new mexico in july

We went home to New Mexico for the 4th of July. Iris is still on oxygen after this most recent respiratory infection, so we rented a concentrator and flew down to Santa Fe. Had the batteries for the concentrator worked predictably, the flight out of Denver would have been very low stress... or at least medium stress. Unfortunately, we discovered that one of the batteries wasn't working while we were at the airport and that pushed Evan and me into disaster management. We don't handle disasters in the same way, which contributes to the stress. We were finally able to arrange for last minute oxygen service while in Los Alamos and were still able to make the flight without medical emergency. Phew.

The flight itself was easy. Iris loved flying in the airplane and napped on Daddy's lap as I daydreamed and looked out the window. We flew over the Great Sand Dunes and I was struck with regret that Evan and I haven't done more hiking since we've been in Colorado. Not that our lives have really offered that opportunity lately. 

Once we got to Granddad's house, Iris immediately wanted to play with Granddad. Her favorite things to do at Granddad's house are to play with water and to play the piano. We somehow haven't managed to get to a swimming pool this summer in Denver, but we did make a quick pre-rain trip to the neighborhood swimming pool in Los Alamos. Iris gets cold very quickly in the water, but she loved having Daddy throw her in the air. 

A sprinkler and a bucket

Singing, "The Wheels on the Bus," and "Mary Had a Little Lamb."

A new favorite activity

Iris tolerated the oxygen cord well while we were on our trip. She actually doesn't like to take it off sometimes, which seems weird to me. We are doing twice daily Flovent treatments, which she barely tolerates though she likes them better when she can pass the mask around to everyone to make sure we all get our treatments. "Oh! I forgot! It's your turn!" she hollers.

Flovent treatment, twice a day

We got to hang out with my brother a fair amount, too, which is always valuable.  

Uncle Mike & Iris discover a pen with a light on it

Feeding the ducks at Ashley Pond

Incredibly, I didn't get any good photos of Iris and Granddad, but here's one of them as we go into the Santa Fe airport on our way home.

Photo with Granddad

The trip did feel like a vacation, in spite of the massive load of stuff we had to pack with us. Traveling with a toddler is much more complicated than traveling solo, and I think we're getting pretty good at it. I still haven't created a packing checklist, which my dad always suggests as a good way to prepare for any trip. Or maybe I have and I forgot about it... In any case, we're headed out to California next for Evan's parents' 40th wedding anniversary. We're very excited and Iris won't have to be on oxygen at sea level. Hooray. 

toots

Evan and I went on a date last night and on the way home we started reminiscing about our early days. Strangely, that reminiscing took the form of trying to figure out when we started passing gas openly in front of each other. I'll spare you the details, but I bring it up because Iris is increasingly showing she's ready to advance in the progression from diapers to the potty. We all talk about going potty all the time. And so in our conversation, Evan and I talked about our "toots."

I'm not pushing the potty all that hard on Iris, mostly because it feels like so much extra work to get her into undies and out of diapers. But, Iris has recently started pushing us by telling us, "I need to go potty." She wasn't really doing the same for poo-poos until last night when she got hit by a big, huge stomach bug that kept us up most the night. She insisted, "I need to go poo-poo!" Over, and over again. Somewhere around 3am I thought for sure that she would be only using the potty in the morning. That didn't exactly happen, but we've made progress, for sure.

We started informal potty training a long time ago with pee-pee stickers and pee-pee prizes. Now we've moved on to poo-poo stickers and poo-poo prizes. (The prizes are wrapped packages of chalk and crayons.) We read books about using the potty and Iris likes to inform us that, "diapers are not forever," which is the title of one of her books.

We had two doctor's appointments this week. The first was her 24 month check up. She was very scared and kept saying, "No shots! No shots!" Technically, she was scheduled for her second dose of Hep A, but the pediatrician said that since she's already had her first dose of it, we could wait just a little while to help ease her anxiety. That was a relief. Nothing special to report, otherwise. Iris is developing well. Not sleeping well, though.

The next day we saw our pulmonary specialist. Thankfully, the pulmonary meetings tend to be some of the more boring appointments because Iris is basically doing okay with her lung development, though she is still on oxygen when she naps and when she sleeps. She is showing improvement, slowly. A minor concern that we'll continue to keep an eye on is that Iris some times breathes fast. She doesn't pant, but it's just a little faster than I'm comfortable with and I worry that she'll develop asthma.

Her pulmonary hyptertension has resloved (about a year ago), so we found out that some of the pulmonologists wanted to enroll her in a big study. It's a long term study looking atchildren who have had pulmonary hypterension that has resolved. They don't use any genetic indicators, which is a bummer. They are hoping to enroll up to 1,000 children across 8 children's hospitals in the US.

Our specialist said that if we fly this summer it's possible that we won't have to rent a concentrator for Iris. This is really good news for us. Lugging the concentrator on a plane with a toddler doesn't sound like the most exciting thing to do on a vacation.

Iris borrowed our specialist's necklace during the appointment.