Snot and Stuff

Well, we've kicked off the first full week of 2009 with Luke catching his first cold. I am extremely thankful that we have had a healthy child for this long, and it was inevitable that Luke got sick sometime, but it was so pitiful to see his red, watery eyes, runny nose, and to have our usually cheerful baby be so unhappy. After several very LONG nights and days, Luke is now back to his usual, sunny self, and his cold seems to be much better. Since I have been known to be a bit of a hypochondriac, I was proud of myself for minimizing the thoughts of potential pneumonia or complications, tried not to worry about the possibility of an ear infection developing, and I didn't even call the pediatrician! Additionally, we are now the proud owners of a cool mist humidifier for the nursery, several bottles of Infant Motrin & Tylenol, and a few boxes of Puffs Plus with Lotion. Mark and I have survived the angst that every parent feels when their child is sick... that feeling of wanting to do anything to take away Luke's misery and to take on the illness for him if possible. We've also now confirmed the rumor that your own child's snot and sickness is not nearly as gross as seeing other kids with runny noses out in public. I learned this week just to wipe Luke's nose with the end of my shirt sleeve and thought nothing of it... kind of like how changing your baby's dirty diaper doesn't faze you, but other children's poop is still very disgusting.

The bright side of Luke's cold is that now that he is feeling better, he seems even more cheerful and adorable. The below photo was taken the night after his fever broke and Luke couldn't stop grinning and squealing with glee as we tried to wrestle with him to get changed into pajamas. It's also one of the first pictures that we have taken where you can successfully see his top front tooth that came in last month. The arrival of this tooth right before the holidays had us humming and singing "All I want for Christmas is my 2 Front Teeth" for weeks, and if Luke was physically able to, I'm sure that he would have rolled his eyes at us for being such corny parents. His other top tooth has just about broken through the surface this week, too, which I can only imagine added to some of the misery and fussiness associated with Luke's cold. But we figured that it might as well all happen at once and be over!




In other news, Mark's craziest time at work (being in finance) always falls around this time as he busily closes the books for year end at GE. And since finance guys usually are interested in taxes, Mark especially likes the below bib of Luke's (as you can see, eating is getting messier!). In fact, I bought it to give to Mark as a Valentine's Day present when I was pregnant with Luke. Romantic, I know! We made sure to have Luke wear it on December 31 to remind Daddy of "how much money we are saving" this year by having a baby in 2008. Ha-ha! Maybe we'll get a refund back at tax time instead of having to owe $, which would be nice!