happy 3 months, macon!

one of the last signs of Macon's recent illness: upright napping

No ills out here, Mama: it's 80 degrees! I might celebrate my three-months with my first thunderstorm later today!

My grandmother had lots of camellias in her yard, and when she died two years ago, we were in the process of purchasing this house. Fittingly, our camellias were in full bloom then, and thanks to some pruning, it looks like we've got a bumper crop this year.

our first open blooms

macon says

My cheeks are rosy and my fist is in my mouth.

I am feeling pretty good.

poor eric

If you've heard about our last 24-hours, and based on the above photos, you may wonder at the title of this post. I'll get to that, but first, let me put you at ease: Macon is fine and is back home.

Since Friday, Macon has been congested, much like his mother. On Saturday morning, we talked to the pediatrician's nurse and got some reassurance as to the course of treatment (monitor him for fever, suction his nose, etc.) and we proceeded with a relatively normal weekend.

By Monday morning, however, Macon had added a sharp little cough to his repertoire so I took him to the office's walk-in sick hours. They suspected RSV, which in older children and adults is a simple cold, but in babies can become more serious. At that point, Macon's breathing was slightly labored, but not too bad, and his blood oxygen level was good. Come back at 4:30 in the afternoon, they said.

After the 4:30 appointment on Monday, they prescribed a Tuesday-morning appointment and after that appointment, an evening appointment. Over the course of these examinations, Macon's blood oxygen level was going down. Eric and I were completely stressed and worried, and although Macon's appetite was pretty good and he seemed relatively cheerful between naps, he had become increasingly drowsy on Tuesday afternoon.

Thus, at our last doctor's visit, I started crying and the pediatrician decided it was time for monitoring at the hospital. My first reaction: hunger. I hardly ate on Tuesday and when the doctor recommended the hospital, I felt such relief about the prospect of letting the professionals take over that I was finally hungry. I told the doctor that the Baptist in me just wanted some fried chicken and a coke.

We decided that Eric would stay home with Jed so Macon and I headed to our new accommodations.

Thanks to our doctor's work, we were able to skip the ER and go straight to a room. It was Macon's mealtime, but between the admission process and the initial exam by doctors and nurses, he was interrupted and jostled so much that he spit-up all over me, and I don't define spit-up going all over me lightly.

Finally, it was time for Macon to settle in for bed. A nurse offered to swaddle him, and given the amazing swaddle-skills of the nurses in the post partum unit at Duke, I stepped aside and let the pro get to work. Sadly, surprisingly, she barely wrapped him and he wiggled out almost immediately, but he dropped off to sleep pretty easily and I went in search of my much longed-for supper.

"I'm just going downstairs to get some supper," I told the nurse. "Where?" she asked. "The cafeteria." "The cafeteria is closed from 8 to midnight."

WHAT? CLOSED FROM 8 to MIDNIGHT?? SERIOUSLY?

Let me just say that I "enjoyed" pretzels and toastee cheeze for supper in the lounge area of the cardiac unit.

Back in the room, I unfolded the futon-like sofa, which was pretty much the exact same model Eric slept on when we were in the hospital for Jed's extended labor and Macon's delivery. And this, my friends, is the origin of the title: that bed was horrible. Rock hard, hardly covered by a sheet, and made extra-annoying by several seams. Wow. Poor Eric. All those nights on one of these things. Kudos to him! I would have said to me, "Look, lady. You seem pretty comfortable and the baby is snoozing, so I'm just going to roll home til the a.m. Catch you on the flip side."

Our night was, of course, interrupted repeatedly by nurses, the respiratory therapist, Macon's meal times, and the alarms on his monitors. At around 1:30 a.m., he needed some oxygen, but just from a "blow-by" tube that simply pumps oxygen into his general vicinity. He never needed a mask or tubes and by midday today, he was able to hold his own without help so he was discharged at around 2 and he's been eating and pooping and sleeping, which is as good as it gets.

We will give him a breathing treatment every four hours overnight tonight, but we can stop that tomorrow, so tonight will be somewhat interrupted, but between the disruptions of last night and the stress of the past few days (I'm not sure what could be more distressing to me than Macon or Jed getting sicker and sicker), I cannot say how happy I'll be to hit the hay tonight. At home. With an improving child. On a blessedly soft bed.

spring is in the air

Thus, Eric and I dared to venture back into the waters of socializing by inviting some friends over for dinner last night. Amazingly, things went pretty smoothly and the boys managed to remain charming even when they got packed off to bed.

But the main benefit of the recent warm weather has been a drastic increase in outdoor time.

Even Jed's pasta and peas looked pretty spring-like.

Alas, poor Macon and poor Mama are fighting colds, so Macon hasn't really enjoyed the great outdoors as much as Jed. Here we see an increasingly rare sight: Macon sleeping with the paci. As he's slowly learning to get his hand to his mouth more consistently, the paci is falling by the wayside, which, given Jed's recent visits from the paci fairy, is just fine with us.

80

Caroline's most recent post introduced me to this blog documenting the pregnancy of a friend of Caroline's cousin. They are expecting quadruplets. Naturally. Two sets of identical twins. As Caroline points out, that's eighty toenails and fingernails to trim. I have a hard time keeping up with forty; sixty if you count my own. Good luck to this family!

mat time

and for a flashback to Jed's infancy . . .

Jed is about 4 months old here.

grandma and grandpa visit

Grandma and Grandpa visited us yesterday and today so they could babysit while I put in my monthly volunteer time at Jed's school. Naturally, Jed got some new threads out of the deal.

sporting his new Wake Forest jacket

wearing a new "work tie" and "work shirt"

(so called because that's what Daddy wears to work)

thanks, Grandma!

the real adventure

Last Wednesday, when I picked Jed up from school, he was sporting his back-up pants and his what-I-did-at-school-today-note from his teacher included this ominous phrase: "has the runs." Huumm. Yuck.

For the rest of the day on Wednesday, he seemed a bit down and his "be-bo" (aka his belly button and a catch-all term for his tummy, inside and out) continued to hurt, but on Thursday morning, all was normal and I packed him off to school.

Later in the day, however, when I picked him up, he had a rash on his hands. He'd had the same rash the previous week, but this time, it looked much more inflamed and he was complaining of it hurting. After his nap, his skin still looked bad. It was too late in the afternoon to get to the doctor's office for something that wasn't a real emergency, but I decided we'd go in the morning to walk-in sick hours.

At this point, I'm thinking the tummy and hands are related because Jed has, in the past, had a minor rash on his belly following a fever. He hadn't run a temperature, but I was guessing that maybe any kind of virus could trigger a rash.

Thus, Friday morning, I was feeding Macon in the pediatrician's waiting room when Jed says "poopie."

"Ok," I say, "let Macon get a little more to eat and then we'll get you changed."

But Jed keeps telling me he's made a poopie and begins tugging at his pants. Then he tells me "poopie with pee-pee," which I learned on Wednesday is Jedspeak for a runny poopie. So I started making moves to get us to the bathroom when a nurse came out and called his name. Jed waddled over to her, holding his pants away from his legs, and told her all about his runny poopie, and I told her that that's why were here.

Once in the exam room, I realized the full awfulness of the smell, but the nurse happily encouraged Jed to walk a bit farther down the hall to the scale rather than skipping straight to a diaper-change. Is her nose broken, I wondered?

Finally, I got Jed on the exam table while Macon screamed in the car seat. Macon h-a-t-e-s the car seat, so the nurse picked him up and I gladly let her take him out while she did whatever it is the nurses do while you wait for the doctor.

And then I opened Jed's pants.

Wow.

Wow.

I cannot describe the scene, but I ran out of wipes before I even opened up the diaper. Seriously.

Thankfully, the nurse provided more wipes, at which time she noted that the very small diaper-disposal bag she gave me might be too small. She asked me if I wanted gloves. I thought she was kidding, but she wasn't. I declined, but should have accepted. I continued cleaning while she went to get two larger bags, one for the diaper and wipes and one for Jed's clothes.

Eventually, I got everything wrapped up in plastic but really, was I 100% certain that there wasn't some poop lurking on Jed somewhere? No, but I felt like things were mostly under control so I started digging around for fresh pants. Guess what? No pants. I had a clean shirt (amazingly, not needed), and clean socks but no pants. Great.

But before I could get too worried or start laughing too hard, the doctor came in and mustered all her professionalism to ignore the horrible smell while she talked to us about Jed's tummy troubles and his rash.

Then, mid-exam, a different nurse, not our original one who, of course, was well-aware of the pooptastrophy that had occurred in the room, pops in and says, "Can I take that diaper for you? I'll just run it out to the dumpster."

A nurse outside our room found the smell so bad that she asked to take the diaper away. But not just any old away: away as in outside. OUTSIDE. Lady, that diapers smells so bad, we must take it outside. Immediately.

Wow.

Eventually, the doctor made her diagnosis: plain old stomach bug and an unrelated rash, probably from hand sanitizer or a change in soap at school.

Thus, we made our way out, sans pants. Jed was not phased and asked the receptionist for a sticker. When we got home, he said, "knees cold," but as you can see from the picture, that didn't stop him from striking a pose on the fence. Once I coaxed him inside, we headed straight for the bathtub.

As for a winner of the choose your own adventure contest, we had several great ideas posted, emailed, and told to us. Jed was not (intentionally) posing for a Captain Morgan commercial, but I think our favorite was Jason's suggestion that Jed had taken the "shirt and shoes required" sign literally. I am, however, sorry to report to Jason that the pants promised to the winner are long gone. I couldn't stomach a clean-up so one pair of pants and one pair of socks got tossed out. Literally. They immediately went into our outside trash can. Too bad there wasn't a nurse here to take it out for me.

happy birthday, dranma!

And I'll get the full story behind the pantless Jed photo up later today or tomorrow.

Choose Your Own Adventure

I invite you to use your imagination to describe the events leading up to this picture. The most creative storyteller will receive as a prize a practically new pair of jeans (size 3T).

my audience

Someone thinks Mama is funny . . .

beautiful beauty

Our sister-in-law (Aunt Dar-dar to Jed) just launched her new website and business, Ayla, and I hope you'll take a look. Her aim is to bring out your beauty through health, healthy products, and sound advice about the products she's selling. She explains it best:

Our brighter approach to beauty makes it easy to find just what you need for naturally beautiful skin.

PEERLESS PRODUCTS:

With our edited selection of products, you'll always find something that really works—with no nasty ingredients

EXPERT ADVICE:

With insight you can trust from top health and beauty experts, you'll know how to get even better results

SMART TOOLS:

With trial sizes, personalized recommendations, and live help when you need it, you're more likely to choose what's right for you

To learn more about our products, advice, and tools, click here.

So I hope you'll check out her site and find something you like!

Ayla: Brighter Beauty

it's hard being macon

go west young man

Macon made his first excursion to Grandma and Papa's house. And I discovered that it's extremely difficult to get the camera going with two children in tow. But the lack of documentation just means we were having a great time.

Jed learned that if you yell, "HEY! HEY, dranma [Grandma]" followed by whatever your heart desires (food, drink, attention to what one is doing, help, etc.) you will receive it promptly. His other two top delights were my old Matchbox Car collection and the gas logs. Thanks to Papa's stealthy use of the gas logs' remote control, Jed now believes that Papa can snap his fingers and cause a fire to ignite and that Jed has the lung-power to extinguish a fire in the fireplace. (Some ad executive must have heard about Jed and the gas logs and quickly cranked out this Super Bowl commercial. Although I really appreciate the subtly of this kid's reaction, I have to say that Jed was a bit more animated.)

My top delight of the trip was Grandma's willingness to sleep with Macon. She did all the overnight feedings and she really charmed him: last night, he ate only once between 7 p.m. and 7:30 a.m.!

Between blowing out gas logs and mining Grandma's toy chest, we made time to visit with Ellie and Eli, our friend LeAnn, and Mr. Lattimore, who is the minister that married Eric and me.

We were sad to leave, especially because Grandma and Papa's neighbor started building a new garage this morning, which meant a back hoe and cement mixer were operating in very close proximity, but we had a lot of fun and are already looking forward to playing with the Matchbox Cars again.

Ellie and Jed

me and Ellie

Grandma, Jed and Winston out for a walk

Waiting for a transfer truck to pass so we can wave and, fingers crossed, score a toot from the horn!

It only took a couple of big waves for Jed to say, "Jed too hot."

happy two months!

Macon crossed the two month mark on January 30 and had his two-month check-up yesterday. After starting out at a skinny 6.5 pounds and 19.5 inches, Macon has made up for lost time. As of yesterday, he is 23 inches long (50th percentile), 12 lbs, 6.5 oz (70th percentile), and his head is 16 inches around (only the 70th percentile, compared to Jed's 95th in this category).

You can count the fat rolls for yourself!

Today, we're heading to Grandma and Papa's house for a long weekend. Look for new pictures early next week.

i only have eyes for you

It's rare that one witnesses the actual moment a love affair begins, but here we have it . . .