Category Archives: Bug

Bug. Of the Stomach Variety.

Posted on by
6

This post talks about puke.  And poop.  You’ve been warned.

Over the weekend, Bug had a mild stomach bug, which apparently hit 8 out of 10 kids in his preschool class.  Saturday, he was super mellow.  Sunday, he threw up just once first thing in the morning and then wouldn’t eat anything all day.  This is the first he has ever puked, but thankfully it was just a little bit and it was before breakfast… read: not much in the vault to propel outwards.  He ran a low fever (100.1) during the day Sunday and then it popped up to 102 in the middle of the night, but he handled it like a champ.  I was gone from 9am Saturday until 7pm Sunday working an event and the pangs in my heart from not being with my sick baby were pretty intense.  I kept him home from school Monday and he was still very mellow, but very happy (yay for happy sick babies!).  Hubby came home form work a little early so that I could go to work and then Bug had diarrhea in the tub.  Sidenote: Bug has pooped in the tub 3 times.  Once with a babysitter (sorry, Anna) and twice with Hubby.  Bahahaha.  That’s going to come back to bite me.

Yesterday was my day off.  Thank. The. Lord.  Bug was feeling better, though still pretty much in mellow-town, which was a very good thing.  Why?  Because around lunchtime, I started feeling queasy.  I ate two bites of my sandwich and realized I probably shouldn’t eat anymore.  I was feeling so nauseous by naptime that I had a hard time putting Buggy down.  After that, I vomited every hour until about 7pm.  Oh, and the chicken poops set in, too.  Let me throw in here that evidently, after my baby has been sick, he needs to sleep it off.  He usually wakes up between 7:30-8 on weekdays and sometimes will sleep until 9 on the weekends, if we are super lucky.  Yesterday, he slept until 10:15.  And then, he napped from 1 until almost 4.  That’s close to 3 hours.  On a particularly busy day, he will nap 2 hours at home.  Those 3 hours of naptime yesterday?  Necessary for a pukey Momma.  Anyways, Hubby came home from work with Gatorade and sent me to bed with a fever of 100.1.  Thanks, Hubs (no really, thanks… you’re awesome).  Another sidenote: up until that point I’d been sipping on Pedialyte, because that’s what we had.  Doesn’t taste bad going down, but it tastes like rotten metal coming back up.  That’s the best way I can describe it.

I took the day off of work today and we sent (read: Hubby took) Bug back to school).  I have gotten out of bed long enough to make some toast (futile… trust me) this morning and then again at 4 to take a shower.  Not eating for 2 days makes your body WEAK.  I’m not sure which is worse… the regular flu where you are feverish and achy or a stomach bug.

Enough about me and the pity party I have thrown myself for being sick.  As much as it has sucked being sick, I’m kind of glad that I at least understand how my baby was feeling.  Weird thing about motherhood, huh?  Also, I am so extremely thankful that my bout with this awesome illness was worse than Bug’s.  I am so thankful that he only threw up one time.  I very rarely get sick beyond a cold and I’ve never had a stomach bug like this.  In hindsight, this experience might actually help me help Bug in future illnesses.

In closing… puking sucks.

The Obligatory Easter Post 2012

Posted on by
2

Easter pretty much dominated our weekend… as it should have, because, well, Easter is pretty darn important.  Jesus rose from the dead, people… kind of a big deal.  I don’t really talk about my faith on this here blog, and I’m not going to get into it now either.  Just know that I love Jesus and do my best to have a heart for Him.

image

Onto our weekend of festivities.  I managed to forget my real camera all weekend, so all of these kind of fuzzy pictures are from my phone.  Saturday, we went to Buggy’s school, which also happens to be our church, for an Easter egg hunt.  They lots of crafts set up for the kids, which was very fun.  Bug’s favorite was the sugar cookie that he got to decorate.  And eat.  Hence the chocolate frosting all over his face.  He was sweet enough to share bites with Momma & Daddy.

image

They also had a bounce house set up, which was awesome, obvi.  This was Bug’s 2nd time in a bounce house (3rd if you count the first time, where he freaked and immediately got out) and after a couple moments of trepidation, he was all about it.  That sweet little thing in pink next to him is one of his buddies from preschool.  There were a bunch of kids from his class there, which Bug loved.  It is so cute to when these little guys see each other outside of their classroom setting.  They all get SO EXCITED.

image

They had egg hunts set up for different age groups, which was great, because Bug is not the fastest egg collector.  Each egg he picked up, he opened to make sure there was a treat inside, then he’d close it back up and put it in his basket.  It took us 10 minutes to get 10 eggs.  One of his classmates starting bringing him eggs from her basket, because she had so many it was overflowing.

image

Sunday morning, we dressed Bug in the cutest, sweetest, most preppy outfit ever and headed to church.  We (including my parents) then spent the afternoon at my in-laws, complete with Honey Baked Ham for lunch.  The Easter bunny didn’t come to our house… he went to Nana & Pop’s house instead.  Here’s what was in Bug’s Easter basket (which was a compilation from Easter bunny Nana, Easter bunny Grandma & Easter bunny Momma):

  • Cars
  • Easter Cookies
  • Squirt gun noodles
  • And M&M fan
  • Bubbles
  • Curious George Coloring Book
  • Curious George Easter Book
  • Mercer Mayer Easter Book
  • Jelly Bean filled Elmo eggs
  • Golf Clubs
  • Sports Elmo (not pictured)

Dude. Made. Out.  We tried to keep it low on the sugary stuff, which was a good plan, except for Bug spent the rest of the day sticking his little hand into OUR baskets for jelly beans!

image

The M&M fan blew his mind.  Ha.  Pun not intended.  Until I realized that I made a pun… so I guess it remains intended.

image

Bug’s a big Elmo fan and also a big sports fan, so this is a perfect first Elmo doll for him.  It has shapes and colors on the shirt and sings a little song about them.  We only had to play the song 27 times today.

image

The big Easter basket hit was the golf clubs, which the Easter bunny might have picked up at Walmart for SIX DOLLARS.  Not even on sale!  Only thing is, Bug insists on calling it baseball.  We’re working on it.

The only thing we didn’t do was dye Easter eggs.  I bought the stuff to do it, but we never got a chance this past week.  Whoopsies.

What did you do for Easter?

The Imitator

Posted on by
2

Bug is a big imitator. I mean, he’s a toddler, so imitation pretty much comes with the territory.  Up until today, however, he has only imitated humans.

We were hanging out at my parent’s house today, playing outside.  They live on a few acres and have horses, which makes it the perfect place for a boy to go play and get dirty.  Also perfect is the fact that my in-laws live about a block from the beach… Bug gets the best of both worlds.  Anyways, we’re playing in the barn and Bug decides he wants to go say hey to Ellie, who is my mom’s sweet mare.  I pick him up and we walk out to the pasture to pet her and talk to her… Bug makes horsey  neighs to her, of course.  As we head back in, he asks to be put down, so I oblige.  He starts walking like a horse, on hands and feet.  I walk like a horse with him, which I’m sure was super attractive.  All the while Ellie is still grazing nearby.  All of a sudden, my little imitator reaches his head down and bites a chunk of grass… just like Ellie.  You guys, I died.  I was laughing so hard it was hard to get the grass out of his mouth. 

Obviously, we then had a talk about not eating grass and also not eating off the ground with our mouths, because I can totally see him putting human food on the floor just so he can eat like the horse.

Lowry Park Zoo

Posted on by
2

Buggy’s spring break was a couple of weeks ago, which meant we packed the week full of fun activities.

**Side note – spring break in preschool?  Yes.  Or, you can pay $34 a day to not have spring break.  I vote spring break + free.  Thank you for family that lives close by.**

This was Bug’s spring break:
Monday: Splash pad with Nana & Great Nana
Tuesday: Beach with the Momma
Wednesday: Pool with the Momma (which lasted 5 minutes before Bug decided he was more interested in playing “bastaball” (basketball).
Thursday:  Lowry Park Zoo
Friday: Playtime at the farm with Grandma & Papa
Seriously.  Good week for a boy.

So, back to what this post is actually supposed to be about.  The zoo.  Nana & Pops took Bug & me to the zoo in Tampa.  It was awesome.   Lowry Park is geared really well towards small children.  I was a little worried that an almost-2-year-old might get a little bored, but I was way wrong.  Bug had a blast.

I was surprised and impressed at how interested Bug was in the animals.  So interested, in fact, that we couldn’t get him to look at the camera for even one picture.  All I could get was the back of his head.  We spent the couple of days prior talking about how we were going to go to the zoo and what kind of animals we were going to see there.  If you asked him what we were going to do tomorrow, he’d say “animal!”  (I normally try to spell his words the way he says them, ’cause it’s cute & funny, but he actually says that one correctly.)  If you asked him what kind of animals we were going to see, he’d start spouting off zoo animal noises… roaring like a lion, hooting like a monkey, hissing like a snake, trumpeting like an elephant.  The only problem we had was coming with a giraffe noise.  After our zoo visit, we decided that giraffes eat a lot and therefore make a chewing noise, which is awful cute to watch the Bug imitate.

So anyways, Bug loved the animals.  At each exhibit, he’d ask “up peees” for someone to pick him up so that he could see whatever animal was waiting there.  He especially loved the giraffes and the monkeys.  We got to see one Siamang swing across a rope, which was really cool. We saw lions and elephants and camels and snakes and rhinos and penguins.

There were two parts of the zoo that Bug didn’t like.  First was the lorikeets.  They are these beautiful, colorful little birds that you can feed with nectar.  You walk into their cage/home/area and hold the nectar out.  They come perch on your hand and eat away.  Bug was helping me hold some nectar and doing great, until some of the birds got in a fight over Nana’s nectar and one flew onto Bug’s head.  I’m sure it hurt, because their feet have some sharp little talons.  He freaked out, but not for long.  We didn’t leave the area right away, because we wanted him to see that it was okay.  He wasn’t crying anymore by the time we walked out, but he didn’t want to get near the birds again, either.  The other thing he didn’t like was the petting zoo.  You can walk right in and pet goats and a llama.  My kid does not like goats… just like his grandma.  He refused to pet them and got mad when I tried to pet them.  Too bad, because we really wanted to get a picture of Bug petting a llama… they are Scary Uncle Adam’s favorite.

Quite possibly Bug’s favorite part of the zoo featured, what else… WATER!  They had two different splash fountain areas and at the end of our visit, we changed Bug into his bathing suit and let him loose.  He couldn’t have been happier… or more fearless.

I have mixed feelings about zoos in general… or really about anybody who keeps large exotic animals in an enclosed space.  I won’t even go look at the tigers they bring to our local county fair.  Makes me angry.  I know that zoos like Lowry Park are trying to preserve endangered species, which is why I have mixed feelings.  One of the reasons that I love Mote Marine (the aquarium here in Sarasota) is because a majority of the large animals they house are rescues.  For the most part, they haven’t purchased creatures just for the sake of entertaining the masses.  That being said, I was pretty impressed by the enclosures at Lowry Park.  Most of them are pretty large, though certainly not large enough for the animals to run at their normals speeds for more than a moment.  The monkey enclosures have lots of climbing structure and aren’t caged in and it appears as though they have tried to replicate the natural habitats… as much as is possible in super hot & super humid Florida.

Bug is really funny when it comes to park and fairs and museums… he is normally a pretty chatty kid, but when we’re doing something with a lot going on, he gets pretty quiet.  He takes it all in.  He really pays attention to what’s going on.  I love that about him.  Needless to say, there was no nap on the way home, because Bug couldn’t stop talking about the zoo.  Apparently, his first zoo trip really sunk in, too, because that night, before bed, the only books he wanted to read were animals books.

 

The Night-Night Kid

Posted on by
Reply

Please don’t hate me for what I am about to say.

My kid loves to go night-night.  You read that right.  Bug actually LIKES to go to bed.  Just like his Daddy, that one.  I’m not just talking about at night either… he enjoys taking naps, too.  I know, I know.  We’ve got it rough.

Case in point: yesterday, I get Bug down from the table after lunch and tell him to go play for a few minutes before naptime while Momma cleaned up the kitchen.  He runs off.  About 30 seconds later I hear him whining and fussing in his room.  I go in and see him trying his darndest to climb into his crib… all the time whining “niiiiggghhhh-niiiiggghhh” as sadly as he possibly could.  I, being the wonderful mother that I am, laughed while I put him in his crib.  He happily curled up on his tummy, snuggled Bud and I covered him with his blanket.  He was asleep within 4 minutes with a smile on his face.

This happens at night, too.  Our bedtime routine is to take a bath, read 3 books and then drink some milk while we say prayers and sing a song or two.  Some nights, Bug wants to skip sing-along time altogether.  He’ll give you his milk, say “all done” and then point to his crib and say “nigh-nigh” over and over until you put him to bed.  He’s hit his wall, folks.

Now, I’m not saying that there aren’t times when naptime or bathtime comes around and he doesn’t want to stop playing.  That happens quite often, actually.  He’ll break down and start crying as soon as you utter the word nap.  But as soon as you get him into his room, the crying stops, the smiling starts and he snuggles right down to go to sleep.

I can only imagine his preschool teachers reading this and thinking I am making the whole thing up.

How does your kid deal with going night-night?

Best Buddies

Posted on by
2

Bug has a best buddy.  His name is Ben.  Ben is incredibly smart, which hopefully will rub off on Bug.  Seriously.  Kid speaks better than any 2 year old I know.  Bug could certainly use a little help in that area.

Ben & Bug go to school together.  They became fast friends when Bug started back in September.  After only a couple weeks of Bug being there, Ben would come up in the morning and say, “Eli hug?” and give Bug a big ole squeeze.  Bug wasn’t too sure about this at first, but eventually he gave in and squeezed right back.  One day, when Bug had been attending preschool for a month or so, his teacher told me that he and Ben spent the afternoon sitting next to each other babbling back-and-forth and making each other laugh.  I remember thinking how cool it would be if Ben & Buggy had one of those friendships that lasted their entire lifetimes.  I met one of my closest friends when we were 3 and I would love for Bug to have that!

Bug gets super excited when he sees Ben outside of school (queue happy dance) and recently, we’ve gotten the boys together for some play dates, which has been so much fun.  It is amazing to see the little bromance developing between these two kiddos.  They have little conversations and probably little inside jokes.  In fact, they are probably already plotting how to take over their school.  Little masterminds.

Beach Days Are Here Again

Posted on by
Reply

I know I have posted about the beach before.  Like here. And here.  Oh, and here & here.  Trust me, this won’t be the last time either.  If you’re new here, let me fill you in on something.  We live in a beach town in southwest Florida.  You know, the part of the country where it got below 40 like twice all winter.  The part of the country that allowed Bug & I to swim IN THE OCEAN on March 1st.  It’s pretty much summer here already.  Crazy town.  I love it.

So far this month, we’ve been to the beach twice and the pool twice and the splash pad downtown twice.  My kid WILL be tan by the end of the summer, darnit.  I say this, but it won’t happen.  Have you seen my kid?  Ghost-baby-Casper-white all around.  It doesn’t help that we load him up with the 70 spf and make him wear a rash guard most of the time.  Hubby and I are both fair-skinned frecklies (especially Hubs), so we pretty much wrote off our kid being tan before he was even conceived.  We also wrote him our of any sports where you have to be bigger than 5′ 9″ and 150 pounds.  Poor guy.  Soccer & surfing are pretty much his only hopes.

Anywho, back to the beach.  We kind of have a good beach routine down.  We play up in the sand first.  I get Bug a bucket full of water and we get the sand wet and make sand castles (and destroy them, obvi).

Then, we head down to the water’s edge and dig in the wet sand there a little bit.  Sometimes we pick up sand and throw it around… but never at people… because we don’t throw sand at people, Eli. Then, Bug makes a beeline for the water.  He’ll straight up run right in until his head is underwater.  Who cares that he can’t swim yet?  Not Bug!  Who cares that the water is still pretty darn chilly?  Not Bug!  Who cares that Momma LOATHES cold water?  Not Bug!

Is it beach/pool/splash pad weather where you are?