First Freckle - Come Out, Come Out Wherever You Are

I usually call my mom soon after we update our photo website and then we look at the pictures together. We updated late Saturday night so when I called her first thing Sunday morning she had already beat me to the new pics. We went through them all again and when we got to this one, she asked if he had his first freckle on his forehead or maybe in the corner of his eye. No, he only got in an alley cat fight with himself. I am really diligent about keeping his nails short but this is what happens if they are not kept nubby.



My sister and I are covered in freckles. Lots and lots. My husband calls me Cheetara. It's not a question of if for Jax, it's a matter of when. My mom seems to think we got our first one around 10 months. So last night I looked on the internet for common age for a first freckle appearance. I found lots of blogs where mothers were recounting their child's first. The ages spanned anywhere from 6 months to 3 years. Hmm. I can't help but wonder when I will be posting about my baby's first. This post doesn't count, right?

Cali Out, The World In

T and I have decided we are not going to live in Palo Alto for a month. We never ended up finding a great place to rent and the weather hopefully has taken its final turn into better days around here (aka:no more snow). We did discuss these other possibilities for travel:

*This one is confirmed - 2 weeks in FL in May. T has a conference and we are going to meet his family out there to head off their otherwise imminent trip out here. They will be coming from North Carolina. Oh, how I am looking forward to those 6 days!

*There is a conference in June in Paris. T has not signed on for this one yet as we are not sure we are ready for this trip. We would be looking at a total of 10 hours on a plane with a 1 year old. Hmm. The timing is perfect however as my best friend will be there at the exact same time! She lives in San Francisco and we don't see each other as often as we would like. If we go, we would probably spend a week in Paris and a week somewhere else? If we are going to put the effort into getting there we are going to make it worth our time, dammit!

*1 to 2 months this winter in Australia and New Zealand. Again a conference is the draw and the weather here and long flights make anything shorter not worth it. T loves New Zealand after spending several months there back in his galavanting days. It was one of stops on our wedding/honeymoon trip and I have to agree with him, I want to be a Kiwi for awhile, too! I just did a search for tickets yesterday and they were like, $2000. Each. Those need to go down.

Other than those major trips, there is a little bit of talk around a trip to NYC, maybe a week in Barbados. T's dad's family is from/live there and I love this place! All these trips sound fun and exciting but I am always held back from the excitement somewhat by the inevitable doom of traveling with a toddler. Not only for the duration of the plane rides, but taking him out of his environment and his perfect routine. Why would I want to mess with a baby who happily goes to sleep on his own at 7 in his own crib? Because I like to make myself anxious, I suppose, and I'm just plain crazy!

Roseola Infantum

Last Wednesday night I thought Jax felt warm as I was reading to him before he went to bed. Then on Thursday and Friday he ran a fever ranging from 101 to 103. He didn't have any other sick symptoms - no cough, runny nose, etc. I had a sore throat myself and just assumed we were both getting colds. Well, his fever broke sometime Friday night, but then on Saturday he started getting a rash, mainly on his torso, neck, and the lower part of his face. My first thought was I've eaten something or he has that has really set off his eczema (I hope to post about this soon - Jax has suspected allergies to milk and eggs.)

On Friday during the period of high fever, I was looking on the internet trying to find out when I should call/go see the Dr. if at all. It seems like we are always sick over the weekend and I wanted to go in Friday as opposed to making a trip to urgent care that weekend. Well, I found somewhere that I should call if his temp was around 104. I decided not to call and just see how it went. T and I agreed that the Dr. was probably not going to give him anything since he didn't seem to have other symptoms so why go in just for him to tell us, give him rest and lots of fluids.

On Sunday, the rash seemed more pronounced and the same on Monday. I remembered seeing something while I was looking on Friday about high fever and rash. Sure enough, there is a a viral infection called Roseola Infantum, also known as Sixth Disease, which is characterized by a high fever and a rash that develops after the fever has subsided. Turns out this is a common illness for children between the ages of 6 months and 2 years. It's usually not serious in most cases but the fast rising fever can trigger seizures. So apparently, we lucked out on that because I would have lost my shit if Jax would have started seizing. Below is a picture of what his belly looked like yesterday. The rash is starting to go away and he looks much better this morning.

Turtle Love

Yes, that is a dinosaur HUMPING a turtle. Yes, my husband is demented. The other morning I asked him if we had any pictures to upload on the camera as I was going to update our photo website. He was all, "Yeah, I took some this morning. Check 'em out." So later I was doing just that and this beauty and several others like it were discovered. Very funny, T.

We are undecided about whether or not to spend a month in California. The weather is getting nicer here which makes the decision even tougher. The place we had hoped to get sometime in March was not going to be available until April and so we started to rethink it. As far as other travel, it looks like we will be in FL for about a week or so right around Jax's first birthday. T has a conference in Orlando and some friends in Tampa we would like to see. They have a 6 month old daughter and we have not gotten together since the little ones were born. Also, my MIL has been wanting to visit for Jax's first birthday and we are thinking we will just have them meet us in Tampa instead.

I can't believe I used to live in Orlando. That seems like someone else's life! I moved there when I was 19 with my boyfriend at the time. He was going to be attending Full Sail recording school and I was going to support him! HA! Basically, that's what ended up happening. Needless to say, it was over after about a year and a half and I moved back to TX. That's a whole other post for another day!

April Fools Day?

Yesterday afternoon Uncle K came over and hung out with Jax while I went to the gym. T had come home for lunch and ended up staying home that afternoon. When I got back from the gym I was laughing with K about how I should have come home and told T I was pregnant and how great that would have been to have gotten him like that. Later that evening in bed before falling asleep I had a major emotional meltdown and after it was over I asked T if he thought I might be pregnant because where the hell did that come from? This morning he asks me to take a pregnancy test. I will, and I'm 90% sure I'm not, but if I am, ohh brother, or sister...