History of the J Man

As Elliott continues to get the hang of walking while holding on to something he’s now starting to try harder tasks.  Now he’ll purposely lower himself down on his butt then pull himself back up.  Or today he was dropping his toy and then bending down to pick it up with one hand, while still holding on with the other.  He’s standing in his bed before he starts to cry out for us to get him these days too.  He doesn’t seem interested in crawling but maybe that will chance. 

Of course I couldn’t get any of those tricks on video but I did get him to wave at me.  He’s getting good at doing that for hello and bye-bye.

When he smiles maybe you can see his new top teeth.  All 4 decided to cut through at once!

Elliott Waving from Crib from Julie Diehl on Vimeo.

Over the holidays we decided to take the boys bowling.  This new alley actually had a “mom & tot” time in the morning so we went, bowled a game then had lunch.  Well actually we played some indoor bocce ball first, or pretended to.  Jonah just liked to roll the balls down the court and run up and down.  He liked that much more than the bowling.

Here’s a short movie of Chris helping Jonah bowl. 

Jonah Bowling from Julie Diehl on Vimeo.

I’m not sure what it is about the holidays for us.  If it’s all the new junk food that’s introduce to our diets, seeing more friends and family than we usually do in such a small space of time, or if it’s the cold weather somehow but it seems to get us every year.  First there was the day after Christmas that we spent in the ER with Jonah when he was about 1.5.  Then I think it was last year sometime when we went back to the ER to find out he had croup.  This year it was Elliott turn to get sick during the holidays.

Elliott helped me welcome in the new year by puking on me and the dinner table just after our dinner on New Year’s Eve.  He’d been pretty sleepy that day and had already had a blow out at the restaurant at lunch so I was already a little worried about him.  It was justified because he ended up having diarrhea for the next 48 hours.  I called the pediatrician’s office (of course closed for the holiday) and got the recommendation to give him pedialyte and no formula. He was nursing too but doing more comfort sucking than actually drinking and I was worried he’d get dehydrated.  The pedialyte was a no go though.  He wouldn’t drink it.  Not the flavored kind, not the unflavored kind, not mixed with formula or juice either.  After a solid day I went out and bought him some lactose-free formula, just so I could make sure he was taking in some liquids.  After the first night he perked up again so I figured he was doing ok.  Then he peed in the bath on the morning of Jan 2nd so I took that as a sign that he wasn’t dehydrated and was on the mend.  If I hadn’t seen that we may have headed to the ER later that day. 

Of course this always happens at times when Chris and I had plans to go out.  We didn’t bother trying to make New Year’s plans but we did book Grandma and Grandpa to babysit on the 2nd so we could go to dinner and a movie.  That didn’t happen though because Chris started feeling sick that morning.  We revised our plans and asked G & G to come and take Jonah, the only one feeling fine, out for a bit so Chris could rest and I could shower.

That’s about all I got do to though because I answered the phone after getting out of the shower to hear, “We’re coming home, Jonah just threw up in the car.” Our car that is, the one with they took because it has the car seat in it. 

So fresh from my only shower in 2 days and feeling crummy myself I strapped Elliott on and helped get Jonah into the house, stripped down and into the bath whild Chris and Grandpa attended to the car.  That night we all took it easy and had only a few handfuls of dry Cheerios for dinner with lots of water to drink.

I expected a rough night from the kids after that.  Figuring I’d be cleaning up more puke or comforting sick children but miraculously everyone slept the whole night.  Everyone but me that is.  I was up and down to the bathroom myself LOTS of times from 9:30pm to 2:30am when I think my fever finally broke.  What is it about a mom’s mind/body that allows us to not get sick until everyone else is taken care of? 

We spent the next day drinking more water and Gatorade and hanging out watching movies.  Trying to get Jonah to relax and rest was a challenge.  Luckily we’re all feeling better now, this must have been more like a 24-48 hour bug.  Not so fun though.  Not a good way to ring in the new year.  What is it about the holidays?  Next year I need to beef up our vitamins or hand washing or something!