Lots of Communicating...

On a better note than my last post, Pumpkin has really stepped up his communication skills recently.  He has started using the sign language gesture for "more" and has started pointing to his mouth whenever I ask him if he is hungry and wants to eat.  He babbles a lot but only says three real words:  "mama", "gagi" (daddy), and "again" (which means again or "I want that" depending on the context).

He's starting to take several steps at a time on his own and has generally shown a great deal more interest in walking.  Our world will really change when that happens!

We took him to the zoo recently and he loved looking at the animals, especially a wolverine friend.  The wolverine was the most exciting and active animal we saw there.  The wolverine was splashing around in his water pool and seemed to take a great deal of interest in Pumpkin, who was riding on Daddy's back in the backpack carrier.  The wolverine climbed up the side of the cage and was intently staring at Pumpkin, much to Pumpkin's delight, who was giggling and babbling about it the entire time.  There a mini-zoo train which we all rode together.  Poor Pumpkin had a look of terror on his face as we started out, especially as we approached a short tunnel, so we were frantically trying to keep him excited and pointing out things to him.  He became calmer but never looked like he was particularly enjoying it, but then he started to cry and fuss when we had to get off of the train.

Well, I think I hear Pumpkin waking up from his nap so I had better go!

Yes, We're Still Alive...

Wow- it has been a long time since I have posted anything.  We've all been sick off and on, work has been crazy, we've had a lot of family visits/commitments and I just generally feel like things have been out of control so hence, my lack of blog posting. 

We attempted a trip over Memorial Day; unfortunately, we only made it about halfway through our 10 hour trip before turning around and coming home.  We had spent the night in a hotel and poor Pumpkin had a horrible sounding wet cough all night long.  We were in the middle of Kentucky and the only medical facility open within an hour's drive was the ER.  We took Pumpkin there where he was misdiagnosed with a single ear infection and bronchitis.  They gave him a nebulizer breathing treatment and ordered bloodwork and a throat culture.  Hours later we were still waiting for the lab techs to come and take his blood and do the throat culture.  Finally, they came; the first nurse missed his vein entirely.  She brought in another nurse who had three of us hold Pumpkin down.  She finally got the needle in but was unable to draw any blood.  They generally seemed at a loss as to how to go about taking a blood sample from a toddler.  At this point, I could not stand to have Pumpkin tortured any longer so I put a stop to any further attempts and told them we wanted to just go home to our normal pediatrician's office.  They gave Pumpkin a painful antibiotic shot in the buttocks and sent us with an antibiotic script.  Luckily, we did not fill that because when we took him to the pediatrician at home the next day, we discovered that he did NOT have bronchitis (only post-nasal drip) but did have a double ear infection.  The ER doctor in Kentucky had written the prescription for the wrong dosage as well as misdiagnosing the problems.  Very scary...

Pumpkin is doing much better, except for some sleep disturbances at night, but I believe I am now coming down with whatever started his problems off.  We are supposed to leave for a beach vacation in a week and a half so please keep your fingers crossed that we'll all stay well and enjoy that trip (our track record with traveling with Pumpkin has been very, very poor)!