Happy Holidays

Happy Holidays from Santa Ollie

On Vacation

Ollie is going on vacation today. A nice long Christmas drive. He will be in the car for 18 - 19 total hours over the next week. He will be visiting great-grandparents, great-aunt's, great-uncle's, 2nd and 3rd cousins, grandparents, aunts, uncles and a future cousin. Lots of new faces and new things to look at. I'm sure there will be a lot of staring a people's faces and lots of grabbing shiny things. Jewelry wearer's beware! So far the stranger anxiety hasn't set in so he should be ok for this week.

He now has his forward crawling gear working well enough that he can get where he wants to go within a few feet. Long distance crawling is still a bit off. Of course he's already trying to stand, but that's no where near completion. Ollie has also started chasing the cats. They can still out run him, but not for long. Watch out world, here comes the Ollie monster!

Almost

Ollie is pretty much back to his normal self. He can breath through the night without the nebulizer treatments or vaporizer. We still have his bed raised a little bit to help with his breathing, but he seems to be back to normal. His cough sounds much better and isn't as stuffy. He still has a bit of blood in his mucus from being so dried out. It's not a bloody nose, but a little comes out with his mucus. He's pretty much back to his normal routine.

Last night he felt so good that he wouldn't go back to sleep right away when he woke at 1 am. We let him play in his crib by himself for 1/2 an hour, then Tresa was able to get him to go back to sleep. He was still tired this morning, we had to wake him up to get him ready for the babysitter. He was all smiles when he got woken up (must get this trait from his mom, it's definitely not from me). He did his normal morning activity and was ready to go for the day. 6 more days to go of the antibiotics, but he's pretty much his rambunctious self. Now only if we could get him to calm down without any illness causing it.

Better

Ollie was fairly back into his regular routine last night. He only got up once during the night and didn't seem as stuffy as he has been. He should be better in time to travel. Hopefully he'll be thoroughly entertained by all the new people and places. I'm sure he'll stare at everyone and everything. He stared at a couple of kids while we were waiting for the doctor. Guess he wasn't sure what to think. Maybe the stranger anxiety is on the way.

Ollie gets frustrated easily and he is a very difficult baby to soothe. I went to get his medicine for him last night and placed him on the bed. BIG MISTAKE. I took a bit longer than usual because I couldn't get the medicine right, then...THUD! Ollie was rolling around on the bed and off he went. No bumps or bruises, just scared and a worst father of the year award handed out to yours truly. I had to turn on the x-mas lights to soothe him, of course he was then frustrated that he couldn't touch them!

He gets easily frustrated when he stumbles during crawling or can't reach something he thinks he should. He's getting better at crawling, just not perfect yet. If it we could only teach them how to crawl and they didn't have to learn it on their own. I have to admit, it is sometimes funny to see him raise his arms in these big motions to move forward, he tries hard. The plastic on the windows seems to be a big motivator, as well as the stereo. If he sees either, he's off as fast as he can for those and usually doesn't stumble. If nothing else he gets himself there backwards. Watch out world here comes trouble!

When it Rains, it Pours

I took Ollie back into the doctors yesterday to have his cough checked out. He lost his fever Friday, but still had the cough and stuffiness, making it extremely difficult for him to breath at night. He slept most of Saturday and Sunday. Monday, he was mostly back to his normal self, at least as far as up time goes. But he was still coughing and stuffy. We went to see his doctor and his x-ray from last Thursday revealed he had Bronchillitis and on top of it he had started to develop a small ear infection. JOY. So he's on antibiotics and a nebulizer to help him breath. At least he is acting like his old self. I hope this is the last of it for awhile. My wish for X-mas is that he is well.

Even though he has been sick, he's become better at crawling. He can go small distances without stumbling. Of course he has to investigate everything. We baby-proofed the plugs this weekend in preparation. I'm sure we'll do the doors when we get back from our trip. We'll have to get baby gates as well. He'll be an expert at crawling when we get back. What a present!

103.2

Usually I'm the optimistic person and Tresa is the pessimistic person. When it comes to Ollie, our roles reverse. 103.2 was his high fever temperature yesterday. Of course thought of the worst, meningitis. He had no other symptoms at the time. He's teething, but that is too high of a fever for that. So, we got him an appt. with the pediatrician. They gave him some Motrin and his fever broke while we were there. Since he didn't have any other symptoms, they decided to run tests.

Since he had been up all night and was tired and hurting they decided to keep him up most of the day. At the pediatrician, he got a catheter to dip his urine to check for a kidney infection. Which of course, made him mad. We then had to take that to the hospital, where he first got a CBC done. He calmed down and then they came back in to check for the flu. He got mad and calmed down. Then we had to get an x-ray to check his chest out. He got mad and eventually calmed down. During all this he tried to go to sleep, but with people poking and prodding him every few minutes, he had no choice but to stay awake and protest. All those tests and all he has is the flu. Not very happy about the excessive testing. Why didn't they just start with that one and leave it at that? No wonder the medical field is so screwed up and expensive.

When we got home, he got a good 3 hr. nap. Tresa cleaned and disinfected the house. I installed the computer card and printed some stuff off that needed to be done. I got a nap around 5:30 - 7:30 since I was up with him most of the previous night. He was up and played a bit, ate a bit of baby food (though he gagged a bit), and we all went to bed a bit after 10 pm. He slept with us until about 1 am when he got a full bottle. I put him into his bed and he complained about 4 am because he had scooted himself into the top corner of the bed. I moved him back down when he coughed and he slept until 6 am without any motrin since 10! Tresa called when I got to work and said he is back to his normal self, except with a cold coming on. Hopefully, the fever has broken for good and he just has a cold for awhile. I wish he was bigger, so he could have medicine for all his ailments.

Santa's Little Helper

Ollie went to see Santa last night. He didn't seem upset at all at sitting on his lap. He just kind of looked at him, no beard pulling. Just a stare. He doesn't quite know what's going on with this whole Christmas thing. He just likes the pretty lights. Love's to touch and look at lights. Love's wrapping paper. Love's making a mess of himself. I think this year, Christmas for Ollie will be about us keeping all the paper out of his mouth!

He's become more adept at bringing things to himself. We were eating at a sandwich shop last night and Ollie was eating crackers. We set the crackers on the table and he would reach, grab, pull them to him and shove them in his mouth. Of course, if we are eating something now, he has to have something too. If he doesn't have something too, you get screamed at. The mimicking of his parents has begun.

The Grind

These top teeth suck. Ollie is having a worse time with the top teeth than he had with the bottom. He constantly has a rag, bib or toy in his mouth. The numbing stuff isn't doing wonders. Last night while I was burping him for his midnight bottle he was grinding his bottom teeth against the top gums to make them feel better. I was amazed he went back to sleep at all. I knew he would be up later. At 3 am, he woke up, so I gave him a bit of tylenol. Then I moved him onto his side from his tummy, away from the railing and he fell right back asleep.

He's already going to be crabby at x-mas from the travel, I hope his teeth come before then. If not we'll have a very crabby Christmas. I hope there are lots of x-mas lights to look at, it is his favorite distraction.

Babble-on

Baby babbling has begun! Ollie is trying to tell us things more and more. He's even gotten out Da-da, much to my chagrin. He's still working on Ma-ma. He's got the long Mmmmmmmm down, just no ahhhhh. He tries to tell us everything though, it's kind of fun to hear something other than cries.

On the crawling front, he's moving backwards mostly. Not really coordinated yet. He has taken a few movements forward. He doesn't quite get that you have to move your hands forward too and usually loses his balance and plops on his head. He has lunged forward and has figured out how to move forward a few times, but nothing consistent.

His top teeth are on their way in. That's probably why he was so crabby this weekend. I'm sure all of this will be much improved by Christmas.

Snow Day

Today is the first real snow day we've had this year. Okay, so it is more like ice-snow, but it looks great! Unfortunately Ollie won't get the chance to play in it just yet. It'll all be gone by the time we get home tonight. He got to walk through it this morning for a little bit with his momma. He seemed to like it. He had a big smile on his face when I took him into the babysitter in the falling snow. Maybe later this year we'll get to go sledding down our hill in the back. Hopefully it won't scare Ollie too much. He'll love the hill in the winter for sledding, he'll hate it the rest of the year because he'll have to mow it!

I know it is pretty sad to be planning for my 6 month old son to be taking over my chores already. Come to think of it, the cat's litter box needs a regular cleaning! Ha ha ha ha!