Just real quick to say

Happy 21 month birthday Alder!!

and

On the eve of this little monthly celebration, for dinner, Alder had

about a cup of string beans
about a cup of apple sauce
a scrambled egg
about 2/3 cup of cottage cheese
a rather thick slice of bread with cream cheese
several bites of da-da's egg/pesto sandwich
several chunks of steamed broccoli
a ginger snap

Big bowl of oatmeal for breakfast and toast and sent off to school with more broccoli and beans and rice and oranges and pretzels.

We think he's feeling better.

And Alder, if you are reading this, make sure you go poo-poo before mommy picks you up today, k?

Croup and a very cute boy

Many of you may already know this, but last week was a super hectic/exhausting one for us all. We took Alder to the ER Sunday night at 2am with croup - he was having a hard time breathing (very audible inhales = 'stridors'). He was very upset and not able to be calmed down. It was terrifying. They gave him a steroid shot and then a racemic epinephrine breathing treatment. He calmed down and we fell asleep together on the ER bed for a while. They gave him another breathing treatment and by 5am they decided to admit him. There is a chance of relapse after the epnephrine treatment and had to watch him for 24 hours. He did not get out until Tuesday morning. He was fine by Monday afternoon, a bit bored, but thankfully there was a playroom with a 'choo choo'. He stayed home Wednesday and then went back to school Thursday and Friday. He still has a nasty cough (but the doc says no infection to speak of) and seems a bit spoiled/whiny from the whole experience, but we are thinking he will be back to normal by Monday.

As much as I like my job for its felxibility (summers off, flexible in and out times) I have to be there each day to teach my classes. This was very tough. We were able to juggle it ok, but Jason was amazingly adaptable and put his work more on the back burner than I was able to this week. I am trying to imagine how we would have dealt with this with two kids and no family in town!? The answer...somehow and all would be ok.

So Grammy and PaPa are coming up today to let Jason and I go out on a date! How exciting. On Valentines day no less! We are so grateful.

So here is a recovering Alder in the cutest darn outfit ever - dad couldn't resist taking some morning pics in front of the wood pile before going to work on Friday

Alder's Grammy and Papa gave him a book called "From Head to Toe" by Eric Carle that he LOVES. It is very interactive and asks him to "stomp his feet like an elephant, kick his legs like a donkey, beat his chest like a gorilla". Without the book anywhere around(i.e., a parking lot), he will just fall on his hand and knees and kick his leg out behind him looking up at us to say ' are you kicking your leg like a donkey?!" He laughs.

We have added the "move your mouth like fish" because it is just so cute to see him make a fish face:Here are some other funny faces:


Another favorite activity of Alder's these days is to act out the motions while we sing "The Itsy Bitsy Spider" - here is a video clip:

Little Peanut...with 'normal' feet

Relief does not fully describe the way we feel today.

After the experience we had with Alder's 20 week ultrasound, where we found out about his clubbed feet and were led to believe that there were more serious issues, it is not a surprise that we walked into baby #2's 21 week ultrasound yesterday with some apprehension.

I don't think either of us really understood how much apprehension we had inside until after leaving the appointment with the new knowledge that everything seems to be ok...even the feet! I think we totally expected this baby to have 'at least' clubbed feet and were bracing ourselves for something else. We are so grateful and seem to have a renewed sense of excitement about our new addition. After seeing it kicking and turning and holding its hands up close to its face, it is very real.

So here are some pics of our new little peanut-to-be. This head shot is a bit weird looking and please do keep in mind that there is serious distortion and they are very 'skeletal' this early - meaning that they have very little fat and tissue yet. They typically do not do the 4D pics this early for this reason, but we lucked out I guess.


Apparently we have either a boy or a girl, but only the perinatologists will know this until ~June 17. The due date was confirmed and has not changed.

And here are the feet.

We would have been perfectly happy, willing and able to have another baby with crooked feet. In retrospect, it has been such a minor issue and something that makes Alder unique and special, we are truly grateful for the experience. However, I am selfishly excited to be able to tightly swaddle a newborn like you just can't do when they have full leg casts on.

We hope these glimpses of our peanut make you all smile like they did us.
Have a great weekend.

P.S. (by Dad) Also Alder came home with a fever Wednesday, so we wound up taking him with us to the ultrasound. He didn't hold interest very long, but I do think the "baby-in-mommy's-tummy" clicked for him. Once he saw that 4D image, which does look like a baby, and saw mommy on the table with the sonographer rubbing the wand on her tummy, I think things became real. Sure he might think that all women have babies in their tummies, or that his mommy just always does, but nonetheless I think he knows. This morning on the couch before cereal we talked about the baby in mommy's tummy and he answers yes' ('uh-huh') and no's to all the right questions to show me he knows a little better. Neat.
Alder is also fine now - no fever and went to school today...in case you were wondering.

Quickly, the simple pleasures... two of them

1. The box. I finally collapsed it on Sunday. We want to make sure the next one is just as much fun, so no point in leaving it up long enough for Alder to get bored with it. It'll become a layer in one of the garden beds soon. (Thanks Dan for the reminder on this.).
Sylvia and Alder enjoyed it together a bit too on its last night in the house.
2. That I walked into the bathroom after a meeting at work yesterday morning to find weird white crusty stuff on my face... hhhmmmmmm... ohhhhhhh, it must be LOTS of dried soy milk on my face from the bye bye kiss I forgot to wipe off.

So now everyone at work is probably calling me the heavy drooler guy who doesnt wash his face in the morning. Don't you love it when people just stare at you and say nothing...? And who of you out there are guilty of this?

I enjoyed wiping it off though. This qualifies as a pleasure.