Nicholas Maravillas’ Blog

What the heck? Nicholas spiked a temperature last night and still this morning. To be on the safe side, I took him to the pediatrician today. I was sure he had an ear infection, especially after the ENT said he had so much fluid in there. Well, ears look great. One has “scant” fluid but no redness and the other looks “perfect”. Ok, check the throat. As soon as I laid him down, he started to wail and it was clear as day. Lots of bright red blisters in the back of his mouth and throat. Poor bubba!! Doc checked his hands and feet, they are clear but he said some blisters might pop up. Yuck. Anyways, it is a viral thing and not a big deal. Doc said it is very common. It just sounds so… weird. And gross. Hopefully his fever goes away soon.

Oh, and they weighed him. He is now 25lbs 5oz!!! Just 6 weeks ago he was 22lbs 4oz. Wow! Can you say, growth spurt?!

If you’ve ever eaten dinner at our house, you know that you always get dinner and a show. Tonight was no different. You would never guess this kid has a 102 fever! Maybe he’s delirious. He would shout something like “dah!”, we’d act surprised and he loved it. Man, we love this little guy!

I guess he needed an earlier naptime today…

I tried to get close so that you could hear his snoring, but it is still hard to hear.

We took Nicholas to see an ENT today.  He is tongue-tied and we are concerned about it affecting his speech development so we asked our pediatrician for a referral.  The ENT doctor was really nice.  He said Nicholas’ tongue was “pretty tethered” which could make it difficult for him to make “th” and “st” sounds because his tongue can’t go past his teeth enough or touch the top of his mouth.  I thought the procedure to clip the frenulum was fairly simple.  And I think it is when a child is an infant, but we were told that at Nicholas’ age they would put him to sleep and he may even need a stitch or two.  Yikes!  The whole thing would take about 10 minutes and he wouldn’t need to be intubated or get an IV so that is good at least.   The healing process was fairly quick and he could even eat the same day of the surgery.  The doctor said it wasn’t an emergent situation but did seem to think it’d be a good idea.  As do Matthew and I.  We would hate to wait and then have his speech affected later on and end up needing more interventions to correct it.

We would schedule the procedure soon, but upon a complete examination the doctor found a good amount of fluid in both of Nicholas’ ears.  They aren’t infected but he said probably left over from winter congestion.  He said sometimes it goes away on its own.  We made another appointment for the end of June to get his ears rechecked.  If the fluid isn’t gone, apparently tubes are a possibility!  Double yikes!  The doctor wants to make sure those aren’t needed before doing the tongue clipping and then have to put him out again for tubes in his ears.  We had never even thought that he had problems with his ears and that tubes were a possibility!  Granted I think they are a slim possibility, but just the thought upsets me.  You just don’t like to think there is anything wrong with your kid.  He’s had a few ear infections, but what kid hasn’t, ya know.  So the earliest the surgery would be is six weeks from now, pending his ears being clear in a month.  We’ll keep you posted!

Meanwhile, enjoy a video of our crazy little guy!

(a day late!)

love,

Nicholas

Sometimes it is still hard to believe I am a mommy! You’d think after 16 months that it would have sunk in but it can still feel surreal. We went up to Virginia for the weekend and had a great time. It was nice to spend the weekend with our families, especially our moms! We went to Bluebird Gap Farm on Saturday to see all the animals and go on a hayride. Nicholas had a blast with his grandparents and was such a good little man all weekend.

Nicholas and his daddy surprised me with a weekend trip to the zoo and adorable cards! Well, actually they gave me a puzzle and I had to put it together and choose which weekend adventure I wanted to take with them.  We could go to the zoo or aquarium.  If either one has penguins, you know we’ll go there but I think I am leaning towards the zoo.  I know Nicholas will love it.  In addition to the trip, I didn’t change one poopy diaper all day! That was a lovely treat in and of itself.   Matthew let me sleep in but once I was awake- at 5:46am thanks to Nicholas- I couldn’t get back to sleep.  Bummer.  I want a do-over for that one!  We also went out for a delicious brunch with the family before driving home.  We ordered pizza for dinner and Nicholas ate HALF of a whole pizza.

Then today I got Nicholas’ surprises that Ms. Irene helped him put together. Have I mentioned how much I love her! She also gave me a potted flower and the pot says “A mom’s love blooms forever!”.  I just love all of my gifts!! And I love my little man!  I am privileged and blessed to be his mommy and to have my mom (and Sammom) as excellent examples of what it is to be a great mother.

Look at these guys! I am one lucky girl. I could listen to that sweet sound all day long.

This was before he flipped the igloo. And yes, he did bite me at the end.

Nicholas has hit a “learning spurt” or something lately because he seems to be doing lots of new things all at once. I’ll just list them for convenience’s sake. It is our blog so I’ll brag if I want to!

- He knows “eye”. If you ask where your eye is, he’ll point at it (aka try to poke your eye out). He also knows “ear” but that isn’t as consistent yet. He is also catching onto “mouth”.  “Belly” is still a favorite though.

- He is getting much better at eating with a fork. He mastered the spoon awhile ago but we are offering more and more things with the fork now- rather than just cutting up pieces for him and scattering them on his tray. He even ate a few mouthfuls of spaghetti with a fork tonight! And if you know him and spaghetti, then you’ll realize how much of an accomplishment that is. He even took a forkful of spaghetti, got some green bean on it then ate it. Not sure if that is a “skill” but we were impressed!

- He said “kitty” today! We were on the couch and he stood up and looked saying “kitty”. Zoë was in the other room, so I was confused. Turns out he saw the picture of Zoë on the blanket that was on the back of the couch!

- When he is done eating he throws his arms up and says “all done!”.  It is adorable.  And you better wrap up the meal at that point because when he is done, he is done.

- He has several new words, including eye, kitty and now Zoë. In retrospect, I think he’s been saying her name for awhile now but we didn’t get it. Now we totally recognize it since the kisses video. We should have caught on sooner since he adores her.

- He is all about stacking. He stacked 6 cups today and has done up to 6 blocks too. He also took the cup tower apart and nested all of the cups back together. It is so neat to watch because before if he got stuck, he’d throw them away and move on. But now he gets frustrated and keeps trying to fit the big cup into the smaller one until after a few tries he switches them and gets it. Then he is so proud of himself!

- Overall his comprehension just seems to be through the roof! He can go get objects in other rooms when you ask for them, he will put things back where he found them if you tell him to, he helps out more when you dress and undress him, he puts his own towels in the dryer before bathtime, he points up when you ask where the light or fan are and a slew of other things that I am forgetting at the moment. I really should keep a running list on the fridge or something.

Here are a few pictures of our brilliant boy from today. I set up his igloo tent but after spinning in it for a few minutes, he figured out how to flip it over and roll in it like a hamster wheel. He is a nut. A smart nut, but a nut all the same!

Nicholas can blow kisses!! Okay, so he doesn’t actually kiss when he does the motion but it is still adorable!  This video is mostly him being silly (his usual) but he does blow a couple kisses halfway into it.  By the way, does anyone have a guess as to what he says at the end? I swear the kid needs subtitles.

He has also perfected the “fishy face” but we have yet to capture that on camera.  Soon though!