Sitting, Standing and Crawling

 Holden is now a baby on the move.  He is sitting on his own and can crawl very well. He goes particularly fast if there is an electrical cord, dog, or dog dish nearby.  He can also now pull himself up to standing independently and is pretty steady on his feet.  

Of course, Holden is also not even 7 months old yet!  At least Noella was a good big sister and prepared us for an early mover.

Noella-isms
pommagramma juice= pomegranate juice.  She doesn't like it, but she finds the name amusing.
kajamies= pajamas.  She loves kajamies, or at least half of them.  Nearly every morning (and most evenings, actually) she takes off her top and just sleeps with the pants.
spicy water= sparkling water.  She LOVES spicy water.  Which is sort of funny, because she does not like anything that is actually spicy.
alcrohol= what mommy and daddy drink.  Alcrohol apparently smells terrible, and whenever she gets a whiff of something that she does not like she wrinkles up her nose and says "Ew!  Alcrohol."
(more to come later...)

Things have been quite busy here for a few weeks. I kept intending to write a blog post whining about the various infections (Holden is still battling ear infections, the dog's ears keep getting infected, Noella has a staph infection on her foot), lack of sleep (seriously, what does this kid want?), diaper rashes (because of 3+ weeks of antibiotics), the piles of laundry, a house that appears to be hit by a tornado every day around 4.....
In the past two weeks, we have had several friends go through experiences that put those gripes into perspective.
A 9 month old who had such a severe stomach bug that he had to be hospitalized.  I am relieved to report that he is fine now.
A 35 year old father of two young girls who had blood clots in each lunch, spent several days in the hospital, and just returned with the fear of a heart problem. He was released this morning, but no one is sure where this is going.
And this afternoon I learned that a 5 year old friend of Mariel's has had a recurrence of Neuroblastoma, a particularly virulent pediatric cancer.  She had been declared cancer free for almost a year now, so this took her family completely off guard.  A week and a half ago everything was fine; her mom and I picked out matching clip-on earrings for our princesses and were planning for a time to get together.  They have yet to tell their daughter or her brothers that the cancer is back, because they do not know what to say.  There is no standard treatment for the recurrence of this disease, so they are looking for a clinical trial and, quite literally, a miracle.
At our Thanksgiving dinner, I laughingly said that I was thankful that Thanksgiving dinner was so much harder to make than it used to be.  With three kids underfoot, everything is much harder than it used to be.  And I am so lucky that it is.
Please keep our friends in your prayers.  And count your blessings.  I am.

The Cutest Kids in the World

(a totally unbiased presentation)

 

6 months old!
Holden was 6 months old on Thursday and had his check up on Friday.  He is now 19lbs and 4 oz and 27 1/2 inches... a big but well proportioned boy.
He also has a double ear infection (one in each ear), which was a surprise to all of us.  He has had a persistent cold, but has generally been his very happy baby self.  Since he is a baby in day care, we honestly did not think twice about the runny nose or mild cough.  There were no signs that he had an infection- no fussiness, ear pulling, fever, etc.  I guess if he is going to be sick this is pretty easy on us- although I am not sure how I will be able to tell if he is feeling better!
This is only the second time in my parenting career that I have had to deal with an ear infection and is very different in circumstances from the first.  Mariel was about 8 or 9 months old and it was the first weekend that she and I were officially living in our house in Richmond- we had just come from staying with Carl and Adella in North Carolina at the end of the semester.  We got there on Friday, I think, and were up all night with her on Saturday night.  I remember just holding her in my bed as she cried, wondering why the minutes were taking so long to tick by until the morning.  We had not set up any doctors in Richmond and with no experience in dealing with such an inconsolable baby we went to the ER at around 6 Sunday morning.  The attending doctors seemed quite disappointed with just how ordinary of an ear infection she had and sent us home with antibiotics.
I am keeping my fingers crossed that I have another 5 years to go until my next ear infection!