Tuesday, December 24, 2013

Flu taking it's toll

As I've mentioned, I've been sick since before Thanksgiving (post-Vegas) but started a round of antibiotics that has seemed to give me the upper hand for the moment. Unfortunately, my father, for his 77th birthday, got a nasty stomach flu and has been laid up for the last few days. He seems to be feeling better now, but still not 100%.  LL's mother also came down with the flu over the weekend, exact same thing. Ugh. She's not 100% either, but is getting better, just in time to take care of her husband who has the same thing in a bad way.

As a result, we've pushed back our Christmas Eve celebration until after Christmas.  Hopefully the virus has been contained, otherwise tomorrow's celebration could be in danger as well. Being healthy is really important and it would be irresponsible parenting to put Marissa in harms way unnecessarily. That said, Marissa could be patient zero. She was sick with a stomach virus that caused her to vomit and gave her diarrhea, the main symptoms people have now. Though I thought I got her sick, my sickness had a fever, no vomiting and lasted 24 hours, while she was sick with vomiting and diarrhea for about a week.

Regardless, this will be a Christmas for the books!

Sunday, December 22, 2013

No Christmas Tree

Lots of things going on, so let's get to it!

First, everyone is sick. I'm sick, but now on antibiotics to help clear up a lingering cough that I've had for a month. After getting some sort of stomach virus on Monday afternoon and getting a 101 fever, I figured that if the fever didn't kill the cough causing agent then I needed to see a doctor. Finally on Saturday morning, with LL and Marissa down in Joliet, I went to a nearby quickcare facility to get evaluated. Being the smart guy that I am, I brought a bunch of Christmas cards to label and complete before mailing while I waited. Two birds one stone! The doc said it's probably some bug that's stuck in my sinuses as my lungs sounded good. Day two of the antibiotics and I'm already sounding better at least.

LL didn't get the 24 hour stomach bug that I got with the fever and all, but she's still fighting some lingering effects of the cold that she picked up from me after our Vegas trip.

Marissa has had some nasty (and I mean NASTY) diarrhea, though she seems generally okay.  Our biggest issue with her currently, except for her crawling and getting into EVERYTHING, is that she's not sleeping through the night. We've decided once the holidays are over and everyone is feeling better that we'll start some sleep training to make sure she sleeps through the night. That means a few nights of a LOT of crying, but she gets up twice a night now and that's just not acceptable for a healthy LL (who gets up usually).

So with everyone being sick, yet still having lots of events on a daily basis since Thanksgiving, we haven't had a chance to get a tree. No worries, Marissa will see plenty on Christmas day.

Despite the illneses, we all sucked it up and went out to the burbs to Bass Pro Shop for Marissa's first Santa visit. LL's parents and my parents met us out there for the excursion which involved lunch at Gordon Biersch afterwards. LL's mom was johnny on the spot with the photographs and did a great job. We chose this spot because they take a free picture for you and you can buy more if you want, but they also let you take your own pictures. Here are the results!




Marissa wasn't sure what to make of Santa, but didn't cry. 

She's thinking about what to ask for from Santa for the future. 

A great picture of my mom and Marissa checking each other out.




Sunday, December 15, 2013

A decision has been made!

As I previously wrote about in this entry, I wanted to enter the real estate brokerage world. Last week, after many interviews with firms of different sizes, I decided to join Be Realty, a smaller brokerage firm with three partners and seven total agents. They seem like great guys and we share many of the same values, as evidenced by their 5-star Yelp reviews and several customer service awards. It also seemed like a great fit because they are looking to grow and would like me to help with the internal functions to help facilitate that growth. While I'm new to the real estate world, I know the business side of things pretty well so there's some real value added that I can bring to the company. It's another chapter of my working life getting underway!!

The stretch of holiday parties and sporting events that started the night before Thanksgiving has finally come to a close....sort of. Actually, it started with our trip to Vegas the weekend before Thanksgiving and runs through Thursday of this week. But, since discretion is the better part of valor, I'm backing out of a bank holiday party on Tuesday. It's just too much!!

Friday we had one of my clients' Christmas party. It was at a super chic, super hipster-dufus type of place in a super hipster part of town (Wicker Park). The place is called Violet Hour and it's one of those places that doesn't have a marked entrance (we literally walked and drove by it three times) and the bathrooms are also not labeled. A waiter pointed me in the right direction and as I turned down a hallway, I was face with four, unmarked, white painted doors. I said to myself, I'm opening a door and going to the bathroom. If it's a coat closet, it's not my problem! Fortunately for the other guests, it was indeed a bathroom. Normally at these places, the wait staff are very pretentious and just awful, but we they were actually quite attentive. The formally normally is pretty bad and overpriced. Now, I don't know about the prices, but the food was very good actually.

While Marissa was sick on Saturday and Laura stayed home to take care of her, I was fortunate enough to be invited to the Harris Club for the Bulls game at the United Center by my good buddy Doug. At the Harris Club you get free drinks and food (very good food!). We had a great time and didn't see a minute of the basketball game from our seats. The Blackhawks were on TV, so we were watching them in the bar area. Ha! Great fun. Plus we played some pool. Here's a picture of the Saturday night crew:


Doug is on the right, his son Jonathon on the left and our football neighbor at the Bears games, Gar, in the back.

Speaking of Bears games, if you saw the Monday night game against Dallas, you know it was bitter cold. The game time temp was 9 degrees with an 11 below windchill, but I really didn't know it was that cold. It seemed cold, but not THAT cold. In the 10 years that I've been going to games, I've acquired warm clothing, layers and boots that really do the trick. I didn't even need hand warmers until the second half! Mike Ditka's number, 89, was retired by the Bears in a ceremony at half time and boy did he look cold. His speech was pretty quick, as you might expect. 

Last week our little girl turned 9 months! I feel so bad for getting her sick over the last week. This weekend she actually threw up several times for the first time ever. She was such a trooper though. Despite being so sick, she didn't cry at all while throwing up. We're hoping that she gets back to normal tomorrow. 

And here she is in her latest Bears outfit. Very cute! 

Tuesday, December 10, 2013

One small crawl for baby, one giant leap for baby kind

Things have been really crazy since the night before Thanksgiving. We've had two days since then when we haven't had something scheduled at night. Our babysitter is VERY happy! Most of that is over now though, just a few more parties to attend. Not that I'm asking for any sympathy! We've been having a LOT of fun, except for the cold and hacking cough we've had since Vegas. Ugh.

Being first time parents, we tend to worry a bit unnecessarily, but I'm sure it's just normal. When Marissa wasn't eating solid foods, we worried. Were we going to have the only 10 year old still on breast milk? Well, no. In her own time, she has started eating everything from broccoli to turkey to oatmeal. So now that she's almost 9 months old (tomorrow!), we were concerned about her not crawling. She's been pulling herself up on stuff and rolling around, but no crawling. She'd get to her knees or we'd put her on her knees and then she'd just collapse to her tummy. We thought maybe she'd just go straight to walking. One trip down to LL's parents fixed that though. The first video was shot on Monday morning and the second on Tuesday morning.





And yes, I was indeed at the Bears game on Monday night against Dallas. It was very cold, 9 degrees at game time I think with a -11 wind chill, but I was prepared with proper attire. Over the last 10 years of going to games I think, I've had enough cold weather games that I prepare well. The only problem was that my snow pants from last year are now too big and kept falling down! I don't know how the youth of today walk around like that.....I just don't. 

Sunday, December 01, 2013

Being sick sucks

It was a tough week in the Sutton household as I caught a cold which started showing up on Tuesday night. Unfortunately for LL, when I'm sick, it's tough for me to sleep which means it's tough for her to sleep. She'd rather have me in bed and keeping her up than for her to sleep alone, but actually sleep. Not helping matters was a night before Thanksgiving outing with Ricardo, Bill the Bear, Smitty and their spouses. I was pretty tame, but it didn't help. Then, in the morning, I got up early to go play our annual Turkey Bowl game about 90 minutes away in Matteson.

Despite the cold weather and how I was feeling, my team prevailed taking my record to 6-1 in Turkey Bowls. We played 7 on 7, with flags, and it was a hoot. The final score was something like 36-24, but I'm not exactly sure. I threw for 3 touchdowns, led a fourth touchdown drive that was run in and we kept possession to run out the clock on the last drive. I did throw two picks, though one was a bad play by my receiver. For next year I need to remember the players to draft: James (Colston), Tony, Jonathan and then Doug. That was just some inside info!

Thanksgiving was at my parents' house in Naperville as usual and it was a great meal and good fun as always. Marissa was the highlight of course, as she should be. Everyone wanted to spend time holding her and playing with her. Who doesn't love a baby?


Her first piece of turkey.



LL took her out to the newly refurbished playground across the street the other day. She loves the swings and the other kids. 

Finally, last night my cold broke and I got about 9 hours of sleep.  LL has some sniffling this morning unfortunately, so we're trying to head it off. Maybe with me being able to sleep, she'll sleep and be able to fight it off.