Fumes

As in running on fumes (supplemented by a little coffee and some Girl Scout cookies covered in Nutella)...So if this post is a little disjointed or doesn't make sense, you know why. =-)

It has been a long week, but everyone is okay now - which is the most important thing.
Nate gave us a scare. This resulted in two sick visits to the pediatrician (with a follow up scheduled for this week) and two trips to the ER (one in Worcester and one in Boston).
The little bugger has an ear infection. Both Sam and Caroline had colds, so when Nate started getting snotty, I didn't think anything of it. He kept getting more and more congested, but I thought we were handling it okay by sticking him in the bathroom with us when we were showering, using saline drops and the snot sucker, keeping him upright and by feeding him as often as he would take. I really hesitated before calling the doc (the kid has green snot - is it really worth a trip to the doctor?), but when I noticed him using a bit more energy to breathe than I thought he should I finally called.
They took us right in and promptly sent us to UMASS and then to Children's Hospital in Boston. What a wild day.
All the testing has come back negative so far.
It was scary and I am very thankful he's on the mend. I can't imagine having a really sick baby. Sitting in the ER at Children's made me count my blessings. And snuggle my baby a bit tighter.
Nate is on antibiotics and steadily becoming less congested. He's doing much better feeding and was able to sleep supine yesterday for about 20 minutes.
Sometimes he still sounds like Darth Vader when he's sleeping, but it's so much better than when it sounded like this.
The good news is that, in spite of the infection, Nate has put on TWO POUNDS in the past two weeks putting him at 10lbs 15 oz. I thought his clothes were getting small! He's wearing some six month stuff already! He's not chunky - he's just a solid kid.
Don't you just want to kiss those cheeks?


Caroline had her first ballet/tap class today. Seems like she had a wonderful time. She looked like she was so much older in her leotard and bun this morning.



I felt so bad for Sam this morning - he kept saying, "I want to go to dance class, too." And he repeated it for the whole hour we were doing errands while she was in class. With Caroline doing so many fun things, I think he's feeling a bit left behind. Poor kid. We're playing a lot of trains and dancing a lot while watching "Fiddler on the Roof" (he LOVES it and so do I). We're trying to emphasize what a good big brother he is and how important he is to the family. He frequently offers to help with housework and to take care of or hold Nate. It's tough to be the middle child, I think.
But, as Jim put so eloquently this morning - here's our Thinker:

And our stinkers! Disclaimer: thinker and stinkers are subject to change...