The Amazing Nicholas!

Over the past few weeks, I've noticed a hidden talent of Nicholas'.  This morning, while eating breakfast, I was able to capture this moment on film.  Nicholas will put a piece of his food (Cheerios, grapes, etc) on top of his sippy cup and then slowly bring the cup to his mouth and eat the food off the cup.  Granted he misses and it lands in his lap sometimes, but I have been impressed with how cautious and careful he is to try to get that food in his mouth.

Ah - the look of concentration.  Gotta get that Cheerio!

Beach Trip 2010

This past week was spent at the Beach Club in Gulf Shores (Fort Morgan Road technically).  This is our fourth year in a row to go with my parents and brother and his family.  It was a lot of fun and the weather (although hot and steamy) was really perfect for the beach.

Wearing my old Gulf Shores tee - It definitely is better at Gulf Shores!

 

He could not stop giggling at Pawpaw and his crazy noises!

After all the reports about the oil spill, I was curious to see for myself what the beach looked like.  So we went down Saturday after we arrived.  The beaches mainly looked the same, but felt WAY different.  We figured that it was much softer/cushy because BP had to constantly dig through the sand to get all the tar balls.  There were tar balls on the beach, but nothing too bad.  The water looked the same as it always has.  With the drop in tourism, it was much easier to get an elevator and the pools were pretty scarce, which was nice.  

This looks worse than it really was... 

Here are the tar balls.  We actually got pictures of BP's crew cleaning it up.

Nicholas spent practically the whole time chasing after Lilly (8) and Elizabeth (2).  He was particularly interested in pulling out just about every flip-flop they brought to the living room.  We had a great time playing bunco, uno and pool games.  We also had some pretty intense games of foosball.  I also brought our baby name book and tried to assist Ryan and Nancy on picking a name for baby #3. 

How cute are they!

He really seemed to like the beach

It took Nicholas a day or so to get used to sleeping in the pack-n-play.  It was also rather difficult because he was sleeping in our bedroom and is a rather light sleeper, so he woke up a few times when we went to bed or when I woke up coughing.  All-in-all he did pretty well considering his nap/bedtime schedule was completely off.  We also did something that I had sworn I wouldn't do - Nicholas slept in the bed with us for a few hours one morning.  I didn't want him to wake up the rest of the family and it was around 4am, so we let him get the rest of the mornings sleep in the bed with us and surprisingly we were able to get some sleep as well.  Another issue that screwed up his sleep habits is he cut several molars this past week.  Of course I didn't have any Orajel with me, but we did give him some Tylenol (again the non-Tylenol brand).   

Dad's birthday was Friday, so we celebrated that with some brownies and family pics.     

Gigi and Pawpaw's favorite time of the year...  Grandbabies week!

The wind was blowing hard and the sun was in their eyes, but they were troopers.

Pawpaw reading a bedtime story

Playing with Lilly

This float is the coolest thing!  Nicholas just chilled out - watching his cousins and other kids play.

THANKS GIGI AND PAWPAW FOR OUR BEACH VACATION! 

First Hair Cut

I was finally able to convince Gabe to let me trim Nicholas's hair today.  So after lunch, we sat Nicholas in the bumbo seat with Baby Einstein on, toys in front of him and daddy also trying to distract him while I cut.  It actually wasn't that bad.  He did turn his head a few times but no crazy cuts for me to ruin the cut.  I mainly trimmed the area around his ears and along the back.  It looks much better and although it is slightly crooked in the back, I don't think Nicholas will care.

We of course saved his hair for the baby book.  Now he really looks like a little boy instead of a baby.  I still can't believe how big he is!  

Now mama needs a haircut!

TGIF!!

This week has been a LONG one!  In my last post, I spoke too soon about Nicholas feeling much better.  Yes his fever went away on Monday, but he was not well just yet.  Tuesday he started to get a bad rash that covered pretty much all of his torso, neck and some of his face.  He wasn't itching, but was still pretty fussy and not eating much.  After doing some research online, we found out that he had Roseola - it described everything he had to a "T".  Again, the solution was to just wait it out as the rash should go away in a few hours to a few days. 

I would say that today was really his first day back feeling better.  Nicholas is eating well, playing and even laughing.  We are SO thankful to have our little booboo back to his old self.  On another note, we discovered that not only does Nicholas love Baby Einstein, but he also loves the Cosby Show.  We went out to grab some ice cream tonight, came back home and turned on this classic TV show.  Nicholas stopped playing walked up rather close to the TV, sat down and just watched.  Who doesn't love the Cosby Show?!  What was funny was as soon as a commercial came on, he was back to playing with his toys.  Gabe tried to get a picture of him watching, but unfortunately we were too late.  Thank goodness for TV Land that plays the classic sitcoms!  They just don't make 'em like they used to... 

Fever Pitch

Saturday morning when Nicholas woke up from his morning nap, he seemed very fussy and a bit warm.  I took his temperature and it was around 100.  Well that evening, it ended up going up to 102.5.  He started to not really eat much, was REALLY warm and just didn't feel good.  We gave him some acetaminophen (not the Tylenol brand -so nobody worry).  When we put him to bed that night, he woke up an hour later fussing and inconsolable.  Enter the ever wonderful Baby Einstein DVDs.  It was almost reminiscent of when he was a newborn and we had no clue what to do to calm him down.  He would go back to sleep but wake up an hour later.  Finally he went down for the night and woke up around 6am Sunday morning.  And we basically repeated Saturday.  He wasn't too warm during that morning, but his temp continued to increase as the day went on.  He looked so pitiful and we felt so helpless.  (Keep in mind that this is really the first time Nicholas has been sick, which is amazing since he is over a year old, but it also made us that much more upset over our sick child).  I ended up calling our pediatrician's office to see what they recommended after getting another temp of around 102.7.  They said to schedule an appt and bring him in Monday.

Monday morning was not a fun time for mama or Nicholas.  He slept until 7am, but again woke up fussy and not eating.  I called Greenvale at 8am when they opened and was told that they were overwhelmed at the moment and would have a nurse call me back.  Then when the nurse does call me, she proceeds to tell me that today (of all days) they were switching to an all electronic system and therefore had to cut back on their patient load.  The nurse would tell Dr. Whitaker what was going on with Nicholas and he would decide if we could come in that day.  At this point Nicholas was doing ok, but mama was not.  I just wanted someone, anyone to fix my baby so he wasn't sick anymore.  Luckily I got a call back saying I could bring him in today and I asked for the earliest appt available.  So 9:30am a very ragged mama and sleepy/fussy toddler sign in at Greenvale.  It was a good 40 minutes later before Dr. Whitaker even saw Nicholas.  To top it all off, he said Nicholas had a fever virus and they couldn't do anything for him except for what we were already doing.  Granted I should have been happy that it was nothing more serious, but at this point it was almost 11, I had wasted 2 hours and had an EXTREMELY tired and fussy child.  I put Nicholas in his car seat to head home and before I could turn around, he was passed out.  My poor baby.

There is a happy ending to our bad morning...  Nicholas seems to be doing MUCH better now.  He did not feel warm at all after getting home.  He took close to 4 hours worth of naps and went down without any bit of a fight tonight.  I just don't know how parents of cronically ill children do it...

Are you ready for some football?

Nicholas is...

We took advantage of Nicholas raising his arms a lot today to teach him to do it when we say "Touchdown".  Daddy was so proud of his future Bama baller! 

Shoes please!

Since today wasn't unbearably hot, we decided to take Nicholas to Leeds park.  It turns out that he is still a bit too young for the park, but will probably love it in about a year.  We also discovered that he is still not a fan of grass. 

What is this stuff?

How do I get away from it?

Daddy reassuring him that it's ok

Fool me twice shame on me!  He was not going to put those feet down again!

It will be interesting to see what he thinks about sand when we head to the beach this summer...