Halloween and other October Events

October was another busy month for us. First of all: BIG NEWS! I am walking, and here's some evidence.

We celebrated Halloween a little early, since Mommy was going to be out of town, by dressing me up funny and going to Pumpkins in the Park.

In late October, we took a trip to Nevada and Utah, including meeting up with the rest of the Lindbergs for a big family vacation. I got to see all my cousins that I haven't seen since last Christmas!

For more photos from October, check out the album here. See you all during the holidays!

Love,
Bryce

Happy First Birthday to Me!

Hello everyone! It's official: I am one year old! We celebrated with balloons, cupcakes and presents.
In case you would like to see more great photos from Uncle Ivan click here.
Mommy also took some other photos over the last month, which are not as good as Uncle Ivan's but can be seen here. Highlights include my first haircut and first trip to the zoo.

Almost One Year Old.....

Hi everybody! We have been so very busy, that this will just be some quick photos and videos before the countdown to the big ONE-point-oh (yes, my birthday!) coming up soon.... Anyway, in the last couple months I've done so many new things. I went camping and slept in a tent for the first time over 4th of July weekend. We went to a place called Salt Point State Park, on the Northern California coast, an area popular with abalone divers. My uncle Ivan also came and took pictures, which are here.

Here I am in the tent - wake up Daddy, it's time to play!
I have 6 teeth now (I got 4 all at once) but unfortunately don't have any photos showing them off. I tried hummus for the first time, and somehow (I'm not sure how) it got all over my face. QUICK, get it off!

I am sort of walking now, with help (in this case, one of Mommy's garage sale finds.)

Here is a longer video demo, which includes not only walking, but crawling, chasing the cat, and "talking".

I played on a swing for the first time and really liked it!
Ah-gong and Ah-mah got me a cool truck and I love it! I get so excited every time I see it and demand to play with it immediately.Here I am in action pushing my truck around; I am also getting pretty good at riding and steering it.

That's all the news for this month - see you again when I am a One-Year-Old (can you believe it?)

Love,
Bryce

Our Experience with Kawasaki Disease (August 2007)

I am writing this more than a year later (January 2009) so hopefully I still remember clearly....

The week before he got really sick, Bryce got sent home from daycare on Thursday with a fever. He seemed better already on Friday, but we kept him home due to the daycare's policy of not taking kids back for 24H. He seemed a little cranky over the weekend, but not really sick, so we figured he had a mild virus and was recovering.

But on Sunday and Monday, his fever came back, and we realized he couldn't go back to daycare. We took him for the first of several doctor's visits, but were told he just had a viral infection. Worryingly, he seemed to have no appetite (that NEVER happens!) and ate little besides applesauce/fruit and a little yogurt. The doctor said she saw inflammation in his throat; I also wondered if it could be teething pain that caused his loss of appetite. Scott and I juggled our work schedules all week so we could take turns staying home, and my parents offered to come up on Friday to give us a break.

By Friday I was getting really worried. His fever came and went (esp. with Tylenol) but never completely abated, and it had now been over a week. His lack of appetite, crankiness and lethargy were really worrying - he just didn't seem his normal happy self. At one point I thought he was crying in pain while peeing, so I rushed him to the doctor to check for a bladder infection. Doctor Husaini was out but Dr. Foster (her partner) ruled out a bladder infection. He did notice, however, that Bryce had swollen lymph nodes in his neck, so he decided it was some other infection and started him on antibiotics.

Sunday, my parents left, and I was at my wit's end - Bryce seemed no better, even with the antibiotics (i.e. they weren't working!) and in fact my parents had noticed on Saturday that Bryce's hands and feet seemed swollen. We noticed too, that, although he had been crawling on his hands and feet for a few months now, he seemed to be avoiding putting weight on his hands all of sudden, and acted like they hurt him. I thought about it for a while (could it mean anything?) and finally called the doctor again (actually, her answering service, since it was Sunday), thinking I might just mention it to her....

Well, it's a good thing I did, because she called back within minutes, asking if he also had any rash on his body, or red eyes. He didn't, but I did mention that his lips were flushed and red, though I assumed it was due to his fever. Apparently, these last few symptoms were enough, and she told us that Bryce most likely had "atypical Kawasaki Disease", and we needed to take him immediately to the hospital to get a treatment called IVIG. She would have all the orders prepared by the time we got there.

I was crying by the time I got off the phone, but I told Scott what the doctor said, and we immediately packed Bryce into the car and took him to the Lucile Packard Children's Unit at El Camino Hospital. They started Bryce on IVIG that night and we ended up staying 2 nights until the doctors gave him the all-clear (no more fever and no obvious damage from the KD). We were so scared, because the effect of untreated KD is permanent arterial damage, most commonly life-threatening aneurysms that you have the rest of your life....

The hospital stay was not fun (my poor tiny baby had to stay in an industrial-type metal crib) but I was with him the whole time (so was Scott a lot of it) and they knew what they were doing - except for getting the original IV in (that was NOT PRETTY - imagine trying to comfort a poor screaming 11-month-old with no anesthesia, and no way to explain to him why the nurses keep poking him with sharp needles in the hands and feet!) Fortunately, Packard is quiet that time of year - I think there were maybe 2 other rooms occupied, out of maybe a dozen? - and the staff were great (except for that IV!) By the time we left, Bryce was our smiling, eating boy again. He had to stay home with us for 2 more weeks after that, take aspirin for several weeks, and go for follow-ups, including seeing the cardiologist for heart ultrasounds (an annual exercise now). So far, everything is OK and he seems to have escaped any heart/arterial damage and will hopefully have no lasting effects from having had KD.

We are so grateful our pediatrician got her training in San Francisco and had therefore seen cases of KD before - it is so unusual a disease, that she had never actually had a patient with it, since completing her training years ago. Neither my radiologist father nor pulmonologist brother knew what it was, though to be fair, neither is a pediatric specialist. Also, in researching it on the Web, I found lots of stories about kids (here is just one example) getting misdiagnosed, due to: a) similarity of many of the symptoms to other diseases, including meningitis, hand, foot-and-mouth, coxsackie, or just a plain old virus or bacterial infection; and b) ignorance of KD on the part of the doctor.

FYI, the official symptoms of Kawasaki Disease are as follows (from Wikipedia):

Five days of fever, plus four of the following criteria must be met in order to establish the diagnosis. The criteria are: (1) redness of the lips or oral cavity or cracking of the lips; (2) rash on the trunk; (3) swelling or erythema of the hands or feet; (4) red eyes (conjunctival injection) (5) swollen lymph node in the neck of at least 15 millimeters.

Note that Bryce did NOT have all 5 of the generally required symptoms to indicate KD (he only had 4 out of 5 - that's why it was considered "atypical" and it is often so hard to diagnose because of that), but he did have KD and responded to the treatment. So please spread the word about this disease, and also: trust your instinct as a parent, to know if something is really, seriously wrong with your child, and don't give up!

- Susan

p.s. Some thoughts about the cause of Bryce's KD: basically there is no obvious answer yet. He is slightly more at risk, being a young boy of Asian background - but lots of other types of people also get KD. Some research has suggested links to household cleaning products or living near bodies of water, but if it were that simple I expect someone would have discovered something more conclusive by now. Our guess is that the exact cause is unknown (could be genetic), but it may have been triggered by a previous infection that he had the week before - i.e. that he was sick with something else (probably a minor virus), was getting better, and then the KD (that he may have been pre-disposed to) kicked in. Just our theory.

A Short Trip to the Hospital

I had quite the adventure last week - and not the kind Mommy and Daddy typically enjoy! I was sick and had a fever since late July, and the doctors at first thought I had a virus, and then an infection. After more than a week, and then taking antibiotics (which didn't work), my pediatrician diagnosed me with Kawasaki disease, which is a kind of vasculitis, or inflammation of the arteries. It was very scary because if it is not treated, it can lead to heart aneurysms and other problems. You can read a lot more about it here or here, but I will just say that I was a very unhappy and grumpy boy until they figured out what was wrong with me. Anyway, the doctor sent me to the hospital to get a treatment called IVIG, which was not much fun either (they had a lot of trouble getting needles & IVs into my swollen hands and feet!) but it did the job and made me all better! Here is a picture of me modeling my hospital gown and the hateful IV (taped to my foot.) I had to stay for 2 nights in the hospital but am home now and almost back to my normal happy self. Here are Daddy & me waiting for the doctor to come and discharge me.
It has been a hectic and stressful couple of weeks, so Mommy & Daddy want me to thank everyone for the kind thoughts and prayers, and offers of assistance. Hopefully, we will soon return to our regularly scheduled programming!

Love,

Bryce (and Mommy & Daddy)

I'm 9 months old.... and mobile!

Dear friends and family: guess what - I'm mobile! It has been a busy couple of months, and I'm sorry not to have updated my blog sooner, but with Mommy back at work and me at daycare, our calendar is very full! But I had many firsts in the last two months:

• I helped celebrate my first Mother's and Father's Days, plus my grandpa's 70th birthday.
• I can retrieve and replace my own pacifier (this may not seem like much but Mommy & Daddy are thrilled they no longer have to visit my crib so often at night.)
• Mommy went on her first business trip and Daddy & I did just fine on our own for a few days.
• I started not only rolling over but also sitting up on my own.
• Then I figured out crawling! the world is now my oyster... (and M&D are madly trying to childproof the house.)
• Right after that I started pulling up and standing on my own.
• I got my first 2 teeth (finally!)
• I went for my first bike ride (as a passenger) and swimming in the pool for the first time.

I have a whole 9-month album that you can visit here, and I'll share some highlights here. This is me & Daddy getting ready for daycare in the morning (I'm a happy morning person - must get that from Daddy.) On weekend mornings, when I don't have daycare, I can play in bed with Mommy & Daddy, and (in this case) steal Daddy's book when he's trying to read.

For Mother's Day, Ah-gong and Ah-mah, Aunt Helen & Uncle Ivan all came over and we went for a walk and picnic. Here are Uncle Ivan's pictures.

In early June, Mommy & Daddy & I took our first real family vacation and spent a week in Lake Tahoe. Daddy rode in a 100-mile bike ride, along with his friends Matt & Synthia. The rest of the week the 3 of us relaxed, and went hiking and biking. Here are me & Mommy after we hiked to Eagle Lake.

Here are me & Daddy, stopping for a rest during our walk along Meeks Bay Fire Road.
Aunt Helen, Uncle Ivan, Ah-gong and Ah-mah came and joined us for part of the time (and took some of these pictures.) Uncle Ivan's pictures are here.

I am becoming quite the expert at eating food - not only do I eat a LOT, but I am starting to feed myself, as you'll see if you visit my YouTube videos (click on the link at the upper right of this page.) But this month's video highlight -while it takes place in my highchair- is more of a musical than culinary performance (click on the play button on the video below to make it play.)


Now that I'm mobile, the monthly photo shoots with Tad are tiresome, and I don't like sitting still, as you can see from these (rejected) shots. For the final shots, see my "Monthly Photos" link above on the right.

Hopefully by next month, Mommy & Daddy will have captured me in action (crawling, standing, teeth, etc.) - see you all then!

Love,

Bryce

I'm 7 months old!

Hi everyone! Someone recently suggested that I take over writing my own blog (with a little help from Mommy with the typing....) and now that I am over half a year old, I agree it's high time I took charge!

First of all, we have a little catching up to do, as Mommy forgot last month to share some family pictures we took waaaaaaaaaay back in February for Chinese New Year. There is a whole album here for your enjoyment, but here's a favorite of Ah-gong and Ah-mah.
Last month, I had a playdate with my friends (Josh, Max and Drew) from Moms group. Here are Mommy, me and Josh.I wore my new University of Utah shirt, which was a birthday present from Mommy to Daddy, but only fits on me! I really like the great blocks I got from Great-aunt Lisa; I even shared them with Drew and Max.

I also had a playdate with my friend Adam - click here for photos of our adorable selves.

I have been continuing my adventures in eating, with tastes of not only cereal, but also vegetables and fruit. Unfortunately for me, Mommy has been trying to make homemade babyfood, which I'm sure is very nutritious but doesn't taste very good. Here is what I call "My Green Bean Face."
Don't worry, I got over the trauma of the green beans (I ate them anyway) and soon returned to my normal, cheerful self. Here I am tormenting Tad in my monthly photo with him. Pixie (the cat) better watch out! she's next..... In case you want to see all the monthly photos, click on the link on the upper right hand box labled "Monthly Photos". Note that I have also added links to some of my friends' photos - if you would like to be added/deleted from this page, just let my Mommy know. Mommy is also starting an email update list to let people know when this blog is updated - please also let her know if you want to be added to that list. That's all for this month! Love,

Bryce

Bryce is 6 months old

Wow, the months are flying by. It's hard to believe Bryce has been around for half a year now! Soon Mommy will be back to work and these updates will probably get even FARTHER behind. But back to the last month....

The guest star of this month's post is Aunt Helen. She has been generous enough to give Bryce's Mommy and Daddy not just the occasional night out, but last month: a whole NIGHT AWAY to celebrate their birthdays. So they not only had a nice dinner, but also: went wine tasting, hot tubbing, mountain biking, and slept in. All in less than 24 hours (amazing how efficient parenthood makes you.) Meanwhile, here's what Aunt Helen & Bryce were up to:

In other fun, we tried out the new Sherpani pack we got for Christmas from Grandma and Grandpa. Bryce likes the new view from up high. If he gets bored, he plays with Daddy's hat or yanks his hair.

Bryce had a couple of major milestones this month: first of all he now sits up pretty well on his own (he seems to have skipped rolling over, not surprising since he hates tummy time.) He looks so grown up like this!
Also, he had his first taste of sold food: rice cereal, to be exact. You can't tell by the photo but he is a VERY sloppy eater, so far. But he really enjoys it.


Lastly, his monthly photo with Baby Tad. The complete 6-month album is here. Enjoy!

Bryce is 5 months old

This month we're sharing a selection of photos and videos from over the last month. Here's Bryce in his adorable froggie sleeper (courtesy of Auntie Debbie), which he has unfortunately pretty much outgrown now. :(
We had a busy social calendar last month, including lunch with Auntie Katie, who gave us Bryce's crib and changing table. Bryce is also modeling his Christmas present from Auntie Melissa, a lovely hand-knitted blue sweater.

Bryce still doesn't like tummy time much, but tolerates it for short periods, as demonstrated here.But 2 minutes later, he's given up (I guess holding up that big head is just too much work....)
We're also starting a monthly photo series showing Bryce's growth, with the help of Baby Tad (he is the one on the right.) This is the 4 month photo. And here's 5 months.
Lastly, here's a short video of Bryce laughing (along with Mommy) in his crib - he's usually in a great mood when he first wakes up.


Happy Valentine's Day and Gong Xi Fa Cai!

Love,

Bryce & his mommy

I'm four months old!

What a way to spend my four month birthday! First of all, Mommy takes me to the doctor, who pokes and wiggles me everywhere, even in my privates! Then - horrors - she sticks me in the legs four times (FOUR shots!) The final indignity: on the way home Mommy makes us stop at the optometrist to pick up her new glasses (something about not being able to see without contacts when she wakes up in the middle of the night to feed or change me), and while we're there she asks them about sunglasses for babies. So this is what they found, and the worst part is that I was asleep and couldn't protest.

So on Sunday she & Daddy pulled a Steve Irwin and took me to see the elephant seals at Ano Nuevo (of course I slept through that whole thing too.) Here's a pic of me & Mommy (well, the top of my hood - I'm sleeping in the Bjorn and Daddy cut me off) standing in front of some of the smaller male seals. That's the guide's red arm, probably pointing out the 2.5 ton alpha male in the background. She also told us that elephant seal mothers nurse their pups for only a month or so before heading back to sea, leaving the babies alone on the beach to take care of themselves. I'm sure I overheard Mommy & Daddy discussing this as a potential parenting technique. I would just like to point out that elephant seal moms don't leave until after they have fattened up their pups by about 200 pounds, by effectively transferring that much of their own body weight to the baby. So Mommy still has a long way to go, since according to the doctor, I only weigh 14 pounds so far.

Well since none of these shots give you a good look at me, here I am yesterday in my crib - I'm always in a great mood after waking up from a nap. Ignore what the shirt says (thanks Auntie Allison); I'm a little angel!