wait... WHAT??!!

I think I just saw a commercial for Strawberry Peanut Butter M&M's!! That cant' be right..

And yet when I do a quick bit of Google foo it seems that IS what I saw:



I haven't decided yet if I'm actually willing to try these things. I mean my initial reaction is ew, but then I do really like chocolate and strawberries and I've heard that they actually taste pretty good so maybe I will.

I should speak to the M&M guru... mom if you're reading this what do you think? :D

Saturday (un)productivity

I don't have a lot to say today, it's Saturday and if you know me at all you know it's a lazy good for nothing day with me. Don't want to leave you hanging to much though so I'm going to post a couple pictures of the rainbow we had yesterday. It was huge, and bright, and went all the way from one side to the other. It was definitely a "wish I had a better camera" kind of moment.
The Kiddo loved it. It was our first rainbow of the year and he was naming the colors (well the yellow and blue anyway) and dancing in the puddles.

Tattoo followup

Not that any of us are surprised but that Belgian teenager I wrote about a few days ago who claimed a tattoo artist drew 56 stars on her face, rather than the three she asked for, has admitted she lied.

h/t my mom who sent me the follow up email a couple days ago. I saw this article about it today as well.

a kitchen conversation...

Kiddo: Mommy what are you doing?

Me: I'm putting away the leftovers, that's what I'm doing.

Kiddo: oh, yuck..

Me: yuck?? what's yuck??

Kiddo: oh yuck means when I put something in my mouth and I taste it and I don't like it.


I can't believe my kid just defined a word to me... he's only 4 and he already thinks he's smarter then me!!

Thank you sister in law

Here is a big thank you* to my Sister in Law, who decided in her infinite wisdom to let her son give** the Kiddo his first ever Nerf gun.

Yes we definitely had tons of extra space in the kids room for this new big toy.

The fact that the Kiddo has tried to sleep with it the last two nights has been entertaining, if not disruptive to both his and my sleep***.

He very quickly figured out how to change the thing from a truck to a gun, and this afternoon his little brain worked overtime and he figured out how to pump it to shoot the little Nerf dart. Life is now a series of 4 year old giggle fits, proud proclamations on how he "made it go up" and my voice saying over and over ad nauseam "please don't point that at people, point it at monsters or the ceiling or the floor or your other toys but NOT AT PEOPLE!"


*That's a slightly less then sincere thank you for those of you slower on the uptake then most.

** Read as 'hand me down'

*** despite my best efforts he snuck it into bed, rolled over onto it, woke up and then woke me up.

Saturday productivity

Here there is none... oh but there could be, if only I wasn't such a lazy butt.

Today is the day of the annual complex yard sale. Last years was a tad pathetic, I think there were maybe two people out there. Perhaps it's a sign of the economy but this year it's darn near packed. Cars coming and going, people milling about. I find myself wondering if maybe I shouldn't have put a little more thought into the process of deciding it wasn't worth the effort to participate.
Of course for that to do any good I'd have had to have things I wanted to try and sell. I really don't have that much in the way of "crap". The storage closet is full of holiday stuff not old useless stuff. The Kiddo hasn't outgrown much in the way of clothing (that we haven't already given away to DI). Granted I do have a few things here and there, but the 5 bucks total I'd have gotten out of them probably wouldn't have been worth getting up early for.

Still it's nice to see people being productive out there in the cold. Yes I said cold, the weather page says 71 degrees cloudy and windy but to me it feels a lot colder.

Medical mumbo jumbo

Okay here is the update on the Kiddo and his menagerie of medical mysteries (hows that for a lot of m's).

As mentioned a couple days ago we finally got the results back from the blood work he had done a couple months ago. They tested for several things so I'll take it point by point.

-First Result- His cortisol system may be abnormal, his levels were low. Low cortisol by itself does not mean a lot. He will need to have a stimulation test to know whether the low cortisol levels are of significance or not. Basically if he responds normally to the stimulation test, then his levels are normal. However if they do not respond normally to the stimulation test, then he will be considered to have "significant" low cortisol. If that is the case then the reasons for it may be in the brain (hypothalamus or pituitary) or may be in the adrenal gland itself .. at that point they'll try and figure out what is causing it and he'll take a daily medication to help balance the level.

I'm a little unclear on what exactly a low cortisol level means. I'm sure I'll get a better understanding if his levels come back low after the test, till then I'm not going to worry about it to much but thought it should be included in the update.

-Second Result- He has Hypothyroidism. Rather then type a lot trying to explain exactly what that means I've linked it to the best article I could find via google. At first I was not worried about this at all. But as I do research (bad BAD Internet, BAD research, BAD me for being so information driven that I read everything I can find)... anyway as I do research I've begun to get a little concerned. My big concern right now is the medication to treat the condition seems to be very hard to get the correct dosage of (since the dosage changes with weight/age/height etc) and that an incorrect dosage can have physical/physiological repercussions. I will have to ask a lot more questions when I next talk to the doc. Medication for this wont start until we get the cortisol stress test done and get the results back.

-Third Result- Yes, as feared, his "growth factors" are low as well. Basically he has a low level of growth hormones. The good news on this count is that the hypothyroidism could be accounting for the slow growth on the Kiddo's part and by medicating that we could fix the problem and will quite possible not need to treat the low growth hormone levels. Plus he did grow a good half an inch in the last 1-2 months and that is a sign that the low levels aren't the cause of his smaller growth. At this point my fingers are crossed that this is the case, we will continue to keep an eye on him and possibly test him again at a later date but when I say later date I mean 6 months, or quite a bit longer depending on everything else. So really not great news but good news none the less.

-Fourth Result- was not blood work related but the result of his bone age/density x-ray. You ready for this? His bone age density is that of a two year old!! He's four! We were hoping they would come back as that of a 3 year old so I guess 2 is even better. Basically what this means is that he is actually on the correct growth curve for the age of his bones. If you put him on the growth curve for a 4 year old he's very short, and at the end of his growth he would barely get to my height (5'4"). But if you plot him on the growth curve for a 2 year old he is average and at the end of the curve he will be the Man's height (6'1").

In essence when a four year old with four year old bone age/density stops growing at 16 years old, the Kiddo will continue to grow for two more years until his bone age catches up. He'll do those two years of growing at the end vs the beginning. Very good news and very encouraging for his overall fully grown height.

So there you have it folks. The Man says he takes blame for 1 year of the bone age (genetics, he grew late) and we can blame the other year on the hypothyroidism. Between the late growing genetics and the medication to fix the hypothyroidism the kiddo should bounce back into a more "normal" growth pattern very soon.

tattoo me not

Apparently there is a girl in Brussels that went to a tattoo parlor to have a couple stars tattooed on her face.

When she left the place she had half her face covered in stars... she says she fell asleep and the tattoo artist did his own thing. He says she asked for what she got but when her dad saw it and threw a fit she started in with the whole "not what I asked for" thing.

I have one thing to say: Um.. how do you fall asleep while having a tattoo done on your face??!! Let alone anywhere else on your body. I tend to believe the tattoo artist on this one, though he's quite an interesting looking character himself so who knows (check out the video at the article link above).

A check on growth

Today is the day we go and get the test results for The Kiddo. If you'll recall he went to the endocrinologist about two months ago and then had blood work done and a bone density xray on his hand.

I was fairly confident that all the test results would come back normal until a month to a month and a half ago when I measured him to see if he'd grown any in the two previous months. He had not and so I started to have a niggling doubt that maybe just maybe he wasn't actually growing normally.

Anyway as mentioned today is the day we get the test results that check the growth hormone level in his system and the age of his bones. On a whim I stood him against the wall and measured him again. He has grown 1/2 an inch!! I am no longer concerned at all, this will be a great visit!

of mantres and things

Whenever I start to get frustrated that things are not going well, they're taking to long or turning out not right... I always tell myself "you can only do what you can do, so DO it and stop freaking out". Which actually works for me, it's like taking a deep breath and regrouping and then carrying on.

Todays note from the universe (I get them daily from Tut.com) was much the same idea and I thought hmm maybe I'm on to something.

You only ever have to do what you're capable of doing, because by design, no matter how things appear, you'll always have enough time to do it, you'll do even better than you would have thought, and life will get even richer than you could have imagined.

There you go people, strait from the universes... you only have to do what you CAN do the rest will sort itself out.

(disclaimer: uh you kinda have to actually DO things and give it your best or the whole idea is crap)

Satisfaction...

is calling the crappy eye doctor to cancel the Kiddo's eye appointment...

Me: I'd like to cancel the Kiddo's eye appointment this Friday

Them: okay, that's his two month follow up correct?

Me: Yes it was

Them: when are we reschedule that for?

Me: We aren't, we found him a better eye doctor.

Them:... ... .. uh okay

Me (extremely cheerful): Thank you bye!


aaaaah that really did feel good. AND I did not say any of the cranky bratty things I was tempted to say... such as "we are never coming back because your eye doctors are NOT PEDIATRIC!! and you lied when you said they were". Instead I kept it professional and polite while still getting my point across *little dance*

mm burgers

We did go out for our anniversary dinner last night (again, even though I already said it like 8 times, THANK YOU mama and daddy!!). We went to Red Robbin (love LOVE that place, the waiters are always so nice, the food is always good and the fry sauce is outstanding).

The man ordered me spinach dip. He doesn't eat the stuff so it was like my very own special appetizer. Half of it came home with us and I get to eat it today. YUM!
Then we ordered dinner. I ended up getting what I always get. And by always I mean the two times my mom and dad took me out to eat there. The Banzai Burger!! mmm mmm I'm hungry just looking at the photo... I am such a big fan of pineapple and *tariaki!
The man got a um... I can't remember what it was called. Basically a heart attack on a bun, burger with bacon and an egg.
And the kiddo got a personal pizza and fries (yes he came, it's hard for us to find a good sitter for the kiddo so we end up lugging him around with us on our dates... which is okay because he behaves himself extraordinarily well and doesn't really detract any at all from the joy of eating out).


* spell checker failed miserably ... it doesn't have any idea how to spell teriyaki!

Let us eat cake...

Friday was my anniversary. The Man has been working graveyard shifts all week so we didn't really get a chance to do anything. Still it's possible tonight we might go out to eat (thanks mamma and daddy!). At any rate to celebrate I made us a *Pineapple Upside Down cake!

Here is where things get odd. I've made this particular cake a dozen times at least but every time I was at my moms house in AZ (the most recent being this past February). This is the first time I've made it since moving to Utah. It did not work out quite so well..

I have a solid metal pan (I'm not sure what it's made of) and my only thought it that somehow it is the culprit. Though attempt number two at making the cake was done in the exact same pan and came out fine so I don't know...

The first time I made it I followed the recipe very carefully, got all the ingredients put together perfectly (it's HARD to get stiff peaks using a hand mixer yoiks). Anyway I put it in the oven at 325 (per directions) and left it there for 30 minutes. Checked it and it seems like it was baking nicely but needed more time. I left it in for 5 more, then 5 more after that. I pulled it out and cut around the edge and noticed the knife was getting very gooky so threw it back into the oven really quick for another 5 minutes. That's 45 minutes total (directions say 30-35).

After letting it sit for a few minutes I upended it on my cake pan and holy crap it smooshed! It was as it the entire inside portion of the cake batter had not cooked at all. It was disgusting!

I managed to salvage the pineapple (as I hadn't bought any extra) and set about making the cake a second time. No nuts though, they were all mixed in with the cake goop so got washed down the drain with the rest. I made the second cake the exact same way as the first, set the oven temperature a might bit higher (closer to 345 give or take) and cooked it a solid 40 minutes before checking, left it in another 3 minutes or so (so basically 44/45 minutes) before taking it out and letting it cool. When I flipped this one over it was perfect!

I have no idea, oven imps maybe? Yeah the pineapple and cherry on the cake look a little pathetic, that's because they've been cooked twice and had a little batter on both sides of them... Still it's a yummy cake, I'm SO glad the second version came out the way it was supposed too. mmm nothing like a slice of pineapple upside down cake and coffee for breakfast! I can FEEL my hips getting bigger



* Recipe in comments section

A carrot a day...

Today we finally got to take the Kiddo in to see our "second opinion" eye doctor. I am not sure how many of you remember the last eye doc visit, and how frustrated I was with it all. I'll do a really brief back story for anybody who missed it (with links to older posts included if you're bored and confused enough to go read back story *chuckle*)...

The Kiddo has optic nerve hypoplasia (ONH link in side bar) which basically means that when he was born the optic nerve (which is what you use to see) was severely underdeveloped in his left eye. He sees very well with his right eye but with his left he can really only see with the peripheral, the central vision is non existent. About three months ago we took him to an opthomologist who told us we should patch his good eye so that he works his bad eye harder and hopefully improves his vision. After about a month of that we went back and were told it was helping and to keep patching. The whole thing didn't really jive with what I know of the ONH so when we found out there was a pediatric opthomologist who is the leading expert on the condition in Utah, we set up an appointment with him. Till then we continued (for the most part) to follow the other opthomologists orders to patch the Kiddo.

Today was the day when we finally got to go to the new doctor. It was a two hour visit as they did all the usual vision tests, including dilating his eyes. He was amazing with it all (as is usual for him).. when the assistant was doing the preliminary vision check he stole her heart. She put up pictures on the far wall (vs letters like they do for adults) and asked him what he saw. He paid close attention and named them all quickly with his right eye. When she covered the right and had him use his left he tried his best to name them but after four or five pictures he got frustrated, rather then throwing a tantrum or getting mad when she asked him what the next picture was of he very sweetly said "you tell me." I admit it, I laughed out loud.

When she asked us who our normal eye doctor was and we told her she acted shocked and said as far as she knew that doctor wasn't a pediatric doctor!! She told us to make sure we double checked with the doc when he came in to see the Kiddo though just in case she was mistaken.

She was not mistaken, the doc told us that he knew the people at that office and that no they were not pediatric eye doctors. I was so mad, I had asked on two separate occasions to make sure that they were and was told both times yes. My mom makes a very good point that they probably had general training in the pediatric vision area before they went to their field so probably in their heads they ARE trained for peds (not that she isn't equally annoyed that they weren't self aware enough to know that our Kiddo needed somebody with more specialized knowledge then they had).

At any rate the end result is that we don't have to patch his eye anymore. Really we never did. The plus to having done it is that we know we reminded his brain to use what little vision that eye gives to help him see. And ultimately there is no negative consequence to having done it aside from the temporary discomfort (which the Kiddo wont remember).

I'm so glad we decided to follow our guts and get a second opinion. It's a good feeling to know that sometimes instinct is a good thing to listen too and when you feel like something isn't quite right then go ahead and check it out.

shoes and shoes and shoes

Got my birthday shoes finally.. If you'll recall this post from last week I sent my sis a couple pairs of shoes for our birthday. She loves them and I envied them so much that finally I decided to use my birthday money to buy them for myself. I took pictures of them all for you guys to see.

I believe she said her favorites are the green, because they are so easy to get on. I do love them, very cushioned and extremely comfortable. Plus funky cute!

The second pair I sent her were these, black and gray with tan straps. The buckles are tiny and a little hard to work but the shoes are really comfortable and look way cute so I don't care.

This last pair is all mine. I was shopping for the two above and saw these on sale for 75% off (15 bucks!!) and told the Kiddo he was buying me them for his present to me. He thought it was great because they are pretty so everybody ended up happy. The heals are the highest of the three pairs and there isn't quite as much cushion in the insole, still very cute and for the price more then worthwhile.

June Weather...

Gotta love it... big thunderstorm with lightning and rain..

And heavier rain...

And what's that,... no it can't be not in June...

Yep it is, hail... pea sized hail no less. ow!!

And of course during all this there was about a 15 minute conversation with the Kiddo about what hail is vs snow and rain and why he couldn't go play in it

randomly funny

Kids are great, wonderful little things that make us giggle even when they're being little smart asses... because we can't help ourselves.

Just in case your week started like mine did.. I give you several Kiddo quotes from the last couple of days:

-"Okay mommie, we will get raisins at the next store, but we WILL go to a next store okay!, I said OKAY?!?! Oh man she is not listening, I dont know what to do if she is not listening *sigh*" (said in the Grocery store after being told we were getting raisens later but not right now) :with his face all screwed up and serious).

-"Go to bed, stay in bed, go to sleep and don't pee yourself.." (said while tucking in his daddy)

-"Mom, I want a dragon airplane so we can fly. You can fly the airplane and I will fly the airplane and daddy will stay here and we will go see grannie okay? It will be fun." (said looking at a pamphlet for the airforce base flight musium).

-*jumping a foot* Aaaaah, you scared me mommie, don't SCARE me it's not nice... ... can you scare me again?? (said after being caught sneaking out of bed, btwit was a real scared jump but fake aaah noise)

-"Trust me, you will like it, it's a good movie.. and it has apples in it" (said while convincing me that I wanted to watch the movie he picked out instead of the one I picked)



There's more I'm sure but that's all I can think of at the moment :)

Belmont

The Kiddo love LOVES horse racing. He gets so excited to watch. I enjoy watching them as well, though the pre race programing gets a little booooring!

It was a fun race to watch I'm glad I remembered it was today so we could watch it.

Movies

There are a dozen movies I'd kill to see in the theater right about now. Unfortunately I don't see that happening any time soon (considering it's been several years since the last one).

On the home front the most recent movie we watched was one of the Disc World movies. I wish they were live action vs animated. Anyway we watched Soul Music which is about a guy who is taken over by some magic music that resided in his guitar.

Anyway the whole reason for this post is that as soon as the movie was done the Kiddo went and found his guitar and ran around the house playing it. Rock on little man!

Blue blue blue

Blueberries are really very good for you. Which is why I eat them, not because they're tasty or anything but because they're good for me. Yep it's true they can help improve your memory! That's incentive enough right there. The sad thing is that they're way expensive so I usually end up buying the frozen kind, which kinda creates some soggy morning waffles what with all the juice they let out when defrosted *sigh*

.. .. .. .. .. .. .. .. .. .. .. .. ..

I hate it when Thursdays feel like Saturdays. The Man is doing a four day weekend for the Navy this month. There is an Air Show at the nearby air force base and his unit is going to be doing the security for it. That means today through Sunday he's off playing soldier. Which is unusual enough that it really messes up my head, it feels like Saturday even though it isn't.

Yesterday was my birthday. I think it was fairly decent. The Mother in Law came over to visit in the morning, we let the kids play on the slides and hung out playing with her new puppy. She listened to me and bought me a 9x9 cake pan for my present!! I was going to buy one back in March but held off because I knew it would be a good present idea for a mother in law type person and I'm glad I did. Sister in Law gave me some new cooking pans, I already had an 8x8 but can definitely use this new one, plus now I have a big casserole sized one, which is even better. Don't normally make recipes that use a dish that size but there are a couple times over the past year I wished I had one so it'll be used.

The best present of all was Lady D and my bro P got me a pair of tickets to the Nickelback concert in August. I sooo had wanted to go and didn't think I'd be able too. It's on the 26th I think (or the 25th) and in the evening. We'll get the Mans sis or mom to toddler sit and get to go watch Nickleback, Hinder and Saving Able in concert!! I love all three groups so I can't wait!

I also spent my birthday money yesterday, which is specially because usually it gets put strait into the bank and used to help with the finances. I gave Lady D some shoes for her present and she said they were sooo cute. I have been oggling them for a couple months hoping they'd go down in price (which they did) and was actually feeling a little jealous of her after I ordered them for her. So I figured why not spend my birthday money on a set for myself too? They'll get here sometime next week, I'm excited. Love shoes :D

Other then that the day was uneventful. We did absolutely nothing in the afternoon/evening and I ended up having tomato soup for dinner. The coconut cheesecake I made for my special birthday desert turned out awful (yeah I'm chucking that recipe ick). So I didn't even have birthday desert. That's okay though, I have gained a couple pounds in the last week, something to do with bad eating habits (donuts and chocolate mmm) so not having an entire cheesecake to eat is probably a good thing.

Next Friday (the 12th) is my 5 year wedding anniversary!! Even more it's also the 10 year anniversary this month of when me and the Man met. I'm trying to think of something spiffy to do to celebrate. It seems like a "big one" as far as anniversaries go. If I remember correctly the 5 year anni is the "wood" anniversary. Not that the Man and I have ever really done the "theme" related gifts, usually we can barely afford to go out to dinner! Still I'm keeping that in mind while I wrack my little brain for a good idea.

Next Friday is also the Kiddo's second opinion eye doctor appt. That should be really interesting. The following Wed (17th) is our followup visit with the endocrinologist. All the test results are finally in so we get to go hear that yep the Kiddo is normal. I'm really looking forward to that too!

That should catch us all up on the boring news of my life. I'll see if I can go find something more fun to post about in a couple hours.

Cake...

The Man has been working the graveyard shift this past week and on his way home this morning he stopped and bought me some fresh donuts from the bakery next door. I call them my "mini birthday cakes". I'm going to make myself a coconut cheesecake for desert on my Birthday DAY so this is how I get to have chocolate cake* AND white cake AND cheesecake... it's like the best birthday cake year ever ((grin))


*note the one missing chocolate covered donut. That was the one I ate first thing this morning.