15 months 12.12.11

Thanksgiving 2011-preThanksgiving meal

Keeping this blog has heightened my awareness of Tillman's age...in months, of course.  I don't think the 12th of the month can go by for years to come with out thinking "It's Tillman's birthday today!" Well, Tillman turned 15 months on Monday!  He has a 15 month check up at the doctor later this month, so more to come on his stats.

Tillman continues to recover from tubes.  He has had tons of drainage, so the tubes are doing their job.  We actually go for a follow up appointment with Dr. White on Monday and a hearing test.  We continue to put drops in his ears morning and before bed to help the drainage.

Tillman isn't in to the "mommy and me" pic
at the Charleston City Christmas parade

On other health related news, Tillman hasn't been to the doctor in December!  This has been huge for us.  We're excited that he has been well!  He did manage to bypass the stomach virus Nick and I got last weekend, which was a miracle.  I'm so glad because taking care of ourselves was more than enough!

Drinking water and eating Goldfish to get
through the parade a happy boy!

With the holiday's in full swing, we did Christmas with my family last weekend.  Tillman got a tunnel from his cousins.  We have been crawling through it, and Tillman is a hoot when we play.  He gets so tickled when he's being "chased" as he crawls through the tunnel.  He just loves it.  They have them at the daycare, and I picked him up one day when they were playing with it.  He pretty much looked at me, and was like "Mom, I'm not ready to go home." I watched them play for a long time.  He was giggling and squealing...he simply loved it!  After that day, I added it to his Christmas list, and boy, am I'm glad I did!

Notice the tree is only decorated up top

With the holiday's has come some holiday parties.  We actually had our first babysitter experience last weekend at the house.  His daycare teacher lives near us, and she kept him on Saturday night.  It worked out perfectly.  We had to explain more about Graham than Tillman.  It made me feel very comfortable, as we knew he was in good hands.  Also this month, Tillman did his first sleep over as well.  My brother's family kept him for a night while Nick and I when to the College of Charleston basketball game and had "date night." I think Tillman thought it was a slumber party, as he woke up at 1AM and they didn't go back to bed until 3AM.  He took a long nap the next day!

Tillman's Elf on a Shelf!

Besides "terrorizing" Graham and the Christmas tree, Tiny T has been very interested in books lately.  He doesn't sit very long for you to read to him, but he loves to flip the pages, tote them around the house, and occasionally throw them!  Nick has been reading the books while Tillman plays.  I'm hoping he will enjoy reading as much as his daddy does, so we're excited to see he will at least touch a book (more than what I'll do!).

At 15 months, I will say that Tillman is very set in his ways.  Two things that have came about this month have been breaking him from the bottle and trying to put him to sleep without a sleep sack.  Neither of these things went over very well.  Tillman will ONLY drink milk from a bottle (drinks all other things in a sippy cup...we've tried all types of sippy cups...daycare has too), and will ONLY go to bed at night in a sleep sack.  The other night, he woke up at 1AM, and he had spit-up and had a bad diaper, so we changed him, the sheets, and all.  We gave him some milk to calm him and that normally puts him to sleep.  Well, since we didn't have a sleep sack on him, he stood up in his crib and cried for 30 mins.  I couldn't take it any more.  I got a sleep sack out the dirty clothes and put it on him.  He rolled over and went straight to sleep!  After all those shenanigans, I was thinking, dang--if I would have only done that to start with!

Tillman's Tubes

Tillman got ear tubes the day before Thanksgiving.  He had just finished antibiotics over the weekend, and by Tuesday he was running a fever.  We did our best to avoid getting tubes and tried every herbal remedy we knew, but it just wasn't in the cards.  He woke on Tuesday, and Nick said "I think we're going to have to schedule the tubes."  I got to work and emailed Dr. White, and he had an opening the next day, so we took it.  It worked out great since we were off the rest of the week, and Tillman had 5 day at home. 

 The procedure was super fast (15 minutes tops).  In fact, Dr. White came out to the waiting area to get me, and said "I would have been done sooner, but all the nurses had to hold Tillman."  That made me feel good and hearing that, I knew that Tillman was well taken care of the short time we were a part.

Waking from the anesthesia was a little rough for him.  They said to expect crankiness since he would be disoriented.  He was pretty cranky for 10 minutes, but once he got his bottle, he fell back to sleep.  We were able to leave shorty after, and were on the road back home at 7:30AM (yes, we had to be there at 4:45AM.) 

If I was a smart momma, I should have gone to the grocery store to get what we needed for Thanksgiving since he was fast a sleep until noon, but we just went home and snuggled. 

I'm bias as I work at MUSC Children's Hospital, but I know that Dr. White is the BEST for pediatric ENT.  He is specifically trained in peds ENT.  Also, Dr. Wallace, our anesthesiologist, is specifically trained in peds anesthesia.  The combo of those two as well as pediatric specific staff made MUSC Children's Hospital the only choice for Tillman's tubes.  Sure, there are ADULT ENTs in the community that will place ear tubes in kids, but their training is for adults.  Wouldn't you rather have a specifically trained ENT and more importantly and anesthesiologist that is specifically trained for your child's care? We are so lucky in the lowcountry to have a children's hospital, that I just can't image having my child treated anywhere but there.  Plus, do you think they blow bubbles, have fun toys, and let your child drive a power wheels to the OR (to make it less scary for the child) anywhere else in Charleston....but they do at MUSC Children's Hospital! (Why settle for second when first/best is available?...stepping down off the soap box...)

*My soap box comes from comments I've received about taking my child to MUSC. When I mention that Tillman goes to MUSC Children's Hospital, I get comments like "OH....well, that make sense for you to take him there since you work there, but you know I've always heard Dr. X is the best."  Dr. X is an adult doc who does tubes at an ADULT hospital. I'm sure he does great work, but he is trained for ADULT care, and more over, did you get the qualification on the anesthesiologist that will put your child under?  It's frustrating to me because I know that MUSC Children's Hospital is the BEST for all children, but other have an opinion that I only take my child here because I work here....when they don't realize it is the BEST!  (this is just an explanation of one comment, but we get many others)