Thursday, May 30, 2013

36

Six years ago Michael turned 30 on May 30th and I threw a big Golden birthday party for him.

There was no big party this year, but I did hang our felt Happy Birthday banner for the first time.  I got it waaaaaaaaaaaaaay on sale at Hobby Lobby a few months ago.
And I decorated the entry way to the kitchen with balloons and streamers so that Michael would have a nice surprise when he got up this morning.
Michael and I both worked today.  It's funny how life just keeps going even when it is your birthday.  I had a really busy day.  It was the last day of school at my job.  I work through summer school so it wasn't my last day, but I had a lot I needed to get done before the official school year was over.
 
My brother Nick came up from Tucson this afternoon because Michael, Elliott and I haven't seen him since October and he's leaving for sea again soon. 
 
Spencer spent a couple days with him in Florida so they are good buddies now.
My dad flew back from Savannah today.  My mom dropped him off at the airport and then drove to Charleston to visit her cousin for a week (hey Sherry-you should get together with her for lunch!  Ha ha!). I think it's funny that Spencer, my mom and my dad all flew to Florida together but they are all flying home separately and from different cities.
 
Michael picked my dad up at the airport and then we all went out for dinner.
 
Then we went home and John and Maryellen came over for mocha tres leches cake and coffee ice cream.

 
Presents! 
 
Elliott kept himself occupied.

 
Spencer made this tie with our sitter, Dorothy, today. 
It says To Michael, Love Spencer.



 
The first birthday that I celebrated with Michael was his 20th.  I remember giving him a key chain, a t-shirt and a baseball hat.  Four more birthdays and I will have been with him for half his life.  Pretty cool.

Tuesday, May 28, 2013

Dancing and diapers

I have been a bum lately.   A photo taking bum.  We've been doing fun stuff, I just haven't documented any of it. 
 
No pictures means no blogging.  No blogging mean that people start calling me and texting me to see if I fell and broke my hip in the shower.  That's not too far fetched since I seem to have the joints of a 88 year old.  Can someone, anyone, please explain how I'm supposed to do strenuous enough exercise to lose weight without ripping up my knees?  I'd really like to know.  And I'd like to not have knee pain every day.
 
Anyway.  I purposely took a whole bunch of pictures last night so that I would have something to blog about. 
 
Elliott has started dancing.  He just won't do it for the camera, so there are no pictures yet.  Spencer will dance for the camera though.
 
These are some of his smooth moves.



 
He's a really angry dancer.
 



Moving on to the second child.
 
We got some free diapers in the mail.  There was a boy one and a girl one in the package.  A free diaper is a free diaper and we weren't going to not use one of them.......even if the girl one was pink.
 



Spencer's last day of preschool is tomorrow.  I've really been looking forward to this day because I am so sick of the nap schedule that Elliott is on due to the preschool schedule.
 
We were talking about it tonight though, and all of a sudden I got all freaked out and emotional.
 
The last day of preschoool.  The LAST. DAY. of preschool. 
That means no more preschool.
 
No way this kid is old enough to be out of preschool. 

Ugh.  The next time he has a last day it will be the last day of Kindergarten.
 
What the what?! 


Thursday, May 23, 2013

Let's talk about my day

Spencer started allergy shots at the beginning of May.  He has to go once a week (but can go twice a week to speed up the process) for 6 months and then once a month for 4 years.  Since he started them at age 5 there is a 90%ish chance that he can be cured of allergies. 
 
Cured.
 
That's amazing.
 
And he does amazing with them.  He has not cried or complained once.  And he actually gets 2 shots- one in each arm- each time we take him.
 
He missed a day when he was in Florida so we made an extra trip today to make up for it.
We have to wait for 30 minutes after the shot before we leave to make sure he doesn't have a negative reaction.  Waiting 30 minutes with Spencer is nothing.  Waiting 30 minutes with Elliott....not so much fun.  
 
I decided this morning that I really needed to get Elliott into some shoes.  He's been walking for almost 2 weeks and he wants to walk everywhere- home, the park, outside, at the store. etc.   So, before we went to get the shots we went and bought him some shoes so he could at least walk around outside while we waited.. 
 
He threw a huge fit every time I tried a pair on.  Then he threw a huge fit when I put them on him in the car.  But then he calmed down and seemed like he liked them.
 
Spencer got the shots, Elliott screamed and cried while Spencer was getting them (like he does every time) and then we went outside to wait the 30 minutes.  Except Elliott FLAT. OUT. refused to walk in his shoes.  Refused.
 
We made it through the looooong 1,800 seconds and then went to McDonalds because they were having a special 3-day promption for their new smoothie flavor.  It was $1, so I got 1 for each kid.  I'm sure it was 77% pure sugar, but at this point I didn't care.
 
 
After McDonald's we went to Michael's Arts and Crafts and then Costco.  I was totally annoyed at the check-out girl at Michael's, but the reason is not important.  It just involved waiting for an unneccesary amount of time because of a stupid policy.

Then we came home to this:
Ginger had knocked over both the garbage AND the recycle, and pulled a bunch of stuff off the island.
 
And then Elliott continued to refuse walking in his shoes.


I shamed Ginger for a few minutes while I cleaned up her mess, somehow managed to get everyone fed and then put Elliott down for what ended up being a 3 hour nap.
 
I used the opportunity to do one of my new Bob Harper work-out DVDs.  I used my new 5 pound weights.  Good lord it was hard. 
Then I finished the front door wreath I've been working on.
 
The white blurry thing is our address made out of individual wooden numbers. I pixelated them because I did a google search with the numbers+Arizona and our house actually came up in the results.  I won't tell you what page number it was on though.   
 
Now I just need to be brave enough to paint the door red.
Elliott got up from his nap and I decided to go full throttle and force him to walk in his shoes.  We went outside where it was 102 degrees and the concrete was probably a good 20 degrees more.  No flopping down on that.
 
We used animal crackers and bribed him all the way to the mailbox and back.


Once he got started he kind of liked it.
 
Told you so, I told you so, I uh- uh, told you so.
After such strenuous work we needed a dip in the pool to cool off.
 
I got the matching suits at Costco today.
 Michael was home by this point (he actually took this award winning photo) so my world was slowly returning to good again.
 
I have blogged in the past about tough days and whenever I go back months or years later and re-read them, I always laugh.  Somewhat because I had forgotten that day, but more just because when you are so far removed from the moment, it doesn't actually seem hard at all.
 
Elliott is definitely getting into his Terrible 2's (Spencer started at 13 months and was pretty much done by the time he turned 2), so there are sure to be more posts about hair-pulling days like today.

Tuesday, May 21, 2013

A random assortment of thoughts and photos

Elliott is well on his way to early literacy.  He loves to read.  He wants to read all day long.  There are about 10 books that he recognizes by name and can correctly retrieve if asked.
 
Barnyard Dance is one of them.
 
I'm impressed.
 
Just a very close close-up of Ginger.
I worked 4 days in a row....Thursday and Friday and then Monday and Tuesday.  Well, OK.  I did have a weekend in there.  Now I'm off for a week.  My days were all messed up because I did Friday as an extra day and Monday because my sitter needed to change days.  What does that have to do with this picture? 
 
Nothing.  Absolutely nothing.
Spencer is home!  He flew from Tampa all by himself.  He did great.
 
He is now totally exhausted and last night and tonight fell asleep in less than 20 seconds, which is totally unheard of.
It's kind of sad that I pick books to read based on when the movie versions will be released.  That's just where I am in my life. 
 
I just finished this:
 
Now I'm going to start this.  The movie comes out in June.   
I have a student that I have been trying to get to an ENT all semester.  I suspected he had velopharyngeal insufficiency (improper closing of the velum and pharynx during speech).  Because VPI can be a structural problem (that therapy will not help), or a functional problem (that therapy will help), I needed to make sure he didn't have a structual problem (like a submucosal cleft) before proceeding with his evaluation and new goals.
 
I finally, finally, finally got the ENT's report.  He does indeed have VPI (score one for me!), but his structure is intact.  Yay.  I don't have a ready to go report explaining VPI so I've been working on one for his meeting next week.  And yes, I basically use the same report with minor modifications for the majority of evaluations I do.
 
I found this awesome book online but I can only access preview pages.  So I did what any normal person would do.  I took pictures of the computer screen so I can use the info in my report.
 
He has HUGE tonsils and fronts all of his back sounds, so this explains him perfectly! 
I planted all of these flowers before Megan's baby shower.  They are actually growing and thriving.  I am shocked, and think I should investigate a second career in horticulture. 
Spencer, hours after going to bed, in the exact same position as when he laid down.  He's going to be sore in the morning.
Yes, that is a glove filled with rice on Elliott's butt.  Yes, he believes it to be my hand.
 
Santa Claus, Easter Bunny, Tooth Fairy, Mommy's comforting touch.  My kids are in for a lot of rude awakenings.