How To Make the Crying Stop

Bring in family. Lots of adults who are committed to making children feel like they are the world's coolest kids will bring out the best.

It might also bring out fatigue, illness and threaten death.

But then the adults take all the illness and fatigue home with them and leave two incredibly upbeat and pleasant kids.

I highly suggest you do this when you can't take it anymore. Especially when your husband works so hard and so long that the kids never see him and you barely do.

Is It Just Mine?

I love the two year old size of body. I know that sounds weird, but it's the honest truth. Their height when sitting on your lap perfectly matches the height between my lap and my chin. Their skinny little butt is perfect for sitting right on yours. The length of their little arms as the wrap them around my neck just fits. I love the cuddly baby size, but I think I might like the two year old size better. It's the absolute perfect size.

And it better be because I feel like I spend most of the day comforting my two-an-a-half-year-olds. My breakfast cereal doesn't have milk! Now it has too much! I'm too cold! I can't put on my coat! I wanted Thomas undies not Percie! This car wont fit through the hole I made for it! Maybe if he would actually say these things he wouldn't have to cry so much? He's actually crying right now and I have no idea why!

This morning I counted no less than eleven breakdowns in the hour and a half it took us to get out the door.

You know what I bet? I bet if he would give up these energy sucking crying fits, then he would also be able to completely give up naps, which as we all know are the enemy of all living things!

Way Too Much

There's a family story in Dan's family about when his niece Katelyn was little. After spending some time with her, young Dan commented that he could never be a mom because there was too much talking.

Yesterday the kids and I went to one of my routine prenatal check-ups. As we got out of the car Greg was talking about how windy and cold it was, which I had no sympathy for since he was the one who chose to not wear a coat. As we checked into the office Greg was commenting on the hanitizer, the cough shields, and the children's cough shields with cartoon characters on them. As we were sitting waiting in reception he was talking about the water fountain and the disposable cups. As the nurse was checking my weight and blood pressure he was talking about not needing a flu shot. As the doctor was checking the fetal heart tones and the fundal height he was talking about the stickers in his book. As we waited to get Charlotte's flu shot he again talked about the water fountain. (Charlotte ended up wasting about two pounds of tears since we found out she was a good candidate for the nasal spray and didn't even get a shot.) As we were checking out he was talking about McDonald's (which was my last ditch effort to get Charlotte to stop crying before we found out about the nasal spray).

At that point the lady from the check-in desk came over and jokingly asked, "Does he ever stop talking?"

No. No he doesn't.

It's a good thing that I was there instead of Daniel.

Being Grateful for Dan

Well, I almost died.

Or at least I thought I was going to, or worse, hurt the baby inside of me. I was stupid and it was stupid and that was one freakishly scary night.

As it turns out all those rules about what you are and aren't supposed to do while pregnant are for a good reason. But in my mind what does it mean when the doctor tells you to "not lift heavy objects" because my kids need lifting and some consider that heavy, but I don't. Thinking back though, probably moving the 10 year old TV upstairs by myself is considered heavy by everyone. Also moving the sofas and flipping one on top of the other go under the too heavy for the pregnant lady list. At the time though it didn't seem like too much.

Also, using my neighbor's Bissell to clean the carpets in the entire downstairs didn't seem like too much either. Obviously though it was. My body was screaming at just about every move I made by dinner time. Between dinner and the kids' bedtime all I did was lay on Charlotte's bed while they played around me. I was exhausted.

It was after bedtime though that I really thought I'd done permanent damage. You see, evidence that I had caught some sort of stomach virus started to appear around 7 PM and I spent the rest of the night sitting on the toilet, holding a bowl to puke in. My body didn't want me to move and also wanted every bit of whatever toxin was in there out. My body was in agony and there was literally no way to alleviate it. Add to it all the worry that this much dehydration was going to severely hurt my baby and you have one torturous night.

And here's where Dan steps in. I told him to go to bed since there was absolutely nothing he could do for me. Then I would sporadically wake him up just for reassurance that everything was going to be OK. He patiently woke up and told me that no, we still don't need to go to the ER, you are doing fine. This will pass.

Then when he woke up for the day I begged and pleaded with him to please not go into work. I couldn't see facing that day feeling as bad as I did without him. Well, he couldn't just not show up. So he went in, but not until after telling me to let things go with the kids that day. Let them watch TV (which he never says) and just relax. He left and then I cried. And then I cried because crying hurt.

In my haze I got out two bowls of honey KIX turned on the TV and crawled back into bed. I woke up again sometime around 10 and felt better (or so I thought) so I tried to text him that he could in fact stay at work. He decided to come home anyway.

And gave me the best gift of my life.

I had my first sick day in four years. I was, in fact, not all better yet. I still needed much in the way of hydration and rest. All of which he gave me. I let my body tell me when I needed to sleep and try to eat and followed his orders when it came to taking Tylenol and I managed to make it through the day. He brought home a variety of powerades along with a winter cactus because he loves me. He did Charlotte's hair and took her to preschool and played with Greg and did everything so I didn't need to worry about anything.

Did I mention he was supposed to start helping out with a new doctor's service yesterday? I have no idea what he told them to come home, but I'm sure it cost him at least a little just to leave like that. Hopefully he can make it up to them in the coming six weeks because he is my hero.

Two Hundred Forty Four

That is how much money Percie owes me to date for things she has completely destroyed.

Today it was Greg's dragon snow boots.

They are Bogs brand and he's been wearing them solid for the past two weeks.

Percie ate right through them. I don't mean chewed. I mean ate.

Apparently they were a hot ticket item this year, because there are none left on the Internet.

NONE.

So I ended up purchasing him spider web snow boots instead.

They should be here in 7-10 business days.

Hopefully he likes them as much as the dragon boots.

Also hopefully he will submit to wearing other footwear until the new ones come.

Thanksgiving Update

Funny how I had planned to post all about our Thanksgiving celebrations, and then I got busy/stressed and didn't post anything and even forgot to take photos of some of our celebrations. So here are a few of the highlights.

First, and this one might be a stretch, but the kids loved it. We spray painted Charlotte's bed. I've wanted it painted since we got it, but it was never really convenient. Now, with the carpet in her bedroom being torn up her bed had to be in the garage. I wanted to cover up the scratches in the paint and also take it from a high gloss finish to a matte finish. I've noticed that a lot of the metal day beds right now have a matte finish. I like it. Charlotte wanted it hot pink, but I convinced her that princess beds are white with pink blankets. Before painting, I talked to the kids about appreciating the things that we have and taking care of them. That way we will be able to use them for much longer. When we take care of our things it is part of showing gratitude for them.

They loved taking their turns painting the backside of the bed.

Also, Charlotte told me one day, was it last week? that it was her dog's birthday. Then Greg told me that it was also his dog's birthday. What a coincidence right? So we decided that the day was going to be a birthday party/celebration of our dogs and our love for them. It included cake, ice cream, and presents. Each kid bought the present for their dog with their own money and then wrapped it for their dog and then opened it on behalf of their dog.

Also, we had a fun night making Thanksgiving cookies. At first I thought they should be pumpkin, but since we just made pumpkin cookies a little while ago we just made regular sugar cookies and frosted them with Thanksgiving.


And here's a photo of my growing belly. I told Dan to not get me in the shot, but I guess he thought it looked better that way.

Also, lastly I wanted to share an activity that we did, but I didn't get photos for. It was my mother in law's idea and the kids were really impressed. They talked about it for days. First I talked to them about how we got Percie and Suzie from the Humane Society in St. Louis. Then I talked about what the Humane Society was and that they always needed to get help from people in order to help the animals. Helping them out is a great way to show our our gratitude for our pets. So then we went onto the Humane Society of Rochester web site and looked at what items they were asking for. We gathered all the things we had and then took them and donated them. They loved

Add It To The Bowl

I'm going to try to be more thankful for Percie. It's just so hard. Right when we think we've got whatever her "problem" is sleeping she switches it up on us and then we're up half the night again. I really truly do feel like we have a newborn or maybe 8 month old baby in the house (both of those ages are the worst for me as far as sleep is concerned).

I do admit though that in the morning, when she's sleeping on the floor at the foot of the bed I do enjoy her. It warms my heart to see my daughter cuddle up with her in her half sleep. They can lay there together and all is love, or at least it would be if I weren't so annoyed that she was sleeping now that the rest of us (me) need to be awake.

Because of this today's Thanksgiving activities were limited to filling the Thanksgiving bowl.

Tonight Charlotte was thankful for pre-school, and Greg was thankful for me. If that doesn't make me melt I don't know what would.

A Month of Thanks

Well, it's that time of year again. Where we try to celebrate gratitude and things we are thankful for here. I will try to document the month as we go along.

So here is Day 1 in photos:

This is our family tree as hand crafted by none other than Charlotte. If you can't tell those apples have each person's name on them, and a stem and leaf. Notice the last apple is blank. She actually made this tree a while back, but I thought I'd share it as part of day one since on day one I got my ultrasound.

Here is the profile of our little apple.

Here are the toes of our little apple. When the ultrasound lady found out that Dan is an ortho resident she made sure to get lots of bone photos.

Here is the evidence that our little apple is a boy. It's sideways bum on the left legs out to the right. The line along the bottom is the upper leg then there are the little boy bits above it then you can't see the other leg on top.

Last night I dug out our Thanksgiving bowl and tokens. The kids were much more into the idea this year. Charlotte was thankful for the moon and Percie and Suzie. Greg was thankful for balls and Doc Hudson.

Here is the start of Day 2 in photos:

After breakfast the kids and I went for a fall nature walk. After a few false starts due to them thinking they didn't need to put coats or hats on then getting cold, we made our way around our block. We looked at what was left of the leaves and collected "nature" for these collages. I made Charlotte copy "I'm thankful for FALL" on her sheet.

Greg though, was given free reign with the glue and nature items and jewels on his collage. Today we are thankful for fall.

Spooky

Because I know you all wanted to see the best rodents around I present to you Mickey and Minnie Mouse:Charlotte actually wore her costume all day long because she was so excited about trick-or-treating. Daddy got home in the late afternoon and helped to get them ready and then joy of joys he took them trick-or-treating. He said they loved it and that Greg stopped to admire all the decorations all evening. They were out for about an hour and a half and loved every minute of it. I loved it too. I got the kitchen cleaned and then got to sit in the quiet for a bit. Then they came home and rang our doorbell and thought it was hilarious that I thought they were trick-or-treaters.
I think the costumes turned out well. Since they were basically fleece pajama pants under everything they were super comfortable which was what convinced Greg to wear his. He did insist that he wear his dinosaur T-shirt under is Mickey costume, but I figured layers were probably a good idea. Luckily the weather was warm enough they didn't even need jackets. Their ears were warm thanks to the mouse ears too so the only thing that was reported to get cold were their hands. They toughed it out though. Anything for candy.

Below is a video of carving spooky Halloween pumpkins. We did this on Sunday which explains the nice clothing on the kids.