Julian photos April

Julian turned 15 months and celebrated with new words (signing bird and plane, saying "nama" for banana, "uva" for raisin, etc.), a big ol' fat round of sick (consider yourself forewarned of a snot photo that's really one for the books) and a newfound gusto for getting into everything he shouldn't (cabinets, the top of chairs, Shiva's bidness).

He's just over 20 pounds and 30 inches tall. He's got 8 full teeth and four vampires and two molars working their way through He likes sleep as much as his mommy (just not past 7:30, quite unlike his mommy) and he's eating like a true member of the Knox-Broyles clan (hello, perogies and sausage. how nice to see you again, homemade mac and cheese.) He's even got a notorious raw carrot eater (me) to enjoy the steamed variety on occasion.

As you can see from the photos, he's really into sneaking up to the music area and grabbing guitar picks, and he's not very happy when we take them away. He's also obsessed with taking dirt from a pot we have outside and using it with his porch "kitchen" we set up. He and Ian have developed a special no-shirt bond. Now, all we have to do is train him not to put our wedding rings in his mouth in a few weeks.

The netiraptor, part 2

Julian's pediatrician had no idea what a netiraptor was, but she was very familiar with respiratory funk, which she confirmed Julian has, and sent me home with a nebulizer instead. Asthma doesn't run in my family, but my grandmother, GaGa, has a similar contraption that she uses every day. (The details of her losing the bottom half of each of her lungs is another story...) Now, little Julian gets to use one for the next few days to get rid of this reactive airway disease (also known by its undoubtedly much cooler acronym, RAD) he's developed. No, mom, he doesn't have asthma. Just a cold or allergies or something that made his air passageways constrict. Some misty albuterol should do the trick in no time, the doctor said.

She also said she loved us on What Not to Wear. :)

We used a a nebulizer at the office, and his wheezing cleared up right away. And by the time we got home, his sinus passages apparently had, too. Here's my artistic rendering.

Beware the netiraptor

Julian has been feeling under the weather lately. He's had this lingering hack for weeks, and it got juicier over the weekend. His nose has been running and he even had a fever a couple of times. The hard thing about sickness in kids is that with these symptoms (well, minus the cough), it could just be teething. And being in Austin, it could just be allergies. Or it might be something that could lead to freakin' pneumonia! So we're taking him in to the doc to make sure it's not the latter. He's supposed to have a well-check this week (he'll be 15 months in a few days), so we'll do the two-times-in-one-week doctor's visits, which is how it always seems to work, right mommas?

Poor little guy. You can just tell his body's doing
its best to get rid of whatever it's got.

In our collective hazy April state (see Austin allergies, above), talk always comes back around to the neti pot. I hadn't heard of this device until I moved here, which probably says a lot about not only what's in the air in Missouri, but also the traditional approach toward medicine people use. Vince introduced me to the neti when I was living at the Cathedral, and lots of folks swear by them. Next time I'm saddled by a sinus infection, I'll probably go get one of my own. Here's how one guys uses them:



And since I'm YouTubing this post already, here's what Erin does with her inner velociraptor:

Some firsts we could do without

Quickly, before the child awakes...

Today is Julian's first Halloween. If he were dressing up and going out, he'd be a lifeguard. But after the few days we've had, with everyone in the house except Ian yaking at least once (Shiva included), we're going to be lying low tonight. Julian has his first temperature yesterday (discovered after his first rectal temperature exam — at least done by me anyway). I was sick most of the day, probably left overs from Julian's throwing up sick day on Sunday (another first!). Triste all around, indeed. We're all feeling better today, but we don't want to push it just in the name of Halloween.

Julian had a Halloween playdate last week, of which I've posted pictures here. I also posted this month's photo album here. I realized I was lying about buying pictures via flickr (booo, hisss, flickr!). I can buy photos of my stuff but the general population cannot. If you would like some pictures (for the upcoming gift season, perhaps?), let me know which ones and I can probably order them for you.

Happy Halloween!