School days, school days.

I can't believe that I have "school age" kids. Sort of.

Yesterday was parent orientation at the Preschool that Maren and Kellan start at next week. Today was open house for the kids to come and play in their classes, meet their teachers, and make new friends.

My kids didn't want to leave! Whew. I'm glad they're looking forward to going. I"m totally looking forward to it too.

Maren will go M,W,F from 9-12, and Kellan will be on the opposite schedule only T,TH 9-12. So it will give me one-on-one time with each of them. But really, I'm trying to get Maren switched to the 5 day a week schedule, I think she'll be just fine and actually do better on that schedule, and be more prepared for a full day 5 a week Kindergarten class next year.

The classrooms at the school are so fun, painted murals on the walls and 'themed' rooms to help the kids find where they need to go all by themselves. Kellan goes to the "Frog" room, and Maren goes to the "Ocean" room. It's ran by a Methodist church, so it's very Christian oriented in the teaching, but fairly neutral too so that it doesn't conflict with our teachings as well. Jesus is all over the building, and it's very obvious that "Jesus said let the little children come unto me" is their creed. I'm so thankful it's such a wonderful place!

And I already have my first fundraiser to participate in too *cringing.* Does anyone want to buy a Little Caesar's pizza kit? It's a fantastic offer :D

Boys... Blech...

Kellan says to me today "Mom, I ate the worm.

"Uh... "What worm?" I ask, a bit puzzled.

Him: "The wiggly worm."

Me: "Okay, a pretend worm? Where did you find him?"

Him: "No, the worm for the compost. I ate him all gone." (with a devilish smile)

Alright... the door was locked, so I know he didn't go outside to the compost. I had already taken out the food scraps from the bowl in the kitchen. There weren't any worms in there anyway, lol.

So what worm could he have eaten? He is insistent that he really did eat 'the worm', even when I talked with him about telling stories. Which I am positive that this is. Kellan is the little boy who screams and cries when a fly lands on his lunch outside, or a baby ladybug is on his arm. He panics and runs out of the room if he sees a spider.

I really doubt he ate the worm. But why do boys have to have such gross imaginations?

Finally!

We figured out a name we agree on for the baby. All it took was James actually having a serious conversation and listening without interjecting "Bear" for every option. ::Sigh of relief:: And who'd a thunk it, when he talked serious, he actually had nice name suggestions too. But he realized he liked best some of the ones I've been mentioning all along.

Maxwell (Max) Graham Moore :)

Maxwell/Max- Spiritual Connotation meaning 'Righeous'
Inherent Meaning 'From the Great Spring'
Matthew 6:22 The eye is the lamp of the body; so then
if your eye is clear, your whole body will be full of light.

Graham- Spiritual Connotation meaning 'Generous'
Inherent Meaning 'From a Grand Home'
1 Corinthians 13:13 And now abide faith, hope, love, these three;
but the greatest of these is love.

I thought it was a little funny, most name books have my name to mean "Spring of life" or something to do with Spring... how original for my name (rolling my eyes.) And the name Max means 'From the Great Spring' ... Why yes, he is :) Harharharharharhar

Man vs. Wild

James is going to brave the great outdoors, including the wildlife, for a campout tonight.

By wildlife, of course I mean Maren and Kellan. He's pitching the tent in our backyard to camp out with the kids for a 'super fun adventure' he dubbed it.

They have little indoor play tents, which they think they'll get to sleep in, they have no idea we have an actual outdoor tent which will keep them critter-free.

So while they are "roughing it" with the bunnies, deer, and maybe a racoon that might come sniffing around, I'll be enjoying a quiet house. I hope the loud sound of the caddydids in the trees don't scare the kids too badly, it sounds like the Predator is lurching up there.

Maybe I'll make some cookies (share some for their adventure of course), take a bubble bath and rent a movie for myself!

Sooo not a morning person

The kids start preschool in less than two weeks, so I figured I better change their morning schedules to get adjusted... but not this week, Kellan is getting over a cold so I'll do it next week ;-P

But who seriously calls at 7:00 AM to anyone, even if they are a morning person? I got woken up by a phone call- atleast it wasn't a telemarketer. It was a woman from the Charlotte Rescue Mission thanking me for my donation. That was it. Not asking for anything, or telling me my payment for a bill is late. Okay, so it's a nice thing. But I was sleeping! Grrr.

Kellan popped his head out of bed a few minutes after that, he had heard the phone- got up- and got dressed. Okay, so no snoozing a little longer. Then Maren got up because she heard Kellan. I swear they have a radar on each other.

So I get them set up with breakfasts, and our Bishop rings my doorbell around 8. Again, usually I'm still sleeping!! He was bringing by dishes from the dinner I made for their family on Tuesday, his wife had her tonsils taken out, and I'm her visiting teacher :)

A sight for sore eyes I am not in the mornings. Especially this one! My hips are killing me already, this baby is so low in my pelvis, I was having a hard time moving around yesterday, so I avoided it as much as possible. I took a shower finally before bed, so my hair was still wet when I went to sleep. I woke up with serious 'whatever' hair... resembles something a witch would sport around. I am super fabulous in my husbands 2x size shirts due to my tummy that has outgrown my maternity clothes already... And I had to answer my door like that?

Can I go back to bed now?

It's definitely a...

Boy!

No more confusion or doubt.

We went for a 3D ultrasound yesterday so I could feel more at peace about the location of the placenta, the cord length, etc., since I'm having a homebirth. I don't want any surprises that could be avoided... the first ultrasound that I got at 22 weeks was not very thourough, and a total waste of my money.

And since we were there, we took a good look... yup, definitely a boy. Now James just has to move past the whole "Bear" name thing, I'm not gonna grow to like it. I think we've narrowed it down to two that we like atleast.

It was a nice place, they had an area with couches and toys for the kids in the same room as the ultrasound equipment, so that family could get comfy and view the whole experience too. So James had a front row seat to sit back and enjoy the images of his baby. It was very neat.

Ain't he a cutie?

Free at last, free at last!

Maren's eye is free at last!

So after 4 months of continuous effort to get rid of the clogged lumps in Maren's right eye, it seemed to take a turn for the worse almost 2 weeks ago. I started putting a heating pad over the washcloth to keep heat on them longer. She would have to lay on my bed for 15 minutes 3-4 times a day like that... what a trooper.

But that's when it went from just big and pink, to being huge and purple! Okay, so that didn't seem to be helping it drain.

Her skin under her eye started to crack because it was soooo big. And it was at that point it became painful for her, she never complained about pain before that. It seemed that it became infected.

So we finally try one more option, which was Sarsaparilla dried herb soaked in a coffee filter like a tea bag, and patched over her eye. The herb "draws" out sicknesses from the body.

By the end of the first day when we took the patch off of her eye to put a fresh one on, the center of the bulge had changed, it had a hard yellow spot in the center. Mount St. Helen was about to explode.

The next day, when applying some 'drawing' ointment on her eye before another Sarsaparilla patch, lots of junk finally gooed out. I know you're as excited as I am about this!

So I'm happy to report that after 3 days of the Sarsaparilla, her eye is noticably smaller, and is on its way to a positive change.

Hallelujah!!

(too bad we didn't know about the Sarsaparilla 4 months ago. But ya live and learn.)

James' Birthday Spoilage

The kids gave James his birthday present early. His birthday is saturday, but taking toddlers with you to buy it- and letting them wrap it- proves to be too much excitement for them to hang on to. (And I have to confess, I don't like waiting for surprises either, I was fine with it!)

He bought himself a 'present' last week, one that he's been wanting for a long time. It was a Fallkniven knife (for those of you who aren't nerds like he is, it's high quality steel that can cut through your thigh bone, so there ya go.) What's he gonna use it for? I have no idea. He'll carry it around for a while, feel awesome to have something for show and tell, then he'll put it away with his hunting/camping items that he never uses. And it wasn't cheap.

So what did we get him? A Sirius satellite radio car system. He talks about never getting to hear current events, and misses some radio shows that are in other states, hates commercials, etc. He said once that he wanted Sirius. I listened, I got it. It's only $12.99 a month for the service, not so bad at all! So he can have CNN all the time, music, Nascar, even all Elvis 24/7 (my personal favorite!)

He 'said' that he loved it... but was a bit fussy because he was concerned about "how much he'll get use out of it." Um... he's in his work truck all day long. He works ALL the time. How can you NOT use it, ever? He's always telling me about what he heard on the radio. Appearantly he does listen to the radio, but he's worried that the cost wasn't worth how much he'll use the item.

Ha! It was much cheaper than the knife he bought himself, funny how he didn't apply that logic when purchasing his man-crush's knife of choice. (Bear Grylls on Man vs. Wild show.)

But he did enjoy the M&M's we also gave him. Thouroughly.

Sorry that the pic is blurry, it's from my cell phone camera, I soooo need a regular camera! One candy has a profile of James's face- which is hilarious because it's very detailed, and the others say "Happy Birthday" and "Big Daddy"

Mis-quoted

This weekend, Kellan kept positioning his stool far enough away from the end of his bed so that he could jump off of it, and 'fly' onto his bed over and over again.

This was keeping him amused for a little while yesterday, and I thought that he was pretending to be Buzz Lightyear shouting "To infinity and beyond!"

Until I listened a little closer....

He was actually saying "To Bed, Bath and Beyond!"

Can you tell he's with me always running errands? Poor boy!

My first love

Yesterday while I was resting in bed recovering in between throw up trips to the bathroom, I was watching "The Pursuit of HappYness" with Will Smith. Ahhh... what a gorgeous man.

I've seen it twice before, and I bought the DVD a long time ago- I just hadn't opened my copy of it until yesterday. I figured it was long overdue! I was bawling at the end of it, when my husband called, reminding me of the other fantastic man in my life *wink wink*

I just wanted to thank Will Smith for still keeping me in love with him. 13 years ago I adorned my school locker like a shrine to him with every magazine article I could get my hands on. Every day after 10th grade for 3 solid months my friend Shyla and I watched "Men in Black" from which we also picked the song we attempted a duet performance to at a state competition. My first email address was "Willy's girl" in dedication of my love for him.

And I'm happy to say that after 15 years since I first became hooked from The Fresh Prince of Bel-air (of which I still know all the lyrics to the theme song :) I am still in love with the man.

Blah

Why do I get sick easily when I'm pregnant? That's one thing I'm looking forward to being done with, not the pregnancy itself necessarily.

Yesterday Maren and I spent the day being sick with the flu. First thing in the morning it was a lovely wake up call to tend to Maren exploding out of both ends, followed by my own weak stomach reacting to it all. I thought my indigestion the night before was just from my big baby belly... appearantly not.

So a tear-filled phone call to James with several muttered "what am I going to do?" moments later, followed by a few more barf runs- I hit the phones to find someone to take Kellan.

THANK YOU CARA for being willing to take care of him. He is appearantly fine, I suspect that we caught it from him anyway, which he probably got from Nursery at church- good times.

I spent most of my day yesterday unconscience on my couch- only waking up to throw up again or change the channels on the t.v. for Maren. She spent most of the day in her sleeping bag beside me on the floor.

So after another night last night of the same episode for me, and a calm night for Maren (thankfully) Kellan returned for another day of fun with Cara and her cute kids (and to reclaim his beloved teddy bear that he left there yesterday, bedtime was very difficult last night!) And the Bishop's daughter came over today to hang out and play with Maren.

I'm gonna find my way back to my bed for several hours. And maybe I'll find the shower today too... lol.

I can't wait for tomorrow. I miss my kids. Kellan especially.

P.s. did I mention I was having contractions most of last week due to a U.T.I. and was supposed to be taking it easy with as much bedrest as possible? This throwing up action isn't what I call taking it easy, it's thrown a few extra contractions in there.

Oh yeah- and the other guy who James works with is getting married today, which means James is solo. No way possible to get off work, lets hope it's a quiet weekend with no emergencies to respond to please.

Someone pass the Ambian.

Potty Break

A couple of weeks ago Maren and Kellan were outside playing in their pool, and Maren realized that she needed to go potty. The idea of her dripping wet throughout my house makes me cringe! And I was working in my vegetable garden so I couldn't help her in the house. So I told her to sit on the grass and pee, then rinse off with the garden hose. (Yes, I know, some of you cringed at that too. Lol.) I also told her not to do that all the time, we're not dogs, we don't pee outside.

So yesterday they were playing outside most of the morning, then went swimming for a while, and ate their lunches outside. Twice they had come into the house to use the bathroom. Maren remembered that they aren't dogs, and it was a one-time exception.

Or so I thought anyway! As I'm fixing their dinner later that day, I was watching them outside the kitchen window. They both jumped out of the pool and ran to the grass where they both put their hands on their knees, leaned over to watch themselves, and peed on the grass. BUT they did get the water hose, and proceed to squirt the crap out of each other afterwards.

Ya gotta admit, it's a funny image, seeing them both in that position *knowing what they were about to do* just made me laugh. I wish I had a camera! My cell phone just ain't cuttin it anymore for the family album moments.

*tear* Ahhh, that's one I'll enjoy laughing about for a while.



(Disclosure: Yes, we had another talk about peeing outside, and where we really need to go.)

I'm not anti-doctors...

But I'm starting to get that way.
(*not really, I'm just bugged.)

Are they all so under educated that the mere stay at home mom makes them stutter?

So you read my last blog about Maren's eyes.

Yesterday we head to CVS minute clinic for a scrip for steriod eyedrops to help the oil glands, they can't do that- just the antibiotic ones. Alright. Back to the optometrist we go.

He says "antibiotic ointment this time, and a stronger antibiotic at that." Hmmm... why?
So I say "From what I've learned about Chalazions, it's an oil gland that is clogged because it's under developed. Mostly occuring in children because of that. It's not bacterial, why an antibiotic?"

He says: "Because it's red and swollen."

I say: "Yes, because it's clogged. And inflammed. Antibiotics don't help with the clogging issue, or the inflamation... so again, why an antibiotic product?"

His reply? "Uh...Uh...Uh...I'm confident in another month it will clear up. If not, then we'll look into injections and drainage treatment before they rupture."

Sure, in another month of me treating it with a wet washcloth and a heating pad 3-4 times a day to losen the oil, and a homeopathic specific for Chalazions, it's likely to clear up. And you'll think it's the pointless antibiotic ointment.

Thanks for wasting my time! And money! This isn't my insurance company that you are billing for useless treatments and bad medical advice. This was ME!

Baby Blues

This is a picture of Maren's right eye. It started back at the end of April with just one on her top eyelid, which we thought was a stye.

Then it became two on the top eyelid. Then one on the bottom, then two on the bottom.

Yup, 4 all together. Her poor eye!

So we did a natural antibiotic eyewash for styes. No improvement. We did warm compresses and gentle massaging. Nothin'. Took her to an optometrist and got an antibiotic eye drop. No improvement there either. We've done vitamin A in the eyes. Then we tried homeopathic eyedrops for a week. You know it... didn't work.

We've done everything seemingly 'normal' and took it a step up from that doing wives tales stuff such as a slice of potato on the eye, which is told to 'pull' things such as bacteria and clogs from the body. Of course that didn't work.

Maybe because it's not a stye! It's called Chalazion. A stye is a pore, usually an eyelash folicle that sometimes gets irritated by a hair or bacteria. The bacteria comes from the surface, into the pore. A Chalazion is different because it's a pore in the tissue region, not the eyelash region. And it becomes clogged from the inside of the body from the production of oil.

She's got 4 of them, so it seems her oil glands in her eyes are under developed.

And it's not gettin' any better, in fact they are getting bigger and worse. Especially this last week. So much so, that even strangers are making comments as they see her such as "Oh, your poor eye, what happened?" Before, it went unnoticed for the most part except by close friends and family that saw her often and noticed her bumpy eyes.

It looks like someone socked her a good one. So I've taught her to say "You should see the other guy!"

Ahhh... we're off to the minute clininc at CVS to get a prescription for a steriod eyedrop, then to the Herbal store for a homeopathic.

Keep your fingers crossed that the drops help her glands develop. Because otherwise, surgery is what we're lookin' at, and soon. Because they could rupture, which is 1)painful, 2)damaging to the tissue, and 3) could get infected if that happens and 4)expensive! We're still paying on the dentist bill from June!!

This girl is getting expensive! Oy vey.

Not my kid to brag about...

But super duper cute :)

My friend Christa and I discovered (accidentally) that her daughter Caroline is terrifed of Kellan's cabbage patch doll. The first time she saw it, her knees trembled, and her hand shook, but she just couldn't take her eyes off of him! Cora was less entertaining, she didn't mind him at all.

So their next visit, I couldn't resist. And neither could Christa, who was far more menacing about it than I was!

Maybe it was that commercial about insurance with the life-size cabbage patch that traumatized Caroline?