(lots of) January Pics

First - a couple of cute pictures taken by Cesi of our totally recovered, happy, smiley Isaac. I didn't realize the ER blog was so sad, so I want to make sure everyone knows he recovered quickly (and then generously shared his bug with his parents and subsequently his amazingly generous Aunt Rachael who bravely entered our infected house to help us with Isaac when we were moaning on the couch!) In any event, after gallons of Clorox and numerous loads of wash, I think we have kicked the bug from our house...

You can see he's back to full-strength here...

These are some pictures from the past few weeks (pre-hospital). First, to show how curious and adventurous our little man is -- he cannot be stopped by closed doors, childproofed plugs, or putting things above his height. He loves sweeping the house and climbing in and on and through everything he can find.

We've had lots of fun playdates over the last few weeks - with Ian and Charlie, and Colin, including disastrous attempts at civilized dinners WITH the little men (bad idea if you want to actually talk, much better to get a babysitter and eat adults-only!!) that culminated in group baths.

Isaac also had a really fun Daddy and Me Saturday (while I had a much needed spa and shopping day), including playtime at the park and library storytime and crafts.

For the ultimate playdate we had brunch for all the yoga babies on MLK day. They really are playing together and fighting over toys and it's lots of fun to watch. We could not be more excited to go through this all over again together :)

Finally, we caved to all the comments about our shaggy-haired baby (who was continually pushing the hair out of his eyes) and got him a haircut. He was a good sport, even though they cut it a little too short --more traumatic for Bill than Isaac, who was just psyched to eat his first-ever lollipop!

First ER trip(s)

So we have had quite an...adventurous week. Cesi got sick over the weekend and couldn't work on Tuesday so Isaac went to daycare on Tuesday. He had a great time, and we were grateful they had space so we didn't have to take a day off of work. However, it appears that Isaac picked up a bit of a stomach bug while he was there and the fun began on Wednesday morning. Cesi texted me that Isaac threw up but seemed totally happy and fine, so she just cleaned it up and they went to the library and on with their day. He ate a big lunch and had no other problems the whole day...until we got home. Isaac was not so into eating dinner, but drank a lot of milk, so we didn't think anything of it. Did the whole bedtime routine and noticed he was a bit cranky but otherwise fine. Until he threw up on our bed...and then all over the carpet in his room. This continued for the next several hours -- four sets of sheets, five pairs of pajamas, multiple carpet shampoos...and at midnight we decided he was in rough shape he couldn't keep anything, even water down, wouldn't stop crying, and started running a temperature. So we woke up the doctor (first time!!) and she said take him to the ER. The rookies that we are, we took him to GW - BIG MISTAKE!! First of all, it was like being in an inner city waiting room, they were overcrowded and did not tell us they don't have a pediatric unit (what do we know?). So we waited there for several hours getting more and more frustrated, Isaac seemed to be doing a little better and I thought the lack of sleep was worse than the upset stomach, so we gave him a few sips of water and he seemed to keep it down, and at 2:30 I asked Bill to get the car so we could go home. He did, we strapped Isaac in... and he threw up everywhere. So...back into the waiting room. Finally around 4am they took us into a room, but still didn't see a doctor until about 5. They decided (shocker) he was dehydrated and needed fluids - but after several (torturous) attempts, they could not get an IV line in him (I guess baby veins are hard, and dehydrated baby veins are impossible) so they gave him some anti-nausea medication and a bottle of pedialyte - yup, we waited 6 hours in the ER for pedialyte. Ridiculous. He did keep it down though, and seemed to be doing better, so we all went home around 7am and slept until 11, when he woke up with it coming out the other end. Needless to say, a few more hours of both and we went to our doctor who sent us immediately to Children's National Medical Center (or as we now refer to it, Heaven). Though we did end up staying overnight, the experience was NIGHT AND DAY different, they were amazing with Isaac, they did everything they could to make him and us comfortable, he got two huge stuffed animals, lots of toys and crayons to play with, and a big tv with cartoons playing. He was really lethargic by then, and just slept on my lap for the 2 hours we waited in the waiting room. They got the IV in him in about 2 seconds, and after about an hour he started looking and feeling better. He still wasn't keeping anything down though, so they decided to keep him on the fluids all night. I slept in a recliner, Bill slept in a sleeping bag on the floor, and Isaac switched off between sleeping on me and in the crib. Overall, not a night we would want to relive again soon, but if we ever need to go to the hospital again, we are heading straight to Children's. Here are some pictures of him - starting out asleep on our doctor's table (I told you he was lethargic) and right after they put in the IV, and then us entertaining him with the toys in the room, Elmo on Bill's phone, and whatever other props Bill could find in the room.

Pre-nap calisthenics

Isaac has been doing a lot less sleeping these days. We put him down for bed between 7:30 and 8 and he spends the next hour or so talking to himself, laughing, running laps in his crib, jumping up and down, and just generally not sleeping. He's also waking up around 5:30 and playing in his crib for a while before we grab him at 7. Finally, he's down to one nap, which if you catch it in the window is 2 hours, but he spends a lot of time convincing us he is not yet ready for bed before he actually goes down. Thankfully this lack of sleep has not had much of an impact on his cheerful disposition, but I'm waiting for the other shoe to drop...

Cesi videotaped his dramatic pre-nap show yesterday and I couldn't resist posting it. Enjoy :)

Christmas & California vacation

As with the rest of the holidays this year, we had a somewhat unorthodox Christmas. We went to California to visit Aunt Cherie and Aunt Barbie and spend some quality time with Grandma Roberta's family. Isaac was the center of attention and had a great through the whole 8 days - although it took Isaac until day 7 to figure out that 4am was not actually 7am, so we had a lot of early mornings (and in turn a lot of early evenings too). On the plus side, we were able to transition him successfully to one nap a day, which makes life a lot easier. In any event, we spent the first few days exploring southern California and hanging out at the house with the fam. We even took a quick jaunt to the beach on Christmas day after opening a ridiculous number of presents (couldn't do that in NJ!!).

We also took field trips to Newport Beach, to Fashion Island (where Isaac rode a Merry-Go-Round for the first time), and checked out all the cool toddler parks around Irvine. Isaac loved riding to the parks in style in his cousin Alex's radio flyer. Toward the end of the week Bill and I took a much needed mini-vacation to Laguna Beach and left Isaac with the Andersons and his Aunts and Cousins for two nights (my longest time away to date). It was a bit traumatic leaving, but we all had a great time!!

Finally, just a couple of cute pictures from Isaac's BFF Colin's birthday party - we can't believe Colin is already one!! Isaac had lots of fun helping Colin open his presents and was lucky enough to test some of them out too! Happy Birthday Colin!!