freckle

When my friend Marissa's first daughter Sydney popped her first freckle, I remember Marissa making a big deal out of it and taking pictures. So for your viewing pleasure, here is Eric's first freckle... on his elbow haha:

(can you see it???)

sicky kid

Eric has had a cough... since like November. After about 4 weeks of it in November we took him to the doctors and discovered he has an ear infection so he went on antibiotics and the cough disappeared... for about a month. Then he got the cough again so after a week I took him in to get checked because I felt so horrible that we didnt' take him in for 4 weeks the first cough episode. He checked out fine, no ear infections or anything. So the cough was always there. It wasn't too bad and I was feeling like it was just a winter cough. Then a week ago, on Friday, his cough seemed to be getting much worse. He was home with Daddy for the second half of the day while I went to my internship. By the time I got home he had this horrible barking cough. And of course it was too late to take him to the doctors. So we would have to wait until Monday. He wasn't sick enough to go to the ER but he definitely needed to see a doctor. It was a long weekend. Saturday he woke up with a mild fever but he was still his usual silly happy self with a horrible cough and a fever. So monday came and we went to the doctors first thing in the morning. Just as we suspected, ear infection... in both ears. The problem with Eric going to the doctors these days is the minute we walk to the room he starts crying and screams through the whole appointment. The doctor wasn't able to hear his lungs because he was screaming so she wasn't sure if he had pneumonia but the antibiotic would kill everything supposedly. We were told to go back on thursday if his cough didn't get better. By Wednesday he still had a mild fever and the cough wasn't all that much better. Given that a snowstorm was coming overnight we went to the doctors again on Wednesday. This time we saw his PCP as opposed to the other doctor that has never been our favorite. She was so patient with Eric's screaming and blew bubbles and did whatever it took to get him comfortable. By the end of the appointment he wasn't crying and seemed to be ok with Dr. Evans. Needless to say she was not concerned with how he was progressing. Although we did get a lecture about not getting him a flu shot or the chicken pox vaccine (the lectures are the part of her that I do not enjoy). So needless to say it is Saturday, the cough is still pretty strong but isn't as bad. It's not keeping him up all night. We have a follow up appointment in a week so hopefully things will look fine then. The hardest part about all of this has been that he hasn't had an appetite for a week. He requests food but then didn't want to eat it. It was stressful because he's not a big kid to begin with and cannot afford to lose weight. It was the best day ever when he finally started really eating well again yesterday. Needless to say any food he requests I give him. He wants ice cream, he gets it. He wants a cookie, no problem! Eat whatever you want kid! Gain some weight! But of course we offer fruits and veggies too (he ate a whole salad tonight!)! And that is our illness story.

Birthday party

Today we took a road trip to Gardner for a birthday party for Brennan and Brady (they're what we call Irish twins. Brennan turned 4 in December and Brady turns 5 this month), two kids I used to work with. It was at a place that was full of bouncy houses. I thought Eric would have loved it but he wasn't so sure about it. I had to go into the bouncy houses with him and he clung to me. I don't know what he was so afraid of. And of course just at the end of the party he started to enjoy it and bounce around by himself and have fun. Go figure!
He really liked pushing kids around on this bike. The kids would fly on the bike and he was running behind trying to keep up while laughing and saying, "I runnnning!!!"


That's the back of Brennan as he exits the bouncy house that Eric spent most of his time in



There's Brady. I cannot believe he is 5! Where has the time gone???


He liked this bouncy house because there were basketball hoops in it.

His first attempt at the bouncy house and the only few minutes that he went in to anything without me.

Patriots

We have been looking forward to watching the Patriots game all week. At the beginning of the game Eric Charles started right out by yelling at the tv. This video was taken at the beginning of the game before things went horribly wrong:

Great Gram

Today we went to visit my gramma on a whim. We walked into the house and I told Eric to go see Great Gram. He went running down the hall, knowing exactly where she was and ran into the room to surprise her while I stayed in the hallway for a second to hear her surprise. He bounded into the room. At first he got shocked to see her but that he started goofing around and rolling around on the floor and being silly and of course giving his great gram hugs and kisses! Of course I left my camera in the car but I did take some pictures with my phone. Eric was so interested in having gramma read him stories and do puzzles and only flipped out for a minute because he wanted her to play on the floor with him and she can't. He adjusted and brought the puzzle to her instead! He was very sad to leave her house and he didn't say "I love you" to my gramma before we left but the whole time we walked to the car he was yelling, "I love you gamma!" Too bad she couldn't hear him!
Eric kept bringing pictures of Dylan and Ryan to gramma for her to see. You can't see in this picture but the picture he is showing gramma is one of her and my Pepe. I wish he could have met Pepe. He would have loved him!

snuggling

Auntie Heather

A few weeks ago we went and visited my friend Heather in CT. Of course I got down there and the batteries were dead in my camera. Thank goodness Heather is the paparazzi and takes thousands of pictures when we visit each other. Here are just a few of the good ones from our visit (Thanks Hee Hee for emailing them to me!).

Eric was having a whole lot of fun jumping around on Heather's bed and giving Heather a heart attack when he would come to close to the edge. It wouldn't be the first bed he fell off of!





Luckily for Eric Heather still had her Christmas decorations up which he was very excited about


Even though we don't see Heather often enough he remembered who she was and ran and gave her a big hug when we got there. He wanted her to hold him or hold his hand a lot.

Love, love love this one!

We went out to lunch at Chilis. Eric LOVES corn on the cob!

A little bit of coloring while he waits

Eric and mama!

fun in the snow

This is going to make me sound like a hick but one of my favorite things about snow days is staying in our jammies all day and after nap time, heading out to play in the snow and then jumping in the truck and driving around on a snow adventure. I feel like we are invincable in that truck. I couldn't believe when Eric drove it out of the parking space that was barely shoveled in front of it and it just went right over the snow in front of it like nothing. That thing is a machine! The only scary part is that Eric sometimes likes to turn the anti-slip off to fishtail through parking lots. Not enough to be dangerous but just enough for me to have a heart attack. The little guy, of course, loves it.
We like to put this kid to work at an early age :)



Where is my car?? The good news is my car made it around the parking lot with no problems courtesy of my new tires.


He's saying, "cheeeeesh!"


You missed a spot buddy!

Time to clean the truck!

Right before I took this picture a big gust of wind came and blew all this snow in front of me..

there, much better!

So our adventure in the truck today was a trip to walmart where we intended to try to get the little guy some better mittens and a little shovel, neither of which walmart had. Then we of course decided we should go to Harrys for dinner after I said I wanted to cut back on Harrys for the new year. But I didn't have pizza! The little guy ate 3 pieces of pizza, some of my ziti, and some of my bread. He loooooves Harrys. He was skipping around Harrys saying, "Yahhh pizza!" If Harrys ever made a commercial or put out an ad I think he should be there spokeskiddo!

This is not going well

Night #2 of Eric sleeping in a bed didn't go horribly bad. He finally fell asleep at 10:15 and slept in his bed all night and woke up at 8am. The problem is that I can't just let him sleep in every day because he's up so late.
So when night #3 came I was determined to get him to sleep earlier knowing that I had to get him to daycare by 8:30 because I have my internship at 9am. He took a nice bath in the hopes of calming him. At 7:30 I brought him into his room to read books and rock. We did this until 8:10 because I wanted to make sure he was really relaxed. Then we put him to bed and left the room. He was all over his room again. Although he did spend more time hanging in his bed... playing with his flashlight, looking at a photo album, etc etc. I went in several times to get him to go to bed. I thought I had him relaxed at 9 but that was not the case. At 10:15 I started leaping for joy when I saw him at least lying down in his bed. So I went to check him around 10:40 assuming that he was definitely asleep. No such luck. So I rubbed his back until I saw his eyes close and he was definitely asleep... right? Wrong. I don't know how it happened, I didn't hear a thud. But when I went to check on him he was sleeping on the floor. So I put him back in his bed. At 3:15am I heard a thud and him crying; he was on the floor again. This morning Eric checked in on him before and claimed that he was on his bed. When I went in to check on him this is where I found him (picture is a little dark):


I worry that he has my sleeping habits. When I was younger I had the worst times falling asleep until I graduated from college and got a job that tired me out. I would sometimes sleep on my floor or anywhere that would get me to fall asleep.
What I am thinking when I think about these last three nights is, Who's dumb idea was this anyway????

growing up

The new year seems to have brought us a much more grown up Eric Charles! Lately he's been telling us when he's pooping and he's been sitting on the potty now and then. We've been talking about when we will put him in a regular bed. We wanted to just put him in a twin bed instead of going to a toddler bed. However, his crib is a convertible crib. So yesterday I asked big Eric how to convert the crib and he just took it upon himself to do it. So I guess it was time to give this sleeping in a bed a try on a whim! We went out to dinner last night and didn't get home until after 9pm. Eric was still wide awake so we knew it was going to be a challenge to get him to stay in his bed. We put him in his bed and as Daddy told him "You have a lot of responsibility now kid." So he left his bed a few times when we first put him down. He was running around his room and then would leave his room so we put him back in his bed and explained to him again that he needed to stay in his bed. Finally he was so tired that he just fell asleep. It took until about 10:45 that night but he did it. And that is where he stayed. And at 8am he came running in our room yelling, "hi!". It was awesome! I have been waiting for the day when I don't have to go in his room and get him when he wakes up! After that we all got out of bed and he then wanted to sit on the potty. And he did and keeping with our reinforcement he got to eat a hershey kiss at 8am for sitting on the potty. We can't believe how fast he's growing up. Once he gets used to his toddler bed we'll switch him to a twin bed so he has more room and it's more like a bed. I can't wait. It'll be so cute!

Finally asleep

Check out all the padding we put on the floor in case he fell out!

He really likes to "fix" his new bed. When Daddy was pulling it apart he was right behind him with his tools. Right when he went to play this morning this was the first thing he did.

I give up

I am still trying to upload videos from Christmas and it is not working. So I'm uploading them to snapfish and emailing them to people. However, I do not have everyone's email addresses so if you read this and want to see all the Christmas videos email me your email and I'll send them your way. Sarahep81@yahoo.com