Recovery

Recovery mode
We are recovering from our mono week last week.
I am doing much better- I was a wreck by the end of the week both physically and emotionally. It drained me more than I would have imagined. Thankfully the weekend hit and I had Eric and some help, plus it was obvious my baby was getting better so a huge weight lifted off my heart and shoulders.

Brooks is doing a million times better. The highest temp I have recorded in 48 hours is 100.2, I even stopped with the motrin to see and it still didn't go up. I hate giving him meds for so many days, and he wasn't miserable without- so WIN! He is also back to smiling and playing. He is still getting drained fairly easily, and is sleeping more than usual, but I am not complaining about that. Thank goodness we are past the rough part.

Here our pictures from our week- you will notice a recurring theme of Pajamas, sweats, or nudey baby. Also an alternation between play and misery. Poor munchkin

Sicky Baby

Doesn't stop him from loving my shoes though- seriously, he could walk in these all day. He even throws a tantrum if he wants them while they are literally on my feet.


A bunch of medicines, a 3 hr nap, and losing his clothes to cool off helped cheer him up.



Miserable... just not feeling good


Hmmm... if it wasn't mono, I would think his notorious trash picking would have a part in getting sick


When you are stuck inside & sick- things get boring fast. What better way to switch it up than to play with household items like measuring cups and dog-poop bags

More misery


Half smiles- best mood we had all week

This kid takes no interest in cartoons- but if Daddy puts on ESPN he is entranced

Christmas Cards!

It's that time of the year again, time to send out our holiday cards!
Last year we used Shutterfly for our photo cards and I loved them, so we plan on using them again. It means so much to me to send out a photo card as a lot of our friends and family live far away and do not get to see Brooks throughout the year. I know I always love seeing pictures of people and their kids, and how they changed throughout the year. The best part is- there are so many options so you can include 1 picture or 4 or however many you want. With an active toddler, who knows how many 'good' shots we will get, so it is nice to have the options on whichever background we like.

Shutterfly has a ton of great options to choose from- I can't pick a favorite now- but I will have to when we have our winning picture.

Christmas photo cards to http://www.shutterfly.com/cards-stationery/christmas-photo-cards

Since we are an interfaith family- we are also looking at less Christmas themed cards and more general holiday choices.

Holiday cards to http://www.shutterfly.com/cards-stationery/holiday-cards

And when we place our order- we will also be ordering the gift for the grandparents. Each grandparent set will be receiving a photo calendar to show Brooks throughout the year- I am glad I took so many themed photos to help fill this in. It is going to be adorable.

wall calendars to http://www.shutterfly.com/calendars/wall-calendars

Mono

My baby has Mono- mononucleosis. WTF?!?! How does a 17 month old get mono.

Wednesday night around 6:30 B started burning up and I took his temp 104.7 . At that point I had it with waiting per my pediatrician's advice. It was day 4 of a fever, 3 of which were above 104, and each day the highest reading was higher than the prior days high. So we went to CHOP- Children's Hospital of Pennsylvania. This is the most gorgeous hospital I have ever seen- it is amazing. I hope not to see it again, but it is so nice to have such a renowned place less than 10 minutes drive away.

B was checked out- strep tested again because his throat had a "raging infection with puss". That was negative- so not bacterial, but viral. Which means no antibiotics to help- but the wait and see and give tylenol and motrin treatment. That sucks. I realize that it is no different from my peds advice- but at least they gave us an answer, said it was clear the fever was from the infection, and gave us a timeline for healing. This made me feel much better as I was beginning to worry a lot about something else being wrong with him that we were missing.

Now we are in healing mode. His fever seems to have peaked and has been lower the past 24 hrs. He is still waking at night so I am giving him meds to ease the discomfort. They said the fever should be gone by the end of this weekend and that within another week or so he should be back to himself- just make sure we push fluids because dehydration is a big risk right now. Fortunately mono in kids is much less severe than the adult version (think chicken pox vs. shingles). So he is alright, he is recovering, and this week has really just sucked.

Oh- and surprise surprise, today I found a new molar and 2 canines popping through. That must have made the poor little guy extra miserable these past few days. I feel so bad for him, but am also kind of happy it was all piled on so as not to extend his misery.

Happy Turkey Day & Blogging at 4:30am...

(best/only family pic from the day)

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Happy Thanksgiving!
We hope that everyone had a wonderful holiday. There is so much to be thankful for- our family, Brooks being amazing, healthy baby on the way, I could go on. We are very fortunate and had a wonderful holiday and yummy dinner if I do say so myself.
Although the holiday was great- the weekend was rough. I promise I am not always negative, but wow we can't catch a break lately. Thursday was a bit overwhelming since it was really the first holiday I have done all by myself without help- but it was great, exhausting, but fun & yummy. I was in tears for a while b/c I invited the inlaws for 1pm and people got here 2:35-2:50. I busted my ass getting stuff done and sat there staring at my apps crying. My turkey was out before they even got here. Livid is an understatement. Then when I say this was the first holiday I did all by myself- I am not joking. Eric was very helpful, until we realized he HAD to watch B (we found him upstairs while FIL sat on his iphone). So Eric watched B and I cleaned up every single thing by my 27 week pregnant self without an offer of help from anyone.
So we wake up freezing Friday morning- our thermostat blew. Great, call the HVAC, they come out- not only did our thermostat die, but apparently our circuit breaker was overloaded and charring/burning- aka: extreme electrical hazard. So Saturday we had emergency service- hard on the wallet and hard on us which means we were without heat and electricity all.day.long. But we were fortunate they could fit us in and get it done. Fast forward to Sunday- good day until B came down with a 103.2 fever which just escalated to 103.9 by Monday morning despite medicine. Now it is Tuesday at 4:35 am and I have been up with him for over 2 hrs. I think past a certain point he just became 'awake' and was not going back down. Right now he is happy (watching Baby Einstein as I type)- but we tried & cried (yes both of us) for almost 2 hrs to get him back down. Eric even came to help- probably b/c he heard me muttering since I was getting hit (B just wanted to get down and run and I wanted to sleep). Eric sleeps like the dead- so for him to hear while the monitor is off means it must have been loud.

So that is where we are right now- like I said, it has been a very tough few days. Hopefully whatever this bug is disappears ASAP b/c we have Santa plans later this week wtih Nana & Aunt Ali and I don't want to cancel.

PICTURES:
Thanksgiving. I don't have many pictures AT ALL from turkey day. In fact, once his shirt is washed I am going to put him back in it to get a pic. I spent most of the day in the kitchen prepping & cleaning so handed Eric the camera- but he's not into taking pics, he was distracted by playing with B and the nephews (no surprise there- I married a kid at heart).

6 months down, only 3 to go!



Table for 10!

Appetizers- waiting for people to arrive

my pretty, festive, mantle

Yummy turkey!


Eric's cache of pics from turkey day!

(that's not a white bra shining through- it's his jeans, that bugged me for a while until I realized LOL)


Hostessing with a toddler is HARD- he was into everything, everywhere and it was hard to keep an eye out.

.


We had Grandma Barbara over for turkey day on Friday and B actually ate a Thanksgiving meal. On Thanksgiving itself he gorged on appetizers and ate a million pretzels so didn't eat much dinner. One thing I learned- the kid LOVES cranberries.



Here is our sicky baby relaxing with Ming... He never just 'sits' like this.



And my silly boys- the following is all courtesy of Eric LOL :)

YAWWWNNNNNN

Living up to his t-shirt :)




Not much to say this week, and sadly not many pictures. Last week was rough- and when I say rough, I mean hellish, terrible, and horrible. Why? Well apparently there was a gas leak 10 ft underground about 20 ft from our front door. This required emergency service by the gas company (totally understandable). However, this means that for all hours (and i mean ALL hours- 2 am, 4am, you name it) they were jackhammering apart the street directly outside of B's window. For days- DAYS!!! The poor kid did not get a good nap or full night's sleep from Sunday-Friday. It was awful. He was miserable. I was miserable. We were tired and cranky and it was just kind of survival mode week. It appears that on Friday they finally finished whatever the emergency part was and stopped working overnight (thank God!), but they are still out there bulldozing and paving. It should be done within a day or so.

On top of our street issues- B has been having some issues with Hives. This happened a month or so ago- B has been having weird hives/welts. I initially thought it was an allergic reaction, but it seems like they come up on his skin wherever he bumps/bruises himself. Or along his sock line, or on his face if I wipe it. So basically wherever an irritation occurs. I just don't know that an allergy would react that way. The hives take on the shape of the irritant too- for example, Ming paw'd him for some food, so her paw went down his face. She didn't hurt or scratch him, but he got hives that looked like scratch marks. And then of course there are random ones I don't know how go there but who knows. Ped doesn't have a clue- he is on benadryl and a wait and see prescription. I think I am going to go ahead and make an appt with both a dermatologist and an allergist to get him checked out. In the meantime I will be snapping pics to take along with me just in case he isn't having a flare up by the time the appointments come around.
The good news is- they bother me because I get worried, but he doesn't seem to notice or be bothered at all by them.

Hives: (this makes me want to cry)

hip & arm


arm


Ming's scratches! Don't be concerned- 2 hrs later his face was perfectly clear with not a single mark.




My loves


Jekyll & Hyde. Happy as can be one moment, then when he can't have what he wants (strawberries in this case- which yes are healthy and not normally denied, but dinner was in 5 minutes) it is a whole different story.




Ming needs to learn her place- B has no problem flopping on her while she is there though.


Update from last week- apparently the shopping cart is no longer the best place for the ziplocs. I have found this on MORE than one occassion.

a 2 crib household...

So- I showed off B's big boy room in my last post- but since then we got a new crib delivered. I was really unsure of how it would fit in after all the furniture was in the room, but knew B couldn't go to that full bed right away (especially since it is set so high with the drawers underneath). So the only negative about the arrangement is that the nightstand is no longer next to the bed (it is between the bed and desk now), and I had to put the chest up against the window- but I actually think it still looks pretty good and most importantly, we preserved the floor space for play that was there. The crib matches everything very well- and it came with a crib mattress- however it is so soft that I need to get a new one for my peace of mind (the whole firmer the better because of SIDs concern and all)

You can scroll down to last week's post to compare if you want :)





In other news- Brooks is into everything still and learning every day. His newest thing is to give his stuffed animals hugs. I still don't get one- but hopefully they are on the way since he is learning how to give them.


He is OBSESSED with shoes- poor Eric's sneakers can be found all over the 2nd floor of our house because he takes them out of the closet (in pairs) and brings them places. My Uggs are too soft to resist and he likes wearing them- he gets mad if I don't help him put them on, then just giggles and giggles at his 'big' feet.



As I was snapping shoe pics- Ming came by- perfect example of how he tortures her and how tolerant she has been.


I bought B a big set of blocks and he loooves them. He is really into stacking them (clapping at himself after he gets each one on). Then he knocks them over and says boom (boop- he says this whenever something, including himself, falls)




It has been really chilly lately, but not to cold to get outside. We still go to the park a lot- but unfortunately for Ming, I have been bringing her less. There are a couple local moms with kids about the same age who go sometimes and we hang out while the babies play. And even when they are not there, Brooks is not content to stay in one spot and it is too hard to chase them both around the whole place.
Residents call this the 'rock' park because it has rock structures in the middle. B looves to play on them.



Like I said- Brooks is not content to stay- he likes to leave the park and walk down the sidewalk to who knows where. This is also teh age of tantrums, and man can he throw them. These pictures were taken right after I stopped him from leaving the park and brought him back to our little car that we ride around in in lieu of a stroller.





And we also hang out at 'the fountain'. If you have ever been to teh Franklin Institute you have seen the fountain across the way- this is a couple blocks away from us and B LOOOVES to watch the fountain. We went there with the dog and daddy

Looking at the water



Chilling in front of the Franklin Institute