JTOK Chatter > Page 348

Four more months? Ugh.

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Would someone just shoot me? Oh my god. I thought I just ate too much last night, so I took Tums and they didn’t really help—and I had a hard time falling asleep. Uh oh.

And this morning I still felt crappy and laid in bed pretty much all day feeling crappy, not really ever sleeping (so as to feel refreshed) but just snoozing off and on. My body started aching so I thought maybe I was getting sick…but it didn’t really feel like that. I showered and that didn’t even help. :'(

I hadn’t eaten much all day (toast with peanut butter at breakfast) so I had chicken broth and a handful of dry cereal and felt a little better, but my stomach still gurgles like I’m hungry…but I’m not.

I’m just really uncomfortable and it’s annoying. And of course I have zero energy.

Four more months?

/cry

Our local Goodwill sucks.

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We finally went to our local Goodwill today…and it totally sucked.

Maybe I’m spoiled by a big city Goodwill where everything was sorted by gender and size and hung on racks…but I can’t see me coming back to this one because I don’t have the patience or the time to sort through that much stuff…because clothes are only sorted by color. Color! So in order to find anything in your size, you have to paw through every single item. No thank you. At least they’re separated by gender. Still, no thank you.

And infant/baby stuff is just tossed in a bin which you have to dig through—and matching sets aren’t even together so you might find a PJ top but not the bottom (which some lady was dealing with as I walked by). No thank you.

Kid’s clothes? Same deal as adults—hung by color—but without the benefit (at least that I could see) of being sorted by gender (though, to be honest, I had lost all patience by that point and I just might not have looked closely enough). But again, nothing sorted by size—there was a 4 next to a 10. No thank you.

And the rest of the stuff looked like really really bad leftover garage sale crap. There was nothing I was even tempted by. And I’m in no way a snob about used clothes or stuff… So I was just really disappointed.

Owen’s first dental appointment

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Owen did great at his first dentist appointment—not perfect, but they said he was better than some 10 year olds! It took some convincing to get him to sit in the chair, and then more convincing to wear the lead robe for x-rays, and he wanted Backyardigans on the computer monitor—but there was no whining and no tantrums, so I consider it a major success! They even said that x-rays at this point are more to get him used to the idea rather than getting actual usable x-rays, so it was no big deal that they only really got one good one. And they were able to clean all his teeth and the dentist said they all look good! YAY OWEN!

Snow, turtles, and seahorses, oh my!

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http://www.ncaquariums.com/fort-fisher

Tom had today off, so we all went to The North Carolina Aquarium at Fort Fisher. Owen didn’t have the longest attention span (so we spent longer driving there and back than we did at the aquarium) but we still had fun.

The first exhibit area was freshwater fish, turtles, frogs, crocodiles (or alligators or both—I will never remember the difference), and snakes…nothing really noticable in and of itself…except they had misters that went off every five minutes or so and Owen thought it was snow and just loved it and kept asking for/saying “Snow! Snow! Snow!” 🙂

Between exhibition areas, you pass through a little room where you get your pictures taken on a green screen (and will, of course, later have the chance to purchase them) and amazingly, Owen did well with the instruction to hold his arms out so it would look like he was surfing:

Then we got instructions to look scared by putting our hands up to our faces…which we all have done…except Owen, who looked scared by hiding his face! 🙂

Then, a normal group photo.

It was a fairly speedy trip through the rest of the aquarium, but Owen did like the sting rays, seahorses, and playing in the crab:

Looking at fish with Gram:

Then Owen got a treat from the gift store…which he played with on the final walk outside.

We stopped to look at turtles on a log…

And birds in a field…

A great food day!

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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?):

  • Bread & Butter—house-made bread with home churned manna butter
  • (Me) Beet Box Salad—roasted beet & goat cheese terrine, field greens, orange supremes, pistachios, red wine, and ginger vinaigrette
  • (Me) Iron Chef: Bobby Filet—seared filet of beef, housemade chorizo, confit of root vegetables, shaved brussels sprouts, sauce of porcini
  • (Tom) Duck, Duck, Roots—confit of root vegetables, candied duck, olive oil, balsamic cardamom reduction, truffled cream, preserved lemon, spiced walnuts
  • (Tom) The Porkshank Redemption—braised & smoked pork shank with chilies, cocoa, ras al hanout, almond & cilantro barlotto

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 3rd Birthday Party!

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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!)

Peeking at his cake

This is what it looked like after I decorated it with his own Cars cars (while he napped):

Decorated!

Family photo!

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!

Owen passed age three with flying colors!

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Height: 42.5″ (greater than the 100th percentile) — was 39″ at 24mo
Weight: 45# (greater than the 100th percentile) — was 38# at 24mo

Amazingly, Owen got right up on the scale today without complaint!! It took some finagling to get him measured, but it wasn’t too painful, either.

Then we tested his eyes—he had to read symbols off an eye chart (he did fine, but I should have told her he could do the letters just fine). I think if it was just us, he would have done better, but he lost interest pretty quick and after the first two items, I had to resort to “Is that a tree? (No.) Is that a star? (No.) Is that a heart? (Yes.)” Apparently everything was fine, though, because she didn’t tell me otherwise. (I do know that she asked a line that even *I* couldn’t see!)

Then it was into the exam room to get his blood pressure taken. I knew he wouldn’t be thrilled with it, so I told him it was just like mama does at home with the machine (he watches me all the time) but he still wasn’t too sure. The nurse put it on his arm and said it was going to hug him a little—and he wanted nothing to do with it. Until it started squeezing him, then he said “Again, again!” 🙂 The most challenging thing, I think, was taking his temperature—he’s never had to do that before (when he was a baby, it was done rectally) so it took a little bit, but he eventually got it.

The doc checked all the basics and said he seemed great. He also wasn’t too worried about the picky eating thing. We are getting his speech evaluated, though, just to be safe and ease my mind (the doc wasn’t terribly worried, but said we might as well do it because it can’t hurt).

Happy 3rd Birthday, Owen!

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As a sidenote, we did not celebrate his birthday today—I just put the shirt on him for pictures. Since he really doesn’t KNOW when his birthday is unless we tell him, we plan on celebrating when Tom gets home and Papa and Grannie are here in about two weeks!

Good morning birthday boy! He didn’t appreciate the flash, so this is what I got!

He was a little stinker today—I didn’t get anything remotely good ALL day! He knows when the camera comes out and he HIDES HIS FACE! :##

This was after I promised him an ice cream snack:

And this was after the snack was finished—a happy boy!

Numbers and puddles!

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So it was really nice out and we were out playing when Owen told me he wanted to go for a walk…so off we went towards the golf course (carrying two motorcycles the whole way!). Once there, he wasn’t content to play on the green like we normally do, but rather he wanted to walk down the golf cart trail, which was fine with me. Then we happened upon these numbers (which we’d never seen before since we never walked that far).

Me: /on a lark/ Owen, what’s that number?
Owen: One hundred.
Me: /floored/

After we finished that walk, he discovered the mud puddles from the overnight rain. He had a blast jumping in them…

And then it was “mama splash…mama puddle” and how can you refuse that cute little voice?

Then he started splashing with his hands…

And he ended up looking like this…

A buddy!

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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!