Happy New Year!

My post right before this one has caused me no short amount of guilt. I was overjoyed that my son was finally getting some sleep ~ only to realize that his sleep was coming from the fact that he became desperately ill. For seven days, his fever was between 101 and 104.4, keeping mom and dad out of work for a total of five days between them. Talk about pressure! And I dragged him to the doc twice before finally getting some antibiotics. I figured that with a fever that high and his breathing so bad, something more drastic than “an upper respiratory” infection – AGAIN – had to be wrong.

To be fair, though, the antibiotics didn’t seem to do much. He was sick for five days after he got them. So maybe my mom freak out wasn’t necessary.

Anyway, he was pukey, poopy and snotty for considerably longer than his mom and dad wanted him to be, trust me. But he’s such a little angel! Even in the worst of sickies, he is pleasant to be around. Most of the time.

Grandma Fashbaugh came for the week prior to Christmas. Grandpa didn’t make it until almost ten on Christmas Eve Eve, but at least he made it in! His first flight got cancelled because of the crazy blizzard. (The FIRST crazy blizzard!) Caleb had SUCH a great time with Grandma and Auntie Alisa! He’s always the center of Mom’s attention, but now he had three girls hanging on his every babble! He was a little hoot!

When he went to Auntie Alisa’s, he spent some quality time with Lucy, the kitty. And would you believe that the cat was better with Caleb than our dogs? What the heck?! He pushed her down to the ground so he could really pet her, and she just took it, and never even tried to leave or anything. I stood at the ready to make sure he didn’t really hurt her, but she just lounged around so he could love on her. It was adorable!

Then about halfway through the week, I got the same crap that Caleb had! I was able to push through it until Saturday, when I was nearly felled by the sick. I missed church on Christmas Eve, it STUNK! Then while everybody was watching the football game, I took another three hour nap. DayQuil and NightQuil where my best buddies. Christmas Day was pretty rough on me. I was just so weak. The first day back to work (after a ten day absence) was horrible. But I kept going to bed at 6:30 and 7:00 that week and made it through!)

It was incredible to watch Caleb and how he interacted with both sets of grandparents at once! If he was a bigger kid and I had tried to explain to him that he needed to spend time equally with each grandparent he couldn’t have done a better job! He would run from Grandparent to Grandparent, arms up, looking for hugs. Plus, the kid was an equal opportunity moocher – no one was left out from his begging. Especially for Chex mix.

The Fashbaugh grandparents left the day after Christmas, and Auntie Alisa and Mister Chris played babysitter to the bug. They got some AWESOME pictures of him in a santa hat. I can’t wait to get them online!

But that may have to wait awhile, because then JONNY got the sicko stuff! He’s STILL trying to recover. But it will happen eventually.

We took Caleb to his Garmane grandparents on Saturday so that they could take care of him for a couple days while Jonathan and I celebrated our six year anniversary! It was wonderful to have time not to worry about Caleb all the time! With our place as small as it is, even if Caleb is napping, we can’t be too loud without him waking up.

So we stayed out late, played loud music, and had a wonderful time! New Year’s Eve was better this year than last because we didn’t have to have a Caleb wrangler! So MANY THANKS to said grandparents, who allowed us to get out to the movies and have almost two whole days as a couple!

He’s getting cuter every day. He got new shoes yesterday, so I’m hoping that he won’t be able to get them off at whim. They light up, too, so I hope he stays interested. Today he’s wearing the new shoes – boots, really – with tractors on the sides, plus his Construction outfit from the Smiths, so he is just the cutest thing in the universe! You wouldn’t believe the total strangers that stop us just to tell us how precious he is. (I really do try to be gracious about it, but it’s tough not to get caught up in bragging on him! He IS totally adorable!)

He’s got another couple of teeth coming through, so the attitude is always just under the surface. It’s interesting to see how we react as parents. He’s a kid who will always push the envelope, I think. Yesterday, I caught him pushing his fire truck next to his high chair, and climbing on top of the fire truck using the high chair for balance! This is a fourteen month old BABY! I didn’t think I’d have to deal with that until he was a little older, anyway. Guess I’d better do even MORE child proofing!

Oh, and a final note – I smacked his hand yesterday for the first time! He of course crumpled onto the floor and did his brand new big fat fake cry. (He purses his lips and lowers his eyebrows and does a perfect imitation of crying – except it’s too perfect and is easily stopped by tickling.) Anyway, lest anyone think that I smacked him just to see the super cute fake cry, it was really for a reason! He was getting into Nonny’s food bowl during dinner, and she doesn’t have the tolerance that Auggie has. She’s never growled or snapped or anything, but I don’t want her to ever feel the need.

The dogs get fed twice a day, and if Caleb is anywhere near, he likes to get involved. His idea of involvement is trying to eat their food. We generally just tell him no, pick him up, and move him somewhere else for the duration. But since that hasn’t been working, and he definitely knows the difference between right and wrong in this circumstance, I finally decided that a more drastic approach was necessary. Hence, the smackdown. This morning he was in his highchair when I fed them, but we’ll see how he does tonight!