Best, most rewarding job I have ever had. Going to be hard to top it.

I think we are at some kind of bossy stage now. For some reason Lexi decided Vegas should not be up on the bed. Good thing Vegas knows who the REAL boss is! Just nevermind the hockey pillow in the background.

It was also the first time we had ever been camping with a 1.5 year old. Thank the Lord we bought that van! On top of our usual gear we also needed to make room for the pack n’ play, the stroller, a bin of toys, a tiny camp chair, a screen tent, and an inflatable turtle. Not to mention all kinds of special food, clothes, and diaper stuff. The van was completely maxed out with just enough room for Vegas beside the baby seat. I really wish now that I had taken a picture of that pack job (I could use it next time).

It took a little more time to set up than normal too. We confined Lex to her pack n’ play while we got the tent set up and after that I did as much as I could by myself. There is also this extra sense of awareness that comes with having a camping baby. You are so much more aware of the sun and the bugs than ever before. We were constantly making sure she was wearing a hat and scanning her for mosquitoes every 30 seconds. They still managed to get her a couple times but for the most part the bugs weren’t that bad until the evening.

At night Shan would take her to bed and lie with her for a bit. When she started dozing she would come back out and join us around the fire. The first night I think we woke her up when we came back in the tent and then she slept with us for a couple hours. The second night she slept 11 hours and woke us up around 8am for breakfast. It was awesome.

We had some fun at the beach floating around and learned all about the dangers of fire. She was very aware that the fire was HOT and stayed clear of it without too many reminders from mom and dad. She also learned how to drink from a water bottle and how to bounce on just about anything inflatable. She learned the joys of eating our breakfast outside and hanging out on our chairs talking with good friends.

Can’t wait to do it all again next weekend at Great Woods Park.

May and June really took it’s toll on her but we are happy to have her back. We still need to travel with the puffer and ward off a few attacks here and there but it is certainly under control. It’s nice for us to be able to sleep through the night too instead of being awake all night listening to her suffer and feeling completely helpless on those nights we went in just to hold her upright and comfort her. 2 months of that nonsense.

Anyway, she is back and more bouncy than ever. We have been to the park a lot now that the weather is nice. Lexi will try any slide and is quite good with her obstacles now. Check out her dismount on this video from Morier Park in the old hood. I love the little jump down the step! Also nevermind that she is dressed like a tourist…

We went out on the bike again this morning too and took Vegas with us. After some quality time on the swings we took a long ride around Lorette and I started to sing one of Ernie’s hits. She hummed along the whole way with me which I thought was really cool. Here is some swinging, ignore the PJ’s.

Anyway, just an update to let everyone know we are doing much better and looking forward to some camping this summer. Updates on that coming soon.

I am blogging about this now because the process was horrible. When this cough first came on our first instinct was common cold so we waited it out for a couple weeks. It was keeping her up at night and we would take turns going in and sitting with Lexi upright until she would fall back asleep. We tried elevating her bed, firing up the humidifier, removing certain blankets, removing dairy, and even visiting the chiropractor (which has been great but not for the cough).

Once the cold was over the cough didn’t let up. Every time Lexi tried to lay down for naps or at night she would cough like crazy and eventually wake up crying because she was hacking so much. At several doctors appts I tried to describe this cough and could never really do it justice. On my way to one appt I took some footage to show the doctors. This is 3 different rounds of the cough on the way there.

On the third visit the doctors prescribed a Ventalin Puffer (“the Blue one”) and some saline for her nose. We did that for a week and it made little or no difference at all. She was fine during the day but was still not sleeping during naps and night time. It seemed to postpone the coughing for a bit but not enough to get through a nap. As parents we were super concerned with all this hacking and the lack of sleep. It had to be hard on her physically and the lack of sleep made her BEAR and tired all the time. By the end of that week I was basically lying in bed listening to her cough on and off all night. Going into her room several times a night to sit with her.

At the end of the week we went to another appointment and a second puffer was introduced. Flovent I think. The “purple one”. We also got an appt to see a specialist in October! The Flovent, the Vetalin, and the saline changed nothing. After a week on both, plus the saline, with no results we went back to the doctor and she was able to call the specialist and set up a sooner appt. In the meantime she also gave us some Advair to try.

The first night on the Advair the wasn’t a huge difference. The next day we saw a 2 hour morning nap and another 1.5 in the afternoon. That night we heard a little coughing around 1am but she managed it herself without waking up and she slept her normal 11 hours from 8pm to 7am.

We have continued to use it with success and finally saw the specialist yesterday. She confirmed Lexi has asthma that was triggered from the fever back in May. More specifically it brought out her allergy to cats and as a result she hasn’t been able to break this cough. We are staying on the Advair for a couple more weeks and then we go back. Eventually something will be prescribed to rid the cough completely.