A Better Way to Swim

Nicholas is getting to be a little fish even after just a few no-parent involved lessons. We've replaced the foam insert swimsuit he wore on his first day with the back floats they provide at the Y. I thought I'd be a little nervous about its ability to really make him float, but it works really well for him. He swims back and forth across the pool like a champ. While he's swimming, if he looks up and sees me and Charlotte, he smiles and waves. It's super cute, but I'm thinking he'll have to stop that when he's completely floating by himself! We've also gotten more proof that Nicholas has no fear. Today was the first day they jumped off the diving board in the deep water. Several of the kids were very nervous and some wouldn't do it. Nicholas climbed right up, walked to the end and jumped in. That's my boy!

OK this is a little blurry...but look at that form!

Modeling his back float

One Sad, Stuffy Girl

In both of her first two winters, Charlotte has had a seemingly never ending series of colds. After getting Nicholas' non-flu flu, she's now smack dab in the middle of congestion city. She sleeps really poorly and is not a fan of having her nose wiped. Although one of her favorite things is putting tissues (or anything for that matter) into the trash. At least she has that.

The Sickness Saga Continues

Charlotte came down with a fever Sunday afternoon and continued it today. The good news is that she doesn't seem to have any other obvious symptoms of Nicholas' non-flu flu. Nicholas seems to have recovered like a champ and was his usual self today. We're hoping that we've gotten all the sickness of 2009 out of the way in the first few weeks. A mama can dream, can't she!

Sickie #1

(OK I took this picture of Nicholas on Friday...and I can totally tell now that he looks sick. I was totally oblivious to it that day!)

Sickie #2

(check out those 6 teeth...and there are a bunch just waiting in the wings to pop through)

Now THAT'S a Prize!

The boys are playing Wii golf, which reminded me of something I've been meaning to post. Nicholas and Tom watch lots of golf of TV, and Transamerica came out with the commercial that I posted here with Zach Johnson, the winner of the 2007 Master's. At the end, when he wins the Master's, he kisses his new baby. When Nicholas (who is very tuned into winning and trophies) first saw the commercial, he looked at Tom and said "Wow. He won a baby!". Since then, sometimes when Nicholas plays golf (he does indoor solo putting contests in the winter), he'll "win a baby". Sometimes it is one of Charlotte's baby dolls, sometimes it's even the Baby Jesus from the nativity (that's gotta be wrong, right??). He'll putt one into the hole and say "Yea! I win a baby!". It's strange and funny at the same time.

Friday Night Update

This just keeps getting better and better. At about 4:00, Charlotte had a diaper that seemed a little pink-tinged. The doctor had asked me on Wednesday if Charlotte had any blood in her diapers, and she hadn't at that point...but this of course got me freaked out. I called the pediatrician, who asked me to bring in a "sample". So we all popped in the car and went over there, poopy diaper encased in the thickest plastic bag I could find. They test it for blood, but it turns out that it was not blood, but rather some dye that made it through her system (which I think now is from the Trader Joe's strawberry yogurt Charlotte ate this morning which has some beet juice added to make it extra pink). She advised us to keep Charlotte off any lactose containing dairy for 10 days to let her body rebuild its dairy processing enzymes. While we were there, I was relaying the story of the day we'd had, including Nicholas' 9am throwing up incident. He had also developed a cough and congestion. She took a second to check him out...and he had a 102 degree fever. So I'm feeling like the best mom ever...totally oblivious to the fact that my son is burning up with fever as I'm tromping up and down the stairs changing diapers. She then informs me that she thinks he has influenza. You know...the thing we had the flu shot to keep him from getting? And, this is great, Missouri has the TamiFlu-resistant strain that can't be treated...and apparently flu shots aren't really helping prevent it this year anyway. 2/3 of her diagnosed patients had gotten flu shots. Great. So she swabs him for that, and for strep, but both turn out to be negative. She attempts to give Nicholas some Tylenol, when he starts crying because he won't take liquid Tylenol, only the "chewing kind". So off we went (after the warning that Charlotte would most likely contract this non-flu flu-like sickness soon) to get Nicholas the "chewing kind" of Tylenol. After which we went to get Charlotte some more diapers. What a day.

And I Thought I Was Going to Return that Last Bottle of Pedialyte

After a 24 hour reprieve from all things sickness, Charlotte woke up with a really lovely diaper this morning. But I figured, hey, I'll get Nicholas off to school and at least have one healthy child. So (as it is under 10 degrees here) I get both kids bundled for winter - coats, hats, mittens...the works. As we're walking out the door, Nicholas starts coughing....and throws up on his coat. Seriously?? So winter-wear was stripped off and laundry started, and I remain smack-dab in the house of sickness. Thank goodness Tom is coming back from Kansas City in a few hours because Charlotte is running out of diapers.

Brrrrr

It's going to be a high in the single digits today...and we woke up to ice on the INSIDE of this window. We've held out replacing this one last remaining original single-pane leaded glass window because I just love the look of it. But I think ice inside might be the nudge we needed to give up on the charm and go for the energy efficiency.