So, my family was hit by a wave of sickness that was never, EVER, invited in our door. For about 5 weeks one or many of us were down for the count.
I had the flu, D got food poisoning, Pnut got pneumonia (!), Cashew got bronchitis, then D got hit again with a cyst that needed to be addressed with trips to surgical urgent care every other day for two weeks. We were significantly done seeing our health care provider by the end of February.
Some memories to record:
Cashew had his first chest x-ray since Pnut had pnuemonia. It is a torturous looking device. Baby is placed on a mini bicycle seat and there is a clear tube that closes around baby while parent holds baby's arms up in the air. Cashew didn't know whether to cry or let his oral tendencies take hold and lick the x-ray plate (that was hysterical!)
My boy is "hoovering" food down. We switched him to stage 2 foods because he was eating 7 stage 1 containers per day plus cereal added and milk on top of that.
He is rolling back and forth and across the room. He is also sitting up unassisted for bits of time, but still falls over some so he needs some buffers in place.
The boy loves his tongue. He chews on it, sticks it out, uses it to taste everything (including licking your hands if you are not careful)
His laugh is just music to my ears. Today it looked like he waved "hi" to our friend/sitter. Awesome! He also grabs my face and my mom's face and pulls us in for "kisses" Love it!
He is getting really good at holding and drinking from his sippy cup (we started at four months with little sips of water during meals).
Sleeping has been an issue for about a week because he has gotten sick again. We were doing beautifully, but now it is a struggle for me everyday because I have a headache from bad sleep. I don't think that Cashew is being fazed much by it though.
PNUT!
She is a trial to be sure, but with a lot of discussion with her teacher and some flexibility we are so proud of her. We changed behavior monitoring methods from the whole day to one chunk of time that she was struggling to get through. When she does well in that time period the teacher will give her a happy face and extra computer time. The first week she got three happy faces (she went to Grandma's church for Kid's Night Out! they watched a movie and had pizza and she got to hang out with her cousins), I also splurged and got her a pack of donuts (she ate 3 of the 6 and then she had to get another happy face to get the other three).
Week 2 she got 4 happy faces! (That is a huge! deal) we went for a dessert date at Coldst*ne. Daddy was out of town so it was just me and the nuts.
We are in Week 3 and we already have 3 happy faces. 2 more and my pnut is FINALLY going to get her reward of a trip to Golf and Stuff. This has been our deal since December and with the old behavior methods in place it wasnt' working for her. Her teacher is very happy with the improvment and is thinking of adding a 2nd happy face for each day for not talking excessively. (What can I say, she's my kid!)
Cashew LOVES his Sissy. D will tell you that he smiles at me, he smiles at D, but that boy's face lights up for his Sissy. She loves him too, sometimes too much, but we are trying to find a balance.
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D has been working a lot of overtime for the last three months. He has been really hard being essentially a single parent, but he still comes home every night so that is good. My mom has been helping to watch the nuts so I can still go to choir on Wednesdays and D can come home and eat dinner and help put them to bed. It is SUCH a blessing to have family close by.
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I decided about 6 weeks ago that I was TIRED of my cooking. Either I had to figure out a change or we would be eating out a lot. So, taking a page from a friend I sat down and plotted out 2 weeks worth of dinners and made a shopping list. I asked D about some things he would like me to make, have been digging into things I grew up eating and researching new by looking through cookbooks. In six weeks we have had only ONE meal repeat. It has been such a reprieve, and a great challenge for me to stock more fruits and veggies, really inventory what we have so that I only make BIG grocery trips every two weeks. This includes buying baby food for Cashew. We still have milk, soda, and bread trips off track from those buying trips, but I feel great about it. I have also tried to institute a "Sunday" dinner type plan. So far I have made fried chicken, ham, steak, sour cream chicken enchiladas, and family oldie No Peek Chicken. This Sunday it is Pasta Carbonara (I love this one, hello, it has bacon in it!) I don't do anything too large, but having different foods go through our house has been nice.
I can't believe that Cashew is 7 months old. Last month was fun because I got to say I had a 6 year old and a 6 month old. Now 7 months is that corner that has been turned and that big 1 is off in the distance. I don't really like this. I want my boy to stay a baby for some more time.
He is such a sweet boy. He has a temper, but for 95% of the time he is a mellow, sweet and just precious child. I am writing this in hopes that in years to come when I look at this when said precious boy is making me want to tear my hairout I will remember his soft, firm chubby cheeks, toothless smile, musical giggles, and remember when I was his WHOLE world and still love him just as much despite anything he may do as a big kid. I do this with Pnut a lot. I think about the little girl who would wrap her arms around you as you carried her and she would pat YOU on the back to soothe you like we would do to her. *Sigh* that is what memories are for. Remembering the little things that melt your heart so that when things get hard you have a sweet moment to think of and get you through the chaos.
