Banana Man

This morning Luca was being a bit cranky, so I thought I'd feed him breakfast then put him down for an early nap. He started screaming the minute I got him in his highchair, so I gave him a banana to play with as a distraction. What does this kiddo do with it but stick it in his mouth, bite a hole in the end, and suck the banana out through the hole. Ingenious little kiddo! See photographic evidence below:







And here are more recent photos of my cutie pie!

Seventh Heaven

Luca is seven months now. He keeps getting bigger, which Chris says is cause I keep feeding him. Not much to be done about that, I guess. Luca is sitting up well, although he occasionally flings himself backwards and really smacks his head on the ground. Chris jokes that he'll just have a B in math rather than an A. What's a few brain cells among friends?

The biggest milestone this month has been his two teeth, and yes, he has bitten me. And it hurts. A lot. The first time he bit me was in the middle of the night, and I screamed so loud it frightened him. To begin with he had no idea that the was hurting me; he would bite me, I would scream, he would unlatch and start to cry, and then be afraid to nurse again. The look on his face seemed to say "If...if I start again...are you going to make that awful noise?" I think by the end he figured out what he was doing though. The last time it happened I grimaced when he bit me, and he looked up at me and started to cry. I looked down and told him mommy was ok, and he smiled and went back to nursing. It hasn't happened since.

Actually the hardest part about the past month has been my health, which is taking a while to straighten itself out. Since leaving the hospital I have had two back to back cases of mastitis, and hence was on antibiotics for three weeks straight. I finished up my last course just under a week ago, but now it looks like my cellulitis is coming back, so I'm back on antibiotics for another week. Sigh. I just wish they'd figure out what on earth is going on.

Here's looking forward to Summer!

A Very Big Boy

Update: I changed the chart, as I thought it wasn't very good at depicting his weight and height.

Luca is a very big boy. At his last doctor's appointment, he weighed in at 21 pounds!









The doctor said that by two, if you double the child's height, you get an approximation of their adult height. Well, Luca would be over 6 feet tall!

I should invest in a grocery store chain... or maybe a farm.

Pooh All Over

As new parents, we've come to realize that pooh gets everywhere. Here's a sample of photos showing where we've found it.

If you have trouble viewing the slideshow, go to the album by clicking here.

Luca had a couple of very good poses while we were shooting the pooh photos.







What a happy little guy!

Trip to the Park with Carla

A couple of days ago, Kyra, Luca, and Carla went to the park. Carla took some pictures and posted it to her site. Here are the photos:

Mommy and Luca



(One of) Luca's First Experiences with Grass



Luca is Contemplating



Auntie Carla and Luca

Mommy took some photos, too. Here they are:



Sitting in the Grass



Inspecting the Grass



Grass is Fun!

In Loving Memory

Andrew Hillner Patrin
April 18, 1987-April 7 2009

Love
It seems like only yesterday
You were just a child at play
Now you're all grown up inside of me
Oh, how fast those moments flee

Once we watched a lazy world go by
Now the days seem to fly
Life is brief, but when it's gone
Love goes on and on

Love will live
Love will last
Love goes on and on and on

We love you Andrew, now and always.

Andrew was the youngest son of George and Pam Patrin, brother to Paul and Justin. He will be missed by his family and friends.

Schertz Funeral Home Obituary

Morris Nilsen Funeral Chapel Obituary

Dirty Little Problem

So with all the experimentation with solid food, and with the stress of mommy being in the hospital, Luca has been, to put it politely, less than regular for nearly a week now. He didn't seem terribly distressed about the situation until last night. Today I pumped him full of prune juice, but still nothing. Finally, on the advice of the Dean nurse hot line we tried a *ahem* suppository. Yeah. He was about as happy to receive it as we were to give it to him. Afterwords I nursed him to calm him down. Big mistake. I will simply sum up the situation with the phrase BIGGEST DIAPER BLOWOUT EVER. All over his diaper, all over him, all over my lap!!!!! Ah, the joys of parenting. I think this company should change their slogan to "Pedia-Lax, works so well you wish it hadn't!" By the way, take a gander at their mascot. First, why a penguin? Second, did they have to make him look like he was in the middle of receiving a suppository?

Back at Home

Kyra is back at home now. She was released yesterday afternoon, after dramatic overnight improvement in her infection, especially the swelling. She had to go in for one more treatment today, and she'll be on oral antibiotics for a week or two. They still don't know for sure what it was, but it's going away, and that's all we want right now.

Thanks to everyone who helped out, especially my parents and Carla! And thanks to everyone who's been thinking about us!

Update on Status

Last night Kyra was able to open her eye a little, which is a good sign since she hasn't been able to open it for a couple of days now. I keep hoping they'll send her home tonight, but there's probably little chance of it. The funny thing is that she gets the drug she needs intravenously, then she sits around all day. She doesn't even have the IV connected. They're just "observing" her.

Luca and I have been faring well. The first night, just after the ER visit, it was difficult to get him to go to bed. He wanted mommy I'm sure, and he didn't want the bottle. I kept trying to feed him, and he would scream a lot then eat a little, then fall asleep. He did this over and over again every half-hour or so for a couple of hours, probably because he wasn't getting enough to eat. Then he slept until 4. At 4 I thought he would be hungry again, so when he started crying, I wrapped him up in a blanket and went to warm up the milk. When I returned, he was fast asleep! No food required!

Last night was a lot better. I fed him a whole bowl of infant rice cereal before bed, gave him a bath, attempted to give him the bottle, and when that failed, gave him a nukie and rocked him to sleep. It actually worked! He woke up once after that, but I simply touched his face and chest and he fell asleep again. A bit later he was crying again and he wouldn't be comforted, but then I turned him on his side and he seemed more comfortable once I calmed him down. He slept again until 4 and didn't require any food again.

So I think mommy's been doing lots of work just for his comfort! He probably doesn't need to be fed late at night, just wrapped up. Either way, we miss mommy a ton. We were at the hospital with her for 3 or 4 hours yesterday, but it's just not the same. Come home soon mommy!

In the Hospital Again

This week Kyra developed a skin infection around her eye. It was red and itchy, and then overnight last night it became very swollen, so much so that she could not open her eye. Yesterday she had gone to urgent care to be treated when it was itchy and red and not so swollen, and they gave her an oral antibiotic and told her to return in a day if it got worse.

This morning, it was so bad I had to drive her to urgent care because she couldn't see out of one eye. They gave her two injections of antibiotics in each thigh and sent her home again with the same message as before: return if it gets worse.

Well, it didn't get better, and it seemed to get more swollen. So tonight we went to the ER to see an infectious disease doctor. I stayed with her as long as Luca would put up with it. She had a CT scan and after she came back I went home to put Luca to bed. Now she's at the hospital getting IV antibiotics, and the doctor said she might be there all weekend. They don't want it to get in her eye and cause any other problems.

I have never taken care of Luca all by myself. I got him to sleep, and I have his un-frozen milk ready to go in a bottle for a late night feeding. Did I mention he hates the bottle? I miss my wife, and I'm worried about her too... This will be an interesting weekend...

Seriously, What??

This HAS to be an April Fool's joke:

"Some blogs are seeing a new post that says 'eeyore is
cute!'

"We are identifying the cause of the problem and are working on a fix."

From Known Issues for Blogger, which tracks issues for the Blogger service (the one that provides the service for this site).

Update: The plot has thickened:

"Update: During routine testing, a bug caused a small number of FTP blogs to publish a test post. No systems or accounts were hacked. We have corrected the original bug, and are working to remove the test data from the blogs. In the meantime, republishing your FTP blog will also correct the problem. We apologize to those bloggers who were affected - we are looking at mechanisms to prevent similar occurrences in the future.

"Note: Some users with non-FTP blogs who have opted to receive post confirmation emails may have seen a spurious email about a test "eeyore is cute!" post. This email can safely be ignored.

"Update: This is now fixed."

So is this the "eeyore" bug? It must be a sad bug. I still think it must have been a joke.