'Twas the Night Before Christmas

Henry is nestled all snug in his bed:




His stocking his hung by the bookshelf with care:




And a Sugarplum Crumble is currently baking in the oven (we'll let you know how it turns out!)

Merry Christmas Eve to everyone!!!

Update

We heard back from the pediatrician today (apparently the on-call pedi should have called us last night, and she was very apologetic we didn't hear anything last night). Henry's films look fine - they were mainly looking for fractures and at his hips (apparently there is some type of fairly common childhood virus that can settle in hip joint...who knew?) He still has a limp today, so now we are just watching it - if it gets any worse or if it isn't gone by Monday we need to go back in. So, good news!

Now, we are off to a flurry of cookie baking and other Christmasy activities - Happy Holidays!

Back from the hospital

Well, we did end up taking him into Children's Hospital this afternoon. They ended up needing to do a full sequence of x-rays from his pelvis all the way down his left leg (since he is a toddler and can't really communicate where his leg hurts, so they needed a full view) - about 5 x-rays in total. I would like to say that Henry was a trooper through the process, but I would be lying. I don't blame him, though. He was brought into a scary new room with 3 strangers, de-pantsed (and de-diapered!), forced to lie on a table, mom and dad both put on crazy lead aprons, and then mom and dad basically lay down on him to hold him still for 20 minutes. NOT FUN. We had a few comments on how strong he was and what a good kick he has if that gives you an idea of the resistance he put up :)

So, after about 20 minutes of x-rays and an hour in the waiting room, the verdict is...we don't know. The tech came out and told us that the attending physician had signed off on the x-rays and passed the results on Henry's pediatrician, and that we should be in touch with the pediatrician tomorrow. The tech couldn't say anything beyond that, but said that the reason we had to wait until the attending signed off was to make sure there was nothing seriously wrong that had to be taken care of right away. So, we are assuming that nothing is broken, but won't be sure until we talk to the pediatrician tomorrow.

Keep those fingers crossed!

Henry is 20 months old!

Henry is 20 months old today! He is inching closer and closer to 2 years old - we can hardly believe it.

Here is a picture of Henry on this day last year:



And here he is today (in the Christmas spirit):



Henry and I have quite a few adventures the past few days attempting to navigate the stroller through giant snow drifts and narrow, icy paths here in Boston (lets just say people could REALLY do a better job of shoveling around here). It is worth it to get out of the house, though.

The big news is that we went to the pediatrician this morning. The good news - his ears look great! We give him one more dose of antibiotics tonight and then he is all done.

The bad news - I mentioned to the doctor that Henry seemed to have hurt his leg on Sunday (he took a slide at the Children's Museum a little too fast on Sunday). He has been limping, and when he first wakes up in the morning it seems more pronounced, but he hasn't seemed very bothered by it and there is no swelling. The pediatrician watched him walk for a long time and examined his leg, and thinks that he may have a fracture :( She gave us the option of waiting until tomorrow morning and seeing if he still has a limp before going for x-rays at Children's Hospital, but Mike and I may take him in this afternoon to avoid the joy of a hospital on Christmas Eve.

So, everyone cross your fingers that out little guy is OK. Christmas in a cast does NOT sound that fun.

Let it snow, and snow, and snow....

Looks like we will have a white Christmas this year! We are on our third day of pretty steady snow now. This morning we finally cracked after being stuck inside since Friday and braved a trip to the Children's Museum - here are some views from the car ride:






To keep Henry entertained during long hours indoors, we also broke out his easel for him, which he LOVES. Our little artist does little else these days except use his crayons.





Off to shovel again! Hopefully Santa brings me a snow blower this year...

Snow Day!

The first winter storm of the year has arrived in Boston - right now they are expecting up to 11 inches (we only have about 3-4 right now, based on my extremely scientific calculations). To celebrate, we took a gift from under the tree early and took Henry on his first sledding adventure.

The beginning of the storm this afternoon:




Henry gets into his new snow pants:




First time standing in snow!:




Sledding with dad:







He had a great time, even though he was forced to wear mittens.

His ear infection seems to be better - we go in for his follow up appointment on Tuesday to make sure he is all set. He is also MUCH better with taking his antibiotics - in fact, he now requests more after each dose!

We are settling in for a long night of snow and shoveling - wish us luck!

Send some coffee our way

Poor Henry.

Last night our little guy was up ALL NIGHT. Every two hours starting at 9:30 PM, and then every 30 minutes starting at 4 AM. Needless to say, all in the house are tired. In addition to being very upset last night, Henry has been pretty on edge lately, not eating, and this morning had a small temperature. Since we could no longer write it off to his teething, we took him to the Dr this morning to discover he has a pretty bad infection in both ears.

We started him on antibiotics today (a process that now involves me sitting on him, Mike holding his arms down, and me desperately pouring it in his screaming mouth and then attempting to scrape back in all that he spits out - good times), so we have our fingers crossed that it starts to work soon and we have our happy boy back soon.

Please send good thoughts his way!

Words

Henry keeps adding more and more words and phrases to his vocabulary, which makes for entertaining days. He has become quite adept at "please" and "I'm sorry" (although he often says "please" as more of a shouted demand than a courtesy). We have gotten him to say "I Love You" a few times when prompted, but not yet spontaneously (oh, that one will melt our hearts when it happens). We are working hard on "thank you" (no go on that one at all) and "Merry Christmas" (he sometimes at least attempts that one). He calls all television shows "the news". His new word of the day today was "messy".

He is also getting a decent grasp of his colors - he is correct in identifying them about 75% of the time, which I think is pretty good. He LOVES to say "purple" and "green" - they are by far his two favorite colors. He says "blue" and recently started saying "yellow", but "red" and "orange" have yet to come out (although he can correctly identify them most of the time). Alas, it is still too soon to tell if Mike has passed on his green/brown color-blindness, but I am sure we will be able to figure it out soon.

The first of his canine teeth poked through this morning. We were not too surprised seeing as how Henry has not eaten a meal since Monday (literally), and today was pretty much a mess of tantrums and sobs. Poor kid - teeth hurt and canines are supposed to be particularly bad. After these 4 come in he will get his 2 year molars, and then he is DONE! I have decided we will throw a massive "done with teething" party - everyone is invited to watch the ceremonial burning of the teething toys.

This is how he rides...

Henry and Kate had a fun playdate yesterday. Henry is finally starting to figure out who all of his friends are, and when we approach our weekly baby class he now begins to yell "Kate! Kate!". Henry was also much enamored of Kate's dog, and after we got home last night he would randomly and sadly say "Tess? Tessie?".




Poor Henry is fighting off not only another cough, but also about to cut a few canine teeth. Add all this up and Henry has basically not eaten a meal since Monday afternoon. Let's all hope he feels better soon!

Santa

It is that time of year again - time to meet with the "big guy", let him know you have been a good boy or girl all year, and present a list of demands/gift requests.

Last year, Henry and Santa were best buds. They laughed, Henry played with his beard, they hugged. It was a grand time. Here are some photos of their glorious meeting last year:






This year... it was not as pleasant:




As you can see, we couldn't even attempt a photo of Henry sitting on Santa's lap (my attempts to pry my screaming child off me and put him there were starting to feel like child abuse, so I gave up and joined the photo session). This is actually the best picture we got, if you can believe it. I suppose it is a rite of passage to have the "screaming child with Santa" picture, though. Hopefully next year won't be as traumatic for either of us.