Surviving a Whole Week

Last week was my first full week back at work while Adam was at daycare.

Last Saturday night Shannon and I decided to have another "family barbecue", which basically means that when you do it late enough Adam is already asleep by 8:00 and you fire up the grill, eat dinner, then go to sleep because you're too exhausted to do anything else. We had steak. Mine was a monstrous T-bone with a little bit of blue cheese sprinkled on it. We had baked potato and sauteed mushrooms on the side. Yum.

About 20 minutes after this feast I felt sick and proceed to be sick all night, then spent all of Sunday "dying" and sleeping it off. For a while I thought it might have been due to the fact that I don't eat very much red meat or that the blue cheese simply didn't agree with me. Turns out it was a stomach bug that lasts 24-36 hours or so. Sunday was a waste. But at least Adam didn't get it.

I came into work 2 hours late on Monday. Took some Dayquil and felt okay enough to manage... Came home to Adam and played a little bit. Felt a little under the weather but it wasn't nearly as bad as it had been on Sunday.

This is so much easier without the harness!

On Tuesday I felt MUCH better, but Shannon was sick and stayed in bed all day. I came home and put Adam in pants for the first time, well, EVER. We did a little tummy time. I have decided in these last two weeks of full time Pavlik harness use that it can't hurt too much if I take it off for 2 or 3 hours after I get off work and put it on before he goes to bed. I tell myself that, but of course I am no doctor so I'm basically just lying to myself so I can do what I want. In a future blog I'll go into detail about our history with the Pavlik.

Meanwhile Caley has figured out that if you go and sit next to the baby, you can get attention by default. And at this point, when she thinks she has been neglected and suffers from severe jealousy, that's good enough. We know she will get better once he is more mobile and moving around and can play a little more with her. She adores kids. She's already happier now that she's allowed to smell him and lick his fingers (just once, then move on).

yes?

On Wednesday, we spent a little time in the Bumbo. He's getting really good with his head movements and can stay in the Bumbo and look around the room easily for about 30 minutes. He can go longer, but it's not as fun at that point. Lately he has been able to play with his pacifier, especially the fun game of, "Mom puts it in, I pull it out." But he's also consistently reaching for the pacifier now, grabbing it with one hand and trying to stick it in his mouth. It gets turned the wrong way by the time he gets to his mouth, so he chews on it for a few seconds, scowls, and kinda tosses it like, "this one is broken!" He is not as interested in his toys, however. If I dangle a toy for him to grab he kinda looks at it a little and loses interest. He also will only track objects with his when he feels like it and sometimes acts like he's daydreaming . . . or bored. I think his philosophy is, "If it has a face or it goes in my mouth, I'm interested."

On Thursday I woke up sick. Again. But this time with a cold. Adam had the same sniffles, cough and sneeze, but didn't complain at all about it. In fact, I'm a bigger baby than he is. So I waited a few hours Thursday morning at home to see if it would get worse . . . no fever, no fussiness . . . Adam is smiling and talking . . . I kept waffling. Do I go to work or stay home? If I stay home should I work from home or devote all my attention to taking care of Adam? Should I take him to daycare or does he need to stay home and rest? When he started to yell at me because I wasn't entertaining enough for him, I knew it was time for daycare. His "yelling" consists of very animated baby talk paired with concerned facial expressions. If I only knew what he was saying . . . he sure does have some intense stories and stern tones when he's serious about something.

Anyway, I dropped him off and went to work, and we had no issues whatsoever.

This isn't the first time he's had a cold. When Adam was a month old, Shannon brought home the WORST virus that we all ended up suffering through. We all survived, miserable two weeks as that was.

The cold was hardly even a sickness, but I did feel worse on Friday. I woke up thinking, " I wonder if maybe I should just stay home today and rest." Then I realized that staying home with Adam would be much more work than actually going to work and sitting in front of my computer. Stay-at-home Moms, while I'm a little jealous that I can't be one, work is MUCH harder at home in my opinion.

Adam's newest development is wanting to hold his own bottle. Mostly, I think, because he's afraid we'll take it away too soon. He's never satisfied and always willing to eat whatever you have to give him at any time of the day. He's good at staying on his schedule but if you let him he would eat every 2 hours. He can hold the bottle steady but isn't truly feeding himself. It's good practice though for the little independent bugger.

Gah, Dad. I can do it myself.

Horrible picture of me, cute picture of Adam

Friday was non-eventful. Adam slept most of the evening and Shannon and I had a few drinks at home. Saturday we went to Ft. Worth for Trey's birthday dinner with everyone while my mom babysat. We had a good time and got to eat at the Yucatan Taco Stand for the first time. YUM.

Sunday we had lunch with some friends who have a three month old daughter. It's strange to me to compare Adam to other babies his age because he's just SO much bigger than "average" sized babies. He's almost literally twice her size and he's only two weeks older. After lunch I took Adam up to the hospital and visited with my dad, who is doing much, much better. In the last week or so he has had vast improvement. There is still a ways to go, but at least we are at a point where it FEELS like there is progress.

In short, the week dragged on and the weekend flew by. Story of our lives, right? This morning when I dropped off Adam at daycare, it was the first day he watched me leave. He didn't cry, but it twisted my heart a little bit. I have a feeling this week will be even more interesting than last.