tide over.

pop is working on a bigger post covering all of mercer's activity while on vacation, but in the meantime, here is a cute shot of him at the beach last wednesday. he loved it. he didn't eat any sand, which we were worried about, but he did charge the ocean a few times and we had to run after him.

back in town.

mercer and the gang just got back from a week's vacation in rhode island. photos and details to come!

like a fish I float.

mercer had a fun weekend at grandpa's house. there was lots of pizza-eating, ice cream slurping, and, of course, swimming! this was mercer's first time in a body of water other than the tub and he absolutely loved it. he stayed in until his fingers turned white and wrinkly. thanks, grandpa!

mercerMusic:
vetiver - "the swimming song (loudon wainwright III cover)

off to grandpa's house!

we're visiting grandpa this weekend where mercer will hopefully get his first taste of a (kid) pool. sure, he's been in the tub plenty of times, but a pool is quite different. mom and pop think he'll either hate it or he'll cry because he won't want to get out.

mercer has been getting back to normal with his eating habits. he went from eating nothing but milk to eating anything on his plate. we've even started to get rid of a milk feeding because he's eating so much regular food. tonight, he ate a chicken tender, carrots, green beans, peas, saltines, ice cream, banana and strawberry pieces, and blueberry juice. in fact, here's a video showing mercer eating his saltine after he had cleaned most of his plate! boring? cute?



other than that, mom and pop are just trying to keep up with mercer's boundless energy and play with him as much as we're physically able. he gets his hands on stuff you would never even think about.

mercerMusic:

chamberlain - "manhattan's iron horses"

the art critic.

we know it's already tuesday, but we just wanted to let everyone know that mercer had a fun weekend. mommy was out of town visiting friends, so on saturday, grandpa came up to visit for a boy's day out. we drove up to beacon, ny and visited the dia:beacon museum, which houses all kinds of contemporary art, including pieces by richard serra, andy warhol, dan flavin, and blinky palermo (clearly, the best name ever). mercer was well-behaved and enjoyed looking at all of the colors, shapes, and sculptures.

once we finished up there, we took a quick detour to poughkeepsie to visit what must be one of the greatest beverage stores in the country, called half time. the selection was mind-boggling, to say the least. even mercer had a good time climbing on top of the coors light boxes; probably the best use of coors light that pop can think of!

then it was back to base, where mercer slumbered gently into the night...

emergency!

mercer had a bit of excitement last sunday night. throughout the entire weekend, mercer was feeling very lethargic, tired, and just...blah. he would whine no matter what he was doing and he wasn't eating anything, including his cherished milk. on saturday, he was running a very high fever of about 104. we gave him some Tylenol and by the next morning, he had cooled off a bit.

on sunday night however, mercer's fever jumped back up to around 104 and we decided that we needed to take action. we called his doctors and decided to take him to the emergency room. we were worried about dehydration and he looked terrible - hot, red, droopy-eyed, sweaty, sick. we got there at around 6:30pm and the doctors immediately gave him some extra strength baby motrin. over the next few hours, mercer saw a total of 3 doctors, 2 nurses, and had a chest x-ray taken.

to make a long story short, the doctors wanted to diagnose him with walking pneumonia, simply based on one doctor hearing congestion in mercer's chest, yet they found nothing in his x-ray. they wanted to give him an antibiotic, but when the attending doctor finally listened to his chest, he heard nothing. we refused the antibiotic and chose to see mercer's real doctors in the morning for more advice. at this point in the night (10:30pm), mercer was running around in his hospital crib, playing, laughing, drinking. these were all good signs. we're guessing the doctors wanted to give mercer some kind of treatment to justify our visit and calm our worries, but the hospital never appeared confident of the diagnosis. we picked up on that and went in another direction. gotta love american health care!

our pediatrician told us we did the right thing by refusing the antibiotic and that mercer simply had a very bad virus. a 104-degree fever is very serious, but it has since gone away, leaving in its wake a trail of baby sniffles and coughs. mercer is OK now, back at day care (where he probably picked up the virus in the first place), and sleeping like a champ.

this will all soon be forgotten, but still, it's good experience for new parents.

the king of cool.

pop had to post this camera-phone picture before he forgot about it! hilarious, no? mercer was able to keep these glasses on just long enough for pop to snap a couple of shots for all the world to see. and yes, that is a pig he is holding.