It's No Fun Having a Sick Baby

So, the past two weeks have been particularly hard for me and Sarah. Sarah has been sick, and I totally feel for her because I know she hasn't felt really good in over 2 weeks. She is such a joy when she feels good and is happy, but unfortunately she has had fevers, a cold, and now an ear infection (again). Poor thing went to the doctor twice last week, and going to the doctor for her is an ORDEAL! For some reason, she completely freaks out when the nurse wants to put the monitor on her big toe to get her heartbeat. When I say freaks out, I mean that literally. Its like she becomes posessed- she begins to scream at the top of her lungs, she writhes in my arms or on the table, and she literally loses all control with crying and screaming and writhing. It's so sad, and I try to reassure her but it doesn't matter. This last time, the nurse couldn't even get the reading, and gave up after 15 minutes of her freaking out. So sad! I kept asking him, "are you sure you need to get this reading?"...because I just couldn't stand to have Sarah get so upset over something to small. But at any rate, she is now taking medicine for the ear infection, and has begun to sleep a little better and feel a little better. She even played some this weekend when the Blakey boys came over for a visit. That's another funny story--Sarah had her first meltdown this weekend over someone playing with her toys. One the one hand, I kept telling myself that she is too young yet developmentally to understand the concept of sharing. I know this, and I do not expect this of her. But its very hard when you see the kids playing, and everytime Will moves to one of her toys, she starts to freak and cries and screams and tries to take the toy away from him. Its not even toys she is playing with. So, we had to deal with multiple meltdowns from her as she learned that sometimes other kids get to play with her toys. In all, though, I think she handled it well and did eventually let things go and let Will play with some of her toys. They even played together at some points, which was surprising, too, since she isn't there yet developmentally either.
I can't wait until Sarah (and me both) start to feel better and can take advantage of these nice cool days to have some fun. We've been wanting to take Sarah to the park now that its cooler, so I'm hoping she feels back to herself soon!

Tailgating and a sick baby

So, this saturday we were invited to tailgate for the Georgia-Tennessee game with one of Stephen's coworkers. We picked up Dusty and his son, Will, stopped and bought some food, and then headed to east campus for tailgating. At first we were a little unsure of what to expect, being our first time tailgating with this person, and hearing that they were tailgating in the parking deck, but it ended up being just great. The kids really had a good time wandering around, visiting other people, playing in the grass and leaves. We also had fun. We ended up leaving early because the kids really wore themselves out. They both fell asleep on the car ride back to Dusty's house. We stayed at Dusty's to watch the game, and the kids again played until they were just exhausted. Its fun for me to watch them all interact with each other. Robert, the baby, is walking already and so interested in following Sarah and Will and trying to copy what they do. Sarah and Will actually play well together, if you don't count not being able to take turns or share--which I don't hold against them since they aren't there developmentally yet. They are all the best of friends!

Sunday, we took Sarah to the park, where we noticed that she wasn't feeling quite like herself. She had a fever. This began my 2 days of staying home with sick Sarah, who was pathetic and crying for me and wanting to be held all the time. I don't mind, though. I know when I'm sick, I want my mommy, too. It wasn't until last night that she actually started feeling a little better. Its really sad to know that your baby is sick, and not being able to do anything to make her feel better. The doctor thinks she just has a virus of some sort, in her throat. She did a strep test (negative) and blood work, which came back with elevated counts, but that is to be expected with a virus. Poor baby Sarah! Because Sarah was sick, we missed a field trip with daycare to a pumpkin patch. We were really looking forward to it. Ms. Gloria said the kids had so much fun! I know Sarah would have had fun, too, but unfortunately she had to stay at home and miss it. I guess there is always next year!

Pics from Stone Mountain

Here is Sarah after she staked out a pumpkin her size to sit on.

Here is Sarah carrying a ball up the stairs to the slide in the Big Barn.

This is Jordan on the zipline at the SkyHike.

Jennifer and the Thee Little Pigs.

Us- The Happy DeWeese Family.

A great picture of Becky and Matt in front of the Dahlia garden at the Plantation.
Mom, me and Becky in the Dahlia garden.

The Pumpkin Festival at Stone Mountain Park

[Pictures coming soon...]

This Saturday for Jordan's birthday we went to the pumpkin festival at Stone Mountain Park. It was me, Stephen and Sarah, plus Grandma, Aunt Becky, Uncle Matt and cousins Jordan and Jennifer. It was very fun! We met around lunchtime and had a picnic lunch in one of the picnic areas. Then we headed to the Crossroads area for the festival. Jordan had fun on the zipline at Skyhike, but was too afraid to do the three-story skyhike. Plus, it took way too long- like 1.5 hours! We took some photos in the pumpkin patch and then went to the Big Barn, which is an interactive ball area for the kids. They had areas with slides and tunnels for the little kiddies (like Sarah). There are three levels, and on each level there are all sorts of things to do with these foam balls that are everywhere--you can sort them into tubes, you can shoot them out of guns, you can collect them in bags to throw at each other, and then there were these machines of all sorts that took the balls and did different things with them. Some of them worked like a dump truck, others sucked up the balls and then made them fall from the sky. It was very fun! Sarah had so much fun running around collecting balls into her bag. She also enjoyed climbing on and playing on the slides and crawling through the tunnels. At first I thought she would be afraid of the longer tunnels where she couldn't see the other end, but she wasn't at all! She would crawl right in and through the whole tunnel!

After the Barn, we decided to head back to the cars for some snacks and then went to the Antebellum plantation. Sarah crashed out in the car and slept the whole time we walked through the campus of the plantation. While we walked, Becky and I talked about how its been at least 15 years since I had visited Stone Mountain, and really not much had changed. At the plantation, we took some photos in front of a beautiful Dahlia garden, where some of the Dahlia's were bigger than dinner plates! So pretty.

After the plantation, we went back to the cars and drove to the Crossroads area for dinner. We ate at this restaurant called Mrs. Katie's Southern Cooking. This place has delicious warm yeast rolls that they throw to you, and you have to catch it to eat it. The funniest thing happened as we were eating our dinner--the table started to rise slowly. It was so subtle, but none of us could figure out what was going on! It was a trick table! We had quite a laugh as our plates rose up above our heads! Actually, the whole dining room was laughing at our table.

The last thing we did was ride the train. This was Sarah's first experience with a train. She was very interested in it each time we saw it pass, and we would all wave at the riders on the train. When it came out turn to ride, Sarah loved sitting on the cart and looking at the people and mountain go by. We waved each time we passed people walking. It was only about a 20 minute train ride. Jennifer almost fell asleep on the train she was so tired!

After the train, we decided not to stay for the laser show. The kids were totally worn out from all the walking and playing. Actually, the adults were too! Plus, we were reminded about the type of people that come to the laser show-its totally white trash! That much has not changed since visiting the show 15 years ago! In all, we had a really fun day and Jordan enjoyed his birthday.