Tuesday, December 26, 2006

Join Tobin for his first Christmas

Here is a collection of videos of Tobin's first Christmas weekend. It includes his first trip to the beach, shows him opening his first presents, and playing with wrapping paper on Christmas night.

Christmas with Tobin

Tobin's first Christmas season has been wonderful. We celebrated our arrival in Florida with a trip to the beach last Friday. The weather Christmas day was partly cloudy and high 70s most of the day. While it was just a little disappointing to have no chance whatsoever of a white Christmas, it's pretty hard to complain about a Christmas day that includes shorts, t-shirts and fresh citrus.

Tobin was better than I expected at unwrapping presents, but was usually much more interested in the wrapping paper than the gift itself. He is especially taken with his Spider-man toy that sings the Spider-man and Friends theme song and "The Itsy Bitsy Spider." We've taken myriad photos with multiple cameras and I'm sure Allison or I will be glad to show them all to you when we're together. For now, I've uploaded a few pictures to our
flickr site. You can click the link above or the photos below to be taken to that page. I'll be posting a video as soon as I can upload it.
a Merry Christmas indeed.
a new book to read
actually yes, i do like blocks.

Saturday, December 16, 2006

Mama's musings

There are some reasons for so little activity on the Toblog of late. Mr. T suffered his first ear infection last week. It all started with one of his teachers calling me at work a week ago Friday to tell me Tobin was running a 102-degree fever. Matt left work promptly while I made the call to get him into the doctor. Our pediatrician saw him and tested him for RSV, which fortunately he didn't have. But he had fluid on his ears, and the doctor told us he might be starting an ear infection. We were able to treat his fever with Tylenol the rest of Friday and Saturday. Saturday night was one of the worst nights he's ever had--just wouldn't stay asleep for more than an hour. Tobin and I spent a good bit of the night cuddling on the couch by the Christmas tree, because he was most comfortable sitting up. He was still fussy enough on Sunday (but without running a fever) that Matt called in sick on Monday and took him back to the doctor. She confirmed that he had an ear infection, but described it as healing. He was doing so much better on Monday that we opted not to fill his amoxycillin prescription. Our thinking was we'd prefer to avoid an antibiotic if he's already healing plus Matt has an allergy to that one, so we worried about Tobin having an allergic reaction. Our little guy finished the week strong. We got great reports from his teachers at school. He appears to be back to his happy, healthy self.

While all of this was going on, I was incredibly busy at work. It was really hard for me to not be the one to pick him up from school and take him to the doctor and stay home with him. But his wonderful dad filled in brilliantly and even commented that the two of them had such a great day on Monday he almost felt guilty for staying home from work. Almost. I am so thankful for my Matt.

This is the first weekend in a while that we haven't spent with family. We were in Louisville for Thanksgiving, then my mom was in town, and then Ash visited last weekend. We should be in Florida by this time next weekend (my work permitting), which will be so nice. I think being parents has made us especially appreciative of our families--particularly our own parents. I know after my mom left I was pretty homesick to see her again soon. Matt & I really love the home we've made here, but I think all of the Walsh-Smith clan wishes we weren't spread out over five states (not counting our close extended family which would add at least another three states). We're all very thankful for the holidays and looking forward to some togetherness.