Friday, March 5, 2010

Raleigh trip and home again

It's been a crazy week, and I haven't had much extra time to post. Even now there are a ton of things I ought to be doing instead of writing this post, heh.

Last weekend I went to a conference in Raleigh. I have yet to travel anywhere away from Carter overnight, and don't plan to do so anytime soon, but this conference was convenient since Raleigh is just a short hour's drive from where my family lives. My mom came to hang out with Carter while I went to the conference sessions on Friday and Saturday, and they went and did some fun things together. Carter is used to staying in hotels, but was a little confused about why Doug wasn't there. He had fun playing in the room, though.



They went to Marbles Children's Museum on Friday, and Mom took some pictures.







This one is pretty interesting. I don't know if he has any idea how important this particular piece of equipment was in his early weeks.



My cousin Julie lives in Raleigh, and Mom took Carter to go play with her and her daughter Matti on Saturday. They went to a big inflatables indoor play place, and the kids apparently had a blast. Mom and Julie got worn climbing up all the slides after them. Until then, Carter had never gone on one of those big inflatables, but that day he decided to do it!

On Sunday, my sister came from Greensboro with her kids, and we took them all back over to the inflatables place to play. Here are some of the pictures my mom took.







Here are my sister Donna,her daughter Emma, and my cousin Julie.



Matti and Aidan:



We went back to Julie's house afterwards, and my dad and Barbara, who were on their way home from the beach that day, stopped by to visit and see all the kids. When Carter saw my dad, the first thing he said was, "Ride tractor!" It's funny how that's something he really remembers, even though it's been 6 months! When we left Julie's to go back to the hotel, Carter started saying, "Ride tractor, see chickens." A few minutes later, he started to cry, "Riiiide tractorrrrr!" and was sobbing, poor kid! I think he had just realized we weren't going over to Papa's house. It was so sad to see how disappointed he was, but at the same time it was really sweet.

It was good to have a day to just hang out and watch the kids play and catch up with everyone. Considering how far away from NC we live, we get quite a few of those. I'm glad Carter got a chance to hang out with his cousins for a weekend. He seemed to have a lot of fun spending time with his Nana and playing.

We flew home on Monday morning (which was an adventure due to a massive wreck on the highway going to the airport) and the airline agent gave Mom a pass to come through security with us and hang out until our flight took off. Carter got a little upset when he realized his Nana wasn't getting on the plane with us!

This was the first set of flights for which Carter had to have his own seat. It went fine, though he's still not too keen on sitting down with a seat belt on for the entire takeoff and landing. It's actually nice for him to have his own space, though. He spent the leg from Chicago to Austin mostly watching his DVD player, and I was able to sit there and read an entire magazine. I can't remember the last time I could read on an airplane while he was awake!

He came home with a bit of a runny nose, which turned into a mild cough by Wednesday, and then a pretty rough cough on Wednesday night. These days that almost always means trouble, and sure enough, the sitter called me on Thursday morning to tell me he was lethargic and wheezing. Fortunately she knew how to use the nebulizer (and I had set everything out for her that morning just in case), so it was no problem for her to give him a treatment. When I came home at 4:00, he was asleep in her arms, lethargic and miserable. We spent the evening curled up on the couch, doing nebulizer treatments and cuddling. Carter was pretty miserable around midnight, but then was able to settle down and actually slept really well. The worst seems to be over now. We've done a few more nebulizer treatments this morning, and his cough is milder.

It's amazing how quickly he can go downhill, and then how quickly it passes. Even a mild cough can become a big problem for him, and I think this is just something we'll have to stay on top of through his childhood. It's now at the point where I'm thinking that we'll take the nebulizer with us if we're going to be anywhere for a week or more. I don't want to be stuck somewhere without it. That stuff works so well!

Carter seems to like the nebulizer treatments, oddly enough. He has a big stuffed elephant and a hippo, both of whom are also sick, and he gives them nebulizer treatments too. It's so adorable! He holds the mouthpiece up to their mouths and makes a sound like the machine makes. Then he hands them to me and says they need milk, LOL!

Doug is home sick today too, so it feels a little like a Saturday. I'm not sure if Doug caught Carter's cold, or if it's something else, but I'm completely fine, as usual. Carter seems to be on the mend, and hopefully Doug will be feeling better by the end of the weekend.

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