David has learned to pull himself up...

This evening as Christy and I are sitting around chatting after dinner, kinda half-watching David, we just happened to look down as he is using his bouncer to pull himself up into a standing position.  It took him doing it another time before I could get my phone and put it into video record mode, but I did manage to capture him doing it for the third time in his life.

We have tried to keep our house empty of places for him to pull himself up, but alas, we are outsmarted again.  I guess there's no stopping progress.  As hard as I try to keep him a baby, he just insists on growing up.

Meeting Mike

Today, David experienced LSU for the first time.  Such a momentous occasion, I believe, demands a post.

In truth, I'm quite sure that he didn't care - one place he's never been is much like another.  Mike was sleeping in the shade, and I don't think David even noticed that he was there.

After that, we walked to the indian mounds and then across the quad.  Sadly, he didn't seem impressed.  He was probably just tired though, I'm sure if he was more awake he would have been totally excited.

So there you are.  David's first trip to the most beautiful campus on the planet, and he didn't even care.  Oh well, maybe when he's bigger he will understand how unbelievably awesome LSU is.

...there are lots more pictures in the "Month 8" picture link -->

AHH!! David is cutting a tooth!

No sooner did I post the administrative note, than we went to put David to bed.  For some reason unknown to anyone but him, he loves chewing on my fingers.  Nobody else's fingers, just mine.  For the past few days I've not been letting him do it, as all 3 of us are mildly ill at the moment.  But he had been trying to get them in his mouth all evening, and I'd just washed my hands, so I figured it was ok.

*scrape scrape

"Umm, Christy, I'm pretty sure I feel a tooth"

"Oh no, my baby!"

We had just been talking about how little we want him to grow up (crawl, walk, CUT TEETH), and he goes and does it.  Oh well, such is life I guess.  Gummy smile was never here to stay.

Quick administrative note

I've added a component on the sidebar that will let you subscribe to this blog via email (for those of you not into the RSS thing).  I presume it will send you an email any time I post an update.  If anyone tries it and it doesn't do that, let me know.

David is sick!

I had expected/planned to use this space to update David's progress as a baby, talk about all of his firsts, post pictures and videos of him doing awesome things, letting everyone know when he learns to crawl and walk and all those fun things.  I didn't really expect for the first "first" to be that David has his first (infectious) illness.

Christy has been feeling under the weather for a few days, and a couple days ago David started with a light cough, mostly at night.  We didn't really think much of it, but it persisted, and yesterday we just figured that it couldn't hurt to be cautious.  He already lives life with an 85% blood oxygen saturation (normal is 100%), all he needs is to get fluid filled lungs that would make that saturation drop.  So this morning, David went to the doctor for a non-checkup for the first time.

We told the doctor that Christy had been sick, David had developed a little cough, and we just wanted to be careful.  His first comment was that they weren't going to treat him prophylacticly - i.e., they weren't going to do anything preventative just because Christy was sick.  Apparently he's had this issue before with parents, which is kinda sad.  Anyway, he proceeds to look in his ears.  Lo and behold, he has the beginnings of an infection in his left ear!

Long story short, Paul and Christy are awesome parents who do, in fact, know when their child is getting sick, and furthermore are able to realize it before it turns into a full blown illness. *patsselfontheback.

So David now has 10 days worth of the infamous "pink stuff" (amoxycillin) that he has to take twice a day.  Also of note is that it didn't require a shot, which I'm sure would make David happy if he knew.

In truth, he's doing very well and I doubt he has any idea that anything is amiss.  He hasn't been fussy or anything, and even though he coughs a little bit at night it doesn't seem to be enough to wake him up or make him mad.  He likes the pink stuff (he's always been a really good medicine taker), so no problems on that front either.  Basically, he is the awesomest baby ever.  Even when he's sick.

In other (administrative) news, Christy and I have been taking pictures and videos like crazy, and they're all getting stuffed into the links on the sidebar.  It's kinda funny how digital media and cheap storage basically lets you take constant pictures of anything that you want.  When I was little, I felt like mom took unreasonable amounts of pictures of us.  I can't even imagine how bad it would have been if she'd had a camera in her phone and infinite film.

Update emails have been archived

Last night I went through all of the David update emails that I sent out prior to staring this blog, and assimilated them into a PDF that you can see here: David Update Email Archive.  If anyone has a problem seeing it, email me or comment below and I'll try to see what the problem is and fix it.

As I read through all of that stuff again, it brought back a lot of memories and emotions.  It's really amazing how far our little family has come from that first time of being told that something might be wrong to now.  I was also entertained at how much we learned through all of this stuff.  When I wrote the first 2 emails, I had no idea what was really going on.  I used the wrong words in a few places, had details way off, all sorts of stuff.  Then I go down and read the email that I sent to our local cardiologist after the second surgery and I'm throwing out hospital acronyms and drug names like I invented them.  As difficult as that whole process was, it's really rather interesting to watch (and remember) the progression.

Anyway, I just wanted to get all of this stuff in one place, so now I think it officially is.  Feel free to let me know if I missed any emails.  I think I got them all, but it seems like there are holes where I should have sent something out but I don't have anything.  Oh well.