A small taste of heaven

This was my view the other day...
My desk, with work, which I actually enjoy:


To the right, a sleeping preschooler...


To the left, a sleeping infant...



Rare things are indeed the most precious!

Christopher

I felt so bad about Christopher's bad pics on the other post, I wanted to get a good one up right away.

Here's a bunch of stuff

Sorry I've been lax... Two kids are exponentially more time-consuming than one. Especially when one is John.



John fell asleep yesterday watching "Cars." This was really cute until I picked him up and he had a fever of 102°.


Our new favorite dessert is pumpkin pudding. It's really good and easy. We have done it using butterscotch and cheesecake pudding. Both were great!



We played "Rock Band" the other day with BFF James and Andy. "Frosty the Snowman," "Rudolph the Red Nosed Reindeer," and "She'll Be Comin' Round the Mountain" were on the playlist. I really wish the videogame makers would create a "Toddler Rock Band." You could hit any note on any beat and it would still go on... just make the music. I can think of a lot of GenX'ers who would buy that for their kids!



These are not particularly good pictures of Christopher, but he seems to have inherited my non-photogenic gene... or I just have bad camera timing.

John's first sleep over with James!!!

Last night John had his first sleepover with his friend James. He did really well, although they did have to separate the two at bedtime because they were so excited to be together. John slept in their guest room and while Juliet and I were nervous that he would wake up in the middle of the night and freak out because he was in an unfamiliar place, he slept through the night and did great. A big thanks to Mark and Kerri for taking care of John while the rest of us were at the emergency room. Oh, did I not mention that part?

Christopher had his first visit to the emergency room last night. It was a night of firsts. All day yesterday Christopher had a raspy cough that sounded like croup and his voice sounded very rough. At dinner time he seemed really weak, so we called our pediatrician, the infamous Dr. Feiste, who advised us to go to the ER. We called Mark and Kerri and dropped John off with some overnight stuff and headed down to Anderson.

We got to the ER around 7:30, went through triage, and then waited in a room for a doctor until 10:30. He was hooked up to an oxygen sensor and cardiac monitor. They tested him for a viral infection (negative) and took a chest x-ray (looked fine). In the end, the doctor agreed that he was croup-y, but it wasn't serious enough to admit us to the hospital; if he had been under 2 months, it would have been an "automatic admit." He got a steroid shot to help open his airways, kept us there for 20 minutes to monitor for an adverse reaction, then sent us home.

We got home around 2:30. Juliet and Christopher went to bed. I put away our dinner (Jessica's jambalaya recipe) which had been out all night on the stove (the stove was off), then took Keats for a walk and went to bed.

In the end, we're glad we went to the ER, even though we didn't have a moment of "A ha! Here's the problem!" Considering the medical problems we had with John, we'd rather overreact and have it be nothing than underreact and find out later it was a serious problem.

It looks like the Pennas are starting their 2010 medical deductible payments early this year. To make a contribution, go to www.allwewantisforourkidstobehappyandhealthyandgotocollegeandleadfulllives.com/donate.

Giddiyap

Grandpa Mike came for a visit this weekend and brought 2 great wooden rocking horses that he made for the boys.

Another cute bear in the family

Remember the John Bear?

Introducing Bear Christopher...

Pa makes it easy to cheat

I promise I'll try to catch up on blogging soon. But in the meantime, please go to Grandpaparazzi's Neighborhood!

Our backyard fort!!

John and his coat.

John spending the night at Mimi and Pa's condo in Seneca.