And so it begins.

It's winter...not officially I guess, but the weather certainly says winter. We have already had two signifigant snow flurries in Raleigh. Not enough that it actually stuck to the groud for long but the second one was enough that the kids got up at 7am, put on their snow gear and played outside for an hour before they got ready for school. Charlie was so excited about the snow! He woke everyone up so that they could see it. We've had more snow in the past 3 weeks then we did in the past two winters combined. It was actually the first time that Henry has ever seen snow! When we were standing outside in the first flurry, henry was so excited! He looked at me and said "Snowing, Mommy? Santa coming??" To him, seeing snow meant Santa was coming! It was very cute.

However, with the snow and cold weather comes problems for little Henry. When Henry was born he was diagnosed with Wolfe-Parkinsons-White (WPW) a heart condition that is characterized by an abnormal heart pattern which can go into tachacardia (an extremely fast heartbeat). This has not caused many problems since his birth, but as he gets older it will. Eventually he will have a laser surgery performed to correct his problem. At seven weeks old Henry got RSV. He was hospitalized for three days, where he was on breathing treatments and had his lungs suctioned out. Since then, every winter has been rough on Henry's immune system. He is used to getting breathing treatments fairly regularly--he thinks they are special and actally likes to sit down with his little fishy mask to get "nebulized"! He had a bit of a cough and runny nose when we left to go to Virginia this weekend. By Sunday morning it had gotten totally out of control. His entire body was straining as he tried to breathe. He was wheezing so bad, and I just wasn't comfortable driving all the way back to Raleigh with him struggling so hard. So we ended up in the ER in Fredriksburg. Travelling with children is never uneventful, is it? They were so nice in the ER and fast, too. They got Henry a breathing treatment and round of steroids and prescribed us an inhaler for the ride home. He's still wheezing today, but has been doing his treatments and taking his steroids like a champ! This is a picture of him getting his treatment at the hospital. You can tell he felt special in his little robe and mask!