Quick Updates

Sorry it's been so long. No - I don't have photos. We'll find the cord for connecting the computer to the camera at some point, and then we'll find the full memory cards that haven't been downloaded yet, and then about four hours later we'll start going through the 800+ photos that are somewhere but not yet even looked at. Sigh.

We had a great trip to visit Robert's family in Michigan. Aunt Karen and Uncle John came out for a weekend of it and Judith and Gregory got to take a trip to a cider mill, complete with Judith's first hay ride. Earlier in the week Judith had great fun sweeping out Grandpa's truck, "driving" Grandpa's truck, and honking the horn on Grandpa's truck! It's just too cute for a three-year-old to be behind the wheel of a moving truck. Ahh! Again - at some point I'll have pictures. We were blessed to get to see Aunt Donna and Uncle Bob, in town at the same time from Florida. And we got to see some of our NU friends who are in the Ann Arbor/Metro area, and Kathleen has been good enough to post pics, so take a look here. The only downside of the trip was that Gregory never adjusted to the time change, and never went to sleep before two-thirty, three o'clock in the morning. Exhausting!

Since returning, we've been right back at work. And Gregory has been doing a better job getting down to sleep in the 9:00 to 10:00 p.m. time frame. Not great, but better!

Gregory has also started eating solid food. To steel a line from our good friend Kathleen (from when her son started solid food), it will surprise no one to hear that our extra large five month old loves food! He started last Monday with rice cereal, and has since had carrots, peas, butternut squash, prunes, sweet potato, and bananas. In fact, yesterday morning he ate an ENTIRE mashed banana with rice cereal. Amazing. I think tonight he was quite mad to not get a taste of the chocolate cake that Judith and I made!

On a down note, it has been a very long weekend. All started out well on Friday, but Judith was in a funky mood. She wanted to go down for her nap at 11:00 in the morning. 11:00! I usually have to start working on her at 12:30/1:00 to go down between 2:00 and 3:00. (The other parents out there know what's coming next.) When she got up three hours later, she had a fever. An hour after that Miss Brooke called to tell us two of the children at day care were diagnosed with H1N1 on Friday morning.

Within two hours of that call, Gregory had a fever. So, the advise from the doctor was to watch them. Both quickly moved into a lot of coughing and congestion. Late Friday night, after going to bed, Judith was crying and crying. When we went in she was just burning up. We gave her medicine, a cold washcloth, changed her clothes, had her drink some honey and some water, and let her sleep. We checked on her a few more times during the night, and the fever continued but was less. Gregory only got as high as 100.7. We didn't give him medicine. But we've elevated one side of his crib to help him sleep, and the cool mist humidifier is in his room. Neither have gotten to the point where they need to go into the doctor, though both have now been sick for 2 1/2 days.

Robert left early Sunday morning for his annual AICHE conference, which is in Nashville this year. He'll be back on Thursday night. I was supposed to be at the Diocesan adult confirmation this afternoon, both as worship director and cantor, but I canceled on it on Saturday. The Bishop does more confirmations than any other single liturgy, and my presence was not essential. And our babysitter just got over being sick and doesn't need this, whether it's H1N1, seasonal flu, or another virus. It's certainly respiratory, and Judith has had little appetite. Gregory is a little eating machine still, even with his nose running and his low grade fever and his sniffles and sneezes and coughs.

But I didn't even go to Mass this weekend. I figure that I'm the one who's written the information for our parish bulletins in the diocese, telling people, "If you're sick, stay home." It doesn't say "please." So neither Robert nor I are sick at this point, but we've certainly been exposed, and the kids are certainly sick, so they should not be there. Robert went to the Saturday evening Mass. It started 10 minutes late and lasted 85 minutes. I'm so glad I didn't drag sick kids there. So I took my own advice - there is sickness in our home and I stayed home. Robert declined to shake hands with people at the sign of peace, and the poor visiting priest (who is with us for eight weeks while our pastor is learning Spanish somewhere warm) just didn't know what to do with that.

Judith did get the seasonal flu vaccine last month, and the H1N1 vaccine last week. Neither Robert nor I have been able to get it, even though we have a child under 6 months in our house and are technically in the first priority group in California. But Judith had the shot, and it can take 2 weeks to build up full immunity. Maybe that's why she's sick, but since Friday night, not miserable. Or maybe they have some other virus that's floating around. Who knows. I just pretty much figure that with sick kids, I will be out of work this week. Oh well.

Now there is a child's door opening upstairs, so as it's almost midnight, I better go investigate. Have a great week. Stay healthy!