Christmas 2017

After a week of sickness and living with the alternate life form Ayden Jane, she seemed to turn the corner just in time for Christmas Day. Gary had to work both Christmas Eve and Christmas night so we waited for him to get home from work on Christmas Day to open presents. Well, mostly.

It's always been a deal that the kids can open stockings when the get up whether there is parent supervision or not. It started back in the days when my kids waited for Grandma and Grandpa to come before Christmas morning could officially begin. Now it's more so we can stall for Gary to get home from work. Ayden Jane happily looked through her stocking and was so patient all morning. The funny part, however, was when the big kids came out she told them they could open their stockings and how much they would like the things like candy in them.... ummm, how did you know what was in them Ayden Jane? She giggled as she had searched through them all and had a wonderful time. (no worries of her eating candy - she is not interested in ruining her day.)

Opening presents is always fun with AJ. She thoroughly enjoys each gift as she goes along. Makes sure everyone has a gift, unwraps things slowly... The big excitement this year came when Santa had brought her a zip line! His elves are going to have to help put it up in the coming days (especially the one that goes back to college soon) In all, we did not go crazy with Ayden Jane's gifts and she declared it the best Christmas ever. I'll take it.

Now she is excited to have the greatest yard. She already has a trampoline, we finally got her swurfer up that she got for her birthday (It's a swing you stand on and ride like a surf board), and now a zip line! I love that she enjoys playing outside.

She also got a human anatomy factoid activity book and skeleton thing from Kayla. She spent a couple of hours today putting together the skeleton and doing some of the activities in the book. I had a hard time getting her to stop for supper! She now spouts off random facts about human anatomy. It's pretty great.

We are very much enjoying our time off school. I know I for one am not ready to return.

December

I have been terrible at posting things. There have been things to post, but I'm not going to back track now. We will see how break goes and maybe....

For now, we are dealing with sick Ayden Jane. It's her alter ego and we don't like it. Last week, the week of school before Christmas break, she had a bit of watery eyes and complaints of sore throat. We did not think much of it. Then on Sunday afternoon she was suddenly out of breath. By early Monday morning she was raging fever and obviously sick.

We took her to the pediatrician and he decided that although he did not hear anything, he was not to be fooled again by Ayden Jane so he put her on a pretty strong antibiotic. She did  not seem to get better and we took her to the ER Wednesday night because something needed to be done. Breathing treatment, steriods on board and labs drawn. We came home.

Friday morning we got a call from the ER that her blood culture came back positive (but without the specificity yet). They wanted us to go to her primary care pediatrician. He was not in the office today but our favorite ER doctor was so we headed back to the ER.

He started from scratch and found a positive flu test....  He also re ran the blood cultures. He is thinking it's possible the first run was positive by a contaminate (like from AJ's skin)  So, she is currently on cefdinir, tamilful, steriod, albuterol and ibuprofen. Had the fever Monday and Tuesday and has coughed, and coughed, and coughed since. Miserable, pitiful and MEAN.

Plan is: if blood culture negative, finish current meds and all should clear up. If culture positive for strep strain, then we will extend the cefdinir for a few more days than the 10 prescribed. If culture is positive for staph, we will have to return to the hospital for IV antibiotics.

NEED the coughing to stop so we can get on with Christmas festivities!