Picture post

It was a frosty and very chilly morning yesterday.

Harry wearing the cashmere hat Auntie E knit for Evan last winter.

Hat hair is so much fun

This was supposed to be a picture of the boys sharing and taking turns. I wanted to have it just in case they never share anything again. Sadly, I did not grab the camera fast enough and the brief moment was gone. At least they are not screaming and crying in this picture.

Harry making mommy jealous with his bending and balancing skills. If I bent over like that I would have fallen on my face.

Quite the morning

This morning Evan had a bloody nose. I was trying to get lunch done (so I guess is was more afternoonish) and Evan was having a fit that it was not going fast enough. I send him off to sit down so that he could calm down when the next thing I know he has blood all over the front of his shirt and big fat drops more coming out of his nose.

It is not easy to stop a bloody nose in a very reluctant toddler who would have been happy to just sit there and bleed. He did not want me to put any sort of tissue up there and was not wanting me to pinch his nose shut. I was glad that my neighbor was not home because she might have thought I was murdering someone the noise was so loud. I had to restrain his entire body and pinch the nostrils shut, no easy feat now that he is getting bigger and stronger. Once he exhausted himself I was able to pack some toilet paper in his nose and ace bandage his good arm to his side. He then calmly watched the computer screen saver while I finished lunch. I wanted to make good and sure that a clot had formed since I did not fancy a trip to the Emergency Room.

I think this whole event was a combination of bad genetics and blood thinners. I checked Evan's INR, which was fine, so it was caused by the dry winter air. My husband and I were plagued by bloody noses as kids. I have grown out of it mostly but sometimes my husband will still randomly start bleeding. I emailed Evan's cardiologist and I got some great tips to hopefully prevent the next event.

Excuse me, while I run off to mop the blood off of my floor. CSI would have a field day in my house.

A classic blunder

Ha ha! You fool! You fell victim to one of the classic blunders! The most famous is never get involved in a land war in Asia, but only slightly less well-known is this: never go in against a Sicilian when death is on the line! Ha ha ha ha ha ha ha! Ha ha ha ha ha ha ha! Ha ha ha...

I am adding another to the list of classic blunders. Never go up against Awesome Mom in trivia, especially science fiction trivia. I seem to have a wicked memory for all sorts of odd facts. This is something that my husband discovered today.

As I mentioned above I am very much into science fiction literature and tv shows. I grew up watching Star Trek: The Next Generation along with other sundry science fiction shows. I learned to discover actors that appear in more than one show even if in one show they were heavily coated in makeup and odd masks. My husband checked out the entire first season of Farscape from the base library and we have been watching it all week. He is also a fan of Stargate (a show which I like but would not go out of my way to watch). We have to get all of our sci fi shows in reruns because we are too cheap to spend the money for the good cable so we are not really up on the latest shows. We had not seen an episode of Stargate in awhile but there happened to be one on tv and imagine my surprise when one of the new main character of that show looked awfully familiar. The main character was Ben Browder who was also the main character of Farscape.

My husband was incredulous. I had to finally look online to get him to stop denying the obvious. I had no idea why he would not believe me since it was not like Ben Bowder was in any alien makeup at all in either show. Stargate and Farscape also share another common actress Claudia Black who has a reoccurring but semi-minor role in Stargate but is the love interest for Ben Browder's character in Farscape.

He then moved on to discussing Star Trek with me. He said that we should add it to our collection of TV shows. He mentioned that there were probably tons of seasons to collect. I of course had to beg to differ. I knew that the Star Trek had not even run for the five seasons that were hinted at with the whole "five year mission" in the introduction. I was not entirely sure exactly how many seasons had run but I knew it was not the seven seasons my husband was thinking of (which of course any trekkie knows is the standard length for the spin off Star Trek shows excepting Enterprise) . Wikipedia solved that argument by stating that the show had run for three years. Score another one for Awesome Mom. Who knew there was still some brains left in me after having two kids? I sure did not.

I am giving an autographed picture of my kids to whomever can guess what movie the above quote came from.

Pediatric Grand Rounds

Pediatric Grand Rounds is up at Parenting Solved. I particularly enjoyed the posts submitted by Sandy Szwarc who has a blog called Junkfood Science. It reminds us all to be a bit more critical of what read in the news.

Laundry and pictures

The Laundress was bemoaning her seemingly enormous pile of laundry so to make her feel better I am posting a picture of my own pile of laundry that is awaiting folding. Of course after I took the picture I enlisted the help of my husband in removing said pile from my hall way but, for the record, I will admit to it have been in existence for several days. I added Harry into the picture so that I could simultaneously appeal to the segment of my readership that only comes here to look at pictures of my cute children.



Old things have become new again. My sister E bought a couple of pop up tent type things for Evan as a gift for his second birthday. He had fun going in and out of them but eventually they were put under the stairs to make room for other larger toys. While I was trying to do a bit of organizing under the stairs I pulled them back out and they became an instant hit. Harry got a bit rough with them knocking them over so I had to clothespin a blanket to them to help keep them in place. The blanket makes them seem more cave like so it only adds to the fun. Evan also likes to bounce his sippy cup on the top of them.

Bust my buffers!

Apparently I have almost missed delurking week here in the blog world. Luckily it ends tomorrow so I still have a bit of time to try and squeeze a few comments out of my readers. Please leave a comment or question even. You would not want to make Evan or Harry (possibly both) cry. If there is something that you are dying to know about me feel free to make a request, the worst I can do is say no after all.

Transitioning your child off of tube feeding

I have received several Google hits on this subject. I thought that I would share the things that worked for Evan in the hopes that someone may find it useful. This is what worked for us, each child is an individual and what worked for us may not work for someone else. It is important that the child's GI doctor is consulted when you make drastic changes in your child's feeding schedule and diet.

Evan was not a hard case. His eating issues stemmed from several different sources. His number one issue was his heart defect. It is hard to develop much of an appetite when your heart is working hard to make sure that everything is being oxygenated properly. He also had to deal with reflux when he was an infant (he spit up a lot and very frequently). Small frequent meals were all he could manage during the day. He would not show any sings of hunger so I had to keep him on a schedule or he would go hours with out eating. He made up the calories he was not taking in during the day with a tube feeding while he was sleeping at night. All this led to him having very little stomach capacity. If he attempted to eat a lot of something that he liked his stomach could not handle the large amounts and would end up throwing up. We had to do something to stretch his stomach before we could get him off of tube feeds.

Evan's doctor and I decided to switch from feeding him a small amount per hour over a long period of time at night to giving him bolus feeds (a larger amount over a shorter period of time) during the day time. We would gradually speed up the bolus feed and increase how much we gave at one time. A lot of throwing up ensued when mommy or daddy pushed him too much during a bolus feed but eventually he was able to take eight ounces of Pedisure over a half hour. The doctor had deemed this our ultimate goal since kids his age were able to take in that much on a regular basis.

Once we knew that his stomach had the capacity we started dropping how much Pedisure he was getting. As we did so his weight was carefully watched so that we could see if he was compensating for the calories that he was not getting from his tube. Every time he was weighed I would hold my breath hoping that he was still gaining. Every time he was which made me very happy.

You can see that Evan's transition off of the tube was rather smooth. We did not have any oral aversions or strong texture issues to deal with. I think that my insistence that he eat orally during the day helped that since, even with tube fed kids, oral stimulation is still very important. I also think that having him get the feel of real food in his mouth was important. A dietitian that I saw to get ideas on how to boost Evan's calorie intake wanted me to feed him more pedisure. I did not want to have Evan on only pedisure since as good as a formula can be it is still artificial. I felt the he needed a variety of real food in his diet to keep him healthy and happy.

I hope that this is helpful to someone some day. I think that with out reading about the things other parents were trying I would have gone insane with worry and frustration especially since early on we ended up with a GI doctor that was not very interested in helping us transition Evan off of the tube. Once we got a more caring doctor that was willing to work with me and listen to me things really started taking off. Evan is now a pretty normal picky toddler that hates to eat his vegetables.

Evan enjoying a tube feed while watching a video. It was the only way we could keep him still in his chair long enough to give him his bolus feed.

Hi Honey!

I hope that today is much busier today that it was yesterday. It must stink to be so bored at work that you have nothing better to do than read my blog for entertainment. You might want to cover your tracks so that your buddies at work do not know that you can fit a whopper in your belly button.

Whee

I have had the best Sunday ever! Well maybe that is a bit of an exaggeration but it was pretty dang good. After an entire year of going to church when my kids should be napping the change to the 9-12 schedule was very welcome.

The biggest drawback to the new schedule presented it's self when I got up in the morning. My husband after a long discussion of our wake up time in the morning had not actually set his alarm. Luckily the kids got up early enough that we were not running around like madmen trying to get to church on time. Actually, not having to be up at a specific time is something that I see as a perk of being a stay at home mother. It is a bit annoying to have to be up every week at the same time. Waa I am such a whiner, I know.

Evan was thrown off by the new order to the meetings. He is used to coming in and going straight to nursery for two hours of playing. He started crying when we went right to the chapel for Sacrament meeting. He was inconsolable until I pulled the yogurt raisins from the diaper bag. We continued to stuff the kids with snacks and actually were able to sit through the entire meeting with minimal disturbances. Even did let out a loud "uh oh" right before the sacrament prayer. It was all I could do to not laugh out loud. I could see the people in front of us trying to hold in laughter too.

Nursery was lovely! I did not have to clean up after the ward that met before us since we are first now. I also did not have to worry as much about sobbing cranky toddlers. Towards the end the kids were getting tired but it was not the normal over tiredness that I had been dealing with in the past.

The best part was coming home at a decent time. We were able to have a nice lunch and then everyone (except for my non nap taker husband) took a lovely Sunday afternoon nap. We are now all happily playing and relaxing before the start of dinner. I think next year we will just start going to the other ward when they have our lovely morning church time because I love it that much.

Gah!

I love my husband, I really do but I am soo ready for him to go back to work already. I want to get my schedule back and stop all the lazing around. When my husband is home I am much more tempted to stay up too late since I know that he will get up with the kids. Now that Harry is on all solids I know that I will even get to sleep in some (Harry would not take a bottle from my husband unless he was starving to death so sleeping in was not an option for me). We also hardly go anywhere when my husband is at home. My morning excursions often revolve around walking with one of my mommy friends so a husband coming with makes for awkward conversation. I am looking forward to Monday.

Awesome Mom rocks the house

This morning

Ring ring! Husband answers the phone while I am brushing my teeth and then hands it to me.

"Hi this is Really Annoying Dental School. We are calling to reschedule Evan's appointment (which took me months to even get since they are ultra slow with the whole paperwork thing). We are going to be short staffed that week."

Awesome Mom hastily spits out the toothpaste and walks over to the calender thinking that the new appointment would be a mere few days later.

"The earliest we have is the 29th of January"

Awesome Mom is happy that she spit out the toothpaste because she would have spit out any liquid in her mouth due to her great surprise. She starts getting angry and mentally puts on her battle gear.

"Is that the earliest you have? We have been waiting for this appointment for a long time."

Awesome Mom's first attack is weak, she is trying to feel out her opponent's strengths and weaknesses.

"Yes that is. "

The opponent deftly blocks Awesome Mom's attack and prepares to make one of her own.

"We tried calling you in December but no one answered" she smugly added.

Awesome Mom smells weakness and goes in for the kill.

"Why didn't I get a message on my answering machine then? I would have called you back if I had known you wanted to talk to me about rescheduling"

Awesome Mom's attack is vicious and brutal. Her opponent is sorely wounded by the logic of Awesome Mom's attack.

Silence and then "Well I can highlight you and if there is a cancellation that day we will give you a call."

The victory is not as strong as Awesome Mom had hoped but she allows her opponent to leave the battle arena saving some face.

A little while later

Ring Ring. Awesome Mom answers the phone.

"This is Really Annoying Dental School. I found an opening the next week at the same time as your original appointment, Do you want that appointment?"

Awesome Mom smiles and the crowd goes wild. She emerges victorious from the bloody battle.

My darlin Clementine

I have never been a big fan of oranges or other types of citrus. I like lemons and limes but they are not the kind of fruit that you peel and eat. Oranges just had too much white stuff left on them after you peeled them. My obsessive peeling personality would not let me eat them until they were completely free of the white gunk. Grapefruit was just....... well we will not even go there. I do buy them now and then because my husband loves to peel them and eat them like oranges.

On a bit of a lark I bought a few tangerines for the kids to eat. I was wanting to branch out a bit in the kinds of fruit we ate and tangerines were perfectly kid sized. The big downfall I discovered was that they had seeds that had to be removed before the kids could eat them. When I heard about clementines (which are seedless tangerines) I was overjoyed. It was the perfect solution to the whole seed problem.

Evan lost interest in tangerine eating just after I made the trek to Trader Joe's to buy a box of clementines. Harry decided that he still liked the juice but had no actual interest in eating the whole thing so I was left with a bunch of fruit that I did not want to go to waste. I decided to take the plunge and eat one. They were especially bred so that they were easy to peel. That meant that there was very little white gunk to peel off. I took one bite and was in heaven. I am now a citrus convert and am happily eating my way through the box.

The first day of the year

It is the first day of the new year and I think that we are off to a pretty good start. I already have one goal mostly achieved off of my list of goals for the year thanks to my darling husband who was looking for something in the horror that was under our stairs and decided to clean while he was looking. I will go and tidy up a tad more and call it good. Mostly I think we need to have a better place for all of our throw blankets (you know what I am talking about right? The smallish blankets that you snuggle under when you are watching tv). We have to keep them hidden from Evan who likes to eat them. They also seem to be breeding because we started out with two and now we have four.

I also went walking today after slacking completely during the holidays. Harry is still doing his two nap thing so I was able to just take Evan along in our single stroller (my husband is still on holiday hours at work and only has to work one day this week so he stayed home and played computer games while Harry slept. Of course Harry woke up the instant I got back from the walk. My husband lives a charmed life sometimes). It was amazing how much faster I could walk when not pushing 50+ pounds of children in a boat of a double stroller. The double stroller is nice but it is a monster to turn. It was also neat being able to listen to my wonderful shiny iPod while walking. I felt like showing all the people I passed my new toy.

I hope that this great day is a sign of things to come.

Evan playing tonight while I was making dinner. This is a super nifty toy that my parents bought for Evan. Thomas will follow the tracks that you put on the mat and can actually search for the track if he looses it which happens often since Evan loves to sit on the mat instead of by the mat. Sometimes Thomas has to take "naps" because the music drives mommy nuts.

New Year goals

I have a thing against New Year resolutions. I tried year after year making and then shortly breaking them. Eventually I gave up even trying to make them in the first place. I just started making and setting goals through out the year. I decided that I needed to exercise more this year so I started walking once a week with a friend. I have since then started walking twice a week and am planning on trying three times a week. That proves to me that I can make and accomplish goals so I am going to make an attempt to set a few goals for me to accomplish by this time next year.

1. I will get my sewing machine fixed. It has been broken since before Evan was born and I would like to get it working so I can finish the quilt I am working on.
2. I will get new glasses. I have needed new ones for years now but every time I got ready to go to get new ones I got pregnant which means I had to wait.
3. I will go to see the dentist regularly. I have been putting it off since Evan has so many doctor's appointments it is hard to have to go for myself too.
4. I will organize my downstairs. This is our living area and it can get quite chaotic. I want to have more control over the toy mess. I want to tame the under our stairs mess, we pretty much cram stuff under there just to put it somewhere. As I just finished typing that my husband actually started cleaning up under our stairs completely on his own.
   
5. I will get rid of all the junk that is sitting in our garage. We have already decided that we do not need it anymore we just need to take the next step which is to give it to charity.
6. I want to enrich my spiritual life. I have been slacking when it comes to reading the Scriptures. Since I am now in the nursery I am not getting any sort of lessons taught to me on Sunday so I really need to do some studying on my own.

I think that this is a nice manageable list of things to do. I am hopeful that next year I will be able to report a successful completion of my list.

Pediatric Grand Rounds

Pediatric Grand Rounds is up over at Breath Spa for Kids. Shinga has put up another wonderful edition. Something worth checking out is Dr. Flea's series of posts on the diseases kids are currently vaccinated for. It sure makes you glad for modern medicine.

I am such a nerd

I am a complete and utter nerd. If you were not convinced by my nerd score you will be by the end of this post.

I have discovered the fun of podcasts. They are free and there are so many interesting subjects that I can hardly contain myself. I just spent a good hour browsing and subscribing to some so I can listen to them while I am taking the kids out for stroller rides.

I love Forum (a call in radio show on my local NPR station). I used to get to listen to it a lot in the car but now it seems like I am never in the car when the show is on and I can never remember to listen to it at home. Now I get to listen to people discuss an amazing range of topics. I think it will be neat to have a chance to listen to more of the NPR shows that I like but can't always catch all the time.

One surprising podcast that I found is presented by a cat veterinarian. I actually volunteered at this guy's clinic eons ago back when I was young and starry eyed. I wanted to be a vet when I grew up so I was eager to get all the experience I could. This guy was amazing with cats. He could spay a female cat incredibly fast, it was truly amazing to watch. He was also a very funny and interesting person to talk to. He had me laughing through most of the time I spent with him. I am very excited to listen to him.

You should go check them out. Even if you do not have an iPod you can still listen to podcasts on your computer.

Well now

I can't say I am all that surprised at this score.

Fish!!!

Evan had an appointment with his cardiologist today. It was a simple follow up to make sure that everything was fine with his pacemaker. Since my parents are in town and my husband had the day off work I thought it would be fun for us to play tourist and see some of the sights.

I had originally thought that we could do to the zoo. We had an awful rain storm yesterday and it was super windy today so we switched it to something more indoors. Since the boys love fish we decided that going to the aquarium would be lots of fun. Harry got so into the spirit of things that he added the word fish to his vocabulary. Evan was so excited that he thought nothing of walking the whole time (which is something that would not have happened before his surgery). We finished up the trip with a lunch of fish and chips forgoing the traditional clam chowder for something we knew both boys would love.

It was very neat that a lot of the tanks were low enough that little kids could look in with out having to be held up to see.

This is Harry and my mother in the tunnel part of the aquarium. Harry was very excited to see fish swimming over his head.

This was the touch part of the aquarium. Harry wanted to go swimming withe the leopard sharks that were in the tank. The sharks were smooth if you pet them front to back. If you tried stroking them the wrong way then the skin felt like sand paper.

Evan was very excited that he was finally able to touch something. He was too little to reach into the shark tank with out going in up past his arm and possibly falling in to boot. Starfish in a tidal pool were much more his speed.

Harry is really into puppets so he was quite excited to see this shark puppet in the gift shop. He threw a huge fit when it had to be taken from him to be payed for.

This last picture is for you Gina. I had no idea you and your husband kept a boat here. You claim to live in Southern California but I am kinda wondering.

My new toy

My lovely wonderful parents bought me an iPod nano for Christmas. I have been having fun for the last few days digging up my music collection and putting them on my ultra tiny and super slim mp3 player. My music collection is not all that extensive but it seems a bit weird that I will be able to fit it all in the palm of my hand. My nano also has solitaire on it which is a strangely exciting thing. Evan had a doctor's appointment today and I was able to play a few games while he was playing in the waiting room. To him it did not look like I was doing anything all that interesting so he left me in peace which was quite nice.

What cool things did you get from Santa?

P.S. My sisters all chipped in and got me a medical book with pediatric diseases and treatments. I also have my own pediatric dosing handbook so I am now set to ditch all the doctors and treat my kids all on my own. Kidding!

Merry Christmas!

I hope those of my readers that celebrate Christmas are having a wonderful holiday. We have had a nice quiet holiday at home. My parents will be coming over tomorrow to have a bit of fun with the grandkids. Our holiday has been pretty nice aside from the fact that apparently I took no thought beyond what our main dish would be for our Christmas dinner. We bought a marinated turkey breast at Costco but I did not even get any side dishes planned or anything. I ended up scrambling at the last second and digging deep into our freezer for items that I had long ago forgotten. It was a fairly passable meal aside from my feeling that the turkey was not cooked quite enough but my husband insisting that it was. He hates dry turkey after years of eating it so I deferred to him.

My pushy sister E (the same one that pulled me out of a tree) called us just as I was getting dinner on the table wondering why I had not posted pictures of the boys opening presents. I am only giving in to her since she can still mess with my present as it is coming with my parents on the plane tomorrow. After tomorrow I am so going to ignore her demands.

Evan and Harry in their Christmas church clothing on Christmas Eve day.

Our Christmas Eve candle light dinner. In my husband's family they have the big meal Christmas Eve and it is basically a junk food dinner although my husband took offense when I used that term to describe it. Silly man!

Evan opening Annie and Claribel on Christmas Eve. Evan has so many engines in his train collection that I thought he could use some cars for the engines to pull.

Harry opening his present on Christmas Eve. I ended up wrapping a few cheap present for him since he would not be getting any presents until my parents came. My inlaws bought the boys a train track set that they have been playing with for awhile now.

Harry enjoying his video. Mommy and daddy let the kiddos stay up waay too late on Christmas Eve in the hopes that they would sleep in.... they didn't.

Christmas morning. Evan got some Thomas coloring books and some parts for his Mr. Potato Head.

Harry having fun playing with Evan's presents while he is not looking.

Strange things

My husband remarked at dinner tonight that it was a bit strange seeing Harry cram his face with food using both hands. We are still so used to seeing Evan daintily picking food up with his right hand. I still dress Harry like I am compensating for a gimpy left hand. I just can't break the habit. I often have to remind myself that he can help me get both of his arms into the sleeves.

Another difference is that Harry at the end of a meal has two dirty hands instead of one. I guess that would be the one advantage to having a child with one working hand. I have actually taken advantage of this fact on occasion. When we want to hold Evan down for some procedure or another we never have to worry about the other arm. This is especially nice for blood draws. If they use his good arm to draw from all I have to worry about is keeping the rest of his body still.

Seeing Harry as he is growing into his own little person is fun. It is so much different than with Evan. I think we are heading for some big shocks since I have already seen Harry try to run, something that Evan has yet to master. He also looks like he might be a climber. I have seen him ponder things that are climbable with a gleam in his eyes. I just hope that he is not too hard on his poor parents we are still rookies in so many ways.

A busy rainy day

I had my final baking before Christmas push today. I chopped a huge bowl of apples so that I could make four pies and another batch of apple butter. I got a lot done because Harry decided to sleep most of the day. I think he could be going through a growth spurt.

We have been waiting for several weeks for approval for more physical therapy for Evan. The PT had faxed all the paperwork several time and heard nothing. Today she called the insurance company to see what was going on. Apparently the paperwork had been just sitting there ignored. *steams shoots out of my ears in frustration* I try not to complain too much about our insurance company since a lot is covered. The have been pretty good for the most about getting things approved on time and what not. It seems that they have really dropped the ball when it comes to physical therapy because we have had nothing but trouble and delays every time we need a new approval for more therapy.

I also found out that the other cardiologist is leaving the practice. He was a nice guy and I hate to see him go. I am sure the new doctor will be nice and all but she will not have been there since Evan was a baby. When he was first in the hospital both cardiologists took care of him equally. It was not until Evan was sent home that he was assigned to a cardiologist for follow up (she has a clinic in a near by city every month which is why we go to her). He has also done all of Evan's caths so we have had a continuing relationship with him.

Evan and I had a lot of fun walking in the rain to deliver a few of the pies. He loves to play in the puddles. One of the people in the complex put one of those giant inflatable snowmen out on the front lawn so we had to go see that too. It is kind of sad that Evan has yet to see a real snowman with real snow. Last time we were in Utah during the winter snow was very lacking.

Pictures and the first word

My lovely sister has demanded new pictures of the kiddos. I am only caving in to her since it really has been awhile since I have posted new pictures.

Harry is finally getting the hang of the whole sippy cup concept. He is now down to one bottle before bed and that is mostly a comfort thing.

Harry's first encounter with oatmeal. It was quite a hit.

Bowls are really fun to play with.

Harry and Evan playing Christmas carols at the birthday party we went to this morning.

"Let's play Jingle Bells next!"

It is official Harry has said his first word and that word is "bubble". I am pretty strict when it comes to the official first word. I require an outsider to independently confirm what I already suspect. At Thanksgiving my Mother-in-law swore that she heard Harry saying "ball" but to my husband and I it sounded more like "ba" and was not in context. I have also been hearing "wow" but not always in context. This morning, at the party, my friend told me that she heard Harry (who was off in the kitchen pulling out all the Tupperware in my friend's cabinet) say bubble while he was holding the bottle of bubbles that had been handed out as a party favor. Bubbles are also a fixture at our house. I call them the toddler tamers since I can blow some and all the crying will magically stop. It makes sense that something that he enjoys so much is his first word.

And the most annoying phone call of the month goes to....

The company that is supplying Evan's Synagis this winter. (applause) This company is more "hands on" that the last two from the previous cold and flu seasons. They call me every month to make sure that we have not moved on them and to tell me when the arrival date of the shipment should be. They even offer a service that will remind parents to call the pediatrician and set up an appointment to get the shot. Like I really need that. Luckily I convinced the nurse that called me about the service that I was a competent person and could make appointments on my own like a big girl.

I think that I would not be as annoyed with the calling if they would actually deliver the dang Synagis on time. The first time it was a day or so late but last time it was a whole week late. That was a whole week that Evan was vulnerable to the virus. I had also managed to get everything set up so that Evan's shots and Harry's well baby check ups were all at the same time. I had to make an extra trip to the office just for the shot. This company had the nerve to send me a survey asking me to rate how they were doing before we had even received any kind of service from them.

The most annoying monthly phone calls ever award goes to Evan's insurance case manager. Every month for almost a year I got a call from "Angelina" who did not speak the best English, making each call especially frustrating and annoying. She quizzed me every month about how Evan was progressing. Each and every time she had to ask me the same questions many of which she could have answered juts by reading his medical file. I know that she had permission to read it since I signed the papers myself.

After what seemed an eternity she told me that the monthly calls would stop. I took this to mean that she was just not going to call me but what was really happening was that Evan was being taken off of case management. That was fine until Evan's cardiologist's office called her to get something taken care of and she had stopped working there. I was ticked to say the least. Once my husband called to complain the case management people were falling over themselves to make sure that we were satisfied and everything got taken care of extra fast.

One more week

It is one short week until Christmas. I have yet to even send out any Christmas cards. It is the thought that counts right?

Since I have become a mother my mind always turns to Mary during the Christmas season. There are a lot of pressures on any parent, but it must have been pretty scary at times knowing that you were going to be the mother of Christ. I wonder how she managed to do it.

I am such a sucker for big brown eyes

Today I did a bit of Christmas shopping for my husband. We decided to get each other small gifts so we could have at least one thing to open. I took Evan with me since he loves to be my shopping buddy. One of the stores I went to happened to have a nice selection of Thomas the Train stuff. It was a discount store which made everything more dangerous since the items were heavily discounted. I ended up buying a lot more than I should have just because Evan was so dang excited about everything.

The item I regret buying the most was a silly computer game which was a mere three dollars. Now every time I even approach the computer he thinks I am going to play train with him. He was already addicted to the Thomas website. The funny thing is that he is not even interested in playing the games himself. He is content to let Mommy play them while he happily sits and watches. I wish he would do that with a computer game that I am actually interested in playing. He is also not very into reading blogs with me which makes doing anything on the computer while he is awake a difficult task. I tried looking up a recipe for dinner tonight and he ended up having a huge temper tantrum since it was not train related.

I really should have saved all this for Evan's birthday but again I am such a sucker for seeing his excitement that I let him play with the books and computer game right away. This is part of the reason that we do not gift heavily during holidays in the first place. I love getting the kids little things through out the year and soaking up the excitement all year long. At their tender ages it really does not take much to get them laughing which is very nice. I think that I will have to rethink things as they get older since I can't have them thinking that every time they want something I will just go out and buy it. I do not intend to raise spoiled little brats. Those eyes just get me every single time so it will be interesting to see how strong my resolve will be.

How rude!!! (updated with more pictures at the bottom)

I found out last night while chatting with my mom online that not only did she open my presents early but my evil sisters did too! I know they are reading this blog so I am going to put them on notice. I am not sending presents next year until after Christmas. That way you HAVE to wait like I am waiting to open presents. If you are going to cheat you should at least have the decency to send us our presents so we can open them early.

Part of the presents were the ultra cute Christmas pictures that I had done awhile back. I did not post them on here since I did not want to ruin the surprise. Now the point is very moot so enjoy blogsphere!

Meme

The Laundress has tagged me with Ms. Cathy's Christmas meme. Here ya go, more than you ever wanted to know about my Christmas preferences.

1. Hot Chocolate or Egg Nog? Hot Chocolate all the way baby!!! First off it is chocolate, second the taste of egg nog makes me gag. I buy a gallon of egg nog every year for my husband but I never touch the stuff.

2. Does Santa wrap presents or just sit them under the tree? Well Santa has yet to visit us. I am still deciding if I am going to even teach the kiddos about Santa. I think that if I delay long enough the problem will go away.

3. Colored lights on tree/house or white? Colored on the tree, white on the house.

4. Do you hang mistletoe? I try to but have not found any fresh stuff for this year.

5. When do you put your decorations up? The day after Thanksgiving if we are at home

6. What is your favorite holiday dish? I don't really have one yet.

7. Favorite Holiday memory? I love it any time we can go to Temple Square and see all the holiday lights. picture below

8. When and how did you learn the truth about Santa? I was eight and my father made this big deal about telling me. Quite honestly it was not a huge shock to me. I think that deep inside I already knew.

9. Do you open a gift on Christmas Eve? Of course! My mother was always too impatient to wait until christmas. She is so impatient that she has already confessed to opening the present I sent her (See, I totally outed you to the whole world Mom! Next year I am sending the presents by overnighting them so you can't open them so soon)

10. How do you decorate your Christmas Tree? My husband and I have all our ornaments from when we were kids and we buy the boys one every year. It is a crazy mish mash but it is fun looking at the ornaments and remembering.

11. Snow! Love it or Dread it? Love it but that is because I have never lived all that long in a snowy area. When I lived in Washington I remember praying for the temperatures to drop below freezing so we could get some snow.

12. Can you ice skate? Of course! I am not super good at it but I can go forward in a circle without holding onto the side.

13. Do you remember your favorite gift? My favorite gift was the Pound Puppy that my great grandfather got us when we were little. I still have mine and she slept in my bed until the day I got married.

14. What's the most important thing? Making memories with family and remembering the birth of Christ.

15. What is your favorite Holiday Dessert? French silk pie

16. What is your favorite holiday tradition? The Christmas Eve junk food dinner. This is a tradition that my husband's family does. Once a year they all just pig out on all the stuff you are not supposed to eat. For them it replaced a more traditional Christmas dinner but I insist on something nice and fancy on Christmas day.

17. What tops your tree? an angel

18. Which do you prefer giving or Receiving? Giving! I love watching my family open the presents that I pick out for them. I try very hard to find really good gifts for them.

19. What is your favorite Christmas Song? My favorite Christmas hymn is "O, little Town of Bethlehem" When we sing it I get an amazing peaceful feeling.

20. Candy canes, Yuck or Yum? Yum!!! Well yum if they are fresh, yuck if they were the ones my husband saved from last year to decorate the Christmas tree.

I am tagging Vicky, You da mom!, and Gina.

Home again, home again lickety split

After sleeping off his anesthesia Evan enjoyed a hearty breakfast of apple juice and jello. Then we moved on the the perennial favorite banana. Everything stayed down much to my delight. We then had all the doctors and nurses come in for visits after which we were on our way home. Whee!

We got home in time for lunch and nap time. Evan is pretty gorked out on his Tylenol with codeine so he slept really well. The meds even allowed the pacemaker rep to interrogate it without having to endure a screaming fit. The rep told me that he had been having a bad morning and was dreading having to deal with Evan's hysteria. He was very happy that Evan was being a mellow drugged out little guy.

Whew

Evan's pacemaker replacement went very well. There was a lot of going back and forth about whether he would need to have a lead replaced or not. Evan's cardiologists thought that it should be replaced but his surgeon was reluctant to do it. In the end it was not replaced because the surgeon was not %100 sure that he could even find a good placement for a new lead should he decide to replace it since he was so soon post op from his other surgery.

There was talk of us going home tonight but it was decided that he should stay overnight just to be safe. The pediatric floor then fought with everyone else and wanted to insist that he stay in the PICU for recovery. Everyone else thought it was silly and over kill since all Evan had endured was a cut into his skin. He had not even been intubated or anything major like that. Eventually Evan's doctors won out and we are safely on the pediatric floor which is a much quieter and nicer place to sleep.

Evan is having his usual throwing up after anesthesia issues but seems to have kept his pain medication down. I am hopeful that he will be able to have a meal in the morning once he had had a good night's sleep. Every thing is looking quite good for me to be blogging from home by tomorrow afternoon.

Giggles

I think one of the best parts about being a parent is discovering the many different ways you can make your children laugh. Tickling is very big in our house. My children have inherited my husband's hyper sensitive tickle genes. Evan loves to be tickled and will actually place my hand on his tummy when he wants to be tickled.

There are other less obvious laughter inducing things that get bigger laughs than mere tickling. A dinner time favorite is to have me take my glasses off and make funny faces at the boys. I think it is the combination of me being silly and changing the look of my face by taking off my glasses. The hand monster is also a huge hit, especially with Harry. The hand monster will sneak out from under blankets to prey on unsuspecting feet. It will also walk along dinner tables and try and gobble hands.

A game I call fake sneeze is the bath time favorite although Evan is taking it out into public. Fake sneeze involves one of the boys placing a bath toy onto the side of the bath tub. Mommy then fake sneezes and knocks it back into the bath tub. I have to keep control of this game since Harry has been known to laugh so hard he falls over and risks drowning. The other day I saw Evan throw a toy into the air and then fake sneeze. That was his toddler version of the game. He is also just randomly sneezes and laughs.

The number one thing that is guaranteed to get the kids laughing so hard they can barely stand is called "Daddy throws the yarn ball up the stairs and Mommy throws it back down". DTTYBUTSAMTIBD was discovered quite by accident. I was cleaning with my little helper Harry upstairs. I threw the yarn ball down the stairs because I had been intending on using it to knit with. Evan happened to see it go down and started laughing up a storm. He then tried in his toddler way to throw it back up the stairs. Luckily his efforts were quickly augmented by daddy who had a much stronger arm and could get it to the top of the stairs. Of course I had to throw it back down just for fun. We did this for as long as we could stand the mindless activity and the entire time the kids were laughing hard. Now and then on grumpy days we give that silly yarn ball a toss and everyone feels a lot better.

Too much sugar

We had our ward Christmas party tonight. We were plagued by several mistakes. The first one was that my husband was in such a hurry to get out of the house that he ended up tripping over Evan and dropping the pie I had baked. It was clean but completely broken into pieces. Instead we brought the big plate of gingerbread cookies that I had been baking for something else. My husband grumbled that they were not frosted yet but I did not care at that point.

The next mistake was that we had thought it was a dinner so we had not eaten anything before hand. Evan and Harry got their dream dinner of sweet breads and cookies. I did get some fruit down them first so it was not all a bust.

A surprise of the evening was that Evan got freaked out by Santa. He eagerly ran up to him but once my friend put him on Santa's lap he flipped out. Harry was pretty lukewarm about the fat man and did not stick on his lap for long either. It was pretty fun otherwise. The kids had fun getting all sugared up and we had fun talking with friends.

Hatred

I absolutely loath the last of the new Star Wars movies (I didn't even see it in the theaters even though I am a sci fi fan). Padme looks so slightly pregnant at the end of her supposed pregnancy that is sickens me. I was twice her size and I only had one baby in me. The girl has the nerve to die of grief over the fact that her husband Anikan Skywalker has turned to the dark side? She just ups and dies even though she has two babies to care for? I hardly think so. It would have been more believable to have her hit by a bus than that. I will not even go into all the ultra cheesy dialogue that plagued the entire prequel series.

This post was brought to you by my husband and his love of cheesy movies.

Long day and lots of news

As you all know Evan's pacemaker is on it's last legs. Evan's cardiologist had been hoping that he would be a canidate for a special pacemaker that she thought would help his heart beat better. She referred us to a pediactric pacemaker specalist for a consultation. With all the back and forth stuff involved with that we did not get a call from Really Big Children's Hospital until Monday. I called them back on Tuesday and made an appointment for mid January. Then I get a call back later asking if we could come in today.

The appointment turned out to be quite the ordeal. I was rather nervous to be going to a strange and distant place on my own so my husband got the day off work. The internet directions said the trip should be an hour and a half but the people we talked to said it was closer to two and a half hours due to traffic. I decided that we should just leave three hours early so that we had get lost time. We timed it perfectly and were there only slightly early.

Evan was scheduled for an echo which I was kind of nervous about since he hates them for some reason. It is not the least bit painful, just an ultrasound for the heart. I brought a lot of things to help keep him still. He ended up eating way too many Jr mints but those and a Thomas DVD helped keep him mostly still. The consultation with the doctor went pretty quickly but it was not a quick in and out thing. She stuck around while a nurse practitioner played with Evan's pacemaker settings a bit and helped me entertain him (this is another non painful thing that Evan hates).

The end result was that Evan was not sick enough to warrant the special pacemaker (good news). She had thought that we would be having the pacemaker replaced at her hospital much to my dismay. Luckily when we finally stumbled back into the house at 5:45 (after leaving at 9am) we had a message from Evan's cardiologist's office saying that his surgery was set for this Tuesday.

My head is still spinning and I am exhausted after such a long day. The kids were such troopers and held up well with the crazy schedule or lack there of. I hope that Evan is tired enough not to wake up at 5:30 am for the second day in a row. I am going to be busy this weekend getting everything ready. I also want to bake a bunch of goodies for the nurses at the hospital so I am going to have to get busy.

How to search the web

I, like many other bloggers, have a bit of code in my blog that tracks how people get to my blog. There are a lot of crazy web searchers out there so I thought I would do my part to help the poor misguided people that end up at my blog.

When you are searching for something keep your search simple. Pick out a few key terms and go from there. Less is more in this case. Often i will use only one or two words to find the information that I need. If I get overwhelmed with irrelevant results I will slowly become more and more specific. Example: is normal birth kids are less smarter than cesarean birth kids? This is far too wordy, not to mention that it is grammatically incorrect. Pick out a few words such as "intelligence cesarean" and you will come up with websites like this which has a research study on this very subject.

Next you will want to evaluate the website that you get your information from. Is this website an official website. The article I linked to is in a database of peer reviewed medical studies. It should hold a lot more weight than a personal website like a blog where there is no need for the writer to actually be correct. I can write that the moon is made of cheese but that does not mean anything. I would believe a person that has been to the moon and says that it is made of rock over me who has never even been to the moon.

Scan the blurb where it shows your search terms coming up. If you can't tell if the website has anything to do with what you are searching for then the information is unlikely to be there. Also watch out for sponsored results. The can often have nothing if anything to do with what you are actually looking for.

You also need to see how old the information is. If the article is from 1906 rather than 2006 then you know that things will be out of date. Things change and sometimes even change back so you need to be careful about what you are reading and take it into consideration.

Finally my biggest tip is this: do not go beyond the first two pages of search results. You are wasting your time. The further you go the less relevant the page is to your search. That means quit clicking on my web page hoping to see a picture of Brittany Spear's hooha because it ain't here! I just wrote about a silly dream I had about her.

Sleep is needed part 2

I did manage to get some sleep last night. I broke down and started counting sheep. It seems like a silly cartoony thing to do but it worked. Sometimes, when I get truly desperate, I will listen to the scriptures on CD. They always knock me out in less than a chapter. I also get the added bonus of having the words of God imprinted on my subconscious. I am studiously avoiding reading this evening even though I really want to finish the book. It is due pretty soon and I need to get it read and back to the library.

Right now I am feeling a bit lost. I am a person that craves alone time. I have to spend a portion of my day alone or I go bonkers. My husband went to bed not too long after the kids did so I ended up with a very unexpected evening on my own. Had I know that this would be happening I would have planned something fun. I have wasted all the time I can on the internet, I can't read my book this close to bed time and there is nothing on TV. I keep having the feeling that it is later than it really is. Maybe I should turn in early too. My inner night owl shudders at the thought especially since my husband has an unexpected day off so I will get the chance to sleep in. What is a gal to do?

Sleep is needed

I really should stop reading Steven King. I picked up one of his latest novels and now I can't sleep. I have the tingly on edge feeling that I always get when I read his books. I find that I can get over the feeling better if I read the book in one sitting. Of course I really can't do that sort of thing any more. So here I sit at the computer typing blind since I left my glasses upstairs. I am hoping that I can get some sleep tonight since I have a long day tomorrow.

Pediatric Grand Rounds

Pediatric Grand Rounds is up over at the granola rules. She includes a tasty looking recipe for home made granola. Go on over and check it out!

Evilness

I baked an apple pie just now and my husband is whining. Apparently I am a horrible temptress who is aiming to torture him. He has been trying to watch his weight so that he does not get put on the fat boy program and to top that all off tomorrow is fast Sunday (we skip two meals once a month as part of our religious observances). I think the whole ideal that the military would put my rather skinny husband into the fat boy program is silly but the way the program is written he has apparently been on the edge so he had to slim down a bit to make weight.

The pie I made is incredible. I think that if you died it would be served in heaven. It is just sooooooooooo good. Last time I made it I ate most of it. I was nice and let my husband have a few pieces and I even let Harry and Evan split one which they promptly gobbled up. I highly recommend you baking one or two up for the holidays. Your family will love you for it.

P.S. Don't feel too bad about my husband. I mentioned to him that my hand hurt because I had burned it on the oven while baking the pie. He wondered why I would burn myself (like I did on purpose or something) and asked when I had done the burning of said hand. He admitted that he had not hear my swearing when I asked and then told me to put it under water. No kidding, really? I should put my hand under cold water to help with the burn? Who knew? He also apparently, along with not hearing the swearing in the kitchen, he missed me leaving the water running for a really long time.

Mmmmm pie!