In sickness and health.....

As you can tell by the post title, we've had some sickness in our household this week. I have been fighting some sort of throat/cough thing that resulted in me barely having a voice on Saturday (trying to order Starbucks drive through was a little tricky.....I ordered their Berry Tea Infusion which was excellent ;) and Eli has some sort of intestinal virus. Poor little guy didn't eat a lot starting Friday afternoon/evening and a was a little clingy and whiny. Later that evening he vomited, which my mommy instincts knew was going to happen. Saturday he acted fine but still had a poor appetite (thankfully no more vomiting) and then today he woke up (at 5:30am....yikes!) with a 100.1 degree fever and diarrhea throughout the day. What's amazing to me about all this is he somehow knows what foods he should eat and what foods he shouldn't. What I mean is because he has acted fine through all of this (the only way you would know he was sick was if you were changing his diaper :o) so I would offer him "regular" food throughout the day in which he would always say "no". Then when I would offer him foods such as soup crackers, applesauce, bananas, and toast (part of the BRAT diet), he would eat some. In fact, he actually ASKED for bananas today without me even saying anything. His little body knows what he can and cannot eat! Plus, I feel such relief during these times in the fact that he is still nursing. We've given him some Pedialyte, but he isn't too fond of it, so we've "spiked" his water with some so he'll at least get a little. Here's hoping his appetite will pick up in a day or two!!

Now for the "healthy" part of our week:

We've spent a good share of our time outdoors this week (on the non-rainy days, that is!). We have a lovely little park very close to our house which is usually empty so Eli has the run of it! Here are some pictures/video of our park visit this week:

Eli is a huge fan of the swing:

I usually have to hold Eli's hand up the stairs and slide down the double slide along side him because he tends to be a little wobbly. He is getting much better with his balance and not tripping over himself so I decided to let him walk up himself. He was SO proud of himself and must have walked up the stairs and gone down the slide 20 times before we left:

There is a lot of open grassy space at the park which Eli also loves to explore. The drop off from the playground is a little steep and he always gets going way to fast so I have to hold his hand so he doesn't roll down :)

Later that day, Eli wanted to pull his wagon around for a walk. I've figured out that if I let him pull the wagon (by himself or he gets mad until he gets stuck and then he says "help?" which is the key word that allows me to help him :) down our street, he then will willingly get into the wagon for the remainder of the walk. That way our walks aren't an hour vs. 30 minutes :)

I'm STILL searching for a used slide on Craigslist with little luck. I'm trying to stay around this area so I'm not spending money on gas to buy a used slide which would make up for buying a new one to begin with! We may have to break down and buy a new one if I don't have any success. Until then, Eli has invented his own slide:

Unfortunately, one of our neighbors has health issues and has the ambulance and fire truck come to their house about every couple of months. I figured while Eli was watching the ordeal I would show him how his puzzle pieces looked like the real deal. Eric thought this picture was a little morbid, but I do know our neighbor is okay and is now home so that makes it better :)

On Saturday I gave Eli a Gerber toddler meal to see if it would jump start his appetite. He got a few bites in him, but this is what it ended up looking like.....I guess he didn't want it:

Eli went through a time where he didn't want to sit down and read books before bed. He's back to liking book time and loves to pick out books he wants read to him while he points out all the colors, shapes, numbers, letters, animals, etc. that he knows in the books. Here is with book time on Saturday with daddy:

Now for some random Eli facts:

1. Eli has become very good at copying what we say....particularly the last word we say or a phrase he picks up. While in the Starbucks drive through (I know, how often do I go there, really!!) Eli heard me say "thank you" and he said "dank you!" over and over in the back seat in which the barista heard him and said "you're welcome!" You also can hear him say "okay", "hold on", "come on", and others I can't remember right now :)
2. Some words I actually wrote down this week are: buckles, crackers (pretty clear now instead of "ca-ku"), coffee (now coffee instead of "fok-ee"), snack, park, shoes, banana, "wa-er-meh-one"=watermelon, and "am-boh-uns"=ambulance.
3. We've been working on jumping and right now he just lifts his heels....too cute!
4. Eli knows the colors green, yellow, purple, & blue really well now!
5. While parking at Toddler Town this week Eli saw Jack getting out of his car and I normally would say "Look Eli, there's Jack!" and before I could even say it, he said "Jack?"
6. Eli is VERY intrigued by buckles, sniffing & blinking. Here's video of him practicing his buckling skills:



7. Eli is currently fascinated with eyes and points out that each person or animal he meets has eyes by saying "eyes?" and pointing to their face. I then respond "Yes, Eli, they do have eyes!"
8. Our neighbors (the same ones with the ambulance/fire truck visit) had a couple of their grandchildren visiting who were 4 year old twin boys. While we were outside, Eli saw them and immediately took off to visit with them. Eli LOVES to watch and hang out with older boys as he finds them so interesting. He probably is in awe of everything they can do since he is an only child and doesn't experience older kids all the time.

The weather is supposed to be overall good this week (some 70's and maybe 80's!!!) so I'm sure we'll be outside a lot this week, too. It is the last week for Toddler Town indoors and in May they will go "on tour" of the different parks in Independence-can't wait! Hopefully this week we will both become healthy again, too! Enjoy your week!