My Apologies

Mike brought it to my attention that I make him out to be the bad guy in my little story of Austin and the big, bad mucus. That was not my intent. He was concerned, like a good dad, when I called him. And hurried to meet me, like a good husband. So, I am sorry. We all know it was really the mucus that was the bad guy.

At least with blogging, when everything comes out wrong - like it so often does - I can print a retraction. :)

A Step in the Right Direction

A couple of weeks ago Austin started doing the walk while holding on to the furniture thing. Any wagers on when he'll start walking independently?

He had his nine month check up last week. He's a healthy, happy boy. Long and thin. 18.5" tall and 18 lbs 3 oz.

And then 2 days later he woke up with a cold. Then after his first nap he was super duper congested. He was sitting up playing on the floor and all of a sudden he starts choking. No noise. Not breathing. Face turning colors. So I run over and tip him on his side, head lower than his feet like they tell you to do when he chokes on his milk as a newborn. Eventually he coughs and cries a little but settles down and goes back to playing. Scary, right? 5 minutes later he does it again. Same thing except this time some mucus came up. So I suck out his nose as best I can. 5 minutes later he does it again. So, I'm kinda freaked out and I call the pediatrician's office. His doctor is not in so I talk to whoever the nurse was there. I said, "My 9 month old son keeps choking on his mucus to where he actually stops breathing for a minute." She replies with a gasp, "Oh, no. Do you want to bring him in?" Uh, panic. "okay." I hang up the phone and he does it again. So now I'm worried that on the way there he is going to choke and I won't be able to hear him because, as choking goes, he doesn't make any sound. I can't see him because his car seat is facing backwards and he's just gonna die. So, I called Mike and said, "I kinda want you to come home." I told him what was going on and he was worried and we went to the doctor with me in the back seat watching Austin. Well, he never did it again. Then the doctor (not ours) comes in and says that it's a common thing. Looks scary but it's no big deal. He just isn't used to the thickness of mucus and when it lands on his vocal cords he panics instead of swallowing. But the brain kicks in and he figures it out on his own. Well, I'm sorry but the nurse could have just said that on the phone. So then Mike is not happy with me and says, "We need to work on what is an emergency and what isn't and how to react." So here I am the overprotective first time mom - again. I still think if it were him he would have been freaked out too. Oh well. Whadjagonnadue?

Here are some pictures for your viewing pleasure:

Austin has discovered...

...what a fascinating machine the dishwasher is. He stood there and pushed the bottom rack in and out, in and out, in and out. My attention span ran out before his.

Okay, one more Austin story today

Two posts in a row. I know, I'm getting wild in my old age... Speaking of Austin crawling (see previous post), I left him playing on the floor and went to the little ladies room. Meanwhile, he went to the little gent's room down the hall. You know those springy type door stoppers? He LOVES those. And I can understand why. So he went into the bathroom and closed the door behind him. All the way. And I hear bbrrrong, bbrrrong, bbrrrong as he played with the door stopper. Then he turned around and realized he couldn't get out. He was not happy about that. I go to get him and he is sitting right behind the door. I had to push him slowly with the door til I could slip my arm around and pull him out. He was undeterred. He went to the kitchen to play with the one in there. No risk of getting trapped with that one. ;)

In related news (okay, so this is technically yet another Austin story), I was replacing the hardware after painting the basement bathroom last week-ish. He crawled in and pushed the door out of the way. Pause. Sideways glance in both directions. Hmmmm. Both bathrooms upstairs have one of those spring door stoppers. Where's this one's? Oh, well. This bathroom is BORING! And then he crawled back out.

So, now we're keeping all the doors shut.

P.S. This picture has nothing to do with this post. I just picked one from the pile. It was a while ago. He was watching me vacuum.

We had a biting incident with Scoobi (the dog)

Today Austin crawled over to Scoobi. Knelt up against her back and grabbed 2 fistfuls of fur - hard. And then... he bit her. That's right. Austin took a big chomp right on Scoobi's hip! Poor dog. She decided that was her cue to go back to bed.

Austin is working on his upper teeth now. You can just start to see the tips of them coming through. Between that and his cold he is feeling pretty miserable but we're doping him up as best we can. And offering non-furry chew toys.

Bouncy, Bouncy, Fun, Fun, Fun, Fun, Fun!

Keep the sound off...

In keeping with tradition

I am getting this Christmas post out rather slowly because - well, that's just the kind of person I am. Hence the title. We'll do this one as a primarily visual tour of Austin's first Christmas. If you look in the background you can even see the progress of our basement remodel. We have since begun priming and I painted the bathroom down here. You can click on the images to see them larger.



Of course, Mike's favorite part of Christmas was the gargantuan snow storm!




And how can we forget Scoobi's Christmas presents... the boxes.



I was going to post some videos but it gave me an error and I've already been trying to get this blog up for several days - can't seem to get to the end without being interrupted. Maybe another day.

Hope y'all had a wonderful holiday!