The last 6.5 months...

Just a glimpse into our lives during the past 6.5 months... (long post sorry)

We moved from Madison to my parents and it took 4 days, we wanted to do it in 3 but it did not happen... I suppose I was being a little ambitious due to the fact we had a 6 month old child.
Life was going pretty well when we first moved... My mom was making trips to visit her mom who was in the hospital 3 hours away, but was moved to a care center shortly after we moved. While in the care center they turned down her oxygen and did not monitor her percentage - basically if it were not for her roommate we are pretty sure she would have died that day. Due to the oxygen deprivation, Grandma was transferred to the hospital again. After a week or two there they were ready to transfer her to the same care center... This all was happening while my mom was in the ER with my little brother who ended up having Pneumonia. We ended up having her transferred to a care center in a city that was closer - the care center where we live would not take her because they did not have a private room. The private room was needed because of a very contagious infection she picked up during her stay at the first care center. So she was 1.5 hours away, instead of 3.

During this my little sister had 2 or 3 seizures (I can't remember I know it was at least 2) in which we made trips to the ER.

After a week or two in the care center, my grandmother passed away about a month after we moved (on October 15). My older sister and her family came as well as my older brother (so my whole family was together which was, the house was crowded!

In November, Valerie had another seizure, Dennis got pneumonia again and Valerie was put in the hospital for the week of Thanksgiving. Daniel and I went to visit his family and Eric fell off the high chair and we ended up going to the ER. Everything was fine with Eric. My little sister got out of the hospital and we had Thanksgiving with my family on Saturday since they ate the hospital's version of Thanksgiving.

December started out great. However, our computer died on Dec. 11 and then the next day on the way home from taking Valerie to the Neurologist, Val went to the ER and ended up getting put in the hospital. Valerie was transferred on Dec 13th to a hospital about 2 hours away, she had some kind of respiratory issues - still not sure exactly what was going on. She was a very sick little girl, it was hard to go see her 'hooked up to half the hospital' as Daniel put it. We were sure she would be released just after Christmas, so I put a makeshift Christmas together for our family, my dad, brother and older brother. It was more work than I care to remember. A few days later when the Pulmonologist was ready to release her she started having seizures almost constantly. On New Year's Eve, she was transferred to the hospital that is 3 hours away, where they put her into an induced coma in hopes to get her to stop having seizures. She took about 2 weeks to wake up mostly and then they let her come home. The coma medicine is not quite out of her system so one of her seizure medicine doses is almost tripled until her body starts metabolizing it - the drug they used for the coma inhibits the metabolizing of the seizure medicine.

During this time, Dennis got pneumonia again and ended up getting a feeding tube put in the first part of January. Also, the computer repair place here could not fix or recover out data so on one trip to visit Val we dropped our computer off at my uncle's (he and his son both work with computers and fix them) so he could look at it.

Shortly after Valerie came home, a puppy came to join our family. The puppy loves Eric and will let him do pretty much anything to him without reacting.

In February Daniel and I went to visit his family and picked up our computer and the data on the way out - we got it all back which was SO exciting.

My sister and her family came to visit in March the week before Eric's birthday. We stayed up with them until 1 or 2 am so I got behind on my sleep. After they left Eric got sick (with the sleep deprived parents) and we had to take him to Urgent care as he had a fever of 102.5,. He was put on an antibiotic. Valerie has had to go to the ER a couple of times because she is still not doing 100%, lately she has been having 'episodes' each day where her oxygen saturation drops and we have to work to keep it above 90% for at least an hour.

Also during this time I think I had a mild case of postpartum depression. I never actually went to the doctor because I didn't want to have to pay the outrageous cost of a doctor visit, and I could actually function... but I feel like I have not done a very good job at being a friend and keeping in contact with everyone. I can honestly feel a HUGE difference now and realize that I should have gotten help, but hind sight is 20/20. This feels a little unpersonalized but I want to apologize for being disconnected in the past 5 months.

And if you're wondering how Daniel's thesis is coming, let's just say it's doing pretty well considering.

My how you've grown

Eric - 1 Year!

So now that it's been almost two weeks since his birthday... I'm finally posting pictures of the cute little boy! While it is hard to believe that he is one, when I think back on everything that has happened in the past year - it seems like it has been longer than a year!

Here he is with the green stuffed animal... it looks so small now!
And here is Eric's favorite stuffed animal, he hugs this puppy every time he gets it!
It is so sweet to see how much he is attached to this puppy!
Look at how grown up he looks!
This photo shoot I took a lot of pictures of Eric being Eric, and I fell in love with this one!
It was warm enough to take some pictures outside.
We got a lot of cute smiles from him... it was cute.
This is the same picture, only with the background blurred, what do you think?
This smile makes my day!
Here are the boys in my life... They all get along very well.
Happy First Birthday Eric!

Birthday Party

So we celebrated Eric's first birthday on Wednesday. It was almost a week early, but his four cousins from my side of the family were visiting so it made it more fun!
I tried my hand at decorating a cake... It didn't turn out perfect, but at least you can tell what it is suppose to be!
Of course, Eric did not care what it looked like.
He only cared that it was chocolate!
Yep, he enjoyed it very much.
My mistake was not to remove his shirt with white sleeves... We'll see if I can get it out!
Eric loved playing with the cake as well as eating it.
Doesn't he just look like he's enjoying eating that cake!?!
Now for my confession, this was not the first cake Eric got to eat. A month ago we went to visit Daniel's family and we had a joint birthday party for Eric and his cousin who is one month older than him.
He enjoyed this chocolate cake as well!

Eric's First Haircut

The other day, I was combing Eric's hair when I noticed that it was long enough to touch his eyebrows... At that point I realized it was time to cut his hair! So we put him in his eating chair. He was excited about this, which we didn't realize might happen (silly parents).

He turned to give us a side view of his head before we started.
Then he realized that he wasn't going to eat! You're going to do what?!?
Then I broke out the clippers and started to cut his hair.
Cutting an 11 month old's hair is difficult. Thus this next picture is the last one you'll see as I made Daniel put down the camera and help me.
The results:
Look at how short! Look at how handsome this boy is!

It wasn't a perfect haircut, but I did end up getting an opportunity to fix some of it the next morning. I figure by his first birthday it will look great! That is one thing I remember hearing, never get your child's hair cut before school pictures or family pictures - just in case.

Eric 11 Months

Eric's 11 Months old! I can't believe that next month I'll be posting pictures of his first birthday!! Time sure flies!

He has super long hair in these photos...

I didn't realize how long his hair was until I combed it the other day. It reached his eyebrows! Needless to say, we gave him a haircut, pictures will be posted later this week.

I also can't believe how small that green monkey is now! It use to be just smaller than Eric.

He is starting to look so grown up... in a baby sort of way.

Eric LOVES to stand.He loves to walk while holding on to something for support.

It would not surprise me if he started to walk next month. Scares me but not surprises.

He actually stands for moments at a time unsupported by anything.

But that is only for a few seconds before he squats down. He does stay on his feet in a squatted position for a few seconds as well.

Eric also knows that everyone thinks he is cute. He has started trying to make his smile bigger by squinting his eyes, I have yet to be able to get a picture of it though.

We absolutely love this little guy and his precious smile!

He knows it too!
This is Eric's new favorite toy, he loves the little puppy.

This is the real puppy that loves Eric. They get into trouble together and the puppy puts up with Eric climbing on him and such.

Adventures in Eating

Eric enjoyed his first 'real' people food last week. First he had some pureed beef stew... not such a hit. Then he had our roast dinner, and LOVED it. I think the mashed potatoes were fun for him to play with, but he wouldn't eat it without the peas (as we found out the next night.) There is always plenty of mess when we let Eric feed himself.

Look at that seat!