A Busy Holiday Weekend

Hope everyone had a good holiday weekend! We spent Thanksgiving at my parent's house with dad's side of the family. We were able to see some out of town relatives and meet their new addition. Miles seemed to really enjoy the other kids and of course we all stuffed our faces. As soon as we finished the Thanksgiving meal we drug out the presents and forged straight ahead into an early Christmas for the kids since not everyone would be able to make it back for Christmas.


Baby Connor's First Thanksgiving


Miles playing with Macy and Addyson

Friday Miles and I relaxed at home and had a fun morning decorating. Casey left in the middle of the night for a 3AM opening at his store. Ridiculous I know, but it actually worked out well because Casey came home in time to nap with Miles and then was available to help with the outdoor lights. The return on our labor was well worth the effort because we got lots of oohs and aahs out of Miles. We are going to have to take him to one of the big light displays in town for sure.




Saturday we had a ladies Christmas party with my mom's side of the family and Miles tagged along since Casey was working. Miles was fairly well behaved considering it was naptime. Miles started the party by incessantly requesting, "ready eat party food" and then as soon as the snacking was over he started up with a chorus of "ready go home." This was the 2nd year and hopefully this party will become an annual tradition because it's a fun get together. Sunday Miles and I braved the wind and wet to go see Santa Claus. I chose Crossroads Mall to avoid the crowds. Miles was surprisingly into the whole Santa visit. He hopped right up on Santa's lap and started jabbering away. He's not a smile on command kind of kid, but we did get an okay picture.

30 Weeks and Counting

This week I officially hit the 30 week mark and started 2 week checkups. I'm measuring right on target and everything looks great so far. Time has just flown by with this pregnancy probably because I haven't had to do hardly any planning. It's not that we are less excited, but we are pretty much already prepared. We did a one day refresher course on labor and delivery a couple of weeks ago. I wanted to relearn signs of labor and such since I never really experienced the natural onset of labor last time.


We also got a new stroller. It's a double stroller that can hold my baby carrier. The back seat is removable so it can convert to a sit and stand when we are ready. Other than that my only other big purchase is going to be more cloth diapers and I'm still wading through the sea of options.


We got Miles a doll and a manly blue stroller for Christmas. Time to start getting him prepared as well.

Sickness can be Torture

Miles has been sick this week, all week. It started Monday with a fever. Tuesday I took him to the doctor and I think he is forever scared by his experience. It started out nice enough, asking about symptoms, looking at his ears, nose and throat. He was tolerant. Next, the doctor did a strep test which basically amounts to gagging your child with a long q-tip and scraping some cells off the back of his throat. That didn't go well. Then, she decided that he had too much wax to get a proper view of his ear canal so a nurse came in with one of those water irrigation guns to blast away the wax. That was even worse. Apparently he is prone to harder earwax than most so the water blasting lasted forever and ended up not working. As a last resort the nurse pinned him down and the doctor scrapped out the now softer wax with a little plastic hook. He was in full meltdown by that point and it took him several hours to fully recover from the trauma.

After all that the diagnosis was "probably just some sort of virus". Not strep, not the flu, and not an ear infection. The only upside was that we had to see someone other than our usual pediatrician since we were worked in at the last minute. That was a plus because Miles certainly didn't make friends with the doctor and I am certain that he never wants to see her again. Tuesday was a bad day to say the least.


The fever broke on Wednesday, but he woke Thursday morning covered in hives. He had huge red welps the size of my fist covering his legs and arms. Very odd, but it started to clear up within the hour so the nurse I called didn't see any cause for alarm. Maybe allergic to Ibuprophin, maybe from the virus, or maybe from fever. The hives have been coming and going for the last 3 days. I don't know, but I am very glad that Miles is almost never sick because having a sick kid and trying to figure out what to do about it is stressful!

First Visit to the Dentist

Wednesday Miles had his first visit to the dentist and I have to say the pediatric dentist we found was awesome. I wasn't so sure about how cooperative he would be or what all a 1st visit for a 2 year old would entail, but he did great. In fact our only problem was that the waiting room was so fun that Miles didn't want to leave when we were called back for the appointment. I'm not sure what they teach dentists in those extra two years of pediatric specialization, but our visit came with grape flavored exam gloves, a glove balloon complete with drawn on face, counting games which lead up to counting teeth, stickers, a Pooh toothbrush, and dinosaur shaped floss sticks for kids. The office was so fun and cheerful with huge murals, cartoons in each exam room, and some dental toys like a stuffed dinosaur with huge teeth and his matching toy toothbrush. I'm pretty sure Miles never realized he was at a doctor's office. Why aren't the regular pediatricians that good?

Two Year Pictures

This Sunday we had fantastic weather and decided that we better start taking advantage of nice days. We headed to the park by our house and I brought the camera along so we could get some cute pictures before all the pretty leaves were gone. Miles was fairly cooperative and we got some good shots. Lots of smiles. True story...just before we got out of the car, Ice Ice Baby came on the radio. We just barely caught the intro where he says, "VIP...let's kick it." Miles thought that was hilarious and every time I needed a smile one of us would just yell out, "VIP" to which he would respond "let's kick it" and the giggles ensued. That was sort of his catch phrase for the day.