Baby White Tunnel

posted by Carol:



aka a MRI machine. But to Julia, it's a baby white tunnel. Sounds fun, right?

Julia is prone to febrile seizures, which just means, seizures brought on by sudden high fevers. There's no lasting harm and no cause other than a fever. Evidently, before the age of five, 4% of kids will experience a febrile seizure. But when one parent has had a febrile seizure, then a child's chance of febrile seizure is 50%. I had one as a kid, so it makes sense that Julia has them too. She had two last year. The first one happened with her grandparents as they were heading to Wayne's practice. Because we didn't see it, we didn't realize how scary it was for her poor grandparents and I didn't even realize it was a febrile seizure. The only thing that worried Wayne a little bit was that for a couple of minutes, she was completely limp on the right side of her body. That's atypical of febrile seizures, but not unheard of.

The second one happened while at Wayne's friend's house. She was really not herself, so I tried breastfeeding her to calm her down. I think it was the way she started clamping down, that it occurred to me that she might be having a seizure. I called out to Wayne, who was helping his friend clean up after a party, but I was also imagining the insanity of trying to simultaneously deal with Julia's seizure and a broken bloody boob, so I was working hard to free myself from her as well. Anyway, even though I now know there's no real danger from a febrile seizure, I didn't know it then and the thought that she was dying flashed through me. Felt very powerless. Could not even imagine how Wayne's mom had dealt with it. I hadn't ever witnessed a seizure, and it's pretty darn scary, with the eyes rolling, mouth frothing, the rigid shaking. And I hear that epileptic seizures are even more scary! Anyway, we went to the ER after that one. Again it was atypical.

She had her third (atypical) febrile seizure a couple of weekends ago. Wayne was alone with her driving, and keeping an eye on her because he knew that a fever had started. She went rigid and didn't respond to his calling her for a minute? Hard to tell the time for such a thing.

The neurologist said that even though he felt confident that everything was fine, we might as well get a MRI of her brain, just so we wouldn't have to worry anymore.

To prepare Julia, I showed her pictures of the machine that I found online and tried to describe it in terms that she would like. She likes tunnels, and look it's a small tunnel, oh, so cute like a baby. It's a baby white tunnel! Somehow, Julia decided that not only would she see a baby white tunnel in the hospital, but that Mickey Mouse would be there too. I should have corrected her, but paid for it later when a slurring delirious toddler was sobbing the whole car ride home that she wanted to see Mickey Mouse in the hospital. Um, anyway, overall it went well. She's good with doctors and needles, and the results show she's got a perfectly normal brain. So Julia is good to go.

First Fun Snow of Winter

Wayne gets credit for the nicely shaped snowman . Julia's contribution was deciding that the snowman needed a heart (this was just days after Valentine and a Valentine's Day Lollipop came in handy). Unfortunately, days later, as the red color bled down its chest, it looked like our snowman had been shot!

There's a very very mild hill a block away from us. Julia's too big for that infant sled, but we only used it once last year. If we get to use it one more time, I won't feel like it was a waste.

POSTED BY CAROL:

During the first week of February, we traveled to CA to see family and friends and timed our visit to coincide with Chinese New Year's. Julia was super excited about the trip and jumped the gun for some of the things she was anticipating. As soon as the plane got into the air, she asked, "Where is Puo Puo (my mom)?" As soon we landed, she said, "We're going to see the parade with dragons."

We had a fun Superbowl with my high school girlfriends, their husbands and babies (the Giants are my new team! It's not just because they're winners, which they are, but most of you probably know that we live within 10 minutes of Giants Stadium). Who knew frozen microwavable Tysons buffalo chicken strips could be so tasty? I know, it certainly doesn't sound good. Julia is still talking about Sofie and Jack. I really wish we could see them more often.

We met up with them one other time in Huntington Beach for some yummy Wahoo's and a beautiful day at the beach, complete with cool "bubble guy."

Disneyland was lots of fun too - despite a 15 minute meltdown, complete with thrashing on the floor (by Julia, of course). Some passers-by were sympathetic, others smug. I overheard one mom explain to her husband, "They just get over tired sometimes." (Inside, I thanked her for her understanding) We collected ourselves at the Princess Stage, where we heard a story (probably cryptic for Julia and more cringe-inducing for me than I expected) told by Princess Aurora a/k/a Sleeping Beauty. We felt like the most horrible parents for taking her on the Snow White ride (forgot that it's called Snow White's Scary Adventures), but redeemed ourselves with Dumbo and the Teacups.

Unfortunately, we committed another major parenting no-no when we took Julia to the Chinese New Year Parade in L.A.'s Chinatown and decided to watch the fireworks up close. We realized it might be too loud, but we kinda forgot about the smoke and soot filled air. Julia was sitting on my shoulders while Wayne filmed the segment below. We don't know if Julia was screaming because we couldn't hear a thing - I thought about running away, but thought that might be more traumatic. So all we could do was huddle while Wayne covered her ears. Luckily, she's okay. We all later agreed that the firecrackers needed shush-ing and that they scared the dragons away.

We're lucky that the weather is so great in CA and that there's so many fun things to do there when our main purpose is just to visit family. I also feel lucky that Julia seems to really appreciate my parents, stepmom, brother and grandparents even though we don't see them often.

Julia's Dollhouse

Just wanted to show off Julia's new dollhouse that she got for Christmas. My dad and I spent many hours on this project, because I couldn't be happy with a classic Victorian. Santa provided the family and furniture.

Ho Ho Ho - Merry Xmas

Merry Christmas to all! You wouldn't know it from this picture, but Julia was actually very happy to see Santa at Macy's. She just got very nervous when within a few feet of him. A couple of steps before and after she was on his lap, she happily announced that she wanted "one baby" (doll) from Santa. This was the first Christmas that Julia was excited about, which made it the most fun Christmas for me and Wayne since when we were kids. She really caught the Christmas spirit, with the songs (see video below), the tree decorating, Frosty, Rudolph and Olive (The Other Reindeer). But mostly, she loves Santa, to the point where Wayne and I started feeling a little guilty about our participation in the myth. On Christmas Eve, Julia wanted to sleep on the couch and looked expectantly at the fireplace. When Wayne finally convinced her to go to bed, she asked him, "Will he wait for me?" and instead of running to the toys on Christmas morning, she stood looking at the family room and asked, "Where is he?" She stared at the empty cup of milk and plate of cookies - and the gnawed off ends of carrots (for the reindeer) - amazed that they were gone. Luckily, all the great presents, including the hand-made dollhouse by Wayne and Big Eddie (his dad), and the doll house family and furniture (from Santa), soon eased her Santa no-show disappointment.