There’s just something about having Tom home, a nice breeze blowing through the open windows, music playing, having a drink, and getting dinner ready together…to make things seem just about perfect.
Category Archives: Health & Well-Being
At the pirate cracker
We walked in and he says “Now where are those knights?” He hasn’t been here in—what??—at least a month if not more. But he remembered the exact toys that were there! And he pulled out every single same toy from the last time. 🙂
Let me be honest—I am NOT a fan of strange names.
This is not a new rant—I posted back in 2006 (Are they serious?) about the same thing.
So this new list of names are mostly from the birthday lists at Owen’s daycare/preschool (the entire county-wide system, not just his location or his class) over the past few weeks.
Just. Wow.
Alishea
Alysa
Aniya
Aria
Ayanna
Brazille
Caden
Dereona
DeSean
Enyla
Eriyanna
Ja’Rie
Jaina
Janessa
JaQuan
Jariandelyz (SERIOUSLY?!)
Javion
Jayda
Jaylen
Jayley
Jazlynn
Jecouri
Jesson
Kialanie
Kionna
Kyari
Lamya
Mai Anh (turns out this is a common Asian name)
McKarley
Micalle
Nijayia
Nitrel
Quashaun
Shauniya
Skyla
Sonyta
Syesha
Taleyah
Talinn
Tamein
Za’Riah
Zi Asia
Zy’nyia
And these are almost (ALMOST) worse to me:
Haleigh
Benjamen
Caiden
Kayden
Dakoda
Heaven
Nevaeh
Auriyanah
Now, while some of those may be perfectly legit ethnic names, others (I’m looking at you, Jariandelyz!) are just people being silly. I know to each their own and I shouldn’t care but I kinda do. I guess I’m just not that kind of person (hence Owen and Katie).
Packaging waste at its finest.
A 3″ bottle with maybe 1/4″ of pills.
Owen’s five-year well-visit
Height: 47-1/4″ — was 45″ at 48m (greater than 100th percentile)
Weight: 66.5# — was 51# at 48m (greater than 100th percentile)
The doc said overall he did well, but his vision is on the low side of normal (so watch that) and according to kids’ BMI charts, he is obese—he’s “off the charts” (over 99%). (Which, looking back and seeing he gained 15# since last year—HOLY WAH.)
I admit he could be thinner (even though he’s big for his age) but I honestly never thought he would be classified as obese. 😐
So, we need to start watching what he eats…but I’m guessing he’ll thin down a bit once summer rolls around and he’s out playing and running around more.
So. How big does a hole in your hand have to be before you should consider getting stitches?
I was washing knives this morning—being careful!—yet I still stuck myself. Right in the middle of my right palm right down a major line. Ugh. I kept pressure on it and didn’t think it was all that serious, so I posted the above question on Facebook. These were my favorite responses:
Can you see thru it? 🙂
A little duct tape will take care of that!
If you have to ask, you probably need stitches.
In all seriousness…between all the responses, a quick Google, and talking to David (my ex-PA stepdad), I decided to go to the ER. However, there was one problem—all the roads were still completely covered in ice. I had a brief thought that maybe the main roads would be better (like at home, Roberts Road can be horrible, but once you cross North Down it’s clear) but DUH, this is North Carolina. I felt okay going slow (25 in a 45) but as I got closer to town, I saw a line of cars slowing down, some stopped, and some turning around. I wasn’t even halfway to town by that point, so I just turned around and went home. (Come to find out later, it was at least a tractor-trailer accident and someone caught another accident on their phone while stopped for the previous accident.) And the police were telling people to stay off the roads. So I made the right call. If my hand had been lots worse, I may have pressed on—but it wasn’t.
However. The more I waited and watched, the more paranoid I got. It hurt—but it was most likely just normal bruising and not (my paranoid side) that I cut a muscle or nerve. It had stopped bleeding—but started again when I opened my hand too much. By this time it was after dinner and dark and there was no way I was going out on the roads…which meant even if I decided to go to the ER in the morning, it would be past the general 12-hour cutoff for suturing a cut. Ugh.
So I popped some more pain pills (a naproxen at first this morning, then a hydrocodone this afternoon, now Tylenol tonight), slapped some Neosporin and a bandaid on, and called it good for the night. If it’s still oogy in the morning, Tom will take me to the ER. He wouldn’t have to take me, but he has to report to work tomorrow at 11…unless, of course, he’s dealing with me. 🙂
P.S. I just realized the pic makes it look like one big hole. Trust me, it’s not a gaping hole…it’s just blood making it look that way.
Katie’s 18m well-visit
Finding stuff to get into while waiting for the doctor.
She got a wipe and was blowing her nose!
Weight: 26lbs. 7oz. (was 23lbs. 15oz.)—78th percentile (was 66th)
Height: 33-1/2″ (was 32-1/2″)—still 90th percentile
Head: 19″ (was 18-3/4″)—90th percentile (was 88th)
And for the sibling comparison, at 18 months, Owen was:
Weight: 32.5# (96th percentile)
Height: 35″ (97th percentile)
I didn’t have any concerns, so I was surprised when the doctor told me that she was on the edge with her language skills—that she’s on the later side of language development. Hoo boy. So was Owen.
Interestingly, I hadn’t read Owen’s same-month appointment blog entry, so when I was reviewing it to write this post, I was amazed at what I read:
We told her we were a bit concerned about his speech (or lack thereof) and she asked us some questions and from everything we told her (him knowing some letters, numbers, etc.) she said she wasn’t REALLY worried (yet) but that she agreed it wouldn’t hurt to get him evaluated.
Wow. So at 18m we had been concerned with Owen’s lack of speech development and he already knew some letters and numbers! Katie doesn’t know any letters or numbers.
She should be copying (imitating) two-word phrases like “Mama eat,” “Owen play,” and “What’s this?” AND saying “two or three words that represent different ideas together” like “See dog,” “Mommy come home,” or “Kitty gone.” But the doctor didn’t seem very worried—she just told me to spend more time reading with her and always talk to her. I guess it could be worse…but we’re keeping our fingers crossed.
Momentary heart failure
I was getting dinner ready when I looked in the living room and saw this:
Yes, she had gotten the pony up there by herself then climbed on and was rocking.
I always said I wouldn’t color my gray…
But just a little wouldn’t hurt, right?! I know I have some gray, but when I looked at this pic I snapped today, I have to admit I was a little shocked.
Facebook comments:
- Kristin—I don’t mind my gray either, but my hairdresser seems to. She owns my hair, so I get what I get. 🙂
- Jean—Love graying hair! Don’t change it.
- Tommy—If you color, go crazy. A magenta or blue streak ought to look good there.
- Brad—Hair color questions aside, this is a very good picture of you. You could do what I do and get a “tint” – I’ve got a little less natural gray than what I see in your picture, but when I went to my new style a few years ago, my wife convinced me to try the tint as well. The analogy my stylist uses is that the tint is like stain or varnish on wood; it’s translucent and lets the underlying product show through, albeit with a slightly different color, whereas an actual dye job is more like paint. I’m probably going to get hate mail from this, but since you asked: Knowing about what age you are, I’d cover it a little, whether tint or the full works. Strictly my opinion. 🙂
- Me—I’m not hiding my age: I turned 40 this year. 🙂
- Kelly—You’re pretty.
- Eddy—Just remember, you earned that gray hair!
- Kristin—Eddy, that’s how I look at it. I earned it. And Kelly, you’re completely correct.
- Katherine—I dye mine every 4-6 weeks. I will NOT go gray without a fight. At least not until I’m a grandmother.
- Tom—What happened??? I have only been gone six months!
- Me—I told you it’s been rough.
- Wendy—Time to hit the (dye) bottle.
- Elizabeth—I may have earned my gray hair but I def don’t want to see it! (at least not until I’m older) 🙂 Dye that up!
- Me—FYI Tom said he liked it but I can color it if I want.
- Wendy—Tom said that because he is a very wise man. He knows there is no other answer.
- Ruth—YOU LOOK GORGEOUS! I wouldn’t color it!
Today might have been my roughest day ever with Owen.
He was a complete pain in the ass from the minute we pulled into the driveway (after coming home from the playground after school): yelling, screeching, stomping, throwing things, hitting things, hitting me and Katie, being completely defiant, being rude…
In all, he had four time outs, TV and video games taken away, early bedtime given (twice!), and eventually a few precious toys taken away which resulted in him screaming and crying. (I even had to interrupt writing the draft of this post to jump up and yell at him for smacking Katie in the face because he was pissed at her. That got him sent to his room.) And I was even ignoring a lot of his more minor events. He even had his B (which I thought would be comforting) but he was even throwing that around and saying he didn’t want it. I asked if he wanted to go up to his room to be alone and he grouched at me about that, too (before he got sent there).
It was exhausting.
When I take something away for, say, him being cranky, he seems to think that if he apologizes right away and says he won’t be cranky anymore…that he’ll get whatever I just took away (like TV). Nope, kid, that’s not how it works. You get a warning (sometimes two) and if you keep on, you get the punishment—and at that point it’s too late to recover from the punishment. And I’ve told him this REPEATEDLY and I NEVER give in so it’s not like he’s thinking I did it once so I’ll do it again. And he apparently hasn’t fully caught on that when I say NO TV, I mean NO TV. Sometimes it’s just one show he loses. But today was full on TV. But he kept asking every half hour or so—and when I kept telling him no, that would set him off again (even though I kept asking him if he remembered WHY he lost TV and he did—he would tell me because he was cranky, etc.). So then he throws a toy or throws a B or hits Katie (which are all obviously not allowed) and it just escalates. He’s actually pretty good about sitting in his time out—and we go through the whole Super Nanny thing of me telling him I love him, me asking him what he did wrong (he always knows), him apologizing—and 10 minutes later he’d be back in another time out after being warned.
Lather, rinse, repeat…for a good three hours.
I actually thought he recovered after a pizza dinner and a bath (two of his favorite things, during which he was his normal, happy self!) but then he got cranked up again while getting ready for bed (he was upset that he missed a few chore chart items—he definitely lost Show Respect today, as well as Pick Up Toys and Share) and therefore lost his snack so he was NOT happy.
WHAT. THE. HELL?!
As I was saying good night, I told him tomorrow was a new day and it would be a better day…and he said “Yes! No more throwing things, hitting mama or Katie, and being grouchy.” So we’ll see…
My diagnosis.
Oh no, not again.
So we had another follow-up appointment with Owen’s pediatric GI this morning. He asked me how it was going and when I said “About the same—lots of poopy undies even after almost-weekly clean outs…” he felt Owen’s abdomen and told me he would definitely suggest another hospitalized clean out (he can still feel poop up too far). He basically said “What are you doing this weekend?” And I was honestly like a deer in the headlights because I DID NOT expect that.
I asked how that could be since I’ve been much more aggressive with the clean-outs—doing them more frequently and REALLY making sure he’s cleaned out (i.e. waiting until we get multiple instances of very watery diarrhea)—and he said I probably AM cleaning him out to a certain extent, but that there’s just too much in there so I’m getting (say) the first “chunk” (so to speak) but not the rest. So, if I KEPT going, I’d likely get more. Also, the doc said that since I’m still letting Owen eat during these clean-outs, that just adds more…
So…I said that this weekend really wouldn’t work because it’s hard to get a sitter. The doc suggested Owen was old enough to stay by himself—but sorry, even though we’ve been there once and he wouldn’t be unfamiliar with everything, there’s NO WAY I am leaving him in the hospital by himself. I told him Tom was coming home in a few weeks and asked if we couldn’t wait until then and he said that was fine—it took a year to get to this point, another few weeks isn’t going to make a big difference.
Owen didn’t seem to freak out at the thought of having to go again, but when I asked if he wanted to try a no-food clean-out at home to try and avoid going to the hospital, he said yes. Now, I’m sure it SOUNDS good, but when the time comes for him to only have juice and NOTHING else, he might be singing another tune. (He can have popsicles and broth, but he doesn’t like either of those.) He was concerned about what TYPE of juice he could have and when I told him he could have apple juice, he was happy. So we’ll see. I can call the doc’s office at any time to tell them we’re ready for the hospital…and in the meantime, I have to keep doing the same clean outs to keep him as cleaned out as possible.
Good times.
This is my brain lately.
Heading upstairs…DON’T FORGET TO TAKE YOUR MELATONIN.
Put Maggie in crate…DON’T FORGET TO TAKE YOUR MELATONIN.
Brushing my teeth…DON’T FORGET TO TAKE YOUR MELATONIN.
Lay down in bed, read today’s mail, flip through a magazine, check my email, play my Scrabble turns, post to Facebook, compose a blog post, edit today’s pictures, play TripleTown…
OH SHIT. I FORGOT TO TAKE MY MELATONIN. No wonder I’m not tired.
Kids are freaky.
So a few days ago, this rash erupted on Katie.
Freaked me out, of course. I assumed it was just some random kid thing so gave her Benedryl…and emailed my sister who knows all things dermatological. She asked if Katie had been sick recently… Why, yes, she had been. She guessed it wasn’t anything to worry about and to just keep an eye on it. Luckily it didn’t appear to be terribly itchy (I caught Katie rubbing around her neck once but that was about it.)
The next morning, the torso rash was just about gone but there were new spots on her arms and legs. Freaky. Another day (this morning) and it’s all about gone.
Phew.
I’m about to get passive aggressive.
I’m about ready to leave a passive aggressive note in our neighbors mailbox… They’ve left this pool out for garbage pick up for a month now. After it wasn’t picked up the first week, you’d think they’d realize it wasn’t ever going to be picked up. It’s really getting annoying. And it’s unsightly.
Saved by a friend.
I wasn’t sure how I was going to get the lights up this year…it’s hard enough to do inside stuff…but outside stuff? Requiring a ladder and four arms? Plus the tree? Ugh. I had managed the mantle and was just going to plod along as much as I could during Katie’s naps and possibly skip the outside lights…until Owen asked when we were putting them up because he liked them. Cue mom guilt. So I posted my lament on Facebook and a friend graciously offered to help (they’re moving soon so aren’t decorating this season). Boooo for them moving, but woohoo for her offer to help!
But what a debacle. (Granted, a minor debacle or two in the grand scheme of things, but still a debacle typical of my life.) My friend is now the outside proof that STRANGE THINGS really do seem to happen to me.
First.
We plugged the lights in before we got started and they worked. By the time we got to the end, they were out. Huh? We look again. Yep, out. This can’t be, we think—we both saw them lit. RIGHT? Maybe it was the extension cord? We tried another. Nope. The outlet? Nope, another item plugged in and worked fine. Reset the outlet. Nope. Tried about six rearrangements of extension cords and direct into the outlet and…nothing.
WHAT. THE. HELL?
We took a step back off the porch and—AHA! It was only the last 4′ of lights that were out—the section right above us that we were looking up at. The rest were on. But seriously? They were brand new expensive LED lights last year. GRRR. So our options were to leave them as is or restring the whole house again with some old-school multi-colored lights that are many years old that were just extras. And I’m sure you can guess what option I chose. I couldn’t leave the mantle garland uneven…you think I’m leaving up lights that have a section burnt out? 🙂 So we restrung the whole house (at least we had the system down by then!) and I chucked the “old” ones.
Second.
This one should really be filed under YOU HAVE GOT TO BE KIDDING ME. I wouldn’t have believed it if it didn’t happen to me—but I had photo proof and a friend watching. So there.
I think it was actually quite impressive:
Yes, that’s a light completely wedged in the sole of my flip flop. What? How? I mean really? I was just walking along and it got jammed in there. JAMMED. Like we needed to use pliers to get it out—and of course it broke. Which meant I had to take a light out of an extra string of all-blue lights. And then we had to replace a few other burnt-out lights with…blue lights.
Fixing the dips.
By the time we got to the end of the house, we had enough extra to put on the bushes…except we noticed that most of them were burnt out as well. Ugh. By that time I was burnt out on lights myself so I just let them hang down the side of the house and that was that!
Then Ruth, saint that she is, asked if there was anything else I needed help with. Well, I said, we could put the tree up… So we broke open two wine coolers as our celebratory drink after the escapade that was putting up the Christmas lights (plus we were both sweating from doing the lights—it was 72°!) and put the tree together and decorated most of it! (We left the bottom undone for Owen to finish.)
I can’t begin to thank Ruth enough. Really. She helped me not lose my shit when all kept going wonky. If I had been doing it by myself, the swearing would have been in utter frustration instead of in humor. 🙂
As soon as she left, someone was already making herself at home.
And her sister checking things out, too. Thankfully, this is as much interest as they both show.
Our first picture with Santa!
Over the years we just never cared about getting the picture with Santa. I hate crowds and I hate holiday crowds even more…so we just never did it. Then, once Owen was a bit older, we tried…but the commotion was too much for him and we had to leave before Santa even arrived.
Fast forward to this year and he’s showing A LOT more interest in Christmas—like things he wants and asking about Santa—so I thought I’d have to try this year (of course, the year Tom is gone). Thankfully, the local autism society planned a sensory-friendly event at the mall (two hours before regular pictures with Santa started) and we were first in line!
Owen was good at being patient (just asking a handful of times how many more minutes) and overall it was easy peasy! Of course Katie wasn’t her normal smiling self, but I was just happy she wasn’t snotty and/or screaming and/or wiggly and actually looked at the camera. I think they only took four pictures! Owen was great, too—and was EXCITED to see Santa. (Last night when I was telling him about the “mystery trip” to prepare him, he asked if it was the real Santa or a pretend Santa. I had no idea where he got the idea of real and pretend, but I told him it was a pretend Santa because of course the real Santa was getting ready at the North Pole. He accepted that.)
Of course the picture packages are a complete racket—but I ended up with a $40 package because it came with a $20 Shutterfly credit. I could have gotten cheaper packages but they only came with $10 Shutterfly credits so it was cost efficient (for me) to get the bigger package. So I will have actual photos to mail out this year. 🙂
On the way out, Owen wanted to ride in this kiddie car. I just happened to have the required quarters, so I said okay.
As you can see, Katie lasted about four seconds…and Owen only lasted about three more. 🙂
Today was a Facebook day.
Nothing really blog-worthy happened today…but I did post a few things on Facebook that I thought I’d share here:
Up today? Toy Story. Both are fully entranced. Unfortunately, we only got to see about 10 minutes of the movie before our network decided to flake out…and an hour of messing with it did nothing. Which leads to…
I am so sick of our worthless wireless network that there just might be 500 yards of ethernet cable running through the house when Tom gets home.
On the best of days, I don’t have the energy for two sick kids (with one super snotty girl). On a day like today when I am feeling exhausted and headachy, I REALLY don’t have the energy to be up and wiping noses every two minutes. But when you can see the snot fly through the air during a sneeze…you can’t really ignore it. At least Owen can (mostly) do his own and can kind of help with Katie…but I still need to intervene a lot.
Aww crap. I just realized Katie is likely teething. It’s about the age and would explain the extra chewing and slobber. Yeah, you’d think I would have thought of that before now…but no.
I’m so glad Owen didn’t want to take a nap today so that he could fall asleep on the couch at 4:45. 😐
And I just had to be a mean mom and wake Owen up from a nap. I just couldn’t let him take a long nap at this time of day when his bedtime is 7:30…because I am NOT giving up my nightly alone/me time if I can help it. Especially since I want to go to bed early since I’m not feeling the best.
How can one tiny girl produce SO much snot?!
Of course the best time to find out the humidifier in your kid’s room is dead is at bedtime. GRRR. Unfortunately, this means a trip to town—since it’s the weekend, Amazon wouldn’t get here until Wednesday…and with a coupon at BB&B I can get $10 off. Blurg.
It’s all 100% true.
I usually don’t repost these types of things that I read on Facebook…but after a day when most of the stuff on the list has been irritating me, I really needed to see it to get a grip.
How much do you think a well-visit costs?
Really? Eight line items ranging from $26-$200 for a total of $962…FOR A 15-MONTH WELL VISIT?! Of course the allowed amount is half that and we pay nothing, but that’s still $&#% INSANE.
I couldn’t even remember all the things they did to warrant that many line items so I had to look them up (in order, as seen above).
- 99392—Periodic preventive medicine re-evaluation (Birth-24 months)
- 96110—Developmental testing, limited (e.g., Developmental Screening Test II, Early Language Milestone Screen), with interpretation and report (I think this was asking ME questions. Or maybe reading my answer on the questionnaire?)
- 90657—Influenza virus vaccine, split virus, 6-35 months dosage, for intramuscular or jet injection use
- 90670—Pneumococcal conjugate vaccine, 13 valent, for intramuscular use
- 90647—Hemophilus influenza b vaccine (Hib), PRP-OMP conjugate (3 dose schedule), for intramuscular use
- 90700—Diphtheria, tetanus toxoids, and acellular pertussis vaccine (DTap) when administered to individuals younger than 7 years, for intramuscular use
- 90460—Immunization administration through 18 years of age via any route of administration, with counseling by physician or other qualified health care professional; first vaccine/toxoid component (New 01/01/2011)
- 90461—Immunization administration through 18 years of age via any route of administration, with counseling by physician or other qualified health care professional; each additional vaccine/toxoid component (List separately in addition to code for primary procedure.) (New 01/01/2011)
So, if I’m understanding 7 and 8, they charged $260 for administering the immunizations?! For less than five minutes. What a racket.
Things about me you might not know.
This game has been going around Facebook whereby you are given a number and you are then required to tell that many unique or fun things about yourself that most people wouldn’t know. I’ve really enjoyed reading the answers from all my friends, and while I didn’t officially get a number I thought it would be fun to play along.
- At a very young age I knew I didn’t want children and actually asked my mom if I could get a hysterectomy. Wisely, she assured me I should wait.
- I still didn’t want kids until a few years after getting married… But that changed during the few days after finding out my Grandpa Len had died and I was with all my extended family back in Michigan and I realized how much I loved my family and didn’t want it to end with me. It’s a good thing Tom was on board.
- From that moment, it took three years to get pregnant and involved both of us being tested (no issues), though one of those years Tom was deployed. 🙂
- We are currently on our third deployment: ~9 months, ~13 months, and hopefully this one with kids will be the shortest at ~6 months. When you dream about falling in love with a military man (Oh! Those uniforms!) you never think about the sucky parts.
- In college I made a list of the top 25 or so things I was looking for in a partner. The top 5 were CRITICAL. When I met Tom? He had none of the top 5 but I still knew from the first night he was the one. Yes, I knew the very first night that we would get married. It took four years but we did it!
- I loved every part of my wedding and would do it all over again in a hot second. I loved all the unique touches (trumpeter, writing our own vows, one of the groomsmen barfing in the bushes during the ceremony, reception on a dinner train, personalized cake topper, and a horse and carriage) and to this day people still tell me how awesome it was.
- For someone who is a homebody and doesn’t like change, the military is not really the best thing for me. I always said I would wait to have kids until we were settled so they wouldn’t have to move schools…but life just doesn’t work that way (I got old too fast and Tom had decided to stay in for 20). But, we have met the greatest people and can’t imagine life without having met our best friends Roger & Ursula Mitchell and Tom & Karen Trimble).
- I :heart: Amazon. If I never had to leave my house to shop I would be just fine. I have my fingers crossed that someday we move somewhere that Amazon delivers fresh groceries. If you ask me where I got something, chances are probably 90% it was from Amazon, 5% it was from another online source, and 5% it was local. 🙂
- If I never had another job again I would be just fine. I am NOT someone who has to work to feel validated.
- I don’t consider myself a hoarder, but my pantry has been referred to as Dharma. Yes, I also :heart: Costco and Sam’s Club.
- I hate being late. For anything. Even with two kids on a hectic morning, I still make it to Pre-K (with a 15 minute drive) at least five minutes early.
- This was the first year since we got married that we didn’t have Chinese for our anniversary dinner (it started as luck then we planned it and even managed during his past deployments). We changed it to steak and shrimp this year so we’d be eating the same thing on the same day!
Maiden Voyage
GI checkup: 3-6 more months, minimum
Not much has changed…we have some good days and bad days, I still need to do the mini clean-outs every other weekend, and the doc said this is normal for three months post-hospitalization…and 6-9 months is the normal time frame before we HOPEFULLY start seeing more of the good days. It’s a marathon, not a sprint. (I hate marathons and sprints, but I’d rather do sprints.)
So anyway, we at least got updated stats:
Weight: 64.2#
Height: 47.12″
EEK! No wonder his 4-5T pull-ups have been looking a little tight…AND why he’s in size 8s.
Helping—she handed him his shoes then tried to put them on with him.
Playing together while waiting for the nurse.
More waiting. It’s frustrating because the actual time with the doctor is about five minutes (which is fine and all we really need) but since it’s just him and one nurse, it takes 20 minutes for her to come back and schedule your next appointment since she’s in with other patients. We always get in on-time (if not early) so overall it’s not bad (and it’s still way better than having to drive three hours round trip to Wilmington) but it’s just slightly frustrating.
Anyway, they both did pretty good waiting and Katie loved looking behind the blinds.
Then some family fun…
I noticed that Katie was sticking her tongue out (no idea why) so we all did! This might just be my favorite picture of the month. 🙂
The sky above me.
It was so gorgeous out this afternoon (once I got out of the direct sun!) and I was enjoying watching the kids play from my camp chair in the middle of the lawn and the sky was so blue…I just had to take a picture.
Toe Update #2
I had started to mentally prepare myself for possibly having to burn a hole in the nail to drain the fluid/blood…but thankfully I don’t think we’ll have to do it. It started leaking a little fluid/blood last night so I helped it along with some gentle pressure and Owen said it didn’t hurt. It looked lots better immediately and looked even better today!
Toe Update
He says it hurts less…but wow does it look awful.
Just a little windy.
I love going out to the deck to put away the plastic chairs blowing around in the wind…only to discover the 14′ patio umbrella half out of the table and the heavy wrought iron table is what we heard moving around. EEK! Of course I couldn’t leave it like I found it (I should have taken a picture) so I had to finagle the stupid thing (which weighs a ton) and I think I threw my back out getting the umbrella safely removed. Fun!
Birthday Bowling + A Toe Tragedy
Today we had a birthday party at a bowling alley for one of Owen’s classmates.
He had great fun using up his allotted tokens:
And I played one game for him and won over 100 tickets! He liked feeding them into the counting machine! (I thought we were done at this point which is why I turned them in so early. By the time the day was done, I had three redemption slips!)
Then it was time for pizza, cake, and opening presents. Overall it wasn’t too bad, but the party room was SUPER tiny for all the kids and let me just ask: If you were having a birthday party at a bowling alley on a limited time schedule with little kids with a short attention span, why on earth would you bring ALL your personal presents (at least 10-12)? Bring maybe 2-3 from mom and dad (if any at all) and open the rest at home. But anyway.
Owen was really very patient, and finally it was time for bowling. He wasn’t thrilled with the shoes but I told him he had to wear them. The first few frames went pretty well (they had the bumpers up) but honestly, trying to corral ten or so ~5-year-olds into bowling is like trying to herd cats. Kids running here, running there, between lanes, down the lanes while others are bowling, not waiting their turns, wanting to punch all the buttons on the display… And the noise level? Eeesh. Owen started complaining that the shoes hurt his feet and even though they felt fine, I let him take them off. I bowled in socks as a kid and so could he.
Here was his first go at it!
Then they brought out the helper stands—which made a HUGE difference in the success of each turn.
So it was only Owen and another kid on the last lane. This kid seemed to be a little older and a little bit of a brat—and I have NO idea who his mother was/parents were because no one was ever once close to him the whole time I was there. Well, in about frame six, this kid grabs a ball off the ball return and I guess was trying to be nice and bring Owen a ball for his turn… And just as I’m realizing this could go horribly wrong…yep, bowling ball to the toe. Screaming, wailing, tears, and a little boy sobbing in my lap.
A few moms and kids came over to see if he was okay (he was, he just had to cry a bit and settle down) and one offered to get some ice (oh, yeah, that would be good—I was so concerned with calming him down I had completely zoned on getting ice). Anyway, that was the end of the fun and he just kept saying he wanted to go home. I said we could but we had to leave the ice on for a bit first. The other kid never apologized (I’m sure he didn’t think anything of it) and whoever was there with him never came over (I recognized the few moms that did come over) so that was kind of annoying.
We did have to stop and redeem his tickets on the way out. He had picked out what he wanted earlier and of course they were out of that item. But the guy said we could pick ANYTHING in the case! (I mean it’s all cheap crap, but Owen was excited!) So he picked handcuffs! 🙂 Then it was a slow hobble to the car (I obviously can’t carry him) and he really was a trooper for as painful as I know it was. On the way home I tried to get his mind off it it and had him smiling and laughing. And since he can take pills now, I stopped at Walgreens to get some children’s Advil.
Of course he couldn’t wait to get home to tell Gramma and Grandpa about it and show them. We asked him if he knew the kid and he said no, but he always drops the bowling ball on his foot. 🙂
Fun with the chiropractor’s toys
Owen had a so much fun with the toys at the chiropractor today that he didn’t want to leave. This is what he had set up—matching (colors) bad guys for each plane lying in wait of the tiger.
I’m thrilled this is his dinner.
Cheese and turkey? Hallelujah.
