Ry and I were really looking forward to taking Gavin down to St. Louis this year. Last year we had a lot of fun with him, and we were so excited to show him around now that he's older and understands things better. We had been talking about baseball a lot lately, reading him "Hello Fredbird" and had his Cardinals outfits all ready to wear. But the universe had other plans...
We were scheduled to drive down to St. Louis on Friday morning, and the entire week before, Gavin had an off and on cough, and a bit of a runny nose. It didn't seem like anything too serious, so we didn't really sweat it. On Thursday, Gavin was IN A MOOD, and Mommy had just about enough, so in my desperation to find an activity Gavin and I could both enjoy, I took Gav to the zoo. Gav was fine for the ride down to the zoo, but was totally not himself at the zoo. He didn't really care about looking at any of the animals, and never wanted to get out of his stroller (not even for a playground or monkeys, two of his favorites!). So I cut our zoo trip short and headed home. When we got home, Gavin felt pretty hot, so Ryan took his temperature and it was over 101 degrees. Uh oh.
Friday morning before our departure, we took Gavin to the doctor. His temp was back to normal by this point, but the fever had spooked us. The doctor tested him for strep, and it came back negative. Which was good, but also frustrating because now all we knew was that we had a sick baby, but sick with who knows what! So we headed to St. Louis in the hopes that Gavin was on his way to feeling better.
Let's just say, we don't know if Gavin just wasn't feeling well all weekend, if he was upset about being away from home, or it the terrible two's happened to hit this weekend, but it was not the most successful trip to St. Louis. Gavin spent most of his time pouting in his stroller or throwing epic tantrums, which meant Ryan and I were in constant "keep Gavin calm" mode. We had all these grand plans of taking Gavin to meet Fredbird, walking around with him in downtown St. Louis, swimming with him in the pool...and none of those things happened because the poor kid just wasn't into it. It got to the point where we had to take turns eating because Gavin was so out of sorts that he couldn't even handle sitting still for a few minutes in a restaurant. Luckily we had Mary and Larry to help out with some of the Gavin duty, but it was still a sanity testing trip!
Despite our bad luck on this trip, we did still manage to get Gavin to one of the Cardinals games, and took him to the St. Louis Science Center in an attempt to find some age appropriate activity for him. So here are a few pics of the more successful parts of our trip:
Gav and Daddy at the Cards game
Grandpa and Bryce creeping on Gavin's picture :)
Mommy and an increasingly unhappy Gavin
The one picture of Ry and I together on this trip
Sleepy cousins
The boys are not too pleased about being woken up from their baseball naps. Check out the stink eye Bryce is giving to his Uncle Ryan!
In-crib entertainment (and the only way to calm Gavin down for long enough to indulge in such activities as brushing your teeth or putting on your shoes!)
Gavin spent most of his St. Louis trip in this position
The cost to send Gavin to the moon
The Discovery Room at the St. Louis Science Center...this is one of the few times Gavin seemed to enjoy himself, so I'm glad we found this place!
Baby computers are so cute, I kind of wish I had a keyboard with giant multi-colored keys!
Poor guy is all tuckered out. Tantrums take a lot of energy!
Probably seems like a random pic to include, but we saw this car on our drive home. Check out the license plate...who do you think off-roads in their secret life, Larry or Greg?!
