croup

My poor little man has croup! Yesterday Kevin and I noticed Dane coughing a bit...it was a loose cough and he had no other symptoms, so we were just waiting it out. Last night he woke up at about midnight and his little cry was very hoarse and his cough sounded very barky. So we stuck him in bed with us to keep an eye on him. At 4am I woke to hear him breathing VERY heavily. When we looked at his chest and saw him constricting, it was all I needed to see to go to the hospital. Before Dane's heart surgery, he constricted like that and I know babies should not work that hard to get oxygen.

Luckily we caught it early and Dane did not need breathing treatments or an oxygen tent, just some medicine and we were on our way home! A blessing considering some of our other hospital visits. He still sounds like a heavy smoker, but he is doing just fine.

Other updates:

Dane still is crying for long spells when I leave him

He is learning to "share," he shares his Cheerios with me and he gives me this little bear he has to give it kisses

He is pulling himself up on all the furniture. I have some pics, but I will have to post them later!

9 month portraits

These are not edited by the photographer...meaning I did my best with them, but am no pro. Plus, I do not have a good program to edit pictures. I wanted to post them anyway.

Dane's facial expressions are too priceless!

tears for mommy

Dane is going through a terrible bout of separation anxiety. It is breaking my heart and so stressful. Today at my MOPS meeting he screamed and cried on and off for two hours. I wanted to go get him, but I also want him to get used to being left... Unlike at the YMCA, these ladies were willing to wait it out with him. At the Y I get paged 10 minutes into my workout. It is hard on both of us. I hate to see him upset! As soon as I see him he reaches for me and CLINGS on for dear life.

Poor baby.

little laughs

Go Green...Go White!

MSU is actually winning some football games, that is always nice. I took some pics of Dane in his jersey to celebrate.

Saturday we had a "work day" here at the house. We invited all of Kevin's family over to paint, put in a fence, and also put a fire escape window in the basement. Everyone worked really hard and Kevin and I really appreciate it. I am still exhausted. It looks so much better, but we still have a lot to do to make this place look GOOD. In fact, I have to go clean, so TOOTLES!

dream dinners, what a dream!

Moms and working moms and even those of you who work until the dinner hour, you MUST do "Dream Dinners!" It was so fun! I made 12 dinner meals in an hour and a half! They all come with thawing and cooking instructions...and listen to some of my delicious meals:

madras chicken curry

oven baked almond chicken

coconut shrimp

garlic and balsamic marinated sirloin roast

parmesan crusted tilapia with tomato-garlic aioli

cheese lovers manicotti

herb and garlic pork chops with mashed potatoes

stuffed flounder with white wine sauce

DELICIOUS!

http://www.dreamdinners.com/

Sign up and make your life easier!

what the boy has been up to

I want to keep up with posting all of Dane's little accomplishments. So here is what he has been up to...

swinging in his backyard swing

crawling, waving, clapping, giving "high five"

brushing his two teeth

loving his baths

loving his toys...but more than that, loving getting into trouble (aka, the dog bones!)

trying new and yummy foods

blow-outs and politics

Dane has had about three blow-outs in his short life history; for an 8 month-old baby, I consider myself rather lucky. HOWEVER (didn't you see that coming...?), this morning was the most grand blow-out I have ever seen. Now, I questioned myself when I fed him prunes, oatmeal and yogurt for breakfast, but he has had prunes before and I have never had a problem. So I figured, what the heck, it's good for him anyway. About four hours later I literally heard a squirting noise as he was crawling around. I gave him a few more minutes to make sure he was done and leaned down to pick him up for a change. Whoa, baby! His little outfit was soaked through all the way down his leg. Needless to say I took pictures!?!? I am laughing as I write this because what mom takes pictures of poop!?!? Hee, hee. Well, husbands need to know what we moms do all day... I will not post the poop pictures and spare you.

On another note, in my Parents Magazine (thank you Sarah, I enjoy it very much, although often get around to reading it a little late) I was reading about political tees for babies and children. How do you feel about your little one wearing a tee to represent your political view? I personally do not think it is a big deal, I mean we already dress them in what we want. What if your little girl was dressed in pink and bows all her baby life and then grew to be a tom-boy and hated that kind of stuff? Same thing for the political stuff, I think. Even if Dane sports an Obama onesie and ends up a Republican, I will still love him (just think he is nuts)...

Well, that's all for today, my little man just woke up!

Mac Island

I am feeling a little sad that I did not post any pictures last time. After all, I look forward to pics on other people's blogs! So I wanted to share this one from our ferry ride on the way home from Mackinaw Island. Dane loves the water, even just looking at it.

Mac Island...

always a fun trip.

Annoyances

Well I do not like to complain so I will call this "venting." First off I cannot add my recent reads to my blog. Every time I try I get the "error on page" response. I HATE that. And I hate computer glitches, they top my #1 annoyances of all time. Okay, now I am going to sound off about not having a dishwasher in this new place. I started off very positive, thinking "well what did people do before dishwashers? You can deal with this, Holly." But clearly, I CANNOT. I am going insane. The baby bottles are completely overwhelming. I do the dishes about 4 times a day; breakfast, lunch, a batch of baby bottles, and then dinner. And let me tell you, dinner took over an HOUR to clean up tonight and that was with Kevin and I working as a team. Okay, I feel better now that I have vented. We looked at portable dishwashers online after our dish brigade and they are expensive. Poop.

Anyway, what is new in our world? Well let me tell you... I am looking for some kind of part-time job. I truly love being a stay at home mom...well at least until about 2pm. By then I am feeling desperate for adult conversation and am running out of games to play and songs to sing with an 8 month old. Seriously, we play and go for walks, go to the library, usually run some kind of errand...and then I am shot. It sucks feeling this way because I love Dane so much and I feel guilty about these feelings. MOMS UNITE, GIVE ME SOME FEEDBACK! The funny thing is I don't think I even have any mom friends who read this...pretty pathetic. I am trying, really. I am joining a MOPS group, I am in Junior League. Meeting friends with babies seems easy, but it turns out not to be.

BTW - I have not uploaded any new pics, but have taken some... Including Dane using his new toothbrush, hee hee. I love it, he is getting so big! I will share soon.

More later...