My sweet little child Elliot will most definitely be the death of me.  In Harry's almost 3 years of life, I think we have taken him to the doctor 3 times for something other than a well baby visit and called the on-call service once.  In Elliot's mere 1 year of life, we have called the on-call service I think 3 or 4 times and taken him to the ER once.  Add that in with his continuing peanutty size and I'm starting to feel like one of "those" parents!  At the end of last week, he started running a fairly high fever, had a runny nose, was lethargic, and overall seemed basically miserable.  I didn't think all that much about it, after all, babies get sick, it was probably a virus, and the Tylenol/Motrin combo was doing the trick for the fever.  Then Friday night rolls around and as I was getting him ready for bed I noticed some faint red spots on his belly.  Strange, I thought, but babies get weird stuff like that all the time!  He was up and down all night (of course, I had to get up at 5am Saturday morning to be at work--thanks Buddy!) and Saturday Travis called me to report that the strange rash was now all over his body.  So of course, I told him to call the doctor and see what we should do.  Surely someone would want to see my poor, suffering, spotted child??  But the nurse that called back thought it was the virus still hanging around, and she said to take him somewhere if he started to show signs of dehydration.  I think this is definitely one of the most frustrating things about being a parent.  Deep down inside you know there's probably nothing that you or a doctor can do and you hate to be a psycho parent who freaks out over every little thing, but it is still nice to have someone confirm that you are doing everything you can for your little sickling.  By Monday, he was back to his normal self and wolfing down any food we put in front of him.  We are extremely blessed to have 2 such strong, healthy boys, but Elliot really needs to stop it with the fluke medical conditions!

The past few weeks have been a rollercoaster behavior-wise with Harry.  Most of the time, he is such a loving, funny kid and is so easy to be around.  I am so proud of him...I can't think of a single time that he has received a bad report at school or daycare.  He is constantly asking for hugs and kisses and is generally very sweet and gentle with Elliot.  Then out of nowhere, if one little thing doesn't go his way WATCH OUT!  Your eardums might burst from the screaming.  The most frustrating part is that nothing seems to help.  Time-outs chill him out for the immediate situation but they don't have staying power.  Taking things away really makes him mad, but then he forgets about it since we have so much stuff so that doesn't seem to help that much either.  Yesterday, he went to time-out 3 times in rapid fire succesion because he wouldn't stop being defiant/screaming and crying over nothing/not listening.  I did something really awful to him yesterday...I took them outside to play!  However, I didn't take him where he wanted to go so that set off a tantrum.  He calmed down and I pushed him in the swing for a while, then I got him out so I could put Elliot in since that is the only thing he can really do on our swingset.  Of course, that really set him off.  Ignoring him wasn't working, so I finally told him that I know he doesn't act like that at school and I don't want him to act like that at home.  That helped out until it was time to go inside which started a whole new battle.  Ugh.  I was actually grateful to go to the grocery store last night by myself after Travis got home.  Going the grocery store is a break??  That is sad.   Life with a toddler...never a dull moment.  I have a sneaking suspicion though that we have it pretty good.  Since he is in a preschool class that only has kids that are within 6 months of his age, I see how all of the other kids behave.  It's not necessarily that they are behaving badly because they aren't....they are just WILD.  I can only imagine what they are like when they are upset!  The threes should be a thrilling new horizon for us!