Pre-HotAmi Dinner

After we checked in to the hotel it was straight to the sushi restaurant for dinner with friends. We had seen most of the small group last year but I was SUPER EXCITED to see Katie, one of my very bestest friends whom I hadn’t seen IN SEVEN YEARS! SEVEN YEARS! (It hadn’t felt like that long since we do talk online and text/call now and again…but it’s obviously not the same as seeing each other in person.) I think she was even more excited than I was, and we hugged hello for a good two minutes!

It’s a long-running joke that the two of us share a brain because we think a lot alike, have the same views, like the same things, have finished each other’s sentences, etc…and it was proven again tonight—remember we haven’t seen each other in seven years and really only talk on forums…yet we both wore black capris, a purple shirt, and a black jacket.

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We visited with friends until after midnight then headed back to the hotel to crash—we hadn’t been up that late since I don’t know when…and were exhausted from a long day on the road.

Road Tripping

We spent just a hair over 12 hours on the road to get to Florida… It went fairly smoothly and was actually quite relaxing without the kids (i.e. worrying about snack breaks and potty stops and whining and napping).

I got caught up on my blog entries and a mini stack of parenting magazines, Alice was texting updates and pictures…and we Skyped with Owen while flying down the highway:

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The only annoying thing was the toll roads in Florida. First it’s a turnpike but you have to pay along the way (not just at exits). Then you think you’re getting off the turnpike but wait there’s an exact change only booth on the other side of the traffic light….so you’re apparently off the turnpike but still on a toll road that only has exact change/sunpass lanes and we don’t carry change. Then we hit a manned toll booth and got change…but then we were on I-75. WHAT?!? It was maddening (we’ve obviously never taken that route).

But we made it to the hotel without major incident. 🙂

Nanny Alice, Day 1

Our friend Alice (actually a professional nanny—though usually for much older kids!) is staying with the kids while we go to Florida. The kids met her about two weeks ago when she came for two nights to meet them and Owen was excited to have her back.

This was the first picture we got on the road—some pre-nap cuddles!

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Maggie and the kids enjoying the nice weather, the bubbles Alice brought, and playing swords!

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She spoiled the kids with a fun dinner: Owen got a caterpillar hot dog and Katie got hot dog palm trees. Both got strawberry flowers:

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And she braved giving Katie yogurt:

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My honest first thought was What is she doing to me? Now the kids are going to expect fun dinners all the time?! But my immediate next thought was Oh what a super special surprise that only Miss Alice does! 🙂

Bye bye long locks!

I’ve wanted really long hair my whole life. The closest I previously got was in 2009 after I had Owen…at which point I got fed up with it and chopped off 8″ to donate.

Fast forward almost FIVE years and it was even longer (though I don’t think by much)…and I was ready to cut it again. Apparently for me, the romanticized idea of long hair is better than the reality. It’s hard (time consuming) to blow straight, it gets knotted if you don’t comb it out daily (which begets tons of split ends), it’s constantly getting caught, and it spent the majority of time in a stupid pony tail.

I didn’t take an immediate Before pic, but this is somewhat recent:

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I would have liked to donate it again, but I had way too many inches of split ends (which they don’t want). As it turned out, it’s a tad shorter than I’d have liked…but I wanted ALL of the yucky ends trimmed so it’s super healthy. And of course I feel like I have no hair (I think she cut off a good 6-8″).

The aftermath:

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And the new me:

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A friend commented that she loved the color—and was surprised to learn it was natural! I guess I don’t have to worry quite yet about covering the gray!

Riding a bike, part 4

Well, part 4 for me anyway. He went out with Tom once where he got a lot better—and learned to stand up to get started peddling!

This is what happened today. He wasn’t happy that I tried to make light of his slow-motion spill at the end. (I was trying to get him laughing so he wouldn’t be upset about falling—because I knew he wasn’t hurt.)

The Lego Movie

Tom and I took Owen to The Lego Movie today. He was SOOO excited! The whole time we were coming home from Costco he was telling us to hurry so he wouldn’t miss the movie! We assured him we would be home in plenty of time. He even wore his new Lego Crocs!

The movie was really cute and Owen was super excited to see some of his own minifigures in the movie!

As the movie ended these were my exact thoughts:

  1. I feel guilty for super gluing some of Owen’s original minifigures together.
  2. I want to go buy him more Legos right now.
  3. EVERYTHING IS AWESOME!

You’ll understand all of those when you see the movie but here’s #3:

Then this happened on the way home:

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Poor Owen

So he didn’t feel good the other night—enough so that he didn’t want dinner. So we took his temp and WOW it was 102°. So we gave him some Advil and an hour later he seemed back to normal. Par for the course.

He’s had the sniffles for a bit, too, but I just chalked that up to a cold or allergies making a reappearance.

And then yesterday evening I noticed his left eye was a little pink and goopy. With green crusties. Oh boy… So we cleaned him up and figured if his eye was dried shut in the morning I’d take him to the doctor. But it was perfectly clean. Not really even pink. And no temp. He mentioned his head hurt and pointed to his ear but I didn’t make much of it and gave him another Advil and an allergy pill.

So then it was off to school, where I did warn them about the sniffles and the eye so they could keep watch. And damn if when I picked him up they didn’t tell me he napped today and woke up with a green crusty eye. 😐

I called the doctor’s office from the parking lot and they said to come right in. Phew! A quick look and yep, the doc said he definitely has pink eye—and an ear infection! AN EAR INFECTION! His very first! (Apparently the same germs that give you pink eye can also give you an ear infection.) And then it hit me—his sore ear this morning that I brushed off as a headache or allergies was an ear infection. Of course I felt bad putting two and two together a little late…but now I know.

The doc was going to give him liquid but I stopped her and requested pills. It wasn’t until later when I started wondering about the size of the pills…because while Owen can take pills, the ones he takes are TINY. And of course, these turned out to be horse pills and I thought we might have a problem. So I broke one in half (which was still about 10x the size of what he’s used to) and handed Owen both pieces, telling him he can take one at a time—but he had already put both pieces in his mouth and was trying to swallow them! He wasn’t 100% successful as one piece fell out of his mouth onto the floor…but he picked it right up, put it in his mouth, and swallowed it. Just like that. Holy wah. What a rock star! He earned a piece of chocolate for that!

Unfortunately, the drops are another story. He hates them. HATES THEM. Even though he knows they don’t hurt and are over in a split second. He’ll get better with them over the next day or so, but in the meantime it’s frustrating.

Poor Owen.

But we promised him that if he’s a really good boy with taking his pills and getting his drops…that we’ll take him to the Lego movie Sunday. Of course we had already planned on it but hadn’t told him…so why not use it to our advantage?! Parents need to take an advantage when they can, right?

Thankfully, overall though, he’s in good spirits. Like usual. 🙂

I think she was hungry.

We were playing in the play room when she disappeared and came back with a bib I had left out for the garage sale pile.

So I put it on her.

Then she went to the open diaper bag and pulled out a squeeze fruit.

So I gave it to her.

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Them she went back to the bag and brought yogurt puffs.

So I gave them to her.

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Then she disappeared into the kitchen…and came back with gummy fruits and a granola bar. I opened them but she was pretty much done by then.