On the Mend

Little man woke up with a normal temperature this morning and it stayed normal all day, so I think we're over the virus. Brian spent the day at home with him just to make sure, but looks like we are back to good health.

My pictures from yesterday's post came from Ed's camera (Debby's boyfriend). I was finally looking through the pictures on my own camera and had to post the one below of Brennan bathing in the kitchen sink at my mom's house. I forgot to bring bath toys, so the best we could do was the nasal aspirator... yes, I cleaned it off before giving it to him to chomp on.

Sick Days

Brennan woke up with a fever yesterday, so I canceled lunch plans with Alissa (sorry A!) and we just tried to keep him cool and comfortable. I called the doctor in the afternoon since we were seeing his temperature hit 103, but the on-call doc didn't seem overly worried about the temp, which was fluctuating. Later in the day, it hit 103.6 and he was very uncomfortable. We decided to go to a pediatric urgent care center. The doc there thought it was the flu (he had his flu shot booster on Friday), but the culture tested negative. He concluded that it was a virus and that Brennan's throat was sore. He suggested giving him Motrin to ease the throat pain and to ride the fever out. Brennan's temp is lower today, but still there. He is catching up on missed sleep from yesterday though. I took a sick day to care for the little guy and while he is napping, I thought I'd catch up on some blogging, since you haven't heard much from me this month.

My parents were supposed to visit over president's day weekend, but we ended up going to NY instead. We had a nice family dinner with my grandparents, aunt and uncle on Valentine's day. My brother was heading out west to ski that week, but I got a chance to visit with him on Friday. We got to spend time with my in-laws too, and even visited Aunt Kerry at Police Headquarters on Sunday. Overall, the weekend turned out well and I think everyone was glad to see the little guy.

Brennan is now eating two solid food meals per day and I'm trying to figure out how to work a third in. He doesn't seem interested in eating solids in the morning, but I'm hoping he'll turn the corner. By our 9 month pediatrician visit, he is supposed to be eating three meals per day. Along with the move to solids, I've been trying to introduce the cup. I have been looking for an alternative to plastic sippy cups. For Valentine's day, Nana and Pop Pop (or whatever my dad is going to be called) bought Brennan two Klean Kanteen sippy cups, which are stainless steel cups that use Advent's sippy cup spout. At this point, he likes to bite on the sippy part of the cup, but hasn't quite figured out that this is for drinking. We'll keep working on it.

Don't Tickle Me Elmo!

This weekend felt like it went by in a flash. On Saturday morning, Brennan and I went to the Cascades Library for Baby Storytime with my friend, Joanie, and her baby, Evan. It was more of a sing-along with one story at the end. I think Brennan had fun. We all went for lunch afterwards at the mall, and Brennan totally missed his late morning nap. Now that he's getting older and more interested in his surroundings, he doesn't easily fall asleep while we are out. Instead of dozing off in his stroller at the mall, he was looking around everywhere! That sort of threw him off for the rest of the day, but we did manage to keep him happy enough to go out for dinner. He sat in the restaurant high chair and even ate some oatmeal and sweet potatoes while we waited for our meal to come out.

On Sunday, we went to church and ran errands, getting home just in time to put the game on. Brennan seemed a little off his game and that continued into Monday. He was running a low grade fever, maybe due to teething. He didn't really want to play in his jumperoo or excersaucer and started crying when playing with a musical toy that he usually loves. This morning though, he seemed to be in better spirits and his temperature was back to normal, so hopefully we've turned the corner.

Our neighbor gave us a Tickle Me Elmo doll a few months ago. I took it out of the box yesterday. I thought Brennan might like it - a red doll that giggles and shakes. I sat on the floor with Brennan and turned it on. Well, to my surprise, it made a big motion, bending at the waist. Its head came down directly towards Brennan. It scared the little guy. He started crying and held onto me tightly - I could feel that he was shaking. I played the Elmo a few times, keeping a safer distance and holding onto Brennan, so he could see it wasn't scary, but I don't think I won him over. This doll is a little freaky, it almost seems alive. I found a video of it on YouTube to share with you:

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=o4x-VW_rCSE