Travelling Alone....Sort of

Our flight left at 6 AM, meaning we had to be at the airport at 5 AM, meaning I had to get my two children out of the house by 4:30 AM. Torture, but that's what you do for family. Plus, my daughter's excitement to see Grandma pretty much made up for it.

I had packed cereal cups to eat for breakfast and when we got through security I bought milk. We made our way down to the gate and I opened up Charlotte's cereal and got her settled as a man came up to gate check the stroller. He said we'd have about 20 minutes tops to eat our breakfast. I figured that would be fine. That is until Charlotte looks up to me and says the words every potty trained child inexplicably knows to say at just the wrong time, "Pee pee Mommy."

I look around at all the carry-ons that we had set down and rifled through to get breakfast out and wildly tried to think of a way to get all of them, our stroller, and us down one story to the bathrooms, have her go and be back up in time to eat breakfast before we had to board. My mind quickly ground to a halt, realizing that there was no conceivable way this could be done. I'm there mumbling, "pee pee...uh.....pee pee. Ok, hmm..." when a wonderful good Samaritan stepped in. A young woman sitting next to us heard the whole interchange and said, "I know I'm a stranger, but I can stay with your baby while you take her to the bathroom." Without even thinking I said, "Thank you!" Took Charlotte and ran. I got her squared away and back in enough time for her to finish her Lucky Charms and run right onto the plane. It wasn't until we were in the air that I realized I probably should have been a little more wary, but sometimes you just have to rely on the kindness of strangers and I am so very thankful.

Other than that our trip was surprisingly uneventful. Greg slept through over half of both flights and Charlotte only got antsy about getting out of her seat about half an hour from the end. Greg did like to do short, loud yells so that people would look at him, which was slightly embarrassing, but at least he wasn't awake for very long and also he wasn't screaming his head off.

So we're here at Grandma's house and settled in. Now if we could just adjust to the two hour time zone difference.

Pajamas

This Saturday my two children and I will be flying across country without the aid of my husband. Our plane leaves at around 6 AM. Any suggestions? Also, do I even worry about the fact that my two almost three year old will be in her pajamas all day?

Daddy's Little Girl

A while back a friend of mine whose hobby is photography asked if she could try her hand at photographing a family, our family. I said sure. We went out last Friday. She just sent me a link to the album she created for us. I think they look awesome and I'm sure we will use one for our Christmas cards. Then I got to see the last one in the album and my brain practically exploded with how beautiful it was.

Thank you so much Kara!

The Stats And Another Funny Quote

We had Greg's six month check-up.

Height: 26 1/2" (50%)
Weight: 20 lbs 2 oz (90%)

So he's not extremely tall, but boy does he pack a punch! The doctor said that what Charlotte had last week was most likely H1N1 which actually gave me a little relief from worry. I'll probably still vaccinate her, but I don't have to worry so much about our air travel during the holidays. (Note: If you are thinking of commenting on how I might still want to worry, don't.)

Dan is currently on family practice rotation which is an absolute dream for the family. He has breakfast with us and is home for dinner. He only works a half day Mondays (he spends the other half studying though). And get this! He only has to work every other Friday. AWESOME. So last weekend since he got housework in on Friday we all went out Saturday late afternoon and evening to the zoo. We let Charlotte pick where we went so we went to the bird house, which she has taken a fancy to lately. As we were going by each cage she would ask me what the bird was and why this bird couldn't get out ("I told you the last time. The wires keep the bird in.") Then we came up to some guinea foul of some variety and instead of asking the kind of bird she says, "That's a pirate bird, Mommy." Who knew?

Glad It Happened Now

Guess who turns into a banshee screaming zombie when he teethes? For a solid 48 hours nobody slept in our house. The only positive I can think to this situation is at least it happened now and not say on the airplane on the way to vacation.

Also, Dan put in light switches upstairs! Honest to goodness hard wired light switches. For all the lights. And he's in the middle of installing a fan light for the bathroom! It's amazing how much you appreciate the simple things.

Also, Dan uttered the phrase I have been waiting for a year for him to say a few days ago. After he finished the last light switch box he turned to me and said, "I think I'd be OK with buying a newer house next time." Yahtzee! It's a whole lot easier to do voluntary projects to give your home "character" than it is to fix plaster walls, re-plumb the bathroom, and wire and entire floor.

Caution: May Impair Judgement

When your six month old only takes a total of an hour and twenty minutes of nap in a day, then by dinner you may have this happen. I've entitled this one "fine then eat it yourself."

And this one Charlotte named "My project"

Wishing for Photographic Evidence

In my ongoing battle against the trumpet vine suckers that keep popping up into my vegetable garden I hit a new high and a new low today. You see after going to the botanical gardens last week and seeing how perfectly their vegetable beds had been cleared and readied for winter I decided I had better take the opportunity this nice weather is giving me and do the same. The more I work now, the easier it will be in the spring right?

So I started digging up the overgrown weeds and ends of the vegetable plants last week. Turns out we had loads of carrots in there that I knew nothing about. That's what you get when you let a two year old plant the seeds for you.

It's been pretty slow going. Not because of the leaves that have fallen on top of everything or the grass that has encroached the withered pumpkin vine, but because of the evil trumpet vine. You heard me. EVIL. They must have powers from the devil since they seem impervious to roundup!

Anyway, today I went out thinking I'd at least get another one foot strip done in the thing. I came upon five trumpet vine shoots coming out of the ground together. It has been my experience if I just dig deep enough all those shoots will eventually converge onto one root stem that I can then pull out. So I dug and I dug and I dug (or is it digged?) until I hit what I thought was a huge rock. I showed it to Daniel as he was leaving for work (he's in family medicine right now) and he said that it wasn't a rock, but the root and I should just try to wedge the shovel under it. Well, it took me another 15 minutes to get the right leverage, but then the beauty came up!

Picture this if you will: two feet long, three inches in diameter, a foot and a half underground. I had dug up a LOG! Well, not really a log, it was indeed the root for the trumpet vine. In my heart I felt victory, and defeat. I had truly unearthed a huge part of the problem, but if that's how big the root for five tiny vines was I am in real trouble. I will never win to this plant. It will eventually overtake the lawn, and then start creeping up the walk to the deck. Finally it will engulf the entire house and we will never be able to step foot out the front door. Good news, we're moving before that could ever happen.

Oh and picture this as well: Charlotte was delighted when I finally got the log out of the ground because she could then fit herself into the hole in the ground. She called it her chair. She sat in her chair and found a worm coming out of one of the clumps of dirt she covered her skirt with. She uncharacteristically picked the worm up and called it her pet. Boy was she really miffed when I told her that she needed to get out of it so I could fill it in.

6 months

Today my son is six months old. Can you believe that? I sure can't. In the future when people ask me how third year in medical school went I will say quickly.

Charlotte came down with a fever last Saturday night and it hasn't really left her yet. I thought it had, then she woke up from her nap today with a return of the fever. I waited an hour thinking maybe she was just hot from sleeping, but it never went away. YUCK.

Then last night when Dan went to get Greg so I could feed him before going to bed we discovered that he had been throwing up on himself. When he picked the little guy up we realized Greg wasn't asleep, he just wasn't wanting to move his body at all. He didn't want to hold his head up or lift his arms and he didn't want to nurse. Or have his pacifier in his mouth. Or take tylenol. When we got it in him he threw it up 2 minutes later. You could tell Greg was scared too because of the look on his face as his body was heaving. I was really scared and I knew it was bad because Daniel was really scared too. Turns out this morning he's fine, but that was pretty much the scariest thing that's happened with him so far. Nothing equates to the fear you feel when your infant is sick and scared in the middle of the night.

Chicken N Dumplings

Last night I made chicken and dumpling stew. It was wonderful. I love dumplings. love. love. love. Charlotte I thought would love them too since they're mostly just flour, which she has taken to eating all by itself lately (gross). She didn't.

Dan: "Charlotte you need to finish your dumpling."
Charlotte: "No I don't."
Dan: "You need to eat three bites of carrot and two bites of chicken then. And be done with that sass."
Charlotte: "I'm not done with the sass yet."

I'm pretty sure she wasn't really clear on what sass was, but it sounded much better than chicken or carrot.

To Be Human Again

Boy it's sad when the titles of your posts come from Disney. Oh well. I do feel human again. And you know why? I slept. I slept and slept and slept. And the family rejoiced. Or at least the husband portion of it anyway. I'm fairly certain the child portion doesn't register much in the way of the mommy portion. Except one funny conversation that my daughter had with a friend of mine who was watching her.

Charlotte: "What's wrong with your finger?"

Friend: "I burned it."

Charlotte: "When Mommy burns sheself she gets mad."

And it's so very true. So at least she notices some things.

Our Halloween went well. (I was going to try to segue that, but I couldn't think of anything. So I decided you could just follow me along.) Charlotte was perhaps the quietest lion you have ever seen and Greg was a ghost.

She wouldn't let me comb out her hair to be the mane which was the crowning part of the cotume, but she's two and a half so, whatever.Apparently the best part of his costume was his ability to eat it.

I'm the only one in the family not in a costume. Daniel went as a logger. When an hour went by and nobody asked him what he was I told him that proved you can't just wear your normal clothing and call it a costume (even if your clothing is a costume for other people).

And because I got such a great response (thanks Grandma Jane and Grandpa Mel) to the other two videos I posted, here's another little one. I like to call it Guarding the Pumpkin.