Sleep is important.

Austin with play glasses.  Erika calls him doctor when wearing these.

Austin is the typical 9-month-old little guy.  He is grabbing at anything and everything while trying to cram same items into his pie hole.  He is also for some unknown reason, unable to change his own diapers.

Austin with iv

Austin recently contracted the Rota Virus.  It is known to cause sever diarrhea and sometimes vomiting.  In Austin's case, he would eat a jar of mushy bananas and 5 minutes later it would be flying out the other end at such a speed that the diaper was merely diverting "it" instead of containing "it".  This means that he is not getting the nutrients he needs and it also means that he was getting severely dehydrated.  So my wife got to spend 3 glorious day in the hospital with my son who had to have an IV in his arm at all times.  Not so much fun for a 9 month old,  he was a trooper though.     

Erika watching a movie on the portable DVD player in the hospital.

During that time my daughter and I commuted back and forth from the house to the hospital, bringing my wife supplies and letting Erika get to see her mom for a bit.  We also managed to sneak in a trip to see the circus.  What a crock that was by the way.  Erika was more interested in the stadium chairs that would go up when she stood up.  All they kept doing was pushing you to buy there over priced low-end crap and boring us with dated tricks meant for a smaller venue.

Austin relaxing in the hospital.

My wife had a heck of a time during her stay in the hospital.  Austin had to have the iv in his arm 24/7, the nurses keep coming in to check up on the little guy every hour or so causing the little guy to stir in his sleep if not wake up completely.  The cleaning staff seemed to be oblivious of the fact that there were children trying to sleep and would natter to each other garishly.  Last but not least there were the random screaming and crying from other poor little kiddo's in the same ward.  Lets just say that his sleeping schedule consisted of catching a hour of sleep here and maybe 20 to 30 minutes there for 3 whole days.  Horrifying to say the least, and I am glad they only had to spend 3 days there.  My heart goes out to all who have to spend any extend time in a hospital.

Well Austin is back home, happy and healthy again.  The only issue that remains is that his sleeping schedule has gone by the wayside.  He would wake up every 2 to 3 hours and demands to be fed.  This meant you put the little guy to bed at 8:00 PM; he would wake up at 10:30 or 11:00 PM screaming bloody murder because his tummy was rumbling as though a freight train were rushing by.  Then at 2:00 AM he would be up again because this damn train kept coming round.  And you guessed it, at 5:00 AM the $%&# train would be back.

Our new favorite book.

The person who suffered the most was I.  Mainly because I had to listen to my wife complain about how tired she was and how tough it was to have to get up every 3 hours to feed this little bundle of...  I am not going to repeat that last little part; it was the lack of sleep talking.  Hearing all this was not conducive to my well-being.  So I started reading; "Solve Your Child's Sleep Problems", by Richard Ferber, MD.  I read it from start to finish and wouldn't you know it?  They had case studies and examples of exactly what I was going thru.  They even had charts to help you track your progress in resolving the issue.  I showed the charts to my wife and told her that this is what she was going to have to do to resolve my problem, and in doing so would solve her problem as well.

 We have done the 7-day program and I can happily state that he no longer wakes up hungry 3 to 4 times a night.  He is sleeping close to 10 hours at a time.  WoooHooo!!!  But now he is not sleeping thru the night due to his teething, poor guy.  This too shall pass.  At least when his teeth are not bothering him he sleeps thru the night.

Needless to say, life has been interesting these past weeks.  I myself have managed to log a total of 2 hours on my Xbox this month.  To be honest, I would much rather watch Erika get mad at me because I told her to stop kicking at her brother while he is rolling on the ground; he doesn't crawl, he rolls.  I also enjoy listening to Austin complain as I pull his trophy clumps of hair he recently acquired from his sisters scalp out of his little hands, rather than to play my video games.