The week in review

What a week! Last Saturday, the first day of Spring we went down to the Cape to see my friend Marissa and the girls at her dad's house. It was 70 degrees in Grafton so Eric and I were prepared for a nice warm day. However, by the time we got to the Cape it was 56 degrees, brrr! Thankfully because my car never gets cleaned out I had plenty of coats, hats, and blankets for Eric! We got there and we went to woods hole and took pictures. Then we went for lunch. Eric wasn't too cold at the beach but by the time we got to the restaurant he was shivering so I had to bundle him up. All in all we had a nice time down there even though we only visited for a few hours. The drive down there is so nice. I enjoy seeing the cranberry bogs and going over the Bourne bridge. I used to go to the Cape all the time growing up because my grandparents used to live there. I definitely miss going down there all the time. It's just so peaceful!

Sunday we went to visit my grammas and drop off some pictures. I noticed the baby was not himself and he had not had a wet diaper since the night before except for one that morning. He had been drinking fine and I tried to keep calm. We ended up having to leave both grammas houses pretty quickly because he just was not himself. We did a quick trip to the grocery store which he was fine with since he loves Walmart! I got him home and decided to call the doctors office to see what they would say about the lack of wet diapers. After talking it over with the on-call nurse she recommended we go to the ER. Before we left I took his temp and it was 102.3. At the ER they tortured him with getting a urine sample and trying to clean out his ears to see if he had an ear infection. The poor kid was miserable because they were poking and proding at him so much. Needless to say he did not have a UTI or an ear infection. I was relieved but still a little worried since there was no explanation for his fever.

Monday Eric seemed to be ok. His fever was gone and so I felt much better about things. Then Tuesday morning I noticed that he was sleeping for an awefully long time. When he woke up he was a hot potato. He had a fever again of 101. Off to the doctors we went that morning. Because I am paranoid I had them check his urine again. They didn't want to use a catheter again since they did that at the ER so they put a urine bag on him and had me stay there until he peed. So we waited and waited and waited. His doctor's office is at St. Vincent's hospital so we walked around and had lunch and sat by the waterfall in hopes for inspiration but nothing was happening. I went back up to the doctors office and they decided to try to get him to pee in a cup and can you believe that he actually did? I was so impressed! Once again his urine came back fine so I gave up at this point. He just had a fever with no explanation. Maybe it's teething since he's had a never ending runny nose for the last 2 weeks. All I know is that we went a whole year almost without illness and he has been sick for the last month between the stomach bug, a runny nose, and a fever. Hopefully this is the end of the illnesses.

The story ends with his fever finally just going away. The last of it was Wednesday night and we haven't seen it since.

On another note, Eric has tried to be very independent lately. He tried to feed himself which makes a big mess but it makes him very happy and probably a little bit more hungry than usual. He also has become whiny because he wants to be held all the time and he wants things his way. Oh boy are we in trouble. My feeling is if he wants things his way he better start walking and talking! I try not to hold him as much as possible but Daddy has a tendency to be a little more lenient with him since he doesn't get to spend as much time with him.

The other thing about Eric is that he talks... a lot. None of it makes sense and I just cannot wait for actual words to start coming out because I think we will have quite the conversations during the day once he gets the hang of it! He does say things that sound like "more" or "milk" it normally comes out like "mm" or "me" etc. He is finally getting the hang of signing "more" which is really cute and I will attempt to get a video of someday.

We went to West End Creamery for the first time this season on Wednesday. It's so cute that they have mini ice cream that is perfect for his size. They even have the tiniest ice cream cones I've ever seen. While eating ice cream he really became a pro at signing "more". He loves his ice cream! Of course I forgot my camera so there are no pictures of this trip. However, I bought a bigger pocketbook so I think my camera will stay in there from now on!

Ok, picture time! Some of these are a little old but I never blogged them so here they are:
Here is Eric and Savannah having their first sleepover on Eric's birthday. Awww!


This is Mr. Independent happy as can be to eat his food with his hands. He is eating sweet potato, yum. I have his hood on because he has a tendency to put his hands in his hair when they are covered with food. I spend more time washing this kid's hair. I need to get a shower cap for him to wear when he eats!



Ok here are the pictures from the trip to the Cape. This is the Bourne Bridge as I'm driving over it to head home (btw Daddy didn't come with us to the Cape so that's why there are no pics of him!):


Sydney sitting on the cabillions of rocks

Ocean

Marissa and Vannah (that's my nickname for Savannah, Marissa loves it! haha)

Before the shivering began. This is our new $20 umbrella stroller. So much easier to push! We learned the hard way though not to put too much weight on the handles or it falls over. Thankfully Eric was not in it when this happened!

Marissa and the girls on the rocks

The ferry to Martha's Vineyard/Nantucket... I believe!

Walking down the rocks

Enjoying the view

Pretty

the birthday blog

After what felt like weeks of preparation Eric's 1st birthday finally arrived. I am sad that the year went by so quick but excited to see what the next year brings. We decided to have a big party. It has been a crazy year between layoffs, surgeries, illnesses, etc so we wanted to celebrate in a big way. We rented out the Knights of Columbus hall and had a great turn out of over 30 people! Everyone seemed to enjoy themselves at the party. Of course the baby didn't nap that morning so I had to drop him off at my parent's house to take a nap while we set up the hall. He was so exhausted at the end of his party but he had a good time anyway.
It seems like ever since he's turned one he has gained all of these skills. He can now climb on and off of his little car successful. He can also climb on and off the dishwasher door but that's a whole other bunch of silliness. He is mimicking a lot of sounds that we make. He figured out how to take his pants off (oh boy!) as I discovered one day when he was in his crib and supposed to be napping. He's just soaring developmentally. Oh and about a week before his birthday he got two more teeth so now he has two on top and two on the bottom. It makes it easy for him to bite into food now so he doesn't like me wasting time cutting things up. He loves pizza so much that the other day he just pulled the slice off the plate and ate it from the bottom to the crust. What a piggy!
Ok so to tell the story of his birthday it has to be done with pictures. There are so many pictures I could add but I had to just put the main ones on here.

I had a vision to make a guitar cake. I gathered up some pans from my parent's house and from our house and I went to town. I froze the cake after it was baked. This made it really easy to carve and shape. Here it is before I frosted it:

And here's the finished product. I was so proud of this cake!


For his birthday we got Eric a sand and water table to have on our deck so he can play in it in the summer. Since we don't have a backyard it at least gives him a chance to get fresh air and play. I bought wrapping paper to wrap it with and quickly discovered why it was on sale when I bought it... there was barely any wrapping paper on the roll so it didn't even cover the box! Oh well, he didn't seem to mind.

He wasn't sure what to do with the present when he saw the box so the best thing to do was to obviously climb right on top of the box.

Here it is set up minus the sand and water and the umbrella that goes on it because it turns out that Daddy is superstitious about opening umbrellas in the house!

Ok it's party time! Guests start arriving...

walking around kicking balloons and playing with the kids

mmm ice cream. I thin Pepe has been sneaking him ice cream because he sure seems to love it. He ate half of mine and Eric's cups of ice cream.

Everyone gathered as we opened presents

Everyone watching him dive into the cake with Uncle Mike recording it on our camera.

He sleeps with this really cute pillow and blanket that Auntie Linda and Uncle Mike got for him. His head generally never stays on the pillow but he snuggles all up in the blanket!

He received so many nice and thoughtful gifts

It wouldn't be a day without a daddy piggy back ride

His new hat that Auntie Rissa got him

At the end of the party people just started cleaning up before the party was even over. Here is the line of tables!

These are all the babies that attended the party... From left to right: My sister holding Eric, Bonnie and Kallie, my mom with Ryan, Melissa and Thomas, and Marissa and Savannah.

All wrapped up in his birthday banner

Here are is 12 month pictures after a day of partying and eating cake and ice cream and then having papa ginos pizza after the party.

Nose...

Hopped up on sugar

bloated from sugar haha

Ok now for the videos. One is of him opening his birthday present and one is of him scarfing down his cake. Enjoy!

Happy First Birthday Eric Charles!

busy week

This has been a crazy week. Eric finally threw up for the last time on Monday night and we haven't seen this illness come back since. Tuesday was full of doctors appointments. He had an ultrasound in the morning of his kidneys and bladder and then we (me and my mom because Eric had to work) met with the urologist to go over the ultrasound pictures. It was a beautiful day so in between appointments we went for a walk and got some fresh air. I didn't think anything of this visit. I figured it would be a quick thing and everything would look the same or better and we'd be on our way and see him again in 6 months. Unfortunately that's not quite how it went. It turns out that the urine in his kidneys seems to be staying in there in larger quantities than last time (at least this is my laymans terms of understanding it). All I really understood from this visit is that he has to get the VCUG earlier than 6 months. The VCUG is not a fun test. He had it in July. It involved injecting a dye through a catheter and into his bladder and they take x-rays to see where his urine is going. He screamed the last time and it was just aweful. Thankfully the next time he gets it done they can sedate him because he is one strong kid and I can't hold him down. The doctor seems to be concerned that his condition is getting worse. He's not in pain and there's no side effects of this but the result may mean surgery. If he had surgery he would be in the hospital for a day or two which seems very long for such a small child. So I'm still waiting to get a call to schedule the VCUG so this story is to be continued...
The last appointment we had that day was with his pediatrician. I wanted to see if he could be throwing up because of the milk or if he really did have the stomach bug. She ordered that I get his blood drawn for allergies and do all the typically one year old tests now. It was not fun getting his blood drawn but thankfully Eric was able to meet me after work and come with us. So we find out the results of the test on Tuesday so this story is to be continued as well...
On top of all this craziness the baby is getting two new teeth. One has come through the gum and the other has not quite made it through yet. That other tooth is making him miserable. He is chewing on everything just to get some relief. He tried chewing on my cheek today and I have even caught him trying to bite the floor! I cannot wait for that tooth to come through! It looks painful!
I cannot believe he is going to be a year old in a week. This has been one exciting, crazy, exhausting, and blessed year. He has changed our life in so many good ways. He makes us smile constantly and it has been so fun to watch him grow. We have had our challenges with his health issues but they are all tolerable and he continues to grow. It makes me sad that he's not a little baby anymore but I look forward to him continuing to learn and grow and to be able to be right by him every step of the way as he makes his way through life.

Everytime we read books to him we have to read this book over and over again. It's call Ten Tiny Tadpoles and at the end the tadpoles turn into frogs the last page is a pop up of all the frogs jumping off the page. He loves that book and anticipates that last page the whole time. He really could care less about every other page and just wants to get to that one. He doesn't show any signs of excitement he just looks intently at the book and studies what's happening:

Today I noticed that he kept going from one side of the chair to the other and peeking around the corner. I quickly realized that he was trying to play peek a boo so I had to get out the camera because it was so cute:


My parents got him a car to ride on. When he first got it he wasn't too fond of it but lately he loves it. He figured out how to scoot backwards on it but hasn't quite figured out how to go forward yet:

Randoms

So I assumed that Eric had finally kicked this stomach bug. He seemed to be doing much better. I tried to start him on milk in a sippy today. I did about 2/3rds formula and 1/3rd milk. He probably took a few sips of it all day. It was so frustrating. He did drink some water though so at least he got something. I finally caved and put the milk-formula mix in a bottle, he took a few sips, realized what I had done and lost his ever loving mind. He was so mad at me! So I caved and gave him just formula and he was happy. Eric came home from work and fell asleep. When he woke up I was able to tell him about the battle of the milk in a sippy cup we've had all day. I told him I'm not trying it again until the weekend when we can both be there to work on it. So he insisted on trying some tricks right then in there. I tell you, this kid is no fool. He didn't fall for anything. When we put him to bed we gave him a regular bottle with maybe a half an ounce of milk in it and he actually drank it. I decided then that I will just add a little milk and increase in time to his bottles and worry about sippy cups later because they are not his favorite thing to begin with. I went to Target by myself after I thought the baby was asleep and then I got a call from Eric saying that the baby threw up. So either it is the stomach bug still or it's the milk. I am calling the doctor again tomorrow and trying to schedule an appointment. We are literally going to be at the doctors all day because he has an ultrasound of his kidneys and an appointment with the urologist for his reflux of the bladder. Fun times tomorrow! Ok now I have some random pictures...

In case you're wondering, he still sleeps with his arms up. Some things never change:




So one of Eric's attempts was to put milk in two bottles and he would have a little drink with him. Didn't work



I had just emptied his diaper box and was looking at the box and realized that it is the perfect size for him! So I put him in it and we pretended it was a car and I dragged him around the house. He kept saying something that sounded like "beep! beep!". He enjoyed himself!


Nothing is cuter than the bum in the air