Don't Feed Me

As I mentioned before, on Mothers' Day weekend we had a crowd of family here to celebrate the arrival of Isaac. It was quite a busy weekend and Jack was coming off of 3 busy weeks of having various family members here. I don't know if it was the sudden onset of spring allergies or the general lack of rest, but Jack came down with a serious cold on Friday. As the afternoon wore on I noticed that he looked more tired than usual and then I realized he also had a fever.

With the onset of the fever we decided that he would have to sleep in our bedroom instead of with his cousins and that we needed to try to implement some degree of quarantine – easier said than done. The best solution we had was to tell Jack he could only touch Isaac's feet and to not get near his face, and to not get too close to his cousins. Washing hands became mandatory as did coughing into his arm. We also tried to get him to rest, but that was an uphill battle.

Jack's fever broke shortly after we administered Tylenol and put him to bed. The mama in me is always a little nervous when my baby(ies) get sick. When I woke around 2am to nurse Isaac, I noticed that Jack had pretty labored breathing. As I finished with Isaac, Jack sat up on his pallet and started wheezing. I immediately woke Daniel up and then checked Jack to make sure he was doing ok. He had a fever again and said that it was hard to breathe. 

Daniel and I agreed that we didn't want to mess with breathing issues, so we gave Jack more Tylenol and then Daniel took Jack to the ER. By the time they arrived at the ER, Jack's fever had broke (thank you Tylenol) and the cool night air had helped his breathing. The doctor at the ER told Daniel that Jack basically had a cold. Thanks doc! Needless to say, Daniel and I got very little sleep that night and our house full of people were none the wiser.

The next morning Daniel and I slept in, but Jack was feeling better so he and joined the rest of the family for breakfast. Later that morning when I finally got up, my mom mentioned that they hadn't fed Jack anything. I asked why and she said that Jack was wearing a sticker that said not to feed him.

Then my sister then walked up and mentioned that Jack had told them he had been to the hospital but no one believed him (they thought he was talking about the hospital for Isaac's birth)! I was able to verify the hospital trip and get Jack some breakfast. Who would have guessed that a sticker would cause such confusion?!

"Wasn't sure if my sis was trying to mess with us, or if I should actually believe my nephew's sticker he appeared with this morning. Don't feed him....Turns out he went to the hospital in the middle of the night for a bad cough/breathing trouble, but was fine." #youdontseethateveryday

Traditions: Tree Decorating 2014

Saturday afternoon and evening were spent decorating our Christmas trees. First came our real tree with the Gingerbread Cookie Ornaments and white sparkle lights. Jack was pumped about this experience. Though he was disappointed that we didn't have a star for the top (we do now).

I turned on the Christmas music and we added our cookie ornaments to the tree. We strategically moved Jack around the tree since he was inclined to hang everything in clumps together.

I'm not sure what he liked more: hanging the ornaments or eating the cookies (I'll get to that later).

After our tree was decorated, we took a break before heading out to the local seafood market to grab dinner. A sampler platter for me and Daniel and salmon for Jack hit the spot.

After we had our fill of seafood, we headed home to decorate tree #2.

Our little fake tree was purchased in 2002 when we were first married. The tree skirt was actually used in our wedding. I think the tree cost us $10 at Big Lots and it has great sentimental value for us. 

For a brief moment last week, we couldn't find the tree and we were both a little sad to think that it might have gotten lost in our last move. Thankfully Daniel found it.

The ornaments on this tree are really special to us.

They include old ornaments from our childhoods, gifted ornaments from our wedding, and ornaments we have collected on every trip we have taken over the last 12 years. 

They also include ornaments that belong to Jack. A whole smorgasbord of memories can be found on our little fake tree.

One other tradition we typically do when we decorate our tree is to drink my special decadent hot chocolate, while watching a Christmas movie. This year we let Jack watch a Curious George: A Very Monkey Christmas and while drinking the special hot chocolate (for him I blended it with a scoop of vanilla ice cream and skipped the kahlua!).

Now back to the cookies... while I finished making the hot chocolate that Daniel and I were going to drink, Jack came up to me and said that his mouth was yucky. He had dark brown stuff in his teeth that wouldn't wipe off and I couldn't figure out what was in his mouth.

After consulting with Daniel, we realized he had asked Daniel to eat a cookie and Daniel said yes. Unfortunately the "cookie" in question was a cinnamon applesauce cookie ornament that was 3 years old...

I hurried Jack upstairs to the bathroom to brush the remnants out of his teeth and off his tongue. He seemed fine so I had him drink a bunch of water. Thankfully he didn't have an adverse reaction to eating the ornament.

While I took care of brushing Jack's teeth out, the rest of the hot chocolate for me and Daniel burned. So much for enjoying it with our tree decorating! The whole decorating mood was killed a bit after that, but Jack still enjoyed hanging all of the ornaments.

Sometimes things go how you want them to, sometimes they don't. Such is life. But we will probably always remember how Jack ate a cookie that wasn't a cookie!