Tuesday, August 24, 2010

Good times!

The kids are really settling into going to school everyday.  Robert still whines some but he goes willingly and is happy when I pick him up.  The last few days I couldn't get him to LEAVE daycare, lol.  It was really nice to have a quiet morning today. It was raining-a steady downpour and dreary.  So I just worked on some projects (listed the nursery stuff and the stroller on craigslist, uploaded pics etc) and cleared up the clutter, cleaned counters, swept etc.  No real housework, just getting the house livable again after the weekend!  Then I took a nap (yeah!) and then went to the gym, picked up a kid's rocking chair that I found on craigslist for $7!, got groceries and then picked up the kids!  Mary LOVES the rocking chair.  She tried to carry it up the stairs!  I had to take it for her and then she was right in it, rocking Amy.  Robert likes it too.

We had a great weekend.  It was good to just chill out and get projects done.  Sat Wesley finished mowing, replaced a roof vent in the camper (and ordered the rest) and picked up stuff to fix the camper awning and oil changes. Peggy and I got the kid's room fixed up (soooooo cute!)-I'll post about it separately and I hung out with the kids while Wesley project-ed.  That evening I froze a bunch of tomatoes and made "peach fondue" and "sundae in a jar" ice cream topings (canned).  Sunday after church Wesley picked up the pics from the fair (he won several ribbons again this year including I think two 1st place!)  His first 1st place ribbons ever!  And he and Roger fixed the camper and then they brought out this hand me down bike Roger's niece had outgrown and his brother had handed down for Mary. They added Wesley's training wheels to it (they still have his training wheels????) and Mary loves it.  Apparently she had seen the bike once before one evening while I was at work and I had never heard about it, lol.  I'm surprised she hadn't mentioned it.  She isn't anywhere near riding yet-doesn't have any clue about pedaling but we'll see how it goes at the beach where there is flat ground and sidewalks. 

These kids are certainly something!  Mary is having more and more dry days.  She gets a present at the end of the day if she is dry all day and she's gotten one the last few days.  Fingers crossed that we are almost done with potty training!  I feel like we've been working on it FOREVER.  She is reliably pooping in the potty and that is fantastic!  :)  Robert is still playing with legos non stop. He is definitely an addict.  And he loves the shoe organizer on the back of his door.  Any time he gets something that can go in a little pocket he rushes to put it away there (silly band or small dinosaur figurine-prize from school).  Mary is obsessed with "ouchies"-hers and yours.  She carefully looks at me to see if she can find an ouchie on me, and will tell anyone close by that she has ouchies (no, not her scars but small ouchies!). 

Speaking of her "ouchies" we go back on Monday to see the plastic surgeon and PT and I'm looking forward to seeing what they say.  I think she has improved so much recently.  I've been doing pretty hard masage not just on her jaw line but on her left upper arm as well which seems to be helping a ton with the thick areas.  I have a feeling we will need at least 1 new shirt since her pink one is torn at the elbow...  2 year olds are not meant to wear a shirt every other day forever!  Especially not one that thin.  I'm hoping we're nearing the end of the every 3-4 month visits with the plastic surgeon.  I'm sure he'll want to see her again in Dec/Jan which will be a year from the accident and hopefully we can get out of the compression shirt at that point.  But I'm not sure that I can dress her without putting a compression shirt on and doing the whole cream thing.  It's just such a part of everyday, twice a day.  It will certainly be strange for a while!  I'm sure we'll also hit toys r us on Mon-especially since we have a pretty big gap between appointments-11:30 for plastic surgeon and 4:30 for the PT (she is at the hospital that day-she'll call us if she can see us earlier).  I usually pick her up something and then a little something for Robert too.  I figure we can also check out the children's museum too if the day is dragging.  Or the mall :)

Tuesday, August 17, 2010

working on the kids room and misc

I've been having  a  great time working on the kids' room.  I've got all the posters now and they are in frames.  Robert has a space shuttle, planets and one of the milky way (or to quote him the milky wave, lol) posters.  Mary has 2 butterfly/flower prints which are gorgeous!  I'm trying to have enough stuff for Robert so when we get his room done it will be good.  And I decided to go on the light side for Mary since she still doesn't really have preference/taste.  I figure eventually we'll have a Tinkerbell or Princess poster in there too. 

I have the material to make Mary's fleece tied blanket and I got Robert's cloth too-but somehow I ordered regular material, lol.  I googled fleece and wasn't paying attention!  So now I need to figure out how to transform it and 1-2 sheets into a light bedspread.  He LOVES the fabric and I think it will be great.  I got twin flat sheets today at walmart for $3 each-one lime green and the other dark blue.  They both look great with the material.  I guess I'll call grandma and see what she recommends.  That might be a fun project for us to do this weekend and her machine would probably do better than mine.  Of course she may well have plans this weekend!  I've shrunk the green sheet and the material already.  I'm hoping to get Mary's blanket done Thursday which would leave me with just his bedspread to do and the pictures hung in the right places etc.  I also have wall stickers for each of them.  Glow in the dark planets and regular butterflies.  And 2 painted butterflies (and she already had one) for Mary and 2 stars for Robert.  Anyway, it's just so much fun to have new stuff in there and to have big kid stuff instead of the baby stuff.  They are growing up sooo fast!  I can't believe it. 

I almost don't remember when they were babies.  It was like there were other babies that went away or something.  I think about how much I stressed over baby food, sleeping issues etc and now I realize that those things were so fleeting.  Between the 2 of them I spent maybe 8-9 months making baby food, lol.  There are certainly things that I don't miss-pumping, spoon feeding, 2 in diapers, first thing in the morning poopy diapers... lol.  It really goes so fast although it doesn't feel like it at the time.  I think the best quote on that was "the days are long but the years are short". 

I'm still trying to find my balance again with going to full time.  It's been hard trying to find time to go to the gym, get the housework, laundry, groceries etc all done.  I feel like I should be able to ask Wesley to pick up some more but he REALLY didn't want me to go back full time so I kinda feel like I can't.  So I'm still doing it all.  Except mowing and bills.  And he occasionally empties the dishwasher and burns the trash.  And he has the kids a little more-especially in the mornings.  I haven't made it to the gym at all this week yet (maybe tomorrow but I will be between 2 night shifts) nor is the house really clean.  It's not bad but it's not great either.  I did get a shark steam mop and it is fabulous!  And I'm seriously thinking about having Cricket come once a month and do the hard cleaning.  I'll see what my first pay check since going full time looks like.  It also doesn't help that the garden is in full swing so I'm picking tomatoes and peaches and more tomatoes....  We still aren't anywhere with working on the upstairs and I'm frustrated with that. 

Speaking (earlier) of mornings, the kids' new alarm clock is fabulous
http://gifts.barnesandnoble.com/Toys-games/Teach-Me-Time-Talking-Alarm-Clock-and-Nightlight/e/860078000308

it turns green at a pre-determined time (7am here) and you tell the kids not to get up until it turns green.  Fabulous!!!!!!!!!!!  We were having issues with Robert getting up at 6:15/6:30 etc and that has completely eliminated it.  Now he does start knocking at 7:01 though so I think he is just hanging out and watching the clock, lol.  But that's fine because he is doing it quietly in his own bed, lol.


Work has been pretty busy over the last week or so.  Nothing too exciting, just busy.  I still love it though!

look mom!  Finally got the blog fixed!

Saturday, August 14, 2010

where to start?

I've been putting off blogging mostly because I don't know where to start!  But here we are, almost 2 weeks since we've been home and I think it's time to just 1-2-3-4-5-6-7-8 SPLASH to quote Robert...lol.  That kid is a nut in the water.  He jumps and swims and jumps and swims (all with a life jacket).  No fear of getting his face wet or going under, no more spluttering or anything.  He really took off today using his arms (as well as his legs) and it was amazing how fast he could go.  Another light bulb.  And Mary was the star today-this was the first time she could swim independently.  We started like we did when they learned to walk-swimming between us and then another light bulb went off and she was OFF.  And I mean swim across the pool off.  Arms and legs.  And jumped in and climbed out and played with pool toys and by the end she was tired.  But stayed awake going to great grandma's (Grandma R's) and home (with help, lol).  And let me tell you they ate well!  And polished off the ice cream for desert too, lol.  Now I hear they are out to dinner with the Furr grandparents complete with a million silly bands and "new" clothes from a second hand store.  I hear Mary has 2 dresses on over her clothes, lol.  I wish I could see it! 

They were great at grandma's house.  I was so proud of them.  It's nice not to have to take the whole house with us anymore.  I don't even take a booster for Mary for quick meals like this-she sits next to Grandma and loves it!  Lunch was fabulous...mmm.  Grandma says we can swim at the pool their so we'll have to do that the next time-I'm sure she would get a huge kick out of seeing them swim!  We got home in time to put Mary down for a nap and get me ready for work.  I ended up doing a load of laundry because after today I'll be out of scrubs (up until this week I only had 3 sets of regular scrubs and 1 of Peds and my new ones came after laundry day) to make the 3rd day in a row I've done a load, lol.  So unlike me!  I generally do a load thurs/fri of all the cleaning cloths/pee stuff etc (between Mary and the dogs there is generally some of that-this week it's been mostly Mary) so I did that Thurs, then Friday Mary peed her pants 3 times in about as many hours (err! including twice in about 15 min at the school supper!) so I washed them and their clothes Friday and then scrubs and the wet swimsuit stuff today.  So I guess I won't have much laundry to do Monday!  I'll be glad to have 5 sets of scrubs now.

Full time is going OK. Last week was super duper hard.  I was SO tired coming back from Chicago and then going into 2 night shifts.  So tired.  But this past week has been better.  I don't know if it's because one of my shifts is in the weekend so they're not all together during the week?  I know Brenda says that the week when there isn't a weekend shift is the hardest.  This week I've been full nursing coordinator while someone is on vacation and this comming week I have an extra coordinator shift as well.  I'm working the weekend and then Tues and Wed night shift.  But then I'm off until the following Tuesday :)  I need to get in Thursday or Fri and catch up on the blood bank report I do.  I am SO far behind on it!

I've also been working on getting the kids' room fixed up again.  It's been fun to have a craft project to work on.  Last night I worked on some painted ornament things for their walls and re-did Robert's name letters.  I also have the 2 posters that we got for Robert and the air force museum framed and some art work that they had done that fits in framed (just in walmart frames).  I have 2 posters for Mary and 1 for Robert coming in the mail and material to make Robert a fleece blanket and I have the material but need to make Mary's blanket.  I'm going ahead and making a blanket that will fit a twin bed since I'm sure she'll be in a real bed before I know it.  Actually I guess she'll need a full size one since she'll get Granny's bedroom set but since I only have 2 yards of fabric (that's all they had) she'll get a twin!

Tuesday, August 10, 2010

Chicago Part 2

Friday we went to the museum of science and industry.  Wow.  It was even more amazing than the last time.  The kids really enjoyed it and so did the big people!  Rob and Kavitha both joined us and we packed a picnic.  Mary liked the hatching chicks/baby chicks the best.  Robert liked the kids exploration area and the trains/planes/sub.  Mary didn't sleep at all until we hit the car late that afternoon.  Then she was out the whole way home.  Robert never did fall asleep.  I though he'd sleep in the car!  Wesley and I then went out to Mon Ami Gabi for supper while Rob and Kavitha along with Kumar babysat for us. The steak frites and then profiteroles were fabulous!

By Sat morning we were all exhausted.  The kids were still up when we got home at 9ish so they went to bed late.  The weather was drizzly.  So we hung around all morning and then went to Nookies for lunch and then to the Lincoln Park Zoo.  Mary liked the monkeys.  Robert loved the spiders/snakes/mice etc.  Mary slept through that part.  And then that was the end of her nap.  We were seperated on the double bus (Kavitha, Mary, Margaret on one and Wesley, Robert, Rob on the other) and Mary kept pointing to Robert and telling the people near her "that's my brother; that's Robert".  So cute!  Thankfully aunt Kavitha keeps cool stuff in her purse so she was mainly intertained with lotion, inhaler, and purse holder, lol.  The purse holder was definitely spit shined by the time she was done with it!  I think we had poppy seed chicken for supper.  Mmm

Sun we did the botanic gardens which were gorgeous.  But it was a fair bit warmer than previous days and by this time we were all dragging a little.  OK a lot!  They had a great garden scale train layout with all sorts of cool landmarks-from Old Faithful (erupts every 60 sec) to Mt St Helens (erupts every 30 min) to several of Frank Lloyd Wrights houses, the white house etc.  So cool.  The other gardens were also really cool.  There was a fountain you could splash in which was fun as well as tons of gorgeous layouts and plants.  I loved the scented geraniums.  Wow.  When we got home we went out for ice cream (yum!!!!!!!!!!) and then to the park.  We had planned on going out for pizza but by this time we all wanted showers and PJ's so we ordered in. yumm again!  And then we had all the fun of finding all our stuff and packing it all-which really didn't take as long as I was afraid it might.

And that was it.  Except the 14 hour trip home. It wasn't as bad as it could have been but it isn't in my top 10 favorite memories either!  The kids did well-I was expecting them to nap more but that didn't happen.  They did watch more TV though.  We ran the kids out at a home depot next to the steak n shake where we ate lunch (wow they have a great avacado burger!) at lunch time.