Sick baby

We've all been passing around the crud for the last few weeks. I know this happens to just about everyone on Planet Earth, but we've managed to avoid constant crud until this year. We've had out share of winter stomach viruses (not this year, knock on wood!!) and I am not sure which is worse.

Anyway, Carly now has a bad ear infection, we just found out this morning. She was acting pretty miserable the last couple of days, so now we know why. Poor baby, she is snotty and miserable, and her ear must hurt too. Anyway, antibiotics for her now too. Caleb is still working on his second round (it was a borderline EI, and a sinus infection too that came right back after round one.) Greg is taking his for a sinus infection, and I took a leftover prescription (bad bad bad I know) and it helped (until I ran out two days ago and now my throat is itching again grrrr). So, like my Facebook status says, I REALLY hope we all get well before January1, becuase the insurance deductible starts over, and this is the first year we've had a deductible plan. It seems very scary.

Back to the kids, Carly is a very good cougher. If that makes any sense. Caleb is more of a sniffer, I guess he wants the mucus to go down, and he rarely coughs. But man oh man, Carly is a cougher!! She hacks and hacks like a little old man with emphysema trying to get that crud out of there. It's kinda scary sounding to hear her coughing like that, but it must work for her. Once she gets it all loose she goes about her business. Let's just hope the antibiotics kill the EI the first time. We have a follow up appointment on Christmas Eve morning, so pray for a healthy baby! I am thankful we aren't traveling anywhere this Christmas, because that would be miserable.

Santa is coming to our house this year!

Speaking of, Caleb really understands the concept of Christmas. I know I already wrote about this, but since then he's become even more aware of it. We are loving being able to use the old "Santa only visits good little boys and girls" threat. Today I even told him I was going to call Santa and tell him to take all his presents back. I LOVE this! I remember being terrified that Santa would not bring me anything if I was bad. So being able to dish out the threats this year is so much fun! I'm such a mean mom! Really though, Caleb is a very good kid in general, and he is so stinkin' smart that we are constantly having to come up with something new to convince him to do the right thing. I am reading a book called How am I Smart? right now and it is about the 8 intelligences that we all have. I flipped right to the chapter I thought Caleb was, which is Self-smart. This means he is a highly reflective kid. I haven't gotten to read the rest yet, so I'll write more about that another day. But it is amazing to read and find ways that our children are different, and how to nurture those intelligences.

It's time for a Carly story now. She loves the Christmas tree. She knows that we do not touch it, it's one of those "Big No-No"s as Caleb says. However, the temptatiobn often overtakes her and we catch her with her hand on a branch. "No no Carly!" we say. She jerks her hand away and with her sassiest monosyllable, looks straight at me and says, "Baah!" THE CHILD IS ALREADY TALKING BACK!!!! She is SOOOOOOO sassy already at 11 months. I'm not too sure what we are in for with this one!

Merrrrrrrrry Christmas to all! And let's not forget about Jesus in all the hubbub. HAPPY BIRTHDAY JESUS!!