why I'm wishing Harper was a little bit more fussy

Note: this is not Harper, it is her evil twin who has less hair...

I ran across an interesting article today on www.msnbc.com that talked about the current parenting culture and the vast number of resources out there which claim to know the best way to parent a child. It goes on to saw that these resources don't really account for genetic predispositions which may cause our children who we are so diligently training to act in a completely different way than we are expecting them to based on what "experts" have said.

It was this little segment that caught my attention:

"One of the strongest and most counterintuitive findings in this nascent field is that children with a sweet temperament, which is under strong genetic control, are the least likely to emulate their parents and absorb the lessons they teach, while fussy kids are the most likely to do so."

Now I'm not so certain I'm happy that Harper is such a "good baby"...

Read the rest of the article here:
http://www.newsweek.com/id/151758

doctor update

Harper had an appointment with the radiologist this past Wednesday to have some tests done and we found out that she does have the kidney reflux problem. We won't know how severe it is until we meet with a urologist, but the radiologist described it as "not too severe." Whatever that means. Harper was actually really good during the testing, but it was hard to watch. For now she is on a low dose of antibiotics every day and this will probably continue until she outgrows the problem or has to have surgery. We're hoping to get her in to see the urologist in the next couple weeks, so I will update when we find out more.

I hope Harper likes cereal

Tom and I both really like breakfast cereal. Whenever I see one of our favorite cereals for around $1.50 or less, I will usually buy it and stash it in a random cupboard. I didn't realize how quickly the boxes have been accumulating. Tonight we decided we should try to figure out how many boxes we have and which ones are expiring soon because things have been getting a little out of control. If I remember correctly, there were 47 boxes of cereal plus a few boxes of oatmeal. I think I paid less than a dollar for most of these and quite a few of them were free after coupon, but I think I should probably take a little break from buying cereal before it overtakes our apartment.

weekend

Tom's third year of law school is quickly approaching. He has one more week of work at Hogan and then he will be working back at Irell for a couple of weeks before school starts. I am so excited to have Tom home more often :) A few of Tom's friends just finished taking the bar, so they got together on Friday night for some video games. Unfortunately, we forgot to take a picture. So many of our friends have moved out of our ward over the last few months and we really miss them.

Harper seems to be feeling much better. She had another antibiotic shot on Friday morning and weighed 13 lbs. 10 oz. at her appointment. She seems to be in a much better mood, although her sleep schedule has been crazy so she isn't quite back to her old self. We have moved her to her crib which is going pretty well. The first couple nights she woke up around 3, both times because her head was against the crib railing. After the second night we realized that the mattress wasn't level and she was gradually moving toward the railing at night. We put a towel under one side of the mattress to level it out so hopefully that fixes the problem. Her swing has been a lifesaver over the last week because it was the only thing that she would let me set her down in. Here she is hanging out in her swing:

On Saturday night we went to Malibu to the house of a partner at Hogan for dinner. Their house is beautiful and it overlooks the ocean (you can't really tell from the picture, but that is the ocean way in the background).
One of Harper's favorite things to do lately is stand up (assisted, of course). Tom helped her stand up this morning in her crib and she got really excited.
Here we are before church this morning. She was a little grumpy, but still so cute :)
Here is a photo I took a few days ago. The one on the left was taken when Harper was about a week and a half old and the one on the right was taken at about 14 weeks. She's getting so big!

Shot Time

It turns out that Harper throwing up her antibiotics every time we gave them to her was in fact a bad thing. She is still getting hammered by the infection several days after we began trying to give her the supposedly beefed up medication. Erica found this out after deciding to take Harper in today in response to her throwing up the antibiotics AGAIN this morning. The pediatrician decided to just give Harper a two shot dose that should take care of things. Erica will be back again tomorrow so Harper can get the second shot. Hopefully this takes care of things.

I want my sweet Harper back.

warning: gross pictures

We have had a long day. I don't know if Harper is having a hard time with the antibiotic or if she's still bothered by the infection or if something else is wrong(she has also had a low grade fever in the evenings), but she has been very cranky lately. I'm also having a really difficult time getting her to swallow her medicine. Her previous antibiotics were nice and pink and smelled very sugary, but this one is a very ugly yellow color and it smells bitter. She does not like it. She has pretty much thrown up or spit out the medicine every time I have given it to her. In fact, after putting her to bed this evening, I walked in to find this (sorry, I know this is gross, but I'm sharing anyway):However, she was in a really good mood. We have been debating when we should move Harper from her bassinet to her crib, but I guess she made the decision for us.

On the bright side, one good thing did happen today. A few weeks ago I bought Harper some booties because I had read that they were basically impossible for a baby to kick off. She wore them once and although she couldn't kick them off, they really irritated her feet. I emailed the company to let them know about the problem. I actually got an email back from the president of the company apologizing and offering to send me an outfit if I would send the booties back. I got the "outfit" today and it was a lot more than I was expecting. Here is Harper with the package before I opened it (I thought the packaging was adorable):The package contained a dress, some leggings, a jumper, a sweater, a beanie, a hat, a bib, a pair of socks, and a blanket. I am so impressed with this company. Here's Harper in the hat. It's a little big on her, but it's so cute!

earthquake?

Harper and I were going for a walk this morning when I got a text message from Tom that said "earthquake" to which I replied "where?". I totally didn't even feel it. Apparently Tom (who works on the 15th floor of his building) experienced quite a bit of swaying, but it looks like Harper slept through her first earthquake.

Harper and I were walking this morning because we were picking up her new bumbo seat that I bought from someone off craigslist. At first she was a little confused by the whole thing. . . but now she's loving it :)

feeling (a little) better?

Harper seems to be doing a little better, however I got a call from her doctor this morning to let me know that the bacteria she has isn't sensitive to the antibiotics we've been giving her. Poor girl.

She has been really cute lately, despite not feeling so great. She has started blowing raspberries, getting really excited when we start to pick her up, and playing with her hands and larger toys. Here are a couple photos from yesterday before church. She loves playing with her hands :)

iFly

Today I went out for the last big event of the Summer associate program. It was a trip to Citywalk, next to Universal Studios, where we did this thing called iFly. The video explains it all. It was pretty fun! Afterward we enjoyed a nice meal at the Hard Rock Cafe. Yes, that's me in the video.


Tom does iFly Hollywood! from Thomas Jackman on Vimeo.

Vesicoureteral Reflux (VUR)

Although the test won't be for a few weeks, according to Wikipedia, Harper has a 70% of having VUR. I'm guessing the percentage is higher because Harper has now had two UTIs in a very short time span. VUR occurs because of the insufficient subtmucosal length of the ureter relative to its diameter. This just means the fluid waste in her body can back up because a valve in her body isn't sealing properly, and this defect causes frequent infection. There are 5 grades of VUR and for grades I and II there is approximately an 85% chance that the problem will resolve itself as one gets bigger and the submucosal ureters grows longer. If that doesn't happen or if she has a more severe grade she will have to undergo surgery to correct the problem. In the meantime she will most likely be put on low dose antibiotics to keep the infection at bay and we will have to take her to a urologist periodically to monitor Harper. The monitoring process is not pleasant at all, although I will probably cry more than Harper. If Harper indeed has VUR, than I pray we get this all resolved before her long term memory kicks in. Please say a little prayer for her. For now we are just greatful this is all we have to deal with. It could be much, much worse.

trip to the grove

Last night Tom called (I assumed he was calling from work) and just as I was asking what time he would be home, he walked through the door and asked if we wanted to go to the mall. Although he is pretty tolerant of the occasional trip, Tom does not enjoy going shopping. So I was quite surprised when he came home last night and was willing to go to the Grove and shop for a bit. I have such a great husband. We have been in LA for two years now and this was our first trip. We had a delicious dinner at a bbq restaurant. . .Spent some time exploring the farmer's market . . .Shared an ice cream cone . . .And did some shopping. It was a lot of fun and was a nice treat since Tom has been working really hard this summer and usually comes home too late in the evening to do anything.

:(

Well, Harper's doctor called this morning and confirmed that she has ANOTHER urinary tract infection. It is likely that she has some sort of kidney reflux problem so we are going to see a specialist in a couple of weeks to get some testing done. Until then our poor little girl is on antibiotics :(