- Darr Family Blog - https://darr.org -

Poor Baby Boy!

This past week started out as any other week. We just plugged away at each day. I noticed throughout the week that Joseph was becoming increasingly irritable and wasn’t eating as much as he normally did. He had a bit of a runny nose, so I thought that it might be his molars bugging him (since his 2YO ones are working their way in). Then on Wednesday, he had a pretty high fever. When he still had a fever (higher) on Thursday, I called his doctor and took him in. It turns out that he’s got strep throat…again. So we got him some antibiotics (which can be tricky with his amoxicillan allergy, but we have discovered an antibiotic called cefprozil which is still in the penicillin family, but not closely enough related to cause him to have an allergic reaction) and he’s starting to feel better already. I’m just glad that we discovered it early so that he can be all better before Christmas!

Toot my own horn moment: Today, two other people and I played our flutes in church (a flute trio arrangement of “Oh Come, All Ye Faithful”) and it turned out really great. It was so fun to play again! We’re blessed to be in such a great ward where people are willing to share their talents with us!

Joseph Funnies/Cutenesses for the week:

He has discovered “The Nightmare Before Christmas”. I was afraid that it might be too scary for him, but I had no need to be. He’ll see it pop up on the Roku box and he’ll say, “Halloween-Christmas-song?” He’s seen it a couple times now and he can sing along with some of the songs. It’s pretty great!

One night, as I was rocking him, I asked him what song he wanted me to sing. He asked for the puppy song. It took me a few seconds to realize that he was talking about “Momma Buy Me a Rocking Chair”, which is a song my parents used to sing to me when I was little. It’s a back and forth song between a child and a momma where the child wants a rocking chair (Momma buy me a rocking chair, what will we buy it with?, sell Daddy’s feather bed, where will Daddy sleep?, Daddy sleep in the piggy pen, where will the piggies sleep?, piggies sleep in the washing tub, where will we wash the clothes?, wash them down by the riverside, where will we dry the clothes?, hang them on the puppy‘s tail, what if his tail should break?, mend it back with the mending glue; each line is repeated three times with the words, “do, oh Momma, do” after the third line). I started singing it and he snuggled down on my shoulder and started singing along in snatches. 🙂

I have forgotten up to this point to record the fact that our 2YO LOVES cooked onion. It just seems odd to me that he would like it as much as he does, but when I think about it, I oughtn’t be surprised. He much prefers salty things over sweet things. When I heat up canned veggies, I’ll cook them with butter, garlic salt, and a bit of minced onion. Joseph will eat the veggies and then pick up the bits of minced onion and say, “Mmmm, onion!”

A couple of times this past week, when Joseph has been really tired (including today; Sundays are rough because our meeting time is right during his normal nap time, so he gets little-to-no-nap on Sundays). After I lay him in his crib and get him all settled with stuffed animals and blankies, he’ll look at me and say, “I tired!” a couple of times. I guess he really means it if he says it!

One day he ran up to me and said, “Mom!” I replied, “Yes, Joseph?” He then let lose with a LONG stream of gibberish, to which I just listened without saying anything (never agree to anything you can’t understand, lol). He then said, “Thanks, Mom!” and ran off…yeah…

Highlight of his week: Getting to help me make cookies (pictures to follow).

This week in pictures:

SAMSUNG [1]
Doing two of his favorite things simultaneously: looking through the Target toy catalog and watching the progress of the construction outside.
SAMSUNG [2]
Messy Face Files part 1: Taco Soup
SAMSUNG [3]
Messy Face Files part 2: his favorite meal by far: noodles with spaghetti sauce and ground sausage with a side of canned green beans (don’t forget the minced onion!) I loved how the sauce on the nose made him look a bit like a certain famous reindeer. 🙂
SAMSUNG [4]
He was still feeling kind of punky this day, so we were watching a lot of Mickey Mouse and hanging out on the couch in the loft. I love how he almost always chooses to sit in the exact middle of the couch. 🙂
SAMSUNG [5]
Helping me roll out the cookie dough. He LOVED using the rolling pin! In fact, he pitched a fit when we were all done.
SAMSUNG [6]
Pushing the cookie cutter into the dough.
SAMSUNG [7]
Yes, that is a Texas-shaped cookie cutter. 🙂
IMG_20131214_184700 [8]
Putting on the sprinkles.
IMG_20131214_184709 [9]
He kept saying, “Shake, shake, shake!” Some of the cookies were a little more heavily sprinkled than others. 🙂
SAMSUNG [10]
Feeling good enough to spin in the chair and wave his flag. He obviously doesn’t remember, but Paul and I remember that this is the flag I let Joseph hold as we were waiting at the gate in the airport to greet Paul when he was coming home from Afghanistan the final time (Joseph wasn’t even one at the time).