listening to my son

yesterday, caleb woke up crying from his nap... which is fairly unusual for him. as i was holding and rocking him, he had a hard time settling down, so i asked him if something hurt. "yeah" was his response. next i asked him to tell me what hurt. "head", "ear" he said, while pulling on his right ear. so today i decided to honor his communication and take him to the pediatrician. sure enough, an ear infection (thankfully only his second ever) in his right ear. poor little man! i'm so thankful for his ability to understand and communicate and am glad i actually listened so he didn't have to suffer any longer. bring on the cherry antibiotics!

in which i burn my finger and caleb learns a new word**

i love chai tea. a lot. and was delighted to find the little instant packets at the store. it makes me feel like i get to go out to starbucks every single day. i curl up with a cup and have a good 15-30 minutes of pure relaxation. at least, that's what normally happens.

last tuesday, i put caleb down for a nap, heated up my water, and prepared for some quiet time just for me. when i reached into the microwave to retrieve my mug, however, i burnt my finger*. i thought it was just a typical burn... run it under cold water for a couple of minutes and move on with life. no such luck. it kept hurting and hurting and hurting. i even used a bag of frozen vegetables on it and they thawed before my finger stopped hurting.

finally, when caleb woke up, i thought i should go to a pharmacy to see what i could put on it. the pharmacist took a look at it, however, and sent me to a minute clinic. the arnp looked at it, and advised i get an appointment with my doctor. what i thought was just going to need some aloe or something ended up being a second-degree burn! i've now had to keep it bandaged up for the past week and i think i'll have a pretty major scar. yikes!

when i wasn't grimacing about how much my finger hurt, i was a bit worried about how caleb would do in the doctor's office since i would have to be examined and couldn't entertain him. so, i stopped and bought him a beautiful fall balloon (seriously, it's beautiful... i actually got complements on it while in the waiting room). now, he says "booooon" whenever he wants to play with it. while him learning a new word wasn't actually worth the burn, at least it was some silver lining.

*don't worry, i poured the water into a new mug and still drank my tea... while icing my finger!

**the way i titled this post reminds me of one of my favorite books... A Girl of the Limberlost. if you like or ever liked Anne of Green Gables or that style, please read this book. the main character is beautiful, inside and out. and the story will make you cry and warm your heart.

happy anniversary

today is the anniversary of a loss in my life. not a very big one, but a significant one. exactly one year ago today, my i lost my appendix. it was a crazy and scary time, made more so by the fact that i was 6 and a 1/2 months pregnant at the time. the day before, i thought i just had the flu and even went to the hospital to get re-hydrated. but the next morning it became obvious that something far more serious than the flu was going on.

the whole day in the hospital i was well cared for by nurses while doctors went nuts trying to figure out what was wrong with me. preterm labor? nope. kidney infection? no. infection in the uterus? thankfully not. in the end, i had an MRI which found my appendix to be "suspicious". so they removed it. the surgeon was wonderful and a labor & delivery nurse stayed with me the whole time monitoring caleb.


the amazing thing was, though, that i never really worried about caleb. i just knew that he was going to be ok and that i would get to meet him and hold him. i was just really thankful that that didn't come until august!

here we go again...

for the past couple of weeks, i've noticed caleb developing a rash. it started on one arm and i thought it was just dry skin. i kept an eye on it and put on extra lotion. then, i noticed that it was also on the other arm. and on his legs. as of today, it was bad enough that i thought i should call the doctor. now, i try hard not to be a paranoid mother and the rash doesn't seem to be giving caleb problems, so i felt a little silly calling. but, the pediatric advisor website said to call if the rash lasted longer than 48 hours... and it had... a lot longer. guess what the nurse said when i described the rash to her? "has your son ever shown any signs of dairy intolerance? that sounds like a dairy rash to me..." NOOO!! i never even made the connection that about 2 weeks ago was when i started reintroducing dairy into my diet more and more. and caleb was doing so well... or so i thought. so, i'm back to no dairy. and if the rash goes away, i may be doing this no-dairy thing for at least another month. but if the rash doesn't go away, i'll have to take caleb to the doctor. i don't know which one would be worse...

the official diagnosis...

so, i took caleb to the doctor's office yesterday. i work hard to not be an over concerned mom, but i called them since yesterday was day 6 of him having a fever, even though it was a low one. i mostly just wanted to know if there was anything else i could do for the fever/cold/flu stuff he's been experiencing. when they called back they said they thought they should take a look at him, just to make sure there was no infection or anything. i took him in and the doctor checked him all out and gave us the diagnosis of "the viral crud". it's been going around and unfortunately, caleb's got it. bummer! the doctor also said to make sure to wash my hands a lot because he's still contagious and that usually it's been lasting 1-2 weeks for kids. i hope for caleb it's more like the 1 week time... which would mean he would be better tomorrow!! i can tell he's already getting a bit better. he's been sleeping great for naps (and better at night than he was this weekend) and is starting to have a little better attitude during his awake times. i just want him to be better and be able to breathe and eat at the same time!

redefining " tired out"

a few days ago i posted about being really tired because caleb was sick, grumpy, etc. i should have known not to speak so soon! now i truly have a deeper appreciation for what tired out actually means. caleb has a stuffy nose... a bad one! so bad that he couldn't eat and breathe at the same time, which really scared him. so he woke up every 1-2 hours last night because he was hungry... but unable to eat. we tried feeding him out of a sippy cup which helped a bit and gave him enough to at least tide him over. the other issue with his cold is that while he was sleeping it seemed like maybe he switched to trying to breathe out of his nose again and then it startled him awake when he couldn't. this resulted in him waking up crying pretty heavily and being scared of going back to sleep. i found that this continued over into this morning... he can now breathe ok so i was able to feed him, but he is really scared of being put into his crib to sleep. poor baby! as hard as it has been to not get to sleep and to listen to him cry pretty much all night, i feel so bad for him that it cancels out any feels of frustration i may have otherwise had. it also makes me so thankful for what a wonderful sleeper i usually have because i know there are some families for which nights like this are more common than not.

tired out...

we're tired at our house. every one of us is tired. caleb's tired because he has a fever (poor baby) and his gums hurt and his tummy hurts. and all of that adds up to poor eating and sleeping... which makes him grumpy. and we're tired from caleb's being grumpy. it gets way worse in the evenings where, after his third nap, he decides that it's not ok for us to set him down or to sit down while holding him or to stay in one place. so we walk and bounce and pray for time to move more quickly so that we can put him to bed. he seems a little better today, but it's still early, so we'll see...

projectile vomit...

caleb had a bit of a hard day, but we were managing just fine and i thought it mainly had to do with his teething (he seems to be getting his top front teeth now). but this evening he was so grumpy and fussy and his tummy seemed to be bothering him. so, we got him ready for bed a little early and troy got out the tylenol. as he put it in his mouth, caleb started to cough. i thought it was just him trying to get rid of the tylenol, but when i sat him up to make sure he was ok, all of a sudden, vomit went everywhere! all over me and caleb and the chair i was in. yikes!! it smelled horrible but i was actually less disgusted than i thought i would be because i was so concerned about how caleb felt. i hope he's better now and we won't have to relive that for quite a while... if ever.

hair-do

every night, troy gives caleb a bath as a part of our bedtime routine. both of them love it... especially since caleb learned how to make splashes with his feet! then, after the bath, it's time for the lotion. caleb has trouble with patches of dry skin (it's not just the dimples that he got from me!) so troy lotions him up really well every night. finally, it's time for the hair-do! using the lotion, troy styles caleb's hair so it looks really cool. usually, it's just spiked. but one night i came into the room to find my baby with a peach-fuzz mohawk! is he hip, or what?!

so starts a long day...

yesterday caleb had his shots. the last time he got shots, he got a high fever and had a hard next day. but, the doctor said some kids react a lot better the second time, so i was hopeful. after we got home yesterday, i gave caleb some tylenol and when took his temperature last evening and during the night, it was normal. this morning, though, it was up to 100.3, which is quite high for a little man who is usually in the 97's. poor baby, doesn't know what to do... he's tired but has a hard time going to sleep and he doesn't understand why nursing doesn't fix it. i'll keep giving him the tylenol every 4 hours and, if it's like last time, he should be ok by tomorrow morning.

facebook problem...

i like facebook. i check it a lot and have fun keeping in touch with friends with it. and some of the applications are very clever. but there's a problem. i found a new application called My Starbucks. and you can select your favorite drinks and put it on your profile. and people can send you drinks. it's great... but the problem is, now i'm craving one more than ever and i can't have any dairy! oy!

at least they have good apple cider!

goodbye, dear friend...

i received some sad news on friday... apparently caleb is (most likely) going through a lactose intolerant phase right now. it seems to be upsetting his intestines and causing him to spit up more than usual, have blood in his stools, and not sleep well. so, i need to cut out any dairy from my diet, at least for a while. the plan is to cut it out totally for a couple of weeks to see if that makes a difference. then, i can try to slowly reintroduce it to find out how much he can handle. it's been 2.5 days now and its a lot harder than a thought it would be. i love my milk, instant breakfasts, cheese sticks, pizza, hot chocolate, starbucks, and ice cream... especially ice cream. it does seem to be making a difference, though, and for that i'm thankful. but does anyone have any good suggestions of what i can eat that is still good???

you annoint my head with oil...

caleb has cradle cap. i saw it and just kept thinking that it would go away on its own. but it didn't. instead, it got worse and worse and looked more and more gross. so, i read about it on the Internet and called his doctor to see what they recommended. in the end, we did a combination of two treatments. first, we would put oil on his head (picture troy pouring olive all over caleb's bald little head while caleb is eating...). then, we used a fine-tooth comb to get a bunch of the dry scales out. finally, we washed his head really well in the bath using dandruff shampoo. the first day it was a lot better, the second day a bit more. i'm hopeful that if we keep this up, we can actually make it go away!