The Fine Game of Nil

Well, Mr. Liam’s first cold has continued on, turning into a cough that just won’t go away. It’s been over a week now and just sounds terrible. Last Monday (almost two weeks ago), I took him to the doctor, worried maybe he had an ear infection. She checked him out and said his ears looked fine and listened to his chest and said he sounded okay. The cough progressed, so the past four days, we have gotten little to no sleep because he kept waking up every hour with a hacking cough and then cried hysterically. Several phone calls to the doctor later (some during the day, one at midnight last night) and a temperature of 101.5 at daycare today, we had a doctor’s appointment at 430pm today. Turns out his cough has turned into a pneumonia, so our poor little one is now on a 10 day course of antibiotics. This will help him start to feel better, and hopefully help the cough clear up. There’s nothing we could have done to prevent this, we were treating him appropriately for the cold, but it’s still heartbreaking. So, say a happy thought for Liam to get better.

We’ll post about Christmas soon.

So, we could write some stories, but life has been busy preparing for the holiday. Tonight we had our traditional Christmas Eve meal, mushroom soup and pirogies. Yummy.

These are all pictures from relatively recently.

Here is Liam, Maus (the cat), and Alex’s legs, enjoying hanging out in front of the fireplace

Liam and Maus are slowly getting used to each other

Liam really enjoys his doorway bouncy chair

This is Liam with the elephant his Aunt Anne gave him

The beautiful sweater is from my grandma. Isn’t it marvelous?

Alex and Liam watching the snow storm this past Sunday

Liam and mom hanging out during the Xmas card photo shoot

Liam helps us make the bed

Finally, the tree as we are slowly decorating and putting presents under it

I hope everyone has a great Holiday, whether they celebrate tomorrow, or have already celebrated it, or will celebrate it. Despite the dark and cold, this is the time to be with family, old and new.

Here are a few pics from Thanksgiving…

Liam in his new winter hat and gloves

Liam examines a Turkey at Katie’s parents’ house in CT

Love that beautiful face

For comparison in how much he has grown, here he is in his bouncy chair now

here he was at less than one week old

Had a bit of an epiphany a bit ago, as I was standing, with my left side covered with baby puke, trying to talk Boy Wonder down from the fit he was preparing to pitch.  It went something like, “Holy crap, I’m a father”.  To make matters worse, I seem to be reasonably competent at it.  Just one of those idle thoughts, had in the middle of a life experience so all-consuming that it’s difficult to remember a time before it.  Four days in daycare, and the boy has already picked up his first cold.  Something nice and airborne that has settled in his chest and tripled his normal hourly goo output.  Generally, he’s still feeling alright, maybe not 100% of his normal boisterous self, but certainly not inconsolable.  However he sounds awful, at least to the novice parent ear.  His voice is all rough and scratchy, so when he goes to cry or squeak, it comes out all congested and pitiful sounding.  Which has thrown a wrench in our plans to begin sleep-training this weekend.  Basically the idea is that by this age, he should be able to easily go overnight 6 or 7 hours without eating, instead of 3 to 4.  So, when he wakes up at 2 in the morning, instead of Emily retrieving him and feeding him, I’m suppose to go soothe him back to sleep without a snack.  After 2 or 3 nights, he should start to learn that he doesn’t need overnight feedings and start sleeping through the night.  This is hard enough normally.  First because it involves denying a child, who is making his wishes abundantly clear, the one thing he wants in the world at that moment, and second, because it involves denying daddy the one thing he wants in the world, which is to hand the screaming child to mommy, and to go back to bed.  Last night however, when he would wake up with a sad uncomfortable raspy cry, there was no way I was cold-hearted enough to try and talk him back to sleep without a snack.  

Good morning all.

I say good morning, because someone slept from 10pm to 5am last night. It was glorious. We’re starting a new routine, realizing that putting the boy to bed at 1030 or 11 is too late for him and us. Last night we began bedtime ritual at 8pm and had him in bed by 9pm. we’re also experimenting with letting him fall asleep on his own, as all the books say that by now he should be learning how to settle himself to sleep. He snuffled around for awhile, and then alex went in and rocked him gently (in his crib still, didn’t pick him up) and he went down around 10pm, maybe a little earlier. I don’t trust this will happen every night, as yesterday we had the assistance of him getting his round of four month shots at the doctor’s, and I think that helped him sleep so long.

The report from the doctor: weight 14lbs 5.5oz, almost exactly double his birth weight, 24 3/4″ tall (still my two foot tall man), and head circumference 16 1/2″. very healthy, everything looked good. eyes still blue, with no indication that they’re going to change, but it could still happen.

We will get around to taking some pictures and putting them up soon. as you can see from alex’s posts, time is very minimal these days. Hope everyone is well, gearing up for the holidays

Suddenly found that my only free time for awhile was away from a computer.

Thus, I bring you: Analog Blogging.

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