You would be lying if you told me that he is not the most handsome little boy you’ve ever seen…

Someone nominated me for Mom of the Year, and would you believe that I WON?!!!

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Ethan started feeling much better on Saturday and he is all better today. Aaron started feeling sick and running a high fever on Thursday. As soon as Ethan was all better, it was Aaron’s turn to be seriously ill.

Ethan and I had a busy weekend. On Friday, Grandma and Grandpa Head came in town to play with Ethan and keep him entertained while I worked and while Aaron rested. Friday was tough because Ethan didn’t want to drink at all. I had to syringe gatorade into his mouth all day to keep him hydrated. It was tough to get anything done at all while I chased him around with the gatorade. Thursday afternoon, the doctors had warned me that if Ethan did not significantly increase his fluid intake, he’d need to go to the hospital within 24 hours. Friday was tough, but we survived without a visit to the hospital.

On Saturday, I made Aaron go to the doctor. He was so ill with a high fever and a headache. He couldn’t look around because moving his eyes caused really severe pain. The doctor said it was a sinus infection and gave him massive amounts of steroids and antibiotics. After we came home, Grandma and Grandpa cooked breakfast while I ran to get Aaron’s prescriptions filled.

Later that day, I got Ethan out of the house for a bit to let Aaron rest with peace and quiet. Ethan and I hit up the Hide A Way garage sale where he scored a toy kitchen for $15. The ladies thought he was so cute, they gave him a bunch of other toys for free also. He really racked up on the loot. After that we went to Grandma Tina’s house and then to a picnic for Grandpa Gary’s band. He plays the trumpet in the Picayune Community Band and they were celebrating in advance of their first spring concert. Ethan splashed his feet in the swimming pool at the picnic and he really wanted to go in. I didn’t want him to get in the pool quite yet since he was still recovering from his illness. We brought along his kazoo and he tooted a little tune for the band.

On Sunday, I decided that it was finally time to wean Ethan. We’ve talked about for a while and I planned to do it after our camping trip, but his sickness changed those plans. I didn’t think he’d mind too much since we were only nursing first thing in the morning. He whined a bit, but got over it quickly. No tears. And he didn’t even ask today. So I guess we are done!

Anyway back to our weekend. Later on Sunday, Ethan and I went to the Picayune Community Band Spring Concert. Ethan really enjoyed the music. The band was awesome! I can’t wait for the next show. It is a shame that Aaron missed it but he was still feeling too bad to go. Ethan was really good for the first song and then he got a bit crazy. I didn’t want him to disturb the audience so we went to the lobby for a while and then we stood in the back for a while so he could dance around. We went back to our seats for the last two songs. In the second to last song, they had a bubble machine running. Ethan started yelling “BUBBLES!!!!” at the end of the song. And for the very last song, he used Grandma Tina’s mascara tube as a kazoo and he tooted along with the band. He wasn’t too loud. He definitely was not the loudest kid in the place.

After the concert, we went home to check on Aaron who was still ill and running a high fever. After checking on Aaron, we went to the community band party at the band director’s house. Ethan had a blast playing with their golden retriever. Usually, he is a little scared of dogs, so he really surprised me when he ran right over and started petting Beau. He chased Beau all around the house and the yard, called his name and “woof”‘d at him, fed him a fish stick, got knocked down and licked all over. It was a lot of fun!

Pictures from the community band concert are on my photography blog. Click here!

Aaron is still really sick today. He’s got a doctor’s appointment this afternoon. The medicine the doc gave him on Saturday has helped very little if at all. Because of his severe headache and high fever, I think he has viral meningitis from the virus that caused Ethan’s stomatitis. We’ll see what the doc says today. I hope they can figure out what is wrong and give him something to make him feel much better.

A couple of other items about Ethan:

He has started repeating more new words. He can repeat back many of the letters of the alphabet. He gets bored with that pretty quickly though. He is very good with B words right now.

He is learning his colors. I will ask him for the blue, red, yellow, or green legos and he picks them out pretty well. Until he gets bored and then he just grabs whatever is closest and says “This???”

He loves to read books and have us read to him. We have read some of the books so many times that he can anticipate what is coming up on the next page. For example The Nose Book has a pig on the 3rd page or so and right before we turn to that page, he starts making the piggy noise.

He loves his toy kitchen we picked up from the garage sale. He baked some chicken and a hotdog and some ice cream (LOL) for Aaron this weekend.

He is obsessed with the Wonder Pets. He pretty much jumps out of his skin whenever they come on TV.

He is finally weaned of breastfeeding.

He has a little toddler potty and likes to poop in his new potty.

He tries to put on his own diaper. Mostly he just likes to hold the open diaper over his crotch.

Still obsessed with shoes.

Overall he is just growing up. But unfortunately, not really growing. His weight is still a concern as he has only gained 4 or 5 pounds in the last year and he still weighs about 20 pounds. We’re going to address it with the doctor very soon to see what can be causing this and if there is any danger to his health and what we can do to help him gain weight. I’m tired of sitting around and waiting if there is indeed an issue.

And I have some pictures to post from various activities and occasions that have occurred over the last few weeks or months. I will try to get around to posting some, but no guarantees.

I woke up around 2 am this morning and couldn’t go back to sleep, so I decided to finally download the pictures from our trip and edit a few. I think I screwed up the links to the pictures I posted on Saturday, so here they are again, edited this time. And I’ve added a few others in the mix too, including Ethan’s kissy face pictures from the beach. The boy certainly loves to give kisses.

And thank you everyone for all of the well wishes for Ethan. He’s feeling better, but not quite 100% yet. He is eating pretty well but refusing to drink anything, so we have to force him to drink gatorade from a syringe to prevent dehydration. I have to check in with the doctor tomorrow to determine if he’s been drinking enough to avoid another doctor visit or even worse, hospital trip for IV fluids. I doubt we’ll have to go that route because he seems to find the syringe drinking pretty fun. As long as the novelty doesn’t wear off we should be fine.