First tooth and second cold

Finally, on Wedensday Henry cut his first tooth.  Over two weeks of unpredictable vomiting and poor sleep finally came to an end this week.  I felt for a tooth first thing that morning but there wasn't one.  By early afternoon my mom felt the unmistakeable sharp little tooth on the right.  The other one isn't far behind.

Unfortunately, our reprieve has been short lived.  Henry was a beast last night waking multiple times, crying.  Thankfully he was able to fall asleep again right away but neither of us slept a lot.  And this morning when I went in to get him from his crib he had snot running down his face and a large streak of dried snot in his hair.  *sigh*  Two colds in three weeks.  This is insane.  I'm just crossing my fingers that I don't get sick with this one as well as my parents are out on the east coast for a week for my cousin's wedding.  Just to be safe I did run to the pharmacy to get some cold medication for me just in case ... and it was on sale this week.

I suspect that he's picked up both colds from music class.  We're in the third of three classes that day and the instructor says she disinfects the musical instruments every day.  But being that we're in the last class of the day that doesn't matter.  A sick kid in either of the two earlier classes can pass along their cold anyway.  There was a kid in our class on Tuesday who was sick with a cold ... snot down his face when they came in.  But I'm sure it wasn't him who passed it on to Henry as they didn't get close enough.

I'm almost livid at this point.  I make an effort to stay home when I'm sick and that's even with a job that requires me to travel.  If I'm in town I use my sick time.  If I'm traveling I have to go but I do everything I can to disinfect myself before touching things so I don't make others sick.  I even put my tissues into a separate container on the plane so that the flight attendants don't have to touch them, or I just take them with me when disembarking and toss them in the trash.  I hate being sick and I really hate having to take time off when sick.  I hate it.  I do not understand people who leave the house when sick or take their sick kids places other than medical appointments or the pharmacy.  I ran to the pharmacy today to get cold medication in case I get sick but I also kept Henry in his stroller and away from things he wanted to touch.  Why can't other people do this?  Is it because we've become so accustomed to popping meds to deal with illnesses?  Is it because we've seen so few serious and even deadly illnesses in our age that we don't think about simple but effective infection control mechanisms?  I just don't understand the absolute selfishness of others.  And because of this we're missing the second of our first three swimming classes.  Henry loves swimming.  I feel so bad for him. 

House of sickness

We're a house of sickness this week.  After the vomiting episodes (and cat poop incidents) Henry got sick, for real.  Thursday morning he woke up with congestion and as much as I kept hoping it wasn't a cold I just knew it was.  I did my best to keep from getting sick but started feeling it on Friday morning and it just got worse.  And based on my symptoms we don't have a cold, we have some type of influenza.  Just peachy.

Thankfully Henry has been doing really well.  He is mostly full of energy and played a lot through his illness.  Friday he was very clingy and whiny but that was to be expected.  He slept 12 hours Thursday and Friday night.  Which was good because I didn't sleep a wink Friday night even after taking some nighttime cold medication.  Zombie time!  I've been alternating between fever and chills and now that my nose is finally starting to stop running I'm hoping that things will turn around.  Unfortunately, Henry didn't have such a good night last night.  At 12:30 he woke up crying and nothing would console him or help him get back to sleep.  So, I finally decided after multiple tries to take him back to my room and put him on my chest.  That used to be the only way to get him to fall asleep some nights.  He finally settled down but I can't keep a 25 pound child on my chest all night and sleep.  So I had put him between the pillows (with a changing pad under him so he didn't drool all over my bed) and he was none too pleased.  He complained on and off all night finally waking around 5:45.  I fed him a bottle and gave him some Tyl.enol and he eventually fell back asleep.  My fingers are crossed that we'll both have a better night tonight.

Hopefully we'll both be feeling better by Tuesday so that we can go to music class.  We had to miss our first swimming class on Friday.

In better news Henry is now consistently pulling himself up to standing on furniture.  He could do it with the ottoman because it is a bit lower and more sturdy than the sofa.  The sofa cushions are a little soft and that made it more difficult for him to get up as well.  And on Friday he started motoring along the sofa all on his own.  He can't stop himself from falling and banging his head if he loses his balance so we've had a few accidents as of late.

My parents are arriving Wednesday and I'm very much looking forward to having a little help around the house for a while especially as we're not going to be 100% yet.

Epic failure

In an effort to broaden Henry's diet and as recommended by the information given to me by my nurse practitioner I pureed some broccoli and offered it to Henry yesterday afternoon.  I didn't give him much.  I got the super sour face, though.  But he held it down with no trouble and ate the rest of his solids without any issue.  He was burpy the rest of the afternoon but I didn't think much of it.  He was fussy for his last bottle of the night which hasn't been a surprise as I think his teeth are finally making a move.  I put him to bed and he started crying.  I went in his room a few minutes later to help him get to sleep and picked him up to hold him and then it happened .....

......... projectile vomit.  All over the mattress.  Then again 4 more times just outside the bedroom door on my way to rushing him into the bathroom.  We didn't make it.  Poor thing was covered in vomit but thankfully he had a sleeper on.  It wasn't too difficult to clean him up and he seemed happier that his stomach was empty.  But what a mess.  I threw the sheet and sleeper in the wash machine right away and tried to sop up as much vomit as I could but I know I'm going to have to use a carpet cleaner to get the stains out.  Thankfully the mattress cover has a waterproof backing on it otherwise the foam would have gotten soaked.  Have I mentioned this is the second time in a week I've had to wash the mattress cover?  Anyway, I had just moved the playpen out of my room to the living room the day before.  Well, I had to truck that thing up the stairs at 11 pm last night so Henry had somewhere to sleep other than the floor.

I don't often complain about being a single mom but last night was one of those nights that I really wished I'd had some help around the house.  I had to get the recycling, garbage and organics out to the curb last night.  I have no idea what time I finished that task. And then I had to clean up cat poop.  Oh yes.  It appears my cat has colitis.  We've been having litter issues ... when he is having issues he doesn't poop in the litter box.  No, he decides the best place is right outside the litter box between two of the boxes.  *sigh*  The last thing I wanted to be doing last night (other than cleaning vomit) was cleaning cat poop off the concrete floor in my storage room.  I absolutely lost it last night.

Henry didn't end up falling asleep until about midnight.  I did feed him another bottle since his stomach was completely empty by then and he needed something to get him through the night.  And in an effort to keep him occupied and not screaming his head off for a period of time I actually turned on Tre.ehouse and thankfully he loved it.  Yes, I pacified my 8 month old child with kid's programming but until you have to do everything I did last night don't knock it.

I had to be up early this morning.  Well, at least that was the plan.  I wanted to get up before Henry did so I could get in my shower but Henry had other ideas.  My alarm woke him up and he whimpered for a while before actually waking.  I fed him and he fell back asleep.  I showered and when I got out of the shower I could hear him playing in his playpen.  Thankfully Henry was in a good mood, if tired, for his first music class today.  It went well and Henry loved the guitar!  He also liked one of the other little boys in the class.

We had a good day and ran some errands in the afternoon.  Henry got his second feeding of solids and I was looking forward to a quiet evening knowing Henry was tired.  I gave him his supper time bottle and what happened?  Projectile vomit ... again.  Thankfully we were seated on my leather sofa.  Yay for leather!  Actually none of it got on the sofa, rug or floor.  No.  Instead of that Henry and I were just doused in vomit.  Oh yeah.  I managed to make it upstairs without it dripping off my pants and promptly put Henry in the tub ... no water.  I had no idea where to put him that was safe and where he couldn't crawl and cause a mess.  The tub did the trick.  I cleaned up, changed then got him undressed and gave him a bath.  I gave him some play time to start and he seemed to enjoy it.  He loves baths in the big tub now.  He was pretty crabby tonight and likely overtired and hungry.  But he went to sleep easily which allowed me to unpack my groceries from earlier in the day.  And then I stuck the newly vomited clothing into the wash machine.

And then I cleaned more cat poop ... from the floor ... again.

That didn't go so well

Today I tried giving H a little hummus.  He made a bit of a sour concerned face at first but opened his mouth for more.  I didn't give him more than a quarter tablespoon full and everything seemed okay.  Until he brought all of it and everything else he'd already eaten for lunch up with it.  Oh my. 

He's done this twice before, with pureed corn and mashed cauliflower.  I'm not sure what the issue is.  Corn I get since it doesn't always agree with me.  Maybe he inherited corn issues.  I get that cauliflower and hummus are stronger tasting.  But that doesn't account for the corn also causing problems. 

Oh well, those will just be off the menu for a while.  If the nurse asks if we've tried this or that (as recommended in our eating schedule for H's age) I'll tell her that he just vomits.  I can't force him to eat something that disagrees with him. 

Back to the fruit.

We have a stander

Welcome back readers!  We've been home from our visit back home for a couple weeks.  I've been busy catching up on things like stocking up on groceries, appointments, yardwork, etc. so I haven't been able to update the blog.

But this is what happened tonight.

First time standing up all on my own.

He managed to get from a sitting position up to his feet all on his own tonight.  (Sorry it is from behind.  I couldn't get my camera without him falling and he couldn't turn around without falling down.)  And he still doesn't crawl.  Instead of crawling he prefers to do this:

My downward facing dog.

Or planking.  Yep, he's into baby planking on the floor.  lol  I didn't have any clue he could pull or push himself up on his own until last Tuesday when during our Tuesday 'birthday' photo sessions he did this:

Look at me mommy!

Yeah, how he figured this one out I don't know.  When we got back from out west 2 1/2 weeks ago he wasn't trying to pull himself up on the couch yet.  Okay, I lied.  He tried a couple times back home but his butt stayed firmly planted on the floor.  In the span of less than two weeks he's gone from only sitting on the floor to being able to get up to standing all on his own.

He's moving at lightning speed now.