hey g-man, it's your birthday!

Dear G,

You turned TWO today!

Two! OMG, two!

I still can't believe you're old enough to be two yet. Sometimes you still seem like a baby to me. And sometimes I stare at you thinking, you look big enough to be a three year old. You have your two-year check-up on Wednesday, so we'll see just how tall you are, my big beautiful boy.

You were such a sweetheart today. You loved all of your gifts. You kept hugging your flamingo from the zoo like it was your new best friend.

 I don't have them edited and uploaded yet, but I took pictures of you chowing down half of a chocolate cupcake, which is half more than I thought you'd eat. You'd look at that cupcake, look at me, and say, "yum yum!" ha.

We went to the mall today and got you your first Build-a-Bear teddy. You like your stuffed animals, but I was surprised at how much you held on that bear for the rest of the day.

You've been signing like crazy lately and today was no different. As soon as one of us steps out of sight, there you go tapping your forehead or chin for whoever is missing. You ask for milk all day long, but I think you like using that sign to ask for any kind of food. I'm trying to get you to use the signs for please and thank you, but toddler politeness is a slow process.

You're still sleeping in a crib and you love it. You ask to be put into it to play several times a day. You use a fork when you feel like it, and you use a spoon too but you suck at it. You love to use my makeup brush to apply "blush" to your cheeks and mine. You're as obsessed with reading as ever and you ask to read many times a day. Right now, you're stuck on reading the same handful of books five times in a row (after which we distract you with something shiny so we don't go crazy). You kiss your stuff animals and then throw them on the ground. You love to tuck yourself against my side as we play with toys on the couch. You know almost all the letters of the alphabet and can point to them when asked; you're especially obsessed with "w" and will find it in any book we read. One of your favorite things to do is run around in circles. You can go down slides by yourself and often you'll climb back up them.

Tonight, when I asked for a goodnight hug, you opened your arms wide and put them around my shoulders for the first time. My heart melted.

I love you so much, G. I hope your second birthday was as grand as we could make it with your sick daddy and preggo mama. Your birthday party is on Saturday so we'll get to celebrate all over again.

love,
mama

the many faces of g

Oh G, you turn two tomorrow. You are such a sweetheart and you're growing so much day by day. You make me laugh all of the time and I'm so proud to be your mama.

I promise not to cry tomorrow... much.

ups and downs at the zoo

This zoo day from yesterday did not end well.

But before I get to that, lemme share some cute photos of my kid.

He loves this pond. He almost didn't want to leave this spot.

I'm afraid I'm gonna have to cut his hair soon. sob. It's a mop though and I can't tame it anymore.

This is also one of his favorite places in the zoo. This kid is hesitant to get into water but boy does he love looking at it.

After I took the above photos, I glanced over at Dave who was sitting on the rock near the stroller. His head was in his hands. I walked over to him and his face was so pale, his lips bloodless. Soon, he started to shiver all over. He didn't feel hot yet but I just knew he would start running a fever any moment. He said he felt like throwing up, but when we tried to walk out of the zoo, he started to lose his vision and hearing, signs that he was about to faint.

I told him to sit down near the bathrooms in the sun while I went with G to find a zoo attendant for help. Eventually, a cart pulled with with a stretcher attached to it - I guess what they use to drive out anyone who gets injured in the park. It had a seat too. They strapped Dave into it and cranked him onto the back of the truck.

Don't think I'm heartless, okay, for taking this pic. Dave told me too! He's all huddled like that because he was in the shade and shivering like crazy.

There are all these back ways of getting out of the zoo, so they shuttled us out a secret exit and I drove us home. Soon after that, Dave started running a high fever and it stayed 102-103 well into the night. We were afraid at one point that we'd have to go to the hospital but a lukewarm bath helped bring it down. His fever broke sometime during the night and his temperature has been steady at 98.6-99.6 today, thank goodness.

We took a good look at his throat and sure enough, there were the tell-tale lesions. Dave has caught Grayson's hand, foot, mouth disease. I was exposed to HFM when I was a kid because my brother got it from daycare, but apparently Dave has never been. Sigh.

I've spent the past two days holding down the fort while Dave sleeps it off and praying I'm actually immune. I won't get my test results back until Wednesday, so I'm nervously feeling my head every five minutes and checking my throat for bumps. I'm not worried about the bumps and sore throat and the aches, but the fever terrifies me. I know a fever, especially in the first trimester, can be fatal for a developing fetus or cause terrible birth defects.

G is almost back to normal with just some leftover red spots on his toes. I'm sure Dave will sprout spots on his hands and feet soon but he would be back to normal by the end of the week in time for G's second birthday party. My baby turns two tomorrow!

Anyway, it was cool to see behind the scenes at the zoo. But getting sick to receive the VIP treatment wasn't worth it!

toddler face-plant

G just can't catch a break this week. Here's a pic of his cheeky bruise after face-planting into the kitchen cabinet yesterday.