We’re hanging out this morning… William’s gift to us was sleeping until 7:20 am. Tony’s biggest gift to me was letting me sleep until I woke at 7:45 am.
Our gift to William was a shit-ton of Cars. A gingerbread cookie in his stocking. And his very own camera. He is one happy little camper.
So blessed.
Merry Christmas!
Filed under Best Husband, I feel Glad, I have Family, Our Kid is Cute
Me: What are you making over there, with your hot sauce.
Him: Tacos… I told you.
Me: Oh, that’s right.
Him: No one ever listens to me anymore.
Me: That’s not true. I listen, I just don’t remember.
Him: That’s not much of an excuse.
Me: It is, too. I’m old.
Him: You’re not that much older than me.
Me: Then that doesn’t give you much hope, does it?
Filed under Best Husband
I purchased a Groupon early 2013 with a company called Portrait Scene. We’d never done a professional outdoor photo shoot before, only indoor with Sears Portraits. The nearest Sears Portrait Studio closed down, though, so I wanted to find something else.
I was a bit concerned, doing a photo shoot outdoors in November… you just never know. Especially since it was booked months in advance. But everything cooperated. The weather, the park, even got a great photographer who claimed to have a little boy about William’s age… so he interacted well with him. <—That makes things SO much easier!
The only issue I had with them was the delay in getting my order. They had some technical difficulties uploading the proofs to their website, they don’t allow downloading once purchased, and I placed my order on 11/14 and received the CD of printable photos on December 7th. That’s a long time.
But worth the wait.
Filed under Best Husband, I have Family, Our Kid is Cute
This past weekend, on the 1st, we celebrated my 43rd birthday. Tony, bless him, gave me the greatest gift any man can give a woman who is the mother of a toddler… the gift of a nap. The gift of a nap when said toddler failed at taking his, by taking the toddler away and on a drive that then turned into a car nap for the toddler.
Not to be outdone by that gift, he also took me to our mountain cabin for a couple days. Where we did our usual tour of our favorite breakfast place where I was serenaded with the Happy Birthday song by a fellow there singing, a surprise was that, I’ve never seen anyone there singing before, so that was a perk.
We also visited the candy store in town, where I bought my favorite candy there… a dark chocolate caramel apple, a dark chocolate covered pretzel stick and a dark chocolate peanut butter cup. Tony then bought us ice cream. Never mind that there was smatterings of snow and ice in town, residuals of the storm that had moved through there earlier in the week. Ice cream doesn’t need warm weather to taste good.
Then there was the birthday cheesecake and sparkly numbers atop it. Well, more like birthday cheesecakes, and since it was my birthday, I sampled each and every one of them… and, being in a generous mood, I let Tony sample them, too. They were delicious, indeed.
Finally, there was the moment as we drove down the mountain, our time there enjoyed immensely… and we held hands, as we drove we entered what I call our magical forest. When it snows and the trees are heavy with it, the light sparkles it turning it to frozen diamonds. It looks like something out of the Lion, the Witch and the Wardrobe. It was there several years ago that it was where I realized that the love Tony and I had for each other was too much, and that we needed a child to hold some of the love… and wasn’t that a good idea to start a family with? Too much love? And this time, as we drove, our child chattered at us from his seat in the rear seat, happy and content, smiling and singing and yelling, ” Boo! Mommy and Daddy, boo!!”
For as much as a child’s birthdays marks the years passing like mile markers on a freeway, so does my birthday mark the passing of time of my happiness in the family we’ve made. There is no gift in the world that I want, for I have all I could have ever dreamed… and more.
I am so very, very blessed in this, my 43rd year of life. Happy Birthday to me.
It’s mid-summer already and our community’s pool drama is in full swing. Every year I write about parents who send their kid off to the community pool unattended, and it seems like every year it keeps getting worse.
Our community’s pools underwent a major overhaul over this past winter season. They pulled out all the concrete and poured new. They replaced all the lounge chairs and even the shower. I’m not crazy about the shower, as it’s now on a timer and shuts off right went you’re in the middle of rinsing something off.
Anyway, that’s neither here nor there, except it’s related to the pool, not the drama I want to talk about.
We’ve had a lot of trouble over the past couple years with teenagers hopping the fence. The fence that has pointy spears that bend outward at the top. A deterrent you wouldn’t find me willingly trying to vault over, not even when I was younger and more nimble. This year is the first year that I’ve seen it first hand… and it was when I was kickboarding with no ear plugs or goggles, so I know it wasn’t a figment of my overactive imagination.
Thump, clang, clang, and there they were. The kid hoisted himself over and then let his girlfriend in. They seemed a bit startled to see me. Not surprising since the timer on the pool light was off, so it was unlit and I was swimming in the dark. He claimed they lived there and his dad lost the pool key. I responded that it was an odd way for him to gain entrance to the pool. It happened again a couple nights later, and I called the sheriff on them after I left.
My neighbor claimed they did it again in front of her in broad daylight, and then when she confronted them, they got violent and ran their car into a community streetlight. What point that proves, I have no idea. But it must have made sense to them, right?
So it happened that over the weekend Tony and William were on their way to Walmart. I asked him to drive by the pool and if it was full of kids to come back and get me. I’d rather go to Walmart than try to lap swim in a pool full of kids. If it were all clear, though, I’d go swimming. He texted me and told me to call the Sheriff, that those teenagers were in the pool area, that they’d hopped the fence right as he was driving by. When he told them they needed a key for entry, they got confrontational, So, I called the Sheriff. I headed down the pool intending to act like I knew nothing, except the pool area was empty and there were two teenage boys walking around the toddler playground next to the pool.
The Sheriff showed up, took a look around, and informed me that even if there had been someone unauthorized in the pool area, there was nothing for him to enforce … he needed a “No Trespassing” sign and a “Key required for pool entry” sign posted on the gate. Funny no one had ever mentioned that in all the years past, but kind of makes sense I guess. Meanwhile, the two teenage boys had meandered off out of sight.
My neighbor then comes in with one of the teenage boys and introduces him to me as a neighbor who lives on the corner of her street. Suspiciously I look at him and ask him if he hopped the fence a half hour ago. “No, we thought about it but decided not to.” Hmmm. I asked him if he got confrontational with someone, “Well, my cousin did but he’s kind of a hothead.” My neighbor leaves, and then enters this kid’s “hothead cousin.” They go sit in the spa together and stare at me as I swim my laps.
Shortly after that, their mother comes in and talks to them. After a few minutes, she comes to the side of the pool and it’s obvious she wants to talk to me. I could have kept swimming, I suppose, but she was just this side of annoying, so I stop my workout, pull out my earplugs and ask her if I can help her.
She wanted to discuss the fact that my husband had confronted her darling son and nephew. To me, there was nothing to discuss. You break the rules (hopping the fence and getting confrontational with someone), you get the Sheriff called on you. End of discussion. She claimed my husband said the “F” word to the boys. I know Tony, and even without asking him, I know that’s not his style, and certainly not with a Toddler who parrots everything we say in the vicinity. So I told her that wasn’t true. She started to argue with me, and I shrugged and said, “Look. You’re going to believe your teenagers, who have already proven themselves to be untrustworthy, and I’m going to believe my husband.” She said, “I’ve lived in this community now for 9 years…” I interrupted and said, “Good for you. Then you know very well that we’ve had issues with security here, and you also know that a key is required for entry. That’s the rule. You hop the fence, the sheriff gets called.” I continued, without waiting for a response, “There’s nothing further to be discussed here. I’m on a limited time schedule and I’m going to finish my swim.” She waves her hand at me and the path I was swimming, and instead of apologizing for wasting my time, she says smartly, “OK, well, go ahead then.” I pause, look at her and say, “You misunderstood. I wasn’t asking your permission.” I put my earplugs in and continued my swim.
She left the pool area shortly after, leaving the two kids alone in there with me. So, now I know why her son and nephew think nothing of breaking the rules. Also, why they think it’s OK to get confrontational when they’ve done something wrong.
Also, even though I donned a crazy, mismatched swimsuit last night (a pink paisley swim top and blue Hawaiian flowered board shorts) I was glad for the 11 people who filed into the pool area at 9:15pm. I kind of don’t like being alone now when I swim late at night.
Filed under Best Husband, I Judge Bad Parents, Mermaid Envy
Over the weekend, we went to our family’s mountain cabin. While there, the children’s Advil bottle was left on the nightstand in William’s room. When William grabbed it, I asked him for it and he handed it to me, so I took two steps and put it up on top of the dresser. William started whimpering, but I thought it was because he wanted his medicine. When I turned back around he had the sticky lid in his fingers, and when he handed the lid to me, he started screaming.
Everyone who has had a toddler knows they can be quirky creatures, and I thought he had suddenly developed an aversion to stickiness. So, I picked him up and he kept rubbing his sticky fingers and crying. I took him out to wash his hands in cold water to get the sticky off, the obvious solution to his problem. He calmed down while the cool water was on his hands, I congratulated myself in my head for solving this problem so astutely. But when I turned the water off, he started screaming again. I tried nursing, he wanted to, but would touch his fingers together and would start sobbing again and he couldn’t latch. He kept touching his fingers with his other hand and crying. So I thought maybe I had missed some of the sticky. Off we went to wash his hands again. Tried nursing again, and same thing, so we rinsed his hands a third time. And then Tony tried to wash his hands with a wet wipe. That didn’t work either. At that point, I thought maybe since all the natural oils had been washed off his hands, his skin must have still felt sticky to him, even though it technically wasn’t. The only thing that ultimately was able to calm him down was Baby Signing Time DVDs. He loves watching them and learning from them.
On Monday night I got home and I was horrified and somewhat sickened in my heart when I saw that he had blisters on his index and middle fingers. The blister on his index finger had popped (or he had pulled the skin off) and the middle finger has several unpopped blisters all down it. In retrospect, it makes perfect sense. Of course, a burn would stop hurting while under cool water. Of course, a burn would start hurting again if touched. Of course, of course, of course.
I stared at those blisters a good long time, trying to figure out what happened in the time span of just a couple seconds. The only thing I can figure out is that he must have touched the light bulb of the lamp that is on the nightstand in the cabin in the two seconds I had my back turned to put the medicine up… and then he grabbed the sticky lid of the baby Advil that had been left on the nightstand.
William attends gymnastic classes on Tuesdays and Thursdays, so yesterday to protect his injury from the germs that are surely on the equipment we tried covering it with a regular old plain beige band-aid. It lasted all of 20 minutes before William pulled it off. Didn’t even make it to the start of gymnastics class. So, I asked Tony to pick up some Cars band-aids at Walmart. When he got home, he showed his purchases. He had, indeed, picked up Cars band-aids, as well as Angry Birds Star Wars band-aids, and for good measure, Mickey Mouse band-aids. (I don’t even know which words to italicize there.) My mom was astonished to learn that companies make fancy band-aids now… everything is all about marketing. But, you know what? It works.
Apparently putting a band-aid with a picture of Cars on your toddler’s finger and other random spots of your toddler’s body is the key to him keeping it on.
And somehow I have a feeling that Tony plans to use the Star Wars band-aids on any injury he gets. Just a suspicion.
Filed under Best Husband, Our Kid is Cute
The days are getting hotter and the heat is lasting into the evenings and nights, and summer has only begun. I complain every year about how this house of ours seems to retain the heat and there doesn’t seem to be any relief. So we drive off in the morning to our respective jobs and dwell in air conditioned offices by day, and return to our sweltering home by night. Air conditioning doesn’t seem to help the upstairs rooms, and William’s room seems to hold onto the heat most of all.
We’ve discussed a portable air conditioning unit for his room, but there’s nowhere to run the venting… we have shutters on the inside of the window. We talked about a portable evaporative cooler, but we’re not sure that would be effective, because we don’t really have the driest of climates here. We’ve discussed adding an attic fan, or whole house fan… if we do that, we also need to add vents under the eaves of our roof. We’ve discussed adding a second vent to William’s room, because the vent in his room is so ineffective. I’ve thought about a vent booster, but the reviews are mixed. I’ve even thought about switching his room to the guest room and making the guest room his room, but that really wouldn’t solve the issue as the guest room gets hot, too, just not AS hot. We’re now looking into an in-line air duct booster. We run the A/C and the downstairs cools to 71°F, but his room never gets below 80°F. It’s ridiculous. We still haven’t come to a decision, and the days continue to get hotter.
So, in the evenings, since it’s cooler outside than inside, we take ourselves outside. We eat dinner on the patio, and listen to the birds chattering from their home in the enormous bougainvillea plant in the cul-de-sac behind our home. The neighborhood dogs bark in the distance relaying their important messages to each other. We joke with our neighbor when he comes outside into his backyard. The new fencing our association put in is taller than the previous fencing, so we can’t see him, which adds an extra funny element to our conversations.
We find ourselves going on bike rides. The shadows slant long through the Eucalyptus trees and dust from the bike trail swirls up as we ride along. We nod or smile at the others who are going the other way on the trail.
We take ourselves to the beach for some sand and water play.
And we welcome summertime. Because, really, what else can you do?
Filed under Best Husband, Entertainment can be Cheap, Our Kid is Cute
Last Friday evening, we left for Tony’s family mountain cabin. The usual strategy is to go through the bedtime routine, and then instead of nursing William in his room, I nurse him in the car. Instead of falling asleep while nursing, he gets transferred into his car seat after nursing and then we drive off into the night while white noise plays over the speakers and I hold his hand.
It all went according to plan, and William was fine when we left. He fell asleep in the car quietly holding my hand. We made good time going up the mountain and, bonus, I even got a bit of a snooze in. When we arrived, William was in a deep sleep, so I carried him in and did a dream nursing session and then put him into the Pack N Play. At 2:30 am I heard him softly talking to himself, not crying, just intermittently talking to himself. I checked the video monitor (yes, we travel with that thing), and he was lying on his back examining his fingers. I got up with the intent to nurse him back to sleep, even though he wasn’t crying. When I picked him up, he was burning with fever. He was so hot it felt like he was on fire. His temp was 102.9. Shocked, I woke Tony, we gave him Advil and changed his diaper and his jammies, and I nursed him and, then, thanks to having read that skin-to-skin is a body temp regulator, I held him close for 2 hours, nursing him off and on, until his fever started to go down.
We continued to treat his fever throughout the weekend, stacking Advil & Tylenol. His temp was normal on Monday, but Monday evening a cough developed and he started sneezing repeatedly, and he started running a low grade fever again. His appetite was good Saturday morning, but declined the rest of the weekend until the only thing he wanted to do is nurse and eat Mum-Mums. He spotted bananas, asked for some, and then sadly handed it back to me after he licked it… I guess it just didn’t taste good.
I took him to the doctor on Tuesday morning. His ears, nose, throat, lungs were checked and given the “All Clear!” The doctor said it’s viral. Said we should expect the cough to last 2 weeks, expect the fever to last 2-3 more days. Doctor said to try chicken noodle soup. I made turkey dinner in the crock pot instead, and William (all of us, actually) ate like it was Thanksgiving in May. We love turkey! Turkey for EVERYONE!
Oh, and other fun details? I forgot the cord to the monitor, so we had the camera, and then were turning the monitor off and on to preserve battery life. Great timing to forget the cord, huh? Instead of staying the entire weekend, we left the cabin early, driving home on Sunday because William was so unhappy. On the drive home, the bolt fell out of the brake caliper on the driver’s side, so we had to wait 1.5 hours for AAA to send a flatbed trailer with an extended cab which could fit an infant seat so we could get home. Thankfully, remarkably, William napped through nearly the entire wait (He actually took 2 naps on Sunday for the first time since he was 10.5 months old). We took the less steep way home, giving elevation change consideration to William’s ears. If we had gone the steeper way, the brake issue would have been made known going down the mountain instead of the flats at the bottom (Tony uses the transmission to slow the descent when we go the back way.) And, miraculously, no damage was caused by the caliper, Tony just needs to replace the bolt.
I talked to our neighbor lady and her theory is that, if a little one isn’t feeling well (teething, etc.), then elevation changes can exacerbate things and cause higher fevers than normal in little ones because their Eustachian tubes aren’t yet fully developed. All four of William’s canine teeth are breaking through his gums right now, so maybe she’s on to something. Who knows?
After relaying the story to my mom, she said, “I really hope you journaled about this adventure, because the whole story is kind of nuts!” That just about sums it up nicely. A nutty adventure with some sweet moments mixed in.
Pictures from the weekend can be found here: LINK
Filed under Best Husband, I did something Special, Our Kid is Cute
Last night, Chick-Fil-A sponsored a military appreciation event for all military personnel, active or retired, in honor of the upcoming Memorial Day. Whoever planned this event for Chick-Fil-A did an amazing job coordinating all the aspects so that a good time was had by all.
Little known fact, Tony served a long, long time ago in the reserves. Although he claims not to have enjoyed it, he tells fond stories about boot camp and the time he spent serving. We’ll just call this a conundrum. Anyway, because Tony served, we were able to participate in this Chick-Fil-A event. SO, THANK YOU FOR SERVING IN THE RESERVES, TONY!!!
Walking across the parking lot, William started cracking up just SEEING all the kids playing. He loved watching the kids run and jump on the enormous bouncy slide/obstacle course. I have a video and I *think* William is actually jumping, with his feet off the ground, jumping. Supposedly this is a milestone that he should reach by the age of 2-ish? Whatever. It is safe to say that William was uber excited about the whole thing.
Chick-Fil-A comped our meal, in its entirety. Summary: The food was delicious, we didn’t win any raffle prices, William grinned at the lady at the table next to us and laughed at the kids. All in all, it made for a fun evening out!
Funny story: A couple weeks ago, we went to Chick-Fil-A and for the first time William had apple sauce in a pouch. He loves apple sauce and is actually good enough with the spoon that he can feed it to himself, but the pouch was a special treat. The next time we went through Walmart, he spotted the pouches and got excited about them. So I thought, hey, he has never liked sweet potatoes, but maybe he likes pouches enough that he’ll eat the sweet potatoes from a pouch. You know where this story is going, huh? So, I went ahead and bought him a sweet potato pouch. He was so excited to have it! He begged me to open it. So I unscrewed it and let him taste it in the store and then left him with Tony while I went and tried on some shorts. He apparently tasted it a couple of times, and then proceeded to squeeze the rest of it all over the shopping cart.
Moral of the story: Pouches should ONLY contain apple sauce.
More pictures: LINK
Filed under Best Husband, I did something Special, Our Kid is Cute
There really isn’t much more to add to that title, except that it seems that weekends just keep getting sweeter and sweeter as the days go by. This past weekend, we had been planning to go out of town but I canceled at the last minute just because I was feeling a little overwhelmed by life. So, we stayed home. I’m glad we did, because while it would have been fun to get away, but there’s so much preparation and strategy involved.
We stayed close to home, instead, and visited the Irvine Spectrum. They have a ferris wheel and a train that we’ve been meaning to ride. We also visited the splash pad, and having our own kid was great, because we didn’t look like a couple of creepsters.
After a meal at Ruby’s Diner… holding his tummy.
The next day, I spent some time out in our back yard cleaning up my plants, getting rid of some of the pots that have rotted from sun exposure, rescuing and repotting some plants, trimming back others, pulling weeds (who knew that potted plants get weeds, too). Sometimes I just have to stand there, turn around a few times, walk to that corner, walk back to the middle, and wait for a vision to come together in my head. Or as my former boss used to simply say, “I’m thinking.”
After I figured out what I wanted to do, then I let my little helper come out and assist me. I was worried that he would come out and rip up all the plants, or start digging the dirt out of the pot, but all he wanted to do was swing the fairy, play with the pinwheels and clang the “Cat Crossing” sign on the ground so I would say, “YIKES!” and he would laugh. Oh, this sweet child of ours. I am constantly blessed by his sweet, laughing spirit.
Thank you, God, for this sweet blessing.
Filed under Best Husband, Entertainment can be Cheap, I have Family, Our Kid is Cute
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