These are the lovely flowers I received from Matt's boss & his family wishing me a speedy recovery.

Saturday we went to a baby shower for Heather & Chad & the new Lewis addition. I left shortly after we arrived home to celebrate Nicole's birthday. We went out in Philly with some other ladies for dinner and drinks. Overall, we had a lovely time. I awoke Sunday morning to a text from Matt...Casey had a bit of a stomach virus. So I made my way home for Matt to leave for his business trip to Canada. Casey & I spent Sunday doing very little, as he slept & drank Pedialyte most of the day. Monday, we hung out at home in order to follow the daycare 24 hour throw up rule (if only all parents followed this rule). Tuesday dawned with some abdominal pain. Casey spent time with both sets of grandparents & both aunts while I spent some time in the ER & then OR having my appendix removed. All babysitters involved claim Casey was well behaved. We thank them all profusely for watching our boy while we were out of commission/out of the country. Matt returned Wednesday, and I left the hospital Wednesday evening.
Thanksgiving was spent at my parents instead of our house due to the events of the week. The food was delish, the company was lovely, and we all had a wonderful time.

Casey started coughing again earlier in the week, and he's sick again. Every time he gets sick, we have breathing issues (I have NO idea where he would have inherited such problems, cough cough). We had an appointment scheduled for yesterday afternoon with a wonderful allergy & asthma specialist (yes, I'm biased because I've been a patient there for 20 years or so) to get him checked out anyway, so we paid them a visit yesterday afternoon. I filled out some paperwork & Casey sat in the chair next to me playing with a few toys. He's usually pretty good, but he was like the model child in the waiting room. He was very good during the consultation and the testing, as well. Seriously, there was no crying, very little whining, and his antics made the dr and nurses chuckle.
Long story short: we were there for about 2 1/2 hours, saw my favorite nurse Cathy, got a plan of action to get Casey's enflamed sinuses under control, got some allergy tests done, and made an appointment to go back in 2 weeks for a recheck/plan of action for the future/possibly more allergy tests. So far Casey is allergic to dogs and ragweed. We're supposed to keep him away from those things & smoke, especially when he's sick.

Pictures from Nov 4-6.  There are also new pictures in posts from Oct 30 and Nov 1

Today, Casey has started sternly saying STOP when he wants me to stop tickling him. I'm finding it pretty entertaining.

Report from prison today was that, instead of roughing someone up as he's been doing this week, he got tired of one of the babies crying. So he stopped what he was doing, found a pacifier, walked to the other side of the room where this kid was crying and, with a look of "you HAVE to stop crying like that kid", stuck the pacifier in the criers mouth. When the kid stopped crying, Casey said "all done".

He's been doing something else for the past couple days, but now I can' remember what it is...so you'll have to wait for that info.

Casey went to vote in the morning with Daddy & in the evening with Mommy.   He made friends with the poll workers and with the man standing in line behind us.  Turns out that guy's daughter is in Grandma's nursery school class.  Small world.  

I keep forgetting to post Casey's height/weight as of his checkup 10/27. He was 31 3/4 inches & 22.6 lbs. He's little, but his 1 year bloodwork was fine & she's not at all concerned.

Casey can blow his nose. He can also turn the TV on with the remote.

EDIT: I just found the paper with the correct info on my desk at work...and correct his height/weight. It's Jan 9. Oops!

Casey got this balloon from a lady at work on Friday. He has been using a punching bag since then. He walked around the house last night like this while I was getting the nebulizer ready for use.

Saturday Caroline came over & hung out for the afternoon. The kids had a great time together, though, which was well worth the whinefest we had later, as Casey wouldn't nap. I have some pictures of them, but they're still on the camera. I will try to post them later today.
Yesterday, Matt went to the Giants game, and Casey & I spent some time with the Zukowski Clan. Caroline LOVES Case and they had a great time together. Their favorite activity was a toss up between chasing each other around the house & doing anything in their power to annoy Papa. :) Congrats to Uncle Jay on finishing the marathon.
This was taken while Caroline made a delicious chocolate chocolate chip cake with Grandma. Casey watched the whole time...and tried to climb up onto the stool Caroline was using. Caroline made a delicious cake.
Now tell me how cute my son & my niece are...

Casey came to see Mommy's co-workers today. He was quite charming, probably because he noticed that when he was friendly and cute people gave him things.

Here he is sitting in my chair trying to pull his Cookie Monster head off.

This evening we'll be going to see the Grandparents Rubin & Aunt Jessica.

Caroline is visiting for the weekend. Her dad (Uncle Jay) is running the NYC Marathon on Sunday. We wish him luck...and we think he'll be the only family member to ever attempt tihs feat.

This evening Casey Trick-or-Treated very briefly and then hung out with Caroline once she returned from her trip with a huge haul.

Here, I believe she was singing him Twinkle Twinkle Little Star. They followed each other around the house & had a great time together. Caroline likes to call him Case, which is supercute.

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Today was supposed to be Casey's 18 month checkup...a well visit. But Casey had other plans in mind. 

Last Friday he spent the day hanging out with Grandma Rubin. When I got home Friday evening, he was fine. By Friday night he had a little cough, and his chest sounded tight (I readily admit I thought my mom was nutty when she used to tell me this, but it turns out she was right). By late Friday night the tightness had become wheezing. So we started using the nebulizer we purchased back in May. After a chat with the our good friend Dr. Sue on Saturday morning, we continued using our new best friend, the nebulizer. Every 4 hours. Even at night. Casey was breathing much better by this morning.

When we visited Dr. Sue today for the "well" visit, we did not get the shots we had scheduled, as the kid is sick. We'll be nebulizing for the next month to keep our boy healthy (and to avoid a trip to the hospital). Other than the inability to breathe, Casey is doing swimmingly.  He's putting some 2 word phrases together, he knows all kinds of new words (catch, shoes, shirt, socks, pot roast, whoops, oh boy, crap). Today, while I was driving I said crap. Casey repeated it. About a hundred times. Once we were home from the doctor he dropped something and said oh CRAP. So not only does he pick up words, he apparently understands the proper context in which to use words.  Also, he knows many body parts.  Today, while paying our admission fee at the doctor, Casey pointed to my rear end and yelled HEINEY, much to the amusement of the other patients in the waiting room.  Additional parts he knows...hair, eye (be careful, he'll jam his finger in your eye to show you he knows what he's talking about), nose, mouth, teeth, tongue, cheek, chin, head, shoulder, knee, toe, hands, feet, toes, heiney...and I'm sure I'm missing some as well as boring most of our 4 readers.  

Currently, we're watching a tivo'd episode of Sesame Street, but only the Elmo's World portion of the show. And only the parts that Elmo actually is in--the other stuff is no good, we only see Elmo.

Casey shuffled around the room in these when he couldn't find his shoes.