Hell month! July- Oh My!! Adnoe who? what?

We started the month off with Berik still running high fever like 102.0 as he had been for a few days, so Jaimie took him to the Dr. We were told it was a sinus infection and given meds. We went through the weekend with fever still and some other yucky stuff. Monday, J took him back to Dr. and his meds were changed but still the fever persisted.
Tues morning, B, acted like he felt a speck better so J loaded him up to do some errands and about noon, I get this frantic call from J about B, telling me head for the ER, our child was not really responding to him, just staring off in space and drooling. Like a "bat out of hell" I drove to the ER, to find B, not looking so hot. He was evaluated, but no really diagnosis. They attempted to draw blood,causing B to scream hysterically, causing his eyes began to BLEED, at which time, Jaimie called a halt to that and B was admitted for observation. After a long night in the hospital and doing nothing more than we could do at home, we checked out the next day, still with constant fever and still with no diagnosis. He was, though, a little more perky, so we stayed home all day and rested and then decided we could make it two miles up the road for a burger.
We didn't even get to finish, before B looked like he was going to pass out right then and there, so off the ER in the next town, as we had enough of our local ER the night before. The next town was 30 miles away and having Jessi here we made quick arrangements for her to spend the night with someone, and off we went with B screaming bloody murder all the way, until he finally crashed out. We spent a lovely 4 hours in the ER waiting room where his fever went to 104.4 and we pretty much got some attention then. This being a huge hospital, the ER was packed with people, we tried to understand but by 1am we were growing a little tired. We got a great evaluation and a great blood draw from a Childrens Hospital Dr. and we were admitted, to await the blood results, with about one of three diagnosis. Cat Scratch Fever or Kawasaki's disease or Adnoevirus. None sounded great but hey, finally something.
The next morning the Dr. determined that he had Adnoevirus. Ever heard of it? Woo Hoo, you go Berik, Happy 4th of July! Yep that's how we spent our holiday weekend!Poor baby. He was really dehydrated and wouldn't eat. We learned that it is a viral infection that causes, diarrhea, sore throat, high fever, stomach and muscle ache,and pink eye or eyes! Berik had it all, bless his heart. We stayed 3 nights in the hospital and since Berik had been given a million dollars worth of IV drip, he felt a little better and even though he still had fever, the Dr. felt good releasing him. Since it was viral and they pink eye too there was not any meds that would touch it. So we just had to keep alternating Tylenol and Motrin.
Well , that was just long enough for mommy to catch it! Wonderful. It hit me like a ton of bricks. I was down, like a dead horse, laying in bed, one minute putting on more clothes than I did in Kazakhstan to keep warm and the next hour peeling them off sweating to death and Jaimie was left to deal with Berik 24/7 and keep him away from me.
After two weeks for Berik total, he finally went back to daycare, but had missed out on, making mud pies,tie dyeing shirts (red, white and blue), riding on the firetruck, watching the 4th of July parade,all of which he would have loved. The director of daycare did come to visit him in the hospital and got his white shirt and they did make him one and it is so cute! The daycare workers brought him a get well card, a balloon and stuffed ducky. He was happy about that! He did get in on making cinnamon rolls, and making snakes from paper plates, which including finger painting so I am sure he was happy with those activities.
I missed 10 days of work between Berik and I and I didn't tell you the worst part. I got DOUBLE PINK EYES, Berik just had it in the one eye and he was better about it than I was. Just about the time I was getting better and going back to work, Jaimie got it, however no pink eye for him. He was out of it for about a week. We had taken every precaution at home, no sleeping in the same bed, no touching at all, strict hand washing, no double use of the phone, like I really wanted to talk anyway. Jessi never got it, as we had practically banished her to her room.Jessi's summer vacation was up and what a thrilling last 22 days she had. After all that time, and with J still being sick, we opted out of the 20 hour total car ride to Alabama and back and bought her a plane ticket home.
After all was said and done we had about 6 normal days in July. I don't have many pics from "hell month" except some from the hospital and a few from after. Sorry once again to bore you but I am journaling for us as well.
Happy Anniversary, to me and my hubby, 7-6-08, while we were in the hospital with Berik. Not real exciting, but we were together, that's for sure. 7 years of Happiness, thanks babe! Take care and I wish for none of you to catch this yuckiness!
A few more things to add. Daycare is fantastic but we are going to have to move up a class at the end of August, which I already don't like. I love the teacher that we have now, Ms. Kathy and there is not set teacher for the next class up as she is stepping down a room.Here he is modeling his 4th of July shirt and his puppy ears that he made. Berik is making great strides in speech and pretend play, as alot of things are "right there" but only to him. lol! He loves to crunch ice,how cute but annoying too as he wants to dig down in your glass for a piece. Everything liquid is called juice to him. He now loves tacos and rice & beans and is and and always has been quite the hit at the local Mexican restaurant we go to. The waiters comes by and give him pralines and high fives and carry him through the restaurant. He loves it.
He greeted me at the door one day saying, "Mama, mama, and as he is wrapping himself around my legs he turns to Jaimie and looks straight at him and says, "my mama!" I thought that was funny. He is trying to potty train but that is sketchy at best. The reward is one Skittle so at the very least he is learning his colors as he will pick out "the one" and let you know what color it is. He tried one day to diaper the duck, that was cute and he really did quite well. He did a little "cat fishing" which is some real redneck fun! He went through Jessi's purse more than once, and would barge into her bathroom while she was showering and stand in there and play "peeky boo" with the shower curtain. Amusing for us, aggravating for her! Looks like she'd learn to put up her purse and lock the bathroom door. After all she has 3 younger siblings at home, 5, 3 and 2. Berik then got a weird looking rash all over his face. Looked like little reds dots, freckles everywhere. Back to the Dr. and she explained that he must have gotten chocked on something, which he had, a couple of days earlier and it was all the broken capillaries and that is would go away, which it did in about a week. I hope that we aren't sick any next month!!
We finally found out that one boy in B's class had the same symptoms as he did, right before B came down with it. The boys mother got it too but not until weeks later after I was over it. The incubation time on this virus is long! She had it so bad it damaged her eyes and she had to take steroids for he eyes to heal. The boy didn't get it as bad as we did but it sounds like she got worse than anyone. Yucky! I for one am glad this month is over!
Take Care and stay healthy. Gena
Gena

Kazapalooza Bound!!

The month started off slow as far as activities just some normal TV watching and a few meals out to eat, trying to save a few extra bucks to take to Chicago. We left a couple of days early in order to have a visit with my cousin, Benita & family and my Aunt Gene. Aunt Gene was named after her mother Genevieve and I was named after them, Gena. There's ya some FYI! Anyway, our Chicago trip started with Berik excited and hollering, AIRPLANE, AIRPLANE, over and over as we approached the airport and he picked out every plane in site, from the ones on the runway to the specks in the sky. All the while Jaimie was driving at mach speed and sputtering a few choice words as it appeared we would be too late to make the flight.Can you say stand by for 3 hours with toddler in airport? Fun, fun, fun!! Humm...? Somebody said we should leave earlier!Once we got on the plane things went smoothly and B was very curious checking out all the passengers, but over all good. Jessi was helpful and she and B and myself sat together. Jaimie sat else where but arrived to take B up and down the aisles a couple of times. Probably at the exact instant we were landing, B fell asleep and slept through everything from getting off the plane to luggage claim to the car. Then he woke up drowsy, with the, where am I look?
He played well at Benita's house, who we also call "B" and my B, was meeting her & family and Aunt Gene for the first time. Of course they thought he was darling! They only had two days of him..lol! We went to Lake Michigan shore/beach and played in the COLD, COLD, COLD, water and to my amazement there were people swimming. No thanks, too cold for me. We also went by Michael Jordans (house),make that gate,as that was as close as we could get, you know short notice and all! Ha! Benita is a voice teacher and plays piano and sings professionally and my Aunt plays piano too, so My B, loved the fact that they helped him play the piano as he is very excited to play every time he sees one.
In the evening we went for walks and tried to wear Berik out at the parks,and we loved the beautiful neighborhoods and trees. We enjoyed it as it was much different than Texas. After the couple of days, we put Aunt Gene back on Amtrack to Michigan and then Benita took us to the Lincoln Park Zoo,where we had a good time looking at all the animals. Late afternoon B dumped us off at the hotel for the Kazapalooza,and you thought we'd never get there! We took this fun bag as a donation for the raffle and it was a huge success as it had the most tickets sold toward it, so I was told. I will have to have a bag made for me one day and will most definitely have to get these books for some fun with B. We finally met up with some of the people we blog with from Kaz and it was really neat to catch up with them. The Kaz kid's are even cuter in person, here are a couple to drive the point home! We had a pizza party, meet and greet the first evening,a luncheon with activities such as facing painting and a balloon artist for the kids.In the afternoon several groups of peeps went to the aquarium and/or to the park with this neat water feature!Berik and Serena had fun on this turtle. Aren't they cute?!Also a slight malfunction with a group shot. You see my child is oh so cooperative! We had a lot of fun. We saw "the bean" , a reflective art piece of sorts where you can see the whole city in kind of a 360 kind of view. I guess that's what you would say. Here is a regular picture of it and then one from underneath.We also meet up at the pool and Jessi was good to help with Berik as always! Thanks, Jessi! All in all we had a fantastic time and visited Navy pier were I was dumb enough and still barely not fat enough not to fit on the swings, so I went on the ride. Ugh.. it kind of made me sick to my stomach.We loved the view of the lake and had a nice person take a good family picture of us.We snuck in a quick trip through the stained glass display but Berik was bored and tired so he tuckered out with Manny's tail literally cliched between his teeth.We have had Manny since before Kaz so he goes with us everywhere. Here is a 9-11 piece that I thought was pretty neat!Here is the little blurb about it, quite interesting really. You can enlarge it to read it. After so much fun in Chicago we hated to go home but the time came snuck up on us in a hurry and we returned home to the hum drum work schedule and Jessi returned to "My Space" and Berik to daycare.
He is having an awesome time there!He loves Splash day on Fridays and making food like the cinnamon rolls he was up to his elbows in ! I got to see pics of that but none of making pizzas but I can imagine that had to be equally messy! He is learning alot and we think he has learned some daycare defensive tactics as he tried them out on Jessi. A little nibble here and there, some hair pulling and a little bull dozing! Along with that, his verbal skills are progressing nicely and daddy has really taught him some great things to say like, "boodylicious" and has taught him to cup his mouth with his hands and YELL, "Mama" in Wal-Mart. It is effective I must say as I do hear him. The cutest is his fichin po (fishing pole),pot/sit/sul (popsicle) and poo man (policeman) and of course they go, Woo Woo! and he yells that out daily as you arrive to daycare, which backs up to the police station parking lot.Not to funny when your inspection sticker is expired and you are feeling guilty. I know, I should get it done before I get a ticket. He is also extremely curious about everything. One evening he was sitting up on the island in the kitchen "helping" make dinner. We had a box on the counter and he points to it and exclaims, Chicken! Jessi and I said , no and before we could tell him what it was, he exclaims, Spaghetti! and again we said no and he exclaims, French fries!!! and we said no and he looks up at us and says,(in very plain English), "Well, what is it?" as if we were being mean to him and he was wasting his breath and effort on us. It was really cute, you probably just had to be there :).
Dora Dora continues to be a big hit and he is learning Spanish well. He knows "empuje" means to push and when that particular episode comes on (we have it taped , look out, as he will run up behind you and push back and forth on your booty trying to move you and says over and over, "empuje, empuje". The song is about the characters trying to get a boat off the sand and into the water and it seems like it takes them forever and he stands behind you and pushes!He says alot "that's funny" and then starts cracking him self up at what? Sometimes we don't know? Hum? He has a good imagination! He also does this dance about stiring up a bowl of choc and sings it in spanish. So far I have managed to catch nothing on video as he will stop completely if you get the camera out.He is very funny and I hope one day to catch it secretly. Well this about sums up June as we were broke and tired! All the little stuff sure adds up in a hurry! Until next time, you'll take care. Love, Gena, Jaimie and Berik

May On the go- On the go-On the go-

May started off with a trip to San Antonio, to join in a celebration for one of our best friends, sons, first Communion. We had our first experience in a crying room, there in the Catholic church. As we are Methodist, we don't have this but I might add, I rather liked it, quite well. Basically, he played and we watched and a good time was had by all! Berik and this little girl were most interested in playing in the cabinet.

We had lots of fun at our friends house and Berik's favorite place there was the play set out back. He fearlessly climbed to the top with lightning speed and I got this really cute picture of him before he zoomed down the slide. On the way home we stopped at the wildlife drive thru park and saw the animals. Berik enjoyed himself, although he was not as excited about it as we thought he might be. We will try this again when he gets older, as we love the animals.
Berik is getting better and better on car trips and we learn and play more and more games as he gets older. Jaimie and I just hate the whole video in the car thing and therefore, so far, we have not caved into that, although at times it sure would make it easier. We count lots of trees and cars, read books and sing songs. Unless Berik is totally wiped out, car rides for him are NOT soothing. Quite the opposite, stimulating to say the least, pointing out every white truck, "daddy's truck" , telling daddy, "drive daddy drive" over and over and over again. You know it's coming when you accelerate ,like getting on the highway or passing a car. Cute , the first few times, not as cute the next 50 times, but still cute! He tells the trees on our street bye when we leave, "bye tree, bye tree, bye tree" and if you chime in with "bye tree" then you get the whole toddler gone wild.. "NO, MY TREE!!!!!!!!!" Everything right now is HIS! After the 5 hour car trip from San Antonio, we got as much rest as you can during the work week and then took off to Southlake, only 3 hours , to see my brother and his family, to celebrate Mother's day. Friday night we watched my niece, (14 ) in an interactive melo-drama, where you throw popcorn at the villain. Before the play, they announced not to eat the stale yucky popcorn, just to throw it. Well, B certainly had the hang of throwing it so when we looked off from time to time but then discovered that he had eaten a whole bunch of it. The joke later was that they had probably used that same popcorn the night before! Saturday we shopped and played in the pool and Sunday we had a delicious breakfast at the Cheesecake factory . Berik walked hand in hand with Reid, my brother, and I just thought they were so cute. Jaimie let Berik sit on one of the many cows they have in that shopping area and Berik thought he was a big man!! After breakfast we went to church and we rounded out the day by hanging around the pool and exchanging mothers day gifts. I got a really beautiful James Avery cross from my boys and my sister in law gave me some new clothes, just because!

This month Berik finally won't sit in the highchair anymore so we got as much use out of it that we could. He can reasonably sit anywhere but we have just been using it. Isn't it funny that the switch just turns off, nope, not sitting there any more. His bed will be next. To date he has never tried to climb out of the crib and it switches to a toddler bed, but so far we just haven't switched. He only had one sinus infection this month so that was good for us. He continues to love the water , from the hose, to the pool, in the bath, anywhere! except toilet water, thank goodness! For that, he just loves the paper !! Berik is into glasses this month and I have two Superstar look alike moments for you! This first one, looks like Tom Cruise in Risky Businessand the second one he looks like Elton John. Neither, moment was planned , it just kind of happened. The last weekend in May, Jaimie drove over, to Alabama and picked up Jessi. 10 hours over and 10 hours back(no Berik), no one brave enough for that one for now. He was glad to see his "sissy" ! He loves her to no end! She is good with him and they play really well together. Since daycare, Berik has had some really cool artwork. He made this butterfly ( his footprints) in April but it didn't come home until May. It was the biggest butterfly in the whole room! He painted this pot for plant week. I am thrilled , as I love kids art! Well for now, I am outta here. Maybe one day I will be all caught up. I have lists of what he does to put on the blog but sitting down ,with uninterrupted time doesn't come often around here. Take Care. P.S.-I don't know how to get this silly underlining off of here so sorry you had to deal with that.

April already!

This month started off with a switch in daycare providers. This has been brewing for quite sometime I suspect, although we were not told that we would need to be looking else where. Long story short, the private sitter took on a new born which meant less time for Berik, which meant, Berik and others to stay inside more and more so newborn baby's needs could be met, which equals disaster with Mr. Busy Body. Plus there was no structured activity like coloring or singing time.. etc... so it was time to for a change. Almost as quickly as I began to look for another daycare, "the mood" changed at the sitters house and we wanted Berik out of there. Our church has a wonderful daycare but I worried about class size, competition and him being put in with so many other kids at once. Also we were paying $270.00 monthly with meals included and would now be paying $430.00 plus meals. So you know this knocked me through a loop, however, the day she told my husband that we might ought to have Berik "tested" we suddenly found the extra money to switch him the next day! Tested for what????? For being 2? and wanting to be busy? The first couple of days were tests for both him and the teachers, however, after about day 3 he was literally running to get inside to his new class! He loved it!! 8 boys and 2 girls, poor girls! The teachers say he quickly fell into the routines and is thriving!! His speech has picked up up 100% and we are SO VERY PLEASED!! They go out 2x a day for play and they have covered areas to play outside as well as a regular playground and he eats 2 snacks and lunch in the lunchroom, so this guarantee's that at least 5 times a day he gets to get out of his regular room. Well worth the $ !!!

One evening we went to the Walker County Fair, here in Huntsville and we had a great BBQ meal with some friends. After dinner we went on the giant super slide. It was soooo much fun but due to sooooo many stairs up to the top, I elected to only do it once. We looked at all the fair animals but he was mainly interested in the cows. He mooed and mooed over and over. If you say what does the baby cow say, he will softly say, moooo but ask about the BIG COW and you'll get MOOOOOO. He will do this now with all the animals he knows and it is a good game to play in the car.
As always my friend Tracy and I like to get pics in the bluebonnet flowers with the kids. When it was just her and one son and no Berik it was easy, but now with son #2 and Berik and some additional friends it was quite hectic this year and this is really the only good pic we got. The flowers are so pretty but they only come out for a couple of weeks and they they are gone so you have to hurry!
I think we were still exhausted from last month's activities so we didn't do so much this month. We did take a boat ride in our newly acquired boat, that basically is being housed here in our back yard. No money has been exchanged but it's previous owner bought himself a new pontoon boat and found it a must, that Berik, not Jaimie, but that Berik have a boat. With that said , thank you Bob and Berik is enjoying his boat! See Daddy teaching Berik how to drive a boat? Bad habits daddy! Daddy has been teaching Berik to drive a car/truck also for sometime now. I am sure that when B is in his teens and steals the car to haul the boat to joy ride in, that Jaimie will remember that he taught him so well. :) Berik spends alot and I mean alot!!!! of time telling Jaimie, Berik drive..Berik drive..and when he is in his car seat he spends the other part of his time saying, "drive daddy drive". Pretty cute but can also but pretty annoying when you are trying to have a 'grown up' conversation.
Although B is a momma's boy he loves Daddy and loves to wear his work boots. He moves pretty slow in them as they are heavy! He continues to wear every pair of shoes he can find around the house. He is Mr. Independent and as if he didn't know that a friend of mine brought him over this shirt so he could proudly boast about it! He is proud of his Dora Dora Boots, boots if you will, and would wear them all the time if he could Ever since he turned 2 he is some kind of ... "me, me, me , mine, mine, mine and no, no, no! Daddy tried to teach him the right way to play with his dump truck, (also a gift from Bob & Judy) but who know if he really ever got it because he continues to hold the controller upside down and pulls it to him using the wire. ? Whatever.. he is having fun with it. I guess that about does it for the most boring month we have had in while. Sorry I just can't remember if there was anything exciting and have misplaced my notes for this month. You'll take care. Gena, Jaimie and Berik

March Mania

Every since we have gotten back with Berik, I have tried to find a special day/date to have him baptized. Would it be our
Gotcha day? our court date? his birthday? Finally, as I was going through some papers I came across my stepdaughter, Jessi's, baptism certificate that was dated March 30th and that set everything into motion. We would celebrate Berik's birthday (March 27) on Sat March 29th and have his baptism on Sunday March 30th. Both kids would have the same baptism day. So most of the month was spent gearing up for back to back celebrations. Berik is very busy and is getting more vocal by the minute. He is growing and progressing so much everyday that I can hardly keep up. Each time someone sneezes, he says, "bess you" minus the "l" but close! He is stuck on counting his way or no way. Sometimes he will count with you but will not say one. If you say, say one, he says 2 and if you say 3, he says 4, when you say 5, he says 5 and then when you say 6, he says 7,8 and then you say 9 and he says 10 and claps and says yeah! Other times you say one and he says, two buckle yo shu and 3,4 hu the do (shut the door). One day in the car, he started saying i wanna pa de don,over and over, which translates into, I want to party down! No one knows where that one came from but it was good for his birthday month. Well by now you should get it, that he is on his own agenda and we pretty much just go with the flow and laugh! His fine motor skills are great, see for yourself. If you turn your back he will empty a thing of wipes in a flash. He is really into shoes and goes around saying, shoe on, shoe off, over and over again. He brings you shoes constantly and puts them or more like, forces them on your feet . He walks around in any shoes he can find and them when he isn't wearing them, he busies himself with taking out the shoestrings, which is really convenient when you are in a hurry :). Berik was more into the Easter baskets for daycare, then he was last month for Valentines day. He looked so funny in his Easter bunny glasses and he managed not to break them! Look at the haul he made from daycare. Mommy and daddy helped him out and ate a lot of the candy. We wouldn't want him to have cavities now would we? See,all for the good of Berik. This year, I wouldn't give up until I had the perfect Easter outfit for him. Not wanting to pay full price I turned to e-bay, bid on two and won them both! Oops! What to do now? So we wore one for Palm Sunday and one for Easter Sunday. I plan to re-sell them next year on e-bay. We will see how that goes. With my luck no-one will want them. He netted bunches of eggs while hunting them with his Sunday school class. Other than that, we ate with my parents and enjoyed a beautiful day at home. Then it was back to gearing up for the weekend to come. Family and friends came from near and far to help us celebrate. We had a fun birthday party at the park with hot dogs,baked beans, chips, etc. Berik had a lot of fun riding on my nephew's shoulders and playing with the other kids. His puppy dog cake was really cool and it was homemade for only $18.00. Can't beat that price with a stick! He got more than his fair share of gifts and I thought the present opening would never end. Thanks to all for everything! The next day we had his Baptism. The church had it set up for early in the service , as he is kind of squirmy. He sat in my lap and listened intently at one point to the choir. Just as they finished , he YELLED at the top of his lungs, YEAH!!!!!!!!!!!!!!! AND CLAPPED!! At that point the congregation began to laugh and clap along with him. Then it was his turn and needless to say he was quite excited but did good and he literally leaped out of my arms and into the arms of the preacher. All in all a really great experience! Afterwards we headed over to my parents and had brunch and special times with family and friends. I had his cross cake made for $20.oo, again a steal! Thanks to Gert for making both cakes. The were really good too! Berik got more gifts too, many thanks ! This pretty much concluded the month for us as we were wiped out of energy and $.