Yesterday, the new carpet was installed.  I'm still not thrilled with the seam, but that I can live with.  What I cannot live with is the fact that they left something UNDER the carpet.  Now they'll have to come pull it up so they can pull out the scrap of carpet or whatever it is that is causing a lump in my floor.  This will make it 8 months and 5 visits from installers just to get new carpet.

I definitely have my angry face on.

Yesterday my baby boy took six steps on his own from his toy house to his daddy.  He's getting so big and strong!

I just heard from the daycare - we got the Tuesday/Thursday slot at the Tech daycare.  I hate that we'll have to pull Daniel out of Mother's Day Out, since he loves it there, but the Tech daycare opens an hour earlier and closes almost three hours later.  This means I can do the class and thereby, eventually get my degree.  To this I say YAY!

My schedule for this fall was laid out carefully so that I could take classes and not have to pay any more for daycare than we have to, seeing as co-op jobs aren't exactly lucrative hobbies.  It was all going well until the professor of one class decided to change the day and time of our class three weeks before classes start.  Now, I may not be able to take the class.  No problem, right?  I could just take it the next time around, right?  WRONG.  It's only offered every two years.  That would mean I could next take the class in the fall of 2008, and I would not be able to do my student teaching until the spring of 2009.  Josh will be graduating in 2007 or 2008, and we'll be moving as soon as possible thereafter so that he can get a job.  You see how this would cause some problems.  It would be difficult to take a class if you're in a different city or even a different state.  I am a bit peeved, and also freaking out.  The good news is that without the education classes, I could graduate with a degree and 2 minors this December.  

Well, I am now feeling MUCH better, thanks to the loving attention of my mommy and daddy.  For those of you who don't know, I ended up in the emergency room Tuesday night.  Apparently I had a very bad case of viral pharyngitis, with a sore throat, fever, stiff neck, dizziness, nausea, fatigue, muscle aches, headache, etc.  I spent the past few days being very uncomfortable and very tired, but Mom and Dad have taken wonderful care of both me and Daniel.  I am SO glad my parents live close enough and their schedules permitted them to help me.  I'm sure I would have survived otherwise, but it would have been very hard.  Josh is coming to Hendersonville tonight and will take me home later this weekend.  I miss my husband, but it was very nice to know that someone else could help me take care of Daniel the past few days.  My parents are awesome!

Last Friday, Daniel was given a clean bill of health.  He is, according to the doctor, absolutely perfect.  (I already knew he was perfect, but it's nice to hear it reinforced.)  His ears, his white blood cell count, his CRP, and his blood, urine, and stool cultures are all fine.

I wanna thank everyone so much for all of their kind thoughts and prayers over the past two weeks.  The encouragement really helped!

So yesterday, I took Daniel to the doctor's so they could check his ears and make sure that the infection was all gone.  His ears look perfect, but he still had a fever and his white blood cell count had not gone down at all since Monday.  Mom and I are of the opinion that he just picked up a virus towards the end of his ear infection, but the doctor that the nurse practitioner consulted insisted that Daniel have a barrage of tests done.  Yesterday afternoon, my mother and I took Daniel to the hospital for a chest x-ray to see if he has pneumonia and to have blood drawn to see if there is a blood infection.  When they checked his white blood cell count, they just poked his toe.  For the blood tests, they had to get a fair amount of blood out of a vein in his arm.  This led to me, Mom, and a nurse holding a screaming, crying Daniel still while another nurse drew his blood.  The x-ray also made him scream and cry.

Luckily, Mom was in town.  She came by yesterday to bring us some dinner and help me get all caught up on cleaning the kitchen and the laundry.  Seeing as we had to go get those tests done, I am SO glad Mom was here.  I don't know how I could have gotten through it without her.  Thanks, Mom!

Please continue to keep Daniel in your prayers.

Daniel's fever this morning is 102.  Mom says that if he's acting normally, then I should just treat the fever.  As she pointed out, with so many antibiotics in his system, there's no way it's anything bacterial.  That means it's most likely a virus, and there's nothing we can do for a virus but treat the symptoms.

I got up early today so I'd have time to feel human before the baby yelled at me to come and get him.  He was yelling when I woke up.  He's a sneaky baby.  I burnt my tongue on my coffee.  This is hardly the worst thing these days, but it still hurts.  Wah.

Daniel is still sick.  In fact, his temperature spiked yesterday to 101.9.  I took him to the doctor this morning and they popped him in the leg with another antibiotic.  The shot hurts so much that they mix lidocaine in with it to help numb the area.  It didn't numb well enough, to judge by Daniel's screaming.

Since we got home, he's cried 90% of the time he's been awake, which has been a mercifully small time. 

I am about two steps away from absolutely crazy at this point.  He just won't stop crying when he's awake, and it's getting to be a bit much.  I love Daniel so much, but this is just so hard.  Parenthood needs to come with a better "how to" manual with handy chapters such as "How to not think you're a terrible parent when you can't comfort your crying child."

Daniel seems to be on the mend.  The diarrhea is much better, and consequently, the rash seems to be much better.  He still has some disturbingly red patches, but most of his diaper area is normal skin color now.  The cotton training pants have helped immensely.  They are, of course, much messier than diapers, but if they help his skin, I don't mind cleaning up some messes.  We spread a shower curtain on the living room floor and put his toys on there so that he won't make a mess on the carpet, but he seems strangely determined to be everywhere but on the curtain.  Oh well - the carpet will be replaced in a few weeks, and for now, it's not too hard to clean up after him.  Thank you for keeping him in your prayers, and please keep it up!

Daniel started teething a while back, which caused him to have a runny nose.  This runny nose caused an ear infection.  To combat the ear infection, he was given a very pricey antibiotic.  This very pricey antibiotic caused diarrhea.  This diarrhea caused extremely bad diaper rash.  This diaper rash causes Daniel to cry each time we change his diaper.  (We're not talking a bit of fussing here; we're talking all out screaming and sobbing, with tears and everything.)  We are now obligated to smear his rear end with a very pricey diaper rash cream, which thankfully contains lidocaine.  Unfotunately, we're only allowed to use it a couple times a day.

Well, at least the antibiotic will be finished in another 4 days.  When the antibiotic stops, the diarrhea will stop, which will hopefully eliminate the diaper rash.  Hopefully then, Daniel will stop crying when we change his diaper.

Please pray for Daniel's health and my sanity.

Daniel is extremely attached to a stuffed rabbit whom we call Mr. Floppy.  I wanted to get an extra Mr. Floppy in case something terrible happens to him.  According to Carter's, he's from an Easter special last year, and they don't have a warehouse where they keep things from previous years.  The advice I was given is to check Burlington Coat Factory, Big Lots, and Ebay.  I've searched Ebay several times over the last few weeks with no luck.  Burlington Coat Factory also does not have the bunny on their website.  I will check the Big Lots in town, but I am of limited hope.

This is a sad, sad day.

Approximately 8:45 this morning, Daniel took his first step.  Shortly after this amazing feat, Daniel decided that he should actually use his walker as a walker.  (Until today, he would lean over to play with the toys on the front.)  He used it to walk across the room until he ran into something, I turned him around, he walked until he ran into something, and then repeated this again.

I am VERY excited, but also very afraid.  Poor kitty will never be able to escape now.

And the carpet saga continues.  The new guy came today to fix it.  Unfortunately, since the seam had already been heated 3 times (once to put it on, the second time to take it apart, and a third time to put it back together,) they had to cut out the area that had been heated so that there wouldn't be lumps in the carpet.  Unfortunately, that meant that there wasn't enough carpet left.  So they seamed it back together and put in an additional seam with a piece of carpet left in the garage.  The problem now is that the other carpet had about 4 months of wear on it and the new is, well, new.  There's a HUGE difference in color and texture between the two.  Lowe's wants us to have it steam cleaned, but if it's still obvious, they'll replace it all.

The good news is that even if it has to be replaced, the new carpet guy is great.  The seam down the center of the two worn pieces is nearly invisible, and if it weren't for the color and texture differences, the other seam would also be invisible.  So, if we get new carpet in, he'll make it look perfect.  Something to look forward to.

A while back, we gave Daniel some little fruit puff stars (a fruit flavored rice crispy type finger food) and when we gave him a bath, we found several of them in the bathroom.  I wasn't sure where he was keeping them, but now I know for sure.  He had some Cheerios for a snack this morning and when I changed his diaper, I found four of them down the front of his diaper.  We have now found at least one of his stashes.  Now if we could only figure out where he stuck Josh's nametag for four days...

By the way, Daniel is still immensely cute.  If you don't believe me, check out the duckie bathrobe pictures in my photo box.

Kroger is having a sale on Breyer's ice cream, Private Selection ice cream, and Breyer's ice cream treats like Klondike bars.  Not only were they 4 for $10, but for some reason, we got an additional $8 off under "MFG COUPON".  So, essentially, we got $33 worth of ice cream for $13.  I'll take it!

Daniel and I just got back from the Farmers' Market.  We spent all of five dollars, but we came home with:  1.5 pounds of gorgeous home grown tomatoes from Muddy Pond, 5 ears of corn, 2 foot long zucchini, and 5 medium sized yellow squash (between 6-7 inches long).  Everything looked so much better than the produce at the grocery store and cost SO much less.  I love our Farmers' Market.  Thanks, Mom, for convincing me to go!

Apparently, despite how much I like scallops, they do not like me.  The last two times that I ate scallops I got very sick.  VERY sick.  Yesterday was a bad day.  What exactly do mothers do when they throw up every time they stand up and yet still have to take care of a baby?  I think that would certainly be worth knowing.  

The seam now looks worse than it did before.  If you ever feel the urge to buy new carpet, don't get it from Lowe's.  Their subcontractors leave MUCH to be desired.  To add insult to injury, an hour before the guy was supposed to show up yesterday, he called and asked if any time on Monday would be good.  I informed him in an ever so slightly irritated voice that, seeing as all of the furniture from my living room was currently in my kitchen, our shcheduled time would be fine, thanks.

I'm just a bit peeved about the whole situation.