Monday, July 28, 2008

Almost Packed and Ready to Go

J ate some broccoli with hummus as part of his dinner tonight. After he finished he said, "Thank you for the broccoli!" I said, "I'm glad you ate broccoli because it's good for your eyes (i think i was thinking carrots, but that's irrelevant). He said, "Good for my eyes, but not for my mouth." We are finding that if we say, "Try them, Sam I am" we have a much better success rate at getting him to eat things we want him to eat.

Things have been really busy around here. We're gearing up for the first part of our August trips that will keep us away from home for 20 out of 31 days. I'm exhausted just thinking about it. On Wednesday morning, J and I head to NY for a couple of days of r/r at the familial Long Island home. I think I forgot to mention that this home is currently up for sale, so it could potentially be the last summer we go to visit there. My mom and I have tickets to see Gypsy in NY on Friday night and reservations at a yummy Italian restaurant (I will only eat Italian food in NY now because it doesn't exist down here). I'm so so so excited to go to the city! If all goes well, B will join us in NY late on Friday night after working and we'll get to take the train together back to LI.

Saturday is barbecue day with relatives and friends. B's cousin W is doing an internship in NY right now, so he might come out for the day as well.

Sunday is our wedding anniversary. Lucky #7!! We'll be spending a romantic evening in Economy Class on a Swiss Air flight bound for Geneva, Switzerland. I'm a little unsettled about traveling overseas and leaving J behind. I don't do the best with flying as it is, and last week's news about a hole blowing out of a Qantas plane didn't do much to make me feel better. B reminds me that driving is much more dangerous and I know it's irrational, but it's still tough for me. We're going to try some melatonin this time and see if it helps me relax and get over jet lag easier. If that doesn't work we'll be spending three days getting over jet lag with B's cousin M. I'm super excited about going to see him and we should have a blast! Then we'll get up at the crack of dawn on Thursday the 9th to head over to Krakow, Poland for B' stepbrother's wedding on Saturday (remember the invitation I tried to translate?). If all goes well with the timing of things, we should arrive within an hour of Mr. Feathernester. Feathernester is staying behind using that whole taking care of a baby excuse, which I guess will have to suffice, but I will totally be missing her and I know she knows exactly what I mean. The whole thing should be really interesting. Forget the fact that we don't speak Polish, but Polish weddings are apparently a lot of gloom and doom followed by a huge celebration from dusk till dawn. I am extremely concerned that my liver is not quite up to the challenge, but we'll see.

We arrive back home late on Aug. 12 and have a few days before we turn around and head to California for a visit to Nummi's farm and for B's wedding in Sonoma. I'll try to post in between, but it might be tough.

I'm hoping to have all of the packing done tonight so I am not running around like an idiot tomorrow, but it always ends up being that way regardless of how early I pack. I better get back to doing that, so we'll share our adventures with you in a few weeks!

Friday, July 25, 2008

He's appreciative

Said by J at the dinner table last night:

(deep breath, monotone, determined voice)
Thank you for the cucumber daddy but I do not want it thank you for the lettuce Mommy but I do not want it I appreciate you gave it to me but I think I will just wait and have my own dinner. (deep breath)

Thursday, July 24, 2008

You're Saying it Wrong!

One of the sweetest things about J talking is that he says, "I love you" before he takes a nap or at bedtime.

Apparently I said the wrong thing back to him.

J: I love you, Mommy.
Me: I love you too. Sweet dreams.
J: Mommy doesn't say that. Mommy says, I love you, sweet boy. Daddy says, I love my son. You do not say I love my son. Only daddy says it. Now you need to say it, Mommy.
Me: Okay, I love you sweet boy.
J: I love you, Mommy. Thank you for saying it the right way, Mommy. Not the wrong way.

Friday, July 18, 2008

Ramblings on the Ride Home

Me: Did you have fun at school today?
J: Yeah! (high inflection)
Me: I like your beach picture.
J: Yeah, I blowed bubbles by myself (high inflection)
me: you did?
J: Yah! I was not tired (tie-red) at sool (school)
Me: That's good you had a lot of energy.
J: M and T were tired a lot. M fell asleep in the bean bag chair.
(Now, I know that this happened three weeks ago, but anyway)
Me: He fell asleep again?
J:No. Just one time. But M and T were tired today. I was not tired.
Me: That's good you weren't tired. What else did you do today?
J: Umm... I told my friends to HIT IT (big arm swing here)
Me: Hit what?
J: I told my friends to HIT IT!
Me: What did you tell your friends to hit?
J: I do not know. Miss N made a very very loud noise (vewy vewy wowd noise)
Me: Did Miss N scream?
J: No. she was just very very loud. It scared her. (sared)
Me: What scared Miss N?
J: It was not a good deal. It scared Miss N. I thought it was a good deal but it was not a good deal. (idea)
Me: Did you scare Miss N?
J: No. Just the noise. In the puzzle. We thought it was a good deal.
Me: Oh okay so the puzzle made a noise and that made Miss N scream?
J: Yah! M and T were very tired and I was not tired! I want to eat the rest of my macaroni and cheese. You did not give me a sandwich today, Mommy. I ate my macaroni and cheese, Mommy. I liked my macaroni and cheese, Mommy.
Me: I'm glad you had such a good day at school.
J: Yeah. M and T were tired! I was not tired.

Hope you have a good weekend and are not tired!

Thursday, July 10, 2008

Stuck at Home

We've been stuck at home the last few days. J and I were in the grocery store on Tuesday and he was complaining of being chilly in the meat aisle. It was a little cold, but not worth complaining about. He also didn't want his free muffin that was being offered in the bakery section. I knew something was up.

He didn't want any lunch when we got home-not even anything to drink. It wasn't as if I put out his lunch and he didn't eat it; he didn't even want me to make it. In a matter of ten minutes or so, he was just sitting on the couch like one of the other pillows. He was tired and he felt warm. He had a fever of about 100.5, which isn't too alarming, so I gave him some Tylenol and put him to bed. When he woke up, he still didn't want anything to drink, so I asked him if his throat hurt. Sure enough, he said yes. I took a look as best I could in there and noticed a bunch of red spots, so I called the doctor to see if we could get in that day. J had strep throat last year and I didn't want to take any chances.

Turns out he has one of those coxsackievirus infections, which sounds much nastier than it is. Basically you get sores in your throat (you can also get them on your hands and feet, but he doesn't have that strain.) Everybody gets one form or another of these in early childhood. A fever can last a few days and then the sores go away. It is very contagious in the meantime. Unfortunately, it's contagious for 5-7 days, so there will be no socializing until at least Saturday afternoon. That's the toughest part for both of us. After sleeping for 14 hours on Tuesday night, he woke up happy and placed his breakfast order for bacon, eggs, and cantaloupe. I'd say he's on the mend even if he needs to be quarantined from society for a bit longer.

Before J was sick, we had a nice 4th. There was a little festival in one of our neighborhood parks complete with a train, petting zoo (including a camel), face painting, hair color spraying, and lots of watermelon. The only thing that seemed a little bass-ackwards to me was that the fire department came and raised the cherry picker and sprayed the hose in one of the fields to let the kids get wet. Hello? We are in a drought down here, so that just seemed dumb. The only way I can let this go is that they also wanted the grass to be wet in case any fireworks happened to hit it later on, but that's a stretch because nothing stays wet in 100 degrees for very long.

After a quick BBQ in the early evening, we headed up to one of the county parks for a fireworks show. We were hemming and hawing as to whether we wanted to go or not, but we decided, why not? The show was great. It was so funny to watch J's expressions. He kept saying, "That's enough. I'm all done" after the first few shots, and then he laid down on B for a bit. His head kept popping up to survey the scene to see what other people were doing. Once he realized that he wasn't going to get hurt, he popped up and clapped and cheered with everybody else. The only thing that stunk was that it took over an hour to get out of the park (bad parking choice on our part and an accident on the main road attributed to this). So our child fell asleep in the car at (gasp) 10:45. Of course he didn't sleep any later than normal the next morning, but he was in a good mood, so we couldn't say that it was a waste.



Look out Miss America! Check out that wagon posture and wave




What you can't see is how hard he is pulling B's hair



He retreated to this position for a bit, but was soon up again.

That's about it from here. We're just hanging around doing indoor things like making bird feeders and painting and sneaking outside a bit here and there when it doesn't feel too hot. Oh! And I've picked about 8 Roma tomatoes a day for the last week or so. That's been pretty exciting!

Tuesday, July 01, 2008

Wish You Were Here?

Just a quick mention of the goings on here today.
J woke up at 5:30 pleading with B, "I want out! I want out!" He slept with me until 7:45.
I then proceeded to change 8 dirty diapers today. That's right, 8. Everything he ate came right out. I am grateful it was not coming out of his mouth, though. Sorry for the gross images.
J doesn't appear to be sick, though. He was still happy, playful, and making plenty of jokes, so hopefully this is just a minor stomach thing that will be gone tomorrow.

Then our dryer decided to crap out in the middle of a cycle. It's only two years old. We think it's either a fuse or a belt problem, but both require us to get the parts ourselves or call someone in to take care of the problem. It looks like I will be waiting around all day sometime soon for a repairman to arrive. One of my biggest pet peeves is hearing, "We'll be there between 8 and 5." Oh, thank you for being so specific.

I did make some yummy roasted red pepper and goat cheese sandwiches for dinner with peppers from the garden. Delicious. So all was not horrible today. Hope y'all had a day filled with fewer dirty diapers than I did!