Saturday, February 23, 2008

Kaleb: Year One

Kaleb's First Birthday


Last weekend we celebrated Kaleb's first birthday at our house on the 17th. We had the Riebe's up from CT and NYC for the weekend so they could attend the party. All in all it went very well, Kaleb had his own cake which he was slow to get into, but eventually ate a good chunk of it. Of course there was a giant pile of presents which he really enjoyed.

We also went to his one year physical and found that he now weighs 16lbs 7oz which puts him in the 2nd percentile. On the flip side his height was 28.75", putting him in the 20th percentile. So weight-wise he is progressing at a consistent rate, but height-wise he is growing taller at a greater than average rate.

The first week of his second year with us has been relatively difficult due to illness. Already in 2008, he has had a cough and runny nose for most of the year. Back in the middle of January he had an ear infection. Now over the last week he has the cough and runny nose, with a high fever and a little conjunctivitis thrown in for good measure. Luckily he seems to be feeling much better now and is back to his old self again.

Yesterday we had yet another winter storm which brought in about 7 inches of nice light snow. It is now all shoveled and we are ready to start the day.

Thats it for now.
Keeg

Monday, February 11, 2008

New Bathroom

Kaleb: Day 358


I only have a minute, but I wanted to put some update on here. This weekend was primarily spent in our bathroom, either tearing it down or helping Jon to put it back together. You see originally we planned on just stripping the wallpaper and painting the bathroom, but once the paper was off it was clear that we needed to put up new sheet rock. Thankfully Jon rocks and came over on Saturday and showed the bathroom walls who is the boss.

It was interesting to see what is behind the walls especially where the squirrels apparently use as Grand Central station. Right behind the bathroom is where they come in and there were so many nuts stored there. We covered up the hole and cleaned up all of the nuts.

Besides that I also spent the rest of the weekend working. It is almost time for us to send a new release to one of our customers and I have been working around the clock. Thankfully once it is out the door I will finally get a chance to relax. It looks like I might even get a few days off for free.

Only one more week until Kaleb's first birthday. We have several gifts for him that he is sure to love. I can't believe how fast the year has gone.

Until next time.

Wednesday, February 6, 2008

Another Trip to the Doctors

Kaleb: Day 350


As I said before Kaleb had another cold, we seem to be on pace for one every month. Luckily this one lasted only five days instead of fifteen. The other difference was that this time he was tugging on his ears, so we thought he might have an ear infection. The doctor thought otherwise although my mom still has her suspicions. For now he seems to be in better spirits and his nose isn't as runny as it had been.

On the bedroom front we do have a new difficulty with him though, now he likes to stand up in his crib. Now at first this is very cute, but it takes him forever to fall asleep. The other problem is when he finally does fall asleep it is usually in an odd position like a crumpled little pile, its very sad.

Kaleb had another first over the weekend, his first Patriots loss. It was a crazy game and as you probably know it was quite a disappointment. We had a small group of friends over for some pizza, nachos and ice cream sundaes. It was a nice evening and now we have a ton of extra food again.

We did a little bit of work on the house over the weekend. Originally we planned to strip the wallpaper in the bathroom upstairs, but once we peeled back the paper the underlying walls were a mess. So now we are going to tear down and then put up new sheet rock in our bathroom, with Jon's help of course. We were lucky enough to have Jon over this weekend installing our dishwasher.

We had some other house problems on Saturday. I went down to the basement to see how it was fairing after the previous night's rain and found about five inches of water. We had recently shut off the pump because the exhaust pipe was frozen and now I had to set up a separate pipe out the bulkhead. At first I didn't fasten the pipe tight enough and it popped off causing a geyser of water to shoot out of the pump. Eventually I got everything worked out and the basement drained. As you would expect that isn't the end of the story, the next morning I went down to check things out and there as just as much water, it seems that the bobber that tells the pump to start was stuck down so it didn't run all night. It is now nicely settled in the hole and there haven't been anymore problems. Tonight I actually bought an extension so the water wouldn't be draining into the neighbors yard. So far so good.

Two more things, yesterday Kaleb and I went to lunch with Tammy and Lilli at Me and Ollie's. I hadn't seen Tammy in probably ten years, our parents were friends growing up and then we also were friends way back in the North Brook days. We all had a really great time and are looking forward to getting together again. Jennifer is especially excited to know somebody around our area with a small one.

Finally, work has been insane lately. We are nearing the end of our next release and I have been working night and day. Thankfully it looks like this will be my last project of this type and my work life will begin looking up. I am very excited because at this point I am working myself into the ground.

Thats it for now. Hope all is well.
Keegan

Friday, February 1, 2008

Sick Again

Kaleb has caught another cold and it has been a long miserable week. Jennifer is also sick and that combined with Kaleb's sickness has really made for some long nights. We have found the three most useful items are an aspirator, Ocean drops and baby tylenol. There really isn't much you can do with babies with regards to cough medicine and they don't quite understand blowing their nose or clearing their throats. He does seem to be feeling better this morning, which is hopefully a trend.

In other news we are now in February and it is only 16 days until he turns one. Its amazing how time has flown by and how big he has grown over the last year. He has really stepped up over the last few weeks and really turned into a little boy. From the pointing at things by command "Where are the birdies?" to the climbing up the stairs. We still haven't planned his birthday, but it will probably be something small involving cake and pizza.