Samantha: 53 Months, Week 3
Aedan: 18 Months, Week 1 (Week 79)
Tuesday is preschool story time at the library, so we decided to go back again since Aedan did so well the week before. They had special Halloween songs and stories, so that made it fun as well. Then, the kids just had a good time playing with the toys in the children's department. Samantha even got to do a monster scavenger hunt around the library to decipher a secret code in order to get a prize. She picked a sucker, and the kind librarians even let Aedan pick one as well so that he wouldn't feel left out. The kids wanted to eat them right away, of course, so I let them sit at the table and enjoy their treat.
We had a good morning together, but once home, Samantha faded fast. She had no appetite for lunch and said she didn't feel good. After lunch she just went and laid in her bed rather than playing, which is totally unlike her. She felt hot as I put her down for her nap, so I checked her temperature. It was 101.9 so I gave her Tylenol and put her to bed, hoping that she would take a nice long nap and feel better when she woke up. Ben and I felt sorry for her getting sick again because this was now the third time she'd gotten sick in the last month or so. It seems like she just keeps coming down with things, and we are afraid that her lack of sleep is lowering her defense to fight things off. She has been having more trouble going to sleep at night lately, staying up for at least an hour past when we put her to bed, on average. We are afraid that she is just not getting enough sleep, but there's nothing we can do to make her sleep. It's hard to know what to do with Samantha's naps sometimes because she really has been doing well napping for quite some time. She is tired by nap time and rarely fights going to sleep. She will nap for an hour to an hour and fifteen minutes, on average. I'm afraid that if she didn't nap she would be super crabby by dinnertime. Also, there would be no guarantee that by not napping she would go to sleep better at night and then end up getting more sleep overall. It's hard to say, but Ben and I are more and more tempted to try cutting out her nap for a few days to see if that makes any difference in her nighttime sleep. We know it's rare that someone her age is even still napping consistently, so I am grateful for that, but we are getting tired of having to go up to her room almost every night to tell her to be quiet and go to sleep.
That evening was supposed to be Trunk or Treat at OBF; however, it just rained and rained all that afternoon and evening because of the hurricane, so the event ended up being cancelled. I was actually grateful for the night to just rest and be at home together. It's hard with Mondays and Wednesdays being late days with Ben teaching until 5:20 and not getting home until about 5:45, cutting our evenings short. Then on Tuesdays we usually have to rush off to community group shortly after Ben gets home from campus. Plus, Samantha was still not feeling very well, so it was a good night to stay in anyways.
After dinner we decided to carve pumpkins since Halloween was in a few days. We spread out towels on the kitchen floor to help contain the mess. Ben cut off the tops, and we began cleaning out the insides. Aedan was very interested in the pumpkin goop and enjoyed scooping it up with his spoon and playing with it. Samantha is still very sensitive about textures and getting her hands messy, so it was hard for her to really clean out the pumpkins. She kept trying to wipe off her hands every time they got pumpkin goop on them, even though it would just happen again right away. Regardless, we had a fun time cleaning out our pumpkins, getting them ready to carve.
Samantha continued to not feel well overnight on Tuesday and into Wednesday morning. She was still running a fever, and it would shoot right back up as soon as the medicine began to wear off. She showed no other symptoms, just a stuffy nose, so we weren't quite sure what was going on, but we knew it wouldn't be good for her to go to preschool the next day, which also meant that I couldn't take Bennett like I usually do on Wednesdays. Also, Samantha had picture day at preschool on Wednesday, and I hated for her to miss her pictures and miss out on being in the class picture. I called the parks and rec office that morning to talk to Miss Betsy and see if I could still bring Samantha just for pictures and then take her back home. She said that would be fine, so we had breakfast and headed to preschool for pictures at 9:45. It was Samantha's turn as soon as we got there, and then she joined in for the class picture and we were out of there by 10:00. It worked out perfectly, and I'm so glad that Samantha could be a part of it still, especially since all of her other friends were there that day. I was sad that Samantha had to miss another day of preschool, though. Last year Samantha did not get as sick as she has so far this year. In fact, the only days of preschool she missed last year was the week we were gone on vacation in Disney World. This is now Samantha's second day of missing preschool due to sickness. I hope that this just means that she is getting all her sickness out of the way rather than a sign for things to come once winter and all the germs really arrive.
We went back home and just rested at home. I let Samantha watch the rest of Shrek the Third, and we even saw Uncle Timmy's name at the end of the credits. She thought that was pretty interesting to see his name on the screen.
It's always hard dealing with Aedan when Samantha isn't feeling well because he wants to play with her and wrestle with her just like normal, and he doesn't understand that she doesn't feel like playing with him like that. Samantha could still play, but after about half an hour she would get tired and worn out and have to lay back down again. Again, this is very unlike her, and I was starting to get worried that she might having something more than a cold and a fever. She took a short nap, but she woke up singing, "I don't know if I can wake up yet," to the tune of Happy Days. However, she still was acting very lethargic and mopey, complaining of her throat hurting. I looked in her throat and it looked pretty red with some white spots. Plus, her fever was still super high, so I decided at the last minute to try to get her into the Miami Employee Health Center. I called and they said I could still bring her in, even though we would get there just about when they'd be closing. Even though we rushed out the door as fast as we could, once we got there, we discovered that the nurse practitioner had already left, so it was just a wasted trip.
Ben met us at the health center to take Aedan home, which ended up not being necessary. We debated whether or not to take Samantha to an urgent care clinic down in Ross, just in case there really was something going on for which she could receive antibiotics. We didn't want Samantha to have a rough night of little sleep if she wasn't feeling well. In fact, we were on our way to the clinic when Samantha started singing and acting more like herself in the back seat, so I called Ben and we decided to just wait to take her back the the Miami Health Center first thing the next morning rather than pay to go to an urgent care clinic. Giving her medicine made her more comfortable and brought her fever down, so we figured if we could manage her symptoms for the night, she would be okay. She slept okay that night, waking up a couple times coughing and needing a drink, and one time because she needed to go to the bathroom. When Daddy took her to the bathroom in the middle of the night, he said she felt normal but just a little sweaty, so her fever must have broken during the night.
Even though Samantha's fever was pretty much gone on Thursday morning, she was still pretty congested and didn't look like she felt very well with white skin and glassy eyes, so I decided to keep our 9:30 appointment at the Miami Employee Health Center. The nurse did a rapid strep test that came back negative, but the nurse practitioner checked her mouth, nose, and ears and decided that Samantha had sinusitis and an ear infection in her right ear. They prescribed amoxicillin for her and gave her approval to go to her preschool Halloween party the next day as long as she started her antibiotic that day and her fever didn't come back. So we then went off to Kroger to pick up her medicine and get a few other odds and ends before going back home.
Samantha was a lot more chipper on Thursday, acting more like herself, and was more willing to play with Aedan rather than just lay around all the time. She just was still very congested, and you could tell that she had a hard time breathing well. Again, at nap time, she took a short nap, waking up after only half an hour saying that she took a nap and was awake. I hoped that she would sleep longer considering her sleep the night before was so interrupted. However, she did sleep in until almost 8:00 that morning too, so we can't expect her to sleep too long. We thought about possibly going out to Chipotle for dinner on Thursday night since we missed out on the Uptown trick or treating on Wednesday night due to Samantha feeling sick and having a fever. However, Samantha was still not feeling great on Thursday night, so we decided it would be best just to stay home and let her continue to recover so that way she had a greater chance of feeling well enough to go to preschool on Friday morning. In some ways, Samantha getting sick was a blessing to me because it forced us to stay home and relax for most of the week. Our evenings together at home were much more fun, just spending quality time together, rather than rushing out to do this or that. I need to keep this in mind more, that we don't always have to be going out and doing things, but sometimes just need to rest and rejuvenate at home together. Samantha decided she wanted to play the fishing game, so here is a picture and video of the kids playing together. :)
We were so glad that Samantha was on antibiotics, that her fever was gone, and that she was starting to act more like herself. Unless her fever came back overnight or the next morning, we were going to let her go to her preschool Halloween party. She slept better that night but was still really congested. Ben and I enjoyed listening to her breathe and snore loudly that evening as we graded his tests together. I just had to make a recording of her monitor because the breathing was so cute and endearing.
Friday was a busy, busy day. Samantha had her Halloween party at preschool, so she was super excited to dress up as Wonder Woman. She was starting to feel better, but she was still a little bit lethargic and pretty congested. Here she is at preschool that morning. She was too busy looking around at all her friends dressed up to look at the camera for a picture.
After picking up Samantha from preschool, our busy day wasn't even over yet because Aedan had his 18 month check-up at 1:15 with Dr. Buerk. We went back to campus to eat lunch with Daddy so that he could come to the appointment with us and help me handle both kids while also being able to actually talk to the doctor, ask her questions, and hear what she had to say. Samantha did a pretty good job sitting quietly while we talked to the doctor. She was tired from a full morning at preschool and still being under the weather, so that helped with her behavior.
The first thing they do is check weight and height. Aedan was 26 pounds, 11 ounces and int he 82nd percentile. He was 33.5 inches long and in the 85th percentile. His head circumference was 19.25 inches and in the 89th percentile. It's funny because I noticed that a year ago, when he was 6 months old, he weighed 22.5 pounds. It's so funny how babies, especially breastfed babies, plump up really quickly, and then they level off, grow longer and leaner, and lose a lot of their baby rolls. We had a few questions about how Aedan chews his food and then spits it back out, sometimes even eating the regurgitated food again. However, she said that was not anything to be concerned about, but just that he's exploring his food and its texture. She said some kids will eat things like dirt and then not eat food, and that's when it becomes an issue. We also asked about pacifier usage, which she recommended that it's easiest to get rid of pacifiers before a child turns two. However, she said that it really isn't a problem that he just uses it when he sleeps, and that it's teaching him how to self-soothe. She liked our idea of putting it away in the helmet after his pacifier time is over, knowing that that is where it is kept during the day. She discussed some about dealing with temper tantrums and about the best way to read books to him at this age. We asked about his verbal development and she said that they should know 10 words by 18 months and 50 by 2 years. These words can just be even consonant sounds that he strings together when he is talking about something in particular, and he uses the same sounds whenever he talks about it. Ben and I were trying to count how many words he says, so here is our list we can think of so far: mama, dada, uh oh, yes, no, Mantha (Samantha), nigh nigh (night night), da duh (all done), yah yah (meow), dug dug (dog), dah (ball), suks (socks), shh (shoes), tsh (teeth), puh-puh (poo-poo), lella (Ella, our neighbor), ck, ck (yuck), tash (trash), is dis (What is this?), ai yai yai, dat (that), and ah, Ah! (for when he wants to go outside). I'm sure there are more that I can't think of right now, but most of the time he can communicate with us pretty well and we can tell what he wants. He also knows the signs for more, please, I'm sorry, and thank you.
Now, back to the appointment. Aedan was a little monster in the room, walking back and forth, getting into everything, tearing the paper off that they use to cover the exam table, crinkling it up, and then throwing it in the trash can. Aedan got two shots, one being a flu shot, and he cried but it didn't take him long to get over it. On our way out of the office, Dr. Buerk commented on how lovely our family was and how much she enjoyed watching our interactions with one another, each of us doing a job to help the family out, taking care of Aedan, and interacting with the doctor. She was also very impressed with how well Samantha did with Aedan, how she talked to him, and how she watched out for him. I think it's pretty special when others see traits in our family that are the very traits we are trying to instill.
After dropping Daddy off and getting the kids in bed for nap time, I was finally able to relax and take a break. We decided to go out to dinner that night since we hadn't been able to all week due to Samantha's sickness. Our plan was to go to Chipotle, but when we got there, the line was the longest we've ever seen it before. There was no way we were going to wait in that line, so we walked down to Fiesta Charra instead. Really, the kids like that restaurant just as much, if not more, because they get more food: a large portion of rice and refried beans as well as two quesadillas each. Our kids LOVE Mexican food, and they devoured it that night. They could probably eat rice and beans every night, for it's one of their favorites. We got Aedan his own kid's meal, and it's a good thing because he ate almost the whole thing except for a little bit of the edge of a quesadilla. We had a fun dinner out together as a family, and Ben even commented afterwards that it really felt relaxing because we used going out as a special treat, rather than just an excuse when we are feeling lazy and don't want to cook. We were looking forward to it for awhile, and that made it really special. Our attempts to save money and cut back on the number of times we eat out has really been working, and we enjoy the time we do eat out all the more. Here are some pictures of the kids looking in a store window Uptown after dinner that evening.
Saturday was Halloween and we had plans to go trick-or-treating that night, so our morning was spent just relaxing at home. We woke up with the kids, took our time getting ready, and just enjoyed our time together. The kids got to play their favorite game with Daddy which is affectionately known as "the ball game." We have just recently started putting the gate across the top of the stairs when we play so that way we don't have to worry about Aedan accidentally toppling over and tumbling down the stairs. They love sending the balls down on the railing as well. I love the joy and the giggles they get out of a simple family game like this. :)
This next video may be one of my all time favorites. You can see that Daddy accidentally hits Aedan in the head with a ball when he is throwing it back up. Aedan realizes that it kind of hurt, so he drops his ball and rubs his head a bit. Samantha sees that he has an owie so she runs up to give him a kiss where he is rubbing. After that simple kiss from his big sister, all is well in the world, and he goes right back on to playing. She is so sweet and sensitive with him (most of the time), and it just melts my heart to see their affection for one another.
After getting the kids dressed, I decided it would be fun for them to paint for a little while. I carried the easel out into the kitchen so that any spills would be easy to clean up. I put paper on both sides so that both Samantha and Aedan could paint at the same time. Aedan mostly did down strokes all in the same place on the paper. However, he had a great time being a part of the painting, and I love how he continues to use his left hand for everything except throwing a ball!
Samantha is much more particular about her art, and she loves to draw people these days. This is a portrait of our family: Aedan, Samantha, Mommy, and Daddy, from left to right. Roscoe is the thing with lots of legs at the bottom, and the blue at the top is the sky. It was a fun little activity for them to do together. I definitely need to let Aedan participate in things like this more often now that he is getting older and is more cooperative.
One of Aedan's favorite activities was the corn hole game. It was hard for him to want to take turns as he just wanted to throw the bean bags in over and over again.
We even met up with our friends, the Kidd Family, and Samantha enjoyed playing with Daniel for awhile.
Samantha even got a chance to dance with her Daddy before it was time to head out.
We then went over to the Chagdes' house for dinner before trick-or-treating. As we were getting the kids dressed and ready, they even got the chance to hand out some candy to kids that came by the house. Last year on Halloween no one came by our own house since we are too far out in the country with not many kids around us, so we decided it would be a lot more fun for Samantha to go to a neighborhood with a friend and go door-to-door. We planned on just going to the trick-or-treating Uptown on Wednesday, but since that didn't work out, we wanted to make sure we got another time to go. Samantha had a lot of fun walking around the neighborhood with Isaac, holding his hands, jumping in the leaves, and collecting lots of good candy. Aedan wasn't so sure about the whole trick-or-treating thing because he didn't understand that he couldn't eat every piece of candy that he was given right away. We gave him some to eat, but we didn't want him to eat too much and feel sick. Towards the end of our time out, it was getting dark and Aedan was getting extremely fussy. Nothing was making him happy, whether he was walking on his own, riding in the stroller, or eating candy. We think he must have been feeling this way due to his shots on Friday afternoon because it was just so unlike him to cry so much. However, despite that, we had a fun night with friends and have enough candy to last us for quite a while now.
On Saturday night Daylight Savings Time ended, which to non-parents means an extra hour of sleep. Ben and I weren't counting on it, we just expected our kids to wake up at 6:30 rather than 7:30. However, we must have tired them out on Saturday night, as they slept in that morning, actually giving Ben and me and extra hour of sleep. Yay! Then, it was off to church. We were up and ready, so we went to first service, giving us more time to play at home before lunch. Here is a video and some cute pictures that Ben took of Aedan that afternoon. The video is of Aedan reading a book, babbling and turning the pages like he is actually trying to read. He loves to look at books and have books read to him. Before we put him to bed at night, he will always pick out a book for us to read to him, and he has a few favorites like Mr. Paint Pig's ABCs, Five Tumbling Tigers, and now the Baby Animals book.
After church on Sunday we were invited to dinner at the Kidd's house that night, so we went over at 5:00 so that the kids could play outside in their backyard before it got dark. Then, we enjoyed some yummy chili, good conversation, and our kids got to play together inside. It was so nice of them to invite us over, and we will definitely have to have them over to our house next time. Samantha and Daniel really enjoy playing together, and Olivia is warming up to us as we are around her more and more.
We had such a nice weekend together with lots of family time, which is great for my soul. Ben has been doing a wonderful job of giving us his time on the weekends, even though he always has work to be doing, and I really appreciate it. I look forward to every weekend.
Monday was a pretty normal day of Samantha going off to preschool and Aedan going with Andrea to play with Bennett. It seems like everybody was finally well again, and I looked forward to having a normal week with our usual routine. I was able to go grocery shopping and finish cleaning the house that morning, which is not the most exciting thing to do with my free morning, but it is a lot easier to do when I am by myself. Then that evening, once Daddy got home from campus and we had our homemade pizza for dinner, we started seeing the real results of daylight savings time ending. It was dark by the time dinner was over, meaning that we couldn't go out and play like we usually do. :( We may have to start eating dinner a little later in the evening so that the kids can have a chance to get out and play before dinner, while the weather is still decent. Even though we couldn't get out, we still had fun playing the ball game inside. This will probably become a nightly ritual once the weather gets colder.
As we were getting the kids ready for bed that night, Daddy was tickling Aedan while he was changing his diaper, and I just had to take a video of it. He has the most infectious laugh, one that you can't help but smile and laugh along with.
(Blog about October 27-November 2, 2015)
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