Now with three boys in the family, we need more space. Maybe not yet, but soon each kid will want his own room - and of course we need an office. So our small bungalow was not big enough. Option #1 - move to a bigger home. This we didn't want to do, because we love our neighbourhood (in the forest with the lake near by), the school Jakub just started to attend, the neighbours. Option #2: Build an extension. That is what we chose - building up our house - a second floor. There will be three extra bedrooms upstairs plus a washroom. A few more weeks, and we'll have our wish. Here are the pictures of the progress of the build.

Jakub and Robert are very much into magic now. Although sometimes they don't really understand the concept of magic, but they try their very hardest. It's so so cute.

After two weeks of hospitalization, Jakub came home. Then he had 11 more days of oral antibiotics. They were disgusting in flavor and we had to give it to Jakub every 6h (the nights weren't long enough), but now it's over. Recently we went to the hospital for a final checkup and a final x-ray, and he's very very healthy. Even the doctors said he did better than expected. YEY!

Jakub has been in the hospital for the last 8 days. He went in with a fever and sore ribs, which were diagnosed as a Staph Aureus infection. Staph is a tough bacteria to kill when it's inside the body, but it is all around the outside, apparently especially in the nose. One of our doctors said that Jakub could have got it from another kid who had picked his nose and then touched a scrape that Jakub had on his knee. Or maybe Jakub picked his own nose. Anyway, he was sick on Thursday afternoon and we took him to the hospital on Friday morning. The initial advice was that he was just constipated, causing the pain in his stomach area, and had an unrelated infection causing the fever.

I was very impressed that the doctor took blood and x-rays. She sensed that the initial explanation was maybe not 100% right. Turns out, after a day of culturing the blood, that he had Staph and the hospital called us back.

Now the tests and treatment really started at the Montreal Children's Hospital. He went on intraveinous antibiotics and rounds of x-rays, ultrasounds and gallium-bone-scans to find out what was causing the pain in Jakub's chest. Staph enters the blood and then can cause infections usually in the lungs, heart or a bone. Since the pain seemed to be in a rib the doctors suspected a bone infection at first but they also had to eliminate the heart. The bone is a bad place for the staph to hide because the treatment is very long, perhaps six weeks. While the investigation continued he was kept on antibiotics assuming the bone, and his blood cleared of the staph infection. Unfortunately, he still had the fever and pain so the search continued for the hiding place of the bacteria.

After the tests the doctors believed that the staph was isolated in the lung causing a pneumonia in the left lung. Additional, the pneumonia caused an accumulation of fluid around the lung, which would explain the fever and the pain. Since the fliud was not easing on his own, Jakub was scheduled for an emergency surgery to drain the fluid. He had this surgery on Friday morning and is currently attached to many wires. He is in good spirits, eating well and generally seems to at least be no worse off than before the surgery. Hopefully the fever will break after a day or two and he can be released in a week. The doctor gave me only a 20% chance of this optimistic outcome.

I must also say that the Montreal Children`s Hospital is fantastic. He has a team of doctors looking after him as well as specialists from infectious diseases, respiratory illness, and now surgeons. Each day they answer all our questions with endless patience, tell us what puzzles them and their strategies, and teach us whatever we need to know. Nothing is held back. He gets whichever tests and procedures might help his recovery but not more. We don't take ourselves or the kids to the hospital for colds or bumps so we don't experience the 12 hour waits that we always hear about. Every experience we've had: childbirth, ear infection, a scary high fever in Newfoundland, and now this, has left me very satisfied with our care.

The Montreal Children's is very children oriented. They have playrooms, videos, games, and an outdoor terrace with a playground on the 8th floor. The only thing they don't have is good food, but I hear that no hospital has good food.

Special thanks to all Jakub's friends who visited him in the hospital or sent get-well-wishes. He appreciated those visits so much and says THANK YOU to everyone. And thanks from Bogusia and I for the many offers of help. Thank you also to CN and my VP and director for not hesitating to give me the flexibility to care for Jakub.

Here are some pictures of Jakub from this week.

We went to Sherbrooke to visit our friends (Beata and her daughter Karolina). We took our other friends along (Asia, Jurek, Amelka, Natalka). It was supposed to rain, but the weather changed, and it turned out to be a great day. Here are some pictures from the trip, a little hike we did, and then a swim in their ultra clean pool. I love to go visit Beata - there's always so much to do.

I figured out how to make Konrad sleep most of the night - make him very warm. I put on his winter clothes, his parka (it's summer now) when he goes to bed and put in a soother in his mouth (which eventually he spits out after he's asleep). This way, he can't move around too much, he's very warm and snuggly, and his hands are confined so that he can't pull out the soother from his mouth. With a blanket, he would always manage to kick it off and would end up uncovered. I thought of the "Parka" idea when I was trying to ignore his crying on a sleepless night sometime in the first month of his life. Ever since then, Konrad has slept very well, and consequently has been in a good mood throughout the days. (Oh, and never change a baby's diaper at night... it just wakes them up, leave it until the morning.)

It works so well! Try it yourself if you have trouble with your baby waking up every two hours at night.

Recently we celebrated Robert's 3rd birthday. It was great. In the morning he had swimming class, which he loves. Then we went home to relax and play a bit. Then in the afternoon, we went to the Y for "jungle gym", and we invited his friends along (Esteban, Adrian, Amelka, Natalka and of course Jakub). This was so much fun. He couldn't contain his happiness and true affection towards everybody there. At the end, of that, Robert thanked all his friends for his presents (and I didn't even prompt him to do it, so it was very cute and real - I don't really know where he learned such great manners). Then we went to McDonald's to pick up Robert his favorite food: Chicken McNuggets. (I'm not sure if that's his favorite food or his favorite word to say, but he uses it a lot.) We picked up Alex from the train, went home to eat the nuggets and open presents. And then of course there was the cake (Mickey Mouse themed this year). We played with the presents so long. It was really really awesome. One of the best birthdays ever. Robert really appreciated everything. I love that little trouble maker. He's awesome! He's so sincere about everything. He's real! He's my boy!

Robert always like to do what Konrad does. If he's in the crib, he'll climb in to be with him. If I'm giving Konrad a bath, he'll quickly take off his clothes and jump in. And of course, when I lay Konrad in the living room, soon his brother Robert will match his brother in every move and pretends he's the baby. Of course, Konrad loves all the attention, so it's all good.

Konrad is seriously such a great baby. Thanks to him, I can handle my three boys (or should I call them little monsters). He lets me do what I need to do with Robert and Jakub, but then also gives me extra energy with his twinkling eyes and always smiling face. I love him so much, I can't even express it in words.

And of course, he is advance beyond his age (3 1/2 months)... hahahahaha. Here he is in a swing, and his first attempts at sitting. Today, I also felt a couple bottom teeth coming out.

For the last few months Robert has gone to an art class / music class combination. He absolutely loved it! For the first thirty minutes they would paint, do projects, do collages etc. Then in the second half, they sang, danced, played instruments. Initially Robert didn't want to do anything, but after only one class, he loved it so much. If fact he talks about it all the time now, and he wants to play the games he learned there. He is also very proud of his artwork and wants to show everybody and display it all around the house. What a great way to spend Thursday mornings.

Here is his favorite game / song: