Looks like the SFB will have a new pinkish glow come February! We’re a little late in the announcement, but we found out yesterday that we’ll be welcoming a baby girl in a few months (and everything with the baby is completely normal and healthy – praise God). We were both completely shocked and overwhelmed at the thought of a daughter. Ethan is already pointing to my stomach and saying, “sister,” and I’m dreaming of a super sweet nursery with dresses and matching shoes and little tiny hairbows and … I’m just a little excited. No name for the little one yet, but we’ll be sure to announce when we decide. We asked Ethan what his sister’s name should be, and he came up with was Baby – I think we can do better than that. So, way to go those of you who thought girl…you have more intuition than I do!

Well, we’re about halfway through the process of moving from a trio to a quartet.  Just one more week until we find out if Ethan will have a baby brother or sister.  Everyone keeps asking me what I think it is, and I don’t have a good guess this time.  I would have bet money that Ethan was a girl, so I’m not even going to guess this time.  But I do think everyone else should guess!  So, post a comment if you want to take a guess, and we’ll see which gender gets the most votes.

We did go to my high school reunion this weekend and it was actually a lot of fun (no – I didn’t even think to get my camera out).  It was nice to catch up with some friends I haven’t seen in literally 10 years, and it was also interesting to see some people that I forgot I even went to high school with!  Most of us are married and have at least one child, and a lot of people went off for college and then moved back to East Texas.  Anyway, if you’re on the fence about going to yours and you don’t have to fly to get there, I would suggest going – for curiosity’s sake if nothing else.

The past couple of days have not been very fun for the Starr Family Band, but at least we can confidently say that Ethan is on the mend. Sunday morning he woke up with a very runny nose, and right around the end of Sunday school he started wheezing a little…that’s when we should have known it would be a long day and night. We started his breathing treatments when we got home from church, and continued them through the night every 4 hours. That wouldn’t have been so bad, except that Ethan didn’t sleep…at all…Sunday night. He was crying, coughing, wheezing, throwing up, running fever, etc. I’m tired just thinking about it. So, Monday morning we call the doctor’s office (our new pediatrician that we’ve never seen before because we just switched to a local doctor), and they said to come in at 11:30. To make a long 3 hour visit short, you know it’s not a good sign when the nurse checking you in says, “There’s actually someone ahead of you, but I’ll go ahead and get the doctor now.” Oh boy. After 2 breathing treatments at the office, an oxygen tank, 2 nurses and a doctor, steroids and antiobiotics for an ear infection, we were on our way home. The good news is, the doctor’s office was GREAT and we left with a very different kid than what we arrived with (that’s really bad grammar, but I’m too tired to think about the best way to fix it). So, medicine and breathing treatments will be the name of the game to get our little boy over this round of an asthma attack/ear infection, but SFB is up to the challenge.

And actually, I was just thinking today about all the things we have to be grateful for:
1. my mom keeps Ethan the days I work, and who else would you want keeping your son than a registered nurse who is head over heels in love with her grandson?!?
2. really good insurance that allows us to be able to afford the name brand medicine that tastes much better than the generic stuff (may sound small, but a very big thing for a toddler)
3. medical staff that really do care about a child feeling better, and who will not only work right through their lunch, but will call first thing the next morning to make sure your child made it through the night okay
4. God’s prevailing grace – keeping in mind that Clay and I were EXHAUSTED yesterday morning…About 6:30 we decided to all crawl out of bed and try to eat some breakfast. Clay fixed Ethan a bowl of cheerios and sat the bowl on his highchair tray. He then picked up the bowl very carefully to push the tray in some more, and for “some” reason, dropped the bowl and cheerios and milk went everywhere. As he’s on the floor cleaning it up, he looks up and gets very pale…he made Ethan’s cereal with real milk – not soy milk. We both just sat there thinking of how horrible it would have been – especially on top of everything else – if Ethan had a bite of that cereal. It puts the verse in daily perspective about how God will not give us more than we can handle. I’m still thanking God for intervening at our breakfast table yesterday.
5. friends and family who said prayers for Ethan yesterday

So, that’s our week so far. My high school reunion is this weekend so I’ll probably have some pics to post after that. I wanted to get in a couple of pictures I took of Ethan Sunday – you can see his little feverish cheeks in the toolbench picture, but he was SO happy to be sitting in that chair playing – kids are amazing.

So I’m a little behind in posting this one, but it’s been a busy week. Monday was wonderful in so many different ways: not only was it a holiday which meant that Clay didn’t have to go to work, but my aunt, uncle and cousin surprised us with a visit which meant we got to hang out all day and play cards. Well, small clarification: the girls and Ethan hung out all day while Clay, my dad and uncle painted Ethan’s bathroom and put new floors down. I guess labor day had the opposite meaning for them this year. But one of the best things was that it rained ALL day long. Ethan was so excited (well, terrified of the thunder (’tunda’ as he calls it), but he was very intrigued by the rain. Clay took him out on the back porch to eat breakfast and watch the rain, and then we opened the kitchen window so he could feel it. I think we were as fascinated by it as Ethan was since we haven’t seen any in so long.

And thanks dad and David for working all day in the bathroom. It’s not finished, but as soon as we get some mirrors up and some pictures on the wall, I’ll post some pictures. It’s such a big kid bathroom now!