Rew

– let’s devote a post just for baby Andrew. Poor neglected, spoiled darling little boy. He’s had more grandparent time than he could dream of and a much easier time than Oliver during this month. He started off very sick with the doctor mentioning possible RSV. His first few nights were so miserable and pathetic. His sad hoarse cry left me no choice but to keep him in bed with me to nurse and coddle. And it helped. His fever broke that second night by midnight and never came back and he was better much sooner than Oliver. Add to that a schedule of no mommy time for nearly 3 hours each morning and afternoon, no comfortable crib and no regular schedule and his sleep patterns are just awful! He’s in for a shock when he gets home because we’ll be back on schedule and sleeping in his bed whether he likes it at first or not. But honestly, at home he slept so well – long naps and long stretches at night. After the first day of protest I’m sure he’ll get back into the swing of things and be so much happier. His daily activities are perfect though- plenty of one on one time and toys. Our borrowed bouncer is one of his favorites and he can entertain himself on the floor for hours each day. I keep expecting him to get the crawl but he makes progress each day. I’ll post to you tube as soon as it’s obvious. He’s such a happy baby and his personality is already coming out.

Recent Dives...

have been going great for Oliver but not so well for me. I volunteered to go in with Ollie even though someone was there to go in with him. This was to give another mother a break. I couldn’t get my ear to pop as we went deeper into pressure. I thought it wouldn’t matter since it was my last dive – I wasn’t planning on needing to do any more. So I let it go further than I should have. I was trying all of the gymnastics, head turning, jaw stretching, behind the ear massaging things they suggested but it was still awful. Then I find out the very next day that I am needed to do both dives. So instead I babysat 3 kids each dive. Oh well. Probably better than having awful ear pain for the next week but certainly not as good as the internet research I had planned.

Brain Storm/Brain Fart

I was trying to be productive tonight while nursing my vacation-spoiled baby to sleep so I was brainstorming ideas for Oliver’s future baths. I was trying to think of the ideal bath solution that would include his love for playing in the water. Nathan won’t always want to/be able to bathe him in the tub and I mentioned to our service coordinator that we will be looking soon for alternatives. So I was just picturing what the ideal setup would be. I quickly went from thinking of just bath type setups to larger bodies of water. If we could combine bath time with year round aquatic therapy then we would be taking care of two major pieces of our IFSP (IEP). So the body of water would have to be deep enough for him to kick and his pool float thing is perfect for that. We would need to be able to get in with him or stand off to the side to support him. It would have to be somewhat tall but not too big if we want it to fit in the house. If we tried to actually use soap to bathe him then we’d have to get something friendly like a Bronner’s natural soap or something and then probably still have the water circulate somehow. So I’m picturing the container of water and going through all of these possible sizes and shapes and where it would fit in the house and how would we do it year round etc etc etc. Then it became all too obvious that I’ve really been missing out on the important sleep – due to the above mentioned spoiled baby – and that this sort of thing ALREADY exists! A hot tub. Haha I bet I can’t get Early Intervention to pay for that- no matter how I word it!