just flew right on by! I have been finding it hard to keep up with my blog as of late... so now I am forced into playing catch-up. I will apologize in advance for the length of this entry. You might have to find a sticky note and bookmark your screen when you need a break. ;) But before I say anything else, I hope that all of you are doing well... and that my family and friends in the colder portions of the United States... are finally warming up a bit. Second, I hope that you all had a wonderful Easter!
Family Life...
We are all doing well. We battled strep on numerous occasions the last few months... and at one point everybody but me developed it in the same month. I finished both my classes 2 weeks ago and have been enjoying a nice little break. My next class starts the end of May and will last through July. Mike has been back at work and his foot only gives him occasional pain. He is still attending physical therapy once a week.
Aidan...
Aidan had his Cub Scouts Pine Wood Derby meet in March. Mike had to help him with some of the cuts... but Aidan did almost all the work on his car. We were really proud of him. He worked so hard on it. Once we weighed in, he came in light and we had to improvise by taping 26 pennies to the back end of Aidan's car. Afterward, he received a certificate "The Blue and Gold Award" for his use of cub scout colors on his car.
OOOOPPPS... "What do you mean you are grading papers now?"
Aidan is a reader like both his mom and dad. At any given moment, his nose will be in a book. He often tries to sneak a "read" in after I shut the lights off for the night. Aidan completed the Harry Potter series (Junior high level books) in just a few weeks and those are some pretty big books!! Recently, Aidan completed his assignment ahead of most of his class and decided to read. He became so engrossed in the book that he did not realize that the class had moved on... way on... and were almost through grading the assignment. Aidan brought a note home from his teacher about the incident and I had to have the "I know you enjoy reading... but..." conversation with him. I am glad these are the only types of conversations I have to have with him about his behavior at school. He is such a good kid!
Caitlin...
Making Strawberry Shortcake
Due to repeat bouts of strep throat (one case caused scarlet Fever) and the suspicion that she had sleep apnea... Caitlin had surgery mid-March to remove her tonsils and reduce the size of her adenoids. The doctor said that the adenoids completely covered her nasal passages at the back of her nose. Caitlin did have sleep apnea and it explained why she had trouble sleeping through the night, awoke frequently with headaches and snored. It was a rough surgery for her and she spent the first ten days refusing to take medication and drink (we did not attempt eating until the second week). We had to do a lot of coaxing. On average it took about 5-10 minutes to get her to take 1 1/2 tsp of medication. I also resorted to spoon feeding her strawberry milkshakes. By the second week her progress improved rapidly and we are now hoping that she remains strep free and begins to sleep through the night.
"All I want for Easter and my birthday are my two front teeth!"
Caitlin lost both her front teeth. Her Aunt Tracy happened to notice that she lost one of them while eating dinner. One minute it was there and the next minute it was gone. Our guess is she swallowed it and did not realize it. The tooth fairy is taking a pass on this one!
We celebrated Caitlin's birthday (somewhat) subtly on Easter. My neighbor made Caitlin a very cute pink monkey cake and Mike made his traditional homemade vanilla ice cream. It is hard to believe she is seven now. Where does time go?
Ewan...
Super Heroes and Sleeping Habits...
Like all four year old boys... Ewan is fascinated with super heroes. He has even started including this fascination in his sleeping habits. Who ever decided super heroes needed to wear their underwear on the outside of their clothing anyway? He is probably going to be really mad at me for posting this someday... but I am willing to risk the wrath... it's too cute! Anyway... He has to be a super hero to sleep on the hard floor with no pillow and his feet facing a different direction than his face.
"Buzz pants"
Ewan's Eyes...
We recently had another follow-up visit with the eye specialist regarding Ewan's eyes. In order to strengthen his left eye, Ewan has been wearing a patch 4 hours a day since December. Even with Ewan hating his patch and at times fighting wearing it, the doctor and I were very pleased that Ewan's left eye made improvements once again. These are his stats since last September... notice the difference between Sept 09 and April 10...
September '09: Right Eye - 20/40, Left Eye - 20/400
December '09: Right Eye - 20/20, Left Eye - 20/80
April '10: Right Eye -20/20, Left Eye - 20/70
I also decided to put Ewan into Speech Therapy with a private therapist. My experience has been that more progress is made with a private speech therapist because they also help parents work on speech appropriately at home. I am sure his therapist with the school is good... but she hasn't tried to involve me in the process even when I have asked what I should be doing at home. Obviously since Ewan talks at home... we have to continue to support his speech progression and need to know how to do it... or progression will not happen as quickly. The private therapist, Sonia... (Aidan's therapist when he was young)... is wonderful and teaches me how to encourage Ewan's speech development at home. Plus, We can continue through the summer with her, whereas the school district doesn't offer summer support.
Outside the speech building
Other possibly interesting tidbits of news...
The Massive O.J. Spill... (No... O.J Simpson did not spill his guts... but something else sure did)...
Someone recently told me I also need to include the mishaps in our family life. While I usually like to keep my blog upbeat so as not to sound like I am complaining... I decided to share this moment. I think this was my weakest moment in a very long time. I was busily working on a research paper for one of my classes. Mike was gone and the kids were home playing about the house. Ewan came to me and asked for orange juice... to which I replied, "yes, hunny... I will get it in a minute". Well... I was so wrapped up in my paper that I did not realize Ewan had decided to help himself and pulled out an entire brand new gallon of O.J. from the fridge. He made it to the table and when he tried to lift it... he dropped it and it burst open on my floor. I had a flood of orange juice stretching from one side of my kitchen to the other side. All I could do was cry... then I took a picture. Crazy, huh? I threw some towels over the mess, cried some more and then went and took a shower... and can you guess what else? I cried in the shower. Then Mike came home and was irritated that I left the mess on the floor to take a shower... so I cried some more and then I took a nap. Okay... I guess that's enough of that story... you get the picture... I was a crying mess. I felt bad later because the kids had never seen me cry like that. At first Ewan went into hiding (fearing he was going to get in trouble) and then they all immediately stopped their bickering and cleaned their rooms. Hhhmmmm... Mommy note to myself...Cry, sob really loud and exclaim, "I just can't handle this!" when you want your kids to be on their best behavior and do what you ask.
Hailin' at our House...
A rainstorm rolled in and we were treated to the rare occurrence of hail. Of course the kids and I had to go play in it. Afterward, there was a beautiful full rainbow.
If it's broke - fix it... if it's not broke, well then... fix it better!
So this year we decided to take on the major project of tapping, texturing and painting our living room, kitchen, the hall between the kids rooms and our master bedroom. We never did like the papered dry wall that was installed when this home was originally built. It was a major project and we spent several weeks with all our furniture pushed into the middle of our rooms. It was a trying few weeks and we are glad it's over. I chose a tan paint called Pecan Sandie for the walls to contrast with the white trim and black accents. We are almost finished now. We only have some minor things to complete (trim, plinths under cabinets, counter tops) and we couldn't be happier with how our home is starting to become what we have envisioned in our heads.
Easter bounding by...
I had Easter dinner at my house this year and combined it with Caitlin's birthday since it was the day before Easter. I ended up with a house full... 26 people crowded into our little home and I loved every minute of it. There is nothing more enjoyable than being surrounded by friends and family. I hope all of you that attended found the afternoon equally enjoyable? My cousins brought candy eggs to do an Easter egg hunt for all the kids. Oh... and Danielle... we found several more candy eggs that you hid almost a week and a half after Easter. :) You will have to hide eggs for us again next year!
If you build it, they will come...
ahhh... okay... I fibbed... maybe not...
Awaiting "Budderfies"
Since I have more free time... I have been taking the kids to Lowe's Build and Grow and Home Depot's kids workshops. These are free workshops that both stores host where parents help their kiddos build a wood project. My favorite project was building the butterfly houses. This is a little house with narrow slits for butterflies to slip in, eat and escape predators and heat. We built them at Home Depot and brought them home to paint them. Ewan was the first to complete his house and was so proud of it. We promptly located a place in my garden to hang his butterfly house. I then told him we needed to put a banana in their so the butterflies would come to his house. We carefully sliced and placed a banana in the house and hung it back up in my garden. Ewan spent the next hour outside watching the house and calling out, "Budderfies... budderfies... come to your new house! There is food in there... Where are you budderfies?"" Finally, I decided to go break the news to him that it might be a long time before the butterflies find his house that he built for him and maybe he should come back inside.
We also were able to get Joey Logano's autograph at another Home depot workshop. He is the youngest Nascar car driver (19 years old) and drives the Home Depot car. The kids were able to build a model of the Home Depot Nascar that Joey drives and get it autographed.
Ewan did a great job dressing this day... notice his shirt is
from Disney's Cars movie and has Lightning
McQueen saying, "Speed. I am speed"
Pyromania! (well... not quite!)
My chiminea fire
I lit my first fire in my chiminea... with a match... all by myself!! So you might be saying right about now "Big Deal!". Well for me... it was a big deal. Every time I have to light a fire, I actually feel a ball of fear in my tummy. Many of you may not know this... but the first match I ever lit was at my Grandma B.'s house in Illinois. I had to be in 3rd or 4th grade at the time. My cousin Tim (also close in age to me) was lighting and extinguishing matches in the living room. I asked to try... struck the match... and as soon as it lit... I threw it in fear. Well, Tim promptly stomped it out on the carpet and fortunately, there wasn't "much" of a singe mark (at least that I remember). My next experience came in 5th grade science when my teacher (Mrs. Dilday) told me that I needed to light a bunson burner with a match. I vaguely remembering telling her that I couldn't do it, to which she insisted that I could and I would. By gosh and by golly... I did light that match... and then I promptly threw it into Anna's seat next to me. Fortunately, Anna was a quick mover and hopped out of her seat before the match landed. Needless to say, the matches were removed from my care and Mrs. Dilday lit my bunson burner for me. It's a good thing that I did not live in man's earlier days... because I would not have been able to cook! I spent many more years happy to not have anything to do with fire, until while in college... my friend Rich laughed at me when I told him I was too afraid to light a match. He then promptly taught me how to use a lighter. Okay... now lighters aren't that bad and I did manage to successfully use them on occasion (without throwing them).
