Evan through the ages

I was looking through some of my old pictures and I though I would share some of Evan.

Son of a gun

Thanks for all the birthday wishes! I wish I could say that my birthday was loads of fun but cranky kids and Evan testing high for his INR kind of took all the fun out of the day.

Last week Evan's levels were low and this week they were sky high but I think I may have found the reason for it so hopefully they will level out soon. Apparently garlic is yet another food that interacts with coumadin. The week before Evan tested low we had a run of heavily garlicked foods but have backed off lately which is probably why he is so high now. I am going to have to be more careful in the future with making sure that there is an even amount of garlic in the food we eat.

I wish that this was more widely known. My sister is the one that clued me in on this one. She has a new job working with older cancer patients who are often on blood thinners. That is how she learned about it and then passed it on to me. In all the things that I have read it has never even been mentioned before. I am almost afraid to feed him anymore as I can never seem to be sure which foods will mess with his delicate balance. This is almost as bad as having a diabetic in the house.

Awesome Mom turns 28 today

Today is my birthday. Yep Friday the 13th. I was born on a Friday the 13th so this birthday is extra lucky for me. My husband was also born on the 13th (different year and month though). We were married on the 15th, after I had picked the date with no input from my husband who told me to do what ever I wanted he then pointed out that it could have been fun to be married on the 13th. Too bad it was too late to change anything.

Thanks to Wikipedia I will share a few fun things that happened in history on this loveliest of all days.

Events
1111 - Henry V is crowned Holy Roman Emperor.
1742 - George Frideric Handel's oratorio Messiah makes its world-premiere in Dublin, Ireland
1941 - Pact of neutrality between the USSR and Japan is signed.
1970 - An oxygen tank aboard Apollo 13 explodes, putting the crew into deadly peril.
1975 - An attack by unidentified gunmen on a church in Ain El Remmeneh followed by an attack on a bus that killed 17 Palestinian civilians, Lebanon marks the beginning of a 15 year civil war.
1997 - Tiger Woods becomes the youngest golfer to win golf's Masters Tournament.

Births
1570 - Guy Fawkes, English Catholic conspirator (d. 1606)
1743 - Thomas Jefferson, 3rd President of the United States (New style date) (d. 1826)
1899 - Alfred Mosher Butts, American architect and inventor of the Scrabble (d. 1993)
1962 - Hillel Slovak, Israeli-born guitarist (Red Hot Chili Peppers) (d. 1988)
1979 - Baron Davis, American basketball player

Holidays and Observances
* First day of Thai New Year.
* First day of Cambodian New Year.
* Vaisakhi: Punjabi and Nepali New Year
* Aerosmith Day is celebrated in Massachusetts

Check out the cool present my parents bought for me. It is a cool set of portable speakers for my iPod. Now I can listen to my music where ever I am which is nice when I am trying to get some cleaning done. Doing chores with ear phones was just not working out very well. The speakers will also be great for road trips since my car does not have a plug in for mp3 players and I don't have a tape player so I can't use one of those adapter thingers.

Kid show detox

After a long weekend of humoring a sick Evan and letting him watch all the Thomas he wanted I need some detox from kids shows. My brain is filled with the inane songs that keep repeating over and over. I am also developing the sinking feeling that I am becoming as obsessed as Evan with Thomas.

For my birthday I asked my husband to let me use the money he would have spent on a present to decorate the boy's bedroom Thomas style. It has been quite fun and challenging working with a tight budget. I have been keeping my eyes our for things that I can use to make the room which means that my mind is dwelling a lot on Thomas as well. I think I need a vacation from Thomas, not that Evan will let me. Maybe it will lessen in me once the room is done.

Cuz Gina asked

In my post about Harry hiding things I mentioned my lovely child unfriendly stairs (well not child unfriendly, maybe more like mommy unfriendly since the kids have a blast with all the possibilities that come from having stairs like mine). Gina asked for pictures, so being the wonderful blog friend that I am I am posting pictures. What you can't see in the picture is that they have not been vacuumed in a bajillion years. I have a very minimalist upright vaccume cleaner that we bought for four dollars when I was newly married and it has no attachments with it, so when I want to clean the stairs it is a pain in the patootie to even do, so I don't .............. at least not very often.






stairs kids cleaning

We are surrounded!

We are surrounded by massive amounts of bacteria. That is why obsessively disinfecting your home is not going to work in the long run. The bacteria will just keep coming back. They are everywhere. You are breathing them in right now. They are all over your skin. You are essentially swimming in an ocean of bacteria. Just FYI, not to freak you out or anything. Oh no! There is a ton of it floating in the air right behind you! It looks kind of menacing, you had better watch out.


bacteria germs cleaning

Best meal ever

I think I have cooked my best meal ever. It was so good that my husband, the condiment king, did not add any thing to it. We had grilled rosemary lamb chops (it was my husband's first time eating lamb so he was a bit hesitant and took a bit of convincing), rosemary carrots and roasted garlic mashed potatoes. Everything turned out perfectly. The meat was nice and rare. The carrots were crisp with out being crunchy and the mashed potatoes were not lumpy thanks to my recent purchase of a ricer. I think we will be eating more lamb from now on.

I also want to give a big thanks to Anne/kq for introducing me to the recipe website that I used to find these recipes. I have found so many amazing recipes there since she told me about it. I hardly even pick up paper cook books any more, instead I print out the recipes we like and put them in a binder so that I have my own custom book.

Happy Easter!

I hope that every one is enjoying a wonderful Easter day.

One of the downfalls of being a member of a church that relies on volunteers for the vast majority of it's workings is that sometimes things like church choirs fall by the wayside. My current ward does not have the interested people or someone with the know how to direct a choir. We are blessed with a lot of people that play the piano and could accompany so I guess that is something. I really miss singing with a group of trained singers. While I know there is a place for congregational singing I enjoy singing in a choir where everyone knows how to read music and knows their parts. I seem to feel the spirit more when singing with he choir than at other times.

My first time singing in a choir was in my college singles ward. I signed up because a guy I liked was also in it. Plus we were promised a lovely Christmas party since the director not only loved to direct music but she also was a gourmet cook. I found once I started going to rehearsals that I really enjoyed performing with a big group of people. I am no solo singer but I do have the ability to blend my own voice with others to produce something much better than what I would have done on my own.

My best ward choir experience was when we were living in San Diego. I was in a new city, my husband was going to be gone for three whole months and I didn't know anyone. Once I joined the choir I started feeling like I belonged. It was a wonderful group with a lot of powerful singers. We preformed something every week and learned very complicated pieces. The main event of the year was the Christmas Cantata. We spent months learning the songs and had a special performance day since it was a long performance and not suitable for Sacrament meeting. I was sad to leave.

Pediatric Grand Rounds

The latest edition of Pediatric Grand Rounds is up. The next edition will be the first anniversary edition hosted at Unintelligent Design and will be a best of edition so no submissions are being solicited.

The sickies strike again

Last night I dreamed that Evan threw up in his bed. Sadly it was not a dream but reality. I must have heard him puking and incorporated it into my dream. I did a wash all the bedding day yesterday and now I am having to do it all over again with Evan's formerly freshly laundered sheets and blankets.

He spent the morning watching Thomas and ended up throwing up his lunch. He is feverish too but in an odd twist of fate I am unable to locate any of our many thermometers. We have two digital (one used exclusively for rectal temps), an ear one that someone gave us and a tympanic forehead one and yet they are all MIA. I am not too worried as he does not seem excessively lethargic or anything, however we will be missing church tomorrow. I am keeping my fingers crossed that Harry will not get it too but chances of that are slim especially since the little monkey found a cast off sippy cup that Evan had been sipping out of all morning and promptly drank out of it before I could stop him.

Harry

Sometimes Harry is just so dang cute it makes me want to pinch his chubby little cheeks and nibble on his little toes. Yes, I sometimes fantasize about eating my children. I think that every mom does.........right?

Ok, so yesterday we were doing our normal routine. The kids get up insanely early, I get them out of bed, grab some clothing for the day (including my own since Harry flips out if I try and get dressed in privacy) and herd everyone downstairs. Breakfast follows, then Sesame Street while mommy checks email and finishes waking up. I then go to get them dressed, only to discover that the clothing that I had thrown down the stairs was missing. In a stunning twist I had actually made the kids help me pick up the night before, so the living room floor was pretty darn clean. There was nowhere for the missing clothing to hide. I check under our stairs* just to in case, since Harry has stashed things there before, but nothing. Giving up I brave the inevitable passing out of Harry while I am upstairs getting new clothing for everyone.

Later on I go to do the laundry. We keep a basket downstairs behind our love seat so that we are not running upstairs all the time whenever we have a dirty piece of clothing. In it was the clothing that I had brought down in the morning, lovingly placed there by Harry who had recently learned to put his dirty clothing there. Evan does the same trick but never on his own, so I knew that it had to be Harry. I just wish that he would do that with his toys and books. I think I would be in heaven then.

* We have funky stairs that have gaps in them as part of the design. If you drop something on the stairs it is likely that item will fall straight down through the gap. It is fun to be able to grab the boy's toes while they are coming downstairs but I think the person that designed those kinds of stairs never had kids because they are mostly just annoying.

kids cuteness toddler cleaning

My quilt folly

Kristi showed her very interesting attempt at a first quilt so I thought I would share mine with you. Since I am a bit better at reading directions and had a friend who was a quilting goddess helping me mine turned out a bit better than Kristi's. The problem with my half finished quilt is that when I prewashed my fabric it shrunk enough that there was not enough of one of my fabrics to actually finish the quilt which was supposed to be a queen size. I am thinking about making it into a twin quilt for Evan when he out grows his toddler bed, but it has nothing to do with Thomas the train so I am not sure he would really even like it.



Here is a close up of the squares. I did not cut out them individually instead I cut long strips of fabric and sewed them together according to the pattern. Then I cut them across and sewed those into bigger blocks which were then sewed together to make the big quilt. The green heart fabric is the evil not enough to finish the quilt fabric. I went back to the store but it was all gone and no more was to be ordered.

Here is a shot that shows you the total effect of the quilt. There would have been sashing around it to help bring the whole pattern together. I would have had to hand quilt it, so maybe it was best that I never finished it since that would have been a large undertaking.



quilting quilts crafts

What now?

We are now over six months past Evan's last heart surgery. I find myself at loose ends. All of Evan's life there has been a surgery hanging over our heads, looming in the not so distant future. Now? There is nothing planned, nothing to plan for, we just wait. We wait to see if things change if, some how, despite expectations things get bad.

The number of doctor's visits are rapidly decreasing. This was Evan's last winter on Synagis. Next winter we will not have to visit the pediatrician monthly, in fact we may be able to go the entire year between well visits with out seeing him (stranger things have happened). Evan is only seeing his cardiologist as often as he is because he flat out refuses to let me use the equipment to monitor his pacemaker over the phone, so they have to do it in the office.

All of these wonderful things mean that suddenly Evan can start just being a kid now. The intrusions into his life are shrinking leaving only his physical therapy which to him is like having an adult come over to just play with him. I think I am going to have to come up with a new hobby or something.

Sleep woes

Ever since the time change it seems like Harry and Evan have been getting up way too early in the morning. I had thought it was due to the sun so I put up some thicker window coverings to block out more light. It does not seem to be helping one bit. I have even threatened my husband with death if he even makes the slightest noise when he is getting ready for work in the morning. I am going nuts with the whole get up at 6 in the morning stunt that Harry is doing (I am sure it is him that is the culprit in this whole thing since he is usually the first shriek that I hear in the morning).

I then have to deal with an ultra cranky toddler all morning and I am very frustrated with the whole thing. If he takes an early morning nap that kills any chance I have at even leaving the house at all until my husband gets home. An early morning nap means that he will wake up the instant Evan goes down for his nap. An early morning nap means that as soon as Evan wakes up from his nap, he will want to go back down. Try and keep him up and there is hell to pay. So I sit here blogging instead of being out and about walking with my friend and her daughters to the library so that we could go to story time.

Anyone have any tips on how to help Harry sleep in later?

On an unrelated note check out the cool trucks that my dad is making for the boys.

toddler+sleep naps

Happy April Fool's Day!!

I am not really pregnant, it was all a fun joke that I was playing on my family. I have a sister that loves to harass me about when I am going to provide her with a niece so I thought I would have a bit of fun with her. Thanks for all the congratulations, but I will have to save them for when I really do get pregnant next, which is not any time in the immediate future.

On a related note I just discovered that I may be doomed to having all boys. I found an rather light article about it and I really have to wonder how this study was done because my mother is quite "assertive, competitive, and self-reliant" and she ended up with four girls and no sons.

If you would like to have some fun with your family next April Fool's Day here are some tricky recipes to make for dinner.

Guess what!?

Bunny madness

We had a crazy busy day today filled with a lot of candy and other fun things. The breakfast with the easter bunny was pretty much what I had expected. This year the easter bunny managed to show up to the breakfast on base and it was really nice weather out so we were not freezing during the easter egg hunt. This year we also remembered (the night before) to bring a bucket to put the eggs in. My husband decided to crash the bigger kids section and let Evan get some real candy since there was no way we were going to let him eat the pretzels.

The second hunt we went to had more fun activities including rock painting. That was hosted by a group that it trying to get funding for a children's museum in this area which is something I can really get behind. The egg hunt was even more age divided than the first one we went to because there were eggs with prizes in them. If you got one with a number you got that corresponding prize. Since parents were only allowed to help in the 1-2 egg section we kept Evan there since he would have been at a disadvantage only being able to use one hand. Harry picked up a prize egg and won a very puzzling chicken pillow. I looked up the pillow online and discovered that this silly pillow that I could probably have made myself was retailing for 38.00!

The second hunt had the best candy. We got a bunch of really small Jelly Belly packets. Jelly Belly jelly beans are my all time favorite jelly bean. I am finding it hard to share with the boys. I was not sad that there was very little chocolate since the quality of chocolate handed out at events like this is often sub par.

We also went out to eat for dinner since neither of us felt like cooking. We ordered the boys some fish and chips and the waitress was amazed that such small children would love fish so much. She even stuck around to watch them chow down.

What a cute little boy!! Last year he spent the entire time in a sling.

It goes in the bucket!

Evan spotted an egg in the bushes and was determined to get it all by himself.

Evan and Daddy waiting for the Easter Bunny to come at hunt #2

Here comes the Easter bunny!!!

A new holiday

I have decided that tomorrow is Blame Everything on my Husband Day. I wanted to start it today but since it was late afternoon when I came to this conclusion it was moved to tomorrow.

Global warming? Yep it is my husband's fault that the planet has a fever.

Something spilled on the floor? My husband did something that caused the spill.

The kids are cranky? Yep his fault again even though he leaves the house before they wake up.

The weather is not as nice as you like it? Yup it is my husband's fault.

Anything goes tomorrow. Feel free to add your suggestions about things that are my husband's fault.

Part 2

I could not resist doing this one again, it was so fun the first time around. This time Chelle is interviewing me.

1. Which of the seven dwarfs would best describe your husband? Well I could say Grumpy but really that is me so I am going with Sneezy, He has a very amusing sneeze.

2. Knowing you are night person, what is the hardest part of your morning? Getting up in the morning. The kids are just do dang bright and chipper chock full of energy. I swear that they suck it out of me while I am asleep.

3. What is the biggest challenge when balancing the needs of two children? Making sure that Evan's issues do not overwhelm Harry's needs.

4. If you were stranded on a deserted island and had EVERYTHING you needed and wanted ... what would be the one thing you would want to OMIT? Mosquitoes, they are annoying and bound to be buzzing all over any deserted island worth living on.

5. Where you ever a Doctor Who fan? I was not, but I am now after watching the first season of the new version.

A fun game

I saw this over at Underachieving Mommy and not so proud of it. Nanette gave me five questions to answer, which are below.

If you would like to play along:
The Rules: Leave me a comment saying, "Interview me.” I respond by asking you five personal questions (I will leave these questions for you in my comments) so I can get to know you better. If I already know you well, expect the questions may be a little more intimate! You WILL update your journal/bloggy thing/whatever with the answers to the questions (please don't leave your answers in my comments unless you don't have a blog). You will include this explanation and an offer to interview someone else in the post. When others comment asking to be interviewed, you will ask them five questions.

1. You are given the choice between:
a)Having one question--i.e. What is the origin of life?--of your choice answered with absolute certainty.
b)Receiving a briefcase with One Million Dollars.
Knowledge or Money?

I am a sucker for knowledge every time. I have always been pretty curious about the universe so I would have to pick that. A briefcase with a million dollars would be quite tempting since that is the only way we could afford to buy a house in the city we are living in right now.

2. What characteristics(of others) do you absolutely despise?

Ignorance and stupidity are things that I truly despise in others. Selfishness is another one, it seems like so many people are only looking out for number one and trying to get their hands on as much stuff as possible that they ignore the fact that relationships and other intangible things are what truly matter.

3. What did you dream of becoming when you were a child?

I always wanted to work with animals. I read the James Herriot books so I dreamed of becoming a country veterinarian. Then I went to college and met some actual vet students and realized how incredible difficult it would be and since I also knew that I wanted to become a stay at home mother some day I decided the expense of school would not be worth it to me.

4. What is the hardest thing for you about having a child with special needs?

I think that the hardest thing about Evan's health issues is the possibility that I will outlive him. I don't want to have to bury my own child. I know that the separation would only be temporary but it would still be heart breaking.

5. If you had to choose between losing your vision or losing your hearing, which would you choose and why?

I think I would have to pick hearing. We are such visual beings that it would make a much bigger impact on my life to be unable to see.

Easter

Easter is around the corner and along with it comes yet another dilemma. To Easter bunny or to not Easter bunny? Do we remove the magic and mystery from childhood? Do we shower the kids with gifts and candy leaving out the true reason for the holiday which is a celebration of the resurrection of Christ?

Right now I am choosing not to choose. This Saturday we will head out to the base and eat a free breakfast where the Easter bunny may or may not show up to amuse the kids (last year he was MIA). We will then collect lame eggs stuffed full of pretzels (some of the parents complained last year that too much candy was given out, never mind that the instant the pretzel hits the mouth saliva turns the simple carbs into sugars) which Evan can't eat due to his sodium restricted diet. After all the fun we are planning on crashing the better planed easter celebration of the local town (where we actually do not live so technically we are crashing the party but our town is not having any sort of celebration that I know of) so that the kids can get their faces painted (and you all know how much they love body art) and play kid themed games.


On Easter Sunday we will attend church. We will celebrate the true meaning of the holiday leaving out all the pagan symbolism. No easter baskets or toys will be given on this day. We will consume a traditional ham dinner (which as a Jew, Jesus, would have been forbidden to eat. Lamb is hard to find in this area so we go with what we can get). The kids will be wearing cute new duds. I think that by separating the differing elements of the holiday we will manage to have the best of both worlds.


Here is a picture from Evan's first Easter. Obviously he was still in the hospital but was soon to be released. I was holding him and talking with my dad (who had come out during his spring break to keep me company in the hospital and meet his first grand child) and my husband. I was not facing the door so I did not see the giant creepy rabbit sneaking up behind me. I see a flash of white out of the corner of my eye and am quite startled. Luckily I did not drop Evan or anything due to my fright. I quickly calmed down when I saw that it was just the friendly neighborhood Easter bunny dressed in a very gaudy vest and bow tie ensemble. How he got into the hospital with out wearing pants I will never know.

When I was a child he "forgot" to come to our house once so, he had to come back to it after we had arrived home from church. The real reason was that my parents had not wanted to get up early to hide the eggs. I remember my father telling me not to peek outside but I still did. I was quite disappointed that I did not see the Easter bunny. Lucky for my parents I did not see them hiding eggs either, they would have been busted big time. I do remember not being all that shocked when my dad told me the truth about Santa, the Easter bunny and the Tooth Fairy so I must have suspected something.

Pediatric Grand Rounds

Another fine edition of Pediatric Grand Rounds is up at Musings of a Distractible Mind. There is even a post about how to entertain a child post heart surgery. I added my two cents in comments on that one you can be sure after all I have become something of an expert.

The next edition will be hosted by by Flea, who is one of my favorite pediatric medicine bloggers.

Things that break your heart a little

Recently Evan has discovered that band-aids are fun and not merely functional. I bought some fun character band-aids in what I thought was a lame attempt to make his twice a month toe poke for his INR test a little more fun. He seemed to think the band-aids were ok, but nothing special the first time I used them.

This afternoon we were fish watching in his room. Our home INR test kit was sitting on top of his dresser and he saw it. He got excited and started saying something that I could not understand at first. The word was band-aid. He was willing to have me test him so that he could have a beloved character band-aid. Instead I just gave him one to put on his arm.

No whining, just some pictures

Here is Evan in his latest fashion accessory. They are his beloved "asses" He enjoys wearing them so much (probably because both mommy and daddy wear them) that he will get most upset when I make him take them off. Note that they are a super cool silver instead of the babyish other colors that he had to choose from. Harry refused to keep them on, so he was not allowed to have a pair.



In keeping with the whole bad boy theme, here is tattoo artist Evan working his magic on his father. Evan loves to color on himself and other people. I have not had the heart to break him of this since we use washable markers that are truly washable. Plus it is sometimes used in his therapy to get him to interact with his left hand. We went out to eat on Friday and he was given some crayons. Once he got tired of coloring on the place mat he started trying to color on me despite my assurances that crayons did not work on skin.


coloring kids sunglasses

Naughty day

If I had known that today was a naughty day I would have stayed in bed.

Naughty incident number one was caused by Harry. We just bought a new floor lamp to replace an old one. It had a light bulb that was propitiary so when it went out there was no way to replace the bulb (no wonder the lamp was so cheap). The new one was pretty swank and had a lovely glass shade. Sadly the base was pretty light making the whole thing top heavy. I moved it this morning to vacuum behind it and helpful Harry happily knocked it down for me sending glass everywhere. Luckily Evan did not get any glass on him even though he was standing very close to where the shade broke.

Naughty incident two happened in the five seconds that I was inside trying to start lunch while Evan was outside playing on the patio. He cruelly stomped one of my husband's poor tiny pumpkin plants. To do this he had to climb over a small wire fence that my husband put up to keep the kids out. Very naughty little boy!

Number three was the real kicker. We live in an end town home unit. The area where ours is situated is rather private in the winter but come summer when the pool opens and the kids wander around outside it is a magnet for trouble making teenagers. When we first moved in we would literally have them sitting on our doorstep smoking. After chasing them off several times they moved to smoking by our side yard fence. My husband would then develop a sudden urge to water the plants. My husband is not very accurate with the hose and "accidentally" got the teenagers wet(so sad, I know).

Today was our first run in for the new season. They kept riding by cursing and smoking while I had the kids outside before bed time. I was almost ready to get the hose out when they left. Then when I was upstairs getting the boys ready for bed I heard them talking right under the window (which was open since it was such a nice day). I told them to go away and leave my front steps. One thought he would be clever and tried to bargain with me by promising to stop cursing in front of the kids. I told him that they would be going to bed soon so any talking would not be welcome. I suggested to them that they should go to the park where they could talk all they wanted and not annoy anyone. He was not thrilled with that suggestion. He tried to claim that his parents did not want him going there. I then asked him if they wanted him smoking too and was met with silence. He then kept trying to out wit me with his "logic" but he was beat after I threatened to call the police.

I would not have actually called the police since I doubt the would have been all that quick to come. Instead I would have called my neighbor who is also our hometeacher. He is one scary looking dude and he has a son who is a hulking guy. They would have scared those kids off in no time had they stuck around.

Review the Queue- Something the Lord Made

Something the Lord Made is a wonderful movie about the people that developed the first heart operation. The movie starts shortly before World War 2 during the Great Depression. Vivien Thomas, a black man, finds work with a brilliant young surgeon, Alfred Blalock, cleaning his lab. This is the start of a great partnership as the two men work to first come up with treatments for shock. Later on they pair up with cardiologist Helen Taussig to work on a surgery to help children that have heart defects.

It is amazing seeing the state of medicine during that time. There was a huge taboo about even attempting surgery on the heart, it just was too risky since the heart/lung bypass machine had yet to be invented. Another layer to the story (which is the movie's main focus) is the relationship between the two men. This was a time of great racial tension and segregation was in full force. Thomas got no credit for the work he did in the laboratory (the name of the procedure is still to this day called the Blalock-Taussig shunt) until much later in his life.

I highly recommend this fascinating movie. I got misty eyed more than once. If you would like to learn more about the operation there is a really neat website that explains things in further detail.

Something+the+Lord+Made Netflix

Real moms...

Think their kids are absolutely perfect....

When they are asleep.

Her Bad Mother poked me into doing this meme. You can find more of them over here.

Review the Queue- Doctor Who: Season 1

I grew up with a father who adored the classic Doctor Who tv show. I could never stand to watch it, the cheesy special effects drowned out what good there was in the plot lines. The theme song however, was deeply imprinted on my brain so when I heard it, memories of teasing my dad flooded back. I think it would make a great ring tone for my cell phone.

The new and updated version of the show managed to keep the pretty solid premise of a lonely wandering Time Lord who was the last of his race and got rid of the worst of the cheesy special effects. I love the actor that was picked to play the doctor. Christopher Eccleston was a master at being serious and sad one moment and then moving on to something a lot more light hearted and making the shift believable. His chemistry with his assistant Rose Tyler (played by Billie Piper) was electric even if it was a bit creepy considering the large age gap (The Doctor is 900 and Rose is a mere 19).

I highly recommend this tv show for anyone that loves good science fiction. Fantastic!

Netflix Doctor+Who

Cranky part 2

I have a feeling cranky might be the theme for the week here at the Awesome Mom household. Can you guess which of my boys went on a nap strike (depriving his own mother of a much needed nap) and only finally deciding to sleep at 3:45 so mom got to have the thrill of waking him at 4 on the dot (I don't let them sleep later than that since bed time is really messed with if they do)? It is a tough choice I know, but I am sure that most of you will get it right.

or

In a strange reverse of temperament the cheerful nap taking boy screamed his head off when mom went to make dinner. He then refused to eat any of the lovely stroganoff that was put on his high chair tray. Both boys managed to pull it together right before bed time and were both exceedingly cheerful, I was exceedingly cheerful as I put them to bed for the night.

cranky naps sleep

Cranky

I am feeling cranky today. Well I was actually fine all morning while my husband and Evan were off at church leaving me with my illness and a snotty Harry (I didn't have the heart to make my husband take both kids to church since Evan is so bad at sitting through Sacrament). When the boys got back I was given a run down of how church went since I had to dump nursery on whoever of the parents could stay and help out. We need to have two people in there at all times so that when poopy diapers happen there is another adult to be there with the kids.

Apparently the nursery parents are not able to hang on to the snack list and there was no snack for the kids today. Grr! Double Grr! My husband was telling me that all of the parents were asking for new copies of the list and complaining that by giving it to them in two month segments that I was doing it too far ahead of time. Grrr! I had figured that since they were adults that were capable of running households that they would be able to manage to hang onto a sheet of paper and write the date that they needed to bring snack on their home calender. I should have known something was up when last week the wrong family brought snack and the right one did not bring it too.

I understand that Sundays are busy days but come on already. I managed to remember when to bring snack before I was nursery leader. It was not rocket science just a little bit of organization. I have two young kids and have to keep track of multiple appointments so if I was that unorganized I would have a lot of people ticked off at me.

To add to my crankiness my husband decided that snapping his fingers in my ears was funny and then wonders why I am yell at him. He is often mentioning that I am cranky but those mentions always seem to coincide with some boneheaded thing that he seems to think normal people would find amusing. Maybe I am a rather cranky person in general, I don't know. I just know that it ticks me off when people can't keep track of the snack list and snap their fingers in my ears.

cranky

Under the weather

I really should not have told you about how healthy we have been all winter. I am currently sick with a sore throat and a mild fever. My weekend has not been nearly as productive as I had hoped. I did finish the first season of Dr. Who which I will review when I am feeing better.

Whee!

The last few days have been pretty tough. Harry has been on one for the last week or so. He has been rather whiny and clingy, it is almost like he is sick but he is not showing any symptoms of anything. I think the time change has thrown him off a bit and he is frustrated with his mom who can't read his little mind. Wednesday I had a tough morning because I had a cranky child and I ended up having to run my husband's hat for his dress uniform down to base so that he could be properly dressed for the ceremony he was being forced to attend. He hates having to get all gussied up and military uniforms are not noted for their comfort. That took a whole hour out of my morning (on a day when we had a morning appointment) and it also meant that I was stuck in the car with a whiny Harry.

I found out this afternoon that my weekend gets to start off early. Command threw my husband a bone for having to get all dressed up and gave him Friday off. Now I get to sleep in tomorrow and maybe even run a few errands with out having to take the kids. I made Harry stay up later than he had been going to bed (it was a struggle to keep him up until 7) and hopefully that will help normalize his sleeping pattern.

This is completely and utterly amazing

I stumbled upon his really amazing video of the processes that go on with in a cell. It is amazing how complex processes go on inside tiny little cells inside your body and you are not even aware of it all. That is one of the reasons I am so into biology, it is just fascinating the systems and processes that go on. They are so much more complex than anything that humans have been able to replicate. The first video shows the process with music. The second explains the entire thing (I added this one in for nerds like me).

Poor little Harry

Evan is such a good child. He is generally very obedient and not nearly as troublesome as Harry is. Harry happens to be a very typical toddler, into everything the second your back it turned around. I am still adjusting to this after being so used to Evan and his much quieter ways.

Yesterday I was in the kitchen getting lunch ready. I hear crying but did not immediately rush to Harry's side thinking it was just a sibling spat. Harry kept crying and it intensified so I rushed over to see him hanging from our DVD/VCR by his finger.

Looking at the evidence it appeared that he had been using a small step stool that was some how in out living room to explore the inner workings of the VCR portion. That flap was just too interesting to pass up. While his little finger was in the flap he fell off the stool leaving him his predicament.

The poor finger looked pretty bad at first. I was a little worried that it could have been broken. It needed to be bandaged at the very least. The bandage ended up looking quite funny since I had to use an enormous amount of tape to make sure that Harry could not get the dang thing off his finger.

I took the bandage off this morning and his poor little finger looks better but there are bits of skin off of it and I am sure it will be sore for awhile. At least now it does not look like he is flipping you off all the time.

Pediatric Grand Rounds

It is time for another edition of Pediatric Grand Rounds. This time around it was split into Pediatrician and Parent sections. My personal favorite from the Pediatrician side was this post about poop. A notable parent submission was this touching post about the ups and downs of having a child with health issues.

Pediatric+Grand+Rounds

A delightful book meme

I found this over at Rocks In My Dryer and could not resist. I had planned on a cranky post about how much I hate that Daylight Savings time starts tomorrow but I will spare you my incoherent rants and instead inform you about my book habits.

Hardback or trade paperback or mass market paperback? Hardback when I know that I want to add it to my library, otherwise paperback so if I hate it I don't feel bad about the money spent

Amazon or brick and mortar? Nothing beats the experience of wandering through aisles of books and picking them up to read a few pages here and there so I am defiantly a brick and mortar person in general.

Barnes & Noble or Borders? Borders, I have a lot of fond memories of going there with my parents who would let us each pick out a book. It was a treat for our family which shows how into reading my whole family is.

Bookmark or dog ear? Sadly it is all too often dog ear but I have been quite adept at finding objects around me to serve as book marks

Alphabetize by author or alphabetize by title or random? My library is alphabetized by author (is there really any other way to do it?) and also broken up according to subject (non fiction, fiction, religious ect.) if I was able to do the Dewey decimal system I would.

Keep, throw away, or sell? Keep when my husband will let me and space allows, sell or give away. It would be a desecration to throw away a perfectly good book.

Keep dust jacket or toss it? Keep, the book just seems more complete with it.

Read with dust jacket or remove it? Off! It drives my father and husband up the wall but I just can't read a book with a loose dust jacket on it.

Short story or novel? It depends on my mood. I will go from reading thick tomes to just wanting some short stories. Lately short stories have been the bigger part of my reading since that is all I have time to read.

Collection (short stories by same author) or anthology (short stories by different authors)? Again it depends on my mood, but I think that I tend towards collections since that is what I have the most of in my own library

Harry Potter or Lemony Snicket? I have to go with Harry Potter on this one. We have both but I think that I much prefer the writing style of JK Rowlings

Stop reading when tired or at chapter breaks? When tired or when child wakes from a nap.

“It was a dark and stormy night” or “Once upon a time”? A little of both preferably in the same book.

Buy or Borrow? Borrow since we do not have the space to accommodate the library of my dreams.

New or used? Used all the way baby, unless it is a new series (like Harry Potter) and I must read it right now. There is just something bewitching about a book with a past. I adore the smell of a used book too. It is one of my dreams to one day own a used book store.

Buying choice: book reviews, recommendation or browse? Browse mostly. I tend to look for books by authors that I have already read but I am not adverse to just randomly picking out a book based on the cover illustration alone. I have been taking a lot of recommendations from Orson Scott Card from his review column of late and that man really know how to pick great books.

Tidy ending or cliffhanger? I tend more towards the middle ground. A kind of tidy ending with a bit of unresolved stuff so that I can imagine more of the story. I do not like too many hanging bits though which is what drove me nuts with the Series of Unfortunate Events.

Morning reading, afternoon reading or nighttime reading? Any time I can get time to sit down and read.

Stand-alone or series? Series, series and more series.

Favorite children's book? Anne of Green Gables hands down. There is just something about the whole series that spoke to me.

Favorite book of which nobody else has heard? Shoot, I am betting that a good portion of my library is pretty obscure to most of my readers.

Favorite books read last year? I can't even remember all the books that I read last year. I need to start keeping track of them better.

Favorite books of all time? Pride and Prejudice, I try and reread this one quite frequently.

Least favorite book you finished last year? It was a stinker called Darcy's Story. I got it as light reading for when Evan was in the hospital with his surgery. It is supposed to parallel P and P but from Darcey's POV. I hated it. Anyone that wants it is welcome to it as it is just collecting dust now.

What are you reading right now? The High King by Lloyd Alexander. It is the end of a really nice fantasy series written for younger readers. A friend lent the series to me so that I could get a chance to read some of the children's literature that I seem to have missed out on.

What are you reading next? Well I have some books on ideas of games to play with preschoolers that I have been meaning to read but I am not sure if I will be in the mood for them. I have also been wanting to read The Origin Of Species by Charles Darwin. I am very much into biology and Darwin is a huge figure in biology so I figure that I should at least attempt to read this book.

meme books reading

My little lamb is shorn

I finally caved and gave Harry his first hair cut. The final straw was a little girl at the park comparing Harry's hair to her own. If I was a more wealthy person I would spring for a professional to do it and make sure the curls stayed but I am not so I buzzed him. I think God was punishing me though because it was super hard to buzz him since his hair was so thin and long. It took forever and did not turn out as nice as Evan's hair does. You can tell that the curl will come back because I see it struggling to come out even though the hair is short. He sure is a lot like his dad in that regard. Note to self: do not cut the boy's hair after you have breakfast for dinner. Syrup makes the hair stick to little hands and faces.

Before

After

toddler hair

Review the Queue- March of The Penguins

This is going to be a regular feature here so that I can keep track of the movies I rent from Netflix. Hopefully I will be able to help others avoid horrible bad movies as well.

I really enjoyed March of The Penguins. I should have watched it without the kids since they enjoyed seeing the penguins so much that it was hard to get them to not stand in front of the tv. The cinematography was amazing. I really wish that I had been able to see it while it was in the theaters. I also enjoyed that they did not sugar coat things. Sometimes death is really downplayed in nature shows even though it is a huge part of any animal's life. Morgan Freeman was an excellent choice for the voice over. He has such a rich and expressive voice, it really added a lot to the movie. I think that this is an excellent movie all around although some more sensitive kids should avoid seeing it since there are a few scary spots where penguins get chased by seals.

movies March+of+The+Penguins Netflix

How to surprise your pediatrician

As I have noted before Harry is a breath holder. He has impressive temper tantrums where he will hold his breath and pass out. These generally happen when he is over tired or needs to eat but sometimes he does it just because he is just a little stinker that wants his own way.

Today at his doctor's appointment he got whipped up into a frenzy because Evan was upset at being in the place where shots are given. While Evan was getting ready to have his Synagis shot Harry keeled over much to the pediatrician's surprise. He apparently had never witnessed a breath holding incident before and was a bit worried that my heart healthy Harry was turning blue and twitching a bit on his floor. I had to assure him that this was something that happened quite frequently and that the only thing to be done was let it run it's course and Harry would be over it pretty soon. Normally I try and sit or lay Harry down when a spell is happening but I had not noticed that he was about to pass out since I was busy with Evan.

I did a bit of searching and found a few places where Harry's spells are described pretty accurately. Harry has the cyanotic version of the breath holding spells. Apparently only 5% of kids exhibit the breath holding behavior. It really is nice to know that I have such special kids. The good news is that it is very likely he will out grow this by the time he is five.

Below is some video of Harry in action. This was not a full on episode as he really recovered quite quickly. The background voice is my sister, her camera took much better video than my elderly camera was able to.

It is check up time

Evan and Harry got to have a fun filled trip to the pediatrician's office today. Awesome Mom was bad and wrote down Harry's appointment on the wrong day on her calender so she missed it leading to a combined mega appointment. Evan had his three year check up/ Synagis shot (his last one ever, party time!).

Evan was not a happy camper for the majority of the appointment whipping a previously calm and happy Harry into a frenzy of crying. I should have know it would be bad when Evan would not even look at the pediatrician when he came into the office from rounding at the hospital across the street (I try and snag the first appointment of the morning). It was tough to do the developmental assessment on Evan since he pretty much refused to do anything for the doctor. I did get him to show off his mad light switch skilz while using his gimpy left hand which was quite impressive. Evan also surged ahead in the weight department gaining two whole pounds in a month. He is now 34 pounds.

Once I got Harry calmed down he preformed quite well in his developmental assessment. He did not gain a lot of weight but did shoot up in height. He is quite a shortie so more inches are great, it is really hard to walk with him and hold his hand even not all that tall Awesome Mom finds it hard to stoop over while walking.

After the appointment we went to a local park since it was quite sunny and nice. I figured that they should get to do something fun after getting shots. After nap time they were both quite cranky still and made it an early night. I will be so glad when Harry is done with his immunizations so visits to the pediatrician can be a bit less stressful, of course once they are done we will not be seeing him nearly as much (knock on wood).

Birthday pictures

Evan's Thomas birthday cake. He was very pleased with it.

Ooo candles!

Mommy and Daddy got him what he loves best: Trains!

I think that Harry got more cake on him than in him. This was not even as messy as he was when I finally took him out of his high chair. The frosting kept getting smeared around.

Happy Birthday Evan Stinkerpants!

I can't believe it but today is the third anniversary of your birth. A lot has happened this year and you have come so far. You are pink for the first time in your life. Your walking has improved greatly, you still have a bit of a hitch to your walk but it is quickly disappearing. You rediscovered your left arm and will now make an attempt to use it when the opportunity presents it's self. You are three feet tall now and can do more of the things that come from being taller such as turning on and off lights using the light switches.

You adore Thomas the Train and all his friends. Your favorite engine is Diesel. Story time is one of your favorite things to do with mommy and you will bring her books for as long as she will read them to you. Your vocabulary has really taken off and you can express yourself much more clearly now.

I think you would live outside if you could. Almost from the first moment you wake up to the time you got to bed you will bother mom any time you get bored of your many toys asking her to put your shoes on so you can go outside.

You are really becoming quite the little boy now, you are no longer a baby. I can't wait to see what next year brings.

Twins?