Where's the ark?

Carter and I went home this weekend to see baby Noah. He is sooooo tiny. Right now, he’s 6lbs. 3oz., and he’s doing very well. I almost forgot what it was like to have a baby that small. Of course, Carter was never that small, not even at birth! But, mom cooked a delicious meal and we all got to just hang out and spend time together. All of us but Dawn and Teagan, that is. Poor Dawn and little Teagan were exiled to Dawn’s place because Teagan was running a fever. Of course, Teagan didn’t need to be around Noah or Carter if she was sick, so Auntie Dawn took care of the sick babe!

On Sunday night, Scott was running Carter’s bathwater as I was trying to get his bottles ready for the next day when something went dreadfully wrong. Scott yells for me to come watch the baby because he’s not getting any hot water and needs to check on the water heater. Scott goes down and screams back up, “We’ve got a BIG problem”!! Carter and I go down to check it out and sure enough the hot water heater is busted and our downstairs is now flooded! I mean squish squish squish when you walk across the carpet flooded. Perfect! What else were we going to do with the tax refund we just got back?

Anyway, Scott calls a plumber who helps him get the water heater drained. Meanwhile, I’m heating up water on the stove so I can bathe Carter. Now normally he could just skip his bath and that would be fine. Of course tonight at dinner he had to get his little hands greasy and rub them in his hair. So now he looks like the poor baby from across the tracks and I cannot send him to day care looking like this. AND, this morning I had to run to our neighbor’s house at 7am to take a shower. But the plumber came back and replaced the water heater this morning, so now our only problem is getting all the water out of the carpet….and we’ve borrowed a shop-vac and Krissee has a shampooer she is loaning us. Hopefully we’ll be successful with all those implements!

Now as if that wasn’t enough, the day care called today and Carter has a rash on his legs and one arm and need the doctor to check it out, although it doesn’t seem to be bothering him AT ALL. He’s playing fine, eating fine, and sleeping fine. But they want to make sure it isn’t contagious or anything…and I’m thinking….if it is contagious, where do you think he got it (probably DAY CARE)! Classic! So, I’m off to the pediatrician this afternoon to check out this rash that is probably nothing. But I’ll definitely keep you posted.

Update: As I’m removing my foot from my mouth, the pediatrician is telling me that Carter is having an allergic reaction to the amoxicillin he’s on for his ear infection. This means he can never ever ever have amoxicillin again as it can (but doesn’t always) cause a fatal reaction. WHEW – Thank God it was just hives this time. Carter’s ear infection is still not better, so the doc had to give him some other type of antibiotic. Hopefully this will work and Carter will be feeling better soon!!

Doctor Doctor, Gimmie the News!

I forgot to mention in my marathon post that Carter also had his 9 month well visit with the pediatrician last week. His stats are as follows:

Weight - 20 lbs. 6ozs.
Height – 29 in.
Head Circumference – 19 in.

Carter was in the 50th percentile for his weight and head circumference and in the 75th percentile for his height. Maybe we’ll have a tall boy! Anyway, the doc said his hemoglobin was low and wanted us to start giving him a daily vitamin. I was thinking something along the lines of a chewable Flintstones vitamin. Weren’t those great? I used to tell my mom that I didn’t take my vitamin that day when I actually already did just so I could have another one. I mean, he HAS teeth and this boy will eat anything so I’m sure he could gnaw up a little vitamin. This is NOT what the doc was talking about. He was talking about the liquid infant vitamin. Let me just tell you….it’s brownish yellow, looks like cough syrup, and smells disgusting, but Carter takes it like a champ. That boy will eat anything!

The doc also said we could start Carter on some table food and try to phase out the baby food by the time he’s 1 year old. We had already started letting him taste pretty much anything that we were eating. Now, every night this week he has had ALL table food for dinner. NO baby food! He’s doing really great with it. We’ve given him chicken, rice, squash, tomatoes, cucumbers, spaghetti, steamed carrots….he loves it all.

I also talked to Carter’s teacher at day care and she said he is doing much better. In fact, he’s gotten quite attached to another little boy in the class, Will. Will is the only other baby that’s crawling, the rest are already walking. Anyway, she told me Carter follows Will around the classroom and she even puts their mats beside each other when it’s nap time because they try to talk to each other when they’re trying to go to sleep. How cute is that?!! Carter has a friend at school…I love it!

The Fun Never Ends

There’s been so much that’s happened lately, I’m not sure what to write about. This is the problem when you don’t blog as frequently as you should. It’s hard getting back into the working routine and Carter’s daycare routine. I find I just don’t have as much time to do things like blog. By the time I get off work, pick up carter, fix dinner, bath Carter, and get him in bed, all I really want to do is just lay on the couch and decompress for a while. (and watch lots of mind numbing reality TV!) Oh well, I’ll try to give you a recap of the events of the last few months.

First of all, Carter went to his friend Matt’s 4th birthday party. It was really cool. We all met at a little ice cream store and then walked a couple of blocks down to the fire station. After a tour of the trucks and a demonstration of their features, we all headed back for cake and ice cream. Carter had chocolate and loved it!

After that, it was off to the circus. The circus came to Florence in February and Granny wanted to take carter and Teagan. So, we met in Florence, had Chucky Cheese for lunch, and headed off to the show. Carter was mesmerized by all the flashing lights and loud music, but eventually he tuckered out and had to take a little nap sometime during the elephant performance. But overall, I think he really enjoyed the show.

Now, let’s get to this past weekend. We just HAD to get out and enjoy the fabulous weather. Saturday, Uncle Sean called to see if we wanted to take Carter to Frankie’s Fun Park. We said, absolutely! We rode go carts, hit some balls in the batting cage, and even Carter slide down the big slide and rode a little kiddie ride. On Sunday, we still wanted to take advantage of the weather, so we decided to walk Carter to the park down from our house. Carter played in the mulch, hung on the rings, crawled on the play equipment walkways, AND he even slide down the slide by himself. I’m not too sure he loved that though according to what Scott said his face looked like coming down, but he didn’t cry! Here are the cute cute photos we got at the park. I hope I haven’t bored you to tears, and I’ll definitely try to post more often to avoid these novel entries!

And personally I just love this picture!

Day Care

The day care called me a few weeks ago to say that they were able to finally accept Carter into the program...I cried. I knew it was coming, but some how I just wanted to believe that mom could stay here forever and watch the baby and everything would be fine. In reality, I knew that was impossible, but I just wasn't ready to face Carter having to go to day care. Well, his first day was this past Monday, which means my mom went home on Sunday.

I can't even describe what it was like having mom here the last two months. It was WONDERFUL! It was so fun coming home from work to mom and Carter everyday, and she was such great company. I will never forget this time I got to spend with her and the time that she got to spend with Carter. It made the transition of me going back to work so much easier. I had almost two months to get used to working again before I had to get used to sending Carter to day care everyday. Anyway, mom left Sunday and I was so sad to see her go.

Carter's first day of day care went well. The teacher said he cried a little off and on, but that was probably because it was a different environment. But he didn't cry when I dropped him off in the morning and that is good because that would have just broken my heart. And I didn't cry when I dropped him off, so I was proud of myself for that. I really wanted to but I knew if I did I wasn't sure if I would be able to stop. And showing up at work with puffy eyes and smeared mascara was not something I wanted to try. Carter sure was happy to see me when I picked him up and that made me feel good. Today was his second day and the teacher reported that he did great today, much better than yesterday. So, that is great news. I'm sure by the end of the week he'll have the schedule down and get used to seeing his teacher and the other kids everyday. I think this has been much harder on me than it has been him. Go figure!

New Nephew

So, I'm a little late on this post seeing that Noah, my new nephew, was born on January 19th, but better late than never. My dad totally thinks he's on a roll with the birth of Noah upping the number of boys in the family. Now he has a couple of little grandsons to pal around with and impress with his vast knowledge of hunting and fishing. I'm sure they won't mind a bit.

Anyway, Noah was born 9 weeks early and has been living out his first weeks of life in the hospital. At first he was sent to the NICU in Florence, but has been moved back home to the hospital in Conway for the last week. The doctors said he was doing well and as soon as he learned to eat from a bottle he could come home. Well, over the last day, Noah has been working so hard to learn to eat that he was letting his oxygen levels drop. This was no good, and the doctor decided to put his feeding tube back in for now. So, it looks like Noah won't be coming home as soon as we thought, but we'd much rather him come home healthy!

What a cutie!?

My first visit with Noah at the NICU in Florence

I sure am ready to get my little hands on that guy. I do have to say that my sister has been an absolute trooper through all of this. I can't imagine how hard it is to have a baby and then not get to even hold him until he's 3 days old. I'm so proud of her!

Potpourri

OK, I know I have been a pretty slack blogger lately, but it's amazing how much less time you have to do things like blog when you have to work. This is kind of an assortment of everything that's been going on in our lives in the last several weeks.

First of all, our church called and asked us if we could be the "Holy Family" for the Christmas Pageant. They like to have a newborn for Jesus, but the family that was going to do it got sick so they started making calls to find a baby Jesus. After calling several families with younger babies, they ended up on Carter (a 7 month old at the time). We thought it would be fun to do and it was. I even had to say a line as Mary. Carter did great; he sat up in the manger the whole time and played with the straw. He was a pretty cute baby Jesus if you ask me.

The next momentous occasion was the lowering of Carter's mattress. I went to get him one morning and he was almost half way hanging over the edge. I told Scott that when we got home from work that day the mattress HAD to be lowered. It was kind of sad to see the change.....we don't have a newborn anymore.

Since I had to go back to work and we haven't been able to get Carter into daycare, Granny had to come save the day! She has dropped what she was doing back in MB and come to keep Carter for the next couple of months. It has been wonderful having her here, and I think Carter really loves it. They get to play, hang out outside, and play with the doggies all day. (I'm totally jealous)

Finally, (and this just happened on Monday) Carter experienced his first snow. Who would've thought! But sure enough we got a little covering on the deck, so dad took him out to take a few pics in the snow.

And last but certainly not least, Carter got a new cousin on Monday. My sister had to have an emergency C-section on Monday because her placenta was rupturing. So, we got Noah 9 weeks early. He was 4lbs. and 4ozs. He was having a little bit of trouble breathing because his lungs weren't fully developed so they sent him to the NICU in Florence. But he is doing much better and Holly is doing great. I don't have any pictures because I haven't gotten to meet him yet, but hopefully I'll get to see him Saturday and the pics will be forthcoming.

Working Girl

I'm officially a working girl (Scott and Dad have been calling me that lately). I'd much rather be stay-at-home girl, but oh well. Work is going really well. I've been training this week and reading up on the insurance industry.

I got to work on Monday and was pleasantly surprised by the size of my cube. It's really pretty large, and they had a banner up that said "welcome to the team, Amber" which they all signed. On Tuesday they took me out to lunch to welcome me also. Everyone is really nice and likes to joke around, so they seem pretty easy going. I really think it will be a good fit.

I sure do miss Carter though. It was everything I could do NOT to cry on Monday, but I didn't. And Granny is taking excellent care of him!