Sunday, November 29, 2009

It's a Thanksgiving Poo Miracle!

I know that these past two weeks have been hard for you! Two weeks since the last Levi update, how awful. Well, here's what's been going on for the past two weeks. On a side note, Levi is sporting a sweet knit hat made by great grandma Lucy (my dad's mom) in the above picture.

The last two weeks have been pretty busy. I went up north hunting two weekends ago (which was the main reason there wasn't a post last week) and then this past week...Thanksgiving! Levi's new activities have included grabbing things, sucking on everything, expressing the emotions of surprise and fear, and he even rolled over once.


Here he's very upset that he can't see the computer screen...

The week before Thanksgiving my mom and her mom (Goggy) came down to visit Jenny and me... I mean Levi. They couldn't care less if we were there (except for when he needed to be fed!).

He also got the pleasure of going to the Holiday parade in Milwaukee. As you can see, he really enjoyed himself.

And he got to visit the wiggle room at our parents' church. What a great idea, every church needs this!

More grabbing and sucking...
and sleeping on mommy.

This face represents our key prayer of the week... please poop Levi, just poop for Mommy and Daddy. Thanks to the barium study that was done on him three weeks ago, he hadn't pooped in about 6 days. But on Thanksgiving that streak ended, or should I say the streak was in his pants...

We also made a visit to Whitewater this past week and Levi got to meet Katrina, Dr. Kuzoff, Jenny's dance friends, her dance professor Barb, and Pastor Brian. Go Warhawks!

We got to spend some more time with the Roundys, too! The visit wouldn't have been complete without a trip down to Jonathan's "man cave" where we played pac-man.
Another quality diaper fill...

A walk with Jenny's dad and brother Drew
(fit for a prince; propped up with pillows and all)...

And this weekend ended with an evening visit from Levi's friend Cyrus... because his mommy and daddy needed an evening out on the town. Have a good week everyone and I hope you all had a wonderful Thanksgiving.

Saturday, November 14, 2009

Man, it has been one long week!

Hello to all you JonesPod followers! Yes, as the title states, this has been one ginormously long week. It started out fairly slow with Casey back to work full time (I'm still adjusting from his 2 weeks at home; Levi and I both miss him terribly!) and Levi as his newly-teething self. Drool everywhere...gross. I know I'm supposed to be somewhat immune to these things as a mom, but I've come to accept the fact that I'll never really be "at peace" with all that slobber. Sometimes I feel like I'm cleaning up after a St. Bernard puppy!
Or Ghostbusters Slimer...

Our little droolface in action:

One wonderful surprise that we received this week was a visit from the Roundy tribe!!! Our dear friends were en route from NC to WI. And wouldn't you know, Chicago is right on the way :)Thanks so much, guys, for taking the time to visit. We miss you tons!
Here's the tribal leader, Jonathan, holding Levi (who happens to be wearing the very cool onesie picked out especially by Jonathan!). Notice the shirt claims he's "Daddy's Little Alarm Clock". Umm, I know I may be a bit biased but I think Daddy mostly wakes up b/c Mommy happens to be kicking him out of bed! "Your turn, honey."

Here's Elena, the big 5-year old (!) holding our lil chunk.

The Jennys!

Haha. This next one takes a little explaining...

So here we have four kids under the age of 7 who have recently emerged from a very long car ride. After taking a brief survey of our big kid-friendly accoutrements (which are pretty much zippo), they all conclude the most entertaining feature is, hands down, the large-screen television...duh. As we still have not yet been subjected to children's television programming (I'm prematurely rueing the day Levi discovers this!), the kids decide they want to watch a video. But not just any video...a workout video! I couldn't believe they actually asked me to put in the DVD, but what they hey? Wouldn't you know, 5 minutes later I round the corner only to find ALL FOUR OF THEM with their little legs in the air doing the pilates 100!!
TOO FUNNY!!
Elena was the only one who stuck it out long enough
for me to take this picture:

And now we get to the uber-surprise of the week:
Levi's first trip to the ER!!
Now THERE'S a milestone to mark on the calendar.

Thursday night he started getting sick around 9. No big deal, nothing we haven't seen before. We just change the sheets, wash him off, and snuggle him a little until he falls back asleep. But around 11 he was vomiting up BRIGHT GREEN. Scary!! So I call the Dr, leave a message, and anxiously wait around for her professional opinion. 20 minutes later she calls us back very worried and tells us we need to either call an ambulance to take him to Children's or drive him there ourselves NOW. We decide his breathing isn't erratic enough to warrant an ambulance ride, load him in the car, make our way downtown, and yes, youv'e guessed it...get lost in the process. Apparently we were making our way to the future site of Children's, which happens to be about 3 miles from its current location. THIS IS WHY WE HAVE A GPS. But over the summer, some loser broke into our car and stole the charger. So now we have a GPS,
but no battery power. AWESOME.
After calling the police dept, we finally get back on track and arrive at the hospital. The Drs all think he looks pretty decent and don't think there's any sort of bowel obstruction, but they give us a surgery consult and suggest a barium study just to be certain. Once we get back to radiology, Levi's stripped down to his diaper and laid out on this massive table for some belly scans followed by the administration of barium to his GI tract via a naso-gastric tube. I'm told this is a 5-minute process...once they get the tube down, that is. 45 MINUTES LATER they finally get the freakin' thing to stay down. That was easily the most difficult thing we've had to endure as parents...our screaming, crying, gagging, ultra-sad, naked baby lying under this enormous machine with strangers fruitlessly shoving a plastic tube down his throat. Poor boy! By the end he was so exhausted from crying that he was floating in and out of consciousness.
But praise the Lord, all the tests came back negative! God is good all the time; all the time, God is good. He kept Levi safe and stable while we were aimlessly wandering around this enormous city, He kept him happy during our long wait once we got there, and He blessed us parents with nerves of steel during that ridiculously long x-ray process. We finally got our little munchkin home around 5:15 Friday morning with a nearly-clean bill of health. Poor Casey had to get up an hour later for his commute to the 'burbs for training; needless to say Friday was a very lazy day!
The boys snugglin' once Daddy got home from work:

Saturday was spent catching up on lost sleep and rediscovering the lost Jonesie art of videogaming...boring! At least Levi was entertained with his attempts to kick the controller out of Casey's hands :)
Hehe, that's my boy!

And that concludes a week in the JonesPod. Now it's time for some maxin' and relaxin' with Daddy...

and maybe some snuggles with Mommy!

Have a wonderfully fun-filled week!

Sunday, November 8, 2009

Don't Worry Levi, Voldemort Wasn't Invited

Levi was a good sport about being Harry Potter most of the night, but he had his moments. Here's a few more pictures from Halloween weekend, in which Trigger, one of the Broglis' cats had to be wherever the latest and greatest action was...


These were the most amazing witch candies ever! Some awesome person made them with unparalleled determination and heart...

Levi also got to spend some more time with our good friends the Perricones. Gracie was trying to tell Levi to be quiet... precious!


The rest of the week Jenny and Levi just hung out as I started back up at work after a wonderful two weeks of paternity leave.


This was how Jenny found Levi after a nap. She had literally pinned him tightly in a burrito wrap and he still mananged to wriggle his leg, right hand, and entire left arm out...



As usual, Levi enjoyed doing whatever his momma happened to be doing. This time, it was folding laundry (while enjoying his fist as a tasty between-meal snack).


This weekend we had the pleasure of Sammi coming to visit and also, meeting up with John on Sunday. It was great to be able to spend time with our siblings that we don't see a lot. Thanks for taking the time guys, it was great seeing you and spending time with you!

(Notice sleepy head is STILL NAPPING even though he's being held completely upright.)



Mmm, Miller Time!



Have a great weekend everyone and pray for me as I have to go to madatory training this week... ugh (and it's in Chicago, so no cool travel trip, but I do get to stay home with these two awesome people).