Saturday, January 18, 2014

Ow! My Aching Ribs!

Over the Christmas break, we were all pretty sick.  My plans for the break quickly went out the door, and TV, couch time, bed time, and lots of nasal rinses occurred.  There was also alot of coughing, especially for me who would cough so hard my stomach and side muscles would hurt.  Once I started feeling better, I decided to jump straight into work-outs with Kim (since I hadn't been been able to run).  Well, apparently working out and coughing had some side effects.  I wound up with strained muscles in my back, right under my shoulder blade.  I tried ice, relaxing, etc.  After 2 weeks, I gave up and called my Myopractics guy (he's the best healer I have!)  As he was working on me, he said that coughing sometimes can move a rib and you feel the pain at the connection points.  I felt pain all over, but apparently that was because my hips had moved into a very funky position - my left hip was tilted backwards, my right hip was tilted forward.  So he worked on those first (as he always does).  And then he worked up my back trying to loosen the muscles.  He said there was a lot of inflammation.  Once the hips and the back muscles were better, he worked through other parts - the attachment points around the ribs, my diaphragm muscles, etc.  While working through all those, he found that I probably fractured (or ripped or tore whatever the term may be) some cartilage by my sternum.  He said that's not uncommon and it will heal.

So, I walked away, still in pain (because apparently when it comes to ribs, the pain doesn't go away for a couple of days), and with the knowledge that I coughed myself into a broken rib (sorta).  Is this a sign of old age?  This is horrible!!  We'll see how well I heal.  I may have to go back for another visit, but we'll see come Monday.

Tuesday, January 14, 2014

Natalie's 15 Month Update

Natalie just had her 15th month checkup and all is good.  She has a whole mouthful of teeth (it's crazy) and is now changing her growing curve.  Instead of being in the 80th plus percentile in height and weight, she has dropped significantly and is down to 66th percentile in hight, but 3rd percentile in weight!  We have discussed her weight on several visits now, but the pediatrician has finally said she is not concerned because of all the foods she eats and the fact that she is still growing in height.  (1" in the last 3 months).  She does eat a ton.  She can eat an entire chicken & apple sausage (skin included) and cry for more.  If we let her, she would probably eat 5 bananas in a sitting.  (We limit her to 1 a day).  She has eaten and entire container of blueberries in one sitting before.  The girls eats full meals 6-8 times a day.  Calorie intake is definitely not a problem!

We are also closely watching her words.  She has a lot of words, but they are very unclear.  Our family and Molly understand her words, based on context and her beginning word sounds (which is typically the whole word for her).  But other people probably wouldn't understand.  The pediatrician said she should clearly have a handful of words in the next three months or we will be doing some hearing tests.  Of course, Natalie understands a great deal, so I question whether there is a hearing issue, but I'm fine with conducting tests if there are indications of a problem.  We can tell her "Go find sissy in the green room" and she will take off across the house to the green room and look for Alli.

Of course, one day after the doctor visit and she started saying "Ma" clear as day.  Not Mama, but Ma.  I'm good with Ma.  And then Molly said she swears she said "iPad" clear as day yesterday.  I told her Kim would be thrilled, but there is no way "iPad" is going down as her first clear word.  So I say "Ma".  And of course Kim says "iPad", even though none of us have heard it yet except Molly.  And of course Alli, Ms. non-biased 5 year old, corrects all of us and tells us that Natalie's first clear word was "No", which is probably the most accurate account.

So here are her stats:

Height:  31"  (66th percentile)
Weight:  19.2 lbs (3rd percentil)
Head Circum:  45-1/2 cm (37th percentile)

Yes, still not quite at 20 lbs, so we are keeping her rear facing in the car seats.  She doesn't seem to mind, and she doesn't look too uncomfortable.  I know we kept Alli rear facing until about 18months when we noticed she was craning her neck to look out the window and we figured that would do more damage than turning her around.  We are waiting for Nat to start doing the same and then she will be flipped right away.  We'll see what happens.  Natalie is typically entertained by her sister, not things outside the window.