Tonight, we had to take Thalia to the emergency room in order to get her some help for a little trouble breathing she was having. Basically, they treated her for asthma. It won’t be clear for a while yet whether she actually has asthma or just had a bout of responsive airway disease (I think that’s what the doctor called it), but she got albuterol and some Orapred (oral prednizone).

It all started when I picked them up from school and the teacher noted Thalia was fussy and wheezy. She sure was! Dinner was pretty rough, and in the tub I noticed that she had that tell-tale skin contraction around her ribs when she was breathing. That prompted an immediate call to the pediatrician’s office, which was followed by their mandate to hustle to the hospital.

I went with Siena and Thalia around 8 PM. Fortunately, they provided little bags of toys for Siena to play with. (Technically one bag was for Thalia, but she was having nothing to do with toys, so Siena got double the toys.) Thalia, mostly exhausted and wheezing, was an unhappy camper, especially through the mist phase of the albuterol they gave her right then. But then it kicked in and she got spastic for a while, and quite cheery, and then she got fussy again.

Mama joined us after work, around 9:20, and we finally got home around 10:30 or so. The girls went straight to bed, which I didn’t expect in Thalia’s case given how much she was coughing on the way home.

And now we are the not-so-proud owners of a nebulizer machine and a couple of prescriptions that we need to fill in the morning. Alas.

That being said, this appears to have a minor emergency, and Thalia should be OK within a day or so.

Got Siena to the doctor, paid the $35 copay, and confirmed an ear infection. She’ll be on what I called the “pink juice” (antibiotics, bubblegum-flavored, presumably) for a week. Siena was jacked up on ibuprofin at that point (Mama had given her more at 6 AM), so she was feeling no pain. Smiling, making jokes, bouncing around. Good to see her smile, at least, but the side-effects in the coming days aren’t going to be so fun.

Fortunately, Mama has the day off today (working both days this weekend though, alas), and Siena was hoping to stay home with her, so I’m sure all will be well for her today.

• Length: 25 in (63.5 cm). This puts her a solid 2cm above the 97th percentile for 2-month olds according to the CDC (see http://www.cdc.gov/growthcharts/clinical_charts.htm).
• Weight: 13lb 11oz. This is just over the 97th percentile.
• Head: 39 cm. Somewhere between 50th and 65th percentile.

Siena was big, too. I guess we just make big babies with lots of hair.

Because they didn’t have any of the vaccine combo cocktails, poor girl had to have five separate shots. Two in each leg and one in the arm. Not a happy camper. And she still needs to get flu and H1N1 vaccines this fall, plus more at the four-month appointment.

All in all a really good experience, and Siena also got a plastic ring, a sticker, a lollipop, and something else (she called it a toy bag), for her troubles. I think she has a knack for taking advantage of people willing to offer her rewards for events like this. She took that dental assistant and her box of goodies to the cleaners while mama and I listened to the dentist chide us somewhat for depriving her of business by not bringing Siena when she was younger (well, it wasn’t really like that of course).

Siena apparently has it. The virus, that is. We’re at home today (she’s napping now). Fortunately she isn’t troubled by it yet, except to periodically point out that her fingers, eyes, or neck hurts. While neck pain can be a symptom of the more serious viral miningitis, the doctor didn’t think that was it because she has very good range of motion still, and the neck pain is so infrequent. We suspect it’s from sore muscles that just come with HFMD. I sure hope that’s the case.

On the plus side, she should be able to go to school tomorrow if she doesn’t get a fever. Oddly, most sites say the first symptom of HFMD is, like with many things, a fever, but we haven’t seen one in Siena yet, though she has been a little clammy today.

Here’s hoping it clears up soon, though it could take 3-7 days still.

Thus inspired to advance Siena to the next stage of her culinary evolution, I bought a box of Cheerios. And I can say, without reservation or qualification, that Cheerios rock. I’d forgotten how small they are. She can down these things easily. So we spill a bunch on her tray, and watch her pound them into little bits (she likes pounding). Periodically she will manage to get one or two into her fist, and then begins the exercise to get the little inner-tube of oaty goodness into her mouth. She’s successful only about 30% of the time currently, and needs help putting them on her tongue when she fails and get frustrated.

She employs those little fangs of hers to cut them in half. Here we run into a problem. In Siena’s mouth-view of food, it seems to be that if a morsel is in her mouth yet outside the bounds of her teeth, then it’s better to let it languish on the periphery, shuffle down to her chin, and eventually fall to the tray or floor, than to try to scoop it up and swallow it. The practical upshot of which is that a good portion of Cheerios product that makes it into her mouth doesn’t actually get eaten.

Needless to say, the dog loves this entire process. The scorecard reads something like this: Dog-100, Siena-30.

P.S. I realize every other parent on the planet already knows about Cheerios. Nevertheless, it’s the little epiphanies of first-time parenthood that we are tracking here in the first place, so in the end, you just have to deal.

P.P.S. I need to remind myself to write a post about my grand unification theory of baby development and punctuated equilibrium.

At 30 inches long (I still think of Siena as having length instead of height), her doctor said, “she is off the charts but well proportioned.” The phrase “well proportioned” is one of those good things that just sounds bad, like it should be up there with “nice personality” and “pretty face.” Fortunately in this case it’s all good.

Finally, no shots this time, so generally a happier time had by all.