Friday, January 30, 2009

Ho-Hum Friday

Nothing much happened today. Just another day. Another Friday. I was glad when 5:00 rolled around. We kept busy at work. Joshua did do anything extraordinary other than being a little cutie. In the last couple of days he has added two more words to his already extensive list, "nak" for snack & "kitchen". It is funny to me how some words he pronounces so clearly like "kitchen" and "patches" but then he can't say "snack" or "mater", but he can say "chip". I am thankful for my sons extensive list of words that he speaks on a daily basis. It makes it much easier to understand him. And I am proud of myself for being patient with him. I think my patience with him is what has lead us to where we are now with his language skills. Instead of getting frustrated with him, we have always worked through the words with him. Way to go, Susan! You did a good job! (thank you, thank you)

I am also proud of myself for not having used a pacifier much. He would suck on it for about 30 seconds and I would feel guilty for him having it and take it away. I have always prided myself on this and probably always will.
I am proud of the fact that he is such a good eater and always has been. I know many people who has eating issues with their kiddos who are around Joshua's age.
I am glad that I am starting to see results from discipline measures.
I am glad that since Joshua's colic stopped at 2 months that he has almost always slept through the night unless he was sickly.
I pride myself on his bedtime. He has a routine and he can get fussy when bedtime doesn't go as planned. I think that this routine helped to stop the colic.
I am glad that Joshua gets along with the other kids at school and that he doesn't pick up all of their bad habits (like standing in the middle of the room yelling because someone thinks it is funny). I am glad that the biting seems to have stopped (I probably shouldn't have put this one).
I am thrilled that my son loves to be outside. I am so not a homebody. And I love that he loves to go outside to play.
I am proud that he loves bath time. He sometimes argues about getting out of the bath, but I would too if I had so many toys to play with in there. He loves to get wrapped up in his towel but then wants to see himself in the mirror all clean and wrapped up. The smile he gives himself is one of the sweetest things.
I am glad that he test his boundaries everyday. I am glad that he wants to become independent, it means that he will someday be able to take good care of himself.

I suppose that is enough.

Not much big planned for the weekend. Grocery shopping with a trip to Sam's. OohAah, huh. I reckon Sunday we will stay home for the Super Bowl.

Like I said, not a whole lot going on. Just been another day.

Thursday, January 29, 2009

Slip & Slide But Don't Fall

Today has just not been a good day for me. I got up on the wrong side of the bed. Then nothing was going good. We were finally ready to leave the house 20 minutes before I was due at work. It takes 40 minutes to get there (with dropping Joshua off). I get outside and can't find my flippin' ice scraper. I bet it is in the car (that Jeff has at work). I nearly fell on the ice that was still in the driveway. I used my access badge for work to scrap the windows down. The traffic was moving slowly because of the fog. Halfway to Joshua's school, he drops his cereal cup and Cheerios fall all in the floor. He in turn throws a fit. We get to his school and he doesn't want to let go of Mommy. The one kid in there is just standing in the middle of the room screaming randomly for no reason other than to be screaming and he thought it was funny (it wasn't). I couldn't blame Joshua for not wanting to stay. I drove through the frozen fog barely seeing 4 cars ahead of me. I park at work and get out of the truck and head to the building. I am trying to decide if what I see is ice or not, just as I am trying to decide I again nearly fall on my behind. I have on slick leather soled shoes (my expensive Italian Leather shoes) and they of course offer no traction at all. I slowly turn around and "skate" my way back off this ice. The ice leads all the way to the door. I decided that I would just walk around to the other side...well, halfway, I wound up going in the smoke break door. I finally sit down at my desk 25 minutes late. I realize work has disappeared off my desk. My lead had taken it to get the next step done. She went ahead and showed me how to do the next step. Then I start printing this step and our printer was not printing. People are piling up around the machine as if to get a look at a dead body lying in the middle of the freeway. Lunchtime rolls around and I was going to eat in, but decided that this day warranted an outside trip. I go to a fast food joint and bang my mirror on one of those yellow post that are used to keep you from hitting the building. My mirror has a yellow spot of paint on it now. Flippin' great! When 5:00 came around, I was out of there.

Since we have gotten home things have gotten better. Joshua and I played for a while and then fixed dinner. I am not convinced that I cooked the fish sticks quite long enough...either that or they cooled too long. If we get sick, it was the fish sticks. They were cold, just not piping hot like I like them. But, they did sit out on the counter for several minutes longer than usual.

I put in my wii fit time which came to 33 minutes today. I did several strength and yoga things tonight so my legs are a bit achy. Could just be from my crappy day and ice sliding though.

Stick a fork in this day...it is done. I am heading to bed.

Wednesday, January 28, 2009

Icy Conditions

Joshua thought he was going to wake up at 4:45this morning. I said no. I got him back to sleep by 5:15. I laid back down in the bed and flipped the news on to check the road conditions. As expected they were icy, but it was still too dark to know for sure. I drifted off to sleep. I called my work weather line and it said the office was open. With the HEB ISD closed, Joshua's school closed. Jeff was gone to work. So, going into work was not an option for me today. From what I hear, I am glad I stayed home. They closed down sections of freeways all around us. Jeff trip to Harlingen turned into a trip to San Antonio, Austin and back to Grand Prairie this morning. He drove in the ice. I was worried until I knew he was stopped. He said he had a close call with a minivan on I-35W. I didn't want to know anymore. It took him at least 3 hours to get from Hillsboro to Grand Prairie.

Joshua finally woke back up around 9:15. We hung out in our jammies until around 5. We both got dressed and headed out to see some ice. We had both had it being locked inside. He is just like me, he gets cabin fever quickly. I don't like to be couped up. We needed some groceries in the house so I decided we would head to Wal-mart and we could pick up a couple of other things as well. The edge of our porch was still icy, the sun doesn't really shine much right there. The sidewalk ice had melted. So we are walking along the sidewalk to the end of the garage and Joshua is in front. We have that monkey grass stuff that lines the walk (from like the 80's). When it ends the rain gutter comes down. Joshua was in front of me walking and jabbering about outside and sticks. He walks about three steps past gutter drain and cocks his head to the side. He slowly turned his head back around and said what's this pointing at the ice that had built up. It was so funny. I told him it was ice and that became a favorite word for the next hour. Ice. Ice Mommy. Mommy ice. Half the driveway still had ice, my truck had kept it in the shade. I was showing Joshua that it was ice and slippery by putting one foot on the ice and moving it around. He in turn put one of his feet on there and moved it around. Then, he wants to let go of my hand so he can get both feet on there and slide around. Uh, no. So, he decides that if that ain't going to happen, then he will get the stick that is stuck in the ice. Uh, no....it is stuck. He argues for a minute with the stick then moves on to one that is not stuck. I kicked out a patch of the ice so I can get one step closer to the truck without both of us falling. And we headed to Wal-mart. We later stopped by my sister's to visit for a bit and then headed home. One breathing treatment later and Joshua is in bed.

I will be happy to go back to work tomorrow. This is my second unscheduled day in the house this week and I need to be out and about for a couple of days. I also discovered tonight that I don't know how to stop our dishwasher from running once it starts. I don't know if it resets itself when left open. But dear Joshua, took upon himself to rewash the already clean dishes that are in there. Joshua also today taught himself how to open the glass doors on the entertainment center. This is so not good. I am hoping that he will just forget how. I was productive today being at home. I did three loads of laundry and the one load of dishes....the same one that is now being rewashed.

That is about it. I need to go put in my wii fit time for today.

Tuesday, January 27, 2009

Closed

Good News! Update!

Just got an email and the HEB ISD has cancelled school for Wednesday!
Party time! I can stay up a little later.

Just another Tuesday

So, it was supposed to be all frozen over around 4pm today and it wasn't. But, it is getting frozen over right now. I am openly hoping for school cancellations tomorrow or at least a delay.

Joshua did good today at school. He was in a great mood this morning, but this afternoon was his normal testing-the-boundaries self. I am trying to set more boundaries and it is a struggle between Joshua and I. There are somethings that I have always let him do that I am cracking down on. Like dumping out a basket of toys and then moving on the another toy without cleaning up. He is slowly getting the hang of it, and many other things.

Jeff got the missing prescription all squared away today and tonight Joshua got drops in his ears. But, I just realized that I didn't give him his antibiotic before he went to bed....oh well, I ain't wakin' him up now! The scrip was filled at the CVS across the street from the bad Walgreens. Jeff called this morning and spoke to a guy who was fully aware of the situation. He called Jeff back a short while later and let him know the script was ready. Impressive!

Jeff also went to work tonight. This is the first time is a month that he has gone to work on the the first day of his work week. They are sending him to Harlingen. But the news is saying that I-30 is shut down because of ice. So I called him and he will check TXDOT and see what is up with that situation. He was actually hoping to get to stay home tonight because of the weather, but it is great that he will be working a full work week. Yay!!

Monday, January 26, 2009

Hating this Monday

So, after a great weekend, we ran into a problem Sunday night. Joshua seemed to be having a hard time breathing. Almost moaning when taking even shallow breaths. Then, he would be fine for an hour or so and start shallow breathing again. Through the night. Monday morning rolled around and he argued with Jeff about getting dressed and again with the shallow breathing. He was coughing a lot. We called the urgent care center to find out they do not open until 11. The answering service offered a phone advise nurse. She called back right around seven. Jeff talked to her for a bit and then I talked to her. She suggested taking Joshua to the ER and said that our doctor prefers Cooks Children's. We prefer Cook's too. But at 7 in the morning and only one of us are dressed, we wouldn't be getting to Cook's until after 8 and then waiting the in the ER. We decided that since we had made it through the night we would just wait until his doctor's office opened at 8 and planned to just be there at 8. Our pedi would see Joshua even if he had to put him between appointments. We were in the waiting room at total of 10 minutes from in the door to headed to the back. Our pedi came in and checked Joshua out. He confirmed that Joshua was wheezing in his lungs breathing. And wanted to do a breathing treatment in the office. We did that waited a bit and the pedi came back in and said the breathing treatment seemed to help so we would be taking home a nebulizer. A nebulizer, 4 prescriptions and a hour and 15 minutes later we were out of the doctor's office. We went to Walgreens to drop off the scripts and then ran two more quick errands while Joshua slept in the car...

Then, our day went from bad to even more bad. Walgreens had promised the scripts in an hour, we showed up in an hour. The pharm peeps said they were having problems with the scripts. And an hour later Jeff came out of the Walgreens wtih only 3 scripts. I was pissed. That Walgreens has been getting worse and worse with script filling. Seems one of the scripts didn't have Joshua's name on it. I didn't look that closely at them. Walgreens said they called the doctors office and confirmed that it wasn't for this patient. I called the doctors office myself and they stated that Walgreens hadn't called about my son, she put me on hold, came back and said Walgreens had called about a different patient. For the hour that Jeff is in the store, I stayed in the car with Joshua because he was sleeping. I am done with this Walgreens at this point, so she agrees to call in the script to the CVS across the street. I have never liked CVS. I called CVS about 4:45 to see if the have the script and am told that they haven't had a chance to check the faxed in scripts yet and they are busy and to call back in an hour. Does this make the mom of a sick child who has had 4 hours of sleep and dealt with a screaming child all day happy?????? NO! But I still ain't going back to the Walgreens across the street. I called back at 6:30 and speak to a guy who doesn't have clear English. The gist of what he told me was that the script had been received and they had questions. They had called the doc's office and gotten no response. I would need to come in and give them all of our insurance info so that tomorrow after the talk to the doc they can fill this script. TOMORROW???? My sons ears are leaking yellow-green sticky stuff.....like you could imagine dripping from an alien. I think I am done with that CVS...

My family all use the Walgreens on the other side of town. I just don't use it because it is on the other side of town. I used to use it when we lived over there and never had a problem with it. My plan is to call the doctor's office back in the morning and ask to have the script re-wrote so we can do pick it up and take it to the Walgreens across town. And from now on, I will continue to boycott the CVS by us and now the Walgreens too. I will give the Walgreens the evil eye each time I drive by. I decided three scrips ago that I was going to give them 3 chances and after 3 more screw-ups I was leaving them. That time has come.

Joshua fussed most of the afternoon. Jeff had to sleep because he had stayed up all night. Joshua wanted up, he wanted down, he wanted me to hold his monkey and blankie, he wanted to hold his monkey and blankie, he put monkey and blankie down for a nap, we hammered, we puzzled, we read books, we climbed on the couch, we drank juice, we dang near pulled our hair out fussing before, during and after all of these activities. And as the day drew on, I realized that about 30 minutes before he was due another breathing treatment he would really start coughing bad. On the plus side, he took right to the breathing treatments. He is doing great with them and I didn't give him much choice in the other two scripts we have...I flushed them right down him.

What is with my son and being sick? It is like a rolling thing. We get over one issue and do great for a week and then BAM! we get sick all over again. And so on and so on and so on. I don't see other people with 20 month old toddlers going through this? Or am I just not on the seeing side of things? I thought the ear tubes would help with somethings, but I guess in a way they have, we now just get sick with things other than ear infections all the time. And I say daycare, shmacare, I don't see the other kids in his class missing near as much time as Joshua does.

We had a nice dinner with my brother and sister-in-law. And I am tired and heading to bed.
Here is Jeff's version of the story.

Sunday, January 25, 2009

Busy Sunday

This morning Joshua and I worked more on potty time. Nothing went into the potty today. I am not disappointed. I know this will take some time. Joshua is loving potty time. He runs to the potty and starts preparing it for a sit down. He makes sure he gets a book and mommy gets a book and then we read. This morning his reading consisted of the words, "potty, poop, pee-pee, mommy, josha, diaper". Josha is what he calls himself.

We went to Kohl's today to exchange towels for our new bathroom. We decided to go with a sand color rather than a blue color. We then went to Lowe's and got paint, wallpaper taker offer stuff and other things. We always wind up spending more money than we had planned when go in Lowe's. It is the store of "oh yea, we need one of these", normally it is things that we keep forgetting to put on a shopping list. So now, we have wallpaper taker offer stuff, paint and accessories.....we just have to find the time to do it.

We met up with Daniel, Christina, Adam & Isabelle today. We hadn't seen them since Isabelle came home from the hospital. We were sick and didn't want to be around her. She has the tiniest feet. And her hair was so soft. I couldn't remember Joshua being that little, but I know he was. She stayed awake quite a bit this evening at my sister's so hopefully she will let them sleep tonight.

My sister got to use her new ice cream maker tonight. It was a tasty treat. There is nothing quite like the taste of homemade ice cream. It takes me back to when we were kids in Arkansas in the summer. My great-grandmother would make homemade ice cream....normally with peaches for my dad. Peach ice cream or plain old vanilla with peaches on the side. And we would stand outside watching and waiting and listening to the woo-woo-woo sounds. And adding the ice and adding the rock salt. And finally after what seemed like hours, we would have ice cream. In 1970's yellow or green bowls with 1970's spoons. You know the ones.

My sister and I are trying to get a full plan together to the the Breast Cancer Three Day walk. We are going to an informational meeting in a couple of weeks. I think the scariest part of it is the fundraising so it will be interesting what they have to say.

It is a work day tomorrow and I have laundry to get finished so I am heading to bed.

Saturday, January 24, 2009

!!! Excited !!!!

Tonight, for the first time....drum roll please.....Joshua went pee-pee in his big boy potty! We have been doing potty time since Jan 1st. And I had bought a potty time book (I settled on it) and my mother had ordered the book I had actually wanted from eBay. So tonight, after we got home from running around...it was potty time. I took off his diaper which was wet. And he sat on the potty. We read both books twice. About 10 minutes later. The potty starts singing. We bought the kind of potty that sings when something is deposited. So anyway...the potty starts singing. Joshua says "uh-oh". I shockingly asked "Did you go potty?". Joshua says "pee-pee". I got him up off the potty and sure enough...there was pee-pee in the potty!!!!!! I was so excited, I hugged him and told him good job. We went to put a diaper back on. I was beaming! I called Jeff and told him, I called my mom and told her. I was so proud. I cried. It was great. Absolutely awesome!!! The last time I was this excited over Joshua was when he took off walking. So here is the picture of the pee-pee....skip down if you don't want to see. (you can see the sensors in the bottom of the potty)


We had a great day today anyway...but that was just awesome. Can you see me smiling???

Today was my nephew & niece's school carnival. So we went there. By the time we left, Joshua was done. It was loud and with so many people I didn't want to let him be down to walk around for very long. But we made it. In the gym there was a jump house thing with a slide attached. Joshua was having a lot of fun watching all the kids slide down. So, Joshua, Ethan & Kaitlyn went. E & K helped him jump around and climb up for the slide. K went down the slide first, E set Joshua up and set him off. Joshua did not like the slide much. I guess it was more fun to watch the other kids do it. Normally slides are a great thing, but this one was pretty steep. We tried to get Joshua to go again, but he was having none of it. E & K cashed in their prize tickets and we left to head to Joshua's school.

Joshua's school has been in business for 10 years and were having an open house/carnival. We checked out his room. His teacher had pages ready for the kids to color while there were there. Joshua, E & K colored one. Then we went outside. Joshua got to go to the side where the big kids always play. There was a bounce house, but he wouldn't get in. E & K got in and then Aunt Stephanie got in and Joshua still wasn't going. It was chilly so we headed back in. Toured the rest of the school, I had never seen some of the classrooms, like where the after school kids go. We did face painting. Two pirates and a puppy dog....


There was a petting farm, with a pony, sheep, goats, a bunny, and chickens of some strange sort. Joshua petted all of them but the pony, which was a little harder to get to. He seemed to like the smaller goats. He didn't seem to like how the sheep felt. The sheep had a full winter wool coat on and I didn't really like touching it either. After Joshua's school, we loaded back in the truck and headed to get drinks. Joshua was asleep when we stopped to get drinks. It had been a busy day.

Afterwards, we headed to get my sister's haircut. She has a lot of hair, so it was taking some time. I was flipping through the haircut/hairstyle book and decided that I would go ahead and get my hair cut too. So waalah, I have a new cut. No picture of it yet. I will try in the next couple of days for it. So far, I love it.

Follow all of that excitement up with going pee-pee in the potty for the first time and it has been quite a day! So much so, that I am calling it a night.

Friday, January 23, 2009

Great Day

So, Joshua and I spent a nice evening in. I fixed us dinner and we played with puzzles while watching TV. I was watching Planet Earth and there were monkeys that came on. I told Joshua to look at the monkeys and I bet he stood there for 10 minutes making monkey sounds at the monkeys on TV. It was so adorable. The monkeys would talk and he would talk back to them. He loves monkeys and giraffes (and anything else that moves or makes noises).

Tomorrow is the open house at this school...a.k.a. the school carnival. We will stop by for a bit just to stop by. The school is celebrating 10 years. 10 years ago, I didn't think I would ever have kids or be married or own a house. And just look at me now. I have come a long way baby.

I had a good day at work. Joshua was in a good mood when I picked him up. All in all it was a great day. That is about it. I am calling in a night and going to bed early...a good end to a great day.

Thursday, January 22, 2009

22nd

The Great Dane is ranked 22nd on the AKC's list of most popular dogs. They should be ranked first since they can whip and squish all the others. And they could do all that while smiling. Chanci smiles all the time. You just look at her and she grins at you. Joshua felt like Chanci was getting in his way....well, more like she was occupying Daddy's attention...and he didn't like it. So he attempted to push her out of the way. She wasn't budging so he ditched the whole idea and came to Mommy. (Mommy is cooler anyway!....but don't tell Daddy)

Speaking of Daddy, they sent Jeff to work tonight. Finally! He is going stir crazy...got cabin fever...whatever you want to call it. He is such a homebody that it is funny to a certain extent that he is getting stir crazy. I am glad they have sent him to work tonight, I am not sure I could handle another night of him. I love him, but he is going stir crazy. Now he is off to work and hopefully will not return for at least two nights.

Work was busy today. Since I have been taught how to do something new, it is really keeping me busy. I really like being busy. I really like that at the end of the day, I can just go home. No taking work home to do. I just log all out and leave. It is strange feeling sometimes to not have work to do at home. Not that there is not work at home to do....laundry and dishes are a never ending chore. CHORE. I hate doing them both, but am working on getting better at it.

Joshua was in a great mood tonight. He tried the potty at school again today. And we tried again tonight. I think he just likes reading the book. At the end he says "all done" "again". Then, we start all over again, and again, and again. He also is to busy poking at it to actually use it for business...if you know what I mean. I swear he is going to pee in his eye. We will see. He ate dinner semi-good tonight. He rejected the green beans at first, but then ate a few. Green beans have never been a favorite....peas are a favorite and corn. I spiced up some hamburger meat, it was a little too spicy for Joshua and almost too spicy for Jeff. Joshua dinner consisted of mashed potatoes, a few green beans and mixed fruit. He ate the mixed fruit in one inhaled move, I swear. Joshua has also gotten to where only Mommy can put him down for bedtime. This isn't good. We have tried with Jeff putting him down, and he just sits in bed screaming until I go in there. I pick him up and set him back down and he is out. I don't know how to fix this.

Wednesday, January 21, 2009

Just another Wednesday

So, after I went to bed last night, I was thinking that I did have other updates. Major one...my shift has been temporarily changed to earlier at work. This is great....now I get off when it is still daylight. And today, my lead taught me how to do something new. It kept my day moving right along. The three other girls that started with me are all looking for other jobs. One of them wants better hours and better pay, but through the grapevine, she ain't worth the pay she is making now. Another is gossipy and I avoid her at all cost. The other has been out sick and came back yesterday. She wishes she had been looking while she was home sick. There ain't many jobs out there. Anyway, it is all going great for me at work.

Joshua was grumpy this morning because he had to get up an hour and a half earlier than normal. He was so grumpy, he argued with Jeff over everything this morning. And had a mini-melt down when we got to school. At dinner tonight, he ate and ate and ate. Spaghetti. When he was all done, he looked like he had a clown smile. He also played with markers today at school and his hands are blue. One hand is almost good. The other hand...will just have to lighten with time. Even with a bath, the one is still blue.

Jeff's work has been slow lately. S-l-o-w. Since Christmas he has probably only worked about 1/4 of the time he should have. Not good. Not good at all. His work is thinking that it may be March before things pick up again. Not good. Not good at all.

I put in 20 minutes on the wii fit tonight, for the first time in a week and a half. I am finally feeling like my breathing is good enough to do the exercises.

Guess that's it for today.

Tuesday, January 20, 2009

It's a great day to be alive

January 20, 2009....what a day in history. I don't often talk about politics openly, mostly because it is one argument that I can't argue both sides of. I grew up with conservative parents and conservative families. But me, I have always been left....probably because everyone else was right. Today, I watched with great pride the inauguration of President Obama. He walked full of confidence and talked of change and hope. The next 100 days will be interesting and I can't wait to watch more history in the making.

Nothing more to report. Heading to bed.

Monday, January 19, 2009

20 months

Today, Joshua is 20 months old. 20 months. And he was full of energy this evening! He gobbled down dinner yet again. Jeff was getting himself some more mac-n-cheese and Joshua said Daddy and pointed at his plate. That made the third helping of mac-n-cheese for the boy. Each helping got smaller and smaller. He wanted more and I said no and offered him go-gourt which he sucked down. He even ate his meat, chicken, tonight. He has been an eating machine lately. He seems to think that he is always hungry. And if we give him something, he eats all right. Jeff at dinner even looked under the table and said "well, it ain't coming out his toes". It was funny. Everyone keeps commenting on how slim is face is getting, so it must just be that he is growing. He went through this several weeks back, where we just couldn't seem to keep him full. He was happy to go to bed tonight.....oh yea....this morning he made it out of bed and all the way to our room without fussing. It is cool that he is getting himself up but no cool that he can open all the doors so easily. He even closed he and I in our bathroom and the opened the door. And the bathroom door latches really well.

Today, in honor of Joshua's birthday, Jeff and I went and seen a movie. Marley & Me. I read the book and cried and I cried at the movie. Jeff and I were talking that Joshua will probably be about 8 when Chanci leaves us. That is if I don't kill her first. Joshua got this Melissa & Doug puzzle for Christmas from my brother. It has fish and a fishing pole with magnets. Chanci ate the fishing pole. Now, we don't let Joshua play with it. He doesn't mind, but I do. I can sympathize with the movie because our dog eats just about anything. When Joshua was a baby and would have spit up episodes on his outfits. If I left it lying around, Chanci would come along and eat it. She loved the taste of formula. She never ate a bottle but probably would have, had she been given a chance. I don't give our pets much blog time, but they are good pets. Chanci is huge. Weighs about 125 pounds and is the biggest scaredy cat I have ever seen. She scares people off, but they don't realize that the worst she will do to them is knock them over....when she leans on them. Yes, she is a leaner. And has a whipping tale that Joshua is learning to dodge well. And our cat, well, she is a brat. She thinks she rules the house, but she doesn't. Her latest thing is chasing the reflection from the trash can lid. The lid is stainless steel, so it shines some. And when you open the lid, the shine moves on the wall. She attacks the wall trying to get it. Joshua thinks this is funny and will encourage her by opening and closing the lid.

Joshua has been finding random things funny lately. Like, mega blocks turned upside down. Why that is funny, I don't know. But he will laugh at it. And I have taught him to "come over here and lay down so I can tickle you". He will come over and lay down on the floor and wait for me to tickle him. It is so funny. He kicks his legs up and wiggles all over. It is so funny and a great distraction when things are not going well. It is hard to believe that soon enough we will be playing a small birthday party for a 2 year old. I am already working on cake ideas. Last year, I made a pirate cake that was just adorable. This year....well....you'll have to wait and see....but it is going to be great!

Jeff and I also picked out a paint for the bathroom today. We will get started on that project in the next month. We have to take down wallpaper that is in there. The first of the green striped rooms is coming down. Our sea life bathroom accessory set it so cute. I didn't really get to anything else today like I had planned. Mostly because I am hurting again today and my blood pressure is up. Up to 141/80, which is really high for me. My head just hurts and there were a couple of times today when I could feel the blood pumping in my head. I am hoping that it will fix itself in the next two days or I will go to the doctor.

Lazy Susan

Today, I did a whole lot of nothing. Well, I ran to get the truck washed and to Wal-greens....but that was mostly to help Joshua take a nap. He was refusing a nap, r-e-f-u-s-i-n-g. He would fall asleep if we were holding him, but wake up the minute we laid him down. I hate when he gets like that. So, I loaded him up and took the long way to the car wash. He was just falling asleep when we got there, but he managed to stay awake through the whole thing. He fell asleep moments later. Swung into Wal-greens where some lady in the next lane was pitchin' a fit about the cost of her scripts. Lady, you are driving a freakin' Yukon...do you really need to complain about the cost of your scripts? After she finally drove off, I could tell the workers were laughing about her. But, I got my script and left. I carried Joshua in the house and went to lay the sleeping boy in his bed and what did he do???? He woke right back up. Lovely. So I took him in the living room and we played puzzles for an hour. We had dinner with my mother and David tonight. Joshua is taking well to calling David "pops"....or as Joshua calls him "poP". With an emphasis on the last p. Tonight at dinner, Joshua would not say it, but he knew who poP was.

Monday is a company holiday. I am so ready for tomorrow. We are taking Joshua to school and going grocery shopping and meeting my mother for an 11 a.m. movie. Then we will probably swing into Lowe's and check out wall paper removal stuff and perhaps some paint. Follow that with a wishful nap and that will wrap up my child free day.

It's late and after doing nothing all day, I am tired. So I am headed to bed.

Saturday, January 17, 2009

Baby Day

Something new has happened the last three mornings. Joshua has woke up, gotten out of bed and exited him room. The first morning he made it to just outside his room with his monkey, pillow and blanket. His blanket got stuck, pulling the door shut and he fell apart. Friday morning, he woke up and I was already out in the house so I met him in the hallway. This morning, he got up and I heard him leave his room over the monitor. I waited. I heard him in the living room looking for me, nearing panic mode, so I opened my bedroom door and he smiled and ran over to give me a hug. It was so sweet.

Today, we went to a baby shower in the middle of the day. It was very nice. My second cousin and his wife are having a little boy in early March. They are excited. And nervous excited it seemed. They got lots of great stuff that will come in very handy. Another second cousin of mine was there with her 3 month old daughter. She was the cutest little thing. She had this hair that is so much like her mom's, it was so soft and long enough to hold a pretty bow. She smelled of sweet little girl. She had crocheted pink booties on, they were so freakin' cute. I held her for a while and Joshua didn't seem to mind as much as he has in the past. Of course, as soon as I was done holding her, he bee-lined to me to be held.

Joshua got a little wild during the shower, small areas are not our friend lately, so I took him outside. My father's aunt's house in Irving is on a huge lot, (it used to be a lot bigger). So I let him run around in her front yard. She had these huge trees that I have always loved and he collected sticks. And when he would hand several too me, he would count...one, two, three, one, two, three. As of late, he doesn't go past three. At one point he would count to six, but he stopped. This morning, we were playing with his puzzles and we were going through the colors and he was getting them right. I was surprised because he and I hadn't gone over colors in at least a month. He has eaten good all day, which is a change from the last several days. His ear is draining, I need to find his ear drops so we can start using them. I love the ear tubes, they were such a great thing to have done. We have avoided at least 4 ear infections since we got them.

Joshua and I are both still coughing a little. Jeff...well....Jeff is still sick and dieing. You know how men can be when they are sick. ;)

Friday, January 16, 2009

Frosty

That is what the weather outside it like....frosty. It was flippin' cold out tonight.

So, I get to work this morning and there is an email that says that our company will be shutting down an hour early today because of the holiday weekend. Wow!....I can leave an hour early! Well, no. Because we didn't know about our early dismissal, our supervisors were unable to notify our program directors that we would be leaving early. So, if your shift ended 5:30 or earlier you could leave an hour earlier. I don't get off until 6. To make it worse, I was all caught up by 3. And they searched for things to keep me busy until about 5:30 and then I was told to just sit and wait for the phone to ring....which it never did. Now, why couldn't I have left early??

Today is my third day with my Aunt Flo in tow. And she is causing pains that make me just want to curl up in a ball and be still. So, I am aching from cramps and my lower back is killing me. My upper back is still sore from coughing for 5 straight days. I am congested in the head and chest. Still wheezing, still running around chasing my nose and still coughing. My entire body above my chest hurts. And Joshua...sweet, sweet Joshua, just doesn't understand. He is a very all-about-me-all-the-time kid. I love him dearly, but tonight, I was so happy when he finally went to sleep. So, so, so happy.

And I am so excited about a three day weekend!!!

Jeff went to work early this morning. I was asleep and he came in blinding me with the closet light. I heard him tell me he was leaving and that it was near 4 o'clock. I rolled over and went right back to sleep, mumbling something that didn't even make sense to me. At least they have him working. No offense, but he is getting on my nerves being at home. He is cramping my style...not that I have much. Joshua and I had a routine, but with Jeff's work hours lately, our routine is not sticking. I am wondering if that is part of the problem with a fussy Joshua.

You know what bothers me. Is to go out to eat and Joshua to be in a high chair and be sitting so low that he is eye level with the table. I think restaurants should take in account the height of their tables when purchasing high chairs. Who wants to have to hold their arms at shoulder height just to eat. I also wish there were more kid friendly restaurants. Ones that offer tables and healthy options for kids to eat. Not just french frys and whatever. If I ever own a restaurant, I am definitely going to take these things into account. There is this piece of property on Hwy 10 that used to be a restaurant and I often dream about it being my restaurant. That would be really cool. I wouldn't use tablecloths either. I think they either look tacky or like you are trying to hard to be fancy. And I hate tile work on tables. They are great in some settings, but I just don't like the look. I think if I had my own restaurant, I would offer different types of food....to really meet a variety of family needs. One person could have steak, another spaghetti and another chicken enchiladas...like the way Candlelight Inn does it. Only, tastier.

Tomorrow is a busy day, I need to get to bed.

Thursday, January 15, 2009

Long Weekend Ahead...can you see it?

Today, was just a day. Nothing pretty, nothing ugly.

The work day seemed to drag by. I knew Jeff had his court date this evening and was dreading the outcome. **Warning - Susan's side of the story coming** See, Jeff was in this single car accident Thanksgiving Eve of 2006. He called the police to report it, like a not smart person. The officer arrived on the scene before my family got me there. The kind officer that arrived wrote my dear Jeff three tickets. One for his license having the wrong address. One for no insurance. One for failing to maintain a safe speed. Three tickets...yes on one piece of paper...the FWPD doesn't want to waste paper! We got the address fixed up...we both updated our licenses to our new home address at this point. And we were insured, but I had been driving the car and I like to keep my insurance card on me and not in the car. Jeff keeps his in the vehicle...a.k.a. my truck that he had been driving. And the failing to maintain a safe speed...well, the road was wet, because the City of FW over waters the median plants....and the light went from red to green and my husband says to himself, "hey, it's a camaro" and guns the gas....slips on the water....goes up on the curb...between the light post and the street sign.....and stops when he hits an $800 flashlight. I say an $800 flashlight because that is the cost of the light post that he hit according to the bill that he got in the mail from the City of FW. Our insurance covered the cost of the flashlight and the expensive bulb in it....and now half the time we pass by this spot...the dang thing ain't even on! So.......back to the court date. It was tonight for the two tickets....speeding & insurance. He goes in at 6pm (an odd court time) and waits until just after 6:15. The judge calls to him that his tickets will be dismissed because the office didn't show up. The officer is given 15 minutes to arrive and then assumed to not be showing up. So, thank you Mr. FWPD officer for spending the evening doing other things, you saved us about $600.

I am happy this is over with but I have one complaint. I think that if an officer is a repeat offender.....i.e. doesn't show up in court repeatedly....they should be reprimanded. I mean, the FWPD lost out of $600 in revenue tonight from us. And all of the other people who were dismissed tonight too. That is money the FWPD just lets walk away. My advise to the common person....fight your FW tickets....you never know. Or do whatever you think is best.

Joshua was horrible at dinner tonight...for the second night in a row. We went to dinner to celebrate Jeff's tickets being dismissed. And Joshua stood up in the high chair, pretty much refusing to sit down at all. He fussed every time something was going his way...i.e. his own bowl of salsa or the entire plate of guac wasn't in front of him for him to stick his hands in. This is the second night in a row like this. I don't think he will be eating out again for a while. I think he is teething again...more molars. When he is really fussing, he grabs at his bottom jaw like it hurts. But then, his ear are draining....a great thing about ear tubes....the ears drain. It is so great to me to see my sons ears drain. It brings me more joy than you can imagine. It means no earaches.....sweet sweet words.....no earache. Ahhhh....so sweet. The school said he was fussy again today after nap time. That is the second day in a row. I don't know what is up with that. I wonder if he needs a pillow at school to maybe keep his head elevated. Hmmm.....will work on that on Monday.

Oh yea....three day weekend coming up. I can't wait! But in the mean time, I need to get to bed so I can finish Friday and the weekend can start.

Wednesday, January 14, 2009

Well, well, well....

Look who has missed two blogs in a week....but hey....I have been sick.

I went back to work today. I was very tired by the end of the day. And I got a call from Joshua's school at like 4:15....he was very fussy. They had taken his temp and it was normal. Is there any meds they should be giving him? No. She put me on speaker phone for a few minutes to talk to him. She said he wanted to hold the phone. She said she would just keep him at the front with her for a bit and see if he got less fussy. I guess he did. They didn't call back. When I got there to get him, he was fussy. He had a dirty diaper, his teacher changed it. He again has a bad diaper rash, probably from his meds. It's has been a stressful week. I am ready for my whole family to be healthy again. No fevers, no coughing, no runny noses. And then BAM!....it is supposed to be freakin' cold tomorrow. Just great....just flippin' great! Just what every sickly person needs.....30 degrees and below.

Joshua jumped at the opportunity to take a bath tonight....though, that isn't unusual for him. He loves baths. He fought getting out of the tub. He fought getting on a diaper. He fought getting his jammies on. He fought having his ear cleaned. His hair brushed. His medicine taking. His going to bed. His being put back in the bed after he climbed out fussing. Now....he is asleep....and has been for a couple of hours. And I am done. Done with today. I am heading to bed. More updating will come when I feel better.

Monday, January 12, 2009

Still sick

Last night and today I have been a cough machine. It is horrible. My back hurts from coughing. On a positive note, my coughing is becoming productive. Jeff slept on the couch last night because of my coughing. I did rest some in the night between coughing bouts. Today, I have tried to take it a little easier, but we had planned a few errands leading up to my doctor's appointment this afternoon. My doc said I am wheezing bad and appear to just have an upper respiratory viral infection. Same as Joshua. He put me on a cough medicine and a steroid to help my inhaler work better. If I am not getting better in a couple of days he also gave me an antibiotic I can get filled. He also listened to Jeff's chest and told him to take the cough medicine as well.

Part of our errands today was a trip to the grocery store. It is always strange to me now to go grocery shopping and not have Joshua with me. I don't have to worry about how close I get to the shelves when he is not with me. Joshua went back to school today. Jeff took him this morning. Jeff was basically left at the door because it was story time and Joshua apparently just went right in and sat down by Chloe for story time....holding his blanket and wearing his jacket. No bye Daddy or anything. I am glad to know that I am not the only one he gives that treatment too sometimes.

Jeff and I had an appointment tonight to go to so my brother, Jeromy, and his wife, Mandy, came over to watch Joshua for us. We fixed dinner and they got here just as dinner was done. Joshua was a great kiddo for them all night. They even changed their first diaper ever and it was a dirty one at that. At about 8:30, he requested to get his jammies on. And helped bring all the stuff from his bed to the living room to signify that it was bedtime. We we got home about 9:15, he willingly said his goodnights/goodbyes and climbed into his bed. I guess being back at school today wore him out. After 3 1/2 days away, I am sure it did.

I needing to take my coughing self to bed as I have to go to work tomorrow. I can't afford to miss another day. Still not wii fitting, as I am sick. I am sure the little wii fit man is going to yell at me for missing so many days.

Sunday, January 11, 2009

Coughing Fevers

I am a coughing mess. Joshua and I are both sick. Apparently with the same thing. Our coughs sound the same. I didn't blog last night, because I put him to bed and went to bed myself. Jeff got home early this morning and slept until noon. When he got up, we fixed pizza for lunch....which I couldn't taste and Joshua did not eat. I even fixed Joshua one of his little meals and he just pushed it around this plate. We ate dinner in as well, once again, I couldn't taste it. Joshua did eat dinner, but that is how he has been the last few days. Joshua has been refusing breakfast and lunch, but eats some at dinner. If he feels like me then I understand. And to make it all better, the weather is going to go from decent to cold to decent to cold all week. I wish it would be one way or the other for two days in a row....please!

We haven't left the house today, we needed milk but Jeff will go get it tomorrow. I am going to wait and see how I feel in the morning about going to work. I can't talk for more than a couple of minutes and I have a coughing attack. I am achy all over and keep getting chills. Lovely, just lovely. Poor Joshua has been pretty much the same way. Today he seemed in a better mood, but I stayed on top of his cough meds and Tylenol for his fevers today (since we didn't leave the house). I have found that Tylenol does not really do much for his fevers (especially not quickly) but it makes him drowsy. And Motrin knocks the fever out fast (I worry too fast sometimes), but seems to leave his either wired or looking drugged. Jeff is complaining of a sore throat. We are just a sickly bunch around here.

Saturday, I did get out of the house. I went baby shower shopping with my mother and sister. We got lots of cute things for a little boy. My second cousin Eric and his wife Emily are having a baby boy in early March. The shower is next weekend. The seem to be excited about the pending arrival. I am happy for them. I think that Eric will make a great father. His father was a great man whose life was cut way too short.

Oh yea....I have to make a comment....my sister chicken fried steaks with this recipe that she said was Paula Deen's. She halved everything and somehow the chicken fried was so salty. So salty that we all teased her about our salt intake. She joked back stating that we should probably sleep with our wedding rings off and not plan on wearing them today. I haven't even tried to put mine back on today as I haven't left the house or even gotten out of my pajamas.

I am taking my sickly, achy self to bed.

Friday, January 9, 2009

It's been a long day

I stayed home with Joshua today. I took him to his pediatrician this morning. He confirmed an upper respiratory infection and put him on a cough/decongestant. Joshua was in a fairly good mood by bedtime last night. Today...oh no....not even an okay mood. He hasn't felt good. He ran a low grade fever most of the day. It never went over 100. This morning he kept banging his head saying "oww". I can only assume that he had a headache. He has had a steady stream of Motrin and Tylenol. I went and picked up his prescription and have started him on that. I was thinking this will be good, I can get caught up on some things around the house since I will have an extra day at home. Yea right. Not only did Joshua fuss most of the day, he refused to take a nap unless I was holding him. I would hold him, he would fall asleep, I would try to lay him down in his bed, my bed, the couch and he would wake right back up and fuss with his arms in the air for me to get him. So I sat still on the couch for 1 1/2 hours while he took a nap. I watched shows that I had DVR'd. But, I was really looking forward to nap time to get the dishes done. He woke up in a semi better mood, but not by much. He dumped all of his puzzles out in the living room and refused to put them back together. He would just say "mama" and point at the pieces and the at the puzzle boards. He barely made it through dinner and he was falling asleep. Dinner was the only time that he ate all day. He refused breakfast...I even tried to fix him two different things. He made a mess playing with his lunch. He took two bites of yogurt. He pretty much just drank all day, and finally ate some dinner. Mac-n-cheese always does the trick. I sat him on the couch and started to take off his shoes, he said no. So I took mine off and we just sat there. I took his shirt off to get his temp from under his arm. When we were done, he got down in the floor and got his blanket. The next thing I knew, he was snoring laying on his blanket on his side on the couch....still with his socks and shoes on. I figured I would let him sleep for a bit. He woke up about 30 minutes later. I carried him to his room and changed him into his jammies and he willingly went to bed. He nearly jumped out of my arms to get laid down quicker. Finally....peace. I finished watching a show I was watching. And have done laundry, dishes and wii fit'd, let the dog out and fed the dog. And am now going to bed after a long, long day.

Thursday, January 8, 2009

Long Day

So, I was having a great day. I went to lunch at 1, picked up unhealthy Mickey D's and was about to eat my fries when my phone rang. It was Joshua's school. I was thinking great, they need him picked up because he is sickly. No. They were calling to tell me that Joshua had a seizure while he was down for his nap. He wasn't coming around and they had called for an ambulance. She didn't know if I would get there before the ambulance or not. I panicked! I tried putting the truck in reverse to back out....it wouldn't reverse.....duh....must start truck first. I called Jeff hysterical flying down the road way too fast. Jeff asked where I was headed and I said to the school. He hung up from me called the school they said the ambulance was there and they were loading Joshua up. They would be taking him to Harris Methodist HEB, (I would have preferred Cook's, but whatever). I called my boss in a panic and left her a rambling voicemail that I was headed towards Joshua because the school had called blah, blah, blah. The school calls back and tells me that the ambulance will be leaving in a few minutes and they will be taking him to HEB, I already knew this since they had told Jeff and Jeff had called me back. I didn't think I would get to his school in time, so I headed for the hospital. Jeff got there less than 30 seconds before me. I seen him running up to the ER and went and parked near him. We waited at the ER for what seemed like forever before the ambulance got there. The director from his school rode with him to the hospital. I really like her and all of the staff and really appreciate her riding with him . The HEB ER was cram-packed. There were at least 4 ambulances there when we arrived and at least 4 more when Joshua arrived. They had people on ambulance beds in the hallways trying to clear out rooms....it was actually quite funny....all of a sudden they had more people than they were knowing what to do with. Joshua was really out of it when they got there. And he was naked on the gurney covered in a sheet. When he has febrile seizures, we are to strip him down to bare minimum clothing to help cool him body down. His fever at the hospital was 104.5. What seemed like 30 minutes later they gave him Tylenol. They came back and checked his temp again (the un-nice way at that) and it was down to 102.5 so they gave him Motrin. Another period of time passed and they brought juice and Gatorade for him to drink. He downed both of them....good thing I put a diaper back on him by now. He kept getting goose bumps and kept feeling like he was getting less hot. The came back and checked him again sometime after Ellen went off and his fever was down to 99.3. In the meantime, after the Tylenol but before the Motrin they came in a did a flu test, strep test and a chest x-ray. They did the x-ray in the room which was pretty cool. The doctor, Johnson, had already checked his ears and listened to his chest which were both fine. All the other tests came back negative. So once again, he has a febrile seizure and we don't know why his fever is spiking up fast. Lovely.

They discharged him about 5:30 and we headed over to his school to pick up his shoes, jacket and blanket. He was just fine, like nothing had happened. Give him a little juice and a little snack and he is just fine. Since he had gotten a clean bill of health, we decided we would head to the hospital to see newborn Isabelle. She was still in the NICU so we didn't see her. Christina is doing great and looks better today than yesterday....they got her up moving around today....always an exciting thing. Hopefully Isabelle will be out of the NICU tomorrow. They have taken her off the oxygen and are keeping her for another 24 hours to make sure she does fine before releasing her out of NICU. Joshua and Adam played for a little while. They are funny together. They tend to mimic each other's actions.

Jeff finally went back to work tonight....and I mean that in the nicest way. He hasn't worked since Dec 30. They just haven't had any loads for him or his counterparts to do. So big news....he is back to work tonight and headed to Baton Rouge. Joshua and I will be hanging at the house tomorrow. My boss told me she didn't want to see me until Monday, which is great given that Jeff got a load and can't keep Joshua tomorrow. I will call Joshua pediatrician in the morning and get an appointment to see what else we can do about these seizures. Two within a month are too many. I have put in my wii fit time, 15 minutes tonight (it has been a long, stressful day) and am heading to bed.

Here's to a better tomorrow.

Wednesday, January 7, 2009

Life & Death

Today my cousin Daniel's wife Christina had her daughter. Isabelle has made her arrival. She looks like her mommy & daddy. She has dark hair, but less than her brother did when he was born 20 months ago. She's cute and really makes me want to have another one. We have a plan in place, but it hasn't been as easy this go round. Her skin was so soft. She has spent today in the NICU due to minor complications. She should be out of the NICU in the morning so tomorrow night, we will get to hold her. Exciting!!

Today at work....the stuff they had me working on today kept giving me a headache. It was confusing. They keep telling me that if I can understand the CA stuff then the rest of it will be easy. CA has so many regulations about health insurance. Tomorrow is another day and I am sure they will have me learning something new all over again. One of the team leads at work, her husband passed away last night. I was shocked given that she had been at work all day. They said she had been commenting on how stubborn he was and how he was refusing to go to the doctor. They said she is doing as well as can be expected. They knew that this was coming, just weren't expecting it this soon. I will keep her in my prayers. There was also a DPD officer killed in the line of duty last night too. The DPD police chief, when he was giving his press conference last night, he seemed to be trying so hard to keep it together. You could tell that he was close to this officer and his family. More folks to keep in my prayers tonight.

I didn't Joshua tonight, he was in bed before I got home, so nothing new to report on that. I know that today was Pajama Day at school for his class. There were several kiddos in the jammies this morning. I was surprised that he didn't seem confused on why we put jammies on and not jeans, but he didn't ask and I didn't try to explain.

I am going to have to skip the wii fit tonight, because I am just down right tired. And because I am tired, I am heading to bed.

Tuesday, January 6, 2009

Only Tuesday

I am so ready for this weekend to get here. I don't even know why, I don't have anything major going on. Just my normal trip to the grocery store.

Today at work, they trained me how to do 3 more things. So far, they haven't trained anyone else from my training class to do anything but make calls. I actually enjoyed the supporting documentation that I worked today. It wasn't as slow as just working Credit Balance Worksheets. It was an exciting day for me at work. I love to learn new things, especially when I have a great teacher. Some people think they can teach but all they know how to do is tell.

We ate spaghetti at home tonight, Jeff's favorite (yea right!). It was okay, but I had bought a different sauce that I usually do and I didn't really care for it much. It almost had a canned spaghetti sauce taste like Chef Boyardee. Oh well, I will buy my usual brand from now on. Joshua loved dinner tonight. I cut him off because I thought he had eaten too much and he threw a fit. He fussed until he heard the word bath and then headed to the bathroom to take a bath. Tonight we tried out his new toothpaste. He is really liking "brushing" his teeth. It is going better than I thought it would. He has become a pro at running his toothbrush under the water. I think primarily to fill it up with more water that he can suck out, but hey, at least he is getting the general idea. So far, so good.

I have put in my 30 minutes on the Wii Fit and it is way past my bedtime, so I will cut it short.

Monday, January 5, 2009

Monday, Monday

The first Monday of the 2009! You know, come to think of it, this past weekend was the first weekend of 2009! It was rainy all day. The rain froze in the trees giving the trees in the parking lot at work a winter wonderland effect. But now that it is dark, it is finally warm enough for all the icicles to start melting. Yea...that's right. Warmer at 8pm than it was at 3pm. Makes no sense to me either. And because they are melting, there is snow chance of an ice day tomorrow. Dang it!

This morning at Joshua's school he was entranced by the book the teacher was reading when we got there. He had to stand facing her while I took his jacket off. Oh yea, and I got in his way and he had to step aside to see the book. I took him over and sat him down by Chloe and he was fascinated by this book. Maybe it was the whole story time thing, I don't know. He never pays that much attention to me when I read him books, but perhaps it is my tactic. I will review this in the coming days and report back. As I was leaving, a little boy named Zachary in his class said, "well bye." He is a character! And already potty trained and he doesn't turn two until like March or so. He has the best speech in the class followed by Joshua which is funny to the teacher because they are the two youngest boys. Now, if I could just get Joshua potty trained....can't I just snap my fingers and it happen?? Looking back, it seems I didn't report on Joshua's first on the little potty experience.....
So, it was Dec 27th. He had been a farting machine. We kept asking if he was going potty and he kept saying potty and pulling at his diaper. I asked if he wanted to use his potty chair. He was so excited. He pushed it over to me in the living room. I pulled his pants off and took the diaper off and sat him on the potty. The pee guard wasn't in place so I had to attach that. He sat there for a minute and then started fussing. We told him he had to sit there for a few minutes. He fussed the whole time. The closest book I could find to start reading to him was his Bible he had just gotten for Christmas. So we read two Bible stories while he fussed. He never got up, he just sat there and fussed. No other action was happening, so Jeff took him to his room and put a diaper on him. He pooped about 10 minutes later. Lovely story huh?!?

Not much else to report on. I need to get some laundry going for tomorrow and get my Wii Fit time in so that's it for now.

Sunday, January 4, 2009

Good-bye Christmas

Today, we actually got to sleep in. Joshua did not wake until about 9. It was great....a whole extra hour of zzzzzz. On our new pillows too!! We bought Memory Foam Pillows with some of the Christmas money we got from Jeff's parents. I was hesitant but thought I would give it a try. I found that I didn't toss and turn quite so much but I also kept waking up on my back. I don't really remember much else, except the stupid cat was making me hot. I kept booting her off the bed. After one night, I will give the pillow a thumbs up, but let me rate again after a week.

We hadn't planned to do much today other than take down the Christmas stuff. Jeff got the lights down outside. We attempted to do a few more Christmas pictures with Joshua. He won't stay still long enough for picture taking. And heaven forbid if it is a pose that he just doesn't want to do. We put him down for a nap and set out to take down the Christmas tree. I organized our three Christmas buckets a little more. I tend to re-organize them every year. We took down the Christmas tree and got it all back in the original box!! - an amazing feat. We moved the Christmas buckets and the tree box back into the garage all before Joshua was up from his nap. He didn't say anything about there not being a tree in the living room anymore. I think he knew something was different but wasn't sure what it was. We ate lunch and were just hanging out.

My sister called. They were back from their trip and we had their mail from the past week. We decided that we would bring it over there and fix enchiladas and we would bring our Wii Fit for them to check out. We went over and Wii Fit-ed for a while and realized it was late and decided to just order pizza. We stayed for a while longer chatting a Wii-Fit-ing and have come home. It is pretty cold outside tonight. The weather man said it would be. We'll have to see if he is still right in the morning, unless the forecast has changed...it is Texas after all.

It is Sunday and I have to go back to work tomorrow. Tomorrow I am officially out of training and will be the real deal. I am glad that Jan 5 has finally arrived. But for now, I am headed to bed. I am tired and realize that I have already missed the news and weather.

Saturday, January 3, 2009

It is still Saturday, right?

We had a busy Saturday. Lots of running around. We had lunch in Irving at Sweet Tomatoes. Went to Kohl's for my mother and wound up spending some of our Christmas money on new pillows.....more on those tomorrow. Went to the fairly new ToysRUs/BabiesRUs combo store....much to small on both stores. I prefer the bigger, full size stores. Where they actually carry things you see online and not just a condensed version of it. When we were on the BabiesRUs side, Joshua was in the back of the buggy....you know the part where you shouldn't let your children ride, but everyone does anyway. And he reached for something, shifting the balance of the buggy and the balance of himself just enough that he went down. He smashed his mouth on the buggy and blood started coming out of his mouth. I thought he had bit his lip, no....he cut the inside of his lip/cheek and banged up his top gum. We got him calmed down. Rinsed him mouth out with some cold water. And he is just fine now; however, when I put him to bed, his mouth was bleeding again a little. That is our first bloody accident. Whew....we made it to 19 months old before it happened!!....go Mommy, go Mommy. It is sadly good that we have had two ER trips and he wasn't bloody or broken either time. At ToysRUs, Joshua spent his Christmas money on some Crayola Brand things. I will post more once he uses them.

We made the trip back to the Fort Worth side of town and stopped in at home for a bit. I talked to my neighbor across the street. I have been reading on our HOA website about break-ins and attempted break-ins in our neighborhood and wanted to see if she had seen it. She hadn't and we talked for a few. She was telling me that the guy three houses down from us was in his garage working a couple weeks back. He went in the house to fix himself a sandwich and when he came out, he seen the guys jumping into a van in front of his house. They took several of his tools including his saw. I have noticed a lack of saw noise in the last few weeks from his house. He thought he heard something and went out to check and sure enough he had heard them taking his stuff. The HOA site said someone was attempting to break into a house over by the school and the guy was in the back of his house and thought he heard someone banging on his door...he did....it was two guys trying to break in. He called the cops and by the time they got here, the guys were gone. What is my neighborhood coming too? The stuff online says that the break-ins and attempted break-ins were where there was no car parked in the driveway and happening between 9am-11am. Lovely. I can only pray that my house doesn't look appealing.

Tonight we met up with my brother and sister-in-law at Joann's so my sister-in-law, Mandy, could give me some scrap booking tips. I am going to be working on a photo/scrap book and have decided to do it by hand. After we left Joann's, we were in the truck and Joshua and Jeff were playing. All of a sudden, Joshua swung his arm back in my direction and accidentally popped me on the arm. Popped me like you would back-hand someone. It hurt/stung for several seconds. Jeff was laughing so hard, I think the only things that kept him in the seat was his seat belt. We also decided that we would just go grocery shopping tonight while we were already out and didn't have to worry about it tomorrow. Bad idea. Joshua was so done with this day before we got there. He fussed and threw fits throughout our entire 20 minute stop. I took him out to the truck while Jeff checked us out at the grocery store.

I am working on editing pictures....so be sure to check out my flickr.

Friday, January 2, 2009

The day that should have been a holiday

Today, I had to go to work. It just didn't seem like it should have been a work day. I worked all day right up until 6pm. Then made a mad dash to Joshua's school to pick him up before 6:30pm. Work is going. There is drama at this job, much like every job. People keep coming by my desk to tell me things and I keep telling them I don't know anything and just want to work. You see, apparently on Wednesday, they fired someone that started the same day I did. All I knows is that I came in on Tuesday morning and people were shouting from one of the conference rooms. The next day, one of those people are fired. Good riddance, I say, she seemed like a drama queen who would start drama daily. I like where my desk is. I am in a corner kinda with only two people close by. I don't have to be in the middle of what everyone is saying. I hate work drama. And I hate people who talk behind the backs of the people they work for. I am guilty of that on occasion, but I don't make it a habit.

When I picked Joshua up from school today, we got in the truck and I asked if he wanted to sing his ABC's. He has been doing fairly well on them. He responded to my question by saying, "dooblu lmnop". So we started singing them and he followed along but I think he sang 'dooblu' at least 4 times and 'lmnop' at least three times. Then we worked on numbers. He is getting good at saying 2. If you say 1, he will say 2. Today he said 2, 3. I said 4 and then he wanted to work on how to hold his fingers for the numbers. Those uncoordinated fingers of a toddler. When they want them to look like yours, but they just can't hold that thumb down. It makes me laugh. We followed that up with what we have been calling rollcall. Basically he names off all the names he knows. Mama, Daddy, Buka, JJ, Mani, Epi, KT, Nana, Papi, Chloe, Atches & Chanci. I tried to get his to say Ethan or even ET and all he would say was Buka. By then we were home.

A tried and true hit for dinner, salisbury steaks. Joshua loves them. He actually eats this meat. Often meat is a bribe to get him to eat it good. He gobbled down his peas and picked through his rice, selecting just the right pieces. After dinner, we were in the living room playing with Joshua and Jeff asked him if he wanted to take a bath. Jeff assumed that since Joshua wasn't responding he was being ignored. Joshua was working on one of his puzzles and was even ignoring me. When he finished the puzzle, he said "daddy go" and headed out of the living room. He waited for a second for Jeff to get up and went to the bathroom for his bath. It was impressive and proof that he tunes us out just enough to not respond while he is concentrating on a project. He went to bed great as usual. I feel like he is outgrowing his toddler bed. I just don't feel like he has enough room. He tends to wind up sleeping on 1/3 of his bed. We aren't planning on a big big boy bed until later this year. I am hoping the weather is nice tomorrow like it was today so we can get his tricycle outside.

I am working on editing pictures so look for those to come up this weekend.

Thursday, January 1, 2009

Happy New Year!!

Well, my last two weeks of 2008 flew by. Christmas has come and gone. We are all playing with our new toys. Joshua loved his tricycle, but loved all of his new puzzles so much more. He scored a wagon from his Nana & Pops (aka David). He scored a fishing puzzle & a mallet toy from JJ & Mani (aka Uncle J & Aunt M) and more shake and go cars from Buka and family (aka Uncle Brandon's family). He also scored a Disney Cars play rug/mat from his cousin Adam. From Mommy & Daddy, he got puzzles, a MagnaDoodle (which he loves playing with) and an Etch-a-Sketch (he loves sitting still and turning the knobs). And other Cars things & stuff that I just can't think of right now. He has so many new toys & books that he goes from toy to toy to toy playing with everything often.

Jeff loved his new hedge trimmer....but it is still in the box. I think he is planning on putting it to use this weekend. He got me wii music because he couldn't find a wii fit. Then on the Monday before Christmas, he went to try just one more time and Wal-mart had the wii fit....so he got it for me! It is so awesome. He and I have been working on daily on it since then. I did skip two days in a row, but I will allow myself two days off each week, because life is more important than wii fitting.

We spent New Year's Eve as just the three of us. We went to Denny's for dinner and ordered non-breakfast things. And then drove through this neighborhood in Bedford with lots of lights...lots of red lined yards and houses....huge houses. The neighborhood has this gazebo that I just love and they always have it decorated so cute as Christmas time. We came home and Joshua opened one of his puzzles. We decided that this might just become a Christmas Eve tradition for our little family.

Christmas day was spent opening gifts at home with the three of us. Then we headed to my brother's for a family Christmas. Ribs, potato salad, green bean casserole & cheddar bay biscuits (that I made). It was all tasty. My sister arrived in the afternoon and we opened all the gifts. 'Twas a good old family Christmas.

New Year's Eve, we went to dinner with my brother and his wife. Then they came to our house and we just hung out. The boys played on the wii and Mandy and I talked pictures and babies. Mandy wants a little one so badly.....hopefully 2009 will bring her one.

Today, New Year's Day, we went to Northpark Mall to see the Train Exhibit put on by Ronald McDonald House. It was really cool. A tour across America via mini trains sets. The city of Dallas was huge and all in all the entire exhibit was well worth the time. Joshua kept saying "choo choo" throughout the whole thing. It was so cute.

It is hard to believe that in 2008, we went from having a child who was barely sitting up good on his own, then started crawling in January, right around the time of getting his first tooth.
- he finally said "mama" in March.
- he turned one in May and had an awesome pirate birthday party.
- then finally started walking in June.
- we took a vacation in late September.
- and have rounded out the year moving up to the tricycle stage.

Joshua has gone from bottles, to sippy cups to pretty much only cups with straws.
From size 6 months to size 18 months clothes.
From size 3 shoes in February to size 6 shoes in December.
From 20 lbs 8 ozs December 31, 2007 to 26 lbs 8 ozs December 31, 2008. Both December 31st he had to go to the doctor...lovely.
He had two febrile seizures this year and his first surgery (it was actually two surgeries).
He has moved from his crib to his toddler bed.
He has learned all the words he knows (except Daddy) this year. Dada was his first word in November 2007.

2009 brings exciting plans.
- planning a second child. The plan is to be pregnant before the year's end.
- to redo two rooms in our house....the office & the second bath. We are well on our way to getting the second bath redone. My mother bought us the new bathroom set we wanted and I got a great Nemo picture from my cousin Daniel for the bathroom.
- a new vehicle in the summer.
- a scale-downed vacation in late August.
- opportunity at my new job. So far, so good.

The new year 2009 also brings resolutions, of which I have made three.
1. Better dental hygiene. And teach Joshua about brushing his teeth.
2. Edit, upload and send out pictures more often. (And get family pictures done!!)
2. Updated my blog everyday if possible.

I need to get to bed, because I have to work tomorrow. I don't want to go, but I have to go. I didn't get to pictures tonight, but before the weekend is up I will post one of Joshua's new tricycle....in action.