What's up?

It's been a while since I've updated on Madelyn's. It seems like she still has a ways to go to catch up to her age, but at the same time she has come so far since Gotcha. She's crawling, pulling up, cruising some on the cough and table and the best of all is she is feeding herself and eating table food. We no longer have to spoon feed her. Unfortunately if she doesn't like it or doesn't want it, she will drop the food on the floor.

As for her health, she definitely has some allergies. We just don't know what they are though. She still has a runny nose. Not just a slow dribble. Many times during the day it is so thick running down her face, into her mouth (yeah, I know, gross), and she smears it across her face with her hands up to her head and into her hair. Everything we own seems to have been smeared in snot the past four months. No allergy medicine has worked so far.

Not only are we dealing with this nose, she still has diaper blow-outs. Wednesday we went out to eat for my birthday and she blew out on the way to the resturant. Then she blew it out again on the way back home. Yesterday she had runny diapers too so I decided to cut out all dairy to see if this is part of the problem. I've tried every soy milk plus whole milk. At one time we thought the diarrhea was from the antibiotics but she's been off of these for over two weeks now. Her poop smells like sulfur also. Thanks to google, I got some more ideas of what could cause this and one of those was giardia.

Now I'm wondering if her giardia went away. Remember me posting about the last giardia test and how I rushed it to be tested but they refused to test b/c I didn't have her name on the container. They called about 10 minutes after I left the lab but called my home and not my cell and I didn't go straight home from there. The first person I spoke to after I called back made it sound like Madelyn had to redo it b/c the sample wasn't there in one hour. It was but wasn't tested in time b/c of the lack of name. Then I got a call the next day to come back and label. They kept it in the fridge. Even though they knew that was ours I was suppose to run back up there and put her name on it. To shorten the story I eventually got up there and labeled it and in a few days they called to say it was negative. Now we wonder if that refridgeration kept the test from showing up positive. Could she still have this parasite? I took another sample today and should know something next week. If this is not the case of the diaper explosions I really don't know next what it is. I'm still keeping her off dairy for a little while just to see if this has anything to do with her poop.

Yesterday she also gave me a scare. I took her and all three boys to the podiatrist with me. It wasn't planned but I had to b/c the doctor's office called me thinking they switched the orthotics they gave me with another patient so I took off with all of them. I unload and take all the kids in. After I check in, everyone is staring at the kids and I look down and Madelyn's face is red. It gets worse. Her face looked like she had broke out in hives. It was horrible and it was getting worse every second. I already had a call in to her pediatrician about the giardia test so I was hoping they would call right then or I was even considering taking off to Urgent care or ER. She wasn't crying but I was about to b/c it just looked awful. I waited in this doctor's waiting room and watched her in my lap seeing if it was going to bother her and it never did. After I was done there and we were ready to leave, her face started clearing up. It still had red spots on it but it was nothing like it was when I first noticed it. Today she has four spots on her face that did scab over but doesn't seem to bother her at all. Our guess is something bit or stung her and she had a mild allergic reaction to it.

She has a physical on the 30th and I'm writing everything down on paper before she goes to ask the doctor about. I really want her tested for allergies. From the non-stop snot to the swelling on her face and possible food allergies if she tests negative for giardia.

Oh, and the biting, that's getting really old. She bit Nate so hard this week she drew blood. This one was from fighting over a plate I had put down with a snack on it for all three to share. Then yesterday she and Nate were fighting over a Little People toy and she bit him on the hand. She does the same to Andrew too. If they have something she wants, she bites. Nate has a scream that we know he's hurting so I find his bites earlier. Andrew screams the same whether he's in pain or just b/c he wants to scream so I never know if he's hurting or not. She bit Logan too this week on his side.

I'm hoping to have Madelyn baptized soon. We haven't chosen a date yet. I was given a beautiful white dress as a baby gift with no name tag that I was wanting to use for her baptism and have questioned who gave it to us to let them know but I haven't found out yet. It even came with adorable matching white shoes.

Happy Friday the 13th!