More Pool Time

Brian and I took the boys to the pool again last night and then I took them on my own this afternoon. I was a little nervous about handling both Carter and Rylan on my own, but it went great. Carter listened to me really well and waited to get in the pool until Rylan and I were also ready.

I bought Carter some goggles this morning because there is a ton of chlorine in the pool right now and Carter really hates getting water in his eyes right now. He loves them but looks a little silly!


Carter was really good with Rylan. He pulled his float around some and softly splashed the water with him.


Rylan has been enjoying the pool more and more with each visit. He was smiling and laughing more today. He seems to really like just watching the other kids play.

Pool

Our neighborhood pool opened this weekend so we took the boys there tonight. It was in the 90s today and the water was surprisingly warm for this early in the year.

This was Rylan's first time in the pool. He resisted us putting him into the float by putting his legs up but we eventually got his legs through the holes. He fussed for a minute but then sort of settled in and accepted that he was in the pool. He was never really thrilled about it though.


We did coax a few smiles out of him ...


Carter was super excited about going to the pool. He was a little nervous at first about jumping in but his confidence improved. I think his head only went under once, but he is still nursing that ear infection so it's probably best he didn't get his head very wet.


Earlier in the day I was playing with the boys outside while Brian did some work. Since it was so hot, I got out the baby pool. Rylan is still not much of a fan, but he really liked putting his hands under the water from the watering can so I was able to keep him happy for a bit.



By the way, Rylan's hair is wet because I was letting Carter pour water out of another watering can. When I got out of the pool for a second, Carter decided to water Rylan's head. Rylan was not very happy about that!

Dancing Carter

Carter can dance too ...

He was really enjoying Old Crow Medicine Show!

By the way, both boys finally seem well. Carter was only really bothered by his ear infection the day we went to the pediatrician and got it diagnosed. He's on Cefdinir for 10 days which he's about half way through. And Rylan's nose is finally not running!

Rylan discovered how to put balls in the flower on his exersaucer the other day. He was so proud of himself!

Dancing Rylan

Rylan loves music. Here's a video from today of him dancing ...

Here's a video of Rylan playing with the toy he was dancing to in the previous video ...

Peekaboo

The boys and I were shopping at Old Navy today when I looked down at Rylan and he was playing peekaboo. A pulled out my Flip and caught a little bit of it on tape ...

This was the first time Rylan has ever done this. So cute!

Double Ear Infection

Carter was really sick about 2 1/2 weeks ago with a bad cough and fever. He got a lot better but the cough never went 100% away.

Then about a week ago Carter caught a cold from Rylan. He's been coughing a lot and has had a runny nose.

Yesterday Carter woke up early from his nap and was in a foul mood. He's like that sometimes but usually within 30 minutes, he snaps out of it. After a couple of hours, his mood finally improved, but he wasn't his normal self either.

Then last night, around 11:30 pm, Carter woke up crying. I went to him and tried laying on the floor next to his crib and holding his hand, but he never really calmed down. After about 30 minutes, I offered to him that he could sleep in my bed (Brian was out of town last night), and he wanted to.

Rylan then woke up crying so I nursed him and then Carter and I tried to get settled. He was warm and couldn't get comfortable. He kept crying and just wasn't able to fall asleep. Then he threw up all over both of us and the bed. And when I was trying to get him to the bathroom, he threw up all over the floor. I got the sheets changed, us changed, and cleaned up as best I could at 1 am.

Carter and I dozed the rest of the night but neither of us slept much. When Rylan woke up again around 4 am, I fed him again and while I was doing that, Carter scooted over to my side of the bed more and fell asleep pretty soundly. I had the duvet piled up on Brian's side of the bed so Carter couldn't fall off the bed and I wanted to block the other side of the bed so I ended up getting the very edge and didn't sleep anymore. But Carter finally did so that was good.

When we got up, Carter went back and forth from being extremely grumpy and just wanting me to hold him to being sweet and playing. His temperature was 101 under his arm so I gave him Tylenol. Carter ate a ton for breakfast but then nothing for lunch. He told me once in the morning that his ear hurt, but he only mentioned it once and didn't dwell on it. Around midday though he told me a few times that his ear hurt so I called the pediatrician and made an appointment.

Since Carter sometimes get scared about going to the doctor, I told him that the doctor was going to fix his ear and that he wasn't going to do anything that hurt. He remembered this and was great while we were there.

The nurse took Carter out into the hall to get his weight and take his temperature. She used an ear thermometer and when she was done, Carter told me his ear was fixed. It was really sweet. But then after a minute he realized it wasn't yet and told me "ear hurt" again.

Then our pediatrician came in to check out Carter and discovered a really bad ear infection in his left ear and a mild one in his right ear. Carter was in a good mood at the time and the pediatrician was surprised Carter wasn't in more pain. Poor kid!

Tonight Carter didn't want to eat until he saw the Cheerios that Rylan was snacking on and decided he could eat some. Here's a picture of him I took with my phone that shows off the haircut Carter got this morning and the elephant and giraffe we picked out at Target while waiting for his prescription (they didn't leave his side all evening) ...


Hopefully Carter feels better soon!

Splashpad at McFee Park

My dad and I took the boys over to McFee Park today. The splashpad there is now open and I randomly had swim trunks and a swim diaper in the car so we let Carter play in the water. He only played for a few minutes before wanting to return to the playground, but he had fun. I only had my phone with me, but I took a couple of pictures from a distance were I was hanging out with Rylan.



I'm sure we'll be back soon.

Eruption Cyst

Rylan has been working on getting his first molar for awhile now. It's really hard to see into his mouth though - he just wants to bite down if you put a finger in there. I had been able to see some of the white corners of the molar breaking through his gum though a few times.

Today when I was trying to get a look at the tooth I saw that the gum looked super swollen. After a little more inspection, it looked like Rylan had a huge growth where the tooth should be coming through. Actually, it kind of looked like a giant blister.

Brian did a quick internet search and discovered Rylan has an eruption cyst. There's nothing we need to do and when the tooth comes in further, it should cause the cyst to go away. I'm not sure how much it's bothering Rylan. He has been waking up more at night but he's also had a cold.

Even if the cyst is bothering him some, Rylan was happy at the playground today ...

Some Pictures

Yesterday the boys and I played in Carter's room for awhile. Carter decided to play with his Take-Apart vehicles in his closet ...


And Rylan kept making funny faces ...



This morning Brian and I took the kids down to World's Fair Park to go to the Children's Festival of Reading. It was really crowded, hot, and not that exciting so we went to Market Square and had lunch at a Mexican restaurant instead. Much better.

This afternoon Carter helped Brian rotate his tires ...



He was really good!

And then Carter helped Brian mow the grass ...


My dad arrived this afternoon for a visit. We haven't seen him since Thanksgiving so we celebrated Christmas after dinner. Carter was really excited about all the presents ...


I think Carter's favorite gift was a tool set ...

Power Wheel

If you didn't already think that Rylan is suddenly growing up into a toddler, you will after watching this video!

Rylan LOVES the Power Wheel - he gets so upset when you take him off of it.

Zoo Day

After being in the 90s last week, the last few days have only gotten into the 50s and have been overcast. We almost froze today, but the boys and I met Amy and her kids at the zoo.

Rylan stayed pretty warm and happy in his winter jacket ...


Apparently the end of the school year is when lots of schools visit the zoo. We had to deal with tons of older kids almost crushing Caitlyn and Carter at some of the exhibits, but we all survived.

Before leaving we all took a ride on the carousel. Rylan wasn't a huge fan this time (just a little whining), but the rest of the kids had fun.

Mommy's Nose

When I say "Where's Mommy's nose?", Rylan does this ...

He does like swinging his arms and grabbing at your face in general, but he seems to have aim towards your nose when you ask him where it is.

Crawling

Here's another video of Rylan's belly crawl. He only pushes with his right foot so he still goes a little diagonal, but he's getting faster.

Frustration

We haven't made much progress with getting our hail damage repaired.

Originally our insurance agency was going to handle everything remotely. We were supposed to get estimates from contractors to repair everything and email them along with pictures to a remote adjustor. However, because that adjustor couldn't get an aerial picture of our house for measurements, he had to hand over our claim to an adjustor who would come to the house to view the damage. The new adjustor called me on Monday to say he was in Knoxville but had no idea when he'd make it to our house. He's supposed to call us "soon" to schedule a time to come to the house.

We understand that there are many, many people with damaged homes and that our damage is relatively minor. However, we're frustrated because I've seen most of our neighbors have adjustors to their houses already including our next door neighbor who is with the same insurance agency.

Getting contractors out to the house is another frustrating matter. Contractors are so busy right now that they are turning down work (if you can even get them to answer their phone). We technically have estimates for everything we need repaired but we don't like everyone the estimates are from. So we are still working on getting more contractors out here.

And then today it hailed again. Luckily it was small (up to dime-size) but it still broke more siding off the house. Yeah.

Fun with Caitlyn and Alek

Amy called me this morning and invited me to go to the mall with her and the kids to look for sandals for Caitlyn. We never found the sandals but we did snag some good deals on clothes for the kids. We looked around for a few hours, met Amy's husband (Chad) for lunch in the food court, wangled crazy kids, and let those crazy kids play on some of the rides.


This evening Amy brought the kids over to play. It reached around 90F here today so I got out the baby pool and other water toys. Alek LOVED the pool while Rylan would hold his feet up when I lowered him down and start crying. I really hope he likes the neighborhood pool a lot more because it opens this weekend!

The little ones working on their tans ...


Rylan loves Alek's ears. He really got ahold of one here ...


And here are the big kids running through a sprinkler ...


I had set up the pool and other water toys during Carter's nap. When he walked outside and saw them he got a huge grin on his face and said "Wow, Mama!". I'm sure today was just the first of many days we have these toys out because when it's hot it's so much more tolerable when we can cool off with water.

The Boys

Here are a couple of cute pictures from yesterday and today ...

Much Better

Carter still has an occasional rough sounding cough and is eating light, but otherwise, he's back to his old self. Thank goodness!

He started doing much better yesterday. Brian and Art took him to the building workshops at both Lowe's and Home Depot. We didn't do much the rest of the day other than yard work as we wanted to give Carter the chance to recover.

Art left this morning. Again, we didn't do much today but the boys and I played outside for awhile this afternoon. Here's a short video of Carter jumping in a hopscotch grid. I drew one out for him a few weeks ago and after showing him once what to do, he had to do it over and over and over again.

Still Sick

Carter is still quite sick. He didn't sleep well last night and we kept hearing him talking but he wasn't upset so we let him be in his crib. Around 3:30 am though he started crying (right after I had put Rylan back to bed after his second feeding of the night!) and I went to him. He was burning up and complaining about a bug in his bed. I'm thinking that the fever may be making his skin hurt or itch and Carter thinks a bug is crawling on him.

I took Carter to our room to give him some Tylenol (which seems to be bringing down his fever more than Motrin) and decided to let him sleep with us the rest of the night because he sounded so terrible. He was breathing super fast. It sounded like he'd just finished running and was out of breath. Both Brian and I barely slept the rest of the night as we listened to Carter and worried about him. Carter did sleep pretty well though. He decided to snuggle with me and I loved that.

Carter and I slept in to just after 7 am. Brian was nice enough to get Rylan when he got up so that I didn't have to disturb Carter. When Carter got up, he was really unhappy again. All he wanted was for me to hold him. He was really upset whenever I had to put him down. Carter had no desire to eat again but did drink a little milk.

Art, Brian's dad, got here last night and is staying with us for a few days. I wanted to get the boys out of the house for a little bit so I asked Carter if he wanted to go to the zoo. That perked him up. I figured we could just go for a little while and it was something that Carter would enjoy instead of just laying on the couch and watching cartoons.

Carter did great at the zoo for a little bit while he still had some energy, but I ended up carrying him most of the time while Art pushed Rylan in the stroller. We didn't want to keep Carter out for long and the zoo was insanely crowded with tons of school groups so we only stayed just over an hour.

Carter had been breathing rapidly for periods throughout the day and still had the same 102F+ fever so I called the pediatrician's office again this afternoon to talk to a nurse. She recommended we bring Carter back in so I took him in while Art and Brian watched Rylan.

Our pediatrician thought Carter's lungs were actually more clear than yesterday. He explained the rapid breathing could be caused by Carter's fever. Apparently a fever can cause the body to hyperventilate.

When we got home, Carter fell asleep on me and I was able to put him on the couch for a nap. He seemed to get a little energy after his nap and ate a little bit for dinner (worse dinner ever - tortilla chips and ranch!).

We got him off to bed at his normal bedtime and he's sleeping in his crib right now. He hasn't been coughing much so hopefully he sleeps better tonight. We really hope he gets better soon because it stinks seeing Carter so sick!

Sick Carter

Carter is sick. He developed a cough Tuesday night and then a fever yesterday afternoon. When I took his temperature yesterday, it was 101.7F. I managed to take a rectal temperature but Carter will have no more of that (I totally understand).

Last night he woke up calling for us so I went to him and he was burning up. I took his temperature and it was 102.5F under his arm. I gave him some Motrin and put him back to bed. He started screaming about 10 minutes later and Brian went to him that time. Carter was standing in the corner of his crib and saying there was a bug in his bed. Brian got him out and checked his bed and then Carter throw up on his shirt and the floor.

We got him cleaned up and decided to let him sleep with us because he was really upset, scared of his bed, and burning up. He didn't sleep as soundly as a week earlier, but we all managed to get a little sleep. Luckily Rylan had gotten up early for his nightly feeding. He was cranky then so I had gave him some Motrin because of that molar coming in. That probably helped him sleep through all of Carter's noise.

When Carter got up for the day, he was not happy. He was very clingy and didn't want to eat anything. The poor kid looked so pathetic.


We spent the morning watching cartoons. During Rylan's nap, Carter fell asleep on me and I was able to put him down on the couch for a nap.


I had talked to a nurse at Carter's pediatrician's office earlier in the morning and she thought we should bring Carter in. So after Rylan's nap, I woke Carter up and loaded both boys into the car.

Carter did pretty good in the waiting room but got really upset once we were in a room. He would not let go of me. After an exam and 2 chest x-rays, the pediatrician ruled out pneumonia but thought he has a little bronchitis. Because Carter was so uncomfortable, the pediatrician gave him a prescription for Zithromax. Carter perked up a little at the end of the appointment when he got a Buzz Lightyear sticker and it was nice to see him happy.

When we got home Carter refused to eat anything. After Rylan and I ate, we went back out to pick up Carter's prescription. We spent the rest of the afternoon watching more cartoons with trying to keep everyone happy (I wasn't very successful). Carter was so tired that he fell asleep on the couch a few times.

This evening Carter got some energy for about an hour and played with Brian. He still refused to eat but finally felt cooler before bedtime. I feel so bad for the little guy and I hope he's feeling better in the morning!

10 Months Old

Rylan turned 10 months old last week.

And he is finally crawling, sort of. He has the funniest crawl. He kind of pushes along on his stomach and uses one foot to push himself (and the other foot is in the air). So he ends up moving diagonally. I need to get a video.

Rylan is not pulling up on anything yet. He can bear weight on his legs but never does it for longer than 10 seconds. He has no idea he can hold on to anything - I'm always holding him when I try to get him to stand.

Rylan is eating a little more finger food - ham, bread, crackers, and pasta. I haven't tried much yet with him, but there's not really anything he won't eat so far.

Rylan is thinning down a lot. He's continuing to get taller while not putting on much more weight. Here's a picture of him from his bath tonight ...


Here's a picture from 4 months ago that shows the difference ...


Rylan already has quite a tan. I almost always put sunscreen on him if we're outside more than a few minutes, but he's a lot darker than Carter.

Rylan doesn't have any words yet, though he can say "mamamama" (I know it's not directed at me yet).

I noticed today that Rylan is working on tooth number 9. I saw his bottom right first molar has just started breaking through.

Maybe that's why he hasn't been sleeping quite as well at night (though his naps have been amazing the last few days). I'm too scared to write about his sleeping patterns right now because they've been getting better and I don't want to jinx anything! I'll just say that I'm still nursing him in the middle of the night, but I'm down to once a night.

Rylan's favorite song at Baby Bookworms is "Round and Round the Garden". I finally took a video of his reaction to the song today:

He's 2.

I feel like Carter usually behaves well.

Well for a 2 year old.

There are plenty of times that he doesn't listen and does what he wants instead of what we ask him to do, but he usually listens when it's important or when we're in public. He has been testing us a little more lately by sometimes doing exactly what we tell him not to do and then looking at us with a "what are you going to do about it?" expression. But he's only done that a few times so far.

However, today, I don't know what got into him while we were at the grocery store. I always put Rylan in the seat of the cart, and because Carter will get into everything if I let him walk, I put him in the big part of the cart.

So, first, Carter thought it was funny to throw food out of the cart and onto the floor. Luckily he never threw anything that could break! After the third time, I took him out of the cart and gave him a timeout. Once he was back in the cart, he thought it was funny to step on all the food in there. I got him to stop doing that, and then he started grabbing at anything he could reach on the shelves. I kept him as far away from everything as possible, and since he was bored, he then threw two boxes of food at Rylan's head. He got in lots of trouble for that one. I was hurrying to get the last few things we needed when Carter started throwing food again. This time we were around more people and I had to use the excuse of "he's 2" a few times. It was not a fun time at the grocery store today!

It made me feel a little better though when two boys a few years older than mine knocked down and broke a bunch of watermelons. I felt bad for their mom, but I was able to appreciate that Carter hadn't done anything that required me to find a store employee to clean up a mess.

A few of the other things Carter has done lately that remind he's 2 are:

• Pouring a cup full of water over Rylan's head in the bathtub
• Taking a toy from Rylan and replacing it with another one (as if Rylan won't notice)
  
• Throwing food to the dog
• Putting Cheerios in his ears and saying "ta-da!"
• Throwing a fit because his fingers are wrinkled while in the bathtub
  

Additional Hail Damage

On Saturday morning our insurance agency finally called us (the storm was Wednesday night). Because they have so many claims, we won't be having anyone come to our house. Instead, we are to take pictures and get estimates for repairing all of the damage.

Brian listed all of our damage out to the adjuster and then he asked us if we had any damage to our air conditioning units. We answered no because they'd been working. Well, we later went to check them out and one was damaged (the other was shielded by our deck).


We had someone out today to check the unit out to see if it could be repaired. Apparently this hole cannot be fixed and will probably start leaking. So we need a whole new unit.


This is going to be a huge insurance claim!

So far we think our roof didn't leak during the storm. We're supposed to have rain tomorrow so even though it's damaged, we hope the roof is going to hold up for awhile. We don't want to have to add internal house damage to our claim!

It's amazing though the number of blue tarps on the houses around us. And probably 75% of the houses in our neighborhood have at least one broken window.

With so much damage in the area, it's difficult to get contractors out to do estimates. We were able to get a siding contractor out here on Thursday to give us an estimate for the siding, fascia, garage trim, and window screens. He also took our broken window pane with him and had it repaired and returned to us on Friday. He's bringing out his gutter guy on Wednesday. Also on Wednesday we're having someone come out to do an estimate on our garage doors. The company that we had out today to look at our air conditioning unit also does roofs. We're probably going to use them since the roofer we've used before is so busy we haven't been able to get him to our house yet.