Happy Thanksgiving!

Thanksgiving. Yum. Fantastic. We went down on Wednesday night to Grandma and Grandpa's house to go out for Grandpa's birthday, had a lovely dinner at Bushwood. Then Grandma, Aunt Jennie and I ran the 4 mile Turkey Trot on Thursday morning...brutal. Result was three tired ladies pretty early on in the festivities.

Jackson sported a fancy Thanksgiving outfit from Grandma that featured turkeys and all the fun stuff. He napped while the grownups ate their dinner, but when he got up, he enjoyed his first turkey dinner...his first meat of any kind actually. It was a fun time.

Then dad came home to Longmont since he had to work on Friday, but Jackson and I stayed in Lakewood and made cookies and watched CU almost beat Nebraska. It was a nice time. Then today we had our first real snow of Jackson's little life...should be fun to see what he thinks of it.

Hooray

Hooray for probiotics. Hooray for happy and healthy Jackson just in time for Grandpa's birthday and Thanksgiving!

Yesterday at day care Jackson delivered his first normal poop in 10 days. I never thought I would be so excited for a poop, but when I checked in at school and they told me that I cheered and announced it to my coworkers. No, really. When I picked him up from school he was a total riot. It would seem that we have a new and improved version of our son, as he is as smiley and giggly as ever.

We also have a more mobile version of our son. Last night he was playing on the floor with daddy and he rolled in one motion from tummy to back to tummy across the floor. Lock up the breakables, Jackson travels!

Desperation Throw

It's a short work week thanks to National Pig Out day on Thursday. It's a nice time to have a short week after the chaos of last week. Man when I named this blog countdown to chaos man was I right on. Last week was the hardest I've ever had. It wasn't just the various manifestations of Jackson's illness, or those of Jason or even mine. It was that, plus the stress and anxiety over would he get better, when would he get better. Then we thought he did, and boom, right back where we started from 48 hours later. It was brutal. I told Dr. T on Thursday that it was the hardest week I've maybe had ever...she asked me to compare it to the first week of Jackson's life and I was like...yeah, it was harder. One of us was out of commission for two of the five days of the week. We thought he had overcome it and we hadn't. I was missing work. And he WASN'T GETTING BETTER.

So now it's Monday. We had a fantastic day with him yesterday. Other than a few gross poos, he is himself completely. He is not over this lactose ordeal. It makes his poo liquipoo all morning and as the day progresses it gets more normal again only to have it go all liquipoo again in the morning. I had to reassure the daycare people that its not the virus anymore, its the lactose. I'm so desperate to make it stop that I've become a Boulder mother and have put him on freaking probiotics in two bottles a day because the doctor said it *might* actually help. She did not say, "Do it and he'll be cured" she said MIGHT. Did I miss something? I actually went to Vitamin Cottage. In Longmont. That is how desperate I am.

The tremendous upside to the desperation trip to Vitamin Cottage? It is next to Little Caesar's Pizza. Did you even know there were still those around? Apparently there are TWO in Longmont. Unbelievable. Anyways, since Jason is down to a weight he hasn't seen since high school thanks to our ordeal, I figure there is nothing like a $5 pizza and bag of crazy bread to fatten my skinny man up. So that was his dinner tonight.

The Never-Ending Story

Alas, it seems our vomitron story will never end. We seem to think we have cleared one hurdle on the road to healthiness, and instead we clip our toe and topple over again. Luckily mommy and daddy are the sort that will get up and continue to stumble and stumble until we reach the finish line and get our little man back on track.

Yesterday's doctor appointment was reassuring. We did all the right things, and Dr. T is pretty sure it was viral and that it's winding down. There's been no fever. There's been no vomiting. The issue of liquipoo was all that remained, and she said that could be attributed to some babies developing a lactose intolerance when they have a stomach virus. He has lost at least a pound...and it shows, poor skinny thing. That's par for the family...Jason lost six and I lost eight during our endurance of this evil evil virus.

So we switched him to lactose-free formula, just for the week. The benefits seemed to be in play within the evening as the frequency of liquipoo plummeted almost immediately. He got up this morning and for the first time since Monday there wasn't a diaper of poo waiting for us. Unfortunately, the lactose-free formula doesn't stay down as well as the AR, so the spitting up of days gone by has made a reappearance..hopefully we can figure out some combination to keep the liquipoos at bay and the food in his sweet sweet tumtum so he can return to plump and jolly form. And he had a massive poo in the high chair, which was kind of disgusting I won't lie to you. But it wasn't liquipoo.

The upside is he is symptom-free, but hasn't been for 24 hours so no school again today. Monday though...keeping our fingers crossed and hoping for Monday.

Vomitron: The Saga Continues

Oh how wrong I was. It's now Thursday morning. Jason is back to work after two days at home, Jackson and I are still recuperating. The vomitron virus struck us all. Jason got it on Tuesday morning at about 1, and I picked it up at about 4 pm that day. Luckily he recovered much faster than I did, as I was basically in bed or, ahem, elsewhere, for 24 hours.

Jackson...oh poor Jackson. He's still not over it. It's still coming out the end with no end in sight. I'm getting pretty concerned about it so we are going to visit the doctor today just to rule out anything treatable at this phase of the foulness.

Vomitron: Update

Well, things are looking up around here. We got through an hour long cycle of the two teaspoons every five minutes without puking, then a nap. Then we got through an hour long cycle of four teaspoons every five minutes without puking, and are wrapping up the first hour of what hopes to be a long nap. At 11 pm, we'll roll the dice with diluted formula...then hopefully a good night of sleep for everyone.

Jason and I had the ultimate tag team going. One of us would feed the teaspoons of fluids with a bottle, the other would then take the bottle and do another round of the fluids in there. During the first hour of this experiment it was a precarious time as the Vomitron was not keeping anything down and so as soon as he would cry out, we would take him to the bathroom sink where he would puke. Then we would wait five minutes and try it again. It was a brutal two hours before things actually stayed down and we could relax.

So anyways, he is doing much better and Jason is taking a nap while I watch the Godfather Part II.

Vomitron

I had a friend coin the term Vomitron. It's more of a name really. In that instance it referred to someone who had been overserved and whose body was violently punishing them at that time.

In this case, it refers to my child, who has apparently caught a stomach flu that is sweeping Boulder County. It started this morning while I was sleeping. Jason fed him breakfast and he puked...but that's really not that uncommon of an occurrence.

Then when I got up at 10 (I know, how great is that) Jackson was playing in his crib on his tummy. He didn't want to sleep, so I brought him into our room to play on the bed while I folded and put laundry away. This was a mistake, as he threw up on the bed.

I changed his clothes and put him in his crib. He threw up again. Lather, rinse, repeat. Threw up again. All told, he threw up like eight times. Then I gave him some pedialyte. Five minutes later he threw most of it up. 10 minutes after that he threw up some more. Then I called the doctor to talk hydration plan, diaper monitoring, etc.

So we will now attempt to feed him two teaspoons of clear liquid every five minutes while he is awake. Once he goes four hours without throwing that up, he gets four teaspoons (be still my heart...four whole teaspoons!) . Once he goes four hours without throwing THAT up, he gets two ounces of diluted formula. Then once he goes four hours without throwing that up, he gets two ounces of regular formula and we can get on with our lives. We don't need to really panic until he goes eight hours of the two teaspoon plan and nothing of that stays down. Right now we get a few to stay down, a few to come up...he is finally asleep right now for a little bit so I can violently wash my hands before inhaling some food to make it through the rest of this day and what is sure to be a long night.

Needless to say, I'm not going to work tomorrow. I'll be busy monitoring the length of stay of fluids in my child's tummy. And trying to figure out how long it will be before Jason or I start seeing our own manifestations of this illness.

Splish Splash I Was Taking a Bath

So now that Jackson basically sits up on his own he has graduated to the big bathtub. Obviously we are still there making sure there is no tumbling, etc., but he can pretty much just hang out in the tub with no issues.

Apparently along with this development is a whole new level of splashing. He has always sort of splashed for the past few months. A little smack of the water here and there. Well Jackson has graduated to a completely different understanding of what happens when we hit the water repeatedly with our hands.

He splashed for 10 consecutive minutes, stopping only to maybe pickup a bath toy every couple of minutes. He would then put that down and resume crazy splashing. When I took him out of the tub his face was dripping with water from his splash-o-rama. Adorable. Next time we will have to get these shenanigans on video.

Foooooooooooooooooooooood

It is so entertaining attempting new foods with Jackson. He is on to stage two foods, so he has been trying some combinations. He was loving sweet peas and rice. He has loved all the fun fruit combinations.

However no reaction was as outstanding as the "Summer Vegetable Dinner" we tried tonight. He hated it. I mean he HATED it. The look on his face when he first tasted might as well have said "summer vegetable crap" as his father just described it. Jason tasted it and said it tasted like Elmer's paste. Jackson agreed. He was a trooper and ate about seven spoonfuls. We followed it up with apples and blueberries, which he is much more fond of.

Right now he is going crazy in the Jumperoo and Jason is making him laugh simply by laughing in Jackson's face and swaying around in front of him. When Jackson gives a big belly laugh there are few things more awesome in this world. Does anyone know if jumping and jumping and jumping in a jumperoo is bad because if it is, we're in trouble. He loves it like a fat kid loves cake. The photo above...is from Jackson's 6 month birthday! Hooray JC Penney!

Milestones

So at the doctor there is this checklist where you circle yes or no to these different developmental milestones. Once you have circled three nos, you stop, and then pick up where you had nos the next trip and go as far as you can again.

Yesterday my third no for Jackson was, "Is able to sit up without assistance of person, pillow, etc for 10 seconds on own." The answer yesterday afternoon was no. Tonight, the answer is yes. Jackson officially sat up on his own tonight while playing on the floor with us for an extended period of time.

This was of course after throwing up his evening formula all over himself, his mother and the couch. Is that a milestone?

Doctor Day

Ugh...show of hands for who hates doctor day? I mean really, what's good about it? So we find out how big he is. 18 pounds, 2 ounces. 27 inches long. A big head still. Everything developmentally sound and progressing normally.

But really, I feel like more bad news is possible than good. Plus all the poking and prodding. Shots. Things of this nature. It's really not so fun. And let's pile on top of that that the lad is teething and you have a recipe for ick. He did fine really and is sleeping great so far tonight, ate reasonably well for dinner.

In the end, he is a super healthy, super happy boy and we are blessed. So I have that to be happy about, so a few shots and such really aren't much to endure.

Kind of a Neato Night

So it was a neato night as the family sat around and watched election results. We hope that the new direction our country is headed will work out and we are excited about the potential. I have a lot of conservative friends who are disappointed and/or worried about the future. I said to them, "Well, the country has taken a leap of faith. Now we see if we land on our feet or on our ass."

In the world of Jackson, he got his high chair! We had our first time eating in the high chair. We had green beans. He was a fan of the chair. It was a lot of fun. Of course now our place has another Fisher Price Rainforest ginormity, but hey, we are consistent!

Six Months Old

Yesterday Jackson turned six months old. It's unbelievable. Six months ago he could lay with his head in Jason's palm and his body would fit on Jason's forearm and a 12 inch cold cut combo from Subway was heavier than him. Six months ago he couldn't lift his head, turn his head, lift his legs...he couldn't do anything besides eat, pee, poop, cry and sleep. He ate two ounces every three hours. He needed us to help him fall asleep in his crib. He couldn't see more than 10 inches away but when he looked at us it was the best thing ever.

Today? He weighs like 20 pounds and is probably 27 inches long. He can lift up his whole upper body with his arms and crane his neck to get a look at whoever just walked into the room. He can roll over anyway he wants and basically pull himself all across the floor. He tries to get on his hands and knees but hasn't quite figured out how. He can make dinosaur sounds. He can smile and laugh and flirt with every lady he sees (and does this by the way). He recognizes mom and dads voice from another room at day care. He holds hands at day care with his playmates while they drool all over the floor. We have to turn off the TV in the room when he eats because he gets distracted. When he has a super fun time he does a happy dance. When he's really happy and we are holding him, he gives us a shy hug and a squeal and its the best thing ever.

Today he had his first day in the next up classroom at day care and I got totally bajiggedy. My little man is growing up so fast and I'm glad I get to see as much of it as I do, but I can't help but be sad about what I'm missing.