Another Cold, But Doing Alright

So Connor has another cold. I feel like my perfectly healthy little boy is now sick every week. I guess every parent feels this way once cold and flu season starts (aka school), but it's so frustrating.

Luckily though, this one doesn't seem to be bothering him too badly just yet. I say yet, because tonight he had a mini meltdown at dinner and even his bath didn't seem to calm him. It was strange. I just hope this runny nose isn't going to turn into another ear infection or chest infection again where he needs antibiotics. It's just sad, because he doesn't know how to clear the boogers, so it just drains down his throat into his chest or I guess into his ears and causes infection.

It seems like many colds he starts off fine for the first 4 or 5 days and then all of a sudden he has a bad night of sleep and wakes up one morning with a fever and is really unhappy. Let's just hope this time is different.

Despite getting a cold this week, Connor has actually been in a great mood. We've had a great week. On Wednesday, we even got to go to Gymboree to play with the fun toys they have and see some of Connor's buddies. We had a great time. Unfortunately I forgot to take pictures, but I assure you, he had a blast. He loved putting the balls in a basketball hoop that was just his size.

The weather has still been pretty hot in the afternoon, but the mornings have been lovely so we've been getting to the park after our jogs almost every day and he still likes that. He also still really likes his bin 'o balls and will run over to it as soon as I let him outside.

Also, I came to realize that Connor has a "bubble sound." Yes, a bubble sound. This is the screeching sound he makes when I blow bubbles at him. It is the cutest thing. It is basically this really excited scream. I could hardly continue blowing bubbles the first couple of times he did it, because it was so hilarious. I guess he likes bubbles. We also got him to say "bubble." He did it a couple of times. Of course it helps that it starts with his favorite letter, "b."

Also, I learned for sure something I have been suspecting for a while now, Connor is officially an animal lover. At Barnes and Noble they had three board books on the clearance rack that were each a different type of animal series, like baby animals, zoo animals, and sea creatures. In the books are a few pages of photos with descriptions. For example in the zoo book, there is a page with an elephant and it says something like, "elephants use their trunks to spray water on each other to keep cool." Each book is maybe 8 pages long, but each page is more fascinating than the next as far as Connor is concerned. He especially likes the polar bears in the zoo book. He almost giggles when he sees that page.

This of course makes me very happy, because I have always been an animal lover. As far back as I can remember I was "playing dog" and wanting to be a veterinarian. I have always loved animals and to see my son share this passion with me is really cool.

Jeff is also proud, because Connor has developed another passion, one that Jeff definitely shares...the love of airplanes. Well we don't know if he loves airplanes or not, but if an airplane is flying in the sky above us, he will stop whatever he is doing and look up in the sky to find it. I just think this is so neat, because he started doing this completely on his own. One day he was looking up in the sky and I didn't know what he was looking at and then I realized he was following a tiny plane in the sky. He tries to say "plane" too, which is cute.

This weekend we were in town and on Saturday, Connor and I attended a birthday party for Connor's friend Ben who is turning 2. Connor had a grand old time. The funniest thing though, was despite all the kids there and the bounce house, the playground, and all the other toys, Connor's favorite activity was playing with the ice in the ice bucket. He was entertained by that for so long. Of course he loved the cake too.

Connor was also a very good boy and let me and Jeff take him over to our friend Luke and Jessica's and put him to bed over there and then move him when we left later that night. We had fun with our friends and he fell asleep like a champ and then when we woke him up, put him in the car, drove home 30 minutes, and then put him back in his crib, he went right back to sleep.

We feel so lucky that Connor is able to do this. I know a lot of friends whose children would not go back to bed if you tried to move them once you put them down to bed. I don't know if they don't really try or if they know they won't go back to bed, but either way, they don't move them. This just makes things so difficult, because then you need to get a babysitter so much more often than you should. That, or you always have to have people over to your house. Anyway, I am just grateful Connor is flexible in that way.

Today was another nice day. Connor and I had a nice morning together and then we all went to church. After Connor's nap we went to the grocery store and we got stuff to make a really yummy dinner complete with steak, garlic and herb potatoes, and roasted asparagus. Yummy.

Well I'm hoping it's another fun week and I'm REALLY hoping Connor's cold remains just that...a cold. He turns 16 months on Tuesday, so hopefully he'll start his 16th month of life healthy.

On our jog on Wednesday morning, sweet little Connor fell asleep. This is pretty rare. He didn't get great naps or really good night time sleep this week with his cold, so he was extra sleepy. Poor guy, but doesn't he look precious.

On Thursday afternoon, Connor and I walked around the neighborhood. Connor led the way and I followed. He's good about staying on the sidewalk. He just likes to walk around.

At the birthday party Saturday, can you see Connor playing on the playground?

Hanging in the bounce house.

He loved the ice in the ice chest. That was his favorite thing. In his defense, it was probably 85 degrees.

I guess being the master of the ice chest gets the ladies.

It was a cookie monster party and the decorations and cake were super cute.

Connor found this tent with a tunnel and climbed in.

Hello!

Yummy, cake.

On Saturday, of course we also watched football and Connor sported his Aggie hat to show his Texas A&M pride. He didn't keep the hat on long, but Jeff got this cute picture.

At dinner, Connor was being goofy and Jeff got it documented. He's so silly.

Hee hee!

I may have a runny nose, but I'm still a jolly guy.

Connor did Great With the Grandparents

So Jeff and I were out of town this weekend, but apparently Connor did great with Gigi and Pagger Don. I was very worried, because on Tuesday, Connor was sent home from school with a fever and as I mentioned in my last post, his sleep has been weird and so I was very worried that we were going to leaving a sick child with his grandparents.

Luckily though, he seemed to be feeling better on Wednesday and by Thursday, he was actually back to his old self it seemed, so we think it may have been a 24 hour bug or something. Thank goodness.

Jeff and I flew out to Detroit on Thursday evening, to go to Ann Arbor, MI so we could attend the Michigan versus Michigan State football game on Saturday. We had a great time and it was awesome, because we got reports throughout from Gigi and Pagger Don that Connor was behaving wonderfully.

My favorite text was Saturday night, the night before we returned back home. Gigi said, "We couldn't ask for a better grandson and grandog to keep!! They are so easy and so fun!! Thanks for letting us watch them and we are always available."

Talk about music to any mother's ears. I guess Connor slept well and ate well and was altogether, pretty easy going so they had a great time. They even were brave enough to take him out to lunch one day at the Cheesecake factory. Wow. I only have a couple of pictures from their adventures, but I know they had a blast.

It's always hard leaving your little one behind, but I'm just glad it all worked out. Thanks again, Gigi and Pagger Don for watching Connor. I know he had fun.

Before we left for our trip, I bought Connor what I have started calling the "Bin 'O Balls". We didn't have much to do in our back yard, because he couldn't walk in the grass very well, but now that he is getting better at that, I thought I'd get him an activity for outside. He seemed to like it right away. I took some pictures of his first experience with the "Bin 'O Balls."

Crawling in the "Bin 'O Balls" to get at all of them.

He found these fun balls with holes that he could put his fingers through. He liked that.

More digging in the bin.

Throwing balls. He has really gotten into throwing stuff lately. Can you see the soccer ball in mid-throw action?

This big ball is awesome!

I am so strong.

I've got the ball Momma.

Going to work with the big ball.

Gigi and Pagger Don sent us this picture of Connor on Saturday from their camera phone. He looks very happy.

They also sent us this picture from their phone. I think Connor is trying to show Pagger Don how to play with the balls.

Jeff and I posing near the stadium.

The band forming the block M before the game started.

Michigan flags and the very maize student section.

I'm happy to be at the game.

Enjoying time with old friends.

Adjusting to a New Schedule

So this has been a bit of a rough week for us as far as sleeping goes. Connor has decided to get up around 5:45 AM all but one day this past week. Of course I don't get him out of his bed until nearly 6:20, hoping and praying he'll go back to sleep, but by that point he's pretty annoyed with me and starting to cry. Mind you I'm awake that whole time, but I'm intently listening to the monitor willing Connor to go back to sleep.

When I do get him out of bed he's ready to start his day. It's pitch black in his room and I am foggy eyed, but he's ready to go. Honestly though, at first it seemed like he was as unhappy about it as I was, because he woke up pretty fussy the first couple of times, but honestly, the past couple of days, it's like he has gotten used to it, which makes me very worried. I was hoping it was a passing thing.

He will occasionally do this if he's teething or getting sick or something, but it doesn't appear that anything is wrong. I did have my suspicions that his two year molars were on the move, because he has also been expressing some other teething symptoms (more pooping, rubbing his mouth with his tongue, not wanting me to touch his mouth, weird sleep patterns, clinginess, mild diaper rash, etc.), so it's still possible it is teething, but it's just so hard to know.

Of course he could just be needing less sleep, so we could try putting him to bed later, but that doesn't seem to help either. We put him to bed a bit later a couple of times this week, by accident, because we took him to things that kept him out a bit later, and he still got up at the same time.

I guess the bottom line is that I've got to adjust to getting up earlier for the foreseeable future. Oh goody!

Despite the early rising, we still manged to have a fun week and a weekend. We got to have a fun playdate with our friend Jack and his Mom Jessica. We also had a family dinner Tuesday night. Connor went to school and got to see a fire truck. We got to go to two different parks. This weekend, we went to the Fort Bend County Fair, we watched football, we went to more parks, we went to church, we went over to our friends for a baptism reception and we had lots of fun together as a family. Check out some pics from our fun, albeit, exhausted week.

Tuesday night I cooked pasta primavera so we could all have dinner together as a family. After Jeff took this picture I remembered the picture he took back when Connor was 8 weeks old and I had 4 pots going and a sleeping infant in my arms. Man, it was pretty crazy back then. I'm glad my little dude is no longer an 8 week old infant and I don't have just 8 weeks of experience. Ha! I did repost that photo though below. Enjoy the blast from the past.

Me and Connor cooking dinner when Connor was 8 weeks old. He looks so small there. Wow!

Connor loved his pasta and so did Daddy.

On Wednesday, Connor and I met Jack and his Mom Jessica at a park near our house and then they came back to our house for a bit. We had a great time.

The boys loved walking around together.

After all that hard playing it was time for a snack. Poor Jessica was in charge of feeding the hungry masses.

Connor has been working on his sign for "all done" and he kind of waves his hand in the air. He is showing it here.

We went to another park in our neighborhood that had more shade and a big path around it. Connor walked around the entire path without falling. It was pretty impressive.

What a stride.

He liked climbing the stairs up to the playground.

I like this park.

I reorganized some of his toys and I found these two footballs and he seemed to like them right away. He would walk around with them and then throw them. Every time he threw them he would laugh.

This is his throwing motion. He sort of shakes his arms around. It's pretty cute.

Throwing balls is hilarious.

This is soooo funny.

On Saturday, we went to the Fort Bend County Fair. Here we are ready and excited to head in.

Unfortunately we were greeted with a whole bunch of nothing.

The website said it opened at 10am, but apparently none of the booths or activities started until later. There was no one there and nothing to do.

The stores weren't even open yet. It was so sad. We were so excited to ride the Ferris wheel and see the animals and we couldn't do either.

There was this one exhibit area with a few animals so we were really excited and had to check it out. Finally, some action!

Although it too was a little lame. Look a cotton display. Yes, those are jean shorts.

This cracks me up every time. Nice goats with a huge "dog" kennel sign.

The best part of the day was the fact that Jeff and Connor matched. How cute are they?

What a sweet father and son duo.

Oh boy, stinky chicks. This fair is awesome. Ok, maybe the lamest fair ever, but we'll try again next year and come back later in the day when more stuff is open I guess.

We did get one awesome thing on our way out...funnel cake!

This morning, was the chilliest day yet, and I actually had to grab a blanket for Connor before we went out for our jog. He wore a sweatshirt and then I put a blanket on his legs. It's amazing. I can't believe it is finally fall.

He found a stick and had a blast carrying it around.

Steer us to safety captain.

I found a tennis ball and Connor entertained himself for 5 minutes throwing the ball, chasing it, and then throwing it again. It was really cute.

This afternoon we went to our friends the Sandovals, because their 8 week old son Collin got baptized today and they had a reception over at their house in his honor. Connor had a great time and it is always nice seeing our friends and their kids. Connor tried to play with the older kids (5 and 3) but he couldn't quite keep up. Maybe in a little bit buddy.

It's hard to tell in this picture, but Collin actually has chubby little cheeks like Connor so we decided that they needed to start the chubby cheek club of Sugar Land and they could be the founding members. Talk about one cute club.