Whirlwind - Standing, Crawling, Walking and Infections

Another crazy week - and very few posts. So much has been going on that I can barely keep up with it all! Perhaps the best thing to do is pick up where I left off - last Saturday. My intention was to scan and post Micah's 7 month photos (I will get to that shortly) and to post some adorable Micah video (also on deck).

Saturday was a fun day. I met a friend of mine for lunch at a new organic restaurant. The food was good and Micah had a wonderful time flirting with everyone there. We went to a pool party in the afternoon at our community pool. We invited a bunch of the babies and parents from our playgroup, and we had tons of fun! The babies swam, tugged at each other, shared food and showed off their talents. One of the babies can crawl and pull up to a stand, and she is putting the rest of our babies to shame with her precocious physicality. Actually, she was quite impressive at the pool - she was sitting in front of a pool chair, grabbed on with both hands, and did a massive pull-up to a stand. I swear I could see her back muscles flexing around her baby bikini! I had an image of one of those female bodybuilders flash through my head when I saw her pull-up!

Saturday night, we had our babysitter come back to take care of Micah while we went out to dinner with our friends. We decided on Chinese food, and it was delicious! I had forgotten about this particular restaurant, so it will now be added to our delivery list for future ordering. We initially planned on attending a movie, but bailed when we all realized how tired we were. Instead, we came back to the house and watched a movie on demand.

On Sunday, I went over to my parents' house to help my Dad set up his new computer - just the basics, like connecting the computer to the internet, transferring files from his old computer, making sure all the software and drivers he needed were installed. It was quite a job! I had a raging migraine that day, and Micah was being a bit of a grump, and I had a huge knot in my back - it was one of those days I should have just never gotten up!

Monday marked one week on South Beach diet. I am proud to say that I lost 5 lbs. I know that average and healthy weight loss is 1-2 lbs per week, but I hate that weight loss is such a slow process. Somehow, it never seems like I will be able to realize my goal. I guess 5 lbs off is better than 5 lbs on, right? I spent all day working my tail off - we had our babysitter here for the day, so I was able to accomplish a fair amount of work. We spent some of the time showing off our standing skills to the babysitter. While we were showing off, we decided to get really crazy...and took a step while holding on to the couch one-handed! I was stunned - he isn't crawling, but he is already trying to cruise. I am SOOO not ready for any of this.



Our other big event of the day? Jumping. In the jumperoo, to be more precise. Micah has been in the jumperoo many times over the past few months, but jumping has not been his thing. Until Monday. He discovered the joys of jumping, and he has been a jumping maniac every time we put him in the jumperoo now.

Monday evening was mah jong - another fun evening! However, Monday night is where my week took a bit of a "left turn" shall we say. While I was there, I received a call from DH asking whether I had heard if my brother was okay. My brother had posted on Facebook that he was at a clinic for an infection. After checking in with him, we learned that he went to a clinic because of an infection in his arm, and he thought it was no big deal.

Bright and early Tuesday morning, the babysitter arrived, along with a friend from playgroup and her daughter. My friend had an appointment, so she asked if she could share our babysitter for the morning. Micah and Emily were adorable playing together! They had such a good time, and I got several hours of work accomplished. While Emily and Micah were playing, I learned that my brother woke up and could not move his arm - the infection was worse. Stubborn idiot that he is, he refused to miss work and go to the hospital. We spent the entire day trying to convince him to seek help. In the afternoon, I went to my condo to finish emptying everything out while the babysitter watched Micah. We are hoping to have it fully emptied and cleaned and on the market by next month.

Somewhere in the middle of all this, it became clear that Micah is a crazy, clapping machine. He LOVES to clap. He claps when he is happy, he claps to hear the sound - he claps and claps and claps. Except when I turn on the video camera. I'm still working on clapping footage. He is so cute - he claps with his palms facing outwards, and he claps the palm of one hand on the back of the other hand. I still say that counts! In the meantime, here is some video of Micah (and the dog) playing together:



But wait, there's more! Micah waved at Emily on Tuesday morning while she was here. At least, I thought it was waving. He took his ENTIRE arm and waved it at her. He kept repeating it every time I said "wave, hello." He was very cute, but who knows if it was intended, right?

Tuesday night, my mom called, informing me that my brother was off to the hospital - and ANGRY about it. Apparently he was mad that we made him crazy so he was going to the hospital. It is a good thing we made him crazy - they admitted him to the hospital and put him on IV antibiotics. Turns out, he had septic bursitis and cellulitis, and it was a pretty nasty infection.

On Wednesday, Micah and I went to playgroup, and then I headed up to my brother in the hospital. I stayed with him for a few hours, then went to their house to babysit my nieces while my SIL went to the hospital. I played with them, made them dinner and put them to bed. It was a long day, but it was fun getting some quality time in with the girls. While I was up there, my mom and dad were watching Micah because DH had a work meeting. It was a big game of musical parenting/babysitting! The doctors were just confirming his diagnosis, and it appeared that the IV antibiotics were starting to work. Nevertheless, the orthopedic surgeon scheduled surgery to drain and clean the infection the following day, just in case things did not turn the corner.

Thursday morning started off with good news - luckily, the antibiotics worked, and we found out today that my brother is able to avoid surgery. My father was on his way up to help watch my nieces and bring them to the hospital to visit their Daddy, and then he was driving them back down here to spend a few nights with my parents. Micah and I spent our morning in music class again. Micah LOVES music class - he laughs, he smiles, and he seems to recognize the songs. He likes when he gets dipped, and he loves to play the instruments at the end. Much to my surprise, when he saw Emily in music class, he started waving again! He kept on waving when we sang a song about waving. In the afternoon, he waved when his good friend Micah (yes, another Micah) came over to play, too. Not only does he clap, he WAVES!! Even better? I captured it on video . . . sort of.





One more thing to mention - Micah crawled a bit in music class today, too. For the past few days, he has been leaning forward from a sit and trying to move, but he never quite gets anywhere or makes it onto all fours. Each time he tries, he seems to get a bit closer. This morning, he saw a blanket he wanted, he leaned forward, landed on hands and knees, took one crawl forward, grabbed the blanket and flopped on his belly and rolled over. I think I'm on the verge of having a heart attack! We've got clapping, waving, standing, a step and crawling all in one week?!? I'm not ready for him to be this mobile yet. He has repeated this almost crawl two other times today, so I'm now suspecting that "real" crawling is just around the corner. Perhaps I'll get lucky and it will take another month or two. It could happen!

We are now awaiting my brother's release from the hospital. Tomorrow is another busy day with work (I have to catch up on everything I did not accomplish Wednesday) and we are supposed to finish emptying my condo and moving some more things into storage. Will this process ever end? My nieces are here for the next two days, and on Sunday my cousin and her son are coming for a week-long visit. I'll try to stay on top of posting!

By the way - I should digress a second. I would like to take a moment to evangelize the values of the Flip camera - it is little pocket sized video camera that has a built-in USB port. We have been using it to record all those special moments in Micah's life. It is all digital, and it transfers to the hard drive in seconds - just plug into the USB drive and transfer. It simplifies sharing video of all those special moments.

Since I missed posting the video from the beach, I thought I'd tack it on here for good measure.