First Crocs and a Few Little Tidbits from the Week

Hudson made his debut in crocs for the first time today. My aunt gave Hudson these crocs when he was born and I couldn't wait for him to wear them. Only one problem...Hudson's feet are SO small!!! He is still wearing size 3 shoes. Most shoes for his age don't even start until a 5. We have had the hardest time finding shoes that will fit his feet because they are so fat and short. The baby fat is finally starting to slim down and his feet are starting to grow so I thought it would be a good day to see if the crocs would fit. They are still a bit big, but they look so cute!

We have had a better week at the Reed household! Everyone seems to be on the mend so that is good news. Hudson is still walking around with a limp, but it doesn't seem to bother him too bad. My sister said that his limp is his new "swagger." Joel is afraid it won't go away! Haha!

Hudson has been so much fun lately (despite the broken foot!). He is turning out to be such a funny little kid. He loves to be silly and is SO social! He says "hey" (more like heeeeyyyya) to everyone we pass (really, EVERYONE) when we are out and about, and has this huge toothy grin, and also waves at them with his Miss America wave. He also waves bye bye (a different wave from the Miss America wave!) and says it after we pass the people. It's usually to complete strangers! So funny. I do get a little irritated if the people decide to ignore him. It makes me sad!

He is also doing great with his vocabulary! His newest obsession is the word "cookie." For the past couple of days, when he is in his high chair and it's towards the end of the meal (that I'm trying to force down his throat-ha!), he starts saying cookie. Awesome. We have never given him cookies before, so I guess that he learned that from daycare? Who knows, but you know I couldn't deny him a cookie when he said it so clearly, so now I have been the enabler and it's turned into an addiction. It's bad when he gets out of the bath talking about cookies when it's time to go to bed! Oh well!

And today, I realized that he was doing sign language. I know only one word in sign language, and that is "more." I should probably know more words, but I don't. Well, today, I was giving him a snack and when he finished what I gave him, he did the motion to tell me he wanted more. I was so proud! I have never done this with Hudson, so I am assuming it is coming from daycare. I wish they would tell me what else they have taught him so that I can figure out what I have been missing! I wonder if he has been giving me signs for other things and I have just been ignoring them. I hope not!

We are looking forward to a very relaxing weekend. I'm seeing some trips to the pool in this heat!

Broken

As it turns out, Hudson's foot is broken. Our pediatrician, who we LOVE and are so thankful for, called me this morning at 7 am and wanted to know what happened. He asked if Hudson was still having trouble putting pressure on it to which I replied that he was, and he told me he wanted to get someone to look at the x-rays and would call me back. Thirty minutes later, he said that the doctor who looked at the x-ray said that it looked suspicious and that we needed to head to the orthopedist today and he would call me back when that was set up. I went ahead and took Hudson to Joel's mom's house so I could work for a while since I figured it would be a while before they could squeeze us in, but the minute I got to work and got my computer all set up, they called and said to go right then. So much for work! Joel's mom was kind enough to go with me since Joel is still in the bed sick today and I knew I couldn't handle it on my own. Luckily, they got us right in (miracle there!) and we didn't have to wait long. The doctor came right in as well and told us that he broke a bone on his foot, but the good news is that they didn't want to cast it. He said that it will heal on its own in a few weeks and he said that Hudson will figure out a way to walk on it to where it doesn't hurt, and he will be fine. Whew! It's sad that it's broken, but at least we don't have a cast to worry about! Thanks to Children's South for missing that one! Ha! Oh well, I would rather hear it from an orthopedist that specializes in that sort of thing so I guess it is ok. And, can I say again how thankful I am for our pediatrician?!?! How many pediatricians out there will follow up with you personally? He is wonderful.

The Weekend...The Good and the Bad

THE GOOD:

Hudson was introduced to ketchup and LOVED it!

Hmmm...maybe I can cover some veggies in ketchup and see how that goes???


Joel went to the lake early Saturday morning to help his family do some work and Hudson and I had some excellent bonding time! We started out the day with a big breakfast and then watched Funniest Animals on Animal Planet after that. He has never had any interest in the tv before, but he was cracking up over this show. He actually sat there and watched the whole show with me! When the commercials came on, he would hold his hands out as if to say, "Where did the animals go?" It was so much fun having that snuggle time!

We then ventured to the pool with my friend Cameron, and Hudson had so much fun swimming and then playing with the hose. He kept wanting to jump to me in the deep end though. That's pretty tough when you are trying to catch a 26 pounder and treading water at the same time! I definitely got my workout!

After the pool, we went and ate at Moe's and then had ice cream. Hudson was flat worn out after ice cream so we went home and he took a 3 1/2 hour nap! What could be better than that?!?! It was a great Saturday so far!

Then, there came THE BAD:

Hudson woke up from his nap and when I was bringing him down the stairs, my ankle completely gave out and down we went--my worst fear since the day we brought him home from the hospital. I managed to hold onto him as we went down and we only fell a couple of steps thank goodness because we were only few steps from the top when it happened. It could have been WAY worse. I started crying because my ankle hurt so bad and we were both traumatized. I just kept thinking we could have fallen down the whole flight and who knows what might have happened. Hudson was crying, but I figured I had just scared him because he didn't hit is head or anything--he was still safely in my arms. Joel (which was home by then thankfully) came running and got us both down the stairs. Hudson kept on crying and wouldn't let go of us and we couldn't figure out why until I looked at his foot and it was red. Then, we tried getting him to stand on it, and he wouldn't put any pressure on it. He screamed when we tried to even touch it. It was awful.

We went straight to the after hours center at Children's South to get it checked out. We both just knew he had broken something in his foot the way that he was acting. I had a lump in my throat and felt so sick. I still kind of do a day later. Over two hours later (8 pm by this time and no dinner yet for the H-man so you can imagine how rough those two hours in that little room were!), we found out that it wasn't broken thankfully, but that it was just really badly bruised. I had so much relief, but he was still in so much pain. They wrapped it up and he has to keep the wrap on for two days, but that's all. Words cannot express how bad I feel that it happened to him, broken foot or not. I still hurt him and that just hurts my heart so bad.

He still can't put any pressure on it today so it has been a very hard day at the Reed household. He is crawling around, but for the most part, he has just sat in one place. I would say that it has been nice for him to be somewhat immobile for the day, but I don't feel that way. I miss my ball of energy running around and wearing me out!

He is still smiling though, so I know it is feeling a little bit better!

To top it all off, when we got back from the hospital last night, Joel started to get chills and now he is sick. Joel is the typical man when he is sick--it's like he can't do anything. It is so frustrating. Why is it that when I get sick, nothing in my daily routine gets to change, but when he's sick, he gets to lay in the bed all day and make us feel sorry for him? Ugh!

This week coming up has GOT to be better! I'm tired of writing about all this bad luck we've had recently!

Oh What a Day (and Night)

Poor Hudson had a really bad day today. He is still trying to recover from his ear infection, which we think may be getting worse because he just isn't himself. He didn't nap AT ALL today at daycare (never a good thing for Hudson), had a terrible diaper that went all through his clothes (hasn't happened in forever!), has a rash on his face that is starting to spread to the rest of his body (which normally comes after an ear infection), and on top of all that, he got bitten at daycare. Mama's going to find the kid with all those chompers tomorrow! I don't know what I'm going to do, but I'm going to do something!


We had dinner plans tonight at La Paz with a small group from our Sunday school class so when I picked Hudson up from daycare and realized all these things had happened today, I didn't think we should go to dinner. But, I took Hudson home and put him down for a nap and hoped that he would be ok to go. He woke up in the worst mood, but we decided to chance it anyway. Actually, I told Joel to go and we would stay home, but he wanted us all to go. I'll never make that mistake again!

We wished La Paz had one of these tonight...

On a side note, we finally realized it was time to crate the dogs. I have no idea why we haven't done this before! Hudson thinks they are his new toy and the dogs have been just fine with it and haven't been destroying our house!

Anyway, back to dinner...it was an absolute nightmare. Worst.dinner.ever. I was so embarassed and stressed...and sweaty...and frustrated. If I wasn't endulging myself in a glass of wine right now, I might be pulling my hair out! It was that bad! I have never seen Hudson arch his back that many times in one sitting. He threw the biggest fits I have ever seen (oh and we saw the kitchen at La Paz too--that makes two restaurants that he has run into the kitchen now!). My arms are physically exhausted--I feel like I've been wrestling an alligator for the past hour and a half! Joel and I took turns going outside, but it still didn't make things any better (one of us should have just taken him home, but we were only in one car and it was too far to do that). I'm pretty sure we ruined dinner for the couples at our table, and all the tables around us--I promise he isn't normally this bad! He was exhausted and it was our fault that we did that to him. You live and learn (and maybe wait just a tad longer to think about adding a second child! Ha! Only kidding, but we definitely won't be going out to dinner EVER with two!). It was really bad though. Maybe tomorrow will be a better day for the little guy! I can only hope. I sure do wish it was me getting sick all the time, that's for sure.

Shades

Hudson got to spend a day at home with Mom and Dad today because guess what, he has another ear infection. Shocker, right?!?! We went to Sunday school yesterday morning and then went out to lunch afterwards and Hudson was just terrible. He refused to eat, fussed the entire time, and was miserable. We knew something was up and sure enough, we came home and took his temp and he had a fever. He was SO pitiful all yesterday afternoon. This morning we woke up and he didn't have a fever, but we kept him home anyway and Joel took him to the doctor this afternoon. I have no idea why we went. Another co-pay and an oral antibiotic later (which they told us to fill only if his fever spiked up again because they felt like he was becoming immune to the antibiotics), he is still sick. We have been doing a vinegar and water treatment to flush his ears out, which by the way, really does work and it is supposed to kill the infection too. He hates it as you can imagine, but it beats being on an antibiotic and getting the worst diaper rash in the world! They want us to just wait this one out and see if he gets over it on his own. We were also told to head to the ENT. I'm so sick of this and I feel terrible for Hudson and his poor ears. This makes a whopping 5 ear infections just since he got the tubes in March.

Anyway, on another note, Hudson has had so much fun with his sunglasses lately. Most of the time, he wears them around his neck like a frat boy, but today, he wore them all over the house. It was so funny.

You can tell he doesn't feel the best...

He even read his book with his shades on...

And climbed up and down the stairs...(can you tell he's thrilled that I'm taking his picture?!?!)

I finally got a smile! I asked him to show me his teeth and he did!

Hopefully, he will be all better in the morning.

Fourth of July

We had a fabulous 4th of July weekend! We spent a couple of nights at the lake and then a night in Cloudland at the cabin. The weather was great all weekend. We had some fun trips out on the boat and tubed a couple of times on Saturday. Sadly, I'm still sore!

Hudson loved the water. He hated being in his life jacket in the water, but the minute we got his float out, he was all about it. The life jacket is more like a straight jacket, but we're doing what we can to keep the little guy safe while on the dock and in the boat so it is a necessity!

Most of Joel's cousins were there and they are all in college or just graduated, so Hudson had a blast watching everyone and they all gave him so much attention! There were EIGHT dogs there as well, so he was in absolute heaven!

The plan was to go see the fireworks by boat at 9 on Saturday night, but Joel and I decided at the last minute not to go with them. Hudson was exhausted from a day spent mostly outside in the sun and he had only napped for a short while, so we were worried he might get fussy on the boat and there would have been no where for us to go. We didn't want to ruin it for anyone! I'm sure that we will definitely be going next year!

He did look super cute in his Mr. Independent pajamas for the 4th of July!

We got Hudson a baby pool and he wanted nothing to do with it! It was really cute and the whale shot water out its spout. Oh well!

Sunday we headed to Cloudland to spend the afternoon with my parents and Morgan. We walked through the art show and had some ice cream, and then ate ribs that night and watched all the fireworks in the valley. It was fun!

It was a great weekend and we're so glad it's a short week! Thank goodness the weekend is almost here again! We're actually in town this weekend and looking forward to doing a whole lot of nothing (except getting ready for our big trip coming up soon!).

16 Months Old

On July 1st, our little man turned 16 months old.

Here is what Hudson is up to at 16 months:

• Talking, talking, talking. Every day it's a new word or some new jibber jabber. He is a non-stop talker and some of it we understand, but most of it is still like a foreign language. We love it though. He talks with such expression too so we know it's really important! This month, we've added cracker (which I'm MOST impressed about and he says it clear as day), snack, milk, cow, Pop (for Pops), Chloe, Jack, eyes, ear, nose, mouth, boat, bath, teeth, and he also says strawberry (well, it's close to strawberry so it counts!). Oh and the other day I asked him if he wanted to go swimming and he yelled, "Wimmin!" It was too cute.
• He is really starting to understand us. For instance, if we tell him to go get a shoe, he goes and gets a shoe. If we say we are going downstairs, he goes right to the door, and heaven forbid if we even utter the word "outside". You better be prepared to face the mosquitoes because you aren't going to get out of it if that word slips out (well, you could get out of it, but there would be some fit pitching involved!)! I can tell he's starting to understand the word "no" as well because for the most part, he stops what he is doing when we say it. There are plenty of times that he acts like he doesn't understand it though and also plenty of times that he says "no" back to us! :) He also knows what ice cream is and he LOVES it! I tried to bribe him one night to eat a veggie and told him it was ice cream and it worked! Well, for one bite, and then he wasn't too happy with me!
• Speaking of food, he's doing much better with his eating. There are not too many nights when I have to fix him something other than what we are eating, so it has gotten a lot better. He's still not doing many veggies, but he is "trying" more things now so I'm ok with that. He even tried my razor the other day. We had a "I thought Joel was watching him and he though I was watching him" mess up and found a bloody mess in the bathroom. I think Hudson actually liked the razor because he was just a smiling while we were both in freak out mode over what he had hurt because there was so much blood. It was nothing though...just a cut on the tongue and it didn't even bother him. It could have been a lot worse! Just shows us that we can't take our eyes off him for a second!
• He can tell you where his eyes, nose, mouth, ears, hair, and belly are.
• He can say moo moo for a cow. He has done woof woof for a dog, but it's not as consistent, and of course, he still does quack quack for a duck.
• He loves to dance. If we start singing and dancing and tell him to "bounce, bounce", he dances. It's even better when he has an audience! He also has started waving. He did the bye bye wave for a while, but now he's waving like Miss America, especially in restaurants. The other day we were at Newk's and he started waving at this young guy who had to still be in college (and was with a girl trying to have a quiet lunch!). I was so embarassed, but the guy started playing peek a boo with him and it made Hudson's day. What a trooper that guy was. We definitely thanked him before we left! Oh and last weekend, I was stuck in traffic, which is never a good thing when you have a child who likes to be moving, and Hudson started waving at the man next to us. Again, so embarassing, but the man waved back and smiled and kept him occupied for a good 5 minutes while we sat there. Thank you to all those who take the time to speak to youngins' in public! I have a whole new respect for those people!
• He is taking one nap a day for the most part, especially on daycare days. Some days when I'm home with him, he will take two naps, but I really like it when I can keep him up until after lunch and then he will take a really good, long nap. He still goes to bed between 7 and 7:30 and sleeps until around 7. The boy needs his sleep and we still don't have any issues putting him down. He does like to read ALL of his books before bed though, but that's cute!
• We've only added half a tooth from last month. He had a bottom one poke through this past weekend so it's not all the way in. That makes a total of 7 teeth (we're a little slow in the teeth department!).
• He's still wearing 24 month and 2T clothes. I think he will be in that size for a while.

That's about it! He's a mile a minute and keeps us running after him at all times! It is exhausting, but we wouldn't trade it for the world.

First Haircut

Hudson finally got his first haircut on Friday. I wanted to make his first haircut special, and I knew that Sweet N Sassy in Hoover made a big deal out of a baby's first haircut so that's where I wanted to go. They do a certificate of their first haircut and give you some of the hair they cut, etc. Two Fridays ago, I picked up Joel from work and we headed there (I knew I couldn't handle this on my own and take pictures too!), only to find out that they were completely booked for the day. I didn't know we needed an appointment! Let me just tell you, I knew that place was girly going into it, but like I said, I wanted his first haircut to be special! I didn't exactly tell Joel how girly it was. He about had a fit when we went in there and made a point to tell Hudson that he was spared that time and to count his lucky stars. Oh well, I was still determined. So, this past Friday, I called Sweet N Sassy first thing in the morning and guess what, they were booked AGAIN! So frustrating. I was so ready for his hair to be cut that we just decided to go down to Angel Hair in Crestline and get it done.

Much to my surprise, Hudson was a perfect little angel! He just sat there the whole time. We didn't have to hold him or anything. He let her cut all around his face and didn't even get mad or swat her hand away or anything!




This is the after shot...we couldn't get a smile out of him.

She didn't cut much (taking baby steps here), but it is cleaned up and the curls seem even curlier with shorter hair! The grandparents are still happy! I did get to keep some of his curls that she cut off to put in the baby book. It was a very pleasant trip!