And Katie got some new bibs but she doesn’t make for a good video!
Thank you, Wendy and Toby!
Of course as soon as I stopped recording…
Wow. These are cool. This is the coolest helicopter ever.
Owen: Mom, the white car and blue car are sad.
Me: Why are they sad?
Owen: The red car won the race.
This helicopter is HEAVY. The cars are light.
Owen has been sick for the past few days…basically just running a fever and being cranky.
And on the topic of running a fever, how annoying is it that I can’t get a good reading? I have taken Owen’s temp three different times/places (with the doctor-recommended temporal artery thermometer) and it varied from 101 to 103.5. Seriously? I even tried one with a normal digital thermometer and that didn’t help much, either.
WTF?! I guess I could break out the rectal if I was super worried.
So anyway…he wasn’t acting like he had a 103 temp which was the only reason I didn’t really freak out (and my mom friends told me that apparently 104+ is the new temp to worry about with kids these days as long as they’re acting okay and drinking okay—which he was). You’d think that with an almost 4-year-old I’d be well-versed in how to deal with a sick kid…but he’s only been sick like once before!!
The worst thing, I think, is that he HATES to take medicine in ANY form. He starts freaking out and crying at the mere mention of needing to take medicine. And even if you give him the choice of how he wants to take it (meltaway tabs, liquid from a cup, liquid from a syringe), he will still vomit it up every time. Well, most every time, but close enough to every time to say every time. 😐
When we were at UNC we had him try and take a melting tablet (seriously, it’s like a Sweet Tart—super yummy and sweet—that melts in your mouth in about 10 seconds) and he freaked out. Flat refuses to swallow. This time, he held it for like 5 minutes at which point he spit most of it out. Then he continued refusing to swallow until he had to say something. So all he got was about 1/4 of one pill, so 1/16 of the recommended dose. And of course he’s a whining snotty mess the whole time, like we’re sticking him with a hot poker. We did get lots of empathetic glances, though (we were in the children’s wing of UNC).
When we got home I thought I’d be sneaky and crush up a tablet into his yogurt. Ha. That was a laugh. After one bite I had grape juice vomit halfway across my living room. I think he’s just so aware of textures and changes to his regular foods that he just KNOWS.
It’s just SOOOOO frustrating.
10# potatoes, 3 sticks butter, 1 cup of half and half, 1 cup of sour cream, garlic salt, and pepper, with a sprinkle of cheddar cheese and bacon.
We were at our friends house for a get-together and Owen HAD to sit in this car—even though he’s about 30# and 10″ too big. 🙂
How could I have forgotten these pictures? The chili pepper was borrowed from friends and I was planning on having her wear it when we went out to trick or treat—except it was a bit too small and it was a challenge just getting her in it for a few pictures!
We were headed over to our friend’s house to watch the MSU game and Tom needed to put his drinks somewhere.
I had a friend’s housewarming to go to (my old boss, actually) so I got dressed (nothing fancy), took my hair out of my daily ponytail, and put on a tiny bit of makeup and perfume. I walk downstairs and Owen says “Wowww! Mama, you’re so pretty!” And sniffed me. 🙂
Gee, you think I should get dressed and put makeup on more often?
Or maybe I should say a zenpoop master? Or a poopzen master? Whatever you want to call it, I was it.
I was calm.
I was cool.
I was collected.
I promised Owen I wouldn’t yell at him again.
I told him it was okay if he pooped in his underwear (but I’d still like him to try to poop in the potty).
I told him he wouldn’t be in trouble.
You see, in talking about this whole ordeal with my mom friends, I came to the conclusion that the Miralax might actually be making it harder (in a sense) for him to poop successfully—since if it was making the stool too soft, he might not realize he had to poop and then OOPS before you know it, it’s there. And if he really isn’t able to control it, then OHMYGOD do I feel guilty about getting mad at him, you know? As a friend pointed out, he’s still learning what it takes to poop—especially since it’s different than pooping in a diaper, we’re guessing he had constipation and possibly pain issues, and now with the drugs it’s a different feeling/experience yet! Ugh, talk about mom guilt. 😥
Hence the zen master.
Luckily it was a pretty easy day so I wasn’t REALLY tested…but we still went through (I think) five pair of underwear. But there were no HUGE disasters, which I think can be attributed to A) him pooping quite a bit over the past two days and B) decreasing the Miralax dose (I’m hoping to hit on the magic amount that will make pooping easier but not create a holy mess).
Please keep your fingers crossed.
We took Maggie with us to our friends’ house for the afternoon…so she played hard for hours with Venus (a big lab). This is right after we got home…and she was zonked the rest of the night. 🙂
So we finally had our garage sale today—we’ve been wanting to have one ever since we moved back to Jacksonville but just never got around to it. If you remember, our last garage sale was a complete dud and we pretty much vowed to never have another. But we just had SO much good stuff to sell that we decided to take the chance.
And we’re glad we did.
Yes, it was a bit of legwork to get ready for it—and I pretty much ran the whole day by myself as Tom was in taking care of the kids—but it went really well. I didn’t get TOO terribly aggravated with people making deals (because we wanted the stuff GONE!) but I did draw the line a few times—of which these two cases were the most memorable:
But otherwise I was giving out good deals.
It was pretty busy all day but no matter how much stuff people bought, it never looked like the stuff was dwindling! NEVER! (Unfortunately, that just goes to show you just how much stuff we had. And sadly, the garage is still FULL of boxes we have to sort through and reorganize.)
When it was over, I was eager to count our stash and see how well we did. I was excited to see that we made $539—until I looked back at the total for our last garage sale (that I complained was a complete dud) and saw that the difference was only $239. But, it just felt like it went SO much better—and, if you go back and read the old garage sale post, you will see that I said another $200 would have made it better. One shopper even commented that it was a really nice sale! Yay, us! (And I have to give a huge thank you to our friends who loaned us tables and signs!)
So, in the end, we made about $300 for about 18-20 hours of work (prep, sale, clean up) which just sooooo doesn’t seem worth it. I mean, it’s better than working that long for nothing…but had we sold another $200 worth I’d be more amenable to having another garage sale sometime during my lifetime.
So I guess we did okay. Not awesome, but okay.
And everyone who drove by? They actually stopped…even if they didn’t buy anything! 🙂
She looks normal and cute, right? So what’s not normal?? If you guessed the bow, you’re right. 🙂 It was a gift—and it is cute—so I took a few pictures. But it’s definitely not a normal thing for us…since I’m just NOT a girly girl when it comes to things like that.
We had our friends and their kids over for dinner, and after dinner the two younger kids (Owen and Caroline) were off playing in the other room. Caroline came in to show me the picture she took of Owen—and it was REALLY cute! He was obviously happy to be in his Thor costume! The good thing I noticed was that it took about five other shots to get this one good one!
We went over to our friend’s house for dinner, and Owen just loves their daughter and playing in her room. She got a new “tent” for her bed and he LOVED it! Crawled right in and got under the covers!
Awwwww. Hannah (our babysitter) just got off the bus and Owen walked the whole length of our yard with her. We’re going to miss her when their family moves this summer…
Tom and I decided to go to Wilmington for an overnight trip…with plans to go out to eat, of course. Well, on the way there, we decided to stop at Jebby’s on 17 (that I spotted on Yelp)—a bar that was really REALLY good. I had She Crab soup, a fried oyster po’boy, and breaded fries (yes, breaded fries—they’re as decadent as they sound); Tom had the oyster stew, a fried egg/bacon/cheeseburger, and onion rings. All fresh and hand made (even the dressings and dips). We will definitely be back.
Then we got to Wilmington and decided to see if our friends were up for dinner—which they were, so we told them to pick the place. And we ended up at manna which was absolutely AMAZING. It was one of those menus that you didn’t know what half the items were but you knew they’d be delicious. And they soooooo were. I’d go back in a minute. Here’s what we ordered (don’t you love the names?):
Plus we all got to try each other’s dishes, so I got to try two other apps/salads (including a cheese & local charcuterie course) and three main courses (including lamb and grouper). Plus we all split a chocolate cake dessert.
Total food coma. But soooo worth it. SO WORTH IT.
The bonus? Our friends surprised us and picked up the check…so when we do it next (when both husbands are home from their months away), it will be our treat.
Owen’s birthday cake—he was so excited he wouldn’t stop jumping for me to get a good picture! (It was made by an acquaintance of ours. I decided to splurge this year and have someone else make it so it was his first REAL birthday cake!)
This is what it looked like after I decorated it with his own Cars cars (while he napped):
Family photo!
Since he had so many presents, we started opening them before the party. He loved the bowling pins from Grandma Marsha and Uncle Rob! (After we played with them as actual bowling items, they turned into soldiers!)
I have no idea why he plugs his ears, but it happens often:
Drinking out of his new big boy Cars cup!
“Happy birthday to you…”
Trying to blow out his candles…
We didn’t get a group picture, but we celebrated with Papa, Grannie, Dad, Mom—and our good friends Roger and Ursula and their kids Virginia and Caroline!
The almost 4yo neighbor kid (I’ve talked to his mom a few times) and his mom were walking by when Owen was playing in his police car and the little boy desperately wanted to play with it. I invited them into the yard and the boys proceeded to play together amazingly for close to an hour while her and I chatted at the edge of the road. It was a riot—Owen just let the kid drive because he doesn’t really want to do it himself. Then they’d take a break and run around the yard chasing each other. The mom reprimanded her son for pulling on Owen’s shirt while they were playing—and I thanked her, but had to tell her that he actually LIKES that…and then she saw what I meant when Owen backed up close to the little boy again, waiting for him to grab his shirt again! (Oops! I guess that was a bad game to teach him!) Then they got out the bucket of bubbles. Then it was back to the police car, with one driving and one chasing. Back and forth, back and forth. Owen had a BLAST, laughing and screeching (even though he doesn’t look thrilled in this picture). It was awesome to see…and I hope they come down to play again!
This would be the host-provided accessory for our friend Roger’s Mustache Birthday Party.
http://www.marbleskidsmuseum.org/
Our friends took us to Marbles Kids Museum in downtown Raleigh. Owen had a blast and especially loved the big train table, the car racing area, and the ducks…
We wanted to have a picnic like last year…perfect weather, fun for Owen in the pool, a bunch of friends over, some good food, and a new family photo. Unfortunately, the weather didn’t cooperate…and neither did Owen. We got a decent photo out of the 25 attempts…
But it doesn’t even come close to the apparently once-in-a-lifetime shot we got last year (one of two attempts).
But he was super cute the morning of the picnic when he discovered he could climb up onto the bay window ledge in the living room. What fun!
And he loved Gramma Jean’s mower…when it was turned off. She turned it on to give him a ride and it was “NOISY!”
Then Tom helped him pick a flower for me—my first flower! Sigh. :heart:
And last but not least…Gramma Jean got Owen a pop-up tube/tent contraption…which he LOVED. I’m not sure where it’s going to fit in either house, but we’ll have to find a place.
Through a bizarre set of circumstances, I ended up flying to Nashville to attend a Garth Brooks charity concert.
And wow. Just…wow.
He was AMAZING. A. MA. ZING. He did a 2-hour show which included (I think) three or four encores.
It was an awesome experience. Especially since I haven’t gone to many concerts in my time… But to hear ~16,000 people singing every word to every song just blew me away. And his energy? Holy crap. I was exhausted just standing, singing, screaming, and applauding for two hours…he had to be dead. But he just kept going and going and going. As I said in my Facebook post, he was “balls to the wall for two straight hours.”
It was just pure awesome, and I am very thankful to how everything worked out in a matter of hours…and how things all came together in the end!
Everything was apparently meant to be. And I am a very, VERY happy woman!
The last stop on our road trip was Jacksonville, NC, to see our friends Roger and Ursula and their girls Virginia and Caroline. Both girls took to Owen right away…
And had fun on the trampoline as well!
I was at a mom friend’s house for a play date and the kids were out of sight for a few minutes… This is what we found when we went on the hunt:
In short, what a waste of money. 🙁
Short story long, my dad and Linda mentioned they were coming down to visit, so my first thought was that we’d be able to go out! I was excited about something as simple as dinner and a movie…but apparently Tom had other visions.
I thought maybe we could do the dinner/movie thing or something like bowling with friends from his work (that we had fun with at the USMC ball), so he passed on the idea of a night out…and they came back with some huge party at a local hotel that would have cost over $500.
Um, no. Sorry.
I told him as much and he was upset about it because he apparently REALLY wanted to do something and since he had been the instigator for the idea, he felt he had to go. I again told him we were not spending $500 on NYE (that’s half a cruise!). He eventually cut out the hotel stay and dinner part of the event, which cut costs considerably—although it was still too much for me. But I gave in.
The tickets did include an open bar, which was a good thing…except we had just done that at the ball in November and I really wasn’t in the mood to do it again so soon, if you catch my drift. I mean, sure, I didn’t HAVE to drink, but with an $89 ticket I certainly would want to get my money’s worth (because I certainly wasn’t paying $89 to dance or for a veggie tray and chicken fingers—the “food” that was included). I also didn’t want to drink enough to require calling a cab to get home.
We pull up to the hotel so Tom could drop me off and see that there is valet parking which we (of course) didn’t need, but come to find out it was MANDATORY valet parking. For $10. I was pissed—no where in ANY of the ticket or event information did they mention mandatory valet parking. What a ripoff. We had both happened to throw some money in our pockets before we left, so we did have the money…but I was tempted to tell them where to put it. >:XX
So, we weren’t even inside yet and I was pissed off. Not a good start to the night. So right inside the door we had to show ID. Then Tom had to show ID to get the tickets. Then we both had to show ID to get the wristbands. I swear it was more security than at the airport. It was annoying, but not terrible.
So the last section was the coat check. I said I didn’t need to check my coat and they told me it was a mandatory coat check. I literally said “YOU HAVE GOT TO BE KIDDING ME.” Turns out they missed the fact that we were going up to our friends’ room and were going to leave the coat there.
But that was another obstacle—we didn’t have the necessary wrist bands to go upstairs! Only people who were staying the night were allowed upstairs. WHAT? SERIOUSLY? But apparently the front desk wasn’t clued into this, because Tom had just gone over and gotten the room number where we were headed—and they said nothing about needing wrist bands. So the security guy in front of the elevators was giving us shit, then after some back-and-forth with Tom, finally said “Just go on up, I’ll pretend I didn’t see anything.” 🙄 Whatever.
So we go upstairs and see signs that there are to be no personal parties in the rooms (which is funny, because the promos for the event made a big deal about how “all the suites overlook the dance floor/party area”—what’s the point if you can’t be up there?) and once in our friends’ room, they told us they were almost frisked for alcohol before being allowed up with their bags because the hotel DID NOT WANT partying in the rooms. It’s not like they would be cheating the hotel out of paying for alcohol, since every single person there had bought a ticket allowing them access to the open bar. Totally asinine.
So at 9 we headed downstairs and the main bar was sooooooooo slow (and it really wasn’t even busy yet) but there was a sign that Red Bull was $5. We were all like “I thought it was an open bar?” Oh, open except for Red Bull (which is of course what I had wanted to drink). At that point, I had had it with the evening and was ready to go home. Seriously. With the crazy stupid security, the mandatory valet parking, the mandatory coat check, the strict room rules, and now the Red Bull cost? >:XX I was seriously tempted to just keep asking for drinks and dumping them out, telling them it would be much cheaper to just give me a damn Red Bull (which, seriously, costs maybe $1.50/can).
Oh, and there was nowhere at all to sit—all the tables were VIP only (meaning you had to buy the space) so we knew we’d be standing the entire evening. Again, something that was never mentioned anywhere in the promos. >:XX So we all headed off into a side room where at least the bar service was a little faster, but the music sucked, so we pretty much just stood around. Then it started getting crowded. Other side rooms had other music, but nothing any better than the first room we were in. By this point the main room was so crowded it was a pain walking through it to get anywhere. The music on the dance floor sucked, too. I don’t think I recognized two songs the entire time we were standing there (probably two hours total of the night). And the clientele was scary—lots of skanky/trashy/whorish looking girls in stripper clothes and shoes. Sad. Of course there were some normal-looking people, but overall I just felt old and out of place and would rather have been at home.
At least I was somewhat looking forward to midnight, because the promos had said they would play the New York Ball Drop at midnight on the “40 LCD TVs AROUND THE ROOM.” Except they didn’t. Hell, they didn’t even start the countdown until about 12:02 (according to our phones). I think it was 12:08 when I told Tom it was time to go.
It took some time to find our friends so we could get a room key to get my coat, and I had been sober since about 11, so I was fine to drive. We were home and in bed by 12:50.
The only good thing is that now Tom owes me big. BIG. And we never need to go out on NYE again.
The ball was a little different than last year…the tickets were a bit more (although still a good deal, considering they included dinner, an open bar, and the hotel room) and there were no giveaways because they lost a huge sponsor that they had last year. That said, we had an awesome time.
Of course, I was excited because I could drink this year—as last year I was pregnant! I wasn’t sure what my drink of choice would be, because typically a hotel open bar doesn’t have anything I really like, and get stuck drinking Vodka & Cranberry. But, this year they had Monster…which is similar to Red Bull…which I love with vodka…so I discovered a new drink and enjoyed them thoroughly all night! Probably a few too many, but damn it was fun.
Danced a bit, drank a bit, made some new friends (which I am sooooo excited about), and was in bed by midnight! Unfortunately, I forgot to take my Tylenol PM before I fell asleep, so I woke up in the middle of the night with a smashing headache, but wasn’t about to take a Tylenol PM at that point, so I just laid there and suffered, hoping I would fall asleep again…wondering how I could get my hands on any type of pill to take. About 6:30 Tom finally woke up and told me he had packed Excedrin! Ugh! If only I had known that when I first woke up!! The rest of the day was a great reminder of why I don’t drink like that anymore. XX(
Here is the official pic, copied and pasted from the photographer’s website. I hate it, of course. He took three pics and this was the best, and I still hate it. Aside from the fact I look pregnant, LOL, I hate that you can see the flag stands. Oh well.
I ordered a sushi platter for a group gathering today…isn’t it pretty? And it was deeeeelicious, too. Yummo.
