Bobby's Sunday Summary

A lot has happened this week. Robert has started walking a lot more. He now walks short distances by choice. Before he would only walk a little ways if we stood him up and and encouraged him.

Robert also got his first real haircut yesterday. It was just clippers around hit head and some trimming over his ears. He looks different now, a bit like a crewcut.

Yes Robert's eyes are a little bit red. The whole family has been a bit sick the last several weeks. I think we are finally getting over it, but it is still not that much fun. Especially the lack of sleep.

This week we also made valentines. Alice had fun decorating them and writing the names of the kids in her preschool class on them.

Gumball Machine

Here is Alice putting the last few gumballs onto our version of the Gumball Machine Craft from the Frugal Family Fun Blog. Many, many thanks to her Aunt Heidi for bringing this fun little blog to our attention. It's totally Alice. 100%. We created this craft in about 30 minutes, using a 1-inch hole punch and old magazines to make colorful gumballs that we then glued to a brown paper outline of a gumball machine. Alice was heavily involved in every step, directing how she wanted it to look. Once the glue dried, I cut it out and taped it to our kitchen wall. We don't actually chew gum, but this was something she wanted to make the moment she saw it.

By the way, she selected her outfit and accessories that morning with her creative dance class in mind: red velvet dress, thick tights to keep warm, and a bonnet to keep the sun off her face.

Hugs

"Mom! Take a picture of us when we're not looking!"

 

Check. It's a good thing Robert enjoys all her physical affection. Let's see what Alice does when he's old enough to return it :)

Croup

Last night, Robert coughed himself awake several times and only calmed down with nursing. Alice had another episode of croup, too. It happens every time she gets sick these days! This time, though, when I opened her door, I saw her hunched over her barf bucket (she asked for one a few days ago and hadn't used it yet). She said she felt like she had to throw up...I couldn't blame her, listening to how hard she was coughing and struggling to breathe.

Technically, croup is a thickening of the vocal chords that constricts airflow quite a bit. It's a symptom or side effect, not a disease/illness in itself. Alice gets it with every serious cold. She wakes up in the middle of the night coughing and finds it really hard to breathe, which makes her cry, which makes her need more air, which makes it even harder to breathe, which scares her more, and you get the crazy downward spiral from there. I get hysterically emotional (inside, of course, because I'm still Susan), and quite irrational. One time, we decided she should go to the ER. Bobby took her and I stayed home with Robert because I didn't want to be the one to see her die in the car on the way there. Yup, that's irrational.

Anyway, we've learned more about croup since then and it gets less scary with each episode. Alice is learning to deal with it better, too. I help her calm down, we do a breathing treatment, and she falls asleep again. "Less scary" doesn't mean it's routine for me, though. Alice slept until 7:30 this morning, which scared me. That's really late for her. I didn't dare check on her for fear she had asphyxiated in the night and I was too exhausted to hear her death throes. Paranoia remains a regular part of the croup experience for me *sigh*

So, we're all tired today. The "good" thing about Alice's croup is that the first night tends to be the worst. She might have another episode tonight, but it won't be nearly so bad. I hope. There's always wiggle room for surprise, eh?

Bobby's Sunday Summary

I don't know. This week seems a lot like past weeks. We have had a bit of sickness lately, but nothing serious. Both Susan and I have had a bit of nausea, but nothing serious. Robert also probably had some of it too, but it is hard to tell with someone that small. He just was a lot fussier then usual for a few days, and now seems to be back to normal.