Too Productive

Well, I went a little out of control this evening. I brought the total of new albums up to 4 for the day. Here they are:

Destin's 5th Month
Gran and Pop Pop's Visit
Dr. Joe's Visit
New Years Eve 2003

I doubt the New Years album will have much traffic, considering it's March tomorrow. Plus, there's not a picture of Destin. The others are filled with the little pea packer though. Enjoy! :-)

Bachelor Weekend

Destin and I managed not to burn the place down while Mama was out of the house. We had a good weekend. We ate, we slept, we read, we watched some movies...typical couch potato bachelor weekend!

Sheri had her soccer tourney down in Pueblo. They lost today, so that was a little tough.

Destin was 6 months old yesterday, WOO HOO! We celebrated by having some applesauce. He also got applesauce because he was so good eating green beans all week with Mama.

I put a couple of albums up on the photos page. I'm going to try to put another big one up tonight while watching the Academy Awards. How's that for multi-tasking?

Destin has a doctor's appointment on Tuesday for his third round of shots. He's got some red bumps on his check, ear, and arm that we are going to get checked out as well.

Blog On the Back Burner

Seems as if I've put the blogging off the past few days. Not intentionally, Gran and Pop Pop visited last weekend, we all had a great time. Then, I headed out to LA for some fun training and got back last night.

Destin has been okay this week. He's still got a cough and the sniffles. He hasn't been running a fever, so we are not too concerned. He seems to have most of his strength still, he just gets annoyed with all the snot. Don't we all at some point...:-) He's next doctor's appointment is the 2nd. So, if he's still got this crud, we'll see what the doctor says.

It's going to be a bachelor weekend this weekend in the Hirsch household. Sheri is heading down to the Springs on Friday for a soccer tournament with her girls. Maybe Destin and I will invite all our rowdy friends over. :-)

Well, that's all for now. I'm hoping to be better next week.

Jeeps Rule

We got some news this week. Sheri and I think it's more good news then bad news though. She was laid off from Fair Isaac.

It was nice to have some extra cash coming in, but now she can be with Destin all the time. We are both very excited about that. Today is actually Sheri's first "official" day of stay at home mom.

Yesterday it was beautiful here. Sheri took the pea packer for a little stroll through the park in his jeep, and they read books and went over Destin's favorite bridge.

Then, Sheri and I had to do "the switch". She had soccer practice at 4:30, so we met at the Safeway between my work and home. I took Destin and went home, and Sheri went to practice. So Destin actually got to ride in two Jeeps yesterday. This will probably be the drill every Monday and Wednesday for the next few weeks.

Anyway, that's all I got for now, I'm sure I'm missing something, but I can always add it later.

Busy, busy, busy...

It's been a busy few days in the Hirsch world.

Not so much filled with newsworthy events, just life in general. Here are a few high points...

Sheri and I got to get away for a little bit on Valentine's Day. We went to Mama Roma's and saw "Along Came Polly". It was a nice night. Grandma and Grandpa Stackpole kept the little pea packer for us. I think they all had fun!

We switched Destin to a lactose-free formula. We are not sure when we will switch back, I think we are just going to watch it for the next week. He's back on rice cereal again. Apparently, (from Gran and Pop Pop) rice cereal is supposed to help the pooping department. This is yet to be determined as he had some pretty solid poop today.

Moving on from the "GI" talk, yesterday was a day filled with friendly faces. Destin and I went to Sheri's soccer game along with Auntie Jill. Last night, we went over to Uncle T and Rai's place for dinner. They got him some Valentine presents as well.

It was a pretty mellow President's Day, and it was nice to have off. Bry and I hit my favorite market, and Sheri had soccer practice. Guess we'll get back into reality tomorrow...:-)

Ciao...

Getting Better

A little more snow in Denver today.

Destin is still trying to get over the stomach issues he's had for the past week. He's had a great day today, still some diarrhea, but that's it.

We got a little scared yesterday as he threw up 6 times over two feedings. Sheri called the doctor after it happened because she was told that Destin could develop a minor lactose intolerance while he was sick. She wanted to make sure that was not the case.

We told her that we had been mixing Destin's formula at 24 calorie. She told us to try mixing it at 20 calorie and see what happens. So we've being doing that, and he hasn't thrown up since.

The incident has been now been labeled a "rogue" puke.

He goes to Cindy tomorrow. Sheri goes into the office after being away for a couple weeks.

That's about it...

Quarantine Hirsch

Destin had his first big "sickness" last week. Wednesday morning around 2:30 AM, Sheri heard a weird noise on the monitor. She rushed in to see what had happened and Destin had thrown up all over.

I woke up shortly after, and went in as well. I sat up with them until 4, and went back to bed for a couple hours before work. Sheri was up with him the rest of the night.

He was throwing up and had diarrhea most of Wednesday morning. Sheri called the nurse at our doctor's office. She informed Sheri that Destin may have the rotavirus which is going around and is pretty common for babies.

We did a little research on it, and the rotavirus is the main cause of diarrhea in 3 month to 3 year olds. During that time of life, 100% of all kids with have a bout with it.

So, we brought him into Dr. Dickerson. She didn't totally say it was rotavirus, but rather that he had some stomach or intestinal irritation. The fun stuff. She told us that the vomiting such stop later that day, and diarrhea could continue for 5 to 7 days. (Currently we are on day 6)

Needless to say, Wednesday shook us up a little bit as new parents. Until Thursday.

Thursday morning I get a call at work from Sheri telling me that she is having the same "issues" as Destin. So she called in the lefty.

I get home from work around 2 o'clock in the afternoon and take over as care taker for both Sheri and Destin. Sheri went down for a much needed nap, and I walked with Destin until he feel asleep.

I knew that I had to protect myself. First of all because we needed someone healthy and secondly because I HATE spewing. :-)

So I washed my hands and used Purell every 2 minutes. My hands are raw from all the chemicals I have had on them.

Thursday night was pretty rough for me. Got maybe 2 hours of sleep. Sheri was restless all night, and I was up with Destin every hour. Not necessarily because he was sick, but because I needed to see if he would take any fluid.

Friday I stayed home from work to continure my duties. It was much the same. I started making beef broth for Sheri because she was starving. Destin had french onion...:)

I was up at 3:30 AM on Saturday morning because the pea packer decided he wanted to be up then. However, I was well rested because Sheri made the good call of going to be early. So we went down when "The Fritz" went down around 8 PM.

Sheri started to come back to life on Saturday and was able to help out. She went out to get some diaps, a movie, and a few breaths of fresh air, as she literaly hadn't been out of the house since the past Monday.

Yesterday, we started to get a little worried. We had been giving him pedialyte as the first thing after he woke up, and three days straight he puked it back up. The rest of the day he would be fine with formula. So Sunday we decided to get another opinion. We called the phone nurse at Dr. Dickerson's offce.

We told the nurse our concerns and she paged the doctor on call to give us a holler. When we told the doc what was going on, he wasn't too alarmed and told us to keep on doing what we are doing.

So we have.

Destin is doing okay. As mentioned earlier he still has some diarrhea, and he isn't eating his full portions. We think tomorrow will be his turn around day. He got a visit from Grandma and Grandpa Stackpole on Sunday that helped out a bunch too.

I am happy to say that the immune system that God blessed me with was able to fend off any attack of the ugly stuff. I really didn't want to have it coming out of both ends. No me gusta.

We learned a lot in the past few days. It's tough to see your child sick, especially when they can't talk to you. We could tell by his eyes that he was scared, but he was happy we were with him.

He has liked his swing for the first time in his life. Sheri put him in it yesterday and he loved it.

More tomorrow on Destin's status...

Changing Pads Make Good Targets

Yesterday Destin had one of those days. He didn't really want to eat for Sheri; He wasn't amused by anything she did. He just wanted to be fuss. He was pretty mellow when I got home from work though.

However, when I changed him for his 11:30 PM feeding, he wet the changing pad cover pretty good. He ate well, and took a big ole poop so I had to change him again. Since I was pretty tired, I threw caution to the wind and put Destin down on his changing pad a little too soon, especially after eating. So he spit up a little bit. Another changing pad cover change...:-)

Ah well, you live and learn, I suppose. Didn't seem to bother him much, he got up smiling.

He did have a busy day on Monday. He went to Dr. Allen to get his tubes checked. Everything looked good. Sheri talked to him about some of the high-level logistics for his cleft palate surgery. We didn't have any big questions, and we didn't get that much new information, so no real report on that besides stating that it happened.

Sheri and Destin had an adventure in the T-Rex mess. There is this Entennmann's bakery that is down south of town. Normally, it's pretty easy to get to, but with the construction mess, a 5 minute exit off the highway has turned into a 20 minute sojourn through the remnant roads of T-Rex.

They went there to see if the could find those devil's food cake donuts with the chocolate crumbles and powdered sugar. To this day, they are my second favorite donut of all time, behind Krispy Kreme. I haven't had one in an age though, haven't been able to find them. Any information or leads would be appreciated!

Destin learned how to play with one of his toys. Sheri was showing him how to roll the sides of this toy, and he did it by himself! It was neat. He even did it again for his Dad when he got home. I was impressed!

Today, he went to lunch with Sheri and Stacy. They went to a Mongolian barbeque place. Yummy. Then, Sheri and Destin went to go surprise Grandma at the Hyatt. He had a quick snack there and they headed back home.

He's crashed out right now, and I need to bug out to go get ready to feed him for the last time today.

We are supposed to get a few inches of snow tonight in the Denver area. Will keep you posted...

Destin's Super Bowl Shuffle

As much as we would have liked it to have been with "Sweetness" and Gault, Singletary, and The Fridge; we had to settle for Justin Timberlake, Janet Jackson, Nelly and P.Diddy.

I have to be honest, we weren't that excited about the game this year. And, I wasn't too impressed by the commericals. The Sierra Mist commerical with the pipers was good.

We went over to BK's to watch the game and grub a little. Destin was flirting and got spoiled by all the girls. He wore his Tennessee Titans shirt to show his true loyalties. I was "Spill Boy", a title that I'm very used to. :-)

I have to say it was a good weekend. I fed Destin 2 tablespoons of squash.

<mytwocents>
For any new parents out there, particularly those that are starting solid foods, I recommend squash. It's not as thick as sweet potatoes, but it's got enough consistency for baby to learn about solid food. This coming from my vast experience in baby food including: rice cereal, sweet potatoes and...well, squash. :-)
</mytwocents>

Destin seems to enjoyed it. I suppose that's the true key, isn't it?

Sheri had him doing some big laughs today. I could have watched that for hours. It's was a neat connection; Destin getting the same enjoyment out of his Mama tickling him as his Dad hearing his son's beautiful chuckle.

Anyway, need to get some more grub into the little pea packer. I'm sure I've forgotten something from the weekend. I'll roll it into tomorrow's entry if anything comes to mind.