Sick Week

June 18-24, 2012

Caleb shows his love by putting his forehead up to yours and then talking to you.

I wasn't close enough so he had to grab my face and pull me closer.

Monday morning when I went to get Caleb out of his crib, I was met with a pleasant surprise: he was sitting up in bed! This was the first time he had gotten himself into a sitting position on his own! The next few mornings and naptimes were the same . . . sitting up, looking at Mom as I came in to rescue him from the crib.

He pulls to a stand on everything but hasn't thought about doing it in this crib yet, luckily!

Allen got sick this week. None of us were feeling great on Father's Day. Monday I felt terrible and started feeling better by Tuesday. Allen just kept getting worse and worse. Wednesday and Thursday he stayed home from work, with his fever peaking at 102 F. Friday he was still sick but couldn't stay home another day because things are so busy at work.

Caleb trying to help Dad feel better

While Allen spent most of this week not really in the land of the living, Caleb started teething again and had a lot of rough nights. It was all around a pretty rough week. I could tell as soon as the cough syrup wore off because Allen sounded like he was going to cough up a lung. It frequently coincided with Caleb's waking up so I would load Allen up on drugs again and have him check his temperature before I got back into bed. At least we had some very effective cough syrup left over from my episode of swine flu a couple years ago.

He loves to watch the washing machine after we put the clothes in

Caleb began to be a picky eater this week. He wants to eat anything I eat, so I shared my goldfish and smoothies with him (I can't remember if I wrote this before, but Caleb got over his dairy allergy sometime in May!). Other than that, all he would eat were sweet potatoes, peas, puffs and apple juice. He would have none of the other pureed foods! I cut up a pear to give him some different finger food to eat since he loves to feed himself, but the texture of it didn't go down so well . . . it was his first big boy vomit as all of his puffs and the pear came right back up. I forgot how disgusting throw up smells! We both changed clothes after he took a bath.

Caleb loves looking at shadows and tries to grab them. It's pretty funny when we move one of our hands around and he chases the shadow! Eventually he looks up and sees our hands and the game is over but then he falls for it again later.

One day his favorite toy was the spatula... he even brought it to the pool.

Caleb has also started having temper tantrums when he doesn't get what he wants. He is getting pretty good at communicating what he wants, which is why I think he gets so frustrated when he doesn't get it. He flails his body backward in an arch while screaming. He has hit his head on the wall a couple of times when throwing a fit while I was holding him and now looks around before arching his back when I'm holding him. The arch is very strong and makes it very difficult to get him in his carseat when he doesn't want to be in it. One time he did it when I was trying to put him in his stroller and he almost flipped himself off the back of it as his feet pushed off of the seat.

Feverish Daddy in his sweats while it's 100+ F outside.

Close up to show how he grabs the ball with his toes and fingers.

 He uses his feet all of the time. One time I was watching in the baby monitor to see if he was asleep yet and saw him feel around with his feet until he found his extra pacifier. He couldn't see it because of his belly, but he grabbed it between both feet and then brought it up to grab with his hands. I was impressed! Then while I was changing his diaper, I put the diaper below his feet. He did the same thing: felt around and then grabbed the diaper between his feet and brought it up to his hands. Our son is a monkey!
  
Caleb is still very fascinated with hands. He will stare at my hand for longer than he will watch Baby Einstein or Baby Signing Time. If I don't open and close it, he will open and close it for me. He thought it was funny one time when I put my thumb in the middle of my fist so when I don't do that, he pushes my thumb in and then closes my fingers around it. Since then, when he is staring at his hand he makes it into a fist and puts his thumb in the middle too sometimes.

Caleb also does not like being left in the car when the car is stopped or when one person gets out and he doesn't. For example, the Civic's battery died on Monday while Allen was at work. When he got home, we had to drive to Walmart to buy a new one. Allen got out of the car while Caleb and I kept driving around in the parking lot since we couldn't turn the car off and have it turn back on without jumping it again. The second Allen got out and Caleb realized he wasn't going to get out, he cried and cried and cried.

Caleb kept giving me kisses . . . notice the slobber dripping down the side of my face.

We had another slide mishap at the pool this week! Saturday we went to an awesome pool that was a lot of fun and they had a family slide. Your family all can sit side-by-side and go down together, but you can't do a train or have anyone sit on your lap. . . not even Caleb. So Caleb went between Allen and I while we each held an arm and leg of his. Without any swimsuit drag, I started picking up speed and spinning around. I don't think Caleb even touched the slide the whole way down.

When we hit the water, I went almost all the way under because my feet were still on the slide when my butt hit the water. Allen made the same mistake I did last time I took Caleb down a slide and dunked both of us; he forgot to put his feet down. He went all the way under! Miraculously, Caleb's head didn't even touch the water. He was scared though and Allen and I were laughing hysterically once we came up. Somehow I managed to sit on Allen's head while he was underwater!

Giving Mom kisses

Random thought: we live in such a beautiful place! Every time we go on walks or run (which is every day) I am amazed at all of the tall, green trees and the flowers and all of the birds (cardinals, hawks, ... I don't know the names of any others) and butterflies we see! I am not so fond of the mosquitoes since I frequently have 10+ bites on my legs and arms. We have also seen some not so common wildlife recently. There was a fox in the road when I was driving home from activity days one night! And on the way home from church last week there was a giant vulture near the side of the road. I couldn't tell what he was eating.