I’m pretty sure anyone living in the Chicagoland area is glad that January is over. It was brutally cold. So cold that we’ve heard the term Chiberia being thrown around quite a bit. Chiberia being a cross between Chicago and Siberia.

I’ve lived in the Chicago area my whole life and I don’t recall it ever being that cold. Looking back at the historical temperatures for the month, it looks like January 6th was the coldest day of the month with a high temperature of 2 degrees below zero. And that doesn’t include the windchill, which got down to something like 40 degrees below zero.

The rest of the month was cold, but not that cold. Last weekend we got up into the 30s and we thought we were finally done with the sub-zero temperatures. I guess Mother Nature wasn’t done with us yet and decided to push the temperature back down around zero on Monday and Tuesday.

Sinus Infection

Fortunately, the school district cancelled school for a few of those brutally cold days. I don’t think we would have sent James to school anyway. It was just too damn cold out there. Even though we tried to keep him warm and not expose him to the extreme cold, he came down with something anyway.

Last Friday Stacy suspected something was brewing because he was very juicy and went over 12 hours without a diaper change. It seemed as if all the liquid in his body was coming out of his nose and mouth instead of into his bladder and out into his diaper. She started flushing him with water to keep him hydrated and eventually got him to pee.

Over the weekend and into Monday he was very cranky still didn’t seem to be doing too well so we took him to the pediatrician on Tuesday, which, as I mentioned in the first paragraph, was another brutally cold day with wind chills 20+ degrees below zero. We bundled up the best we could and braved the cold.

We love our pediatrician, but we hate that he’s 40 minutes away…especially when it’s this freaking cold out! He gave him a good once over. After looking at James’ ears, he said that it looks like the ear infection has cleared up and we can probably stop the ear drops. The doc thinks he has a sinus infection now so started James on a round of antibiotics. I hope I don’t jinx it by saying that James seems better since starting the antibiotic, but he does.

School

We felt that James was stable enough to go back to school this past Wednesday, but we made him promise to take it easy. It was a short school day and had only library and speech therapy. Thursday was another low-key day at school, but Friday he had a little bit of excitement. He got to meet and pet a service dog named Sophie.

I wonder if having a service dog or a campion dog would be good for James. I understand they are quite expensive so I don’t think we would be able to afford one, but it might be something to look into. Maybe there are grants available.

Fundraiser

We’re just about two months away from our big fundraiser and I have some exciting news to share. Robin Baumgarten from WGN Morning News will be at the event to take pictures and sign autographs. If you’re in the Chicago area, and want to meet her, head over to rollingforjames.com for event details and to purchase tickets. Or you can buy tickets at the door. We’ve also got lots of cool stuff we will raffling and auctioning off.

We are still looking for sponsors so if you are interested or know of someone who may be interested in becoming a sponsor, please send us a message on James’ Facebook page. We will put your logo on the back of the shirts that we will be selling at the event. Join the growing list of sponsors.

We have SO MANY great items that have been donated to James’ event, and we are so thankful for each and every one of our friends and family members who have sent us goodies! If we don’t say it enough… THANK YOU SO MUCH from the bottom of our hearts!