Catching Up In Pictures

December

24" of Snow

Daddy has big boots to fill!




A train table set up for Christmas morning




Hanging out

2 Year Checkup

Nate Turned the big 2 last Friday (pictures will be coming soon I promise) so on Monday I took him for his 2 year check up.

Nate is progressing very nicely and is now 2'9" tall (in the 5th percentile which is where he has always been) and 28.5 pounds (50th percentile). Developmentally he is right on track. No shots this time and we go back in a year.

Toilet Trouble

Not of the potty training type, I know what you're thinking. No, Nate likes to flush the toilet. We let him do it once or twice since it is a good way to introduce the subject of "the potty" what its for, what we put in there, etc.

This morning while I was blowing my hair dry I was, admittedly, not paying that much attention to what Nate was doing. He wasn't trying to swim in the toilet so I figured he was ok.

Apparently, what he was doing was taking vast amounts of toilet paper off of the roll and putting it in the toilet. Then he did what he LOVES to do and that was flush. This is when I took notice of the goings on (unfortunately, not the goings down, if you know what I mean). After exclaiming "Nate, what are you doing?!" (as if that was going to do any good), I noticed that the water level in the bowl was slowly rising. I was dressed for work and, as always running late, so a flood in the bathroom was not on my agenda for today. I watched for a minute hoping that the situation would just resolve itself, but as the water approached the rim of the bowl I knew I was going to have to intervene.

So, I plunged my hand in and pulled out the massive lump of toilet paper. The water went down, crisis averted. Now, let me just state, for the record, that everything was clean. There was nothing in the bowl but clean water and paper (OH THANK GOD!!!), but it is still a little unnerving having to put your hand in there.

The moral of the story... Nate and I are not allowed in the bathroom without supervision!

Updates

I'm not feeling very creative today so I thought I would provide a snap shot of what Nate is doing now at 23 months:

-- Says "No" (alot!)
-- Is out of a high chair and into a booster seat. He can climb in and buckle himself in without any assistance
-- LOVES to climb on anything and everything
-- He has started speaking in sentences (albeit short ones)
-- He can climb onto mommy and daddy's bed
-- He can climb in and out of his crib if the side is down
-- When he picks up any phone he says "HELLO!"
-- He has started to "fake sleep." He finds a spot on the floor, covers himself with a blanket, and starts snoring. I don't know where he learned it, but it is hysterical.
-- When he does something surprising he says "Ta Da"
-- Loves to dance (and loves dance music)
-- Is only using a binky when he is in his bed. He has adjusted pretty well so far.
-- Tells us when he pees and will sit on his frog potty.
-- Like to flush the toilet for you
-- Is completely obsessed with Thomas the Train, Buzz LightYear, and Doc Hudson from Cars.
-- Loves our dog Jax more than anything else in the world

Sentencing

Nate occasionally strings two words together like "Nate up" or "down please" but that is really about it. Yesterday I was going upstairs to get his juice and told him to stay in the family room with daddy, and that mommy would be right back. Nate had other ideas and declared, "Nate-Nate go mama!" (translation: "I want to go with mama!")

Now whether or not you consider Nate-Nate one word or two, that is a real sentence!

Go, Go, Go!

My parents bought Nate this car that you shake and then when you put it on the ground it takes off. When he does this and the car "drives" away he always says, "go, go, go!"

So we are in the car the other morning and the traffic light turns green and the car in front of us starts to move and from the back see I here "go, go, go!"

My little backseat driver!

The Croup

There are lots of things that people don't tell you about being a parent... like how much fun it is, like how much you can love another human being, like how quickly things can go all pear-shaped. That brings me to the story of last week or how we spent a night in CHOP (Children's Hospital of Philadelphia).

On Monday I took Nate to my cousin's house for a play date. He was fine, he had a great time. After nap that day I took his temp and it was 100.5. That and a tiny cough made me call the doctor and get an appointment for the next day. I figured he was going to tell me it was nothing but with all of this H1N1 paranoia I thought better safe than sorry.

On Tuesday I took Nate to the Drs. Out of nowhere he had a temp of 101.7 and the doctor heard wheezing in his lower right lung... pneumonia was the diagnosis. Two scripts for antibiotics and we were off. I stopped at the pharmacy to get the antibiotics and for the first time I could tell that the little guy didn't feel well. I took him home and put him down for an early nap.

1:00 he wakes up... his fever is 103.6 (103.6!!!) and he is having a really hard time breathing, it sounds all gravely and wet and nasty. I call the Dr. and he says it is time to get to the ER. So off we go. Thank god my mom was there or I would have been a wreck. I call Jon at work and her meets us at the ER.

The ER staff is great and the Doc there says it sounds like the croup but since our Doc had said pneumonia to get a chest x-ray. The X-ray shows what could be a beginning pneumonia so they start Nate in IV antibiotics. Then there are two breathing treatments, then there is the shot of steroids. They test him for the flu and it comes back negative. Then they decide he needs to be observed overnight but this hospital doesn't have a pediatrics floor so we will need to be transfered to another hospital... we say CHOP. It is one of the best in the nation, so away we go via ambulance.

CHOP was fantastic. He gets more antibiotics, two doses of tamiflu and finally they give him some motrin because his fever is still at 102. In the meantime they suck out some snot to test and find out if it is the flu (even thought he already tested negative) or some other virus. The motrin kicked the fever, he tested negative for the flu again, but did test positive for parainfluenza, which is the leading cause of the croup. Oh,and the pediatric radiologist said there was no pneumonia present on the x-rays... YEAH!

By Wednesday about mid morning Nate was beginning to act like his old self again and since treatment for croup includes breathing treatments and steroids, both of which he got in the ER, we were good to go home.

Hospital stays are not something you really want to remember, but I did think it was funny that Nate was eating his Cheerios with a fork, so I took some pics of that.



We were back at the doctors on friday and nate got a clean bill of health. He is back to his normal crazy self and tearing up the house... thank god!