Sick Days... and multiple trips to the doctor

So, as mentioned in the steroid post, Jacob went to the doctor on Friday. They did a breathing treatment, gave us steroids, said if he isn't better call.... and then we had Easter weekend and all was well with the world.

Until Sunday night. Sunday Jacob went down as normal around 8ish, and woke up whining and whimpering around 11. He was up whining and crying and tossing and turning ALL NIGHT. He would only sleep on my chest if I was sitting up. At some point during the night I took him into the guest room so Dad could get some sleep and he was ROASTING. I didn't take his temp because by this point he had fallen asleep and this is when the rule - don't wake a sleeping baby - was in effect! When Pat left for work he had cooled down, and I let him continue to sleep just a little longer. When we got up and did take his temp it was at a cool 102. No telling how high it had gotten during the night, because he felt MUCH MUCH cooler. A trip back to the doc first thing in the morning told us he had a double ear infection - AGAIN. {These keep showing up in our house, and I don't like them} Jacob spent some time with me at the office, got his RX filled with a prescription he's had before and then came home to do some work while sweet Samantha kept Jacob for a few hours. When he got up from his nap around 6 last night he had a rash around his neck. I kept giving Pat weird looks, and told him, something wasn't right. Jacob didn't act like anything was wrong, and the rash began to go down in color very quickly... maybe he just got hot while he was sleeping??

For about an hour we kept going back and forth wondering if we should call the on call number or not, go to the urgent treatment center or not... I called and hung up the phone before anyone picked up twice, and then the rash started to get darker, and spread a little bit lower towards his chest. I called the on call doc, and we were on our way to their office in 10 minutes. After an hour it was determined he was having a drug reaction as the rash continued to spread across his body while we were in the office. Lots of TLC, a little bit of medicine and a new prescription for his ears and gunky lungs and we were on our way home.

They told us the rash would continue to spread... these are the Internet appropriate pictures, the more detailed ones are for us to show the allergist.

Now it is about everywhere and the color has gone down to a faint pink, so recovery is in our future. Also in our future is a trip to the ENT doctor for these ear infections and the allergist the next week. We were on the phone A LOT today, but hopefully before this little guy is one we'll have some answers to the allergies and possibly some tubes for his ears.

Easter

We had a nice Easter here. We got up early to see if the Easter bunny had come to visit, and sure enough, he hadn't forgotten Jacob.

Then, we were off to church and didn't forget to get our pictures in before we left.

We had dinner with friends and I cooked (yes, you read that correctly) the ENTIRE meal! The menu:

Ham

Deviled Eggs

Sweet Potato Casserole

Baked Beans

Rolls

Bunny Cake
Not much, but oh so yummy, and again... I did the ENTIRE meal by MYSELF!!!

And, I can't forget, Jacob's first Easter Egg Hunt was at church on Saturday morning, before going to Keeneland {busy weekend} we got together with several other kiddos and hunted eggs filled with chocolate. Not that Jacob needed any, but it was fun...

So, we found an egg, which immediately went into his mouth, and there was no need to look any further. This one egg occupied him for almost 10 minutes.

However, since he was the only little guy in the "toddler" hunt area, the middle schoolers decided they would help him find all the eggs they had hidden and FILLED his basket to the brim. They were so helpful!

So, it was a busy weekend, but very relaxing and full of fun! :)

The Steroids Must Have Kicked In

Friday, Jacob went to the doctor and needed a breathing treatment to help kick the gunk that he's had for the last two weeks. When we left they gave us a steroid prescription to give him for three days. Pat thinks, the steroids must have kicked in, because this is what I caught him doing this morning. More as to why we're home today {and yesterday} to come...

Easter's on It's Way

Learning New Things While Still 9 Months

This weekend Jacob worked on learning to use his new toy.


Tonight, he decided to take off down the couch and then the ottoman and see if his new balance would allow him to take a few steps towards Mom and Dad.
This video is the only one where we caught him trying to take a few steps on his own. We clocked in an official 3 in a row by the end of the night. He loved going back and forth from Mom to the couch. He was so proud of himself! There were only a few nose dives to the hard wood and not once did he shed a tear, he just kept giggling the entire time!
Jacob will be 10 months old Wednesday!

Backtracking to Friday

I have a lot of friends with new babies, most of these friends are old high school friends, new friends or they are my friends from college who are Pat's age. Very few of the girls my age have babies yet... we're still wadding through the bridal shower phase, we haven't made it into the deep end of the baby showers yet. But Friday another one joined the club. The KD Mom's club. And this time, there is a legacy in our company!!
I purposely left my camera at home, and did NOT bring it to work with me because there had been instruction by Nancy that the Hartley girls should not meet their new niece via facebook... so I complied, and made sure I wasn't tempted. But now Ben and Amelia have put up pictures, so I think the cost is clear!


Avery Elizabeth {love her middle name} was born on Friday morning and she is so, so perfect!

Kristin told me all about her labor story and then grinned, and said... I know you want to hold her. She was hungry so I got to enjoy the sweet newborn little girl for just a few minutes, and loved it. She kept sticking her little tongue out and kept her eyes closed the entire time {I miss those day, Jacob won't stay still for two seconds anymore!} She is so sweet and has the cutest expressions. Mom and Dad couldn't be any more proud. Kristin was just plain giddy, and was still in the recovery room! Kristin's mom and Kaitlin were there too, also beeming with excitement. Avery has been born into a wonderfully loving family!

Congrats to Kristin and Ben and please keep them in your thoughts and prayers as they bring Avery home today.

Cara Dee and 9 months

She is too kind! Cara Dee took 9 month pictures of Jacob on Saturday at our house and has already posted to her blog here.

We have worked with Cara Dee two other times, and have been extremely pleased with her work! My "personal" photographer from the last 5 years of my life lives in Bowling Green, and I can't have him on every whim {although, sometimes he could say I have acted that way} so I went on the hunt over a year ago for a great local photographer. This summer I was on facebook and saw some great pictures posted on the wall of people I went to high school with, a quick fb message later I had Cara Dee's name and website. Skip ahead to today, and I am getting ready to book miss Cara Dee for Jacob's 1 year pictures. I have been able to use her for his 3 month, 5/6 month {really my mom had family pictures taken using her} and 9 months pictures. I just LOVE her work. She's SO sweet and loves life. Her blog is fantastic too. She's quite the writer! Cara Dee Photography - LOVE!

Jacob is quite the little entertainer these days, at least Pat and I think so. This month Jacob has learned lots of new things:
to crawl
to combine his crawling with his already mastered pulling up so that now he can cruise all the furniture
to cruise from one piece of furniture to the other
to get back down to the floor from standing up
to occasionally let go of everything and stand on his own for just a few seconds {YIKES}
to chew food - he now can eat crackers, bread sticks, Cheerios, puffs and yogurt melts {I can't omit, there's been a french fry or two tossed into that mix}
to hold his own sippy cup and drink water and juice at meals all by himself
to condense his babbling to one syllable "da", "mmmmma" and an occasional "ca"
to roll over as soon as I take his diaper off to be changed, and immediately begin to squirm like crazy
to play with a puppy in our house {this only lasted two days}
Whew, I'm tired just thinking about the fact that he really did learn all these things in the last 3 weeks!

Stats:
28 1/4 inches - 75 percentile {up from 26 inches at 6 months}
18 lbs 14 oz - 45 percentile {I don't remember his weight at 6 months right now}
6 teeth, and working on #7 {three on the top, three on the bottom}

He has worked his way into some 12 month clothing, but can still wear 9 month if it's 2 pieces, one piece outfits are far too short for our little guy.

We are getting ready to begin the process of switching from formula to whole milk, today will be his first try and the goal is that by one year {yes, that's in three short months} he will be on milk only and not take a bottle. As I told this to Pat he was very concerned... What will we do if he wakes up in the middle of the night and is hungry? Can we not give him a bottle, do we let him starve?? I have assured Pat that this is a gradual process, and on May 31 he does not have to never use a bottle again, it's just a goal and we'll figure out what works for us. In the meantime, Pat is still very concerned about that middle of the night occasional bottle.

Now that I've provided all this information I realize that I don't have the cord to my camera with me to upload the videos and pictures that go with all this news. So, that will have to be done in the future. For now, anticipate the video of Jacob playing with an 8 month old bichon frise named Harley....and laughing uncontrollably. TOO FUNNY!