'Tis The Season

The season of sickness begins. Gabe has a full-blown cold/upper respiratory thing, complete with fever. He woke up at 2am and would not go back to sleep, so he and I came downstairs and watched TV. This is one of those times I realize why it IS a good thing to have a 24-hour TV channel of PBS programming for preschoolers. He was pretty miserable - and feverish - all morning, but seemed to be feeling slightly better around lunchtime, and ate a pretty good lunch, actually, so hopefully he's turning the corner. His cough and congestion started Sunday morning when we were in CT, and I was hoping it wouldn't turn into anything worse than a little cold, but alas, it did.

Dante's nose is running like a faucet, but no other symptoms as of yet, so hopefully it will stay that way. It's just a shame that Gabe is so under the weather, because it's an absolutely gorgeous day, and we've been stuck inside all morning. If his fever is gone, and he seems in good spirits, I think I'll take them outside to play this afternoon.

I was pretty exhausted this morning, after being up for several hours in the middle of the night, but I knew that since Gabe was sick, I wouldn't be able to get to the gym today, so I dragged myself out for a run this morning before Scott had to be in to work. I'm glad I did. I was a bit sluggish, but still managed 3.4 miles in just over 30 minutes, so not all that sluggish.

We were supposed to have playgroup today, too, but obviously we had to bail on that. Hopefully we'll be able to make it to the next one. I'm just glad I hadn't mentioned it to Gabe.....

So, we had a great time in CT this weekend. The kids had so much fun playing together, as always. I got a great video clip of Gabe, Dante, Mason and HR running around like maniacs after dinner. I'll be sure to upload it and post it later. Since I went down with them by myself, we all slept in the same room together, and as I expected, we all ended up sleeping in the same bed. It's not the ideal situation, but in some ways, it's kind of nice to be all snuggled up with them. Not something I'd want to do on a regular basis, but it is kind of fun.

Neither of them took naps on Saturday, and of course they were both completely wired and hyper Saturday night - and overtired, to boot - so there was a bit of a meltdown when I brought them upstairs to put them to bed, and Dante realized that I was planning on leaving the room. His sobbing caused Gabe to start sobbing, and in the end, I just laid down in bed with them until Dante fell asleep. Gabe seemed ok with me leaving, but after I went downstairs and listened to the monitor for a while, and heard that he was nowhere near ready to go to sleep, I went and got him and brought him downstairs, where he sat in the living room and watched the Red Sox game with Mom and Dad.

It was pretty cute to see him sitting there chatting with Mom about the game. We always tell him to say "Go Red Sox!", so he asked her where the Red Sox were going : )  When I see him having actual conversations with people like that, it makes me realize just how big he's getting.

The first thing he wants to do whenever we go to CT now is play with Mike. He and Mike go in the attic playroom and play matchboxes, or rescue heroes, or Legos, and Gabe is just in heaven. It's odd for me to just let him go somewhere without my supervision like that, and it's not that I don't trust Mike - it just feels wrong to not be right there with Gabe, making sure he doesn't do anything he's not supposed to do, or that he doesn't get hurt.....  I guess I better get used to it, though, because it's going to be happening more and more.

He's still my baby boy, though. Every morning when he gets up, one of the first things he asks is "Is Mommy readin' me books tonight?" Scott and I take turns putting them to bed, and Gabe always wants me to be the one to put him to bed. I think it's hysterical, though, that he's thinking about that practically before he's even gotten out of bed in the morning! And the other night, just out of the blue, he said "You're my great Mommy!"  And this morning, in his feverish state, when we came downstairs to watch TV, he hugged me and said "I love sitting with you on the couch."

A few more things about Gabe - we were eating some strawberries with breakfast the other day, and he said "Mmmm....these strawberries are nice and fresh and fruity!" And this morning, when I was giving him his Tylenol, he was trying to say 'This is going to make me feel better," but it came out as "This feel me better."

So many Gabe-isms, so little time....

Dante is doing well. He's occasionally saying "boo" for 'boo-boo," and says "uh-oh!" all the time. And he's saying "Hi," too. So his language is coming along, slowly but surely. And his sign language is still going well, too. He's using it much more deliberately now. Oh, and he peed on the potty again last night, too! He was so proud of himself.

This morning when I came home from my run, I was going through my usual 20-minute stretching routine, and when I was standing against the wall stretching my calves, he came over and leaned against the wall and put his foot up against the wall, just like I was doing. It was so cute!

He's a real mischief-maker, though. Just like his daddy in ALL respects. He's been climbing for a while, but he's recently discovered that he can push the kitchen chairs over to the counters and climb up and reach everything that's up there. Gabe, for one reason or another, never picked up on this, and I am none too thrilled that Dante has.

Comments

[Shawn]

Reese's nose is running full steam also. Such fun!

[Javamom]

I hope everyone is feeling better! We seem to all be catching it now. Yucko!