Wednesday, February 24, 2010

Sad face :(

Is this just not the saddest thing??!!??  Breaks my heart.  But it's getting some much needed medicine into his sweet little lungs and doing a lot of good.  This was after he became transfixed with his Baby Einstein video.  Praises be for educational DVDs in times like these! 

Thankfully he's feeling better and seems to be on the mend.  Thank you for your prayers!! 

Tuesday, February 23, 2010

Sinus suckers...

I've hit a point in Isaac's life where I'm OK with him eating something that has fallen on the ground, not freaking out when he finds one of the dog toys and starts to chew on it, or picks up the side of the rug and, for one reason or another, wants to put it in his mouth.  Don't get me wrong, I take whatever he has put in his mouth and say, "Ick!  That's gross!" and not encourage him chewing on everything he finds, but I don't throw a little nutty like I used to.  I think every mother hits a point where they go, "Ehh, it's fine.  He's building immunity..." and we move on. 

Thankfully Isaac has been quite the healthy kid and we haven't had to face much sickness in his first year of life.  So when he came down with a monster cold I thought, "Well, we had it coming." That was two weeks ago.  Over the weekend he started coughing...all...night...long.  And it wasn't that, "Dang, I have a tickle in the back of my throat" cough.  Oh no, no, no.  It was the "GGGGRRRAAAAAAA!!!!  I'm coming out of the depths of your son's toenails" kind of cough. 

In steps our amazing, I can't say enough good things about her, Dr. Jennifer Cox of Mercy Children's Clinic in Franklin, TN.  I called her last week and she said that if he doesn't get better over the next few days then we need to make an appointment.  The weekend hit and, wohoooo boy, did that cough turn it's ugly head and say ROAR! 

I called for an appointment yesterday and found out the earliest they could get us in was three days later.  I guess every child in middle Tennessee is sick at the same time.  So I called Dr. Cox, explained his symptoms and she said, "Yeah, he needs to get in right away." So off to Franklin we go...

Two hours, a breathing treatment, and a screaming child later, we find out he has RSV (respiratory syncytial virus).  Thankfully it is treatable and hopefully he is on the tail end of it.  They sent us home with a nebulizer and we have to give him breathing treatments every 4-6 hours for the next 48 hours.  If you hear a pissed off kid screaming, don't worry, it's just Isaac throwing a fit from his breathing treatment.  I think we can safely say he doesn't like things strapped to his head. 

All in all, I am so thankful for loving and caring medical doctors and health care.  Seriously thankful. 

Thursday, February 18, 2010

And so it begins....

Here we go.  I'm going to say it.  It's here.  It's starting to show its ugly face. We have gradually entered into an area of...dare I say it...temper tantrums.  Yes, one year old temper tantrums.  Truth be told, it's nothing horribly bad nor a phase where I want to pull every last hair out of my head, but I see Isaac starting to generate some genuine feelings about certain situations.  Sometimes I just tell him, "Little dude, it's really not that bad.  You will live.  I promise." And other times I just laugh.  Like any good mother would. 

It started with Isaac wanting to chew on his nightlight.  It's actually a very cool nightlight and I don't blame him one bit for wanting to carry it around and consider it a very non-cuddly little friend, but we draw the line at him chewing on it.  I give him three, "Isaac, that's not for babies.  We don't chew on nightlights." He generally looks at me, puts it down then immediately picks it back up again, and starts to put it in his mouth.  Like he's thinking, "Oh yeah, she's forgotten about that by now." I say this again and we go through the situation again.  The third time I pull it out of his mouth, which irks him and he begins to cry like it's the end of the world and someone just told him that graham crackers aren't an actual food group. 

He snaps out of it pretty quickly and moves on to something else.  But it's happening a few times a day and I know this is just the beginning.  Thankfully he is an overall very happy and joyful kid, so I focus on that when "Mr. Nasty" starts to emerge.  It's an inevitable aspect of kid-dom.  Lucky us. 

Monday, February 15, 2010

Teething rail swords...

When we found out we were having a boy, obviously I was beyond excited and so thrilled for such an amazing gift.  A son. A beautiful baby boy.  Then flashbacks of my little brother in his random stages of boy-dom filled my head and I started to think through how to completely pad our house down with foam padding and bubble wrap.  If he is anything like my brother, heaven help us, he will be...active and quite boisterous. 

Although he looks exactly like my brother when he smiles, I don't think we have a Ross Jr. on our hands.  But he does hold a sliver of his uncles mischief and humor, that's for sure.

When we found out we were pregnant with Isaac we obviously went looking for a crib.  Being huge IKEA fans (and the fact that Marcus' gorgeous sister works there) we knew we wanted to get the crib from there.  We found one that turned into a toddler bed, which we loved, and it came with a "teething strip" that went along the top rail of the crib.  Perfect!  Now, I'm not sure if every crib comes with that, but I thought that was brilliant.

Anyway, fast forward to Isaac's crazy teething explosion (he's a year old and has nine teeth) and you find that teething guard being put to good use.  Trouble is that he found a way to get his little teeth under the part that hooks around the rail and he pulled it up.  No harm done...we pushed it back into place and we are good to go.

Last week I put Isaac down for his nap and, like usual, he plays and sings away for about 10-15 minutes before settling down for his nap.  But about 5 minutes later, I hear this tapping sound.  Tap...tap...tap.  Then it got a little louder...and then I hear things being knocked down.  Now, mind you, we have moved everything WELL out of his Go-Go-Gadget arm reach so this made me very curious and I went upstairs to check. 

I open the door to see that he had completely pulled off the full length of the teething guard rail and was using it as a sword to swipe things off of his bookshelf.  He was holding it in his chubby little hands, smiling and laughing like crazy.  Of course I started laughing with him and though, "Ooohhh boy, do we have a live one on our hands." 

Monday, February 1, 2010

Aaaannnnd, we're back.....

If I could say "crazy" in several languages right now I would.  But since I can only speak elementary Spanish that I learned on Sesame Street I'll have to stick with English.  So yes, the past two weeks have been nutty insane, but it's been a good nutty insane. 

The biggest news is that ISAAC HENRY IS A YEAR OLD!!!  My sweet baby boy turned one on January 27th and I cry every time I think about it.  I'm so proud, in awe, and insanely in love with this kid that I am about to pop.  We celebrated on his actual birthday with his own little cake and we were going to have some friends over for a little party on Saturday, but due to the seven inches of snow and layers of ice under that, we had to cancel.  I was soooo bummed and quite sad.  I know Isaac doesn't know the difference, but dang, it's his FIRST birthday!  We celebrated and dug into another cake, which didn't bum him out in the least.  This was his first experience with sugar and it's safe to say he is a fan.

Unlike other kids and their first cake experience, Isaac isn't a "dig his hands in and smoosh it in his mouth" type of guy.  Nope.  He's a "bend down and eat it like a dog" kind of kid.  He started doing this when he couldn't pick up his pears at lunch one day.  He continues the tradition with his cake and, boy oh boy, was he proud of himself after every bite.  He loved every minute of it.

  

My Mom, brother and sister-in-law made their way down to Nashville from Iowa for Isaac's birthday it was sooooo good to see them.  Sadly my dad had to work and he was greatly missed.  We did get to see him for a few hours though, which was fantastic but waaayyy too short.  He drove my mom down to Paducah, KY and Marcus, Isaac and I met them there to pick her up.  Isaac had his first Cracker Barrel experience and is officially addicted to biscuits.  Isaac adores his grandparents but has a special place in his heart for my dad, which warms my heart like no other.  We got some amazingly sweet pictures of them.  Uff...for sweet. 



In true Hanson fashion, we can't seem to have Mom and Dad down to visit without some crazy big project to tackle while they are here.  This trip was no different and Mom and I finally painted the entryway.  Only took seven years to actually get it painted.  When Marcus moved in the painting wasn't completely finished, so he put that on his "someday I'll get to that list" which has since grown to more than a mile long.

Right before we got married the main floor toilet overflowed and leaked down one of the walls in the entryway, which caused paint to bubble and drywall to break apart.  Three years ago Marcus fixed the hole in the wall, added a doorbell, which required more drywall patching and an even greater need for paint.  Paint was purchased four months ago and was FINALLY used on Monday.  Gracious.  It looks fantastic and I am SOOOOOO beyond thankful for my Mom and her mad crazy painting skills.  Next up on the to-do list, the garage.  You can start praying for me now.

 
 

I wish I had some before and after shots of the entryway, but I'm a moron and forgot to take pictures.  The "after" is much better anyway. 

So there you have it!  The last two weeks at casa dePaula.  Posts will be more regular now that we are back to our regularly scheduled programming.  Love to all!!