Easter was good to him

I know that Easter was over a week ago, but I was going through the photos on my phone, and just saw this picture that I took on Easter morning.

No, the Easter Bunny did not come to our house this year.  Maybe next year. (Maybe.)  But the Easter Nana did come, with a glittery, sparkly egg-shaped bag.  EH was most interested in the card that was attached and the tissue paper, but deep down he was super excited about the clothes that he received.

A pair of khaki and a pair of denim shorts!  A monkey tshirt and onesie with matching shorts! A toothbrush, and toothpaste!  No, he does not have any teeth, but he promptly started chewing on the cardboard packaging of the toothbrush anyway. 

Sticking his tongue out - like he's doing in the picture above - is his new favorite thing.  He does it when he's thinking, when he's playing, when he's smiling - pretty much all of the time.  It's super cute but it means LOTS of extra drool coming out of that mouth of his.  We go through 2 or 3 bibs a day these days.  Perhaps bibs should be what the Easter Nana brings next year!

Bathroom Renovation - Day 3

There was some decent progress made on day 3 - the floor was put down and the framing was done for the new walls.  At some point during day 3 it looked like this:

It was starting to look like an actual bathroom again instead of a disaster zone.

But then they put the tarps back down to protect the floor, moved the ladder and other tools back in and by the time I got home from work it looked like this:

*Sad face*

Bathroom Renovation - After Days 1 & 2

Our bathroom used to look like this:

But after 1 day of work (aka demolition) it looked like this.

Then, after a 2nd full day of work, it looked like this.

I wouldn't have thought it possible, but it actually got worse between days 1 and 2.  When I got home from dropping EH off at my parents, I came home to this disaster.  I was tired, sad, and was preparing for a 14+ hour work day the next day. I was not excited at the state of my bathroom, to say the least.  I was hopeful that the coming days would show quick progress, but I was wrong.  Oh so very wrong....

Bathroom Make-over - Before Pictures

Last week DH started renovating our main bathroom. We are trying to update every room in our house, and this room was next on the list.  So far we've done the basement family room, laundry room, garage, dining room, office/spare bedroom, and the baby room.  Still on the list is the main bathroom, the master bedroom, the living room, the hallway/entryway, the downstairs bathroom, and the screened in porch.  I'm not sure if we'll ever actually get to all of those, but when I write it down like that, we're actually already halfway through!

Anyway, our current bathroom leaves a lot to be desired.  First, it has two entrances - one from the hallway and one from our bedroom.  While this works/worked out well for us when it was just the two of us, it has proven to be awkward when we have guests and with a little one in our lives now we decided to do away with the door from our bedroom.  It's not a master bathroom, why treat it like one?

We're replacing the vanity and mirror:

Moving the tub from it's current location (behind that wall) to the wall where the window is (and yes, we're covering up the window, which makes me sad, but it's not a very functional window anyway):

Opening up the wall that makes the bathroom two separate rooms and getting rid of the door (see above.)

Tiling the(nasty) tub and putting in new fixtures:

And replacing all of the lighting.

It's costing us a small fortune but it's going to look sharp, and we're hopeful that it will make the house more valuable should we ever go to sell.  (We change our minds every other week about whether or not we should stay in this house or move.  If we stay, we could pay off our mortgage fairly quickly and use the extra cash to make our lives more enjoyable in other ways.  If we sell, we would probably upgrade to a four bedroom and go somewhere where we would have neighbors, something that DH now wants.)

The transformation is going to be shocking, and I'm going to slowly reveal it this week.  You won't believe what it looked like after the first day of work!

He's back!

And so am I!

Did I mention that EH left us for a week?  At only 7.5 months of age, we sent him away for an entire week to stay with my parents.  It was heartbreaking, and oh so sad, but I had to work ridiculously stupid long hours so fortunately I was either too busy or too tired to take much notice that EH wasn't there.  Even if he had been at home, most nights I wouldn't have seen him anyway.

But he's back!

And while I was working long days and late nights, DH was teaching and slaving over our bathroom renovation.  Did I mention we were renovating our bathroom? We did.  Or we were.  Are.... we ARE renovating our bathroom. I clarify because it's far from done, but I think I can finally see the light at the end of the tunnel.  I'll be so happy when my showering experience doesn't involve cinder block and I don't need to go to my basement to use the bathroom in the middle night.

MUCH more about the bathroom renovations coming very soon, starting with "before" pictures tomorrow.

Oh, and EH celebrated his first Easter, a rather exhausting experience since he did not adjust well to being back home and was up until midnight on Saturday night.  We all got a nice long nap Sunday afternoon.

So yeah, a LOT has happened in the last two weeks.  Time to get caught up!

Humidifier Dust

During one of EH's worst colds, we purchased a new humidifier that put out more moisture into the air.  Previously we had been using a vaporizer, which was noisier and released perhaps

A few weeks ago we started having problems with our furnace.  It was not heating our house, but was running constantly.  We could hear the blowing shutting off but then starting up again instantly.  Much of the time it was not producing heat and the amount of air coming out of the vents was weaker than normal.

We called in a heater repair guy who chastised us for closing so many vents. It was our attempt to warm EH's room past 63 degrees.  So we opened all of the vent, he changed the air filter (which was filthy disgusting), and it seemed to solve the problem.

But 3 weeks later and the problem started up once again.  We were flabbergasted - the vents were open so clearly that wasn't the problem!  Fortunately we were still within the 30 day warranty window so they sent someone out again to recheck the furnace.

Same problem as before - the unit was overheating and the filter was clogged with a fine white dust. The filter from only 3 weeks ago was warped because it was so clogged it was getting sucked into the blower. When he pulled it out the temp in the furnace immediately went down to normal.  When he slid it back in it shot up to over 220 degrees.  That was clearly the problem.  The guy recommended changing the filter every 3 weeks or so, or as soon as we noticed the problem and to leave it at that. 

When we thought about what could be causing the white dust, there were really only a few things it could be, and the new humidifier was the top culprit on our list.  We have known for a long time that our water is crap and that it leaves behind white particles.  Our ice cubes have white flakes in them.  Our pots that we use to boil water always have a white film where the top of the water line was.  Our water is the worst thing about this house, and it would cost us about $70k to fix it for good (city water.)  Not happening.

So anyway, at that time we stopped using the humidifier and and I think it's safe to say that we were right in thinking that was the problem.  We haven't had to change the heater filter in about four weeks and EH has been waking up less at night from coughing.  When we realized that his coughing could have caused by him inhaling particles that we were spreading into his air, we really felt awful. 

After we got rid of the humidifier (I gave it to my sister, who mentioned that she wanted one and has the luxury of city water) I set about cleaning EH's room to get all of the white dust off of his stuff.  I figured his room was just particularly dusty because it's where the attic access is and that dust was coming down from there, but now I know that it was from the humidifier.

Here is a before picture of EH's nighstand with the white dust on it:

And here is a picture after:

Remarkable right?

So, no more humidifier for us.  And since EH hasn't been sick since he started A-Care (knock on wood) we're hoping we won't need to even think about a humidifier until the next cold and flu season. 

Eating Solids

We tried to start EH on solids months ago, when he was around 4 months of age, on the recommendation of his pediatrician.  We started with rice cereal, which he hated, and then moved to oatmeal hoping he would like it more.  With both of those cereals, he usually just pushed it out of his mouth his with tongue, or gagged on it so badly that he would turn bright red, we would panic, and then quit with the cereal.

So after a few tries of that, we took a break on the solid foods.

Around his 6th month pediatrician visit we decided to give real food another try.  He still gagged on occasion but wasn't pushing it out of his mouth so much.  A couple of days before he started A-Care, he ate an entire serving of oatmeal without gagging! We were thrilled.

 Enjoying pears

Since then we've introduced a number of new foods.  Around 6.5 months old he was still a little hesitant about new tastes and textures, but now that he's 7 months old he is finally loving solid foods.  He smiles and laughs through his meal and we can introduce new foods without any problem.

I think in his case, he just wasn't ready for solids at 4 months of age, and I'm glad that we didn't push it too hard until closer to 6 months.  There's really no benefit to him eating solid foods, other than it's sort of fun for us and it saves us a few bucks a month on formula (since he eats ever-so-slightly less formula now that he's eating some solids.)

So here are the foods that EH has tried so far that he absolutely loves.

Successful First Foods:

1. Oatmeal

2. Apples
3. Sweet Potatoes

4. Pears
5. Mango
6. Zucchini
7. Rice Cereal
8. Tiramisu *
9. Yogurt
10. Squash

EH has tried the 4 foods below, but didn't really like them or gagged a lot on them, so we're going to reintroduce them to him in a couple of weeks now he's starting to tolerate other foods better.


Failed Foods (we're going to try all of these again in the future):
1. Avocado
2. Green Beans
3. Carrots

4. Bananas

The failed foods list all made him gag, I think because of the texture.  The foods that he really likes blended down into a softer, creamer puree, where as the beans and carrots were slightly chunky, and the avocado and banana seemed to thick for his liking.  Most of those made him throw up, and I don't mean spit up, I mean throw up. Like gut wrenching retching (say that five times fast), full stomach contents vomiting.  We're going to take that as a sign that he's not quite ready for those yet, and wait a few more weeks before trying again.  There's enough variety in what he does like to eat that I'm not force a few things on him that he doesn't seem to care for right now.

Of course, it seems like all he really wants is the stuff that we don't want him to have.  Including his daddy's cereal.

* Yes, you read number 7 on the "successful" list correctly.  EH has tried tiramisu.  Or really, he's tried the cream/icing part of the tiramisu (I was not interested in having a hyped-up, caffeinated baby!)  We were at a baby shower a couple of weekends ago and EH was being really fussy while we were eating.  He kept trying to grab at my food.  The dessert spoons were really tiny - baby sized, really - so I gave him a little taste of the icing to see if he liked.  Well, he's my kid so of COURSE he liked the icing.  He smiled, laughed, and then proceeded to reach and squawk loudly in delight, asking for more. It was super cute, and I only gave him a few bites, but I definitely did feel a little guilty.  After all, many people believe that you should only give your baby vegetables early on, because you don't want them to develop a preference for sweet things, like fruit. I have a feeling the doctor would recommend fruit over icing, but it was only once, and desperate times called for desperate measures.