The Exploding Girl

Braewyn is alive and well, but I have washed her carseat cover TWICE in the last week! Last Sunday, I fed her ham for the first time. Things would have been fine if it had been a jar of ham commercial baby food, but we had pureed some ham from Thanksgiving. It was yummy to us on Thanksgiving, but it was way too salty for Braewyn (yes, it had been frozen in food cubes since the Saturday after Thanksgiving so it was still fresh). I only gave her four or five spoonfuls before tasting it myself and realizing how salty it was. The trouble came that evening.

During our evening service last Sunday at church, the preschool choir was presenting its Christmas program. It would be Philip's official stage debute. I'll post about that later as I have part of it on video (so precious!), but thankfully I was able to watch the two songs Philip took part in before being paged by our church nursery workers.

As I walk to the nursery after being paged, I try not to let my mind get the best of me and think through all the crises which my child might be experiencing. When I got to her room, Braewyn was in her back-up outfit (always gotta have one with her) and I was told that she threw up a large amount covering herself and her carseat (she had been just chillin' in it watching some of the older kids playing). I was told she didn't even cry, but she had created quite a mess. Off comes the carseat cover and she had to ride home in it just sitting on a folded up crib sheet. Always fun to do a small load of throw-up covered clothes and a carseat cover late on a Sunday night.

Monday went well. Braewyn actually was scheduled for her 6-month well-baby check-up (she turned 7 months on Dec. 2, but I had taken her for the 4-month appt. late which pushed this one back too). Her pediatrician said it was probably the ham and not to worry about it as Braewyn had seemed fine since throwing up. As for her check up, she weighs 14 lbs., 10 oz. (only 15th percentile). I don't remember her length, but she is in the 25th percentile for that and her head has remained at a steady 50th percentile since birth. Just another sweet petite one like her brother.

Tuesday and Wednesday were without explosions thankfully. Thursday morning, I dropped her off at Mom and Dad's before driving Philip and I to BSF. I asked Mom to feed Braewyn her breakfast including two prunes as she seemed constipated. This Mom did and went my parents dropped Braewyn back off at my house later that morning, they said she had struggled to get a poop out.

As our wellness insurance coverage was met, I had scheduled Braewyn for her 6-month shots at the health department (free!) that afternoon. I went ahead and brought Philip along and for being stuck there for 1 1/2 hours, he was so well-behaved (making friends with the other people in the waiting area and marching his toy elephant all over the chairs). Anyway, it was the scene of the second explosion. First Philip said he had to go potty right in the middle of our check-in process so off we went. Upon coming back to the waiting area, I kept smelling poop and thought it was because I hadn't washed my hands well enough after changing Braewyn's diaper at our house. Well, I decided to pick her up out of her car seat and the smell became worse and then I felt the wetness on the back of her pants -- a poopie blow-out! Back to the scary old bathroom where I proceeded to lay my changing pad down on the floor thinking what would be the best way to avoid the most germs.

Philip began saying, "Here's a changing table, Mommy." I continued thinking through how to remove Braewyn's diaper and clothes without her touching the floor when Philip's words finally sunk in -- there was a diaper changing wall mount on the wall behind me. I said, "Philip, you are such a smart boy! Thank you so much for finding that for me!!" I really was so surprised and thankful that he found it as I had not seen it while we were there the first time.

Anyway, back to the waiting room with clean clothes, wait for another 20 minutes and finally down the hall to the shot room. Poor Braewyn, at her ped's office, two nurses give the shots together so she gets two at once and then the third. At the health dept., one nurse injected her three times in a row. She screamed obviously, but only for a few minutes.

What a week!