Boys Will Be Boys, And Their Daddy’s Too!

This past weekend Jacob took Josiah to their hunting camp in Appalachicola for 3 days where Jacob’s Dad and some other men they know go to hunt. Apparently they had a blast and Josiah’s Papa enjoyed some time with him. Jacob did a great job as a single dad and, as usual, Josiah made the job easy.

Before leaving, Jacob bought Josiah a toy gun and gave him a little training on how to use it. You can see Josiah’s safety vest was much too big and needed some altering. (Please excuse the messy house with papers and toys strewn everywhere. Just before this Josiah got a toy in a package in the mail from Grandpa and he threw the packing material all around and got upset when we tried to clean it up!)

This is how the trip started off. A boy in his camo tuckered out before the fun even begins.

Every time I talked with Jacob I could hear Josiah in the background just a jabbering away and making all kinds of boy noises just sounding like he was having the time of his life. Jacob says he kinda likes his new laid back hunting schedule – sleep until 7 or 8 a.m., hunt for awhile, lunch and then afternoon nap, followed by a little more hunting. I don’t think it was effective, though.

This fairly well sums up the trip, I think…playing with sticks and dirt. Don’t you love how his diaper is hanging out of his pants?

Oh, and frequent snacks, too.

He got to enjoy some time with Papa, too.

Since Jacob has no air bags in his truck and they were driving on dirt roads in the forest, Jacob just moved Josiah’s car seat up to the front so that he wouldn’t be too bored in the back by himself. He only planned to make him get into it when needed, but not when they were just slowly driving around waiting on the dogs. But as it turned out, every time Jacob started to move the truck, Josiah climbed into his seat and started to try to buckle himself in. Such a good boy! I figure it probably gave him a better vantage point.

Unfortunately, on their way home on Tuesday (you remember the really stormy day?), Jacob’s truck broke down an hour away from home in the rain. I was working, but wouldn’t have been able to pick them up anyway because he also had all 4 of our dogs with him. He ended up getting the truck towed to a mechanic nearby where a friend with a truck big enough to hold the dog box picked them up and brought them home. His 3 hour drive took 6 hours in bad weather with a toddler and 4 dogs who can’t get along! Two days, $700, and a big fiasco later, we have the truck back, but it still needs work. Bummer.

And the trip ended much as it started. Except that in reality it ended at dark with the truck on a tow truck!

(Nearly) 32 Week Appointment

Wednesday we went for Elijah’s 32 week appointment.  When I say “we”, I mean all three of us.  It tends to be a family affair.

I never really remember the specifics, but I know I’m measuring normally, he has a normal heart rate, and that I’m gaining weight.  I’m not sure how much I’ve gained since my last visit, but I didn’t get my normal “WOW” response when the doctor checked my weight, so either she is getting used to my above average weight gains and doesn't want to make me feel bad anymore or I have slowed down.  Seeing as how the holidays are over and I’ve been trying to be diligent (“trying” is the key word), I’m hoping I have slowed down a bit.

I’m never very good at remembering to ask all of my “I wonder if” questions when I’m at these appointments, so this time I wrote them down.  I was feeling bad as I asked one right after another on my list.  Hopefully Dr. Million didn’t have a busy morning!  She answered them patiently and completely, though.

The one piece of good news I do remember is that Elijah is head down in preparation to make his debut.  I was a little worried about this because I distinctly remember Josiah using his feet to push up on my ribs and make me terribly uncomfortable, though he was nice and spared me the motion around my bladder.  In contrast, Elijah is calm around my ribs but makes tons of commotion from my belly button down, sometimes making a small bladder feel like it is huge!  So, I was concerned he was flip flopped, but no, while Josiah must have been a dancer, Elijah is a head banger!

Another difference…Josiah frequently had hiccups, but I have yet to feel them with Elijah.  That seems strange to me, but I still have 8 weeks….

32 Weeks.  I’m noticing now that this shirt no longer fits!

In other baby preparation news…Josiah has now spent 4 nights in his new room.  It is far from finished, as I still need to decorate, but the essentials are in place.  He has slept and napped just fine so far.  He has a small “Little Mermaid” table in his room with 2 chairs that I bought to paint to match his room.  He LOVES it!  He repetitively pulls the chairs out, sits, stands up, and pushes them back under.  Then he’ll beg for you to sit with him and he asks to eat there.  I’m secretly wondering if I can get away with not painting it, but that might be cruel!

Daddy Of The Year!

So, I realize it is not even the end of January yet, so that is not much of a proclamation, but Jacob deserves some recognition anyway.  Lately Josiah has been dealing with diarrhea and the resulting diaper rash, pink eye/cellulitis with double ear infections, then a cough and runny nose, and now fever and cellullitis again (still with the cough and runny nose).  I’m hoping at least some of this can be chalked up to getting his 2 year molars, as he was sick with his one year molars, too.  And this is all on top of the underlying/separate issue we have been trying to pin down about his GI tract.   Most of this sickness has happened on Jacob’s watch! 

It seems like Josiah comes down with these things virtually overnight – usually Thursday night heading into the weekend, no less.  It keeps happening so that I have to work and since it is Jacob’s slow season, he ends up having to watch him and take him to the doctor.  I’ve now missed 3 appointments!  Can you say guilty feelings?  Usually Jacob has his fair share of work to do at our house with his business and his efforts to get the bee business going, but he’s had to put that aside to take care of our little man and he has done a fantastic job.

Just to demonstrate how fantastic he’s been, here’s an example.  One of Josiah’s medications needed to be given three times a day.  This one started on my watch and my practical self decided to do this during Josiah’s waking hours, leaving a 12 hour span at night, rather than 8 hours.  Jacob saw the “error” of my ways and took it upon himself to set his alarm for midnight every night to give Josiah his meds.  Knowing that I struggle to fall asleep once fully woken in the night, he spared me from this chore.  This speaks of Jacob’s loving tenderness towards both Josiah and myself, as well as to Josiah’s superb sleeping skills as he easily wakes up, takes his medicine, drinks a little water, and goes back to bed without missing a beat.  I love my boys!  When the pediatrician found out Jacob was doing this, she was totally impressed with both of them but told him it was ok to be flexible about it, if needed.

I’m so thankful to have a husband who can not only handle these things reliably, but to also be willing and loving towards our little man and his needs when my hands are tied.  What a blessing!  (Thank you, Jacob.)

Please pray we can get Josiah over all this craziness soon.  Thankfully he is a fabulous patient and is doing relatively well.

I don’t have any good recent pictures downloaded to help make this blog more visually stimulating, so this will have to do:

This is what they play with when they are together.  Anything with wheels!

  Josiah loves to stuff his Daddy’s hiking boots with his toys.  My shoes don’t hold much :)

Josiah’s New Playset

Jacob and I have had this “great” idea for a year or more that we’d build Josiah (and any other kids that came along) a fort-like playset starting with a swing and slide and add to it every year at Christmas.  We’ve looked into how to do it a few times.  Buy a kit?  Build from scratch?  Buy on Craigslist and modify?  We could never decide and found out that even the accessories themselves can be quite pricey.  But this week my good ol husband came through with a great deal…a free one in good shape.  He has this uncanny ability to get any and everything we need/want or even don’t want, as is often my thought on particular items, for dirt cheap or free.  As a result we end up with lots of used items and money retained in our pockets.

Jacob has some clients who are, shall we say “well off” that are always extremely nice to him and give great bonuses.  He’s been eyeing their playset and noticed he never sees the kids on it, so he asked about it and sure enough they were looking to get rid of it, but didn’t care to bother with trying to sell it.  They were happy to have someone take it away and we are happy to have it.  It is in good shape and only needs a new canopy.  We are going to replace the swings, as well, since we prefer a different type.  It is not quite as big and fort-like as we planned to build over time, but we’ll add onto it and it will be a boy’s fortress in no time. 

Isn’t that nice for free???  The swings hang from the monkey bars, which makes no sense to me, so we’ll probably add another arm off the backside for the swings.  We are also thinking we’ll close in the bottom under the fort part and put porthole windows in it.

We’ve already had hours of entertainment from it. Josiah cracks me up because he continually says “wee, wee, wee…” while swinging and it reminds me of that commercial with the pig riding in the car saying “wee…” all the way home.

Even Grandma enjoyed it: 

Oh, and there was a $100 Christmas bonus waiting on Jacob when he went to pick it up!  There’s nothing like getting paid to have something you wanted anyway!

 

Oh, and he finally loves his Elmo bubble bath we got for Christmas.  It took him a couple exposures because he didn’t want the bubbles to touch him at first.  Now he is ALL about anything Elmo.  I didn’t even realize how often Elmo appears in our house until he started pointing it out.

He loves to kick up his feet from their hiding place beneath the bubbles. Sweet Cutie Pie!