Holiday Wrap-up, Part One

We were blessed with a glorious two weeks off. Based on several doctor's opinions, we also chose to get Shepard's tonsils out. Ugh.

He wanted to nap in the den on the floor...sweet little thing.

 

Bless his little heart, he most likely caught some kind of "bug" at the same time as the surgery. Without going through a play-by-play, we had a full eight days of Christmas that involved forced medicine (every trick known to man or beast), begging him to eat/drink, a late-night/early-morning trip to the children's ER in Charlotte, begging him to eat or drink some more, fevers, worry, prayer...and Christmas gifts.

That about sums up our vacation.

Nap close-up

We were able to get down to Greenville for the Jones family Christmas, and seeing Grandma, the cousins and the gang did seem to cheer him up.

I think I have some pretty sweet videos of the kiddos opening gifts, but my video camera is currently MIA.

Grandma cuddles

He got some amazing gifts and seems to still like all of them. He hasn't quite taken to the Mr. Potato Head like I thought he would, but perhaps he just needs more eye and funny mouth options.

We were at Grandma's for Christmas morning, so his mommy-and-daddy gifts were ready. By this point, he had "gotten" the idea of ripping open the paper, and was ready to unwrap everything he saw.

He ate a cake pop! We were just excited he ate something.

"My own computer!"

Christmas morning cartoons

"My school bus!"

"Let's have a picnic!" (I was hoping that the plastic food would awaken his hunger...)

Chutes and Ladders!

All this present-opening has made me sleepy.

Adventures in parenting

Shepard has been under the weather, so we've had lots of time to hang out this weekend. We've been giving him several remedies in droppers and plastic syringe style medicine dose things. (my brother is clearly the doctor, not me)
In light of that we've said some pretty funny sentences around here over the past few days. Some are not really sick-related...just part of the package when you raise a curious kid.
File these under sentences we never thought we'd say...

Jerod: "He just gets suspicious of us when we come at him with a syringe."
Me: "Shepard. Stop licking the door!"
Me: "Did my child just lick the carpet?! Jerod get him. He's trying to lick the carpet like Barley!!"

I also managed to dive over the baby gate and land knee-first on the kitchen floor. An umpire would have ruled me "safe!" Let's say that I won't be trying to step over it again any time soon. I was going for Shepard's sippy cup at the time. I laid on the floor for a solid five minutes before I dared to move anything. I'm intact. I just feel like the umpire beat my knees with a bat. And, Shepard was NOT in my arms at the time.

That conversation went something like this:
Me: "AGHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHH!" slam, kaboosh, pow, bam, bang
Jerod, bursting into the kitchen from outside..."Talk to me. What happened? Are you ok?"
Me: ".............." (silent)
Jerod (freaking out) "Talk to me. Can you move?"
Me: "I think so. I just need to lie here a minute." (on the kitchen floor)

And then, this morning. Shepard is staying home one more day just to get all rested up. I left for work, and he was peacefully sleeping. When I talked to Jerod at 9:15 or so, this is what I heard...
Jerod: "What did you leave me with?"
Me: "Oooh. Is he fussy?"
Jerod: "Oh my God. Nothing is making him happy."
Shepard (in the background): "AGHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHH!"
Me (thinking): "Oooh. Bummer."

Shepard has roseola, which is basically a fever-rash virus. He now has the rash portion, which should not be troublesome at all...except that one of the symptoms listed is fussiness. He definitely has THAT.

I am interested to see what else ends up flying out of our mouths. Feel free to pray for patience for us.  :)

Here is yesterday's "sick day" picture. He was watching Thomas and Friends. I promise I'm getting the haircut and great-grandpapa visit up this week as well.

Lately...with the Wiggle Worm

One day when my little guy is too big to sit on my lap, I want to be able to remember these sweet days when he fit in my arms. And I really want to be able to remember the little parts of his personality and routine...since I'm sleep-deprived still, I will write some things down for future-me. You're welcome to listen in.  :)
Shepard learned to share. It all started when we had our three-day snow-ice storm. On day two he developed a lovely chesty cough. By Friday of that week, he had a full-blown head cold with a low-grade fever. We spent the weekend trying to make him better...and then Mr. Nasty Cold decided to attack the usually-well immune systems of Daddy and me. It was inevitable with all the drool and sneezing. I'm hopeful that all of this mucus will help us build our immunity, but I'm on week #2 of the funk and am desperate to evict the mucus from my head. Shepard bounced back more quickly, but a quick glance of the noses in his daycare room reminds me that this might be the first of many germ-sharing opportunities. Sigh. One interesting thing has been that the first few days of his cold he would meet any attempts to wipe his runny nose with a squawk and a holler. Then I noticed him watching me as I was blowing and wiping my own nose with the tissue. After watching me a few times, he hardly notices a good nose wipe. Coincidence? I don't think so. I think it helped him understand why I kept coming at him with the white thing.
When we get home in the evenings, Shepard is generally tuckered out. I'm not sure if they have him running marathons all day? They assure me that he does nap. He is a good sleeper in general.
When we get home, he gets to sit and watch the fish tank for a few minutes while I put on a t-shirt. Don't want sweet potatoes on my work clothes. We say hello to Jerod/Daddy and may have a few minutes to play. Very few. He's usually already rubbing his eyes, so we get started on evening dinner. He gobbles up his puree like a wee bird. Meanwhile, the bottle is heating and I start to gather our nighttime stuff. Boppy pillow, burp cloth, pacifier, sleeper...and if it's a bath night...towel, washcloth, tub filled up and the splash zone is ready. Shepard checks himself out in the mirror and smiles and looks at me. I think he's really starting to understand the concept of "mirror."
Whew! Often, Daddy comes in during pajama time and gets some laughs by gnawing on Shepard's tummy with his goatee. Shepard is never still unless he's asleep, so getting jammies on is a challenge. If being a wiggle worm/kicker were a sport, Shepard would take all the medals. A funny aside: sometimes Shepard can be pretty fussy about getting his shirt on. I think it's because his little hands are momentarily taken out of range for grabbing stuff. So, this morning, Daddy thought it might be a good idea for Shepard to see HIM putting on his t-shirt. Kind of along the lines of the tissue thing. Maybe if he saw it in action, he'd understand it. We'll see if it works.
One of the best (and worst) parts of my day is when we settle into the glider and take the evening bottle. It's the best because I get a guaranteed 30 minutes of holding and gazing. The worst because I know he's about to go to sleep and I won't get any smiles, coos or laughs. It's just at 6 pm, and Shepard is sucking down his bottle. He really likes to twirl the hair that has recently grown right at the top of his head while he eats. If not that, then he grabs the burp cloth and rubs his forehead and eyes with it as the eyelids start to get heavy. By the time he's finished and we burp, his little head is drooping. Some nights he gets a short second wind and decides to play with my chin, mouth, nose and engage in some hair-pulling. He is all about exploring other people's faces these days. He typically drifts off within a few minutes as I sing him some songs and say a quick prayer. We're heading toward about 6:45 at this point...and we usually don't get another peep until about 4 - 5 am. And we get up around 6:15 am and start all over again when he wakes up "talking."
Such a sweet kid. I think we'll keep him.

Merry Happy New Year 6 month old at Christmas!

So, based on the title of today's post, we'll assume that Mommy is a wee bit behind in posting. Technically, Mommy's other baby, the iMac computer, had a hard drive failure and had to go to the genius bar to get some new innards. So, you are welcome to check back later this week for some fabulous little videos of Shepard opening his gifts and enjoying the holiday festivities. I do have some Christmas pics to post today, though! We took these a few days before Christmas at home.

Click here for the flickr pics! (and let me know if that link doesn't work!)

On Dec. 27, Mommy and Shepard travelled to Newnan, GA, to visit Nana and Grandpa Giles. We had at least one wonderful day, then the evil Bah Hum(stomach)bug! attacked the grandparents. As we tried to ply them with gatorade and chicken soup, Baby and Mommy were at least still well. Sadly, we had too short a visit and headed back on Thursday the 30th. Fortunately, Shepard is a pretty good traveller and we made it back to Rock Hill just in time for Mommy and Daddy to say hello and get ready for a date night to celebrate their sixth anniversary. What a nice night we had together at Bonterra and Amelie's. Thoroughly French! Thankfully, the rest of break was pretty uneventful, as we finished out 2010 with dinner with friends and some fire pit time and Sunday church.

Surely, I am blessed beyond what I deserve. We have everything in the world we could want, a healthy baby, two jobs, working cars, a warm house, etc. So, we didn't have an idyllic first Christmas with the baby...he doesn't know the difference.  And next year, we will watch him really tear into some gift wrap and count our blessings all over again...and pray hard that the stomach thing does not return.

Happy New Year! Can't wait to see what 2011 brings to us. Probably some crawling, walking and talking...and finger foods!

Merry Christmas, everyone!

It has been eventful, to say the least. It all started on Wednesday. That's the day we took off for our southeastern "world tour" as I call it. We loop to Greenville, SC, and then on to the ATL. It took us the better part of the day to finish wrapping gifts, pack the car, tend to the baby, etc. We were nearly done, when Jerod took the mostly-packed car to run a few final errands while I fed the baby and finished my packing and attempt at house-cleaning. As the baby lay sleeping in my arms, I heard my phone ring...good thing I checked it after strapping Shepard in his car seat to finish his nap (I thought we were leaving in the next 20 minutes). Jerod forgot his phone but was using someone's cell to let me know that our mostly-packed car was STUCK in the CAR WASH at the BP station down the road!!! Stuck. Like wouldn't start.
By the time I fetched my awesome neighbors...one to listen for the kid and one to drive me to the BP...some kind folks had helped him get the car out of the car wash! We didn't end up leaving until nearly 5 pm. And we had started trying to get out of the house around 8:30 am! It was enough to make me hate Christmas travel, but it was good to see smiling faces of family on the other end.
sidebar: when you have pre-paid childcare one block from your house, it's ridiculous NOT to use it while you pack up. We would have saved three hours easily had we taken Shepard to school. We just weren't thinking clearly.
We got to hang out with Uncle Matt, Grandma Jones, Uncle Justin and Aunt Jessica and cousins Madeleine and Micah for a few days, opening our bounty of gifts on Christmas Eve morning. Shepard was pretty laid back about everything. Just looked around and took it all in. He was very interested in eating tissue paper, and mildly interested in some of the items he received. He doesn't know it yet, but he got some GOOD STUFF!
As the Columbia Joneses departed, the rest of us made a dinner of pasta with browned butter and mizithra cheese...so good. Then we trekked to Uncle Matt's house for the evening. Around 3 am, I noticed that Jerod wasn't in bed...but as I heard him coughing from the next room, I assumed that the sinus funk he'd been battling had taken a turn toward cough-land and he didn't want to keep the baby and me up. Around 4 am, he crawled to the door and needed some help. He had been experiencing the great white throne-hugging for several hours. It was bad.
So, our Christmas morning consisted of hurriedly getting ready and whisking him to the ER after giving Grandma a list of Shepard's schedule. After ten hours of straight nausea, vomiting and other...um...yeah...Jerod was pretty dehydrated and not getting any better. While we waited for the fluids and meds to kick in, I fetched the book I just started on from the car...ironically titled "Skipping Christmas" by John Grisham. Sometime while we were trapped in the ER, it started snowing. It was lovely, but at this point, I had a sick hubs, a champion Grandma who had been watching the baby all day, and a sick Uncle...and we all needed transport along with two dogs and all of our stuff. The roads were looking a little dicey, and we weren't sure we could get back the next day. So, I loaded up the car in the snow...and later ventured out to a 24 hour CVS for meds and gatorade...and was so thankful to find a Chinese restaurant open on Christmas!
What a day.
So, we'll have some pictures and videos up before too long...I haven't even told you about the next leg of the journey. We'll just say that apparently, Shepard and I are carriers of the evil Bah Hum(stomach)bug!
This has been one crazy holiday.