Mother's Intuition

I should have known something was up.

Josh only ate 1/2 his Mac & Cheese for dinner on Friday.

Saturday, he complained he had a head ache. I told him it was probably the 5 hours of PlayStation2, Computer and Game Boy he'd been playing that day.

Sunday, was cold and windy so we couldn't go out side. Of course, not wanting Josh to be on the PlayStation/Computer all day (which he would do if we let him), we forced convinced Josh to come to Books-A-Million for a bit so Sam could play with the train table and so we could browse around.

It was pretty clear by the time we left BAM he wasn't well. He started running a temp and by the evening he was pretty shot. When he started throwing up, I knew he wasn't going to school on Monday!

On a whim, I decided to take him to the doctor's office, fully expecting them to tell me it was viral, but lo and behold -- Strep Throat. Glad I took him!

We got the drugs and he's happy as a clam today! He can go back to school tomorrow.

He had a great day today. We went to his class this morning after dropping Sam off at school so I could pick up his homework. When we got home we spent an hour doing the work he'd missed at school yesterday and today. He did really well and even said to me, "This is what home school is like, right Mom?" Yeah, right!

Even though he was sick, it was nice to have some Mommy-Joshie time!

Showing off Our New Haircuts

The boys got their haircut yesterday and then we went to the library to check out some books. I think all the people that were at the library were happy when we left. We're not exactly quiet!

Who Do You Love?

Last night before the kids went to bed they had their nightly "Energy Release" -- which means they run up and down the upstairs hallway screaming and bumping into each other, getting caught in the "tickle trap" (Daddy) and falling down when ever they feel like it.

Nothing like some nice "quiet time" before going to bed.

As we do every night, after Sam goes to bed, Josh is allowed to stay up for 1/2 and hour and play his PlayStation. Last night I lost track of time was being extra nice and let him play 15 minutes past his bed time.

What a nice Mom I am... Right?

Well, as I'm putting him to bed he tells me that he loves Daddy most, me second and Sammy 3rd.

What? He loves Daddy most? I said "You mean you love us all the same, right?"

Josh: "Oh, yeah. I love you all the same. But I love Daddy just a tinsy tiny bit more."

Me: "Is that because he plays with you and all I do is yell?"

Josh: "No, it's because I don't' see him as much."

Me: "Okay. I know you really love us all the same. Good night" kisses, cuddles.

2:02 AM!!!!

Josh comes into our room complaining that his legs hurt. I tell him to go potty and then we'll go have a cuddle in his room and I'll rub his legs. Next thing I hear is him crying on the potty. His tummy hurts and he needs me to hold his hand.

He Needs Me! I'm thinking at this point maybe he does love me as much as he loves Daddy.

So we go to his room, I get in bed with him and rub his legs until he falls asleep. I go back to my room and get in bed and lay awake for 30 minutes.

He woke me up because he really DOES love Daddy more and he's letting Daddy get the full nights sleep, not Mommy!

(Or maybe Daddy paid him off.)

I've been tagged!

Okay, I've been tagged by my friend Tanya. I need to write 6 weird things about myself and then "tag" someone else who blogs... sadly, I don't think anyone reads my blog except friends and family, so I don't think I'll be tagging anyone else!

1. When I make a sandwich, I have to have the 2 slices that are next to each other and the inside of the sandwich has to be the sides that were touching. Unless it's a "crusty" loaf, then I have to have the "big" sides on the inside and the "small" sides on the outside. Don't ask me to explain, it's too complicated.
2. I have a thing with light switches that's hard to explain. They have to be all up or all down. We have some lights that are controlled by more than one switch, when the lights are off, all the switches on the same plate have to face the same direction.
3. I HATE the smell, taste, texture, etc... of ketchup. It's gross, disgusting and makes me want to throw up.
4. I feel the same way about peaches. Which is particularly weird since I live in GA and my parents live in a town in Michigan known for the "Peach Festival."
5. I love oranges and orange juice, but really dislike any orange flavored food (orange chocolate, orange liqueur, cake, etc.)
6. I hate bugs (roaches and spiders mostly) but I don't like killing them -- some one else has to kill it (my husband puts them outside). When I was single I used to always have a can of raid within hands reach so I could kill the buggers!

Glasses

We found out last week that Sam needs glasses. He has Lazy Eye.

I brought Sam in for a routine eye exam and the ophthalmologist said it was a good thing we brought him in early. Apparently, the earlier you catch Lazy Eye the better. He seems hopeful that we may be able to have this corrected by the time Sam is 12. For some people (like my brother) it is not correctable. Sam's Lazy Eye is not as bad as Will's -- there is no evidence of crossed-eyes yet, but the doctor said his eye muscles were classic Lazy Eye and they would have started to cross if we had not caught it when we did.

He is very cute in his glasses. For about 10 minutes after he got home he held on to the walls and doors as he was looking down. He was very tentative walking -- the floor must have seen so "close" to him compared to what he was used to seeing. But soon he was running and jumping about.

So far, we haven't had any problems keeping them on him. He's taken them off only 3 times so far -- which is quite good really. He keeps saying, "no want glasses anymore..." but he keeps them on. We're only on the first "full day" of glasses, but he seems to be adjusting.

On the way home from the optician yesterday he kept saying to Josh, "Me so cute with glasses."


And he's right! Look at him!

"That's okay honey, you can be pretty."

In the 10+ years I've known Rich, I have NEVER caught him out in a "Mimi Moment" -- that is saying something completely stupid and without thought.

Also known as a blonde moment.

I do it all the time. For example, my brother-in-law told me he wanted to see the movie "Pearl Harbor" way back when it was first released. Me in my infinite "Mimi-ness" said, "Oh, what's that about?"

Well, last night we were doing a puzzle and Rich says, "How big is this? (looks at box) 20" x 26"... hmm... The 26" must be the big side."

Ya think?

I was so amused that he had this "Mimi-moment," and I was astute enough to catch him out on it!

Hee hee, I'm rubbing off on him!

Good News!

Went to see Sam's nephrologist today. The right kidney (the dysplastic one) is completely gone and the left kidney is "huge" (the nephorologists words). It's about the size of an 11 year old's kidney, so it's compensating for the missing one. Apparently, this is excellent progress (again, nephrologists words)

We don't have to go back to the nephrologist for 2 years and we don't need any renal ultrasounds for 4 years!

Good news all around! Yea!

This is for you!

What does this button do?

We had a 4-hour power outage last week simply because it was Friday -- we love Georgia Power! Makes life so much fun! Of course this happens as I'm trying to get Sam out the door to Scottish Rite for his annual renal ultrasound (he did great!). Luckily Rich was home and figured out how to open the garage door!

Anyway, as I was resetting all the clocks I took the opportunity to trade my cheap alarm clock with Josh's better one. Thinking there's no way he'll notice (yeah, right).

On Friday and Saturday nights, Rich and I feed the kids earlier and then we have our dinner after the kids are in bed -- sort of like a "date" without the expense of baby sitters or eating out! Anyway, I put the kids to bed while Rich made dinner. Josh goes to bed with a walkie talkie -- in case he needs to "tell us something." So, I put Josh to bed go down stairs for dinner.

Josh via walkie talkie: "Mom, can I have my old clock back?"

Me via walkie talkie: "Not now, go to bed."

Quiet for 2 minutes...

Josh: "How do I stop the music?"

Rich and I look quizzically at each other? "What did he just say?"

Josh: "What button turns off the music?"

I go upstairs and the radio is on. He says, "I pressed the sleep button and I can't get the music to stop."

"Why did you press the sleep button Josh?"

"I thought it would help me sleep."

Weekend Update

Here are some pictures from this weekend.

We brought the boys to one of our favorite parks so they could practice riding their new bikes. Josh did really well on his!

He and Daddy even raced up and down the path. It was great for Josh to build up his confidence on the bike. Since we don't have an area that's flat like this near our house, he is a bit intimidated and has fallen a few times. On Sunday, he was able to just ride his bike in a straight line and not worry about cars coming, or hills or "bumpy bits". In the end he was a speed demon!

We brought Sam's trike too, but that lasted all of 5 minutes -- once he saw the playground he wanted nothing to do with the bike!

Can you blame him?

Here's what the boys did in the afternoon... I took pictures!

Funny Boy

Okay, just a funny story about dinner last night. Sam has FINALLY decided to start eating (insert Halleluiah Chorus here). After 1 year of basically boycotting food all together, we can now manage to get him to eat, takes some effort, but hey, why knock it when he's eating!

Anyway, last night at dinner, I hear, "Choo Choo... Here comes Henry" and I look down... he's got an apple slice turned upside down so the hole where the core was cut out looks like a "tunnel" and he's pushing pieces of dinner through it.

Very cute, quite funny. Continue eating.

Later:

I look over to Sam and he has a piece of broccoli in one hand pressed to his left shoulder and he's rocking it back and forth.

Me: "What are you doing?"

Sam: "Cuddle broccoli"

Me: "You're cuddling your broccoli?"

Sam: "Yes Mommy, cuddle broccoli"

Of course, what else do you do with broccoli?

Crazy kid.

Confessions of a Multi-tasker

It rained here all day on Sunday so we decided to go to Borders to get out of the house for a bit after Sam's nap. I had to go and get my new book for book club anyway. Josh and Rich both got new books, but alas, they were sold out of my book! We got back right about 5:00, which is the boys dinner time. Josh decided to read his new SpongeBob book while I was making dinner -- he wanted spaghetti & meatballs with extra meat balls. Sam doesn't like spaghetti (weird, I know) so he was getting mac & cheese. I popped the extra meatballs in the micro, then made Sam's mac & cheese. Now right about this time, Josh started yelling out, "Hey Mom, what does, a-m-a-z-i-n-g spell? Can you come help me read this?" and then Sam decided he wanted to be picked up for a cuddle. As I'm yelling across the room to Josh, "That spells 'amazing,'" I'm trying to detach Sam's arms from around my neck and legs from around my waist so I can put Josh's ChefBoyaredee Spaghetti & Meatballs in the microwave. Once I have the extra meatballs done, the mac & cheese done and have the spag & meatballs in, I'm cuddling Sam, and yelling across the room words Josh is spelling out for me. All of a sudden, I hear a "bang" from the microwave. Yep, you guessed it... I forgot to take the metal top off the spaghetti before I put it in the micro. Spaghetti & Meatballs all over the inside of the microwave!

So, I'm cleaning this out of the microwave, telling Josh he can no longer have spag & meatballs, he'll have to "settle" for mac & cheese (he reluctantly agreed that this was a suitable alternative). While I'm trying to clean out the microwave, leaning over the stove, I some how manage to turn on some of the burners to the gas stove... Visions of Mrs. Doubtfire keep popping into my head!

Now, where is their father through all this you may ask?

Sitting on the couch (right next to Josh) doing Sudoku.

At least my microwave is now clean. Wish I could say the same for the bathrooms!

First Post

We had a great Christmas this year. We spent Christmas day by ourselves again this year. We tried to make it nice and quiet and relaxing. We went to the Gallagher's' house for dinner so we didn't have to worry about burning the turkey or anything either! It certainly takes a bit of stress out of Christmas when you don't have to cook! Josh just wanted to open presents! Sammy quickly learned that presents had toys and such in them and has only just stopped asking for more!

Josh's favorite presents have to be his new PlayStation2 Games and the Nintendo GameBoy and the games (this was a life saver for the Florida trip!). Josh is in for a big shock when school starts next week and he's back to 1/2 hour of PlayStation a night and that's only if all his chores are done! Sam's favorite presents were any and all of them!

My friend Linda Leigh was kind enough to let us use her condo in Perdido Key, Florida. It's right on the Florida/Alabama border -- Gulf Shores area. Hurricane Ivan went right through there in 2003 and there was still a bit of construction/repairs, but it looked to be fully recovered.

The beach was amazing! We got out to the beach every day, took walks and played in the sand. Rich managed to make one of his famous "sand vehicles" for the boys -- this time it was a boat, but when it was through, the boys decided it looked more like a rocket ship! Of course the boat-rocket didn't last long with Sam around! It soon became a big pile of sand with a moat and "Henry's Tunnel" (from Thomas the Tank Engine).


Even though it was too cold to go swimming, it didn't stop the boys from getting their feet wet!

So, school starts next week and it's back to the grind stone! We're looking forward to 2007 and all it has to offer us.