Nana to the Rescue!

After spending two weeks caring for sick boys and dealing with cedar allergies myself, I was reaching the end of my rope. Benjamin was recovering, but Jasper had a returning cold which manifested itself with bad nasal congestion. Since Jasper LOVES his brother, he LOVES to give him kisses. Kisses are great, except when they involve germ transfer. I agonized that he was going to get Benjamin sick again, and I just couldn't deal with that. We escaped a trip to the ER while Benjamin was sick, but I was afraid a returning cold would be worse and might mean hospitalization. (yes, I worried. it's hereditary.)


Nana with her precious big and precious little boys. Jasper isn't excited to see her or anything.

So Nana came to our rescue. She was with us for about a week, and she was great! She did all my laundry for the entire week, helped with meals and generally provided the second set of hands that are so necessary when you're trying to care for two small boys that both need affection and attention but shouldn't really be too close to each other. She was able to spend time outside with Jasper to let him RUN every day ... something I couldn't do while cedar pollen was super high. She also gave Jasper another hair cut. He didn't protest at all. (Letting him watch Curious George and part of "Cars" helped.) Let's hope he can make it 'til her return visit before he needs another cut. We'll see!

Benjamin loved the extra attention from Nana. Plus, he got a new hat out of the bargain. Utah here I come! Bring on the snow!

We've been baking more and more with Jasper ... pancakes, muffins, and the latest: scones. He loves being part of the action and leaving his mark on the baked goods.

Jasper is a really active boy, and it seems each time we're outside he wants to be doing some type of work. He loves to sweep leaves. Good thing! we have oodles of them!!!

Playing with the Jeep is no end of fun, especially opening and shutting the door.

After a full day of playing with nana, Jasper is pooped!

and so are we!

Inside Play

While one or both boys were sick, we spent a lot of time inside. It was either chilly and kind of damp or the highest cedar pollen counts in years - not the type of weather for boys with colds or their allergy-prone mommy. We had to get a little creative to come up with things to do while we were staying inside. One thing Jasper did was play with an inside sandbox. The sand was oatmeal, and we used cinnamon sticks for timbers. They were proportionately sized to be used with Papa's dump truck.

Here are some examples of what the inside of the house looks like after inside sandbox play. It got a little messy, but it was easy clean-up ... so who cares!



I tried restricting the sandbox play to the town rug, but as you can see ... that didn't really work out.

Poor Baby

Immediately upon returning from Ohio both boys got sick. Jasper was the first to present symptoms of picking up someone's hacking cough and cold. We hunkered down to deal with our sickness-prone child. Much to our surprise, his cold passed in less than 48 hrs and he was back to normal. Unfortunately, this was not without first passing his germs onto his younger brother.


Benjamin got his first ever cold the first weekend in January. By Saturday night he was coughing, and on Sunday morning he had a fever > 101deg. Bummer! This is technically a fever for a wee little one of his age (13 wks), so while Drew and Jasper went to church, I hunted around for a pediatric prompt care that would see little Benjamin. His fever waxed and waned throughout the day, but the doctor who saw him on Sunday said it was just a cold and advised us to be watching for other symptoms of RSV or whooping cough.


By Wednesday his cough had not gotten better and in fact was worse, so I loaded up both boys and headed into the pediatrician for Benjamin's first "sick" visit. Our appt was for 1pm, and this is usually when Jasper goes down for his nap. I would have preferred to leave him at home, but I couldn't find anyone to watch him. So we all three headed in, and I just prayed that it would be a quick visit and Jasper would be able to hold it together.


It wasn't a quick visit. Benjamin was the picture of health. 16lbs, 13oz, smiling and cooing. If you overlooked the fact that his sides were sucking in just under his ribcage with each breath, you would not recognize that he was sick. But this is classic "distressed breathing" so there were multiple attempts to read his oxygen levels and two breathing treatments to be administered. By the end of the first breathing treatment, the wheels were starting to come off for Jasper. It was 2pm, and there was no near end in sight. Thankfully our dear friend Gayleigh came up to the doctor's office and rescued Jasper. He nearly leaped into her arms when the exam room door opened and he saw her there. With Jasper in her capable hands and soon sound asleep in bed, I could focus on Benjamin - his second breathing treatment, his chest x-ray and return trip to the pediatrician. We weren't home until 5pm.


On Wednesday night Benjamin did not seem to worsen, so our return trip to the pediatrician the following morning looked good. However, by Thursday night Benjamin's cough was sounding awful. It was so labored and scary sounding. So on Friday I returned to the pediatrician with him again. Again he was the picture of health minus the distressed breathing. Again his pulse ox was good. Again he fell asleep during his breathing treatment. As a last resort, the pediatrician prescribed breathing treatments for us to administer over the weekend. He even coughed some scary coughs while we were in the pediatrician's office and she was able to reassure me that they weren't actually that scary after all - they were pretty normal and while he did have brochiolitis, she never got to the point of diagnosing him with RSV.

We're guessing the purple dragon face on the mask was supposed to be playful for kids, but Drew just thought it looked creepy.

Benjamin was a trooper through each treatment, and it wasn't until Saturday night that he started to really rebound and actually get restless after the treatments. That's when I knew he was starting to really get better. It seemed that the cold which had been depressing his system and making him weak, overriding the jittery-ness he should have been experiencing with the albuterol breathing treatment was finally wearing off. The albuterol was winning, and we had a fiesty boy on our hands after each treatment. He was no longer sleeping as well nor as much. It might seem crazy, but we looked at this as a good thing. Now only if Jasper would stay healthy. ...

Fun in Ohio

Once the Christmas festivities were over, we had some fun time to spend together. As you probably know from previous entries in this blog, Jasper LOVES strawberry milkshakes. Here is a fun photo of Jasper sharing a strawberry milkshake with Grandpa.



He also made gingerbread cookies with Grandma.


Finally, we went as a family to a park near my parent's home on a cold sunny day. Jasper had a great time running, jumping, and one of his new favorite activities...hanging.

Bailey Family Christmas in Ohio

After celebrating Christmas at the Gant home, we went to Lou and Kathleen's home to celebrate the Bailey family Christmas. When we arrived, Lou pointed out an electric train set that she had setup around a small Christmas tree on a table. Jasper was enthralled with watching, touching, and experiencing the train. While I helped Jasper fix the derailed train, Erica snapped some photos that I cherish.




Lou and Kathleen's home has a huge basement, and we thought it would be a hit with Jasper to have such a large place to run around. Little did we know that a red tractor would be found.




They even created a bowling game.

Another highlight of the evening was having Benjamin and Jasper be held by their Great Grandparents.

It was a nice time with family.

Christmas at Grandpa and Grandma's House

After the fun events of Christmas day, we prepared for flying to Ohio. We chose the day after Chistmas in the attempt to avoid some of the holiday travel rush, and I'm pleased to report that it worked. The airport wasn't very busy in Austin or in Houston. The Austin to Houston flight is a short one, and our lay-over allowed us to collectively have some lunch before the long flight to Cleveland. While waiting in Houston, I was standing next to a Continental pilot, and I asked him if he was riding with or flying us to Cleveland today. After stating he was our co-pilot for the flight, we chatted about Christmas while Jasper watched the carts roll through the airport and Benjamin slept in my arms. Before he went to board the plane, he asked, "Do you have a camera with you?" Later he ushered Jasper into his seat, and these pictures were captured.

We arrived in Cleveland in the early evening, and we were met by Jon at the airport to take us to Akron. It was cold, but there was little snow on the ground.

When we arrived and Grandpa and Grandma's house, Jasper quickly settled into playing on the floor with Uncle Jon while Grandma spent some time bonding with Benjamin.

One of the highlights of the evening was Jon teaching Jasper how to catch from his "ready stance". Before Jon would toss the ball, he would call out "ready stance", and Jasper would repeat it while jumping and spreading his legs out for a solid base. As Jasper learned, he was repeat "ready stance" more and more emphatically.

<>The next morning we celebrated Christmas and Grandpa and Grandma's house. After some great pancakes made by Grandpa, we settled in for opening gifts. Here are some of the highlights.

It was a great experience to be gathered in my childhood home to celebrate Christmas with my wife, two sons, parents, and brother.

Dukes of Haz...I mean Austin

Check out Jasper "Bo Duke" Gant!

Christmas in Austin - UPDATED

For the first time, we celebrated Christmas in Austin. We started things off by having Christmas eve brunch with our dear friends Joel, Stacy and Gideon Hock.



They are about a year apart in age, but Jasper and Gideon are chums.

We attended Christmas Eve service as a family which was special. We're now a family of four, and it feels to us like we're so much more of a family than we were with one child. (Maybe it's just because we're so tired all the time. There are fewer breaks as parents of two.) It felt nice to sit in church each holding a child and singing Christmas hymns. And since Jasper is growing up, learning and understanding more about things, it feels right to create memories of our own that have impact. After church, we returned to enjoy a wonderful meal. It's very similar to the Christmas eve meal Erica's family has enjoyed for years. We made Swedish meatballs, mashed potatoes & seafoam salad. For whatever reason, not having vegetables as adults was totally ok ... but we made some carrots for Jasper. The meal was great, and Jasper enjoyed "Nana's special meatballs".

After dinner, we gathered around the nativity scene as a family to discuss the Christmas story. We considered this year a practice since we anticipated Jasper wouldn't be that interested. We've read & talked about the Christmas story a lot throughout the month of December. Jasper loved reading about the baby Jesus, the angels coming to talk to the shepherds & glorifying God, the shepherds running to find the baby Jesus and the wise men coming a long way on camels to worship the baby Jesus in his Bible. He can even gladly tell you that the angels sang "Glory to God in the highest, and on earth peace, goodwill to men." However, on Christmas eve, he was more interested in playing with the characters as if they were truck drivers than he was talking about the significance of Jesus' birth, but that was ok.

After Jasper was asleep, Erica and I got wrapping! Jasper tried to unwrap a gift that arrived in the mail a week before Christmas. He didn't understand that you had to wait and impatiently did not want to wait. Since we don't have tons of storage space in our house, it was easier to keep things hidden when they were not boxed and wrapped. But that meant last minute wrapping. Oh joy!

In addition, I needed to put together the "Jeep" that Nana and Papa got for Jasper. I had a funny thought realizing this was the first of many years where I, the father, had something to put together during the evening hours between Christmas Eve and Christmas. It was a long night of assembling and wrapping.

here is the "Jeep" in pre-assembled form.

After we finished preparations, we tried to get some sleep. Unfortunately, Benjamin needed to feed during the wee hours and then Jasper woke up very early. We don't think it was from anticipation for Christmas, but regardless it was way too early and a bad combination with Benjamin. (I think they're in cahoots sometimes!) Since pancakes are fast becoming a special Saturday morning tradition around here, we thought there was no less reason to celebrate with them on Christmas morning. Here are some fun photos from breakfast. The pancakes are green & red from sprinkles. Jasper really liked that.

We started things off with Jasper opening his stocking.

His favorite gift out of there was his new spiderman toothbrush that plays music.

Jasper, having just had a birthday, was very excited about having gifts to open. He opened them with glee, and he didn't waste any time nor try to preserve any paper. The kid's got flare.

This is a four-foot puzzle Jasper got for Christmas. He and daddy took a break to put it together. Jasper loves puzzles, and I don't think it will be long before he can do this one himself.


In preparation for our trip to Utah, Jasper got new long underwear and a neat hat. We love Smartwool!

Jasper got this cool front end loader spoon from his Minnesota cousins, Auntie Brittany and Uncle Adam. He thought it was sooooo cool!

Benjamin was sleepy on Christmas morning, but he still got into the spirit.

While he was awake, we tried to take advantage of Benjamin's alertness for some Christmas morning photos of the boys.

We're checking out Benjamin's new book "Ten Little Fingers and Ten Little Toes." Jasper helped me count out his fingers and toes to verify that he did indeed have ten of each. He can count to ten, no sweat now! We counted Benjamin's, too. It was nice of Benjamin to be sock-less. It really facilitated the counting.

Here is the Jeep. This was our last gift to open on Christmas morning. We actually didn't wrap it, we just ceremoniously led Jasper out to the garage to see and play with it. He knew exactly what it was and was happy to get started playing with it right away.

He's thinking about going around the block with his Jeep

It's just the right size!

Looks like it might have failed a crash test along the way. I guess there are different criteria for human-powered vehicles.

Jasper only got one day to play with his Jeep before we left for Ohio. Here he is playing with it once we got back.