. They gave her meds and she is feeling better. They said she will probably be in there for a couple days. Poor thing. She is so miserable. She was having such a hard time breathing but they are giving her breathing treatments every 2 hours so that has helped a lot.
I am so tired. She’s not sleeping very well, especially with people coming in to check on her so often. I just really hope she gets better quickly. Pneumonia in babies is not a good thing.
Anyway, Preston is there with her while I came back to the cabin to get a shower, change, etc. Now I’m heading back up there.

This week I started transitioning the girls from formula to milk. So far so good! Incase you are wondering, their pediatrician told me to wait until they are 13 months old to start milk, since they were 5 weeks early. They are at half formula, half whole organic milk. I don’t buy everything organic, but when it comes to milk and meat, I buy organic when possible. Horizon Organic Milk has whole milk out now with added DHA, but so far I haven’t seen it in our stores. Hopefully one of the grocery stores around here will start to carry it.
I’m happy that we will get rid of our formula bill! Organic milk isn’t cheap but it’s less than formula. I figure that 1 gal will last us 6.5 days at the rate the girls currently drink, so that’s about… $7 every 6.5 days. Not bad! They still have 3 bottles a day but I think the middle of the day bottle can be cut out soon. It’s more for their comfort than because they are hungry, which I tried to avoid, but it happened. Oh well. They need the bottle at their mid day nap to fall asleep. I’m sure that will be a hard one to ween them off of.
And on the topic of babies, CONGRATS to Pam and her Hubby on their new bean!!! They are going to have so much fun! I miss being pregnant. I think my favorite part of baby shopping was picking out crib bedding and planning the nursery. Those were the days.

This weekend while we were visiting family, we found a turtle! It was so neat, I have never seen a turtle “in the wild” before. He was walking up the gravel drive way that leads to the guest cabin. Emma was very curious about the turtle. She loved it!

She is very curious about things, especially animals, and isn’t afraid to explore. Ava on the other hand, did not want anything to do with the turtle. She refused to touch it and instead just sat back and quietly watched like she usually does. She is not an explorer like Emma. She’s the quiet thinker, always watching everything and trying to figure it out.

After petting the turtle Preston took him back to the woods where he would be happy and safe. And Preston just pointed out that Emma is wearing a dress with a turtle on it in these pictures. How funny!