More Than Meets the Eye

Sai wanted me to carve my pumpkin last night. So the two of us sat down at the table to draw pumpkin faces, and Sai does a good job at that. Joe made a suggestion so we followed his suggestion. Can you tell what it is?

You can see the real thing here. I had to make some changes to get it onto my not very big pumpkin. Connect things here, omit lines there. But on the whole I think it looks great. The boys loved it.

Today is the big field trip day. It usually takes a few minutes for me to get Sai out of bed. But this morning I said “It’s field trip day!” And he jumped out of bed. He got dressed fast, ate breakfast fast. He was excited. But I couldn’t get him to go potty before we left for school. Hope he doesn’t have an accident! And he kept bugging me about making a lunch–I make him one most every day! We’ll see what he says when he gets home. Tomorrow is the big Halloween party. He gets to take his costume to school and wear it for the last hour while they have a party. I’ve got cookies ready to go, store bought, of course. 

And Jay is being spoiled today. I put a movie on so I could shower and catch up on the computer. Now I better get my rear in gear and get things done around the house. But maybe not until after lunch.

Update

Sai, my little rock star, won’t let me take a picture of his hair. But he thinks it is cool and doesn’t want to cut it off. And he’s totally excited because he has a field trip tomorrow. His class is going to a pumpkin patch. He’ll get to ride in a school bus. I think that might be the highlight for him.

And Jay is doing better without his fier. He hasn’t asked for it in about a week. YAY! And the sleeping has gotten slightly better. The last two nights he hasn’t woken me by screaming “MOM!” as loud as he can. Instead, he comes into my room and whispers to me. He’s still waking me up, but more gently. And he still doesn’t want to sleep alone. So last night when Jay came in for the second time at 1 a.m. Joe said he would just go sleep in Jay’s bed so Jay got in bed with me. I think the three of us slept better.

As for me. I thought I was doing pretty well but the throw up thing is getting worse. Which makes me not want to eat because I keep thinking that I don’t want to throw that up. And then I get bad heart burn in the wee hours of the morning. I hope I can handle 6+ more months of this. I go to the doctor for a check up on Thursday, so we’ll see if he has any good advice for me.

I got some sad news yesterday. Rae, my cousin’s daughter and fellow blogger, died in a car accident yesterday. I think she was only 19. It’s a sad thing. I feel so much for her family right now.

He’s a Rock Star

My Sai is a rock star!

Friday he went to the dentist. (See, I knew we did more last week but couldn’t remember.) He was awesome! He went in with the dental hygienist without me and did so awesome. She was really impressed on how he handled getting x-rays. She said that kids his age usually have a really hard time. But not my Sai. And he loved getting his teeth cleaned. In that area he takes after his dad. When they took me back to him he was getting his fluoride treatment. He got to control the suction so he was sitting there with his mouthful of trays and smiling and giving me thumbs up. (Where did this kid come from? He is a lot like me in so many ways, but not when it comes to the dentist.)

The dentist came in and checked out his teeth and they looked good. No cavities. YAY! They did tell him that his mom and dad need to help him brush at least once a day but he doesn’t believe that. He gets mad at me when I try to help him out. And then the dentist showed me his x-rays. Sai has more teeth coming in than room. You can see from the x-rays that his top teeth are already overlapping. And his bottom teeth that will be coming in are bigger than the space will be when he loses his current bottom teeth. And he should be losing these teeth within the next year and getting new molars within the next year. His poor mouth is going to go through a lot!

And then last night Joe gave Sai a haircut. He took him outside to buzz it (it was so nice and warm last night). Joe had me come and check it out to make sure he hadn’t missed anything. And he had given Sai a bit of a Mohawk. Oh jeez. Sai went in the house to check it out and came out and said he wanted to keep it to show his class. So I told him he could have it for one day and then we were cutting it off. We’ll see if he lets me cut it off tonight. I’ll try to get a picture of him after school and post it. Oh, and when I took him to school he was covering his hair with his hand like he was embarrassed. But I knew he thought he was pretty cool with his funky hair.

See, he’s my little rock star!

(Have you heard? Season 12 of Amazing Race starts on November 4th! YAY! And season 4 of Project Runway starts November 14th! YAY again!)

100% Fier Free

Fier = Pacifier

When Sai was a baby he liked his pacifier. Until I started supplementing him with formula. (I seem to not be good at nursing.) Once he started getting full he stopped the pacifier.

Jay, on the other hand, LOVES his Fier. And I was the enabler. I kept saying that he needed it for comfort. So at the age of 2 we cut it back to nap time and bed time. And now we have cut it out completely. And why did it take so long? Because I was dreading his behavior, which I fully admit is all my fault because I was the enabler.

Wednesday night was night #1 without the fier. That was the night from hell! Jay, Joe and I didn’t get much sleep. But Sai slept through it all. And everything I’ve read about helping your child quite the pacifier said to give them something else for comfort, like a lovey. Tried that. But he wanted me, not his puppy. Every night since he says “Mom, feep with me.” I want to sleep in my own bed, but in the middle of the night I concede and end up in his bed with him. Sunday morning, though, he kicked me out, literally, and told me “Feep in  your bed.” So yeah, not getting much sleep around here.

And Jay seems to have night terrors now that the fier is gone. He wakes up screaming and nothing Joe and I do helps until he wakes himself up. It’s not fun.

Any advice? After this experience I keep thinking of things that I’ll do different with the next one. No fier dependence!!

Week in Review

It’s been a busy week around here. Sai only had 2 1/2 days of school this week. So he was home for 2 1/2 days. Wow.

Wednesday, as I was nodding off on the couch, Sai reminded me that I said they could paint their pumpkins. The boys had a lot of fun. It was funny because they would just go over and over and over the same spots. And they would water down their paint. So they ended up a gray-ish watery color. But hey, they had fun. Here are some of my favorite pictures from the day. You can see the rest of them on my flickr page. (And don’t get me started on flickr. They sucker you in with a free account and then you hit your limit on pictures and sets. I guess the Pro account isn’t that much but it is when you are on a tight budget.)

I feel like we were busy all week but when I’m pressed to think about what else we did I draw a blank. There was the all important purchase of the Transformers movie. And Joe making his delicious banana muffins (OK, so the recipe is actually from here, but they are REALLY good). Jay had to lick the beater. Silly boy.

Friday night we had an EQ social. Only five families showed up. But we had a lot of fun. We had a bonfire and hot-dogs and hot chocolate and smores. It was cold but the fire kept us nice and warm. It was fun just to get out and talk. By the time we got home we smelled pretty funky, though. We all had to have showers because I didn’t want our beds to smell.

And now the weekend is over and it’s time to start all over again. Hope this week is a good one.

Is It a Good Thing??

So is it a good thing when the principal knows your kid’s name? Principal Danforth knows Sai’s name. I’m guessing he met Sai after the window incident last week. But what do you think? Good or bad??

Pumpkin Patch

Yesterday we had a fun family outing. We went to the Central Oregon Pumpkin Patch. We had perfect weather and I think we all had a good time.

This picture of Jay just cracks me up. No smile. No emotions. Really, he had a fun time.

There were pre-picked pumpkins. But he headed on down to what was left of the pumpkin patch. It was fun to wander around and find the “perfect” pumpkin.

Look how hard Jay is concentrating. He was the first to find his pumpkin and he was very serious about getting it to the wheelbarrow.

And here are my three guys. Aren’t they just so cute?!

And finally here is Sai. His poor face looks so sad. He’s had a tough week running into windows and falling on the sidewalk.

Now we’ll have a fun night soon where the boys will paint their pumpkins. I think I might carve mine because I really want to roast the pumpkin seeds. Yummy.

Bounce

We were running a little late getting Sai to school. I’ve been trying the timer thing–telling Sai when the timer goes off he has to be done with this task so we can move on, etc. But it’s not working so well. I had Jay all secured in his car seat and had to run back in the house and get Sai. When we got to school Jay was being slow and Sai was running up ahead of us.

Sai’s school has three doors but you can only enter through the middle one. On both sides of the doors are big plate glass windows. The school tries to keep things in front of the windows in the lobby but the chairs got moved around. Sai ran full speed into the window. Bounced off and landed on his back! OH MY GOSH!! It made a pretty loud thud. I ran to him and two ladies from the office ran out to him as well. He was a bit stunned and already had a mark on his forehead. We took him into the office and got ice for his head, both front and back. They checked his eyes for dialation. He was dialating OK but was still kind of out of it. We sat there for a while talking making sure he felt OK, no head ache or stomach ache. I knew he was feeling OK when he said that after school he wanted to go home and look in the mirror to see the bruise and then he burped. Yeah, that’s my boy. He’s feeling all right. We had his teacher come to the office and get him and she said she would watch him and make sure he was OK. I haven’t been called yet so I’m sure he’s doing fine.

I’m just glad he bounced and didn’t go through the glass. (Anyone else see Premonition? I had visions of him going through the glass.)

Cravings

There’s nothing like announcing you’re pregnant to get your blog stats up. I’ve had a lot of hits these last few days. Still haven’t surpassed my one-day high, yet.

I’m starting to feel better. I notice that mornings are the hardest and that’s when I want to sleep most and when I feel the crummiest. I think I’m on the upswing, though. I haven’t been feeling as nauseous and I’m feeling more like eating.

In fact. I’ve got cravings! I sent Joe to the store Friday night to get me ice cream. He claims that it is the first time he has ever had to go to the store to please his pregnant wife’s cravings. I had him get me Umpqua’s Chocolate Chip Mint. YUM! I love this stuff. I like Baskin Robins better but there isn’t one close by. And by buying the half gallon I’ve got it on hand.

And Snickers. Mmmm… And buying the little ones is perfect I just need one (or two) to make me happy.

In other news…

We had a sick kid yesterday. Sai was complaining of a headache so he laid down on the couch. Next thing ya know, he’s got a fever and chills. I felt bad for him. And he hates  medicine. If I can convince him to swallow it down without tasting it we do OK. So we got some Tylenol down him. He took a couple naps that ended up being about four hours of napping. And then he went to bed at 9 and slept through the night. I kept him home from school just in case. I wouldn’t want to be the cause of other kids getting sick.

And my friend April had her baby. After 12 hours of labor she ended up with a c-section because the baby was face up instead of face down and quite a bit distressed. I think she’s a little bummed that it ended up that way. It’s one cute baby. Lots of blond hair.

My Sister Nann had surgery for her breast cancer. It was pretty successful. Now she has radiation therapy and some sort of drug therapy to look forward to. I think she’s pretty brave to go through all this. I wish I could be there to help her out like she was for me when I had my gall bladder surgery (not that you can compare CANCER to a gall bladder). Plus, it would have been funny to see her so loopy yet avoiding naming her favorite sister. She would have said Kathy, right?

It’s Official

Yup, it’s official. I am pregnant. I never thought I would utter those words again! Joe and I had only ever planned on having two kids. So this was a might bit of a surprise.

It’s been crazy. I just knew I was pregnant before I was even late. So I took the home test on the day I should have started and there it was. Two lines. Luckily Joe has been very supportive. He kept reassuring me that we could do it and we’d be OK. I don’t know what I would have done without his reassurance.

Our families were very happy when we told them. Which is a good thing. I think they just love babies and want more. This will be the 22nd grandchild for my parents and the 4th for Joe’s parents. But it’s kind of hard for me when I have nieces and nephews with their own children who are older than some of mine–my parents have 5 great grandchildren! 

I wanted to wait to tell our kids but they would have known something was up just from listening to our conversations. So we told them. Sai was not happy. He yelled that he didn’t want another brother or sister. The next day he asked me if it meant that I needed a new husband. Huh??? The way his mind thinks! And now he’s OK with it and is convinced that it is a baby sister. My gut reaction is that it’s another boy. But a girl would be nice. Jay kind of gets it. My friend April is very pregnant (or not–she’s currently in labor and I’m just waiting to hear from her) and so he knows her baby is in her tummy. So I told him that I have a baby in my tummy. I think it’s clicking because he told me today that I had a baby in my tummy (but he pointed to my chest when he said it).

Today I had that first appointment with my doctor. Dr. Cleveland. He’s a young guy. He has a full on beard and I think it is in an attempt to make him look older. He kind of looks like Topher Gracewith darker hair and a full beard and glasses. But he was so nice and he took his time and answered questions and seemed very thorough. It’s hospital policy, here in our little town, that once you’ve had a c-section that’s what you’ll have again. And Dr. Cleveland doesn’t do the actual c-section. He’ll refer me to a surgeon but will be there to assist. And my official due date is May 1st. But I’m pretty sure we’ll probably end up scheduling it for the end of April.

So anyway, there’s my big news. Now you know my excuse for being a super lazy blogger!