Happy 5 Month Birthday, Jackson!

Jackson - It has been exactly five months since you have changed our lives forever.
You have changed so much over time. (You should be able to click on the pic below and see a larger version of it.)You have especially changed this month. A month ago you were just learning how to roll over. You are now a pro at rolling onto your tummy. Usually, as soon as we put you on your back, you roll over and push yourself up on your arms. Unfortunately, you no longer really like to roll from your tummy to your back. We have it on video, so we know we didn't imagine it. You can now fully extend your arms when you push yourself up and hold yourself up for quite a while. You try and try and try to crawl as well. But, you haven't figured out that your arms and legs have to be on the ground to do so. Instead your legs and arms move together a mile a minute in the air. It looks like you are flying, except your tummy is on the ground. You cannot wait to be mobile. We think that you think you can walk. When you are standing on one of us and you see someone you want to go to, you try to walk to them. One day Jackson...You are extremely interested in whatever it is we are eating or drinking. Although many people start their babies on foods at 4 months, our doctor doesn't recommend it. Therefore, you will have to wait. We're not ready for all that mess yet anyway.You were the sickest you've ever been this month. We hope that when you wake up tomorrow you will not be sick anymore. We are ready for a healthy baby! You have pooped and vomited more this month than ever. Mommy and Daddy are becoming pros at cleaning your car seat as well as your crib sheet and mattress. You've gotten much better at not peeing on us when we change you, but you did get Mommy once this week at 4am while we were taking your temp. Despite being so sick, you still smile all the time. No matter what happens, when you smile, it's all better.
This month you met some family you had not previously met and gained some family as well. You were able to meet your Uncle Stephen, Auntie Penny, Cousin William, Cousin Neil, Great Uncle Stephen, and Great Auntie Ro. You gained your Aunt Melissa and your Cousin Chelsea this past weekend.

You attended your first baby shower (other than when you were in Mommy's tummy) and probably your last baby shower. Even though you were getting sick, you were a perfect angel.
Jackson, you have always been a very observant baby, but even more so now. You love to watch your Mommy and Daddy, especially. Just today, you were watching your Daddy do a silly dance for you, and you were trying to copy him with the biggest grin on your face.

We learned that you do not like all medicine. With all your illnesses, you have been a walking pharmacy for the past two weeks. You like your reflux medicine and your Tylenol, but hate the antibiotics. You also hate Pedialyte.
You still love fans, but not as much. You love your toys (especially your worm, elephant, kid town, exersaucer and the musical reach toy) you love books and you love Ms. Brittany from daycare. You are starting to recognize/remember people other than just Mommy and Daddy. Mommy might be imagining things, but when you cry, it sounds like Ma at the end.

Oh, yes, and you are teething... joy of joys.

Jackson - We love you so much.

More MacGregor Madness

So the sickness of Jackson, Rob, and Noelle has topped our posts this week, but it was definitely not the most exciting part of our weekend. But before I explain all I said would be explained later, I will say that Jackson is doing a bit better today. He slept from 7:30 to 4:30 last night, and those nine hours helped us all. Noelle and I both returned to work and Jackson spent his day with Grandma Stockman, and he only had one moment of sickness today that necessitated changes of clothes for everyone.

But we're tired of discussing fevers and vomit and diarrhea and mucus and Glenn Beck - it's time for good news.

Last weekend, I married my brother.

And my sister-in-law.

If you don't know, I am an ordained minister in the Universal Life Church. (Want to be one too?) Although it is an internet religion that allows anyone to become a minister with a few point-click combos and it has egregious grammatical errors on their home page, it is something I take very seriously. I always wanted to be a minister, but I worried about being an appropriate ambassador for any organized religion. Now I am probably one of the best ambassadors of this disorganized religion. I have married eight couples as of today, with number nine happening in a few weekends. I've married some of my best friends, my sister, and family of friends on beaches, in beer halls, at pizza parlors, in gazebos, in gardens, in apartment building common rooms, and under the California sun. Most of the weddings have been elaborately planned, but one was a secret ceremony a week before a large Catholic ceremony, and one was a surprise for everyone except us and the bride and groom. All of them have been very special to me though, because I had the honor of officially uniting two people who love each other so much.

And this weekend, I got to do the same for two of my favorite people on the planet - my big brother Chris and his amazing bride, Melissa. They have been together for quite a few years now, and Melissa and her daughter Chelsea have been considered family right from the start. When Chris proposed earlier this year, my cell phone vibrated with the text simply asking, "Will you marry me?" How could I possibly turn down the opportunity to make these two people so happy and the great honor of making Melissa and Chelsea officially MacGregors?

So, family has been in town. My mom's brother Uncle Stephen and his wife Auntie Ro have been visiting for the past few weeks, although I had only seen them once where we were all healthy. My sister, her husband Stephen, and their sons have traveled from California to be here for the big day. And we all went down to two beautiful beach houses rented for the occasion.

Auntie Ro sings English lullabies to Jackson

That meant my sister got to meet Jackson, and we got to meet Stephen's and her son Neil. That also meant that we had the first gathering of the MacGregor/Morris family cousins, aka the third generation of American MacGregors.

Colin ('00), Neil ('08), William ('07), Jackson ('09), Chelsea ('90)

And that also meant that I had to write a sermon that would truly capture how much I love both my brother and his bride. That challenge would be daunting enough without the craziness of the past few weeks, but I knew that once I was at the beach, all of the ideas and words I had been planning would come flowing out. In other words, those words were still not on paper when I got there. And once those words were written, we would have to find a printer on Galveston before the ceremony to make sure they were actually on paper.

Cue the vomit. Jackson's sickness this weekend had us being told that we would have to go to the hospital three hours before the wedding, right when I finished the last words of my speech. Noelle and I had to travel to UTMB, about forty-five minutes away. Back up ministers were selected, apologies were made, and we sped off. Noelle insisted I drive separately so I could get back in time for the ceremony, but leaving my son and wife at a (sub-par) hospital did not make me feel like father of the year.

However, I had to be Father Rob to my brother then, so I ran through a Candlewood Suites hotel to print up the ceremony, stole Express Mail stickers to affix the pages into my "holy journal", and sped back to the west side of Galveston to perform the ceremony. My sister and dad copied and pasted the pages, and then it was time to process out to the beach.

It was hard to focus when my mind was on Jackson and Noelle alone in the hospital, but I was easily swept up in the beautiful ceremony. Watching the family descend from the beach house, leading the procession out to the circle of torches on the beach, sharing my words with the couple and their friends and family, watching them proclaim such sincere, powerful love for each other - those memories I will cherish forever, especially as I had the best view of the moments. I couldn't be happier for Chris - Melissa is amazing, and hearing his vows made me so thankful that he had discovered such a powerful true love.

The family ready to become official

My view of the vows

Me reading my sermon

And then there's my cousins. Colin, aka Nephew 2000, is always living and loving the life, and I'll always remember my brother's best man having his camera out and ready to go during the ceremony. We tried to keep him serious and reverential, but when you get pictures like this, who can fault him?

Melissa hearing Chris's vows that had everyone crying

And Chelsea, my first niece, has always been a high schooler I wish was in my class. She's bright, funny, with a thirst for knowledge and life. We never fail to talk literature whenever we see each other, and hearing her call my brother dad makes me so proud for him to have such a wonderful daughter. Jackson's newest cousin will be looking out for him for life, and we look forward to making her babysit in the future, being as she'll be a great role model and she's family, so it should be free. She's working at a day care now, and I wouldn't be surprised if she pursues education as a career, so you know she must be awesome.

After the ceremony as the sun set

Anyway, after the ceremony and the requisite silly pictures,

We were told to pose like rock stars. Colin wins.
From left - Stephen, Neil, Penny, and William Morris;
Frances and Peter MacGregor;
Melissa, Colin, Chelsea, and Chris MacGregor;
me; Uncle Stephen Smith
Not pictured: Noelle and Jackson MacGregor; Auntie Ro Smith

we went back to the beach house for the reception. This is when I began to hear of Noelle's very different adventure back on the east side of Galveston (and Texas City). I was definitely more focused on what was going on there at that point, as food was eaten and cake was cut and garters were thrown, but I knew my brother was in good hands after I married him to Melissa. Seeing the entire array of photos posted here allows me to know they were having the best night of their lives, which is at it should be.

Noelle got a sick fussy Jackson back to the beach house, and she got to see all the pictures of the ceremony she had to miss. It's weird seeing the pictures of family gathered without her and Jackson being included, but we know there will be more occasions to get everyone together again.

It's tough now, knowing that one of my best days as a little brother coincided with one of Noelle's worst days as a mom. I never want her to have to go through another day like that alone. However, I don't have to worry about my duties as a brother keeping me from my duties as a dad again; I've made personally sure both my brother and my sister are set for life with the happiness true love brings. Jackson is a lucky boy to have such a loving family, especially as it continues to grow.

Jackson bonding with William and Neil on SundayDon't worry, Jackson - you'll get bigger too. Your cousins can't wait.
Uncle Stephen and Auntie Ro play with the effects of the wedding photo boothPenny and Stephen use the photo booth effects to create the yin-yang symbol

License signed - marriage official. Thanks, ULC!

The happy couple - we love you!

Most Sickie

This week has not gotten better. We are ready for a break! On Monday Noelle was sick. Her fever got above 102 and she felt awful. Tuesday, Rob was puking his guts up. Then, Jackson got sick...again. Now, keep in mind, although he was better from Saturday, he was still having diarrhea and his car seat had to be washed on a nearly daily basis. He was carried into daycare an arms length from Rob's body several days in a row.

But, Tuesday night Jackson went to bed around 7pm as usual. But, he woke up around 8:30 screaming. He cried for about 30 mins and finally fell asleep in Noelle's arms. He slept for about 30 mins, but woke up anytime she tried to put him down. He slept for 30 mins and then woke up screaming again. This continued all night long. Nobody got much sleep. He had a small fever overnight (about 100.5) but it grew to 102.7 by 9am. His doctor's office was able to work him in at 11:30. Noelle stayed home with him and decided they were going to get there early, so hopefully they could get in earlier.

When it was time to leave, Noelle placed him in his car seat and low and behold...he was quiet. This was a thrilling moment and she should have known there was a catch. She did a few things and went to pick up the car seat. She realized why he was so quiet and spent the next 30 minutes cleaning him and his car seat.

Once out the door, she made good time and was only 5 minutes late. Jackson's awesome doctor was out sick, so they were seeing another doctor - Dr. Wang. Grandma Stockman met them at the doctor to help out. They were called back quickly and when Noelle lifted Jackson from the car seat, Grandma Stockman noticed that Jackson had another explosion. The nurse assumed this was the reason for the visit. Haha. Nope. After going through Jackson's last week and a half, the nurse left and Dr. Wang came in. She was great! We realized that we are okay with seeing any doctor there - they are all great. It's just the office staff that is AWFUL.

Apparently Jackson's body stopped responding to the antibiotics and his ears got worse. On top of that he still has some stomach bug. Jackson has actually lost weight. He has a new antibiotic, so hopefully he'll get well soon. The doctor said it's possible he has the flu, but she doesn't think so for various reasons. But, she said there was no reason to test him because it would be miserable for him and he's too young for any medicine related to the flu. What we'd do for the flu, we should do for him anyway.

Hopefully, this is the end of the sickness for a while. Like Bethany said, it would be nice for Jackson to be able to see people again before turns 1.

By the way - I promise cute pictures are coming soon. Jackson turns 5 mo this week! I'll post one random picture for now. Perhaps this is why Jackson keeps getting sick...

More Sickie

There's a big update to the family, but it starts with Jackson's exciting Saturday, a day filled with vomit, diarrhea, a hospital, pharmacies aplenty, and Noelle saying she has sworn off an entire city for life. If you don't want to read about liquid escaping our son's various holes, why not check out our friend Shannon's sweet story about her daughter Maddie here?

The day began early, with a sweet Jackson eating his morning meal at 4:30 and snuggling with us in our beach house bed for another few hours. (Beach house explained in a later post.) At 7:30, he didn't eat too much. He did manage to throw up quite a bit after finishing though. It mostly slimed Noelle, and it worried us because this guy doesn't really throw up much. However, the day went on, after a change of clothes for all involved, and a cleaning of the beach house floor.

Then we went next door to visit Rob's parents' beach house. (Second beach house explained in a later post.) We had some breakfast and started writing some finishing touches to a wedding ceremony. (Wedding ceremony explained in later post.) Jackson got to pose with his four cousins for a few pictures, although one of them was not technically a cousin yet. (Exp. lat.) Pic later, promise. Good times were had, but Jackson was sluggish.

10:30 was the next vomit, but it was just a little bit. At this point he was refusing to nurse or have a bottle, which is not like him. (He's not a fat baby, but he does like food.) He had about an ounce from our attempts to feed him, and he was starting to look pale. He kept drifting off to sleep and was not the lively Jackson we are used to.

Around 12:30, Rob decided to see how sluggish he really was by picking him up and playing with him. Jackson, tiredly, smiled and showed he was still our Jackson. Rob hugged him, and the floodgates opened. Vomit fell everywhere, filling Rob's shirt pocket and covering him with the white gunk, which was way more than the ounce we had fed him. The first thought was to save the beach house carpet, done by a move mid-vomit to the tile by the beach house fireplace. (It was a nice beach house, explained later.) The second thought was "What's up with this boy?" As Rob's parents scoured the carpet, Rob called the doctor's answering service to see what they had to say. He also changed clothes and was glad he hadn't been playing airplane with Jackson.

When the answering service finally called back, Rob had just finished typing the wedding ceremony in the bathroom. (It was quiet there.) He emerged to hear, "They want us to go to the hospital emergency room." Jackson hadn't had a wet diaper all day, and they were concerned about dehydration. It was three hours until the wedding started, the one Rob was officiating, (exp. lat.) and we had to drive to the other side of Galveston to go to UTMB, which had recently reopened.

Contingency plans were made, two cars were taken, and we made it to UTMB in about forty-five minutes. We checked in and eventually had a nurse take Jackson's vitals. His temperature was normal (as it had been all day), his heart rate was fine, and his diaper was now wet. But how we'll remember her would be her loving statement - "He has a big head."

We know Jackson's head is bigger than 97% of the other babies out there. His dad has a big head. He knows about it. He has issues about it. So when he is sitting next to his son, don't point out his head size as though it's something we don't know. And don't sum up your first impression of our beautiful boy by dismissing him as a big-head.

Anyhoo, we head back to a room where a medical student gave him a closer look. And once he had gone through and Jackson's vitals were looking good, Rob had to leave his wife and child at the hospital to get back to the other side of Galveston.

The medical student returned shortly with the doctor. The doctor checked Jackson out and said he definitely had something and that they needed to curb his vomiting with some medicine so he wouldn't get dangerously dehydrated. Then, the virus would work its way out of his system and he'd be able to eat again. The doctor wanted to give him a Zofran that would dissolve under his tongue, have Noelle try to feed him and then (assuming he'd eat) watch him for 30 mins to make sure he kept it down. He asked if that would work. Noelle said yes and explained that would mean they would get to the wedding right when it was starting. She immediately thought about how she would be able to take some pictures of the ceremony from the balcony and give them a view they'd probably miss out on otherwise.

Unfortunately, this is about where the day started to really fall apart. About 30 minutes later Jackson started to cry. Jackson doesn't really cry much at all, so Noelle isn't really used to his crying and HATES when he does cry. After 15 minutes of him crying he finally settled down. Noelle began hearing some bits and pieces of troubling conversation. She heard "not safe for a four month old" as well as a few other troubling comments. A couple of minutes later a nurse poked his head in and looked at Jackson. Noelle asked if there was a problem and he said, "No, I just wanted to see the baby." She let him know she meant about the medicine, but he denied there was an issue, which is when she stepped out of the room where the other nurses were. (This is the same nurse that asked, "Is this your first child. I thought so." Why do people say this!? Our doctor told us to take him in. It's not like we wanted to mess up the wedding day by taking him in for something silly.) At that point the doctor came out of a room and asked how he's done since the medicine. At that point another nurse spoke up and said they didn 't have the one he asked for, only the regular tablets, but she didn't think it was safe for a 4 mo old. He said it was not. He was trying to think of another medicine when Noelle told him she had the dissolvable ones at home. He said yes, but to give him half and not to feed him until he had it. Since Noelle was not going home, he ended up giving her a prescription.

Noelle and Jackson headed to the discharge area. While the paperwork was being finalized, Jackson had the worst diarrhea he has ever had. If you are grossed out by the word diarrhea, stop reading and skip to the next paragraph. Noelle heard a sound, looked down, and saw it begin to bubble up in front of the diaper into his lap. This happened several times within a minute. The person that was discharging Jackson called the nurse over, who didn't seem concerned. At this point Noelle still thought she would get to the wedding before the ceremony ended.

As Noelle was heading back to the beach house, she passed a CVS. She carried Jackson in to get the medicine to find the "24 Hour Pharmacy" had closed at 6pm. She asked where the closest open pharmacy was and was told that every pharmacy on the island closed at 6pm ever since Ike. Luckily Shannon was able to look up the closest pharmacy that was still open. The exit wasn't too far from Galveston. Unfortunately, in the short distance there was a wreck on 45. Once past that, the exit was only a couple of miles away. But, upon exiting, the pharmacy was far from 45. It took nearly 15 minutes to get there after exiting. Jackson screamed the whole way there.

As soon as Noelle got him out of the car seat, he calmed down. As they were waiting for the medicine, they sat down near an elderly gentleman. When Jackson missed school a couple of days last week, he was extremely happy to see his teacher, Ms. B, when he returned. Well, the elderly gentleman was a black, bald man. Ms. B is also black and bald. We think that Jackson thought this man was Ms. B and he got very excited, stood up, tried to move his body towards him and started smiling. This was something we had not seen in quite a while.

On the way back to the beach house, Jackson screamed again. At one point Noelle had to pull over because Jackson was so upset he was screaming to the point he started coughing. Of course, this took careful selection because some parts of Galveston are not safe looking at night. Luckily about 30 minutes into the 45 minute drive Jackson fell asleep.

Throughout the whole process, to add to the stress, Noelle has a new phone that she is not used to using yet, which also caused all sorts of problems.

Luckily, on Sunday Jackson was feeling a lot better! See pictures below.

Poor Sickie

Jackson had his first real fever last night. He had a low fever once before due to his vaccines. This past weekend he was a little less lively than usual, but was still a good boy. We had no clue what was to come. He started to get a little fussy and felt warm Sunday night so we took his temp. It started as 99.8 and soon was up to 102. We've had him taking Tylenol ever since, but it's still 101.8. Jackson saw the doctor today. Dr. Gonzales was off today, so he saw Dr. Chang instead. We liked her as well. As soon as she started looking into his ear she gasped. Apparently both ears are pretty bad and he also has thrush. He's on two antibiotics as well as his usual reflux medicine. Poor thing. Listening to him whimper on his sleep was hard, but nothing like what we had to watch at the doctor's office. They had to draw some blood from his finger. The nurse had us lie him down, which was a bad call since he had fluid in his ears. He screamed like he's never screamed before. Finally the nurse let me hold him instead and he actually fell asleep while she was squeezing blood from his finger. Grandma is helping out and watching him since he can't go to daycare with a fever. He still managed to give her a few smiles here and there.

Jackson - We hope you get better soon. Watching you go through this is awful!

San Antonio

Noelle and Jackson took a quick weekend trip to San Antonio to honor Shannon and the upcoming birth of her twins. Rob stayed behind because he was hosting Chris's bachelor party. Luckily Noelle's mom joined them on the trip and was a great help.

Not only was the shower fun, but it was nice getting to spend more time with the Reynolds. The girls were as sweet and cute as ever and continued to love on and take care of Jackson.

Emily loved to kiss and hug Jackson and also liked to help buckle him into the seat belt.

Maddie loved to touch Jackson's feet and also liked to help feed Jackson.

We're so excited that the twin boys will only be 5-6 months younger than Jackson. All though it will seem like a big difference at first, we know a year or two from now, it won't see like there's any difference.

4 Month Check-up and Shots

Today Jackson had his (slightly late) 4 month check -up and shots.

Height - 26.75 inches = 97%

Weight - 17 lbs = 75-90%

Head - don't remember = 97%

Our son is tall and has a big head. And I thought he was heavy...

He was very good for Dr. Gonzales and wasn't too bothered by the shots.
This first pic is immediately after his shots. As you can tell, he handled them well. I think he looks massive in this picture.

"Say, ahhh."He got cool bandaids for being a good boy.

Oh - and Rob discovered that he and the doc have something in common... their comic book love.