Holiday Plans

I thought I'd post here and tell everyone our holiday plans next week.  First we leave Friday night and head to ElDorado.  Saturday morning we are having Christmas at Mamaw and Papaw Sullivan's (where I hear Santa may make a visit) and then at Magga's house that night.  We are then leaving Sunday morning and headed to Texarkana.  We will take Noah along for the Johnson tradition of church on Christmas Eve.  Then we'll wake up Christmas morning in T-town with Uncle Jared, Pops, and Granda. We'll hang out there until Wednesday AM when we leave for ElDorado where we will join the Sullivan caravan headed to Destin, FL.  That's right, it's vacation time!!!!!  Aunt Holly is flying in from AZ to join us, Magga, Aunt Melissa, Uncle Jay, and Cousin Jana and we'll ring in the New Year on the beach, mon.  Then its back home for the rest of the holiday break.  Woohoo!

Noah has a sibling...sort of

In case you don't know I've had a kidney stone trying to pass since Thanksgiving.  The pain would come and go over the past few weeks, but it was always there.  A lady I work with claims this is the male 'almost' equivalent of giving birth and convinced me to name it. You wouldn't believe the sympathy I got from women.  Men just go pale and walk away :)
Well I am happy to say that yesterday I gave 'birth' to a 4mm baby rock.  We've named him Larry and he'll be a member of the family until next month (I'm going to wait til next month to take it in for pathology so it can count on next year's deductible).

Congratulations me!

Rough Week!

Wow!  It has been a rough week at the sullivan house.  Noah started throwing up on Monday and seemed a little better on Tues.  Then Wednesday, I started throwing up and my sitter and her kid and two other kids were sick.  So i called my mom to come help me.  She got here around noon.  Noah cried all day and was really warm running fever by late afternoon.  i could hardly get out of bed.  Mom and Chad took Noah to the dr.  He had strep throat.  He screamed all night.  So much, that mom and I drove him around at 3 o clock  in the morning.  Yesterday I managed to squeak out a half day at work, but got little accomplished.  Noah did better yesterday and seemed to like his pedialyte in slushie form.  He slept better last night.  This morning, mom woke up with the yukky virus.  Chad and I scrambled and got Noah to the sitter where every kid there is on antibiotics.  I finally had an appetite and stopped at McDonalds to get a biscuit.  I ate it and the sausage on it and by the time I got to work was feeling ill again.  Finally at about 10:30 I came back home and the bisuit came back up.  Noah came home too because my sitter could not keep him from crying.  So now here we all are sitting in our germ infested house starting our weekend.  Luckily Chad does not seem to have caught anything yet....  Hopefully we will be recovering tomorrow.

My little Noah

Wow, it is hard to believe my little Noah is six month old. He is so precious and has such a little personality. He has really mastered sitting up and is on his way to crawling way before mom is ready! He is already pushing up on his knees and elbows and rocking back and forth. He is busy moving, reaching, touching every second he is awake! That is probably why is he still such a peanut! Recently, he has discovered his penis. In the bathtub the other night, he was sitting up and he looked down and there is was. It was like when he discovered his feet. He started playing with it and I hollored for Chad. We were cracking up! Then last night, same story except he was not in the exact same position and his belly was somewhat in the way. He kept bucking backwards to try to get better access to it. Chad tells me he will never grow out of this! Great! So now it is my job to teach him when it is appropriate to play with his penis and when it's not!!

And in this corner weighing in at ...

Noah had his 6 month checkup/shots on Wednesday.  Since his 3 month checkup he has grown 2+ inches but only 1 measly pound.  One pound!!!  Can you believe that.  The doctor asked if his motor always ran that fast when he wouldn't sit still.  Of course, it does.  We are going to up his caloric intake not the volume he is eating.  We are going to just use more powder in his bottle instead of making bigger bottles.  Hopefully we can fatten him up a little bit over the holidays.

Congratulations Brian and Karen

Last weekend we went to Austin for Jenna's cousin Brian's wedding. Noah went too. I'll say that again...we took our 5 month old to Austin. Actually he did great. We left on Thursday at his bedtime and he slept about 90% of the way down. The next day he went with Jenna and his Granda to the groom's parents' house while I played golf. That night he went to the rehearsal dinner and refused to be put down for bed. He didn't go to bed until over 2 hours past his bedtime.

The next night he had a sitter during the wedding. She was very sweet and he did great for her. He and I sat in the hotel room and watched Game 1 of the World Series while Jenna stayed at the reception. Once again it was too much new stuff for him and he didn't go to bed until after 9.

The ride home was...okay. He was a little fussy, mostly because he was constipated. I never knew how funny it could be to hear a baby grunt and hold their breath to push. I think it was the look on his face more than anything. It took us about 10 hours to get home but we stopped and stretched our legs a lot. Jenna fed him a bottle on the grass at a shopping center in Dallas and it was kind of nice.

The whole thing really wore him out though. He was sent home sick on Monday with a fever and runny nose. I really think it was just the lack of good rest and the little cold snap that got his immune system down. By Tuesday he was his usual little happy, bouncing self so I think he finally caught up on his sleep.

Lack of updates

I'm sorry about the lack of updates.  Honestly, we've all been sick around here.  Last week, I was puny and this week Noah came home Monday with a fever and Jenna didn't make it to work on Tuesday.
But I'm gonna catch you all up pretty soon.  Also, to the lack of pictures, I'll work on that this weekend.  We haven't taken many pics lately but we've been taking a lot of video.  And video is so time consuming to put on the computer.  But I'll get to it :)

Snotty noses and Hooters' girls

Really not a whole lot has been going on lately.  Noah has had a cold of sorts lately.  He wakes up super-congested and snotty, but after we do the bulb sucking thing he is okay for pretty much the entire day.  I think his sinus' are filling up when he's laying flat.  It happens to me a lot as well.  Speaking of the bulb sucking, how can he keep his hips facing up and then contort his body where he is face down to avoid the bulb sucker.  He's a little Houdini.

Yesterday afternoon we went grocery shopping and afterwards we were discussing dinner.  It was early and we had about a million things to do before bed so we decided to get Hooters to go on the way home.  Well I forgot my phone and Jenna didn't have their number (I thought everybody kept Hooters on speed dial) so we just decided to eat in since Noah was in such a good mood.  Well our waitress, Crystal, thought Noah was the sweetest thing since combining milk and cocoa.  She held him the ENTIRE time we ordered, ate, and cleaned up.  She even gave him his bottle.  She took him with her when she went to the other tables and when she went to ring up orders.  He did his normal little Noah thing and just people watched the whole time.  I started calling him "Biscuit" lately because his little bald head looks like an uncooked biscuit, but I may start calling him "Sponge Boy" because I swear he is just taking in all that info trying to figure out how stuff works.

Melissa and Jana visit

Aunt Melissa and cousin Jana came to visit this past weekend. We had a big time cooking barbecue and playing with Noah. The funniest thing was how Jana constantly wants to check on Noah when he's sleeping. She'll sneak off to his door and we'll hear her grab the handle. We'd whisper loudly, "Jana, what are you doing?" to which she would reply loudly in a non-whisper, "Gotta check on baby Noah!!!" If she'd ever actually woken him up it may not have been so cute, but no harm no foul. The other funny thing she does is pat him on the head when he's fussing. She wants it to be a comforting and soothing pat on the head to say "Its alright Noah," but it executes as a banging pat on the head to say "I shall scramble your brains Noah." It really wasn't that hard but each pat would make him stop crying and blink. Then we'd get on to her and he'd have a look like, "What the hell was that for?"

They are quite the pair.

Mamaw and Papaw up for a few days

Noah's babysitter during the day has had a rough week.  Jenna had to stay at home with Noah last Friday because the sitter's son (Logan) was really sick throwing up and running a high fever.  She called yesterday and her son is in the hospital with pneumonia.  So Noah's Mamaw and Papaw came up last night and are going to keep him for a few days until his Granda can come up or Logan is home and well.

Big weekend of...giggling

Noah's Magga and Aunt Sarah came to visit the past weekend. We had a lot of fun playing with the little man and visiting. He didn't sleep well due to belly problems resulting from the introduction of Sweet Potatoes into his diet. On Saturday we drove up to Branson and did a little shopping.

While we were there, Noah hit a big milestone. We were in the Disney Store and I was waiting for Magga to checkout. I knelt in front of Noah in his stroller and started "getting his toesies." Well this was more fun than we could stand so we let out a couple of squeals. Sarah was watching and got tickled at him. Well after about the 10th time, Noah decided to string his squeals together. The next thing we know he was laughing. I mean real laughter. We laughed along with him. I was scared it was a one time deal, but no. He repeated his performance when Magga got done. To top it off we went next door to the Gap where Mom was checking out. I told Noah it was showtime and Jenna stopped in the middle of signing her bill and lit up like a Christmas tree. She told the guys "Hang on my kid just learned to laugh."

Noah had one more laughing fit in the car on our way home. He has a sweet little laugh that's so cute because his mouth is wide open and he kicks his feet like he's treading water.

5 year anniversaries

Everyone knows what the 5 year anniversary we observed yesterday was. I heard a guy say yesterday that this is my generations "Where were you ?" moment. My parents' generation was the Kennedy assasination and now we have one to. I really like the new ad campaign for a memorial. I watch a lot of NY television to catch my Yankee games so I don't know if it is a national campaign or not. Basically it is a silent commercial showing different people from all walks of life pointing to where they were the day the towers went down. I was in the car between patients when ESPN radio said a plane had just hit one of the towers of the World Trade Center. Being a non-news station they didn't elaborate much so they went back to the daily roundup of sports talk. I thought it was a horrible accident and hopefully the casualties would be minimum. I arrived to the next stop on my day and went in without thinking much more on the matter.  The mother was watching the TV with her face ashen. She asked if I'd heard about the crashes and I said "Yes" but then stoppped. She had said plural. I remember sitting down in front of the TV and watching the news with her, her 2 sons, and their nurse. I didn't leave until the dust had started to settlle from the towers coming down. It was so surreal, yet the reality was inescapable. I remember the 24 hour news barrage and I remember the gas stations raising prices to over $4 because they were "told" the pipelines were going to be shutdown. I remember sleeping that night scared to turn on the news the next morning. The world I lived in had changed forever.

The next day did come. The sun has a habit of always rising. All day at work it was, of course, what everyone talked about. You'd catch glimpses of firefighters or stories of heroism. You also heard the speculation of who did it, but everyone thought it was the group found ultimately responsible. I even turned my radio to Fox News Radio instead of ESPN during my commutes. That night would ultimately change my life more than the previous one. I'll always remember where I was on September 11, but I'll remember and reflect more on September 12. My friend Carey called and asked me over for dinner. I would normally have declined. I had a new puppy at home and I was tired from the previous day's events. But for obvious reasons, I didn't want to be alone that night. The thought of sitting at home in front of the TV and watching the news all night again was more than I could bear. So I accepted. He said it was burgers and beer. No big deal. One of his employees and his sister were coming over as well and maybe some other people. I didn't care. A quiet night with friends sounded normal and reassuring in the new world. The decision to go wasn't the kind to make you turn the page fast in the book adaption of my life. It wouldn't have dramatic music in the background during the made for TV version. It certainly wouldn't be in slow motion with my hair blowing during the big screen version. Yet, somehow, the smallest decisions you make in this world can come from nowhere and change your life profoundly. That night I met a girl named Jenna Johnson. The world I lived in had changed forever.

To all of our school friends

I've had so many people come up to me this school year apologizing because they can't check Noah's site as often as the past.  For those who do not know, Springdale Schools had a person request all email from the 2400 school employees under the Freedom of Information Act.  I did not realize this, so I assume the majority of school employees do not know their email is public record and has zero confidentiality.  I do not personally have a Springdale email but plenty of people used their email for personal as well as work related material.  Who wants to check 2 emails during a day?  Anyways, Springdale has had to enforce their policy of no playtime on work computers even from home or your spare time (I'm typing this during my 10 minute lunch break but I'm not a Springdale employee).
The moral of the story is for people to relax.  Just because you don't check as often during the week, doesn't mean we think you don't love us anymore.  It just means the man is keeping you down:)