Cubs Game, Owen's First Ear Infection, and Phasing Out Naps

Samantha: 84 Months, Week 2
Aedan: 50 Months, Week 1
Owen: 8 Months, Week 2 (Week 37)

Sunday, May 27th was our last full day in Chicago, and we had plans to go to church with my family that morning after eating breakfast at the hotel and giving Owen a quick nap before heading out. Here are Daddy, Samantha, and Aedan hanging out in the lobby and making silly faces that morning while waiting for me to feed Owen.

When we got to church and started checking our kids in, Owen felt a little warm to me, but it was also going to be in the 90s again that day, so everyone was a little warmer than usual. However, in the middle of the sermon, we got a message from the nursery saying that Owen was very upset and we needed to pick him up. Ben offered to go get him since we were visiting my family, and soon after, he texted me saying he thought Owen had a fever. Sure enough, when I felt his temples and back, he was definitely hot to the touch. I felt so bad that he wasn't feeling well, especially with all the traveling we were doing, it's hard to have a sick baby.

We went back to Christy's house that afternoon for lunch and time to hang out and play. Owen was pretty tired and not feeling well, so we gave him some medicine to help his fever, fed him some lunch, and I nursed him and put him to bed. He took a fairly decent nap, especially for being in a new place and not feeling well, so I was encouraged that maybe it was just a strange thing, or a side effect from being out all day at the zoo the previous day, and not a sign that he was getting sick with something.

It was good to spend time with my family that afternoon. My Grandma and her husband, Don, even came to spend the afternoon with us. Even though I got to see them for a little while on Friday night when they came to visit me at our hotel and take me out for ice cream, it was good to be able to see them again and for them to see our kids. They had only seen Owen once in person, at Christmastime. We let the big kids stay up and play together with Brielle and all the fun toys in the Clemons' house. It's always fun to get the kids together and watch them play.

Once it reached about 4:00, we said our good-byes and headed back to the hotel. My parents had agreed to babysit our kids for us at the hotel so that I could take Ben to a Cubs game at Wrigley Field as part of his birthday present. We hadn't been to Wrigley in years, so Ben was super excited about this game. We were glad that we were going to a night game because it would have been pretty warm going to a day game and sitting in the hot sun. After getting everything set up in the hotel room for bed time and giving last minute instructions to my parents, Ben and I went of on our date to the Cubs game. 

We drove downtown and parked in the remote parking lot where a bus then took us to the game, so it was a really convenient way to get there with relatively little stress. We got there a little before 6:30, with plenty of time to walk around for awhile, get some pictures, get some food, and find our seats. We splurged a little on some good seats down the third base line, and we had a really good view of the field.

Here are some pictures of my happy hubby in his happy place. :)

The game was really good, and the Cubs won 8 to 3. It was cool to be at a baseball game at night, I loved that Ben was so happy to be watching the Cubs at Wrigley, and it was a really fun date night where we got to spend quality time with just the two of us. Here are some pictures Ben took during the game.

Here is a video of the 7th inning stretch.

Here are a couple videos of the end of the game, the last out, and the crowd singing "Go, Cubs, Go" after a Cubs win.

And here we are leaving the ballpark at 10:45. We took a few more pictures as we walked around the stadium, and then we found the line to take the buses back to the parking lot. We had to wait for quite a long time, but they had plenty of buses lined up to take people. It was a fun night out with my hubby.

We ended up getting back to the hotel around midnight, and then we talked with my parents for just a few minutes to get the report on the evening.  Owen didn't want to eat any of his baby food and got pretty fussy for them, and he didn't drink very much of his bottle either. However, my mom was still able to get him to sleep, which was good. They said Samantha and Aedan were a little wild early on, Samantha ate well, Aedan not so much, but that sounds pretty typical. They were a little goofy getting ready for bed, which again, is pretty typical, but they went to sleep well, and they didn't hear any noise from them. We had a long day and Aedan didn't nap, so I'm sure they were both tired and ready for sleep that night. We were very thankful for my parents being willing to watch the kids for us in our hotel so that Ben and I could enjoy this great night out at a baseball game. We don't get to do stuff like this very often, and we had a great time.

Owen was in his pack and play in our bedroom so that my parents could hang out in the living room, so we had to move his monitor, the sound machine, and his pack and play back over to the living room before we could go to bed. I figured we would probably wake him up when we moved his bed, so I decided to just pick him up and try to nurse him before going to bed myself, especially since he didn't eat very much for dinner, I figured he would be waking up hungry soon anyways. He was totally passed out in his bed, and he even stayed asleep in my arms after I picked him up, cuddling into my shoulder for awhile. He nursed pretty well and went back to sleep, but it definitely wasn't the greatest night. He woke up burning hot after a couple of hours, so I gave him some medicine, tried to nurse him again, and ended up spending an hour trying to get him back to sleep. Then, Aedan was up talking at 5:45, waking Samantha up, and then the rest of the family after that. Ben and I were both exhausted that morning and still had a long day of driving all the way back to Sault Ste. Marie.

Once we were all up for the day, I could tell that Owen was just not feeling well. He was tired and fussy, and we hoped that he would take a good nap once we started driving. At this point, I knew it was more than just a random fever, and I felt so bad that he got sick. Who knows where he picked up germs from. It could be anywhere from the museum to the zoo to Christy's kids that had colds. It was a long day of driving, but really the kids did pretty well. Here they are playing in the car that morning, enjoying some quiet downtime.

I can't remember why they were in the car without me. They must have been waiting for me or something, and they were trying to keep Owen entertained in the meantime, so here they are singing to their little brother one of their favorite songs from AWANA, "How Great Is Our God." Even though Owen wasn't feeling too well, he actually did pretty well in the car that day, not being too fussy at all.

After eating lunch, it was time for nap time for the boys, and they both took nice, good naps, which made the afternoon go by so much faster. We just let Samantha read, so here she is pretending to sleep.

Samantha loves to read and is perfectly happy spending her afternoon lost in a book.

And here's Aedan fast asleep with Happy Bear tucked up under his chin. I feel like he's looking so big these days. He's gotten so much taller and is looking so much more grown up.

And here's little Owen, fast asleep as well. At one point he started to stir, but I was able to rock his car seat back and forth and get him back to sleep.

We got back home after 6:00 that evening, and then came the work of unpacking and getting everything set back up, picking up Izzy, eating dinner, and getting ready for Samantha to go back to school the next morning.

Monday night was another rough night with Owen. He was up most of the night, feeling hot and uncomfortable. We never took his temperature because we were already bothering him so much that night, but I could tell he still had a fever. His temples were burning hot, even awhile after taking medicine. In fact, Ben and I alternated Tylenol and Motrin every three hours to try and keep his fever down, but even that didn't seem to do much sometimes. Who knows how much we actually slept that night.

We didn't have any plans to do anything that Tuesday morning, except try to recover from the long weekend away and take care of our sick little Owen. He was just not acting like himself all that morning. I couldn't get him to sleep that morning for a nap, and it was hard for me to just keep walking around with him. I got him to sleep on my shoulder, but then as soon as I laid him down, he would start crying. Eventually, I resorted to nursing him to see if that would help him fall asleep and stay asleep. I felt bad for Aedan because he was upstairs by himself for a long time while I was dealing with Owen. 

Since Owen started crying every time we put him down or tried to get him to sleep, we eventually decided to take him to the walk-in clinic to have him checked out. It was pretty clear that he had an ear infection in his right ear, and he was prescribed amoxicillin to clear up the infection. I was glad that we had an answer to what was going on with him, and I was glad we could start giving him medicine that would hopefully help him feel better and allow us all to get a little more sleep at night. I put Owen down for his nap, and Ben stayed home for the afternoon so I could go to my foot appointment and then go grocery shopping and pick up his medicine.

Much of the day, Aedan had to play by himself as I was dealing with Owen being fussy, but that evening, we got out his new Super Hero Lego set that he was so excited about building and worked on it for a little while after dinner but before bed time. He actually did a pretty good job finding the pieces and putting them on with a little direction on where they went. He couldn't wait to have his finished product of this helicopter. Isn't he a cutie?!

With Samantha getting older and being able to do more stuff on her own, she now has the job of hanging up and putting away her own clothes after we do laundry. She says she can work faster if she plays music while she works, so here she is listening to the Multiplication Rocks CD that my dad copied from when I was a kid. She loves to listen to the music and dance while she puts her clothes away, so I wanted to capture a little of that on video, but she stopped once she saw me recording her. :)

After our crazy day with having just gotten back from a trip, and dealing with a sick baby with an ear infection who didn't want to be put down, and not sleeping much the two nights prior, Ben and I were definitely exhausted by Tuesday night. Even when I put Owen to bed that night, he woke up every time I laid him down. However, one time I just laid him down and left him for a bit, to give myself a break and switch out some laundry, and he actually calmed himself back down and fell asleep.

Wednesday morning I had an appointment that I had rescheduled several times to turn in our voucher for a new convertible car seat for Owen. I had to meet with someone to talk about how to install it, and even have it installed in my car. He was definitely getting too big for his infant car seat, and I wasn't really carrying him around in it anymore anyways because he was too heavy. Plus, he very rarely falls asleep in his car seat on short trips anymore, which is what I used the infant car seat for the most in the past, so I figured it would be fine to switch him out. He looked so small in the big convertible car seat, but I'm sure it will be more comfortable for him, and he will be able to use it for a long time.

After the appointment, we went over to a MOPS mom's house for an outside play date. I figured with how poorly Owen was sleeping when we tried to lay him down, he was just as likely to take a nap in the Ergo as he was at home. Aedan had fun playing in a new space, swinging, and driving around a little car, but I forgot to bring a snack or water, so after a little while, he just got hungry and wanted to go home for lunch. Most of the kids were younger than him, so he didn't have too many kids to play with, but it was still fun to get out and do something for a little while that morning.

When we got home I tried to nurse Owen, but he was not really interested. I felt very full, so I decided I would try to pump, but that was very difficult to do with a fussy baby that just wanted me to pick him up. I was so looking forward to our little guy feeling better soon, and I felt bad that his ear was hurting him this much. It's so hard when you have a sick baby. It impacts everyone in the family, and I just wanted my happy little guy back again.

Owen actually took a pretty good nap that afternoon and seemed to be in better spirits when he woke up, so after having an earlier dinner, we decided to take the kids over to Project Playground for some play time before bed time. This was our first visit of the season, and the kids had a blast running around and playing together. We also put Owen in a baby swing for the first time that evening. He was enjoying going back and forth, feeling the wind blowing his hair.

After a few days of Owen being so fussy and discontented, and not really falling asleep while nursing like he usually does, Wednesday night was finally back to normal. He nursed well and fell right to sleep. He was so cute and comfortable in my lap, that I just let him lay there and rest for awhile before laying him down in his crib. He was so sweet and peaceful, and I love that he can still fit in my lap, even if his feet do hang off the side and on to the arm rest a little bit now. I couldn't resist taking these pictures of my precious baby, fast asleep.

Wednesday night was still a little rough. I was up with Owen a lot, walking around and trying to get him to stay asleep. However, he ended up sleeping in until 8:45, which is not typical for him. Then, when I put him down for his morning nap, he slept a good hour and a half. In fact, it was already 12:15, since I had put him down for a later nap, and I was trying to figure out what I should do, if I should let him keep sleeping or wake him up so that I could at least attempt to get him down for another nap later that afternoon. I ended up waking him up around 12:30 because I figured that was a good enough nap, and I could give him lunch still.

With Owen napping all morning, I had the chance to continue to get caught up on laundry from being out of town, and also to just play with Aedan. We played Clue Junior, Super Heroes, and Legos. Aedan has been a lot happier just hanging out at home more, and he's gotten much better at playing by himself and being creative with his toys. However, it's definitely a treat on these rare mornings where Owen takes a long nap for me to be able to devote more of my attention to just Aedan.

That afternoon, as I was changing Owen's diaper, I discovered he was developing a terrible diaper rash from the diarrhea caused by the antibiotics. His little tush was so red, and he cried when I changed his diaper and wiped him. Sometimes I feel like stuff like this is never ending. For the last few weeks, there has always been something that's making him fussy and uncomfortable and affecting his ability to get a good night's sleep, from teething pain, to an ear infection, and now to a diaper rash.

Aedan has been napping for me every day again now. It's so strange because he was fighting it for so long just a few weeks ago. Even while in Chicago, he fell asleep every day for awhile in the car. He doesn't fight me at all and just falls right asleep. However, he was also up at 6:15 in the morning talking and making noise, so who knows what that boy needs sometimes.

This was Samantha's second to last week of school, and Aedan was definitely looking forward to having Sissy back home again. I was also feeling ready for her to be done because sometimes I feel like I don't see her much when she's at school all day. But it will also take some time to get used our new summer schedule and routine. Things will be louder and crazier, and I will have another kid at home to take care of, but Samantha's pretty independent. However, Aedan will also have a built-in play mate again, and I will have Samantha around to help me more with Owen as well, when I'm trying to get things done. I would like to sit down with Ben and kind of make a plan for the summer, maybe set up a "chore" chart of tasks the kids need to complete each day, as well as setting up some time for Samantha to do some daily math, reading, and writing so she doesn't lose too much over the summer. I would also like to do something like that with Aedan, but with how high maintenance Owen has been lately, it has been hard for me to even plan that far ahead. I just know it will be good to have a little bit of structure and routine to our days for the remainder of the summer.

After lunch that day, we had to empty the dishwasher before I could put the dishes away, so I had Aedan come help me out. He enjoys helping me empty the dishwasher, and he is a good helper. Owen was also very interested in the dishwasher, especially now that his favorite activity is to pull up on things and stand. Here's the crew I get to hang out with every day. It's crazy sometimes, but I wouldn't change it for the world. :)

Look how tall Owen can stand and how far he can stretch his arms! This boy is curious about everything. He isn't interested in toys, he wants to play with everything else he can get his hands on. There was even one point I had to pull him out of the dishwasher because he had crawled all the way up onto the door.

With how late Owen slept that morning, we played more after lunch than normal, and I got Aedan down for a nap later than usual. So after I got Owen to sleep, I went back to Aedan's room to take a peek at him, and this is what I saw. Sometimes I wonder how often he actually sleeps with his head on his pillow. He sometimes sleeps in the strangest positions, but you can tell he's definitely comfortable and enjoying the new space in his big bed. Like I've mentioned before, he looks so big to me lately. I think he has gone through a growth spurt and gotten taller. It's hard for me to believe that just a year and a half ago or so, I was still rocking him to sleep at nap time, and he would fall asleep in my arms. Now he is big enough to take up all this space in his twin bed. I love watching my children sleep. They are so peaceful.

That afternoon Samantha kind of came home in a funk. I don't know if she had a bad day or was just tired, but she was in a quiet, sad kind of mood. She didn't talk to me much about anything that bothered her, but I decided that evening would be a good time to let her open up her KiwiCrate box, which was part of her birthday present from us. She was really excited to open it up and see what was inside. This box was all about the human body, so there were three activities in the box related to that topic. One was building an actual, working stethoscope, another was sewing and stuffing three different organs (a heart, a brain, and a stomach) that could then be stuck on a large poster of the human body, and the last was something where you could build your own x-ray using the outlines of bones and special paper that would glow when held under a lamp. Samantha was definitely interested in the box and enjoyed looking through everything. She wanted to get started right away and decided to build the stethoscope first. This box was great because it was definitely geared towards children her age, and the booklet came with step-by-step instructions on how to do each activity so that she could largely do them all by herself.

One of Owen's favorite things to do is to climb on anyone that is sitting or laying on the floor. Aedan likes to be "attackled" by Owen, so sometimes he lays on the floor with the intention of letting Owen climb all over him. I feel like Owen is already more physical than Samantha and Aedan were at this age. He definitely likes to roughhouse, and he's not even 9 months old yet. :)

Owen still woke up several times overnight Thursday into Friday, but he seemed to be doing slightly better day by day and was acting more like himself. There was a McDonald's play date on Friday morning, the last one before school was out for the summer. Ben ended up working from home that day, so I was able to put Owen down for a nap at home and just take Aedan to the play date. In fact, I also watched our neighbor's daughter for the day because her mom was not feeling well, so I gave her a break and time to rest. Aedan was glad to have his friend along for our time at McDonald's, and then they had a good afternoon playing together and having a little downtime by watching a movie together during when Aedan would normally be napping. 

Owen took a nice afternoon nap for me that day as well, sleeping for over two hours without us having to go in his room. When I went down to his room to get him up, he was such a happy, well-rested little boy. I was so thankful he had a good afternoon nap. I took these cute pictures with my little guy, so he could see himself in the camera as well. (I don't get in on the pictures very often, but I'm glad that I force myself to do it sometimes. I definitely want to part of the record of my kids' childhood, not just the one behind the camera. I want them to see pictures of me with them as well.) Man, this little baby is so cute. Regardless of the lack of sleep and craziness that comes with having three kids, the little boy has stolen my heart, and nothing makes me happier than seeing him smile.

On Friday night Ben had his first set of softball games. Our church started up a team in the local league, and we decided to make a family event of it and all go to the games together. There were other families with kids there, so everyone had a good time just hanging out and spending time together. I was able to watch Ben some, even though I was distracted by keeping tabs on the kids. I'm so glad that Ben gets to be part of a softball team again, and I will look forward to seeing more games in the season to come.

Saturday morning I let Ben sleep in and I got up with the big kids. (Usually he is the one letting me sleep in.) After so many nights of interrupted sleep, we both desperately needed some sleep. In fact, the kids even let us sleep in that morning as Aedan didn't wake up until 7:50. Then, we just had a relaxing morning playing at home together. Ben and I thought back and realized that we hadn't just had a relaxing Saturday at home for over a month because of birthdays and traveling. 

Owen's favorite activity is pulling up and standing on whatever he can. Lately, it has been the refrigerator. As soon as we open the door, he goes up to it, tries to pull bags of produce out, and tries to pull bottles out of the door. This boy is a little stinker, and there's no stopping him.

Samantha and Aedan couldn't do anything but just stand there and stare at their little brother with smiles on their faces.

Lately, Ben and I have been talking a lot about how we should probably let Aedan stop napping because he stays up so late and wakes up so early after napping during the day, taking away any advantage his nap may have given him. Since he had already skipped his nap on Friday afternoon, we decided to continue allowing him to not nap and see how it would go with him. We still think it's important for the kids to have some quiet, down time where they play on their own in their rooms, so it's not only quiet for Owen to nap, but also so Ben and I can have some time to ourselves or to get work done in the afternoon. We set Aedan's bunny clock to go off after about an hour and fifteen minutes, and he really did a pretty good job playing by himself. I wasn't convinced he was going to be able to stay in his room for that long and find things to amuse himself without getting bored and wanting to come out or calling for us, but he surprised me by handling it really well. I peeked in at him at one point, and he was just sitting on his bed reading books.

On Saturday evening, we decided to go swim in Canada. We hadn't been swimming at the community centre pool in a while, and the kids always enjoy our time there. This was the first time we've gone to the pool when Owen could crawl, so there was no just sitting and hanging out with him in the water anymore. He wanted to get down and crawl around and was very interested in the water fountains that sprayed up in the shallow end. His biggest problem was wanting to be too adventurous and wanting to get his face in the large sprayers. He was definitely enjoying himself in the water, and so were Samantha and Aedan.

Swimming tired out my little guy, and I put him to bed later than usual since we stayed at the pool until close to 8:00. He nursed well and as soon as I laid him in his crib, he rolled over and got comfortable. (I know he's wearing mermaids on his sleep sack, but it was given to us by my sister, and he doesn't care if he's wearing something with mermaids.) I love how babies sleep with their knees pulled up underneath themselves when they lay on their tummies. Owen was so cute all cuddled up. Oftentimes, I find myself holding him longer at night when he falls asleep after nursing because I just enjoy the extra cuddle time. During the day he is too busy to sit on my lap and let me hold him for very long. I love looking at him sleep peacefully, and I love listening to his quiet breathing sounds. With Owen most likely being our last baby, I will soak up all the sweet baby snuggles I can get while I can. I love this little baby boy so much.

(Blog about May 27-June 2, 2018)