The Princess, the Recycled Storm Trooper, and the Poor Pirate

What a day this has been! The adventures started around 1:15 this afternoon when the school called me at work and asked me to come get Sebastian because he had just gotten sick. He had been sent to the office to lay down and rest for an hour or so until their class Halloween party. He hadn't been in the office for more than a few minutes when he got sick. Poor guy - they sent home a bag with treats from the party, but it's just not the same - no costume parade, no games, no party time with friends. Big bummer.

Well, I had left work in the middle of paying the bills, which can't be left undone, so we went home, got him some clean comfy clothes, grabbed some blankets and the DVD player and some movies, and headed back to the church. He laid on the floor in a little back room in my office and watched movies until I was finished. The whole time he was there, he did fine - no more getting sick, no complaining, nothing. He was very quiet, and he was warm, and I could tell he wasn't feeling his best, but he was a champ about it.

After dinner, Lucas and I talked, and we decided that since he seemed to be doing fairly okay, and in an effort to not completely ruin his day, we would take him trick or treating to a FEW houses. So, we got the kids all dressed up, and just as we were beginning to leave, it started raining - just a light misty rain, but it was WET nonetheless. So, we did a handful of houses and headed home. The kids got on dry cozy PJ's and watch Charlie Brown while I passed out candy. At about 7:00, Sebastian got sick again, and he was burning up - the thermometer read around 102.6. I gave him some Motrin and checked him again a half hour later. When I checked the second time, he was 103.8...um, isn't Motrin supposed to make it go down, not up? So, I left Lucas with the other 2, and Sebastian and I headed to urgent care. They never really told me what he has, just red ears and a red throat. He needed antibiotics, but they couldn't give it to him orally because his stomach was upset. So, on top of his already-pretty-rotten day, the poor guy had to get a shot.

Right now he's snoozing. I'm hoping he can get through the night without getting sick again - for his sake as well as mine. We'll see what tomorrow brings.

Oh, and on top of all this, I had forgotten to charge the camera, so I didn't get many pictures. Here are a few that I took.

Neither of the boys were too cooperative with pics, so most of them are of Meagan... hehehe.... I wanted her to wear her pretty little crown/tiara/headband thing, but she didn't want to. So I told her it was her pretty princess magic candy hat, and she had to wear it to get candy. Can you believe it actually worked!! Once she even stopped and asked me to put it back on her when it started to slip off! But she looked so stinkin' cute in it! She even sat still while I french braided the top part of her hair! What a princess.

The boys were both going to be pirates, but at the last minute Isaac decided that he wanted to be a storm trooper AGAIN (same thing he was last year). So he put on last year's costume, and we were one pirate short... whatever makes him happy!

The stubble patch

This was a new one to me...

Two days ago I was getting Meagan dressed, and as she put her leg into her pants, she brushed her leg up against my arm. For a brief moment, I thought I noticed that her leg hair felt a little scratchy, but I blew it off as nothing and went on about my day, not giving it another thought. Well, yesterday when I picked the kids up from Nicole's, Nicole asked me if I had shaved Meagan's legs. Um, No, why would I have shaved her legs, she's TWO? 'Well someone has shaved a patch on the back of her right leg because it's starting to grow back and it's all stubbly,' she said. At that moment, I realized that I had noticed the same thing, but that it just hadn't registered to me at the time that someone might have possibly shaved her leg. WHY would I have thought that her legs would have been shaved??? Anyway, I asked Isaac about it, and, though he was reluctant to fess up to it at first, he did finally admit that he shaved the back of her leg. LOL! I couldn't even scold him, it was just entirely too funny to me at the moment. I just fell on the floor laughing. I never saw that one coming!

2 pages in 1 night!

I must have been on a roll tonight (a roll that is now coming to an end because I'm tired, and I'm gonna go to bed as soon as I'm done posting). Two pages in one night!! The quote says, 'I feel worthy of every kiss I laid upon you for in each of them went a part of my heart.'

All My Life

I am getting down to the end of my pages for Grandma's album. I've got a lot of miscellaneous pictures that are kind of hard to group together. These 3 pictures were just such pictures. At first I thought I would put the formal picture on a layout alone, but I finally decided to combine the formal and the casual - since that's more true-to-life. I'm down to the pictures taken in 2003-2005 mostly, with a few exceptions. Hopefully they'll all come together quickly and we can give her the second half of the album for Christmas this year!

Quote: I love thee with the breath, smiles, tears of all my life

My Husband the Cube-Head

Okay, can I just say I'm tempted to call Will Smith and ask him how to solve the Rubik's Cube so that he can give Lucas a few pointers!! For Halloween, Dad and Nancy sent the kids a box of goodies, and in it there was a Rubik's Cube. This is something Lucas has always wanted to try, but never has, so he snatched it up and has been holding it hostage. He won't let any of the kids touch it! LOL! For two straight days now he has been spending every free moment working on this cube.

Last night we were both down in the basement on our computers. I got tired around 10:00 or so, so I turned off my computer and headed up to bed. He had just finished his game on the computer, so I figured he would be up behind me. I watched some recorded shows while I waited for him. When I ran out of recorded shows, I tried to find something on TV. Ultimately, I feel asleep way before he ever came up. When I woke up this morning - I kid you not - I rolled over to find a CUBE in bed beside me! LOL! He worked on it so long he turned into a cube!!

...actually, he had brought it upstairs with him after finally giving up on it for the night, and he sat it on the dresser by our bed. Well, when Meagan got up this morning, she must have found it and been playing with it before I realized she was in the room. But it was just funny to find a cube where my husband should have been!

4 Generations

I got another layout done for Grandma's album last night. I'm not so sure how I feel about it, and would welcome any opinions / feedback / suggestions etc. Well, back to work (I'm posting on my lunch break)....

Weekend Review

Friday night I got to go to a friend's house for a spa party. What a great way to spend an evening. I usually don't get all the way into the home party scene. But it's hard not to enjoy pedicures, mini facials, hand rubs, back rubs and head massages, and time with friends. I usually don't do this kind of stuff (I've tried once before to have a home party, and my mom and I were the only 2 people that showed up...how embarrassing!), but I scheduled a party for Nov. 9th...so if any of you are interested in coming, you're all welcome! The more the merrier - it's a lot of fun!

Yesterday afternoon we went to watch a friend of ours' son play hockey. It was at a big sports complex that's about 15 minutes away from here. While we were there, we peeked into all the different arenas that had stuff going on - peewee flag football, gymnastics, travel hockey, indoor soccer, and high school hockey (at least that's all we could see). Meagan was FASCINATED by the gymnastics. She kept saying 'Look at them Mom. I can do it, see? I want to go there,' and on and on. And she figured out in the hockey game that if she told me she had to go potty, I would take her and she could see the gymnasts again...I caught on to it after her 3rd request to go potty in 10 minutes time. LOL! So, we got some info and I think I'm going to look into putting her into a toddler class. We'll see.

Today was a chillin' out kind of day. We just hung around this afternoon and played (and napped - at least Sebastian and Meagan did). A little boy from across the street came over and played for a while. And we cleaned up the basement. Not the most exciting day to report on, but I sometimes quite enjoy the not-so-eventful days.

Fall Flashbacks

Just finished 2 pages from our trip to the apple orchard/pumpkin patch last year. We had high hopes for our trip, but it turned out to be sort of a dud. The kids had a blast, though, which is all that matters in the grand scheme of things.

Journaling: When we lived in Toledo we had a special pumpkin-picking spot. This year we wanted to find a fun place like that where we could go and make a fun memory instead of getting our pumpkins out of a crate at Wal-Mart. So, we went to a nearby orchard. By the time we got there, the patches were already closed, so we still had to pick our pumpkins out of a crate. I was disappointed, but the 3 of you didn't seem to mind at all. You loved the fresh air, the wagon, and the wide open of the outdoors. Memories were made - crates and all.

Journaling: What an interesting experience this turned out to be. What started as a trip to the apple orchard ended up as quite the memorable day - for reasons both good and, well, shall we say, not-so-pleasant. The good...cool fall weather; our first apple-picking experience; the train ride through the orchard; the kids' faces filled with excitement and joy. The bad...lost keys; lost gloves; low supply of apples remaining on the trees; and, believe it or not, a rotten, dirty diaper that someone put in the tree and left for the next unsuspecting soul in search of apples - which was, of course, us...um, gross! While it may not have been the perfect fall day we were hoping for, it was, without question, one to remember.

I'm having a baby triceratops!!!!

Over the weekend Grandma H. came up to visit. While she was here, she gave each of the kids a magic egg to put in water and watch it hatch and grow. Each egg got its own container of water and we marked them so we would know whose was whose.

Sebastian's was first to hatch - a baby T-Rex. Very cute, and pretty much what everyone was expecting. Meagan's was next to hatch. Hers threw a kink into things, because while we were expecting a baby dinosaur of some sort, she hatched a baby crocodile (or maybe alligator - how do you tell the difference?). No sign of activity from Isaac's egg. I could tell he was feeling a little impatient. I could also tell he was slightly worried that he wouldn't get a dinosaur, but that he might get something else like Meagan did.

Well, this morning, we all got up, and I told the boys to go down and pick out what they wanted for breakfast while I put Meagan on the potty. As I was on my way down the stairs, I heard Isaac screaming at the top of his lungs. "Mom!!!! Mom!!!!' It was so frantic, I thought for sure that Sebastian had done something and Isaac was gearing up for a tattling. But when I came around the corner, Isaac yelled, "Mom, I'm having a baby triceratops!!!!" He was GIDDY he was so excited. He kept getting up from the breakfast table to go check on his baby and talk to it. "I knew you were a dinosaur. I just knew it."

He is just too cute.

Silence is golden...and so are dry undies!

Time for an update, since our successes are fluctuation from day to day (or minute by minute in some cases). Last night went MUCH better with Meagan. She got up once, and I sent her back to bed. When we went up later to go to bed, we checked on her. We found her laying on a blanket in the hallway between her room and the boys'. Neither one of us was about ready to pick her up and put her back in bed for fear of waking a sleeping giant. So, I covered her up with a second blanket, and she slept outside of the bathroom all night...but she SLEPT! LOL!

And today she was in the same pair of undies ALL DAY at Nicole's. She has been doing GREAT with potty training. It's about time I get an easy kid, after what I went through with the boys! For three days in a row now she has been in big girl pants...there's a light at the end of the tunnel!

Bubble trouble

Today must have been the first time Meagan had ever taken notice of someone blowing a bubble with gum. She saw me blow a bubble, and she asked me with a tone of fascinated interest, "Are you eating a balloon, Mommy?" She then proceeded to try to imitate me by first sticking her tongue out and then blowing spit bubbles.

I take that back...

I posted last night's scoop about the paci some time around 9:30, at which time, all was well. But, the storm was brewing under the surface, and it all erupted around 10:30. Meagan had been sound asleep from about 9:00 until 10:30, when she woke up hysterical. I think she woke up because she was coughing, but it doesn't matter WHY she woke up - just that she DID. It was all over from there. For the next 5 1/2 hours, she screamed almost non-stop. She was going full force for a while. Then she got exhausted, at which point she would fall asleep mid-scream. But the sleep never lasted more than a minute, which was about how long it took for her to start 'sucking' in her sleep, and realize she didn't have her paci, then the screaming started all over again.

I tried EVERYTHING I could think of. I stayed firm with her for a while - kept putting her back in bed every time she got up. Didn't talk to her. Didn't touch her (other than to put her back in bed). But she kept coming in and waking Lucas up, or her brothers occasionally. Finally, I thought, well, maybe if I laid in there with her it would comfort her. NOPE. NOT AT ALL. Well, that's not exactly true. She did fall asleep once sitting up on my lap (which means I was also sitting up - in the middle of her bed with nothing to rest against - at 2:00 in the morning - obviously could not be a permanent position for the remainder of the night.) Once she had been quiet for about 10 minutes (or what felt like ETERNITY because my back was quite uncomfortable), I took a change and laid her down (because, like I said, I couldn't sit there like that for the rest of the night). WRONG thing to do! The screaming started all over again within seconds. Nothing else I did had any ounce of a calming effect on her.

Somewhere around 3:30, I was desperate for just a few minutes of sleep. So desperate, in fact, that I found myself out in the van looking for her illusive purple paci (the same one she mentioned that I posted about yesterday). In my state of weakness and exhaustion, I thought up a tricky plan - LOL! I was going to wait until she fell asleep mid-scream, then slip the paci in her mouth, so she wouldn't know she had it, but so she could stay asleep long enough to get into a deep sleep...pretty tricky huh? But, I couldn't find the silly thing ANYWHERE! So I just had to let her scream it out.

I'm not sure when it was that she finally fell asleep because I think I crashed way before she did. When I checked on her this morning though, she was sprawled out on her back in the middle of her floor. Clearly it was a rough night for her.

Nap time, once she settled down and actually laid still, was great - no screaming and yelling, and she slept for 2 1/2 hours. Hoping tonight goes more nap time than like last night. (I might be raising the most determine and persistent child God ever created. We'll see how long it takes her to accept her new-found paci separation.)

Time to say Good-bye

It's been coming on for a while now. It started with a tiny crack in the pacifier that eventually grew into a hole about half the width of the paci. Today, I tore it in half - it was too torn and I couldn't let her use it any more because it would have been a choking hazard. So I tore it.

I showed her and I explained to her that paci is broken and we don't have any more. That means it's all gone and she has to go to bed with no paci. She didn't miss a beat - 'That's okay. I have purple paci.' She actually may have purple paci somewhere because it just sort of vanished. But I haven't seen it for weeks. 'No, sweety, sorry, purple paci is all gone too.' I explained to her that she's a big girl and doesn't need a paci. She seemed okay with it really - but that was at dinner, so who knew what bedtime would really bring.

Well, bedtime eventually came, and I was bracing for screaming and DRAMA. To my pleasant surprise, she asked for a drink of water and that was the end of it. We've had ZERO paci related drama so far. Not at all what I was expecting, but I'll take it!!

On top of saying goodbye to paci, she is getting lots closer to being potty trained. Over the weekend we had lots of success, and she was being quite cooperative. Today Nicole put her in potty pants (you know, those big puffy cloth undies) and she stayed dry all day (until, of course, I left here home alone with Daddy while I went to get dinner - then she pooped in her pants - just because she loves Daddy so much! LOL! But still, one accident for the whole day is a pretty big deal.) I got her some vinyl pants to try tomorrow, since I'll be home with her. We'll see how it goes. (Keeping my fingers crossed).

No paci. Going potty. Don't look now, but I think we are leaving the baby years behind. :o(

EEEEK!

EEEEEEK! What an evening this has been! The day was going along well. And then I came home from work. I got home around 4:30, and ran into the house to go to the bathroom quick before I went to get the kids from Nicole's. But, when I went inside, the answering machine beeped, so I listened to the message. It was school calling (at 4:15) to let me know that Sebastian was at school and needed to be picked up. She would try my cell phone, blah blah blah. Well, I totally forgot about peeing, and ran next door to get the kids. They were eating snack when I got there. Isaac crammed his snack in his pockets and came with me...Meagan opted to stay and finish her snack in peace. So Isaac and I raced off to the school (on the other end of town - where I had just come from a few minutes before). The whole way there, I'm thinking to myself, 'You cannot go in there steaming mad. You have to settle down and be calm.' Well, I walked into the office, and the lady said Sebastian hadn't been feeling well, and was in the bathroom when the buses left, so he missed his bus...understandable, and a big bummer for him, so I wasn't mad...I guess you could say had been defused (LOL). Just to be safe, though, I covered with the office worker and the principle that, unless I call or send a specific note, he is to ride the bus home. That way he isn't stranded, and they don't have to stay an extra hour waiting on someone to get there to pick him up. I think I've now made myself quite clear, and I am REALLY hoping there will be no more issues.

So anyway, I realized that, in my rush to get to the school, I left my purse on the kitchen table. Which meant that I had to go back to the house before I could go get dinner (since I haven't been to the grocery for over a week and a half...we are OUT of food!). So I rushed home, loaded Meagan into the van with the boys and we headed to Wendy's. I got home from Wendy's and started getting everyone's food out and ready...only to realize they had left out Meagan's nuggets, and my sandwich was SLOPPED with mayo. No thanks. So Lucas pulled a Geico commercial and thought he could just wipe the mayo off and it would be okay...How long has he been married to me? Doesn't he know by now that once any part of the sandwich has been contaminated, the whole thing is shot? He should know that by now, shouldn't he? So, I donated my altered sandwich to my daughter since she didn't have anything to eat. And I ate fries and Mt. Dew for dinner.

We then rushed off to church to get there before the buses left. And believe it or not, the part of my night consisting of 50 kids from ages 4 to 14 was the easy, relaxing part of the night. Once we dropped the kids off, I headed back to Wendy's and got my sandwich remade. So, I had dinner at 9:30 at night. Love it!!

Hoping for a chance to do laundry and maybe get to the grocery in the next day or two. My house could use a little TLC. It's sorta been neglected this week (which only adds to the chaos when the house is messy and there are clothes mountains in the hall LOL).