September

Last month was very eventful -- some good and some bad. I'll start with the bad first.

After taking care of Joe completely on our own for five months, Joe Daddy and I decided to start using some of the resources that JD's work provides in terms of short-term child care options. PU provides us with the resources to send Joe to day care once a week for free. We figured that I could use the break to go grocery shopping without lugging Joe with me, or take a walk solo to get some fresh air sometimes or even get some sleep! So we got all signed up and they referred us to a "highly regarded, fully accredited, hospital affiliated" center. Even better, it had a 1:1.5 ratio (3 kids and 2 teachers!) We set Joe up to go there on a Wednesday from 10am-4pm. I used the time to get my tri-annual hair cut/color. Unfortunately, when Joe Daddy and I went to pick Joe up, he was screaming and they were asking us to fill out an "incident report".

They told us he had been bitten in the hand by one of the other children. They had ice on the wound when we got there. Later on at home, we took a good look at him and found bad scratches and some small bruises. It was awful.




We called to find out how the other injuries happened and were just told, "We don't know what happened." Bad answer. Although at that point, no answer that they could have come up with would have been good enough. Unfortunately the story doesn't end here. We noticed that he was spitting up alot and the next day got worse... and the next day got worse. Within three days, Joe felt like a human torch. Long story short, he ended up with a fever of 105.4 and we had to take him to the Emergency Room. I honestly can't even write out how horrible it was -- the nurses made me leave the room for about 30 minutes. He had to have blood drawn and urine drawn from a catheter for testing. It turned out to be some really bad virus, but we still don't have the exact diagnosis. The nurses felt bad for all the 'trauma', so they gave Joey a cute stuffed moose during our discharge from the ER.


Trying to find the bright side in all of this, we did learn a few things from this experience:
1. We will never again trust other people (even an Ivy League institution) to find a good child care center for us. I will do all the research/visiting/etc myself.
2. Joe has momma's trait of having difficult-to-locate veins and super fast clotting. I feel terrible for him. It's not a good thing for me to pass down. :(
3. Joe has daddy's trait of being 'immune' to Tylenol. It never brought down his fever at all, but within an hour of receiving Motrin, his fever went down by 3 degrees.

OK! Enough about the bad stuff! Let's move on to the cute stuff!

Joe is still a big-ol-kid! He's a few ounces over 20lbs and is starting to not fit in some of his favorite toys anymore. I guess it's time to move on to bigger and better things!


He is pretty mobile now. He's not a fast crawler, but he can scoot and roll well enough to get anywhere he wants to go. His favorite places to go exploring include the closet, under any table, and I even found him once underneath his jumper. I don't know how he got there, but he seemed very pleased with himself.



Joe also met some new folks who visited us this past month.

Here's Joe with JM's friend and roommate from college:


Here's Joe with JD's friend from high school and his lovely wife:


I also got to visit the boys that I used to nanny. Anytime their Grandma Judy comes to town, she gives me a call so we can all get together. She adored Joe and even helped me change a poopy diaper. It was amazing.



This is a pretty large update, so I'll stop here. Sunday is Joe's 6 month birthday and Uncle J is here visiting, so I will probably post after this weekend with more. I'll leave you with a couple of random cute pictures that I couldn't fit in anywhere else.

Thanks for Holding

Hi, everybody! Sorry for the long delay. We had an extended-family hiccup and decided the best way forward was to change the link to the baby blog. I'm sooo excited to be able to post updates again! It's been quite a month!!! It's going to take me awhile to upload everything for this past month, so give me a day and I'll post a ginormous update.

Love you guys and thanks for your concerned emails/texts/etc.
-Joe Momma

P.S. Here's one picture to tide you over until the big update is posted:

Joe Momma's B-day, Real Food and More!

Joey hopes you're still tuned into the blog! I think we'll go with picture updates and then video updates -- this is going to be a long one! I would have updated sooner, but I have been super busy with a 2 week birthday extravaganza courtesy of Joe Daddy. It all started a week before my birthday with a surprise party. Joe was as shocked as I was.


During the following week leading up to my birthday, Joe hung out with some new friends.

Joe Daddy's friend from college (and my former employee) Noam:


Newlywed Nicole:


Her new husband, Matt:


Then I got another birthday surprise when Uncle J came down from DC to visit for the weekend. At one point we went to the fountain to officially test Ka-Ka's camo onesie. Where's Joey? :)




Now for some video updates. This week Joe has found two fun new things to do: play "Gimme That Rag" and walk in his new walker.





But the biggest development this week is that he got his first taste of solid food in the form of applesauce. We could have started him on it last month, but he had a stomach bug. I knew we couldn't wait any longer when he started trying to eat his toys.





He's a great eater! He's far less of a messy eater than I was expecting. He definitely loves apples -- we'll try new foods out one at a time every four or five days. Next up... bananas? Sweet potatoes? Pears? Log on next time to find out! Joe and I send our love...

Making Up for Lost Time

Joseph is all better now and has officially made it through his first illness with flying colors. A special thanks to Uncle J for the very nice get-well card -- it helped. Joe is quickly making up for lost time by eating a ton and trying lots of new things.

A piano lesson (right before bedtime which is why it's dark):



Trying to scoot/crawl underneath the futon:



Playing with a new toy - the exersaucer (video taken with my phone):



And of course, talking/razzing up a storm:



And when all else fails, there's always the "What do my feet taste like today?" game:


He's going to go see Doc H on Tuesday to catch up on some of his vaccinations that he had to skip out on while he was sick. He'll probably get weighed again too and hopefully he will have gained back some of the weight he lost when he was sick. (He fell from above the 99th percentile to the 95th!)

Joseph Has Something To Say

Sick and Tired

I'm sorry to report that Joseph is sick. I am 95% sure that he's got rotavirus (which we vaccinated for!) In short, Joey started spitting up a lot for a couple of days last week and now has had major diarrhea for about three days. The doctor said to give him a special formula as well as pedialyte. As usual, Joey has kept a sweet quiet disposition which is surprising considering the circumstances. Here he is getting some of his 'medicine'.



He really hasn't been too fussy, he just seems to laugh less. He's still smiley.


We already had his 4 month doctor's appointment scheduled for Tuesday, so we'll be going to that, but probably won't be getting his vaccinations until he gets better.

I meant to update the blog earlier, but got caught up (and exhausted by) the sickness stuff. Nevertheless, let me quickly backtrack and mention that Joey had another visitor last week! A college friend of mine who now lives in Wichita, KS was in New York for family matters and took the train down to visit.


For those of you who have yet to make an appearance, the question remains... when are YOU coming to visit?

**Update to Previous Post**

Tada! I finally got him on video rolling over both ways. Back to front at 35 seconds and front to back at 1 minute 55 seconds.



Also, let me clear up a few things:
1. I'm not sure why the quality is not so great on this video. I think maybe it's the sun coming through the window that's messing with the lighting.
2. I say "oh, gross, joey!" at 40 seconds because he had spit up a little on the blanket while rolling over.
3. Yes, that is an old 80s TV theme song playing in the background. I recently found the first three seasons online. Bonus points to anyone who knows what show it is.