Don't worry...you can't catch it.

Well, we now know why we are so sick. Thanks to a few concerned co-workers of mine we now know that the reason we keep getting the "flu" is because it isn't the "flu" at all. It’s carbon monoxide poisoning. (Well, I still think we all had the flu, but I don't think this helped us get better.) After gentle urging from two friends (thanks Carol and Gina!) I called Xcel this afternoon and they sent someone over to test our house. Apparently we have leaks coming from our oven and from the furnace piping leading outside.

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What NEXT!? (God, if you’re reading this please don't answer that.) We just replaced the water heater two weeks ago in the basement because that was apparently leaking CO also, so now we have two more issues to deal with. Bruce was nice enough to come over and stuff some insulation in the holes in the wall to plug the leaks. Hopefully that works. The man from Xcel said we could just turn our stove vent on whenever we are cooking something and that should help with the leaky range for now. I am calling Excel back tomorrow to see if they can come re-check and make sure the furnace piping is not leaking anymore. We got a red WARNING ticket and were told that if it weren't winter that Xcel would have had to shut off our gas completely until we proved we fixed the problem. Yikes!

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We probably should have known better - CO poisoning is known to cause confusion, memory problems, and ... what was I talking about? Well, anyway, now we know why all of our animals are so dumb - the kitty litter box is in the basement. Poor Rico. As if he didn't have enough problems when we got him from the shelter! (I have to laugh about this or I'll cry.) And you know what? Our carbon monoxide detectors never even went off! Now I feel super guilty about complaining that Evan is so fussy ALL the time - maybe he has had a constant headache all winter long from the CO gas... what awful parents we are!

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So, if you have a moment to wish us some luck (or to loan us some money - ha ha, just kidding) please do!

Jeremy strumming on his guitar. Evan loves it. Sometimes its the only way to distract him from crying (that, and the fish tank.)

Evan and his poor eyeball...on the bright side, Evan was 6 months old on Sunday and his FIRST TOOTH poked through! No wonder he has been chewing on everything in sight... His left bottom tooth in the front is just starting to cut through. Poor kid - as if being sick and having pink-eye isn't enough!

Okay, so lets recap: Three weeks ago Jeremy brought home the flu. Then Evan caught it, then Emily caught it, and then Jeremy caught it back again. After the flu passed, it turned into a nasty cold that we have been battling ever since. Evan's cold has prevented him (and us) from getting any sleep at night, and Saturday night it migrated to his left eye so now he also has pink-eye. And today, Emily caught the flu bug back again. This is getting ridiculous!

My poor baby! I feel so bad for the little guy.
Does anyone want a baby? We would love to "loan out" Evan to one lucky couple for one week. Why? Because his nasty flu turned into a nasty cold, and Evan's mom hasn't gotten more than 3 hours of broken sleep a night since last Sunday. Last night was particularly awful. Instead of screaming (and yes, he screams, not cries.) from 10-midnight and crying from 1:30-2:30 and getting up stuffy and crying at 4 am or so (our routine) he cried and screamed almost the enitire night long. Dad was even home for this one so he helped out between 3:30 and 4:15am.

Since he can't breath out of his nose he is unable to suck on his pacifier to go to sleep - and since the screaming and crying makes his congestion worse, his first bout of screaming usually causes two or three more bouts of screaming. Anyway, its loads of fun but we would like it to be done now. Unfortunately, I think its getting worse instead of better.

For all of you out there who love to give parenting advice: YES - we elevate his head while sleeping, and YES - we have a humidifier running all night long, and YES - I try to use those worthless little nose-suction bulbs and, YES - I have tried sitting him up in the bathroom while I run a hot, steamy shower (this does help me, however) and finally, YES - we have saline nose drops but no, they aren't helping. If you have any other advice (other than using recalled over-the-counter cold medicine) please leave a comment. At this point we are almost willing to try centrifugal force if it will help him get the snot out of his nose so we can SLEEP!

So - any takers on some extended nighttime babysitting?

No? Are you sure?

P.S. Evan will be 6 months old tomorrow! Can you believe it?

Does that say...? Yep! NEGATIVE TWENTY degrees. Brrrr... I had to keep my hood on in the car it was so cold. Here is Evan's new trick. He shoves his pacifier all the way in his mouth (sometimes he can shut his mouth around it.) It scares mom half to death for fear he's going to choke. Evan thinks its hysterical.
Its a kitty sandwich! Its the opposite of an Oreo cookie - the cream filling is on the outside. Actually, since the fat cat is in the middle maybe the cream filling is in the inside after all...

I normally don't post many photos of Evan unless he is smiling or happy - but this set was so funny that I couldn't resist. These four photos are IN ORDER, by the way. I snapped four pictures in a row, so it is important that you look at them in order, and realize that the sequence of events was this:

1. Evan is happily bouncing in his jump-a-roo
2. Evan stops bouncing
3. Evan begins to sneeze (pre-sneeze photo)
4. Evan sneezes (post-sneeze photo)

I laughed so hard I almost peed my pants.

I just can't seem to keep my socks on!Ugh! I just burped! Not a very flattering photo, but it made mom laugh so hard she had to share it...

I love to try to type when I'm on mom's lap. In fact, mom let me type this: "b jklhjkn hk b bv vbh yvbn f bvb kgsr7a5fdx ezdsz fwx" (He actually did type that, by the way.) Evan's left eye looks swollen because it is swollen. His tear duct still hasn't unplugged from when he was born so it tears up a lot. Sometimes it gets red and swollen. We keep massaging it but the doctor says if it doesn't clear up by the time he's twelve months old they'll have to "open it " with a needle. Ouch. We haven't taken many sleeping baby pictures lately so I thought I would catch one of Evan napping on the couch.

So I neglected to mention that Jeremy had the flu first (last weekend - congratulations Anna and Seth! Sorry we missed the wedding.) and then he gave it to Evan and then Evan gave it to me. Somewhere one of us gave it back to Jeremy, so it has now come full circle and all three of us were sick this weekend. I hope nobody catches it from any of us - we're not sure where Jeremy caught it in the first place. Could have been a Wal-Mart shopping cart for all we know. Serves us right for shopping there, I guess! Either way, everybody take your vitamins!

Evan had the flue the past few days. It was horrible. I never thought a little baby could throw up so much. Luckily, it was just curdled milk. The poor guy threw-up the whole day on Thursday and had a fever for most of the day today. He's been really restless and uncomfortable. He is on the "up-swing" now, however, and is back to playing with his toys and giggling as usual, despite a temperature of 99.7 degrees. Let's cook those germs out of his system!

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I like to eat my socks...

And my feet...Surprise! They taste like feet...

Evan's pal Alejandro came over for a visit tonight with "Auntie" Becky. Auntie Becky was babysitting for our friend, Amber, and did a wonderful job. Ali is only 2 1/2 months old and boy, is he a cutie-pie! He was so well behaved and he and Evan liked each other a lot. They were giggling and cooing back and forth for a few minutes before Evan had a temper-tantrum because I wouldn't let him grab Ali's face. He probably wanted to see how he tasted. God knows everything else goes in his mouth nowadays. So, I managed to get a few cute picks of Becky and Ali, but none of Ali and Evan. Better luck next time.

HAPPY NEW YEAR!

It is amazing how much Evan has "grown up" the past two weeks. He is sitting up by himself (most of the time,) content to play by himself for 10 minutes or so, and his hand/eye coordination has improved by leaps and bounds. He finally realizes that he can make those five little pink sausages attached to his arm do things for him! And his favorite thing to grab? His toes! (And mommy's hair...I made the mistake of letting him "ride around" on my shoulders Saturday night and he hung on with two huge fist fulls of my hair - ouch!)

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His brain seems to have matured about three months in the last week. You can visually "see" him thinking and contemplating things, unlike before. It makes me a little bit sad, because he is definitely out of his "newborn" stage and into the "baby" phase now. He's growing up so fast! Every time I turn around he is doing something new. Its hard to keep up with it all. If I learned that fast I would be able to calculate parabolic and elliptic partial differential equations by midnight! (I don't even know what those are...I just know they are hard and would take lots of learnin' to figure out.)

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Here's Evan playing on the floor...he was sitting up, but was trying to look at me behind him and fell over.

He loves the teddy bear that his Great-Grandma Nelson gave him for Christmas!