Single Parenting

First things first, Jon and I spent a really nice night out last night with a number of our friends to celebrate Jenn's upcoming birthday. We stuffed ourselves silly at Straits before heading to see Valentine's Day (I enjoyed it, but wasn't expecting much to begin with). Logan's Aunt Catherine drove down to babysit Logan for the evening and the two of them had a wonderful time playing and eating ice cream and staying up late, reading 10 more bedtime stories than usual. :) Thank you again Catherine! We are so glad you were able to come down and spend some time with Loganito (and allow us some time off!).

So, today. Day 1 of single parenting week is now done. WHEW! :)

After we dropped Jon off at the airport, Logan and I hung around for a little bit to watch several of the airplanes take off and/or land. He was VERY mad at me when we finally had to leave. So, what to do? Onto our favorite donut shop, since I can't very well screw up the weekend tradition that Jon has started, now can I? ;-)

After a tasty donut and milk, we headed over to the hospital for Logan's Sibling Preparation class. I had orginally thought I wouldn't bother signing up for one of these, but a co-worker of mine talked me into it. The class is built for older children, about 3-8 yrs is the range, so I was afraid it would all be over Logan's head and not worth the time nor money. But, my co-worker said she still took her daughter (and then son) to the class when they were about 2-2.5 yrs old and felt it was still worth it. She mentioned a few things that they did that sounded pretty cool (mind you, her experience was up at a hospital in Redmond, but I figured the classes were all pretty similar in content and structure) - like learning to hold a baby (with dolls), swaddle a baby, keep the babies safe, ways the siblings can "help" and that it's OKAY if a baby is still crying, even after being changed, fed, burped, etc.

In addition to all that, we watched a short video, which Logan was only half interested in, sat and listened to a story, which Logan was only half interested in, and made the baby's first birthday card, which Logan LOVED.



He was also extremely interested in holding the baby (doll), but would NOT let me help him swaddle or show him how to hold the baby (at one point he got up to run away from me, dangling the baby by one arm), and thought it was REALLY funny to touch and poke at the baby's eyes.

I guess we have some work cut out for us. ;-)

At the end, he got his own "I'm a Big Brother" t-shirt and diploma for completing the class (with coloring book). He was by far the youngest kid there but I'm still glad we went. My only regret was that the maternity ward tour portion of the class did not happen due to the current H1N1 concerns. :( They said that we won't be able to bring the kids to visit once the baby is born as well - although when I called the hospital to book the class, I actually spoke to the lady about that and she said as long as we have proof of his vaccine, then he'd be allowed in to visit his baby brother. So, hopefully the lady on the phone was right rather than the teacher today! We'll see....

Logan was pretty beat (as was I!) after the class, so we headed straight home and got ready for nap time. He really fought me but finally fell asleep and slept a good 3.5 hours. Which was WONDERFUL because I got to rest myself, catching up on a few TV shows and even sneaking in an hour nap in the end (thank goodness, I was really beat!).

After nap time the two of us played and cuddled on my/Jon's bed while Toy Story ran in the background. Once it was over, we took off to the grocery store to get some much needed supplies for the week. It was pretty late in the evening since his nap ran so long but I risked it anyway, and I'm glad we did. He was a champ and "helped" me pick out groceries (he was VERY insistent on fresh strawberries and Goldfish crackers) and even helped me carry a few into the house once we got home.

We fixed up dinner (where he ate an ENORMOUS amount of food) and watched a few clips of the Winter Olympics that I'm severely behind in. He was especially interested in the Men's Snowboarding competition - exclaiming, "He's FLYING!" And he was totally right - those guys are ridiculous on the slopes!

Finally Recovering

Logan's been down and out since the start of last week. We thought he was doing better on Wednesday morning since we didn't detect a fever, but just to be safe, he and I hung out together that morning before I took him into school mid-day, just before lunchtime. A few hours later (after nap time), I got a call from his school that his fever had spiked to 101. Funny thing is, he didn't feel unusually warm to me when I picked him up (I can usually tell when he's running a temperature since he's emanating heat!) and when I took his temp after we got home, it was at about 98-99. Nothing extreme. Still, he had started a cough and seemed more clingy than usual, so I gave him some meds and a little TLC the rest of the day.

Thursday was a light day for me at work so I stayed home with Logan for the day (school rules say a child can't return until 24 hrs after a fever breaks). We went to my parent's for lunch and although he was still a bit clingier than usual, he was in great spirits for most of the day. Though his cough was pretty bad, I still wasn't detecting much of a fever which was good. So I thought we'd probably take him back into school on Friday, especially since it was picture day and I wanted to make sure and get some new pics for the family album.

Unfortunately, Logan had different plans. His cough kept him up all night - Jon finally brought him into bed with us about 2am (later I asked him why and he thought it was 6am and almost time for us to get up anyway).... which meant a REALLY rough night for Jon and I. Logan slept better between us I think - but he continued to cough up a storm, scattered with a few punches, kicks and bolting to an upright sitting position every now and then, in the middle of his sleep. It was distracting and nerve racking for Jon and I, to say the least. And, sometime around 4am I noticed a tickle growing in my own throat as well. Yay.

So, Friday I stayed home with him again since he clearly wasn't better, and I was starting to come down with the bug myself. I got an early morning appointment with his doctor just to make sure he didn't have anything more serious than a cold, and luckily that was all that was diagnosed. Lungs were clear, no bronchitis or pneumonia detected. And nothing like swine flu to worry about. Phew! ;-)

I did have one meeting on Friday that I absolutely could not cancel or reschedule - so my dad came over to the house for an hour to distract and entertain Logan out in the front yard while I took my call. THANK YOU DAD. After that, Logan and I lazed around the house all day long sipping juice and eating fruit and watching tv and being bums.

We've been taking it easy for the rest of the weekend because of the colds. Logan and I did make it out Saturday morning to a special ribbon cutting ceremony and building dedication of the brand new El Camino Hospital in Mountain View, which opens on November 15th (I was invited to attend since I sit on the Community Advisory Board for the Women's Hospital). I didn't think about it at the time, but it was a full hour of several folks speaking about how great the team was and the community was and the staff was at creating this new building, blah blah blah, before the actual ribbon cutting event. All very boring for an antsy hyper 2-year old toddler. :(

There's a cool circular water fountain in the front of the hospital where the ceremony was taking place - which we played in for about 10 minutes before security told us to cut it out. ;-) Soooo, we ended up spending most of the ceremony walking around some paths nearby looking at ants and slugs and picking up acorns and leaves and flowers. Logan was a champ and actually did really well putting up with Mama's boring community/hospital work that morning. :) After the ceremony, the hospital was opened for attendees to do self-guided tours - so Logan and I traipsed around the brand new hospital poking our noses into every nook and cranny. The building is well laid out, beautifully designed and you can tell someone put a lot of thought and effort into it. It was also really eery to walk down hallways and around the E.R. (for example) with not a patient or doctor in sight. :)

Today, Jon joined Logan and I for a quick hour of fun at the Children's Discovery Museum. The weather has been turning colder and colder (Hello Fall!), and although Logan was feeling much better, none of us were in the mood to go out to a park or take a walk, even though we all needed to get out of the house for a bit. So, the Discovery Museum it was. We had a nice time but Logan got tired pretty quickly (he woke up at 6am, the bastard) so we headed home. Really really loving the 'in and out' membership benefits! :)

I'm still not 100% myself, but not that bad either. I think it'll just take me longer to get over the cold because of the interrupted sleep and early morning wake up calls that Logan has been giving us lately. Logan, however, seems to be much better now and coughing less and less - thank goodness! I still have several pics to upload from last weekend's family reunion and our play time at the museum today - I'm hoping to get to that this week once I start feeling back to my old self!