13 Months!

Once again, I'm behind on posting.  Eli is 13 months old now!  I didn't take many pictures this past month, because we dealt with a lot of sickness.  As I've said previously, Eli got an ear infection and cold in December, and after battling that for a while, one night he woke up with a barking cough.  We suspected right away that he had croup.  Luckily I find a website online that lets you listen to a croup cough to know how it sounds.  Sure enough, it matched to Eli's.  Since we had never dealt with croup before, we were very scared and worried.  Eli was miserable, and the cough prevented him from being able to sleep.  We set up the humidifier in his room, worked on keeping him calm, and tried just cuddling and reading stories together.  Finally I called my pediatrician's after-hours line, because I wanted to make sure he would be okay, and wanted to know what the best course of action would be.  When I heard back from a nurse (around 11:45), and answered her questions about his condition, she determined that he didn't need to come in to the hospital, but that we needed to bring him to the doctor the next day.  We were also told to sleep in the same room with him so we could be aware of any breathing troubles.

Instead of sleeping with him, we set up the monitor, and I knew that I would be alert and wake at every sound he made.  Unfortunately, nothing I did worked to get him to go back to sleep.  He was just too rattled from the coughing fits to be left alone.  Finally at 3:00 I was at a loss of what to do, so I laid down in bed and laid Eli on my chest.  In a few short minutes he was asleep.  Phew!  He coughed throughout the night, but his breathing was never jeopardized.  I was also sick at this time, so boy was that one heck of a night!

The next day I managed to get an appointment with the pediatrician, and thankfully my mom was able to come up to take us.  We were given a steroid that helped to decrease the swelling in the vocal cords, making it easier for him to breathe.  Eli only had to take the medicine for three days, and after the first day he was MUCH better!  He was back to sleeping in his crib throughout the night, and while the cough persisted, it no longer was a bark.  How grateful we are for modern medicine, and for tools and resources provided to us that allow us to help our children.  We sure don't appreciate good health enough until we don't have it!  It is such a blessing to have our health.

Here are the pictures over the past month:

Eli playing in one of his cute church outfits.  Even though his eyes are closed, I still love this picture!

This spinning toy was a favorite for the cousins while at G&G Metheny's house.

Funny boy, climbed into the toy tub.  : )

This elmo couch/bed was also a hit for the kids.  He sure looks like he has kicked back to relax!  : )

Pointing is still popular with Eli.  He points to everything and everyone, and gets many smiles and points back to him.  Lately he really likes to point to objects or hold them up to me so that I'll tell him what they're called. He has three pictures above his changing table--Jesus, a temple, and one of himself.  He loves to point to them every time he's changed, and I'm pretty sure he says a version of "Jesus" himself now.  : )

He's looking older, huh?  He doesn't walk on his own yet, but sometimes he'll let us hold his hands and walks really well that way.  I'm in no hurry, though!  : )

Eli LOVES to be told "Thank you!"  It's one of his favorite things to do something such as pull out all the sandwich bags, just so he can hand me each one and hear me thank him every time.  He's a very good helper!

Eli is crazy, crazy, CRAZY about phones!  He has a few toy phones, and he loves to hold them up to his ear (or more often they get placed behind his head) and "talk."  Whenever he hears us use the word "phone," or sees us with ours, he makes that same hand gesture.

He's still the sweetest boy in all the land, and we can't ever get enough of him!  : )