Jackson's New Room

Once Jackson climbed out of his crib last month, we knew we would have to start getting his new room ready complete with a big boy bed! Nana and Jiddu (my parents) were generous to give us a twin bed from their guest bedroom and Mimi and PopPop (Nick's parents) were so helpful and brought the bed up to Columbia for us...thank you grandparents!

And so it begins...I spent hours deciding on a new theme for his bedroom and searching for bedding and accessories and enjoyed every minute of it! Jackson has no idea that he is getting a new room, bed or anything in it. We decided on a contstruction truck theme and I have slowly been putting the room together in my "spare" time. Here are a few preliminary pics showing the progress...next on my list is the wall decor! A special thanks to Auntie Tamara for helping me with the decisions and putting up with countless picture messages!

Two days in a row?!?!?

No I'm not referring to my blogging regularity although that would be relevant with this title also. I am referring to Jackson and how he doesn't "need" me anymore and/or questions my knowledge (see post from yesteday). He just banged his elbow and said "Mommy, I hurt myself!" I replied with, "I'm sorry, come here and I'll kiss it better." Normally he comes right over, I give him a kiss and hug and he's completely healed :) Not today! Instead, Jackson said, "No Mommy, you're not a doctor, I need Daddy." Talk about a slap in the face! The good news is Nick was on his way home so Jackson didn't have to wait long to feel better.

And so it begins

We came home after school and as usual Jackson asked for a snack. He couldn't decide what he wanted so I decided to offer him something new, vanilla pudding. He loved it and was eating it up. Here's how our conversation went about midway through the snack...
Jackson: "Mommy, it's good, I like vanilla ice cream."
Me: "It's not ice cream, it's pudding."
J: "No, it's ice cream....see???"
We had a few more exchanges similar to that with me explaining the differences between ice cream and pudding. Then I guess Jackson had enough or felt sorry for me that I wasn't "getting it" so he walked over to me, started patting my shoulder and said, "It's okay Mommy, we all make accidents (his word for mistakes). It's vanilla ice cream."

On one hand, I can't believe he's already questioning me. I guess he isn't going to believe everything I tell him anymore. But on the other hand and the brighter side, at least I can give him pudding instead of ice cream!

Jacksonisms...well kind of...

Nick and Jackson watched Monsters, Inc. this afternoon. Towards the end I am told there is a somewhat sad part (I haven't seen the movie and I don't want to give it away if others haven't seen it yet either). Nick told me he glanced over at Jackson and noticed he had the saddest look on his face and was tearing up. My baby boy is so sensitive and empathetic...well towards monsters at least ;-)

He finally did it!

I've been waiting for this day for more than a year now. And yesterday it finally happened. Jackson climbed out of his crib! I will go ahead and say now, he's fine, didn't get hurt at all. I, on the other hand, am not so fine. I put Jackson in his crib yesterday for his nap and went out to run a few errands since Nick was home. When I returned, I asked Nick if Jackson had taken a good nap. Nick said he hadn't slept at all. He was in his crib talking and singing for an hour and then became very quiet. Nick thought he had finally fallen asleep. A few minutes later he heard Jackson so he checked our video monitor. To his surprise there was no one in the crib! A few minutes later Nick heard Jackson's bedroom door open and next thing he knew, Jackson was knocking on our bedroom door.

Even though I knew this day would happen sooner than later, and compared to other toddlers it happened later for Jackson, I'm still not ready to make the switch. Not to mention the fact that Jackson has been fighting his nap all together the last few weeks. I'm hoping this is just a phase and he will go back to his great two hour naps very soon. However, I know the crib climbing is not a phase and we will have to move him soon.

Jacksonisms...one of my favorites!

Recently, anytime Jackson asks for something whether it's to watch TV, eat, drink or anything that's considered "special" to him and we say no or we'll see, he responds with "Maybe yes?" And then we go back and forth for a few times and each time he pauses as if he's going to come back with a better argument for his case but all he says is "maybe yes?" It's pretty adorable :)

Our first visit to Richland's ER

While we have been to the hospital many times to visit Nick, we have never been to the ER. Well this morning, that changed. A little background on the issue...last April we noticed Jackson started wheezing. The pedi put him on albuterol and told us it's not asthma yet but it could be in the future or it could just be that he wheezes when he gets a virus or an allergic reaction to something. Since April, it has happened a handful of times and normally the albuterol does the trick and within a day or two, he's back to normal.

Yesterday afternoon, Jackson started coughing and wheezing all of a sudden. The albuterol wasn't helping but Nick didn't think it was anything serious at this point so we just gave him a warm bath, put the humidifier in his room and attempted to give him honey for the cough. Jackson didn't sleep well at all. I could hear him all night coughing and at 2AM he was up and crying for me saying it hurt. I went into his room to soothe him and could tell the wheezing had become worse so I gave him another round of albuterol. He laid back down so I left his room until I heard him calling for me again a few hours later. This time the wheezing was much worse, and the albuterol didn't help at all so I took him into our room to see what Dr. Daddy thought we should do. Nick agreed that it was definitely worse and time to take him to get some breathing treatments and possibly steroids. We tried calling our pedi after hours location but after waiting an hour with no call back we decided it wasn't worth the wait...

So off to the ER we went. Luckily, we were the only ones there and were taken back immediately. His stats weren't good, he had a low grade temp and didn't look good at all. It was obvious how much trouble he was having breathing. I was internally falling apart watching my baby have so much trouble breathing. Luckily Nick was with us and I was able to hold it together so Jackson didn't see his Mommy so scared. He had some breathing treatments which helped almost instantaneously, a chest xray which thankfully was clear and some steroids. We explained that the chest xray was just a picture so he smiled and said, "Cheese," it was so cute. A little over three hours and we were sent home with a prescription for steroids and directions to follow up with our pedi tomorrow.

Jackson seems to be doing much better. The steroids are altering his mood but we can handle two year old mood swings ;-) Unfortunately, we didn't get a definitive diagnosis much different than what we were told last April so at this point we just have to wait and see and hope he grows out of it.