Swimming and......BUMPS???

Swimming and.....BUMPS???


Well the past few days have been great and terrifying! Great in terms of having temps in the upper 80's and lower 90's, but terrifying because Jacob came down with about 150 red bumps all over his face,arms, and legs. With about 2-4 on his trunk (stomach and back). Being 5 months pregnant I of course freaked out (still am a little if I am being honest) and took Jacob IMMEDIATELY to the doctors. These strange bumps don't itch, aren't inflamed, and Jacob doesn't have a fever and isn't irritable. Honestly if you didn't see them with your own eyes you wouldn't think there is anything wrong with him. He honestly doesn't even know they are there and hasn't touched them in the 4 days he has had them.

The doctor quickly dismissed measles (DUH!) and the Chicken Pox and basically I got to pay a $20 co-pay for her to tell me that it was nothing and probably an allergic reaction. She said that most viral bumps/rashes, and of course measles and chicken pox will usually start on the trunk of the body and then move to the extremities and they will almost ALWAYS be associated with fever and DEFINITELY itching! All the things that Jacob DOESN'T have.

It is honestly the weirdest thing I have EVER seen. We are four days into it now and no new spots came up and they are now starting to fade into light pink and some are even disappearing. I still want to know what happened. The one thing that I am leaning towards is an allergic reaction to sunscreen. The reason I am leaning towards this is because 90% of the bumps are below the elbow, below the knees, on his neck and face....EXACTLY where I put sunscreen. The even stop at his sock line and don't go below onto his lower ankles/feet. There are a few stragglers but that is to be expected if it was on his hands. So since these bumps didn't cause any itching or problems I might have to do a "patch test" when all is healed to test this theory. I need to know if he is this allergic to something so that Paul and I can avoid it in the future.

So now that we went to the doctor and I knew that his bumps didn't look like anything contagious we went about enjoying the nice weather. I bought some organic all natural sunscreen that seems to agree with him (even though I don't know if the original sunscreen was the culprit) and we started playing outside in his new blowup pool. Jacob just LOVES the outside and is such a great kid when we can be outside. he would be outside from the second he wakes up to the second he goes to bed. As a matter of fact twice this week he has taken 3 1/2 hour naps during the day out of shear exhaustion which is great for a preggo mommy!!! I have been lounging and watching food network and other shows that I just don't normally get the chance to watch during the day! YEA SUMMER!!! BRING IT ON!!!! Just don't bring on more of those crazy red non itchy bumps!

Weeeeeeee!

Weeeeeeeee!
(April 18th, 2009)

First let me say that I am the proud mommy of a 20 month old...HOLY COW!

This weekend Paul and I put up a new swing for Jacob. The past few months we have been tossing around the idea of purchasing a nice playset for Jacob and of course the new baby (when he gets a lot older). But in the end we decided that when we did purchase a playset we wanted to get a really nice wooden one with different options to play with. When I grew up we just had one of those metal "A" frame swingsets that rusted and was usually wobbely because they weren't installed correctly into cement.....yeah you know the ones!! We thought about getting one of those but then decided that we wouldn't be happy with it in the long run so we are going to save up for a really nice wooden one instead. Then of course came the "Do we get it this year or next year?" questions.....

As the weather started getting warmer I have taken Jacob to the park a few times and I noticed a trend in his playing habits. Of course most of these habits are because he is in only 30 inches tall and hasn't quite gotten the hang of walking up steps without someone there to help (although he is getting pretty good at doing 2-5 steps on his own but more than that and he needs some help getting down. Climbing steps is fine but more than 4-5 steps and he crawls up instead of using the railing like I have been teaching him. Unfortunately we don't have a lot of steps that we have to navigate and the baby gates keep him from a lot of practice in the house.....anyway I digress.....

Since the climbing is still in the early stages the main thing he wants to do at the park is swing, and go down the slide. Since that is pretty much it and since he won't be 2 years old until August 19th we decided that investing in an expensive playset was just silly for this year. So next summer when he is climbing up the walls, running like a pro, and more independent we will get a playset. So in the meantime we decided to get him a swing and a sandbox. The swing was installed on the underside of our deck which will eventually face a patio that we will put in (when we win the lottery! hehehehehe). Our house is on a slop so the one side of the deck is about 9-10 feet tall from the ground which is the perfect spot for a swing! As you can see from the picture above Jacob LOVED his new swing and was saying WEEEEEEEEEEEE! As Paul and I pushed him. The new sandbox has been purchased too and will also go under the deck. We have a nice level area under there which even allows me to stand up (and I am pretty much 6ft tall with shoes). This will keep the sand from getting 110 degrees in our nasty summer heat and allow Jacob to play in the sand most hours of the day without being burnt to a crisp. We haven't purchased the sand to fill it up yet but I am sure that is on our shopping list for the next week or two!

I love the nice warm weather, Jacob just loves being outside and he is eating better now too, I think he is finally running around so much that he is STARVING so he isn't being as picky with his food choices! YEA!!!!

Funny pic!

This is just a funny picture I got of Jacob. I bought him some new rain boots the other week and he now loves to wear them. He also got a laser gun and likes to shoot things with it. Add in a hat, jacket, and the boots and you get this!!!!

What an eye!

What an eye!
April 8, 2009


This week Jacob got ahold of my camera, and I have to say that I am glad that I live in 2009 and not back in the 70's when I grew up. I remember taking my moms camera and snapping MANY pictures. Back then my mom (not knowing what was on those old rolls of film) would go pay money to get pictures of my feet, the sky, blurry people/places/things. I knew Jacob had the camera and earlier in the day Paul had taken a picture of me to document my ever expanding belly and Jacob wanted to help. So Paul and I taught Jacob which button to push to take a picture. It would have worked out great if Jacob's hands were a little bigger and he didn't have to position himself in such a way to get his thumb or finger on the "trigger" button.

He was having soooo much fun and since I knew that he wasn't putting the camera in any danger I let him shoot away. Here are some of his more brilliant photo captures:

(WOW! Is that what the top of my head looks like?)

(Excellent photo of the ceiling! What a lovely fan!)

(Hmmm....almost has an abstract quality to it!)

(This is me finally saying enough!)

All in all, Jacob took over 80 pictures in just under 5 minutes. It was like his finger was having a spasm over the button. Luckily since we live in the age of digital photography I was able to delete all of them minus a few that were used for this blog. Looks like a childs cheap camera could make it onto the 2nd birthday wish list.....we will see how his new budding career pans out! Between this and the harmonica it should be interesting!