Birthday Boy

The big day isn't until next weekend, but with 2 sets of grandparents able to visit this weekend, it was birthday party time! More pictures in the Picasa albums...click the link on the right.

Home Sweet Home!

Well, after 4 pretty brutal nights in the hospital, Ben was cleared to come home today! What a trooper. The doctors had pretty good poker faces throughout, but once he turned the corner and got better, they told me that he was one sick baby. They were pretty concerned, and wasn't too far away from more serious interventions. But my tough little man fought through it!

Man, hospitals are crazy. I don't know how many medical staff we met during our stay...I can remember at least 23, and I'm probably forgetting a couple. We had visits from the nurses (frequently), respiratory therapists (every 4 hours), residents (about 4-5 times a day), and attending physicians (twice a day). Once or twice a day we also saw the housekeeper, the room service staff, and the on-call pediatrician from our office. At times I wondered if all the craziness was worth it...I turned breathing treatments down twice just so the little man could sleep!

Thankfully almost everyone was terrific. We had a couple of the best nurses I've ever encountered, and the respiratory therapists were awesome and educational. Ben was quite popular on the floor, and his reputation preceded him. Almost everyone would come in forewarned about his cuteness...our favorite doctor, Dr. Rao, even nicknamed him "Mr. President" for all the buzz and adoration he commanded.

Anyway, can't wait to see the bill for this visit. At least we've almost maxed out our deductible.

Believe it or not, these pictures are from when he was feeling better late Monday and Tuesday:




And here he is this morning, after I told him we were going home! He about jumped out of the crib!



He's still a little wheezy and short on energy and appetite, but his personality is back 100%. We are in the home stretch! Hoping he's back to normal this weekend.

Meanwhile, Mya did an excellent job taking care of Daddy in my absence.

Remember this?

Well, here we go again:

What started as a pretty serious cold for Mya last weekend (serious enough to keep her home from daycare for 3 days), is now a seriously serious illness in Ben. He was working pretty hard to breathe on Saturday evening so we brought him in to the urgent care clinic around 7:30pm to get checked out. They didn't like his respiratory symptoms at all, so by 8:30 I was in the ER and just after midnight we were admitted to the hospital for the night with a diagnosis of RSV (a respiratory infection).

Poor guy. He's very tired and lethargic from using so much energy up just to breathe. He's hooked up to oxygen, which seems to be helping, and he's receiving some respiratory "percussion" treatments (aka strategic banging on the back) to loosen up his chest mucus. Hoping he can go home tomorrow, but we'll have to wait and see.

Apparently 'tis the season for this type of thing because a couple of friends have sick kids and I even bumped into a girl from work who's here with her 1 year-old son. Misery loves company.

Tickle Me Ben

Wardrobe Wars

Mya's outfit for daycare today:

Penguin pajama top instead of daytime top. (Score Mya:1, Mommy:0)
Ballerina tutu (Score Mya:2, Mommy 0)
Leggings and socks (Score Mya:2, Mommy 1)
Shoes...on the wrong feet (Final Score Mya 3:, Mommy 1)

It even kind of looks like she's flipping me off in the picture, doesn't it!?!

Look who's ready to move!

(And I'm not talking about Major in the background!)

Big Ben

Some recent pictures of Ben. Working with Daddy, holding his own bottle, and generally looking adorable.