5 wha?

My next endeavor...

Adventure Boot Camp

Just counting calories and walking and running a bit have helped shed 8lb, but I'm ready for some serious weight loss and I think that demands adding some real exercise to the program. I'm trying to convince Todd that it would be a great birthday present...you know, to pay for me to not be fat anymore, haha.

Turns out, it'll be fun

Tomorrow was supposed to be the start of another boring business trip, but at the last minute that changed.

It's our annual sales kickoff meeting for my company and being headquartered in Orlando, that's the locale every January. This year we are at the Contemporary - literally at the front gates of Disney. We have another meeting there in May but this one is an "attend" meeting for me rather than a "plan" meeting. Anyway, Todd starts a new job Monday so there was little stress about him being here alone with both boys and a new job. So after batting around some scenarios with my mom we decided that she would go and take Tiki with us to spend the week in Orlando and at Disney. We told him Friday after school and he was over the moon. At first he was pretty nonchalant and then as the weekend went on he got more and more excited.

So they leave tomorrow - early - and we all arrive around 2:30 in Orlando to have a week of fun and more fun. I, of course, have to work, but they'll be able to have fun during the day and then I can join them at night. Looking forward to a fun week! Thank you mom for this great idea and making it happen!!!!

A quick tip

It's a great idea to NOT just hit Next Blog>>, Next Blog>>, Next Blog>> because you might accidentally happen upon the Undercover Porn Star blog and burn your retinas. Hope this helps.

And then I stuck my foot in my mouth

In the hallway outside Tiki's classroom the teachers put their "art" on display. There are various and sundry examples of the work they do in class ranging from letter tracing to coloring to worksheets. On the wall just outside there were worksheets that the kids did detailing "What they want to be when they grow up".

TK: Do you want to see my paper that I did for when I grow up?
Me: Yes, definitely!
TK: Here it is. I said I want to be a sheriff. That's me and that's daddy and we're sheriffs together.
Me: Wow, that's really good. Looks like daddy is wearing a top hat and you have a, what is that? a lasso?
TK: Daddy is wearing a sheriff's hat!
Me: Sorry. Oh and what is that? Is that a jail? What a good jail!!!
TK: No, that's the horse!

Todd said I broke one of the main rules of parenting a preschooler. "Don't ever guess what they've drawn if you can't tell the difference between a jail and a horse, idiot."

When you are 1,812 days old

You sometimes have a hard time keeping up with all the rules of the day during preschool.

TK is, shall we say, energetic, and sometimes teachers find that disruptive. Who knew?

So last week I get a call that goes something like this "Um, Mrs W, TK is really having a hard time being quiet during paper time and he also can't keep his hands to himself. Is this a problem you are having at home?" I had to stop myself from saying something too sarcastic that would have started with "Well, during paper time at home..." But I didn't - it couldn't have gone well anyway. Instead, after quite a long, punishing conversation during which I might have agreed to shock therapy, we came to the conclusion that we would keep a notebook in his tote tray and I would get an update note each day. Sounds reasonable. It's not enough to get a call - surely seeing it on paper will be easier!

Monday and Tuesday were great notes - "TK had a great day." Excellent - that's progress. But alas the happiness was short lived. Wednesday's note went like this...

1/23/08
TK had a very hard time being quiet during paper time. He had to be asked several times to be quiet and could not seem to quiet down. Then he said to a friend "Those teachers are insane" and Ms G heard him say it - she was standing right there and he said it. We sent him to the office to talk to Mrs M about saying things like that.

What the? Did you really say that? I asked him on the way to the car what happened with Mrs M and he said "She told me that I shouldn't say words that I don't know what they mean." I said, "Well do you know what insane means?" "Of course. It means crazy but it's close to meaning meanie"

Perfect child - you perfect child.

It was an accident

Behold the new phrase in my house.

"It was an accident..."

• Hit your baby brother with a super ball...it was an accident
• Flood the toilet...it was an accident
• Push a small stuffed boot from your Texas Advent calendar into a small bud vase...that too was an accident
• Wrap your mother's pajama top around your pirate sword and snap the elastic...doh, that was an accident, too
• "Accidentally" punch a kid in class...you got it...simply an accident

I'm trying to teach the difference between a true accident and something you did that was really, really not smart - but was 100% intentional and therefore not an accident.

In TK's world, if you get caught, that qualifies the incident as an accident. That's what we do here, teach 'em young...

MotherLoad

There will be hair drama this afternoon, but for now check out this new link to MomAdvice - specifically the MotherLoad and MotherLoot blogs. It's a good read and a great resource.

Duh

Since I had lunch with him Tuesday and he's traveling since yesterday I totally forgot to say happy 32nd brother Brian or BB as TK calls him!!!!!! Hope you had a good birthday in some hotel room in some other city :-) TTFN

I'll dole these out slowly...

*Removed for just being a bad job posting.*

Ricki Lake is the new Michael Moore

Not really, but she used to resemble him.

Have you heard about her new movie The Business of Being Born? I have not actually seen it, but might like to after reading this article/review. I won't opine on my own feelings about home birth v. medical intervention birth, but let me just say that during labor I would have traded my car, house and dog for that epidural. I'm just saying...

A small nugget of joy...

"Mommy, when I turn 5 and have a growth spurt will I throw up?"

What the...what did you eat?

Saturday morning was a VERY early morning for us. The little one has decided that 6:00 is just as good a time as any to wake up. We strongly disagree, but evidently he's not up for a discussion. So since I was up...and since I'm tubby I thought I might as well go for a run. I decided to take Gus, my loving, faithful, gray bearded lab mutt with me since I knew he would enjoy being out and seeing the neighborhood. Here's where I must pause for a personal explanation for anyone that has never had this conversation with me so pardon the digression...

When we FIRST got Gus it was the springish summer of 2001 - the year we were to get married. We "adopted" him from a rescue way out in the country and it was like an "overflow shelter". Shortly after we adopted him we went to Amsterdam for a wedding and and put him in a kennel. We got back on a Tuesday and I drove out to pick him up. He seemed happy to see me and chose to ride home in the front seat of my new Mercedes...About 1/2 way down this two lane country road I notice him staring at me and sort of glaring. The next thing I know he's POOPING in my front seat...seriously glaring at me and pooping my front seat. I swerved off the road, flung the passenger side door open, grabbed a towel from the front seat, swiped the poop out the door and flung the towel out with it. I was super grossed out. Fast forward to home. At the time we lived in a 3 story apt bldg and on the 3rd floor. We got home and about 30 minutes in I see Gus by the patio door and he's doing it again - POOPING! I grabbed a spatula from the kitchen, scooped the poop and tossed it over the balcony into the grass. He pretty much spent the rest of the day doing that around the apartment and I followed him around using kitchen utensils to pick up the poop and toss it over. About 3 hours later Todd came home and was like "Whoa - there's like a whole drawer full of kitchen stuff in the grass out there. That is so weird"... Hahaha. I never told, but he never figured out where all of our kitchen utensils went... End of digression. All this to say that I have NO tolerance for dog poop. In fact I have NEVER walked Gus in the going on 7 years we've had him alone where I would have to pick up poop...Back to Saturday.

So, Todd tells me to take a bag and as luck would have it later - I grabbed 4. We get about 1/8 of a mile and Gus stops to poop. I sprinkled some sand on it and picked it up with one bag and dumped it into the other. The bag gave off quite a bit of warmth and the more I thought about it and visualized it the more sick I got. Pretty soon I was gagging so hard that tears were rolling down my face and I could taste bile in the back of my throat. It took about 15 minutes to get everything back down and stabalized. We kept running and I feel the leash stop again and I look back and he's doing it again. Bleh! So I picked it up and lather, rinse, repeat the gagging and spitting up. I'm thinking - that has to be it because I only have one bag left. But now I'm carrying a double load in one plastic grocery bag and running. I round the corner, find a Cap'n Crunch box that fell off the trash truck and stuffed the double load in there and ran. I'M HOME FREE! I DID IT! I PICKED UP POOP AND SURVIVED...That joy was short lived. About 1/2 a block later he stops again and I tug and he tugs back. He's freakin' pooping AGAIN! There's panic - one bag left...So as much as I wanted to leave it I KNEW I couldn't. So I tried to be efficient like Todd would do and I ended up getting poop all over the bag opening which resulted in my having to fold the bag all weird and ending up with some sort of pouch with a long handle. After the gagging subsided I decided to "hurry" home and to my dismay as I ran that warm bag of joy was bumping against my leash hand or my thigh or my hip. I tell you what - that was a wonderful first public poop experience. Since then I vow only to bike...alone.

Mommy...

"Mommy, you're killing me" he said with as much sarcasm as one almost 5 year old can muster.

Huh - I guess I do say that a lot.

The time us upon us to be careful. :-)

Sunday, Lazy Sunday

The most strenuous thing I have done today was add a new link - Mommies with Style - a fun site for funky moms. Other than that, my day has been about prepping the playroom for the upcoming 5th birthday of Teeks. Hard to believe that it's been almost 5 years since I officially became a mother. His age has been becoming more of a factor in behavior lately. By that I mean he's doing more and more to assert his independence and aptitude to "handle it himself" (haha).

Yesterday I needed to go to the credit union and Todd and TC were sleeping so I too Tiki so they would have a quiet house. We finished around 1:00 pm and realized that we hadn't had lunch so we popped into McDonald's (it was chilly and overcast) to get a snack and kill some time in the playland. It was so crowded that we didn't stay long and decided to kill the rest of the afternoon at Dollar General, Big Lots and Family Dollar. Tiki had a couple of $1 bills burning a hole in his pocket so we were shopping. Well @ Dollar General he "accidentally" told me to "shut my mouth" so we left there with him in tears after I made him put his toy choice back on the shelf. I don't think I'll ever get used to that embarrassing feeling of your child pitching a fit in a store. I try to go back and evaluate his upbringing thus far and try to imagine where in the world that came from. I often tell him after he's pitched his fit "Let's think about this, you pitched a fit to get that toy, right" After he acknowledges that then I often ask him "And did it work - did you get the toy". He ALWAYS answers no, so then I ask "So, do you think pitching a fit works". The answer is always no, so I have to question why he keeps doing it. Maybe he thinks one day I'll forget and accidentally give in - that's all I can come up with. Luckily I know that this won't last forever and we'll be on to much bigger issues so I guess this is just part of the process. 364 out of 365 days I feel so lucky to have to deal with only boys and then there's that one day that I think - can I really do this? Only time will tell. :-)

How did you know what I was thinking?

I started my new devotional on New Year's Day and now on day 11 I have been re-amazed at how every single day - when I read my devotional (at the day's end) how truly perfectly it summed up my day and how it pertained - just right - to all the things I'm struggling with right now. I say re-amazed because it seems like each time I come back to spending this time in quiet reflection with God I'm really comforted to see that nothing has changed.

Sick of sick

I'm so, so sick of sick. I'm ready for everyone to be well and life to be normal. TC is doing better, but I tell you, the recovery from RSV is certainly s-l-o-w. It's really sad to watch. Poor baby sneezes and his weight in mucous. I understand now the invaluable skill of being able to blow your nose...the bulb syringe is a great invention, but now that the little one 'recognizes' it he does EVERYTHING he can to get it away from me or just get away from me. I do see a light at the end of the tunnel and the wheezing has stopped so that's certainly a plus!

"If you are elderly...

then you should wear the Life Alert necklace. If you have a serious fall or other emergency, like if your plug catches on fire, you can press a button and the Life Alert necklace will call the fire apartment"

PEOPLE - take note - MARKETING WORKS. But seriously, why is the Life Alert commercial on Nickelodeon?? Does TK really need to have memorized the gist of this commercial. Probably not, but he did and for that I'm grateful.

Ba-whuh?????

That sounded like "...he has RSV."

So the little one has RSV. I really didn't see this one coming. He got a cold about a month ago and I got a little worried with so much talk of RSV among my circle of moms. But he recovered nicely and that was that. Just before Christmas both kids started getting stuffy and and while Tiki's just progressed to a plain old sinus infection complete with drainage and cough TC seemed to be getting more stuffy and feverish. Then came the vomiting and that was more than pleasant. And finally last night while I was changing him after his third bath (it's the only way to erase that sour smell) I heard the telltale wheezing. It sounded "lite" last night, but then this morning he sounded so much worse. So Todd took him to the doc and she confirmed RSV and sent us home with the fistful of prescriptions. We started the Orapred tonight and LUCKILY we already have a compact nebulizer, closet full of Pulmicort and Xopenex for breathing treatments.

I'm so frustrated by this diagnosis for MANY reasons, but that's another post. I sent my mother-in-law, a Senator in CO a very long email asking how I can raise awareness with my local legislators about the issue of the vaccine being more readily approved for babies under 6 months during RSV season. I was pleased to hear back from her that she is sending to her Women in Government colleagues AND forwarding to her pharma lobbyists in hopes of making a connection somewhere.

So I close with something infinitely more positive.

...The cleaning and scrubbing will wait till tomorrow, For children grow up, as I've learned to my sorrow.
So quiet down, cobwebs. Dust go to sleep. I'm rocking my baby and babies don't keep.

Happy New Year!

Here's to a great 2008!