3rd time's the charmer

Ethan as he's laying in bed tonight -

"Mom, you're wearing your glasses.
Where are my sunglasses?
The sun can't get in here.
The sun goes away when it gets dark.
The sun goes away when it's raining.
(With his hand on my cheek) Mom, I'll stop the rain."

He loves me so much. Maybe I should love him a little more. (Kidding.)

Our new fight

Ethan doesn't really eat. I guess I've been trying to not notice, but while he was sick he really ate only a handful of bites a day. Now that he's improving, we decided to set some dinner time rules. First is one we've had all along. You don't have to like what's for dinner, but your only other option is PB&J. Second is the big one. Dinner time means you have to sit at the table. No playing with toys, no running around the house, no distractions. Ethan chose time-out rather than the table three times tonight. And didn't eat a single bite of dinner. I think I'm not going to give him his sippy cup tomorrow to make sure he can't fill up on milk. We're going to get this boy to eat if it kill us.

Sick again...

No, not me this time. Ethan had a fever of 102 on Friday night. He seemed fine (and we forgot about it!) the next morning so he went to a birthday party and came home exhausted. I know we're horrible parents. When I checked that afternoon, still 102. Sunday, 102 and finally showing some signs of being sick, Ethan stayed home from church and a call went into the Dr. Of course, the night/weekend nurse typically leans on the "if it's not life-threatening, deal with it" side of medicine, so with no real advice, we drugged our boy up. We'd already been doing the motrin, but we started alternating it with Tylenol and added a decongestant. I even picked up some children's Mucinex as his cold was threatening to move into his chest.

Monday, not really better. And b/c the decongestant isn't as yummy tasting as the motrin, Ethan started refusing his meds. (We fixed that by adding it to his milk. To him, milk is milk, even when it's pink and funny tasting.) To make John's day off even better, my stomach decided to have a bad day. We spent the entire day at home, pretty miserable. Happy Memorial Day!

Tues Ethan's fever finally broke. Just in time for us to avoid the Dr. Still really congested and coughing up a storm, but better. My stomach on the other hand... I started to worry that the new meds I'd added on Friday had lost their usefulness just like the last ones.

Finally, we come to Wed. Ethan is well into the upswing, though still coughing when he lays down. I've come down with this virus of his, but because I am willing to blow my nose, I'm doing better than the boy was. Also, I've decided that it must have been the beginning of the cold that set my stomach off. It seems to be back on an even keel. If it stays good for a few more days, I'll tell you about this magic pill I've discovered. It's actually kind of crazy!

So all in all, we are getting better. (Until John gets the cold!)

It's a ... Baby!

So glad that the little picture on the ticker finally looks like a human. The little zygote is just so strange, it's hard to go "awwww". But now it's officially a fetus, so feel free to think my baby is adorable. (Because you know it really is.)

How We're Doing

I'm doing better. Not great, but better. Well enough to get by most days. And because I had still managed to gain weight since I saw my Dr a few months ago, I can't really justify stepping up to the prescription. Hopefully it doesn't last as long this time.

Ethan is glad to be getting out more. He's happy that he's going to be a big brother, although I don't think he knows what it means. We've been talking about it and when he bumps into my stomach he kisses the baby better, but I don't think he gets that there will be a real baby. Once when I mentioned that I would go to the hospital to have the baby Ethan said "I go to the hostible when I hurt my tummy and get a baby!" To translate that, the only thing he knows about hospitals is that ambulances take you there when you get hurt. So apparently, when you hurt your stomach, the ambulance will take you to the hospital and they give you a baby as a gift. I think I like that method better.

John is excited about the baby but is feeling a little put out at the moment. More is required of him around the house and he gets none of the attention. I love him for it, but it's still rough. If you get the chance, show him a little love.

There is other little news, but that's all I feel like writing at the moment. I need to finish dinner. And we'll have John's cousins staying with us for the next week or so, so if I'm a total slacker about updating everyone, I promise I'm busy.

I'm in Love...

...with my Dr! I got an inkling of how good he is when I saw him about our fertility problem, but now I'm in love. I told John I'm not leaving Boston until this baby is born b/c I'll never find another like him.

First, he gave me several options for dealing with all the sick, so I'm starting with the combo of OTC stuff before I spend the money on a prescription. (One of the things I'm doing is switching from a full prenatal vitamin to just folic acid. The full prenatal causes nausea, and if I can eat, I can get the nutrients from food. Such a great tip!) Second, he suggested that I probably didn't need several of the screening tests (early Downs syndrome check and AFP quad), so if I didn't want them, we didn't need to waste our time and money. Because they wouldn't change anything for John and I, we totally agreed. And finally, the best. We talked last time about my delivery with Ethan and decided to induce the next one two weeks early. Today, he said we'd do it at least two and a half weeks early. So that puts the delivery date for this baby around Dec 10th. Yay!

Anyway, I could go on all day about how great he is. I need to thank the friend that referred him again. It's so good to know that he is just as concerned about me having an easier time this go round as I am.

Sick

I'm sick. Really sick. And I've been this way for a month. Hoping to get some relief from the Dr today. If I do I'll post a real update on how we're doing.

OH! And I'm due Dec 28th, but this Dr agreed to induce me early so it'll be around the 14th. Still a risk that the baby will be too big for me, even a pound lighter, but he'd rather induce early than schedule a c-section.

HAPPY MOTHERS DAY!

In what has become a Mother's Day tradition for us, we have an announcement! If you haven't figured it out yet, look closer.

More on how we are all doing, feeling, etc later.

Pictures at the Park

I sent John and Ethan to the park with the camera. They did a pretty good job! (My favorites are the third and the fifth...and the second because of the crazy angle on Ethan's laugh.)

Easter Pictures

Ethan and his "bunnies"
(Is is weird that all of his friends are girls?)

The dads hiding eggs for a Saturday egg hunt

Hunting eggs with best friend Mags

"I got it!"

Easter morning

Potty Training? What's That?

Yea. So we've kind of backed off on the potty lately. Ethan stopped going while he was sitting there and then started screaming and kicking when we tried to put him on it. Needless to say, he didn't want to use it. We decided a break was needed.

Today we tried again. And we introduced bribes. So when Ethan has peed on the potty eight times (earning himself eight stickers on his little chart) he'll earn a trip to the aquarium. That was enough that he climbed onto the potty himself. No pee, though, so no sticker. We'll try again tomorrow. At least he's sitting on the toilet again.

Random Photos

(plus updates to the sidebar)

Playing Chef

Riding Grandpa

Celebrating after making a huge mess!

Playing his first computer game
(I can't believe how shaggy I let his hair get this last time!)

Changes

I wanted to be able to keep track of Ethan's age (without having to think about it), so I added the ticker. Unfortunately it meant changing the template so that it would fit. Don't know if I love it yet, but we'll see. I apologize if I'm messing around with it for a few days.

Pictures!

I uploaded some pictures last night and discovered I hadn't done it since Feb. (Wow we have a huge memory card!) So I'll pass them on in small bunches as I have the time. To start, some snow pictures.