February 4 – Starting off the Month Sick
Last evening, Nolan was up the majority of the night crying because his right ear hurt. I felt so horrible because he’d grab my hand and put it on his ear and rub it. He also said, “I don’t want my ear to hurt.” “Who made my ear hurt?” and “I don’t want to be sick anymore.”. Those right there made me feel so horrible and I thought about taking him to the ER right then and there. I decided that if he didn’t sleep longer than 1 hour, I’d take him. After getting up at 10pm, midnight, and 2am, he finally slept from 3:00am-8:00am. Tylenol wasn’t helping so I read online that heat helps so I heated up the corn bag (thanks Mimi Boylan!) and that did the trick and helped him finally fall asleep for more than 1 hour. I scheduled an appointment for 11:45am with Dr. Cessna. Spencer still wasn’t feeling the greatest from his vaccinations the day before and he also didn’t have a good night. The doctor was very friendly, personable, and great with Nolan. I liked her a lot & wouldn’t mind seeing her again. She said Nolan has the worst ear infection she’s ever seen (she didn’t say it to my face, but the nurse told me she said that) in his right ear. It’s so bad it’s bubbling (called bullous myringitis). He also is getting an ear infection in his left ear and has a sinus infection. She said she wants to jump start the medicine since he’s so bad and to do that, he needs a shot. I thought, oh, no problem he’s a champ when it comes to shots. I knew it was going to be bad when 3 nurses walked in with looks of terror on their faces. The nurse explained that this is the most painful shot they give. It burns when they are injecting it, it burns once it’s in and they have to rub it to work it into the muscle, and it hurts for a long time after. One nurse held Spencer for me (I was holding Spencer the whole appointment because he was fussy in his car seat, very unlike him) so I could hold Nolan. Nolan sat on my lap and the other 2 nurses stuck him with the needles. At first he said “It hurts, it hurts.” but then he started to really cry and then he turned around and said, “I want mommy.” which broke my heart. I held him while he cried and talked to him, but funny thing is that he was more upset that the nurse was holding Spencer than he was with the shots. He kept saying (through his tears), “Mommy hold Spencer”. We had to wait for about 5 minutes after the shot to make sure he didn’t have a reaction. Luckily I packed a lollipop before we left so I gave him that for being so brave. He was satisfied eating that. The nurse came back in and checked the injection site and said he was fine and we were good to go. Spencer was crying and it was way past Nolan’s lunch and nap time and he could barley walk because his legs hurt so badly. I checked out and didn’t stop to get the prescription because we were all over it. We stopped at Wendy’s on the way home. Nolan barely ate. Nevin had to buy some Ibuprofen and bring it to me on his lunch break. I gave it to Nolan right before nap and he fell asleep immediately.
February 2 – Spencer’s first time in the high chair
February 7 – Cereal for Spencer
Since the doctor gave us the go ahead to start Spencer on solids, we gave him cereal at the exact same age that Nolan ate cereal for the firs time. It’s very true what they say: Every child is different! He wasn’t that thrilled about it at all and made a bad face every time I gave him a spoonful. He only had about 5 spoonfuls and was done with it. As a reminder, Nolan loved it and ate the entire bowl. We’ll keep trying and I hope he enjoys veggies and fruits much more than cereal.
February 13 – Playing with trucks in foam (Way too cold outside to do anything so I had to get creative with inside play)
February 14 – Spencer’s first Valentine’s Day
February 16 – Blowing bubbles with a straw (as I said before, way too cold to go outside)
February 16 – Sweet Potatoes for Sweet Spencer
Since rice cereal and oatmeal cereal weren’t a big hit, I decided to skip cereals and go right into vegetables. I tried sweet potato first. He made a funny face at first, but then he got used to it. He ended up eating half of the jar. The next day, he started to open his mouth for the spoon and would make noises for more.
February 18 – Spencer’s first bath sitting up
I have so many pictures of Nolan’s “firsts”, but am definitely lacking in that department with Spencer. I don’t have any pictures of his first bath in the tub, so here are some of his first bath sitting up in the tub. He loves the bath so much. He likes to splash and play and he doesn’t mind water being poured over his head.
February 20 – Volcanoes
I had to scour Pinterest for ideas because between sickness and freezing temperatures, we were stuck inside most of February. I discovered volcanoes and thought Nolan would like to give it a try. I put about an inch of baking soda in the container and added food coloring to white vinegar. I then gave him an eye dropper and let him explore. He had a blast! At first he used the dropper and dropped vinegar into the baking soda.
Here is where he discovered that he could put the baking soda directly into the container of vinegar to get an even bigger volcano.
February 20 – Spencer is 5 Months