Fire Storms

We were caught in the middle of the recent Southern California fire storms that started this past Sunday. Before I go on though, we were very fortunate that we're all safe, and our home was spared the horrible devastation that so many people are having to endure here.

We were shopping at a large outdoor mall on Sunday morning, near noon. We bought Braeden a pair of crocs shoes, so we'd have a pair of shoes for him we could put on quickly, that he'd be able to use to walk and crawl around in our back yard without ruining his Stride Rite shoes. We had a great time at the mall, but as we were leaving, saw the all too familiar smoke in the sky that we saw four years ago during the horrendous Cedar fire that destroyed so many homes and started four years ago tomorrow.

We stayed tuned to the radio and TV Sunday afternoon and overnight, and did the same thing Monday. Suddenly on Monday afternoon we heard that our area had been placed under mandatory evacuation, that we had to leave immediately. Neighbors started knocking on the door to tell us we needed to get out - NOW, and our next door neighbor brought over a surgical mask for Braeden, to help him breathe. Luckily I'd been packing things up all day, in anticipation that we might have to leave. Four years ago we got a voluntary evac. notice - this time it was mandatory, the sheriff driving up and down the streets announcing "You must evacuate this area immediately", the fire moving towards us, driven by 60 mph Santa Ana winds.

Luckily my ILs' home wasn't affected by the evacuation notice, so after loading up what we could cram into both cars, I left in the SUV with Braeden and DP (dear puppy). DH followed after one last check of the house, grabbing anything else he could think of.

There's only one way out of our neighborhood, so traffic was gridlocked. It took me over an hour to travel the 4-5 miles to my ILs home, and DH was stuck in even worse traffic, having left about 10 minutes behind me. The smoke and ash was awful. If not for my ILs, we'd have been camping out at the stadium, the freeways gridlocked too. Thank God we were able to stay at their home, although they were under an advisory evacuation - i.e., pack up and be ready just in case. Luckily it remained advisory only and while we didn't sleep much Monday night, at least we were safe, praying for our home to be spared.

To make a long story short, on Tuesday afternoon we received notice that the mandatory evacuation notice had been lifted for our neighborhood, and we were allowed to return home. Seeing so many homes burned to the ground, was so reminiscent of the fires 4 years ago. Once again, we were spared that devastation. Why? The fire was heading right for us, just like last time, and exactly like then winds changed direction and the fire moved elsewhere, sparing us. God was certainly watching over us these past few days.

There are still evacuations being issued, others being lifted, but the 8 fires burning here have moved on, hopefully to areas without dense populations of people, where nobody else will die, be injured, and/or lose their homes. It's been an extremely stressful week, but we've made it.

For any of you reading this who were affected by these massive fire storms, know our thoughts and prayers are with you, and if there's anything at all you need, anything we can do for you, please let us know. Now the healing process starts, and soon the rebuilding for those who lost their homes and are left with only what they could take with them as they evacuated.

Chickenpox Outbreak

It was announced on our news this morning that there's a chickenpox outbreak at one of the nearby schools, and everyone is being urged to have their kids vaccinated immediately if they haven't already done so. That's the 2nd series vaccination, given when they're about 4 years old. The one given at 12 months old gives them about 90% protection, while adding the 2nd one ups that to 99%. I like those odds.

Braeden's had a little head cold which I think he picked up at his gym class last week. Two of the other little ones were sniffling and sneezing, and while they strongly suggest you keep your child home if he/she is ill, some people appear to be oblivious to the fact that it's so easy to spread germs in a setting like that, no matter how clean they keep the gym area. Everyone's still climbing on all the equipment, drooling on everything, hands in their mouths. Braeden's just got the nasal thing going on, and it's starting to clear up now. It hasn't affected his activity level, or his appetite, or his sleep schedule. DH and I caught the dang thing over the weekend - blech.

We've got Braeden's Halloween costume. He's going to be a pumpkin this year. We didn't want anything fancy, and being 13 months old by then, I don't think he'll mind. It's a 2-piece outfit, nice and warm, with a hood. While our weather here definitely doesn't get cold, it's chilly at night, and we'll be out in the courtyard to greet the trick or treaters for a couple of hours, so I want Braeden to be comfortable. DH probably won't make it home from work in time for me to take Braeden to our nearest neighbors and pass out treats too, but again, I don't think Braeden will mind. I think he'll enjoy seeing the kids in costume, and he won't be eating any candy anyway.

He's still working on this walking thing, preferring to speed crawl rather than walk. I put his shoes on him inside the house this morning so he could try walking while wearing the shoes, since he hasn't been out much with his cold, and he did very well holding onto his truck and/or car as he took off around the living room. After about 15 minutes I took them off. I certainly don't want him learning to walk wearing them, but do want him to be comfortable walking while he's got them on for our outside trips.

1-Year Appointment

Today was Braeden's 1-year appointment with his pediatrician. He weighs 22 pounds, 8 ounces (50th percentile), is 33 inches tall - nearly 3 feet (95th percentile), head circumference is 17 3/4 inches.

He got a clean bill of health, is thriving, growing at a "perfect" rate (if there's any such thing as perfect), meeting all his milestones - crawling, cruising, doing a little walking, "talking" and babbling appropriately for his age, waving, etc.; totally off his bottles and drinking from cups. We took a sippy cup full of water to his appointment, and his doctor was pleased to see only water in it and not juice. She's not a fan of sippy cups full of juice being dragged around all day, but prefers any juice to be given as a supervised snack and then taken away. Brae loves his cool water in the sippy cup, uses straw cups for his formula/milk.

We've decided to keep Braeden on a 50/50 mixture of Enfamil Next Step (for 9-24 month toddlers) and whole milk for another month or two. His doctor said we could go either way - as we are, or all whole milk - either is fine. Probably after one more can of Enfamil we'll stop it completely.

We're pro-vaccination all the way, so Braeden had his 12-month vaccines today - two shots. One is chicken pox, the other a combo shot for mumps, measles and rubella (German measles). When I was a kid I ended up contracting all those diseases except rubella, and had a very rough time with all of them - these vaccines weren't available in my childhood. I'm glad they're here for Braeden, so hopefully he can be spared the misery of contracting any of them. And not only that, these vaccinations are all required for him to attend school where we live. I'd much rather have each one administered as we go along rather than play catch-up later when it's time for him to start kindergarten.

Braeden and I went to Gymboree yesterday - he loves his weekly class. He walked for the first time (other than a few steps). He went about 10 feet on his own, heading for a bucket of balls he spotted across the room that he wanted to get to. Yipee!!! His doctor said he's maybe been a bit slower with the walking because he's so tall, that it's hard to balance all that height, but he's on his way now.

So we're home and Braeden's playing. I'm hoping he'll have a nap soon, but he had none yesterday so he may be outgrowing them. I'll post again soon.