where have all the snapshots gone

So, I am skipping Snapshot Sunday this week...just look for next Sunday's to be big.

This has been a busy week but I haven't really done much...at least I don't feel that I have.

Monday brought about not much. Dinner with my sister. Oh, on Monday, Joshua had a follow up with his pedi. They had called in drops on Friday to the Wal-mart in Arkansas. The doctor was concerned because after 4 days of ear drops, his ears were not clearing very quickly. He could still see the tubes in both ears. He wanted to put him on an antibiotic. We dropped off the script and when we went to pick it up, the lady asked if we wanted it flavored. I asked what flavors she had and she started listing them. I said, "did you say banana?" "Yes, does he like banana?" "Oh yea, we will take banana flavoring." "That's weird, but okay." She left the window and returned and we headed home. After getting Joshua in his jammies, I offered his banana flavored medicine. I told him it was banana, after all it smells like bananas. He took half of it and said, "no wan it, no wan it, no banana, no wan it, no banana mama". Apparently, the banana flavoring isn't that great....note to self.

Tuesday night, Jeff and I had our appointment. It went well. There are some new things that we will work on in the next month. I actually felt like this appointment was productive. While we were gone, Mom came up and kept Joshua. I called her when we got out of our appointment to let her know we were headed home. She said that she had created a monster for us. I am thinking, "great, what now?". When we got home, she was pulling him along the sidewalk in his dump truck. His Tonka dump truck in all it's yellow glory. And he was just smiling from ear to ear. I wish I had snapped a picture. She had tied a stringy-rope to it and was pulling him along. Then, we all had to come inside. It was getting to be bedtime and Mom needed to go home. Joshua didn't want to get out of his dump truck, much less come inside. He whined at the door for "ouside". He loves to be outside (wonder where he gets that from) and begs to go out constantly. We really need to get the backyard in some sort of shape so we can use it more. Then I don't have to worry about random dogs....

I hate when people put their kids in the front yard with their dog. They expect the kid to play and be a kid and to take care of the dog. Typically the kid has no control or authority over the dog so it is a lose-lose situation. It bothers me to no end. Mom had brought Chanci out in the front on Tuesday night and hooked her up to the tree. We sometimes take her in the front to play around and if we will be outside for an extended period of time we have her cable around the tree. After I got home, this dog comes running up to Chanci with a young girl chasing behind yelling for the dog. She had no control over this dog. I don't like this. Moments later, the people across the street also had their kids and dog out in the front to play...their dog came over to see Chanci. This time she barked at the incoming dog and the dog turned around and headed home before making to our grass. Two thoughts...1. Is Chanci really that intimidating? 2. What are these parents thinking...are they thinking?? I think it is important for a child to learn about responsibility and I think a dog can be a good tool is this lesson. But, a child should never be left as the sole care giver to a dog. A child should not have to keep up with a dog while they are outside to play with their friends. You can't expect an 8-12 year old to do both at once. And you shouldn't leave your kid alone with a dog...no matter how much you trust your child or the dog. You just never know what could happen. I don't think Chanci would ever attack anyone (she is more likely to lick them to death) but she could easily knock someone over, including an adult. She is not small by any means. I also can not stand when a child comes running up to me and Chanci, hands flailing about, screaming 'puppy, puppy'. It is intimidating for the dog and increases the chance the dog will attack. Don't let your child do this. They don't know the dog, and the dog doesn't know them. There is a girl that lives on our street who always ask if she can come pet our dog. She is nice and polite. She always offers the back of her hand to Chanci as she walks up. Obviously, her parents took the time to teach her this. Why then, is she the child who came chasing her dog into my yard on Tuesday? Why? You can't talk to the dog, asking, "how does this child with flailing arms make you feel?" No matter how innocent the dog looks, no matter big or small...you should ask before approaching a dog you don't know. And you should not let your child keep up with your dog while they want to play with friends. You can dog sit for an hour while they play outside. Give the dog a crate...a safe place to hang out in this instances. Please for the love of my sanity.

Jeff didn't go to work Tuesday night. They didn't have a load for him, but asked him to call Wednesday morning. When he called Wednesday morning, they surprisingly had a load for him to Memphis.

Wednesday has been another day. Nothing stand out as happened. I decided this afternoon at work that I would take advantage of another beautiful day and go for a walk when I got home. That is exactly what I did. For the first time since my surgery I walked. I did some light stretching and then walked a mile and a half. My mother called while I was out for my walk and asked about dinner. I had planned chicken & noodles for dinner. But $5.50 fajitas sounded too good to pass up. So off to Grand Prairie for fajitas. They were tasty as usual. After we got home, Joshua found a million things he didn't like and decided to throw a tantrum about every single one of them. Finally it got late enough for bath time. So off for a bath. Bath time with him has gotten interesting. He doesn't want to sit in the tub. But doesn't want to take a shower either. Basically, he wants to play with the water, but not be bathed. He prefers to be dirty and if he had his choice he would sleep in the dirt, eat in the dirt and live in the dirt. Being cleaned is a chore for him; a chore that he absolutely does not like. He stood up for most of this bath today, bending down to play with his bath toys. When I finally rinsed the shampoo out of his hair he decided to sit down. I didn't get very wet tonight during bath time...it has been a while since I stayed this dry. Then, at the end of his bath, he didn't want to get out. He never wants to get out. The water drains out and I know he is getting cold, but still he refuses to get out. Normally I get him out and he tries to escape before being wrapped in the towel. He is a streaker when given the opportunity.

It is nearly an hour after my bedtime. I had a hard time getting up this morning, so I really should have gone to bed early, but oh well.

what...the weekend is over???

Saturday, my mother, sister and niece came over and we painted the bathroom walls. At first I wasn't crazy about either color, but after the paint started to dry a little I like the blue (water) but not the brown (sand). This morning Jeff and I went back in the bathroom and the colors didn't look as bad as I had been thinking. We fixed the paint so the brown and the blue colors meet. It looks pretty good. And another coat of the brown really helped its shade. Overall, I like how it turned out. Not bad for a first time re-doer job. We had one slight problem when peeling off the tape....it didn't want to come off. It didn't let the paint bleed through, but at the same time, it didn't want to come off. We have now gotten it all off and Jeff has now got the lights and mirror back up. We bought a frame for the picture that will hang in there. Now we just need a few more accessories. Which is harder than it ought to be given that Jeff and I are disagreeing with what we want....surprise surprise!

Joshua has been extraordinarily fussy this weekend. Pretty much only content when I was either holding him or less than 3 feet from him. Yesterday his ear drained all day and today it hasn't. Tonight I went ahead and put drops in that ear and we will see how it does tomorrow and then he may go to the doctor on Tuesday. Speaking of doctor.....our doctor has left the practice. A lady at my mother's work uses the same pediatrician. She called Friday to get her son in and was told that our doctor resigned last week and that his "office staff chose to stay". Chose to stay??? Exactly why did he leave??? I really like our doctor but Jeff and I will instead choose the another doctor in the practice rather than track our old doctor down. We are choosing the doctor that spent so much time checking Joshua out recently when he was sickly...the one that finally said "Go to Cook's.". Can you see it now? You go to the doctor not knowing that your doctor is gone. And all the doctors are standing there looking their best just hoping that you will pick them? And bummed when they are chosen? The image is probably better in my head. (Do you see the risers they are standing on? How about the giraffe one of them uses as a wooing tool?....yea, I didn't think you seen it that way.)

I can't believe the weekend is over and it is back to work time. Can I have one more day please???? Pretty please....with sugar on top?and a cherry too???

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.

Thanksgiving

Thanksgiving weekend flew by. We went to Arkansas on Thursday mid morning and returned home Sunday night. It was a great trip despite the rainy weather we had all weekend. Joshua loved to play outside....after all, there was so much to taste out there....like rocks, grass, sticks and such. We rode him around quite a bit on the four wheelers. He kept wanting to fall asleep when he would be ridden around. He did actually go to sleep with Uncle Brandon (a.k.a. Buka Buka). I think he went to sleep riding around with Mom as well.
David fried up two turkeys. One Cajun for the adults and one not Cajun for the kiddos. It was good eating...throw in the stuffing in the new roaster, green bean casserole (my favorite), sweet potatoes, mashed potatoes & cranberry sauce and it was really good eatin'.

On the poll about what Joshua would ask Santa for it was decided that he would ask for......drum roll please....................................................................................................................................................................................................................................................


the Tricycle. So, now we are off to find a tricycle. Several people sent comments about the safety of a fold-and-go tricycle, so we will look into more in depth & search out similar models.

Also on the Joshua front...two more teeth. He has gotten them in the last couple of weeks...the incisors....the pointy teeth on the bottom.....yea....all grown in now. He is growing like a weed lately it seems. He thinks he is getting big enough to do things and really he is not. He is still my little baby boy...or so I like to think sometimes. He has gotten to where is no longer likes to snuggle on the couch...or even be still for 3 minutes for that matter. He has developed two speeds.....1. Slow - this is reserved for the first 2 minutes after he wakes up. 2. Fast - this is reserved for all other waking minutes of the day.

He has taken to throwing tantrums over everything. I always swore that I wouldn't be that parent that walked away from my screaming child throwing a tantrum. I, my friends, have become that parent. It is really the only thing that will fix the situation. Trying to talk to him to calm him down, scolding him, distracting him, picking him up....none of this works...but walk away and he stops with 60 seconds. Of course I also swore that my kids would never drink sodas, but Joshua does on occasion....with his Daddy. I don't give them to him...his Daddy does. Joshua has a fondness for Mountain Dew. He loves that crap. And I don't drink sodas so his Daddy sneaks him drinks of the stuff.

Joshua just went to the doctor for his 18 month check up. He did have to get one shot & some blood work done. He weighs 26.8 pounds and is 31 inches tall. He has moved into the 2's class at school. He seems to be doing really well over there. He starts in the mornings in the infants room but moves over to the 2's when all the teachers are back from morning school runs.

We went and did Santa pictures a few weekends back. He did really good. He was excited about seeing Santa. Jeff and I had talked about how cool Santa was and what he looks like. When he seen Santa, he bounced up and down showing his excitement. When he got about two feet from Santa...he froze.....as in ohmygosh, he's real. It was quite funny. The Santa man was great. And we got a spiffy picture from it.

We will put up the Christmas tree this weekend. We are so excited about it. We bought a new tree this year....all pre-lit and fancy. Joshua has been impressed with his Aunt Stephanie's tree, so we will see how it all goes next weekend at home. I am sure that I will be chasing Joshua and Patches (the cat) away from the tree. What fun!!!

I could be missing other things, but I will try to post again soon.