September

September has been a difficult month. Zoe went through three different illnesses, one after another. First was the blisters in her throat and on her hand. Next was an ear infection (actually, this was Zoe's first ear infection so we feel pretty lucky there). Then last week she developed a rash that we thought was chickenpox but it never fully developed so we took her to the doctor on Monday. Turns out that she has a viral rash, not really sure from what but it is fading now so no worries.

Through all of this, Zoe has been great as always. Her biggest frustrations has been not swimming and missing school. We have tried to get her to school as much as possible but when she is running a fever or really not feeling well, we have to keep her home. When she has made it to school she has been super excited. A new batch of students (Zoe goes to a preschool inside a university so there are lots of early childhood education students) started and they are all falling for her cute ways. When I dropped her off last Friday she had three students immediately come over to play with her. Zoe has always had a really long attention span and the students love the fact that she will play with their activities for a good 30-40 mins when the other kids get bored in a few minutes and walk away. And of course, everyone is a sucker for that smile.

Gavin started teaching a child life class at a university this month. It continues until the end of October. He is really enjoying teaching but the commute is tough (takes him a couple hours each way since it is out of town). I envy him all that time on the commuter's bus....nothing to do...no one asking him for anything...no small child to feed... I really miss him on nights when he gets home late. Thankfully, Alan (Gavin's dad) is still here helping us out so at least I have plenty of help with Zoe. With Alan here, I have even had time in the evenings after work where I can go and take a hot bath while Alan and Gavin look after dinner and Zoe. It has been wonderful.

Seating Clinic

We finally saw the seating clinic to assess if the wheelchair stroller we got from another family is appropriate for Zoe. They were quite happy with it and felt that it supported Zoe in all the right places. We just had to do a few minor adjustments. So the stroller will work for now and then in the next few years we will start talking about a wheelchair. Zoe's physiotherapist mentioned that we may want to start thinking about a power wheelchair. So we talked that over with the seating people. We would definitely have to get ramps on the house and a wheelchair accessible van since the power wheelchairs typically weigh about 250 pounds!

For now, we will continue to encourage Zoe to use her walker as much as possible. For longer distances, we typically carry Zoe and drag the walker along for her to use when we get to our destination. A power wheelchair might make more sense when Zoe is older and having trouble keeping up with her friends or moving from classroom to classroom. For now, Zoe has no trouble running after her classmates in her walker.

We also want to hold off because we want Zoe to be motivated to walk. If she finds she can just zoom places by pushing a button, she may sign "chair" constantly and refuse to walk. For now, Zoe loves walking and we want it to stay that way. Also, Zoe continues to run our feet over constantly when she is exited and running somewhere so I can only imagine the damage she would do in such a heavy chair!

Ahhhh, Winter is Coming...

Pain Meds

We had to take Zoe back to the doctor on Saturday because she was becoming very agitated and aggressive in the evenings while repetitively signing "hurts" and pointing at her mouth. It is actually amazing to us that she can point to exactly where her pain is- she digs her finger way in the back of her mouth to point at her throat where the blisters are. Just out of interest we did a pain scale from the hospital for children with special needs that are non-verbal. Zoe scored 37 and anything above 7 is considered the child is in pain. Yikes! So off to the doctor we went. He prescribed morphine and so far Zoe has done pretty well with just two doses of that a day and a couple doses of ibuprofen. The morphine does not seem to make her sleepy so that is good.

First Cold of the Season

Unfortunately, Zoe woke up yesterday with a very stuffy nose and miserable. She has gotten a cold on top of her viral infection in her throat. Needless to say, she was pretty miserable yesterday. She does really well though, even when in a lot of pain. She still spent some time in her walker and loved going outside for a wagon ride and swinging with grandad.

I woke up at 3:30am today and instinctively knew something was amiss. I listened closely to the monitor and I could hear Zoe gasping and choking. I held my breathe and listened (this is what we do before rushing in, we give her a chance to clear herself first). Zoe did clear herself and when I checked on her she was sound asleep again. My heart was racing and I could not get back to sleep until after 5.

So I took a deep breathe and reminded myself that I have to sleep, even when I am worried about her breathing. She is bigger and stronger now and most times she can clear herself.

Sigh....winter is coming so I better remember how to roll over and fall back to sleep afterwards.

Zoe Sick- Minor

Fevers With a Cause

Zoe has been running a fever since last Thursday. We also noticed that she chewed her one finger so much that it had a nasty looking blister on it. Tuesday was day 6 of fevers so we went to the paediatrician to see what was going on. We actually found a simple cause this time! I think the doctor was just as excited as we were that there was an obvious cause and this is not one more case of rumblings in the chest but not being sure if she has pneumonia again. When the doctor looked at Zoe's throat, she could see blisters just like the one on Zoe's finger. Zoe has a viral infection (not hand, foot, and mouth which we are pretty sure Zoe had last year) that causes blisters in the mouth/throat but since she was chewing her fingers so much it caused a blister to form there too. Apparently this is very painful and most kids are on codeine for it. So far Zoe has been doing well on Motrin and Tylenol. She was in a pretty good mood today so I dropped her off at school this morning. Hopefully she will make it through the day. I am hoping being at school will distract her from the pain and she will eat better. I can tell she is in pain because she is chomping away on her hands and when I ask her why she is biting so much, she signs "hurts."

We're Back!

A Great Trip

We had a fantastic time away. It was great to see all the other families at conference. Check out Whitney's blog (on the right) to see summaries of some of the presentations or Alayna's blog to see pictures of most of the kids. There is a cute one of Zoe.

After conference we rented a car and went to the Arches National Park. It was gorgeous. And Zoe did so well despite the warm and sunny weather. She was drinking water like a champ.

We ended the trip with a 3 day train ride from Salt Lake City to Buffalo. Zoe loved the train and kept signing "train." When the train made stops, Zoe walked around on the platform. Initially she had a hard time not trying to throw herself under the train but she quickly learned to listen. We were very impressed that just by saying (while signing) "no yellow line" Zoe would immediately stop and go the other direction. She really does listen well, especially for a 3 year old!

Photos To Come

We have tons of photos (over 300!) to sort through and then we will post some. It really was a great trip.

Little Cow-Girl

One thing I wanted to comment on was our discovery of Zoe's love of country music! While driving the to Arches we got stuck in traffic. Zoe was getting fussy in the back so we tried finding some music on the radio. When we stopped on the country station, Zoe immediately stopped crying and was quiet. As soon as the song ended, she would fuss until we found another country song. And not just any country- she didn't want any modern, not so country sounding music. She wanted good old fashioned "yee haw" twangy country. It was hilarious!

Just Too Excited!

Gavin's dad came for a visit the day after we got back and Zoe was beside herself with excitement to see him. He has grown his beard out and Zoe is just loving it. It was great to see her recognize him and get so excited.

To add to the excitement- today is the first day back at school! Zoe had a bit of a restless night and we think it was because she was so excited about school. She was laughing, smiling, and signing school as soon as I got her up this morning.

Zoe was very restless in the car and complaining (apparently I was taking too long to get to school!) As soon as I put Zoe in her walker, she raced into her school room. Some of her friends came over to get kisses and hugs and ask her how her break was. Zoe walked all over the room touching everything while smiling and laughing to herself. It was very cute. And great to see just how much she really does love school.

We're Off!

We are leaving today for the 1p36 Conference in Salt Lake City. We are very excited to see everyone again and meet new families. They have some great things on the agenda this year like a moms' night out and a dads' breakfast. We have some family time planned for after conference and I am really looking forward to that. Gavin has been working so much that we haven't had much time lately except our camping trip a couple of weeks ago.

It has been neat to see the effect of packing on Zoe. Previously she didn't take much notice of that type of activity but on Sunday when I was packing, Zoe was getting really upset. I realized that she thought I was going somewhere without her so once I explained what I was packing and that our trip was in a few days she kept getting so excited but then upset at the same time. Upset because she won't be at school for a couple of weeks. But she kept signing, "mom, dad, Zoe" and getting so excited. It's going to be a great trip.

The Backpack

Ok, I admit this is probably just an excuse to post some more cute pictures....but someone commented on the backpack and I just wanted to show how hilarious Zoe used to look in the carrier. The carrier was bigger than Zoe! It also weighed almost as much as her. We bought it when Zoe was six months old when we knew we would be doing a lot of walking on our trip to England and Scotland. Gavin's family is from there so we went over to show off "the bonny wee babbity" and visit the relies. We were hoping that Zoe would be able to nap and it would be more comfortable than carrying her in a sling. We bought this particular pack because it is pretty light weight and can carry a child up to 23kg/50 lbs. We figured that will last Zoe a while. Zoe actually screamed her head off the first few times she was in it. I think people were wondering why we were squashing this "newborn" (we got that a lot with Zoe in the first year) into a backpack.

I love this picture because it shows how little Zoe was. More backpack than baby.

And you can see in this picture that she really was comfortable in it. She would fall asleep in the pack for hours. Because she stops wiggling when sleeping we had to dress her in a sweatshirt because her hands would turn purple due to her poor circulation. We didn't realize this wasn't "normal." We thought it was normal for a baby's hands and feet to be bright purple at times. It wasn't until someone pointed it out as a cardiac symptom that we thought there was anything wrong with it.

And here is Zoe at almost 3 1/2 years old. She doesn't sleep in the carrier now. She is too busy yelling at daddy to go, go, go!

FYI I do actually carry Zoe at times (and yes, Rachel Coleman is definitely an inspiration for me to be in shape so I can carry my child as she grows bigger). I just like the pictures of Gavin better :)

Chapman State Park Camping Pictures

We decided to go to Chapman State Park in Pennsylvania this year for a few reasons. Mainly because I have always wanted to camp in the Allegheny Forest and also we invited some friends and family from PA to join us. Unfortunately they were not able to come. But we still had a great time.

We were quite impressed with the handicap access of the park in general. Specifically, there was a totally accessible washroom including a change table that was set up between the men and women's rooms. Which meant we could both be in the shower with Zoe. We typically both take her into the bathroom when giving her a shower at camp (it is not safe to shower Zoe alone anymore because she arches and wiggles so much) but usually we have to sneak into each other's bathrooms. This time we could take our time and enjoy the facilities. There was also a wheelchair dock and steps down into the lake. Zoe had a great time walking up and down the wheelchair accessible sidewalk/dock area. We were camped near the fully accessible sights so Zoe could walk along the flat area of the road. She was even able to walk up hill a bit. Her walking has really come along in the last few months.

Zoe hanging out at camp. Yes- we brought that highchair! Been using it for three years now and it still works well. It is great because it is so small and portable. As you can see, it also doubles as a play chair.

Zoe's static hair after going down the playground slide.

Zoe doing what she loves- eating sand. It has actually become a bit of a problem because she has the fine motor control to get a lot in her mouth now. She is sitting in her flip 2 sit. We love her new chair- makes so many things (like playing in the sand) much more accessible.

Zoe LOVED bouncing along in the backpack. She got quite a bit of reflux (aka puke) from all the bouncing but really enjoyed it anyway. Puking has never stressed Zoe out so we just wiped it up and kept on walking.