Mr. Independent and My Brown-Eyed Girl!

Brody loves to swim. He has now been swimming a couple of times and he LOVES it! He has no fear either....none....zip....zilch! I am happy about that, but of course that worries me too. Last weekend, I decided Brody and I would have a Mommy and me day....all day. Ted stayed home with Molly and Ethan and I decided to take Brody over to my girlfriend's house to go swimming.
I was also brave and decided to head over in the morning and let him swim for a little bit and then put him down for a nap at her house. Since I am such a control freak, Brody has only missed his normal nap time maybe 3 times and the only place he has taken his nap has been here, my parent's house, and at Tab's house. So, I wasn't sure what would happen.

Well, we got there and he was having such a good time. He has definitely started to want to do everything on his own. His favorite phrase is "Mommy....I do it. Brody do it!" So of course, he tried this in the pool, but of course, I didn't go far. He was doing a great job swimming and kicking his feet and getting places. He had on some floaties so atleast that helped a little bit when he wanted to do some things on his own. I had always toyed with the idea of taking him to swim lessons, but never did. He definitely caught on and I think I might look into it.

So we got there in the morning, swam for a couple of hours, ate some lunch, and then I put him in the pack'n'play in her room and he slept great! He slept for almost 3 hours, which is pretty typical for him. He woke up in a great mood, had a snack and into the pool we went again. All in all we had a great day and I look forward to other days like that again.

Then, this past weekend, my parents were having a cook out in their condo pad and we decided to go over a little early and head to their neighborhood pool. It was not crowded, which was great, because of course, Brody was going to be loud and splashing and I would have felt bad if someone was trying to relax. My dad got in the pool with him for a little bit and my neighbor and her kids came with us and we had a good time. Here are a couple of pics.....


So with Brody becoming Mr. Independent, so has the attitude. I swear....sometimes that kid frustrates me so. He is definitely testing his limits and sometimes I have no clue how to handle it. I will ask him not to do something and he looks right at me, and does it. I know that most of this is typically 2 year old behavior, but I know that I just can't let it go so I feel like I am constantly on him and trying to correct his behavior. From what I hear, alot people say that 3 is worse than 2. Really?? I hope that is just a myth, but I am afraid it will probably be true! But, again, he can frustrate me to know end, but when he tells me that he loves me to the moon and back, or he does something funny, that is all I need! :)

On to Molly......she is definitely a roller now. She has been rolling from her back to her belly for a long time now, but a couple of weeks ago, she started rolling from her belly to her back...randomly. Well, now she is a roly-poly.....going everywhere. Also, she has now started to sleep on her belly. The minute we lay her down, she flips over to her side and then her belly and sleeps like that for a majority of the night. The only problem with that is since she started doing this, which was about a week ago, she has been waking up around 6:00 every morning and crying. She is on her belly and I think she forgets that she put herself there so some mornings I just roll her back over, give her the paci and she will go back to sleep. Other times, I have just brought her in the bed with us. I have been feeling guilty about bringing her in with us because I don't want her to get used to it, but we did the same thing with Brody sometimes and he didn't have a problem.

She is also doing a good job with sitting up, and can sit up for a little bit before toppling over. Of course, she always wants to sit and when she is laying down, she looks like she is doing a sit up because she wants to be up so bad. My parents brought out the saucer and we brought down the jumper for her to start using and she LOVES it. I definitely think she likes the new view and being able to sit up and use her legs. Here are some pics.......


She is also such a love bug! She is happy 99% of the day and when she is fussy, there is normally a specific reason. I have never met a baby that is this happy. I am thankful though because her brother is much more needy right now and she is pretty content being able to occupy herself. I feel bad alot because I do feel like a lot of my energy goes to Brody and she is being shafted, but I am happy that I get to spend Mondays with her since I work from home those days! Right now, i am working (well...not right now, but I have been) and she is asleep right next to me in the swing. She is so smily and lights up when you smile at her. She also laughs all the time and thinks we are the funniest people ever!

I wish I had one of my baby pictures electronically because in the picture above, Molly looks very similar to me as a baby. I think I am going to have to get one just to do a comparison. The only difference is our eye color. Her eyes are starting to turn brown, so it is pretty much official that both of my kids are brown-eyed babies, which is just what I wanted! :)

I can't believe she is 6 months old! She turned 6 months last Friday! Where does the time go? Pretty soon, she will be Brody's age and will be entering her terrible 2s (God help us!) and that makes me sad! I will be happy watching them grow, but also sad that Mommy won't be needed as much!

Like it is hard for me to believe that Ethan will be 12 a week from today. That is just mind boggling! We are going to have him for a month and a half this summer, starting this week. I am excited. I enjoy having him here and love to see him interacting with his brother and sister. They light up when they see him too! I think I might try and get their pictures taken again at some point. We have finally updated our wall with the pics we have taken and it is awesome to see how they have changed and grown.

Okay...this post has become really long, but I guess that is what happens when I don't blog that often! I have been horrible with the camera and getting pictures but I will try over the next month to get more since the family will all be together! Plus, and I forgot to mention this, but my sister is going to be moving back home this summer!! I am so excited for them to be back here. It will be nice for all the kids to be together and for us to have them so close. I can't wait for them to get here!

Just Say No to Drugs!

I think as mothers, all of us will have one experience or another that will scare the shit out of us and that moment will be forever ingrained in our brain until the next experience happens. For example, my first experience was when Brody rolled right off the ottoman in his room one night after I had given him a bath. He was not a big roller up to that point, but that was the night he decided to really give it a go and he rolled right off onto the floor. I could have sworn he broke something, but I think I felt worse than he did. That experience was soon replaced with the time I accidentally grabbed the petroleum jelly from his basket and proceeded to put it on his toothbursh to brush his teeth, thinking it was toothpaste. That was until I realized, after I brushed his teeth, and I put that cap back on just what I had done. That was my first, and hopefully only time, of calling the Poison control hotline. Luckily, they said the amount was not large enough to cause a reaction and all was right in the world. I could go on, but you get the drift......

Well, I have to say that yesterday probably trumped all of those horrible experiences........combined. Let me back up!

Late last week, Brody started complaining that his mouth hurt. He would stick a finger in his mouth, point to his tongue and the back of his throat and say "mouth hurt Mommy!" Well, considering that his top 2 year molars have broke through the skin, and the fact that he has been drooling like crazy, I was assuming it was his bottom set. I looked in his mouth and they didn't look red, but just assumed that is what they had to be. Starting Friday night, he was waking up alot throughout the night and would cry not a normal "Oh, I woke up...now what cry?" This was a "I am in some serious pain cry!" Sometimes, he wouldn't even be really awake all the way when we would go in there. Needless to say, we were pretty tuckered out. Since our Anniversary was Friday, my parents came over on Saturday night to watch the kiddies while Ted and I went out to dinner. Like normal, he would be fine during the day, with the occasional mention of his mouth hurting, but once he fell asleep, it was no telling how many times he would wake up. On Sunday, my girlfriend Melissa had a cookout and we headed over there for some fun and sun. Again, all was well. When we got home, he fell right asleep, which I assumed was from the sun exposure and actully joked with Ted saying that we should take him over there everyday if he would zonk out like that.

Ted fell asleep around 7:30 and I wasn't tired so I stayed up and read some of my book (which is by my favorite author, Emily Giffin...it is called Heart of the Matter and it is really good! Love, Love, Love her). Anyway, around 9:00-9:30, he started crying so I headed in there and did the normal routine of getting him back in bed and he went back to sleep. That continued about every 15-20 minutes until I finally went to bed around 11:00. From then on, I could not tell you how many times we both got up until I finally decided to go in there and sleep on the floor in his room. I could tell that trying to swallow was painful because when he would, he would start to cry. He was completely restless and could not get comfortable so he and I both had very little sleep that night.

On Monday morning,we looked in his mouth again, and the back of his throat was red and his tonsils were huge. I told Ted that I wasn't about to wait to take him to the doctor today so we decided to take him the Children's Hospital to get checked out. Ted stayed at home with Molly, who has of course, been her usually fabulous and laid back self through all of this, and everyday of her life since she was born, and I went and scooped up my Mom so she could go with me. We got checked in and Brody seemed fine. They tooks his vitals, checked his temp (no temp) and we headed back to the room to wait for the doctor. We waited for about 45 minutes or so, and in that time frame, Brody went from being his normal self, to lethargic and feverish, back to being his normal self. Finally, the doctor came in and checked him out. After examining him from head to toe, she said that he his tonsils were extremely red and swollen, which she diagnosed as viral pharyngities, or tonsillitis, and he had an ear infection. So, I asked her if there was anything she could give us to help get rid of the tonsillitis and she unfortunately, it needed to run its course. She did ask if we were giving him Tylenol and I told her yes, and she said that they could give him a stronger pain medicine, but that was about it. So, the head doc came in and checked him out as well and he said the same thing.

So, the decision was to give him Zithromax for his ear infection and then give him Motrin every 6 hours and they were going to give him a prescription for Tylenol with hyrdocodone in it to help with the pain at night. Considering my reaction to any type of pain medicine, I asked them if he would have any issues. They said they couldn't guarantee that he wouldn't but they really didn't know. We decided not to wait to give him the first dose at night and they gave him one while were at the hospital. That was around 11:00 am. We were waiting to get discharged and he was fine while we waited. I was expecting him to start to get sleepy at any point, considering the drugs they gave him plus that fact that it was getting ready to be nap time. They finally discharged us around 12:00 and he was starting to get quiet and sleepy. We headed to the car and I told my mom that we would stop and get him something to eat so he could eat in the car and then once we got him, I could put him straight to bed.

Well, we got McDonald's and my mom was in the back with him feeding him his food. We got about 10 minutes down the road and she said "Oh my God....Brody, Brody?" I looked in the rear view mirror and he was dripping with sweat. He looked like he had just gotten out of the bath tub. Then, as my Mom was trying to get his attention, he had this glazed over look and he could barely focus on her. Then, the next thing we know, he starts gagging and throwing up. I immediately pulled the car over, started freaking out, and grabbed him out of his car seat, as he proceeded to throw up again. I got him out, stripped him down, and there we were standing in a not so great part of town, with my baby boy standing in only a diaper and his sandles, while I am on the phone with the ER. I could hardly talk I was freaking out. He was really unsteady on his feet and he told me he was going to "froke up again!" He then got sick again and again. They connected me to the doctor we saw and she said that chances are, he was having a reaction to the pain meds and that unfortunately, there was really nothing we could do except comfort him and let him get it all out. She said he was lethargic from the meds as well and the medicine was supposed to last for 4-6 hours. She knew that I was taking him home to take a nap and she that was probably the best thing for him and that once he woke up, he should feel better.

Well, he was doing a little better once we started heading home again, and he didn't throw up anymore in the car. Once we got inside, Ted was in the kitchen and Brody and I walked over to him. He looked at me and said "froke up again, Mommy" and proceeded to get sick all over the kitchen floor. I could not even imagine what was going through his head at the time, but I felt so sorry for him. He looked so pitiful and just looked like he felt like he had been run over by a mack truck. I took upstairs and bathed him and asked if he was feeling better. He said yes and then I laid him down for a nap, with a bucket beside his bed, hoping he completely understood me and would use it if he needed to. His eyes were closed and he as zonked out before I even left the room.

He was down and asleep at 1:00 and I woke him up at 4:30. He is normally a restless sleeper and is constantly moving around his bed when he sleeps. Well, not yesterday......he hardly moved at all. I know I could have left him sleeping, but I didn't want it to interfere with him going to bed last night. He ended up going right to sleep around 7:00 and woke up at 9:00, 1:00 and then 6:00 this morning. Not too bad considering the nights we have had.

Ted stayed home with him today and said that he was pretty much acting normal so I think we are going to take him to school tomorrow. He doesn't have a fever and isn't contagious so he should be fine.

So, that was my latest scare. I am sure there will be many more to come, but of course, I really don't want to think about that right now. I am just happy that it was not more serious and that he was feeling better pretty quickly. Okay...this post was way too long....I am off to watch some TV before bed.