Peanut + Mischief = Hilarious!

Perhaps he should ask Santa for his very own printer this year...so he can leave mine alone!

It's really actually pretty funny. Peanut comes up to the printer, turns it on & pushes buttons to make it beep, even turning it off sometimes. Each time I see this I call out his name & tell him no. I've also had to resort to lightly flicking his hand to get the point across. Unfortunately he now just seems to think this is all just a game, lol.

So today I had to get a picture at how hard he laughs at me when I tell him 'no' to the printer.

This is the 'uh-oh, she said no' face.

Which leads into his belly laughter at me. He kills me.

Naturally, Little Man must get in on the action.

And this picture, because I can't believe how big the Peanut is getting. He's soo long!!

BTW: Most miserable night in a long time just a couple of nights ago. We lost electricity about 11:30 pm which was not restored until almost 3am. At 11:30 it was still 87 degrees outside. Man that was miserable. It could have been worse though, it could have happened at 11:30 in the morning when it's even hotter!!

Astros vs Tigers

That's the game we saw last night at Minute Maid Park. Almost ironic for us that it was a game against Detroit. We weren't expecting the Astros to pull it off because Detroit has had a great season so far...but in the end (& I do mean end as in after we left) they pulled it off. They beat the Tigers 5-4. Woohoo!!! :)

This was Little Man's first MLB game & he really enjoyed it. It was a 7:05 start time so of course shortly after 8, which is his bedtime, he started to get antsy. But he clapped & cheered and really enjoyed it.

During the Kissing Cam there was even a marriage proposal. Awwwwwwwwww, how sweet, "SHE SAID YES!"

Of course they had to play a TON of Michael Jackson songs. They played other stuff too, but they still played a lot of MJ. *sigh*

So here are a few pictures (with just the point & shoot) of our Little Man, ready to cheer on the home team!

They grow up so quickly!

Going to be a great Day!

This is supposed to be Hubby's Fri off. He works a 9/80 work schedule so that they have every other Fri off. At the moment his boss is trying to coax as many people in on those 'off' Fridays to support an effort they don't directly support. Anyhow, I digress.

We had plans for today so he's taking off early but the climax will be this evening when we leave Peanut with my sister & take Little Man to his first MLB game!!! Even though the Astros don't stand much of a chance of winning against Detroit tonight that's where we'll be!

Hubby was given the tickets and they are GREAT seats! We don't think Peanut would stay happy very long AT ALL with a 7:00 start time so he will be much better off where he can just go to sleep by 8, lol.

I hope Little Man has a great time though! (Even though he doesn't really care about sports yet, lol.)

Michael Jackson

I don't like the media today. I really don 't. 24 hour news channels find themselves digging for something to call news and get hung up on things too easily.

Don't get me wrong, I think it's horribly sad that MJ is dead at 50 & I can't imagine what his children are going through, but still. I don't understand why the media decided to cover this NON-STOP until the wee hours of the morning.

No, seriously. As I crawled into bed last night between 10-11 many channels were STILL covering it as non-stop news. My problem with this is that it's not really an unfolding story. He's dead. He's 50. He's survived by 3 children. It's believed he suffered cardiac arrest. But for now that's ALL the info there is!!!! How many millions of times can you repeat the same info in an hour? I'm not exactly sure but the news outlets might have hit a record yesterday.

All I could think last night was that there has GOT to be something else going on in the world. And poor Farrah Fawcet's family...not a mention of her death once MJ was taken to the hospital.

Instead of shootin' from the hip they could put together a nice tribute special and air it instead.

I just don't understand why they covered nothing but that one story all night.

Yes it's sad. Yes it's tragic, sudden, unexpected. I don't mind being kept up to date on what's going on, but did it require 8+ hours of non-stop coverage? No.

Just My Opinion & Rant for the morning.

Me...the Dentist...ARGH!!!!

I don't actually know anyone who enjoys going to the dentist but I'm sure most people aren't quite as extreme in their anxiety as I am when it comes to the dentist, either.

Last week while we were out of town I started to have some pain in my tooth which I assumed was a cavity. I called from a parking garage in Rhode Island to make an appointment for this week because I do not mess around with pain in my mouth!

Since I'm pregnant that meant a whole other ordeal about getting a letter from my doc, etc.

I walk in the door & the smell instantly hits the pit of my stomach. What is it with the smell in the dentists office? Anyhow, after they took the one x-ray the dentist sits down & it goes something like this. (D=Dentist M=Me)

D-"Good Morning, how are you doing this morning?"
M - "I'd be a lot better if I weren't in this chair. The dentist isn't exactly my favorite person, I practically need a valium just for a cleaning!"
D - he chuckled and said, "I don't think the dentist is most people's favorites."

(I'd not been to this dentist before as he was recommended by one of Hubby's coworkers, but he was REALLY NICE and very gentle).

Then he went to go look at the x-rays and decide what to do. WHY must they make you sit so long? I can't stand the sound of their tools. eeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeee in the next "cubby" over. OMG I feel for that woman sitting in THAT chair right now!

ARGH! UGH! BLECH! It makes me cringe. No, you don't understand...I don't even like the sensation or sound of them poking around my teeth with that pick and/or mirror!!!!

It turns out I have a tiny cavity that is shallow in one tooth & another tooth that is just starting to crack. It's the crack that is causing the minimal pain I have. I think he could see my heart beating out of my chest at this point, lol. The thought of having this done with nothing but a local...INSTANT anxiety attack, lol.

I need me some gas or some valium...SOMETHING!!!!

The good news is that he informed me that none of this is so severe that it needs to be addressed immediately. I believe his exact words were something like, "This can wait until you're done being pregnant & you can have some valium before hand." LOL!

I think I've only had valium one other time in my life & THANK GOD I had it! I've always just had gas at the dentist but apparently fewer & fewer of them are using it?? WHY?!?!?!?!?!??!!?!

Heat Advisory

It's currently about 100 degrees. Real feel is somewhere about 106. So hot it doesn't matter. My poor a/c is getting a killer of a workout. I dread what that bill is going to be this time because it's been bloody hot for a few weeks now. I sure hope they are forecasting things correctly and maybe by Mon we'll start to get some relief.

I don't really watch the news but did hear the meteorologist say (I think on Tues) that it hadn't been this hot here in TWO YEARS!

We should be closer to 90 in temp...NOT 100!!!

Forecast for us for the rest of the day:
Partly cloudy. Isolated showers and thunderstorms late in the afternoon. Highs around 104. Southeast winds 5 to 10 mph. Chance of rain 20 percent in the afternoon.

If we even feel that breeze...it's only going to feel like a hair dryer!

Our yard would appreciate ANY water that may fall from above because yes, it's not only blazing hot but it's bone dry!

Blech!

Thank You, Audra!

Hubby has this great co-worker, Audra. While on her family vacation to DisneyWorld she picked up an extra one of these little spinning Mickey's for us. The one we picked up while there in Nov 2007 is finally dying & both of the boys just love the thing.

Here's the proof that he is extremely happy & thinks they are both his. :)

Home Sweet Home

Some people say Home is where the heart is. I say it's where the comfy bed is!! We stayed at a Radisson & Hubby was excited to try out the sleep number bed. UGH! He says it was the best 3 nights sleep he's ever had. I say 3 worst. Okay maybe not worst but they were bad.

We finally got home a little after 1am on Fri night/Sat morning and having a VERY full day of MA, RI & flying with 2 little ones to get home. My bed never felt so good. I couldn't believe how swollen I was! I'm not THAT far along (19ish weeks) and swelling daily now. Great.

The boys were great on the planes. Once again, it never gets old to have people tell you how well your children behaved in a situation like that. Believe me, there is very little I can do to control my 13mo anyway, lol.

So nice to be home!

Will write about "the creepy guy" in just a bit.

PBS

PBS is one of those strange little things. It's not dependable. Disney is dependable. It doesn't matter what time zone you're in, you know what's going to come on & when.

Since I'm stuck in a hotel room on a rainy day with 2 little boys you'd better believe the tv is on children's programming in the background.

This hotel for whatever reason does NOT have Disney. They don't even have Nick!! I don't really care for Nick but I'd take that over all the news channels. This hotel does a lot of business with businessy types. Not so much the families.

I'm not sure if this is a station out of Boston or what but it SUCKS! Little Man LOVES the PBS line up we have back home. I was disgusted today when this station showed the same episode of Word World as they did yesterday. Come on now...I know there aren't just a jillion of these shows yet but did you really have to show it twice in a row?? Ugh! Little Man LOVES that show with all the letters and spelling.

They show Bob the Builder here. I had no idea ANYONE still aired Bob the Builder, lol. OMGosh! Some STUPID show, Martha the talking dog or something? Holy Cow that was just LAME...and also not on our line up down there.

Good thing we brought the DVD player & hook ups for the TV. :)

They are showing Barney right now for the second time today. Once is plenty...that's FOR SURE, lol. Oh wait! This is either the same episode as earlier this morning or yesterday. Great...how original!

Once this is over the kiddie programming is over. We'll go for a walk around the hotel (not outside because it's cold & raining) but the hotel itself is pretty cool. It looks like a castle & it's HUGE. Then we'll come back, have lunch & let them pick a movie to put on as their next round of background noise.

Tonight is our last night here. Tomorrow we are going to go see some beaches before we fly back home. We won't be getting home until VERY late tomorrow night. We took the last flight out we could get so we'd have the whole day to enjoy. :)

Random Thoughts

One of the most disgusting sounds to me: Scooping scrambled eggs out of a larger container of scrambled eggs. YUCK.

Today, I again took the boys down to the hotel restaurant for breakfast (included in our stay) and as I dipped that spoon into that big nasty batch of eggs, the squishy, nasty sound just made me cringe. As it did yesterday & I'm sure it will again tomorrow. YUCK!

Now You know why I called it Random thoughts!! lol

Little Man is eating up the spelling like crazy. Today at breakfast he learned how to spell EGG & BUG. Yes there were eggs, but no...thankfully no bugs showed up to join us. Speaking of eggs, he is STILL obsessed with them. I brought him his plate of food and he insisted that I go back and get him eggs. Yesterday I FINALLY got him to take one bite. It went something like this.

Me: "Good Job eating the yummy egg! Was that yummy?"
Him: "Yeah" (just so you know he's allowed to say 'yeah' because he cannot say 'yes' and at least everyone understands 'yeah' unlike his previous chosen word of 'ah-hee')
Me: "I'm glad you like the eggs, do you want another bite?"
Him: "MO" (that means NO)

And that was it for the eggs. Today I asked if he had any intention of eating them and he told me, "MO". I asked if he was just going to look at them and he said, "Yeah". HA! I love that kid!!!


He can now spell (& pick the word out of a line up) & write:

• ball
• cat
• mom
• dad
• bug
• bat
• dog
• hi
• big
• hot
• fly (he learned this one on the airplane)

He can also spell his & his brother's names. Although he can't say either of them properly. Or even close for that matter, lol. There are probably more words but this is all I can think of off the top of my head.

Peanut. That kid is a mess. First night here none of us got any sleep. Yesterday the child who still usually takes 3 naps only took ONE 1 hour nap. OMG! So he's asleep right now, YAY!

Yesterday he took like 3 or 4 slow steps sideways while he thought I wasn' t looking so I decided to try to get him to walk some more but this time noticed that now he's turning his right foot out, dragging it & really doesn't want to walk forward. He's had no problem with us holding his hands and walking, he just won't do it on his own. But now even with holding our hands he's doing this. I hope it's extremely temporary.

He laughs hysterically when you call him a monkey or a piggy. He also loves to be tickled of course. It's been quite some time since I've had my camera out so I took a few last night.

Man I hope Peanut grows into his head.

What a Day!

Well we did make it here to New Hampshire today. Most of the 'drama' was of the amusing kind.

Things like our taking bets on how long it would take Peanut to start screaming on a plane. (I won!) Things like the only pull up I had left that ended up in the toilet at the airport in Cleveland. Watching poor Little Man do the potty dance for what felt like forever while waiting to get off that airplane in Cleveland. Hubby's "happy child at Christmas" routine when he realized it was in deed a Tahoe that we were renting.

I can only imagine what we must have looked like with each of us pushing a child in a stroller and lugging 2 car seat bags, one large suitcase, a laptop bag with TWO laptops in it, the portable DVD bag, diaper bag, Little Man's Elmo backpack, & another bag that had nothing but snacks for the week in it. Yes, we know how to travel light! :)

At least we're old pros with airport security even though it's still a PIA.

I think we've sworn off flying for a while. Also still a PIA. Maybe when the kids are older but UGH on how much it takes to get from point A to point B. Then there was the issue of where we flew into (Providence). We typically opt for the straight through flight. Somehow we ended up with a connecting flight but the only thing I can remember about booking this travel was that it had SOMETHING to do with cost & schedule.

Let me just say, I live in the wrong place for summer! At home it's been up near 100 for the past week it seems. Yes, that's well above normal for us there this time of year. We were talking to the man driving the shuttle for the car rental from the airport when we mentioned how great it feels outside. He informed us that they are getting irritated here because it's been more cool & wet up here lately. They are ready for summer. I am thankful their summer has not yet arrived!

We are sleeping with the hotel window open tonight and I'm pretty sure I'll have to close it before I go crawl in bed.

On the other hand, I have ZERO desire to ever live in a winter wonderland again. NONE. Not to say I wouldn't, just that I don't care to.

Now since I have rambled on & on, I leave you with the icing on our cake this evening (because I have a couple of 'bad' stories that I can't even tell here. I'd get Hubby in TOO MUCH trouble) ...Shortly before bedtime tonight, I discovered that Peanut has scarlet fever. Great.

Good News: No fever, he seems to be fine so we'll call his pedi in the a.m. & have her call in something up here.

And a recap for those who don't remember when Little Man had it a couple of summers ago (ironically shortly AFTER visiting NH) Scarlet Fever needs a name change so that people will stop thinking about how things were 100 years ago. It's just strep folks. It's a rash that is caused by toxins released with the strep. If you're sensitive to the toxins, you get the rash. There are lots of forms of strep.

OH: One last thing before I go; it took Peanut about 2 seconds to start screaming when we got on the plane. Almost like he was claustrophobic or something. He did calm down & take a good nap on the plane. He actually did really well on both flights & gave us limited trouble.

Weekly Recap

Okay not really Christmas in June but I'm sure it felt like it to the boys!


We had to get up in the attic, where I swear it's 200 degrees, & find clothes for the Peanut. I am sure that Hubby didn't appreciate my need to go ahead and start bringing down the next round of toys for Peanut, either. Especially in light of the fact that we'll be headed out of town in the wee hours of the morning on Tuesday. We're headed up to New England & my 'broken pregnant thermostat' are looking forward to the cooler temps.

Speaking of going out of town it's something we're really looking forward to. We are taking bets about how long it will take for Peanut to start his high pitch shrill once on the plane. UGH! When we come home they should sleep pretty much the whole way.

On a sad note this past week saw the death of Hubby's paternal grandmother & an elderly cousin of mine. It also finds Hubby's maternal grandmother's brother (That would be his grand uncle) very ill & not expected to make it much more than a week.

It's very VERY unfortunate that Hubby did not know his grandmother well at all. That cousin of mine suffered from Spina Bifida & made it to 74 years old & these last few years have been very bad. I was scared of her when I was a little girl but as an adult I can only imagine what life was like for her.

So please say a quick prayer for these families & esp for "Bud" so that he may be as comfortable as possible in his final days.

************************
On a side note: I've got to figure out what to do with my genealogy website. I've had it hosted at geocities for free for years now. Unfortunately for me, they are closing by the end of the year and I've got to figure out what to do with it. Any other good free hosting sites out there?

Guess I might have to suck it up & finally buy a domain & web hosting service.

And the baby is.....

ANOTHER BOY!

I just knew it! I'd hoped and felt it was a girl up until the day I went in for my cerclage. For some reason that day I just KNEW it was a boy. And yep, it's a boy!

So far things are going incredibly well & the baby looks great. Measuring just as I should & this has definitely been the easiest pregnancy out of the three. Oh man I hope that is an indicator of what's to come, lol.

C-A-T

I think about where we were this time last year & life was just SO frustrating. Frustrating because Little Man's expressive communication was SO minimal. We had to use mostly yes/no questions & we just had no way of knowing what was going on in his little head.

He has come SO far in just the past 9 months.

Honestly, he's my first child so I have no idea what to expect, what they are or aren't supposed to know etc. I can tell you he's a sponge & he's in constant 'seek & soak' mode, lol.

A few weeks ago he brought me his magnadoodle & drew a line & informed me it was a 1. YAY! Of course the natural thing to do was ask him if he wanted to learn to write/draw a 2! He did.

Today he can write most of the letters of the alphabet, all the numbers 0-9 & he knows the sounds that each & every one of them make. It just tickles me to death to hear his little voice make an 'X' sound. Yes he can still be incredibly difficult to understand but much of it is so cute!

Last week he came to me with the magnadoodle again, this time with a Z on it. I congratulated him on how correct his Z was & asked him he wanted to learn to spell 'cat.' He looked at me & said, "C-A-T."

Holy Crap! My first response, "YAY! Yeah that's right, that's cat!!!!" Followed up by, "Where in the WORLD did you learn that?!?!"

So now he's learning to spell a few basic words.

I have been trying to get a picture of him next to his magnadoodle or easel with "CAT" written on it but haven't found a memory card. I do not know why I can't find one though, considering we own like 4 of them. Grrrr....

Scratch that Change #2

So after consulting a realtor & really number crunching we've decided we are NOT moving.

Initially we were crushed. Oh I am SO in love with that house & the thought of having more space, being closer to shopping, doctors, etc. There are about 100 reasons straight off the top of my head that moving would have been wonderful!

On the flip side we have picked a school out here for Little Man that is going to be perfect for him. He came to me in the past couple of weeks with his magnadoodle & drew a line & informed me it was a "1." That lead to, "Do you want to learn how to write a 2?" He did. He can now write the letters L,I,O,C,J,W,U,H,B,V...shoot...just about any letter you ask him. He knows all the sounds that all of the letters make & identifies every single letter of the alphabet every single time. The preschool he's likely to attend in the fall has the type of curriculum that he needs. It also has the teacher he needs.

I guess if it were meant to happen it would have happened without some of these hurdles we'd have to face. Eventually it will be meant to happen but until then we'll just be thankful that we have a roof over our heads & food in our belly's.

Change #2

We are moving out of the sticks!

WAHOOOOOOOOOOOO!!!!!

Okay we knew when we bought this house that it was a starter home for us. This house is just too small now, we've outgrown it & need some more space. When we moved in here we didn't realize the exact issues that Little Man had. If we'd of had even an inkling of what was to come, we'd of NEVER moved out here. We live in the middle of NOWHERE. Town of about 4,000 people. Not even a McDonald's here! lol. Of course like every small town in Texas, we DO have a Dairy Queen. For those of you from the north our DQ's serve YUMMY food, not just desserts.

Anyhow, living out here in incredibly inconvenient. Little Man's private speech is almost a full hour away...ONE WAY. The neurologist & neurosurgeon for the boys is over an hour away...one way. Our schools here aren't horrible but they are not what I want for our children. We want options for them. If they want to participate in a sport, we want more than one team or league to choose from. Things like that.

The bad part about all of this is that we do actually LOVE LOVE LOVE the speech therapist at the school & our town has a FANTASTIC private school here that we were planning on using. The good news is that we are moving into a district that is known for its great schools. We have known for some time now that homeschooling could potentially be the best option for Little Man. He's so smart but it's easy to not realize it because his communication can be so difficult to understand. We don't want him to fall through the cracks.

That said, he doesn't start Kindergarten until 2011 so we have lots of time & I guarantee his speech today will not be the same as then. Thank goodness for his late birthday huh? LOL.

The house is being built so we aren't expecting to move in until October. Hopefully we'll have our place on the market in the next week. We are cleaning things out like crazy. We have 2 piles in our garage right now; sale & storage. We know we'll have to put some stuff in storage to make this place showable but that's not a huge deal.

We knew we wanted to move next summer but rates are SO LOW right now. They are creeping back up as Obama prints all this freakin' money so who knows what they'll be by next summer if he doesn't stop. Grrrr...but that's a whole other blog, lol.

This is what our house will look like when it's done. Colors will be different but you get the idea.

Man I can't wait!

:)

Changes!!!!

So very much is going on in our lives right now that this computer has been the last place I've been for some time now.

I have two HUGE updates for the moment.

One: We are expecting baby #3!! This is so exciting for us. Yes...we are super excited!!!! Please, if you have rude comments & thoughts, keep them to yourselves. For those of you who think that we weren't thinking when we got pregnant, please keep your ignorance to yourself. Especially when that exact thought makes YOU the hypocrite.

Please do not come to us asking if this means that Little Man won't be getting what he needs in some way. Are you kidding me? This one might be more insulting than the above mentioned ignorance. Never in the past 3.5 years has ANYONE been able to come to us wondering if we've had any of our children's best interest in mind so why in the world would that change now?

Please do not concern yourself as to whether or not I/we have too much on our plate. We don't. There is (sometimes unfortunately) always room for more. We have been through more with our 2 children than some people have with their entire brood. We know that. But you know what else we know...we have never sat around sulking about it. There have certainly been days where some things seem overwhelming but I know that I have it easy compared to what some people have to go through with/for their children.

Now. About this pregnancy. Due Date is around Nov 9 or 10. Doc's office is telling me Nov 14, but I KNOW that's not it. And while I realize 4-5 days for most people would make zero difference, I am not most people when it comes to pregnancy.

Biggest reason I haven't been on lately is the lack of energy. I'm using all of my energy taking care of the boys and there is nothing left right now, lol. I have been SOOOOO tired. That appears to be getting a little better at least.

Blood Pressure. It's doing better this time around than it did with Peanut. Thank Goodness! I'm getting to go 3 weeks between most appts now & with Peanut I only got that luxury ONCE, lol.

Cerclage. I had a cerclage done a few weeks ago so hopefully this baby will stay put longer than my first 2. (That's where they stitch the cervix shut)

Overall this pregnancy has been going so much better than my last one & I'm incredibly thankful for that.

Boy or Girl. We don't really know yet. They tried to take a peek at my last ultrasound (I've had like 4 already) but baby wasn't cooperative. I was convinced early on that I was having a girl. The day I went in for my cerclage I switched teams and I am now convinced I'm having a boy. I have no idea why. We should be able to find out next week.

This got so long that I will post Change #2 in a separate posting.

:)