Sick Little Moose

I've been meaning to post an update for quite a while now, but it has been a looooong week in the Banta House. The chaos started this past weekend with Jeff and me painting our bedroom. We had all the furniture pushed to the middle of the room and lamps sitting on the floor so that we could see the walls better. We completely ignored the fact that this was a safety hazard. Max came into our room, wandered over to a lamp and touched a lightbulb that had been on for many hours. Needless to say it was a very painful burn that blistered and resulted in several trips to the doctor and one trip to Vanderbilt Burn Clinic. The burn seems to be healing, despite the fact that Max refuses to keep the dressing on it. We will be going back to the Burn Clinic next week to make sure it's healing well and that he is using his hand properly. In the mean time, Max also came down with a terrible cold with a fever, nasty cough, runny nose, and ear infection. He is on antibiotics for the ear infection which are causing extremely unpleasant side effects. The poor boy has been existing on crackers, applesauce and Pedialyte for a few days. Although it has been a rough week, we are lucky that this has been his first big illness and traumatic experience in 18 months. Too bad they had to happen all at once! By the way, can you believe he is EIGHTEEN months old?!?! How did this happen?

I took this picture this morning. He was "helping" me change sheets.

These pictures were taken last week during an outing with a friend to Monkey's Treehouse, an indoor play space for kids. Max loved running around, playing in the mulch pit, climbing in the treehouse, but he especially loved the train table.

Clearing the shelves at the grocery store.

The train table

Playing with the trains on the large motor equipment.

This picture was taken later that day.

Hugging Maggie.

One big thing I learned with Max's burn is that a burn should never be treated with ice. Cold water and cold washcloth are all that is necessary. I did not know this and tried to put ice on Max's hand. Luckily Max wouldn't let us touch his hand with the ice. One of the nurses gave me a lecture about this, so I figure I'm not the only person who didn't know not to put ice on a burn, and I'm spreading the word!