Teething and Bikes Rides

It has been a while....  Things have been busy even though I don't feel like I've accomplished much lately.  Eliot has been "off" for a week now--fussy, refusing to eat solids, and lots of diapers.  Everything is something to cry about.  That isn't like him at all.  No fever, though.  Since this had been going on for a week and the diapers were concerning me, we went ahead and took him to the doctor.  The diagnosis:  teething (molars) and a possible lingering tummyache.

So, Eliot is mostly on the BRAT diet:  bananas, rice, apples, and toast.  The doctor suggested cutting out milk, but Eliot was not a fan of rice milk, so we'll see what we can do.  His diaper issue is probably also related to teething.  The kid has eight teeth already, but has never reacted this way.  I must say that I'm a bit relieved that it isn't the "terrible twos" coming early.

Eliot acting so strangely has made everything a little more difficult, but we've tried to press on and have some fun anyway.

One of my favorite things in the world is a family bike ride on a nice day.  Unfortunately, our bike rack broke, but it was probably time.  It was my parents' bike rack from when I was a kid.  We took that thing all over Virginia for camping trips.  It was probably almost 15 years old, and served us well.  We had been wanting to get a sturdy rack that attaches to a hitch, so on Sunday, Elizabeth watched Eliot while Chris and I drove back and forth to U-haul to get a hitch installed on the Jeep.  We figured a hitch would be quite useful in other ways as well down road.  On Monday, our new rack came in the mail.  A bike ride at Blackwater Creek it was!

Part of me thought that maybe Eliot was extra fussy because he was bored.  Or if he were sick, maybe I could distract him by playing.  I tried taking him outside to play a lot, which helped sometimes.  Here he is with our next-door neighbor pig, Boone.  In the picture below that, we see how playing outside still doesn't quite make things better all of the time.

Other than that, we've been trying to clean, do yard work, pack, and get ready for our realtor meeting tomorrow!  Also, I spent a lot of the week planning out and documenting our dinners on my food blog.  Kind of silly, but it was something to look forward to every evening.