Time For An Update...

Alright, let's face it, I'm not very good at keeping my blog up-to-date. I promise, I'll work on that, but let's be honest, it may not get any better. I thought it was more than past time that I write an update to catch up the happenings of the Conner's, so here goes.

Since it's been over a month since I've posted anything, we'll try to hit the highlights.

• Dakota is on the verge of walking. He edges all around as long as he has something to hang on to. He will walk clear across the room if he is pushing one of his toys (especially his toy tractor from Grandma & Grandpa Ketchum). He has taken a few "free standing" steps, but after about 3-4 he will drop to the floor and crawl the rest of the way.

• We're getting pretty independent. We like to feed our self. We can get pretty messy with it, but that's what baths are for right???

• Dakota now has 7 teeth, and we're trying to get 2-3 more in. Luckily, he isn't a fussy guy with any of his teeth so far, we'll hope that continues.

• We also love to set & play with our toys. We recently bought him a set of the ABC wooden blocks, and he loves to topple towers and bang them together.

• About 2-3 weeks ago, Dakota started running a fever on a Friday evening. Since he wasn't fussy or cranky, I thought it was maybe tied to teething. We treated the fever (101.7 at the highest point). When the medicine would wear off, we would spike back up again. This cycle continued until about mid-morning on Sunday. Sunday afternoon he was back to normal (or so we thought). Monday he was fine, had a cough, but it sounded normal. Tuesday morning I dropped him at daycare in the same shape as Monday; however, when I got him Tuesday evening, they said he'd been fussy all day (not like him at all) and I noticed he sounded pretty raspy/wheezy. His pediatrician is not in the office on Wednesday's and since it was almost 4 pm on a Tuesday, I figured I'd have to wait until Thursday to get him looked at. As it happens, I called in to setup an appointment, and was asked if I could be there at 4:15 pm. I said I might be a few minutes late, but we'll be there. We got there 4 minutes late. We got in to see the doctor and he agreed that Dakota did sound very raspy in the lower part of the lungs. He ordered us some more Albuterol for the nebulizer, as well as a 2-view chest x-ray and an RSV test. He really didn't think it was RSV, but he wanted to rule it out before putting him on a steroid. We did the x-rays & the RSV test, then went back home. I received a call from the doctor on Wednesday morning (before going to his other duty), and he said the RSV test was negative, but he was going to hold off from giving him anything else until the x-rays had been read. He said to call back in that afternoon & talk to his on-call doctor and they would give me the results. I called in that afternoon and left a recording on the on-call's answering machine. They finally returned my call at 4:58 pm. The x-rays showed that he had viral pneumonia. The on-call told me to go to the pharmacy and pick up the script of Zithromax that they had called in. We gave him the "loading dose" that evening. Then the next morning, I get another phone call from his doctor and he said he saw what the on-call had put him on, and that he wanted us to discontinue using it. He said the antibiotic would only help with a bacterial pneumonia, not the viral that Dakota had. He said to go back to the pharmacy and pick up the new script that he had called in for a steroid to put him on instead. We did that and everything seemed to be going well, but the next weekend we ran a fever just like the last one. I called his doctor on Monday and asked if it was normal for the fever to spike back up again. He said not generally, so he was afraid that it had re-presented itself as the bacterial pneumonia instead. So, back to the hospital for more chest x-rays. Luckily, this fever seemed to be due to teething, the chest x-rays showed that both the virus that caused the pneumonia & the pneumonia itself were gone!!!

• We celebrated our first official Mother's Day (I was pregnant for the last one, but didn't actually have a child yet at that one). I received a card from James, a card from Dakota, a dozen yellow roses from James & Dakota. I also got a "hand-print plaque" from Dakota courtesy of his daycare. We went to church together that Sunday, then made the rounds. We took James' mom a balloon, a card, a photo t-shirt & a dozen yellow roses. We then gave James' grandmothers each a plant & card. We gave my grandma a plant & card. We also sent money up home via Western Union, so that my sister could get my mom & my grandma that is in NE Missouri something as well. That was a busy weekend, but we had a great time.

• As for upcoming events. The first weekend in June is the Fort Scott Good Ol' Days celebration. It is a celebration/festival that the town puts on featuring entertainment, live re-enactments regarding the civil war that takes place at the fully-restored civil war fort. They have rides for the children, as well as a street fair that stretches for 4 blocks where vendors setup booths to sell their goods. They also have a main "featured event" to try to draw the crowds in; two years ago was the "Budweiser Horses", last year was "Dock Dogs", this year is "The All-American Lumberjack Show". It is usually a good time, so we're looking forward to it.

• Then the 2nd weekend in June we're having Dakota's 1-year pictures taken, so that they're ready a little ahead of time.

• The 3rd weekend my family is coming down from the 19th - 28th, so we'll visit and cook-out a lot. I've also got us scheduled to have a huge family picture taken as well as new individual family unit photos taken.

• We're ending the month of June with Dakota's 1st birthday. We're very excited, yet at the same time can't believe its been almost a year already.

Well, that's about it for us. We'll try to make the next update sooner rather than later!!!