Baby’s First Christmas

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The weekend that I had both been looking forward to and dreading had finally arrived, and with it came a very sick baby.  The weekend before we had all had the flu, and I had been so grateful that it hadn’t come on Christmas weekend, but that didn’t stop Nick from still being sick.

On Friday the 23rd, our wedding anniversary, Nick and I both got up early because he had a doctor appointment first thing that morning.  For the few days before Nick had seemed miserable.  I had assumed he still didn’t feel good because of the flu he had had, but then he started being constantly upset, he had a hard time sleeping, and he didn’t want to eat.  I had thought that he had an ear infection, but his ears were found to be clean.  His pediatrician decided that what he had was a terrible sinus infection.  She gave him a prescription for Amoxicillin and off we went to the pharmacy.  Personally I didn’t care what they diagnosed him with as long as they gave him something to feel better.  Getting him to take his bottle at lunch was a battle, but I finally got him to take the whole 6oz bottle.  Then he fell asleep and lucky took a nice long nap.

When he got up from his nap I noticed that he had a straight red line that went across his eyebrows, but I figured he had slept with his arm across them or something.  He was pretty fussy when he got up.  I tried to play with him for awhile, but that wasn’t working too well, so I put on Christmas Mickey Mouse Clubhouse for him.  While he was watching it I noticed that the red area on his forehead had not only not gone away, but it seemed to have gotten bigger.  When Mickey was finishing up my mom arrived.  I asked her what she thought of the red patch.  She was concerned too, and we both decided it had to be from the Amoxicillin, so I called the doctor’s office to see what they thought about it.  The doctor was a bit concerned about it, and since it was a holiday weekend, she didn’t want to chance anything, so she called in a new prescription and off we went to the pharmacy again.  This time we also got some children’s Benadryl to help with Nick’s allergic reaction.

By the time we got back home my grandparents had arrived for dinner and Jason had also gotten home from work.  We had a quick meal of pizza, and then my mom and grandparents left so Jason and I could enjoy our anniversary.  As soon as they were gone we got ready for our annual anniversary picture.  Once that was done I fed Nick, who’s appetite was coming back, gave him a dose of the new prescription and the Benadryl, and then a bath.  By the time I had him in bed (he was actually sleeping in our room in his portable swing to help his sinuses) he could hardly keep his eyes open because of the Benadry.

 

 

Christmas Eve morning came bright and early since Nick woke up at the earliest time we allow him to get up (7:30).  When I went to get him I was glad to see that the red on his forehead had almost completely faded.  He was still fussy, but he you could tell he was already starting to feel better.  When nap time came around you could still tell he didn’t feel great because he couldn’t fall asleep and I had to rock him.  He didn’t take a terribly long nap, but any morning nap was an improvement over the past week.  My mom arrived at the end of the morning which was wonderful because I had gotten so behind with Nick being sick.  I hadn’t even finished wrapping all of the presents yet!

After we had all had lunch we headed out to Babies R Us to get Nick a new snowsuit and then to coffee with Grandma.  As soon as we had all finished our coffee we left because Nick was getting fussy.  Mom drove the long way home so Nick could get a decent nap.  Sadly he didn’t nap long after we arrived home, and he was terribly cranky, so we turned Mickey Mouse on to keep him calm until it was time for his dinner (what would I do without that mouse?).  Once Mickey was done we fed him and then we all got ready to go to church.

Nick was really good in church.  Feeling the way he did I really wasn’t sure how it would go.  We snuck out before the last song because we thought Nick needed a big diaper change (false alarm), and he really needed another nap.  We didn’t have a lot of time for him to sleep because we needed to go over to my aunt’s, but we drove around looking at Christmas lights for a little bit.  Luckily Nick was tired enough that I was able to carry him into my aunt’s house still sleeping in his car seat, so he got a little longer of a nap.  I must say that in some ways his infant car seat is getting obnoxious, but it’s times like that that make me glad he hasn’t fully outgrown it yet.

Christmas Eve at my aunt’s house is always a lot of fun.  We make sandwiches and eat lots of good sweets.  I was lucky because Nick slept almost long enough for me to eat my dinner, but there were more than enough people to hold him while I finished (luckily he wasn’t too fussy at that point).  When we were finishing dinner my brother arrived and he brought some of his old little hockey sticks to give to our cousin.  All of the little ones had a great time playing hockey.

 

 

Once everyone was stuffed we played a gift giving game.  Everyone had brought a $10 gift card.  Then we all drew numbers and on our turn we either opened a random card or we got to steal one from someone else.  Everyone had a good time, but it got pretty loud and it really upset Nick.  He couldn’t calm down so we decided it was time to go home for the night.  Of course he relaxed when we got home and was happy as could be, so we gave him a bath, read him a story, and put him to bed for the night.  Sadly he couldn’t sleep again, so I had to rock him to sleep.

 

 

Christmas morning came very early for me because I wanted to be done getting ready by the time Nick got up.  Plus I needed to get things ready to go for the day (since we would be gone all day) and I needed to set-up the Santa presents.

 

 

Nick slept until 8.  When he got up I had him jump up and down on Jason saying “Daddy wake up it’s Christmas!”  Nick seemed to like it, and Jason thought it was a funny way to wake up.  Then Jason went to shower while I fed Nick.  When we were all ready we got down to the fun of opening the presents.  Nick didn’t care about opening things up, but he would get excited to see what was behind the paper.  His favorite present was his Hot Dog Dancin’ Mickey.

 

 

As soon as we finished opening our gifts we got Nick dressed and loaded up the car to head out for the day.  Our first stop was Jason’s mom’s house.  Of course we didn’t get there as soon as we should have because just after we had gotten on the highway I realized that I had left Nick’s food at home, so back home we went.  We finally arrived at Grandma LaLa’s house, but it was about an hour after we had planned on leaving (oh did I forget to mention that we left late too, blah).  Anyway, Nick was happy to open and look at presents for a little while, but his happiness didn’t last.  We passed him around for a while, but it got to the point that nothing was making him happy.  Jason and I took him for a car ride hoping that he would sleep, but no such luck.  When we got back I fed him since that usually calms him down for a little bit, but even that didn’t do much good.  We all finally decided that what Nick needed was a good long drive with the chance to really nap, especially since his tummy was nice and full, so as soon as we had finished opening all of the presents Jason loaded up the car and we headed to my mom’s for the next Christmas.

 

Just before we got to my mom’s I let her know that we were almost there because I was hoping we could get Nick into the house in his car seat without waking him up.  This would require a lot of skill because my brother’s dog Tank loves Nick, and he would want to kiss him like crazy as soon as he saw him.  We decided that we’d pull into the garage since my brother wasn’t home (sometimes the cold outdoor air wakes him) and I would go in first and mom and I would distract Tank in the living room while Jason snuck Nick into mom’s bedroom.  Luckily our plan worked.  Nick slept so long that we had to do Christmas without him!  He woke up just in time to go next door to my grandmother’s for dinner.

 

The evening still had a lot of bumps.  It contained a happy and fussy baby and multiple blowout diapers.  Luckily Nick was happy sitting in his booster seat during dinner so we were all able to enjoy our food.  After dinner (and an impromptu bath due to a blowout) we opened yet more presents.   Eventually we gave Nick his last bottle for the night, got him into his jammies, and loaded him up in his car seat to go home.  He woke up when we got home, but luckily he went right back to sleep.

 

 

Christmas worked out the way I had expected it would, so it may have actually gone really well if Nick hadn’t been sick.  We got a lot of really nice gifts this year and luckily our families didn’t go too overboard on buying Nick toys (he also got clothes and books too!).  We kept out about half of the toys and put the other half away with plans to bring a new toy out when he gets into one of his “I’m so board with everything” moods (which happens every few weeks or so).  It’s truly amazing how fast children develop that thought.  I figured I had at least a year or two before I had to deal with that.  It really was a great Christmas and I can’t wait for the next one.