Buddies

There was no swimming this past Saturday because the instructor was out of town. So.... we had Walker and his parents over for dinner on Sunday evening. JD and Walker had a great time playing, although they didn't interact as much as I thought they would. Probably just getting to know one another.

Walker is such a cutie and boy does he have a lot to say! For boys that were born on the same day they sure are different in their development! Walker talks a lot. He even says "uh-oh" which is like the cutest thing ever! JD talks, just not as much and not as loudly. His favorite thing to say is "Hi".... lately he's been crawling around saying dadadadada, gagagagaga or yayayayaya.

The other adorable thing that Walker does is get in to things. I'm sure I probably think it's cuter than his mom does because when I say he gets in to things I mean everything! We took the boys in to JD's bedroom where Walker immediately found a basket of JD's clean laundry. He proceeded to pull the laundry out of the basket... then he found a basket full of toys and he did the same thing! JD gets in to things but he doesn't empty containers like that.

Another thing that I hope Walker can teach JD is how to use a sippy cup! JD will sometimes drink from a sippy if I hold it for him but he mostly just wants to chew on it. Walker is a pro! He tilts his head back and chugs! Maybe if JD watches him a few times he'll catch on. I'm not in a big rush for this, though. We still have a few months before his pediatrician wants him off of the bottle!

We had a great time playing in the back yard. It was a beautiful, sunny day. The only thing we were missing is our friend Peyton. Peyton and his parents were evacuated because of the fires earlier in the week and couldn't make this play date.... next time he'll be able to join in on the fun!

Here are a few pictures of the boys playing outside:

Wildfires

(I got this picture from www.wmbfnews.com... go there to see more)

I'm sure some of you have been hearing about the wildfires raging here in Horry County. It's horrible! So far they've consumed about 20,000 acres, destroyed 70 homes and severely damaged another 30, making this the worst fire in the state since 1976.

Thousands of people have been evacuated, including my friend Abby and her family who got a knock on the door at 3:15 AM yesterday morning. They were given an hour to gather their belongings and get out. They still have not returned home.

The fires are burning within a few miles of our house but the winds have calmed and we have not yet been told to evacuate. I have a pile of things by the front door ready to be loaded up if we're told to leave.... but how do you decide what goes and what stays? In my pile I have 2 cases of JD's formula (because we can't just go to the store and buy it... it has to be ordered online), JD"s baby book along with his important documents and our important documents (social security cards, birth certificates, passports, wills, JD's immunization records, etc), our wedding albums, Ashlyn's box and a big note that says "computer" so I don't forget to take this thing with me...it has all of our pictures on it! I think the other thing I would grab, if I had to, is the tile peacock made by my great grandfather. It's heavy as hell but it is one-of-a-kind, irreplaceable and holds a lot of childhood memories for me. Hopefully it doesn't come to that and I can put all my stuff away!

The fires burning near us are about 40% contained so hopefully that will help prevent the spread. Winds are supposed to pick up around lunch time, though, so I'll be glued to the news all day!

I'll leave you with this link to last night's NBC Nightly News. Just click on "Wildfires ravage Myrtle Beach" near the middle of the page.

And please keep my friend Abby, as well as everyone else who has been evacuated, sustained damage or lost their homes completely in your prayers. But mostly pray for the firefighters who are out there trying to get these fires under control! The only silver lining to all of this is that nobody has been injured.....

Almost better!

I ended up taking JD to the doctor on Monday and it turned out he had adenovirus, which is like a long-lasting cold that produces more coughing and congestion. So we went through a rough couple of days. He's still snotty and coughing but much better than he was last weekend. He actually spends his days playing now.... and boy does he play! He has so many new tricks!

He climbs.... on everything! Yesterday we were playing in his room and he was standing at a little desk playing with his toys. In the span of about 3 minutes I watched him climb up on the seat of the desk and then on top of the desk itself! He also climbs up onto the arms of the couch, which is not good because he then proceeds to dive over. We really have to keep an eye on him!

He's now very fast! It's funny how he has a crawling version of running. If he sees something that he really wants (like the cat) he will crawl really, really fast.... squealing the whole way. It's pretty funny.

He plays ball! He has this little blue ball that lights up when you bounce it. For my friends in the legal world... it's the blue ball that SoftPro was handing out at the CTIC conference a few years ago.... anyway, it's the perfect size for his little hands and it's one of his favorite things right now. He grabs it and shakes it until it comes flying out of his hand. Sometimes it actually gets to me, sometimes it goes the opposite way. If it goes the opposite way he'll crawl and get it and do it all over again, entertaining himself for quite a while. If it comes to me I'll count to three and roll it back to him. He can actually catch the ball as it rolls to him! I'll have to get this on video and post it for you to see. I love it when he discovers something new like this!

As you can see from the picture above, his latest "grown up" food is a toasted mini bagel. He can't have bread because they all contain soy but certain bagels are safe for him. I hand it to him whole and he chews on it like a teething biscuit. He loves them!

And lastly, I'll leave you with a quick video. JD has been walking all over the house while holding on to my hands. I read on the Internet that an upside down laundry basket makes a great walker for tots. Boy does it! In this clip, Curious George is on the TV so he's a little distracted... but if he's not distracted he'll walk across the entire living room!

Tooth #7

Finally! Tooth # 7 has broken through after lots of snot, coughing, crying and Motrin. This is a picture of JD taken yesterday. You can see in his eyes that he's flat exhausted and just doesn't feel good (although he gobbled up a lot of those pears).

Over the weekend we had a lot of inconsolable crying, which we haven't experienced since his tummy was hurting. It brought back a few unpleasant memories! We also had trouble sleeping, waking every hour or so because he couldn't breathe. I gave him Children's Benadryl right before bed and he would sleep for about 3 hours straight, which he desperately needed, but for the additional 3 hours before he could have another dose he was miserable again. I would spend most of those 3 hours with JD sleeping upright on my lap in the recliner. It's the only way he could breathe!

Last night was better. JD only woke twice - at 1:30 AM and at 4:30 AM. It's now 7:00 AM and he's still sleeping. What's even better is that I didn't have to give him a second dose of Benadryl in the middle of the night! So it seems he's getting better but I'm still keeping a close eye on him. His snot is starting to turn yellow-ish and I don't want this to turn in to a sinus infection. I suffered from lots and lots of sinus infections (mostly brought on by seasonal allergies) and ear infections when I was younger so I might just take him to the doctor today to be on the safe side!

Because JD had such a tough weekend we postponed our play date. Hopefully, if everyone is well, we'll do it next Sunday...it will be so much fun to get everyone together and I really hate we couldn't do it yesterday evening!

Oh the misery!

I feel like I have a newborn again! JD was up almost every hour last night. Why? Because tooth #7 continues to give him hell!

The beginning of the week he was in pain. Obvious from the fussiness and clinginess. So I gave him Motrin every 6 hours around the clock. Along with the fussiness, etc., he developed a runny nose and fever (his first fever ever) around the middle of the week. Now, at the end of the week, the fever has disappeared, the clinginess is almost gone BUT, the runny nose is wreaking all sorts of havoc! Poor little guy keeps choking on the snot that is draining down his throat and is coughing. But the worst of it is the congestion that he suffers when he lays down! I've used his Boppy pillow to elevate one end of his crib mattress, he has a cool mist humidifier in his room, we're using saline drops and I *try* to suction his nose but it's so stopped up that the sucker thing doesn't work (even after the saline drops). He even got in the shower with me last night so the steam would give him some relief (it didn't). I even gave him 1/2 teaspoon of Benadryl around 2:00 AM hoping it would dry him up enough to let him sleep for a few hours but even that didn't work (yes, it was per doctor's instructions)! The only thing that seemed to clear his nose is being completely upright. So, about every hour last night JD would wake up coughing and crying and I would go to him. We would sit in the recliner, he would lean against me until his nose cleared and then fall back asleep. I'd put him back down in his crib and we'd repeat the whole process an hour or so later. Today he is exhausted but playing. He is having fun "talking" to Noah, who, coincidentally, is also teething (yeah, two teething babies.... it's not been a good week).

The worst part is that he still has no tooth to show for all his misery. I can see it, just under his gum. And I keep thinking it's going to break through any second now.... but it hasn't. This has been his worst tooth yet... by far!

I sure hope he feels better soon as we have a busy weekend planned. Tomorrow morning is swim class and my Aunt Avis is coming up to watch him. My mom will be up later tomorrow to play with JD which means I can go to the grocery store alone! Sunday evening we have a play date planned. We're having three other couples and their babies (a 10 month old, a 9 month old and an 8.5 month old) over to grill out. I'll be sure to post pictures, of course!

More Easter Pics

This is my last post today, I promise! I got the pictures from my mom's camera and there were several good ones so I thought I'd put them up before I went to bed....

One thing I forgot to mention.... JD has now figured out how to climb stairs! He's just getting too big!

The new car

Here it is! 2005 Toyota Sequoia. Complete with DVD player (there's a screen in the back of each headrest) that will come in handy on our trips up to PA!

Easter Weekend

We had such a busy weekend! This is going to be a long post with lots and lots of pictures. In fact, there are so many pictures that I made them small. As always, if you want to see a larger version, just click on the picture and it will make it larger. Actually, once my mom uploads hers I'll make another post with even more Easter pics! Now, where do I begin??

We'll start with Friday night. Dave called me and told me to meet him outside, he was on his way home from work. I did and he pulled up in a beautiful Toyota Sequoia that the dealership let him drive home for the night. Of course, I fell in love with it sooooooo...... we now have a "new" car! We traded in my Honda Civic, it's a 2005 and I love it! I also have to brag on my husband who got an outstanding deal on it! I haven't taken any pictures of it yet. I'll go do that after I complete this post and put them up later today.

Now let's talk about JD's second swim class on Saturday morning! He made a new friend, Walker. I think I wrote about this in a previous post. Walker's mom and I will be doing play dates in the future, I'm sure! JD did great at swim class this week. He got better at kicking his little legs, we practiced jumping off the edge of the pool and he even got dunked! He came up quite surprised but he wasn't coughing or crying so he didn't swallow any water. After swim class my mom and I took JD on a few errands. Dave picked up the new car around 6:00 that evening and we then proceeded to clean the hell out of it in the driveway for a couple of hours. By the time we were done with that it was JD's bed time so Mommy and Daddy helped the Easter Bunny dye some Easter eggs for JD to find on Sunday:

On Sunday JD got up at 6:00 AM, as usual. It was chilly out so we didn't do an egg hunt right away. We decided to put it off until after his first nap when it would be warmer outside. He woke from his nap and we did his "bear in the chair" pictures as he turned 10 months old on Easter Sunday. While Mommy helped the Easter Bunny "hide" JD's eggs, JD got his first real boo boo. He dove off the recliner faster than Daddy could catch him and got rug burn on his upper lip. He cried for just a few minutes and then was happy again. You can see his ouchie in some of the pictures below. It's the first of many, many bumps, bruises and scrapes, I'm sure!

Here are pictures of JD's first Easter egg "hunt"

He crawled from egg to egg and tasted each one. Sammy even came to help him! He didn't know what was going on, of course but I sure had fun! I think the funniest thing is that he "bear crawled" the whole time. He's never done that before... maybe he didn't like the feel of the grass on his knees? It's just now starting to get green so most of it's still dormant and scratchy. Maybe he'll like crawling in the grass more when it's all green and soft?

After his bear picture, faceplant and egg hunt it was time for another nap.... during which I took a shower, got ready to go down to Pawleys, made a quick trip to Kroger and made a broccoli casserole!

First stop: Grandma and Grandpa's house! Here are some pictures of JD in his Easter outfit in front of my mom and dad's azaleas. We also attempted some family photos but JD was a bit cranky and refused to sit still. I'm hoping my mom got some better ones with her camera! You can really see his poor little lip in some of these....

After photos in front of the flowers we walked down to my parent's neighbor's house for an Easter party. Actually, she puts on a mini bottle hunt every year and gets quite a turnout! While we were there we saw Aunt Avis, Meghan, Rachel, Andrew and Jim along with several folks that I haven't seen in quite some time. It was nice to be able to catch up!

After the Easter party we went over to Kent and Sarah's house for Easter dinner. The food was so yummy and it was so nice of Sarah to host this year... giving my mom a break! They even had an Easter basket all ready for JD! By the time we left Sarah's house JD was beyond tired and slept the entire way home! I'll leave you with a picture of JD in his Easter bib.... ready for the feast. All of the food that we ate contained dairy or soy so JD didn't get any of it. He ate Gerber spaghetti instead!!

Happy 10 months, JD!

My goodness... I just can't believe how big this boy is! As you can see from the series of pictures above, he certainly doesn't sit still very long. He is crawling all over the place and boy is he fast! He also "cruises" as much as possible. The boy loves to be on his feet!

He's still not saying much. He hasn't said Mama or Dada in several weeks but he says "Hey" a lot when he waves. At least it sounds like hey!

He is starting to become interested in things like light switches and drawer knobs. He gets mad if I take something away from him, He looks for things if he drops them, he shares his cookies and binky (so cute), and is starting to get frustrated at times. This morning he was trying to rip an empty M&M bag. When he couldn't he started yelling at it... it was so funny! His latest trick is walking with the laundry basket. He pushes it all over his room!

He now weighs 19 pounds, 14 ounces.... that's the 30th percentile so he's still a little small for his age. He eats and eats, though, so he must just burn it all off with all of the crawling!

I've been busying myself with planning his first birthday party (among other things). We're trying to keep this as small as possible. We plan to have it at home with just family and a few close friends. I seriously can't believe that my son will be one in just a couple of months!