'Snot Over Till it's Over

And when, oh when, will it be over? It's been more than two years since anyone in our home has been sick. But for the past several days the snot has been flowing freely. I kinda hate to complain as I will take snot over puke any day, but this is getting ridiculous! Fortunately Dear Husband and I have remained well, but Dear Daughter got it bad. She ran temps of at least 103 degrees for a day or two and had a few days when she didn't leave her bed or the couch. She's been wiping her face so much that she is practically drawing blood. It's pitiful.

Dear Son got a minor version of it, but combined with the trauma of hatching first year molars, it's not been fun. Husband and I have been awake more than asleep the past several nights between the dueling snot monsters. Son slept through the night last night, which was blissful for me. He woke up happy and was smiling and talking to himself when I went to his crib this morning. I'm not sure why he was so happy, as he had a huge plug of brown crusty snot dried around both his nostrils that was so solid that he couldn't possibly breathe through it. As he grinned at me, I stood over him in total shock. I couldn't decide whether to be more amazed over the largest dried booger I'd seen in my life, or the fact that Son was so happy despite having the largest booger I'd seen in my life dried firmly to the end of his schnoz. After the shock wore off, I was able to think clearly enough to pry at one end of the thing until it popped off. I swear I heard Son gasp for air the second his nostrils were freed. I considered entering the thing in the Guinness Records.

I will be thrilled if we make it at least two more years before having to contend with this much snot again.

Here's a couple pics of Son before the big booger wars started. Poor thing will never live down following in the footsteps of a big sister. I need to get him some blue sunglasses.

Gross Dose

Parenting has plenty of opportunities for contact with bodily fluids. This is something I came to terms with long ago. However, yesterday morning had to beat all. Keep in mind I've cleaned up pee messes, I've cleaned up poop messes, and I've cleaned up puke messes when Dear Daughter went through a phase of repeated flu bugs when she was barely a year old. As other parents of young ones know, toddler puke does not go neatly in the toilet to be flushed away. It goes on the carpets, the beds, the blankets, the clothes (the child's as well as your own), and pretty much anything in the way when the event occurs. Fortunately, in the past 2 years and some odd months, there have been no further significant puke events. Daughter has a sensitive tummy and some seasonal allergies, and there has been a time or two that she has had a "mini puke" apparently resulting from mucus drainage in her stomach. This event is nothing like a stomach flu bug and does not result in a thorough stomach dump. It tends to occur as an isolated event on an empty stomach, and thus is not of massive quantity. It is, nonetheless, gross to see and to clean up.

**Side Note: I warned you with the title, so if you are still reading, it's your own fault**

Yesterday morning was one of those mini-puke events. Apparently it happened in two consecutive "mini dumps." I missed the first one as I was busy changing laundry loads preparing Daughter's breakfast, and completing a phone call when Daughter, who was sitting at the table about to eat breakfast, jumped out of her chair and began crying. Then came the mini dump, which was well contained. A few minutes after I cleaned it up, I discovered a small amount of mini dump evidence in a completely different location from the event I had previously witnessed. When I questioned Daughter if she threw up in that spot, she replied, "No (pause)..., I think Bub was just pushing his walker through it." As this began to sink in, I was aware of Dear Son driving his walker toy all over the house in a frenzy, which he had been doing for quite some time following the mini dump incident. I immediately hijacked the walking toy and upon examination, discovered mini dump evidence down the front of it and pooled in a small compartment toward the bottom of the front of the toy where it was then slowly dripping out onto the floor. My mind raced with the implications of this discovery. When I questioned Daughter further, she informed me that she had thrown up on her brother's walker toy, but apparently neglected to tell me about this. He was apparently unfazed by the event and proceeded to carry on as usual. I spent the next hour or two searching for and cleaning up puke trails.

*Sigh* Just a day in the life....

Tinky Winky is Back...Uh Oh!

I have a confession to make. After introducing Dear Daughter (albeit accidentally) to the Teletubbies a couple years ago, this time I did it intentionally with Dear Son. It was a desperate moment. Either I was going to go nuts from the whining of a very hungry toddler who was not at all being patient for his lunch, or I was going to have to employ my new kitchen tv for purposes other than those it was originally intended. Dear Husband got me this television so that I could catch the news at least once a day while I am elbow deep in meal preparation or clean up. Since we do not receive digital service on it, the viewing choices are limited. If I was not going to watch the news, my other choices were either Teletubbies or Jerry Springer. So really, I made a good choice from that perspective. Fortunately, or maybe unfortunately, the Teletubbies worked. Son is now a big fan of the Teletubbies and claps along to the goofy theme music. Husband is not especially amused by this.

Yes, that's Son in the picture above. He discovered bending over and looking between his legs, and since he thought it was great fun, he does it frequently. While I'm on the topic of amusing things Dear Son is currently doing, here's a picture of him wearing the ring from my springform baking pan. He disappeared into the kitchen last night and apparently rummaged around in the cupboards for awhile before reappearing with this baking ring around his neck. And yes, I know those are lavender pajamas. And yes, I have been admonished by others that dressing your boy in lavender is taboo. But I reasoned that these are only pajamas, and no one will see him in them but us. Unless, of course, he is wearing them when he does something cute that requires us to record the event and publish it on the Internet for the entire world to see. I can't help it that he is growing like Paul Bunyan gone amok and I can't keep clothing in stock that fits him. And I can't help it that his older sibling is a girl. I dug this out of his big sister's hand me downs. So sue me...I thought lavender was a better choice than pink. And no, I'm really not concerned that my boy is watching Tinky Winky and wearing lavender. I'm not even concerned about the fact that he tends to play with Big Sis' dolls more than she does or that he likes to wear her jewelry. Although one day he will probably not be happy with me for discolsing all these things. He's redeemed by the fact that he is also built like a quarterback (or at least how you would expect a 14 month old quarterback to be built) and loves his footballs and basketballs and hammers and tools.

And while we're on the topic of hammers, here's a redeeming shot of him whacking the living heck out of his ball pounder. How's that for budding testosterone? He likes to stack the balls on top and then whack the heck out of them as hard as he can. He can pound those babies in quicker than you can blink. And you better steer clear because he's no respecter of body parts or fingers that may be in his way when he is going at it. Can you see that grimace on his face? All boy, I assure you!








Lastly, lest you think I forgot all about my charming firstborn, here is a beautiful portrait of her. I have also updated my photo galleries for December, January, and February, so click away if you are interested!

Literature Three Year Old Style

Dear Daughter loves literature. From the Three Little Pigs to the Holy Bible, she loves it all. We've been reading to her daily since she was only a few weeks old, and she absorbs everything like a sponge and replays it in interesting ways.

Yesterday Daughter was playing in her large cardboard appliance box that she has affectionately deemed her "house." I was ordered to be the Big Bad Wolf while she was going to be the Little Pig. I can't count how many times we've done this before, and to be honest, I was growing weary of it. Nevertheless, we play acted the whole story up to the part where the Little Pig put the kettle of boiling water on the fire and the Big Bad Wolf climbed down the chimney and fell in. I was convincing Daughter that I was now a dead Big Bad Wolf as I lay on the floor, eyes tightly shut, hoping she would accept this and let me take a nap (yeah, right). That's when Daughter disappeared behind the box momentarily and then came back around it, gliding across the floor in a peculiar make-believe fashion. I was timidly peeking at her through one eye, trying not to be noticed, lest Daughter realize that the Big Bad Wolf was not really dead. That's when Daughter stooped down in her make-believe fashion and gingerly lay her hand on my shoulder. She lingered in a half squat and whispered over me, "I'm God, and I am raising you from the dead."

Um...yeah. We also recently read the story of how Jesus raised Lazarus from the dead. It was the first time that I'd experienced the amalgam of Fairy Tale meets the Holy Word enacted by a three year old. It was an amusing experience. And I never did get my nap.

He's a "Keeper"

I saw it again last night. There it was, at the bottom of a stack of clear plastic storage bins. I hadn't noticed it for a very long time, as its contents are never needed. Yet we must hang on to it "just in case." My husband, you see, is a "keeper." He's a keeper in many senses of the word...in terms of himself being one quite worth hanging onto as well as in terms of being one who thinks nearly everything on God's green earth is worth hanging onto. *Sigh*

Last night when Dear Husband was rummaging through the closet for a jacket and tie, something rarely required for his work anymore, my attention was brought to it again. I wouldn't have noticed it if Husband had not quizzed me as to where I had stashed his tie collection, as it has become a part of the routine scenery in our large walk-in bedroom closet. I guess, with time, I somehow managed to become desensitized to it. I scanned the length of the wall and the contents of the clear plastic storage bins, thinking to myself that I had not put Husbans's ties in one of these bins, and that's when my eyes registered the long forgotten one that lies dormant in wait of being needed again someday. The one we must keep "just in case."

"Well..." I began with a twinge of smart-ass in my tone, "you may not be able to locate a tie, but surely the circumstances call for a little something out of your extensive tube sock collection!" Husband gave me the you're-being-a-smart-ass look, and I responded that I felt a blog post coming on.

I remember a couple years ago when I cleaned and reorganized the drawers of our bedroom dresser, and I began pulling socks out of one of Husband's drawers. I could not believe the sheer mass of them. There were hideous pairs of funky dress socks from the 80's, which I labeled "pimp socks" as I thought they would go quite well with the "pimp shoes" (you know the ones...those slim style slip ons with the little tassels that bounce around at the toes) that I managed to extricate from my husband's wardrobe during the first year of our marriage. He must have been hiding the "pimp socks" under his pillow for the past decade, because I do not know how they survived the next several years including a CROSS COUNTRY MOVE for crying out loud!

As I sat buried in a massive sock drift, I made quick survey of the situation. Without further adieu, I relegated the "pimp socks" to the trash, but I paused on the tube socks. At first the pause was for nothing more but to consider what, in the name of all that is good and holy, could lead to a person having a tube sock collection of this magnitude! Then I began to sort them into piles and categories. I think I was in shock and grasping at how to make sense of it all. I threw out the ones with holes in the heels (despite what Husband might think, I could not think of a time that they could possibly be needed one day). There was a pile of extra heavy winter tube socks, the kind that is super thick and gray with the neon red band at the top, a pile of white ones (the ones with the stains got tossed), a pile of not as heavy gray ones without neon red bands at the top, a pile of heavy black ones with rubber grippers on the bottoms (don't ask), and a pile of assorted colored ones that wouldn't fit in any better category.

Now that I had them in piles, I thought about what I would do if left to my own: I would save about two or three pairs and banish the rest from my home. After all, I'm not an avid tube sock wearer. Neither is my husband, despite his "it-might-come-in-handy" outlook. And since neither of us are avid tube sock wearers, I found myself stuck again in the answerless question of how it had come to this. Then, in an effort to compromise with my keeper of a husband, I found a large plastic storage bin and saved in it all the tube socks in new or nearly new condition. You just never know when you might have trouble finding a tie and decide that a tube sock will do.

Baby Steps

It finally happened today. We've seen it coming since just before his first birthday when the Bubster began walking behind his push toys. He can spin and manuever one of his push toys very well and even began stooping down in front of it to remove obstructions when he gets stuck instead of standing there and screaming until someone did his bidding. He has also been going from a sitting to a standing position without anything to pull up on for quite some time now. He just stood straight up for a few seconds in the middle of the room before he dropped back down. Today, however, he took his first steps. First it was only two before he dropped back down to the safety of his hands and knees. Then it was four.

I remember playing this game with Dear Daughter. She eventually got up to 20 steps (we would count out loud as we held our breath and watched) before she would go back to her hands and knees. After that, she was on her feet for good.

Also, we took The Bub for a well child visit today. He is a few days away from being 14 months old and he weighs in at 24 pounds and 1/2 oz and is 32 inches tall. This puts him in the 75% for weight and 90% for height. But wait, there's more...he has inherited the large cranium that runs in Dear Husband's family. His head circumference is 19 1/2 inches, which puts him the 95% for head size.

As spring draws nearer, I'm having visions of chasing The Bub around the park while he chases his big sis up the slides and monkey bars. Maybe I still stand a chance at dropping that last stubborn 10 pounds of pregnancy fat. I am soooooo close to squeezing back into my pre-pregnancy clothes. It took me 18 months last time, so I may still be on track. My doc and I are also still working on getting the thyroid back to optimum functioning. I suppose I'm doing okay considering I am now an "old mom" of 35 yrs who has birthed two babies in the past three years and now has a low functioning thyroid.

10 Great Years!

Ten years of marriage can culminate into many interesting life experiences and changes. Dear Husband and I have definitely had our share, including many accomplishments we are proud of and some big life events we survived together. A mental review of the past decade of our lives resulted in the following list:

• 5 years of paying off all monetary debt (except for the mortgage)
• 5 years of being completely debt free (except for the mortgage)
• 3 1/2 years living in Oregon
• 1 yr and 2 months living in an apartment as newlyweds
• The tragic death of a cat due to a reaction to a vaccine
• The adoption of an 8 wk old kitten
• 2 yrs and 3 months living in our first house
• 3 anniversaries spent watching ocean storms on the Oregon coast
• 7 anniversaries spent doing nothing too fabulous in Missoui (Missouri is rather dull compared to the Oregon coast)
• 1 computer networking degree
• 1 master's degree in clinical psychology
• 1 professional counselor's license
• 11 job changes between the two of us (9 of them mine)
• 4 vehicles purchased
• 4 vehicles sold
• 1 cross country move
• 6 1/2 years living in Missouri
• 6 yrs and 2 months living in our second house
• 6 1/2 yrs without children
• 2 yrs and 4 months with one beautiful little girl
• 1 yr and 1 1/2 months with one beautiful little girl and one adorable little boy
• The deaths of 3 grandparents
• Several job promotions
• The traumatic extrication from our home of the cat we adopted 9 years previously
• The death of a 19 1/2 yr old geriatric cat who was my best furry friend for all of those years
  

And last, but definitely not the least, 10 great years of marriage with a man who had a much more stable (and boring) life before he met me!