Grandpa Don and Sam watching for the big ship.
The bridge is up and the ship is going underneath it.
The ship is heading toward the bridge.
The bridge is down.
A big ship in the harbor.
A Coast Guard ship.
A view of Duluth.
Benjamin has anemia. After numerous pokes in both arms, they were able to draw blood from his head and ran additional tests to confirm that and verify that it's an iron deficient-anemia and not a genetic or chronic type. He's on iron drops twice a day for awhile to get his iron levels back to normal.
We have a follow-up appointment with his regular doctor on April 18th to see if the drops are working and what we need to do from then on. He doesn't like the drops, but he has been such a trooper through this whole thing. He slept last night from 11 PM to 5 AM - I kept waking up to check on him because he hasn't slept more than 1 hour at a time since Sunday!
I stayed home with him on Tuesday, too, since he still wasn't feeling too good. And he's not at 100% yet, but he is working his way back to that.
We have returned from an eventful trip to Duluth over the weekend! My dad drove up from Texas to deliver a car that he sold and then rode with the kids and me to Emily's dance competition. Rob had to be in Brookings on Friday and work over the weekend, so wasn't able to come. Thank goodness my dad was around! He was such a help! And Emily's friend, Danae also came. She was also a great help!
Emily danced in 3 groups and they won two first places and one second place! I'll post pictures later when my relief comes home. Now - why I'm waiting for relief...
Benjamin work up this morning around 3 AM and I have hardly been able to make him happy since then! He is on his 4th nap - the first three have been 15-20 minutes. So far, this one has been 20, so I'm hoping he'll stay asleep. I'm holding him while he naps.
I finally took him to the walk-in clinic because he was just totally inconsolable. The nurse put down his pain level as a 10 because he was crying so much. :-( The doctor said his fontanel is full, but his neck isn't stiff, so the symptoms don't fit with meningitis. However, he was concerned with the obvious pain that Benjamin was having, so ordered blood work - LOTS of it - so much that they had to put a needle into his arm vein to draw the blood. Poor little guy. Other than 2 bouts of pink eye, he's been healthy all winter long. I hope it's just a virus and nothing serious.
Yes, Benjamin is 7 months old, but he just had his 6-month shots yesterday. He weighs a whole 17 pounds and 14 ounces and is 26.5 inches long. That puts him in the 32% for weight and the 23% for height. His head, however, is 45 cm, which is in the 65%! He's got his daddy's head! :-)
We had a nice Easter holiday with the family in Minneapolis - the kids got to play with their cousins, Riley got to play with Jasper, and lots of cards were played. Hard to believe that it snowed on Easter, but not Christmas this year! Enjoy these pictures...
We attended my uncle's wedding last weekend in LeMars, Iowa. Here are some pictures from there!
SweetMarySunshine had her little baby boy last week. He's absolutely adorable! You can see him here: http://sweetmarysunshine.blogspot.com/.
On the Wagner front, we've been very busy with parent-teacher conferences, various doctor appointments, plus a birthday party to attend. Benjamin had his first "illness" - a bout of conjunctivitis, or pink eye. He doesn't seem worse for wear, but sure hates getting the drops put in. On a happy note, he LOVES bananas and seems to finally be ready to eat "big people" food!
He worked at it for a few minutes and then just popped over. I flipped him back to his back and he did it again. The third time, he went back to tummy to back. And it shocked him! He was a little upset and Samuel was afraid he hurt himself (since he rolled from a blanket on the rug to the wood floor), but as soon as I picked him up, he smiled!
And the best thing about it is this: I helped chauffer first graders to the ice skating rink over lunch today and mentioned the rolling over to a neighbor friend of ours who was also helping. He told me that he already knew because he had lunch with his daughter and Sam and Sam told him that! He said Sam acted like a proud big brother! It was so cool!
Best wishes to SweetMarySunshine today who's hopefully having Baby C as I write this!!!
Sombody sent me the link to this lecture. It's amazing and I felt the need to share with everyone.
http://video.stumbleupon.com/#p=ithct48cqw
It just occurred to me that my house will not be clean anytime soon!
Rob is fishing this weekend, so I have the kids by myself. No work will get done.
The following weekend is the Super Bowl. Rob wants to have a "small party". He thinks that spending Friday cleaning his tool room in the basement means he can have guests over. Let me know if you understand that one.
The kids have no school on February 18th.
The weekend of February 22-24, I'm going to MN for a scrap booking retreat. My first nights away from Benjamin. :-(
Then the following week we're going to my uncle's wedding in Iowa. The kids don't have school on the 29th, so we're headed down that day for the wedding that evening and can come back on Saturday.
March 15th is Sam's school carnival, the next weekend is Easter, and the following weekend is Emily's dance competition. Whew! And well, then comes April. Yikes!
Poor Benjamin STILL has his first bad cold. And it's settling in his eyes, of all places. So we visited the doctor on Saturday to verify it wasn't bacterial, and ended up getting eye drops for the conjuctivitis. I'm not sure day care will even let him go tomorrow, but he'll have been on medication for over 24 hours. We'll have to see. Even though he's not feeling well, he's still such a good baby! He's sitting on my lap helping me type this right now!
I was hoping to get some new pictures posted, but have spent pretty much all my free time the last week holding Benjamin and doing laundry! (Don't ask about the rest of my house!) Maybe in the next couple of days!
Oh, and Ben is 15.8 pounds clothed! :-)
I just got this e-mail today and I just had to share it.
A group of graduates, well established in their careers, were talking at a reunion and decided to go visit their old university professor, now retired. During their visit, the conversation turned to complaints about stress in their work and lives. Offering his guests hot chocolate, the professor went into the kitchen and returned with a large pot of hot chocolate and anassortment of cups - porcelain, glass, crystal, some plain looking, some expensive, some exquisite - telling them to help themselves to the hot chocolate.
When they all had a cup of hot chocolate in hand, the professor said: "Notice that all the nice looking, expensive cups were taken, leaving behind the plain and cheap ones. While it is normal for you to want only the best for yourselves, that is the source of your problems and stress. The cup that you're drinking from adds nothing to the quality of the hot chocolate. In most cases it is just more expensive and in some cases even hides what we drink. What all of you really wanted was hot chocolate, not the cup; but you consciously went for the best cups... And then you began eyeing each other's cups.
Now consider this: Life is the hot chocolate; your job, money and position in society are the cups. They are just tools to hold and contain life. The cup you have does not define, nor change the quality of life you have. Sometimes, by concentrating only on the cup, we fail to enjoy the hot chocolate God has provided us. God makes the hot chocolate, man chooses the cups.
The happiest people don't have the best of everything. They just make the best of everything that they have.
Live simply. Love generously. Care deeply. Speak kindly. And enjoy your hot chocolate.
I can't believe it's already January 6, 2008! I knew having a third child would take more time and energy, but I had NO IDEA how much! I'm not sure if it's my age or the fact that I have 2 others at home who are very busy, but boy, I have NO free time. I'm not sure my house will ever be clean again. And I'm not even thinking about all the extra stuff I'd like to do like organize some closets and go through some drawers. I do have a coule of scrapbooking weekends scheduled for the upcoming months to hopefully get some pages done, but I don't see how I'll ever be caught up! :-) However, I wouldn't trade Benjamin for a clean house or organized closets. He's brought so much joy to our lives.
Unfortunately, he has his first bad cold and is so uncomfortable. Even when he's not feeling good, though, he still smiles and laughs and is happy. We don't visit the doctor for a well-baby check for a few weeks, but by weighing him on the scale, he's 15.5 pounds already! We haven't started solids yet, as he hasn't seemed interested in what we're eating yet.
Here's a picture of Grandma Jo with the boys.
We had a wonderful day and made lots of memories! Benjamin rolled over from his stomach to his back tonight! He did it twice before he got tired of me flipping him back over and told me so!! I'll be posting pictures after I get them off of my camera.
