Happy Halloween

"If".. houses

There should be an "if" day... would you guys answer questions if I asked them? I thought maybe it'd give a slightly different feel to the blog for that one day. I'd still talk about myself (gotta answer my own question don't I?) but you'd have to talk about yourselves too. I was thinking I'd try making Saturdays my "If" days, since I am usually pretty light on posting over the weekend. Maybe Sunday will be dog day and I'll post pictures, updates, stories, or whatever about her Majesty.

So todays "if" question is brought to you by the fact that I've been daydreaming of houses lately. Lady D has the pefect one, Mr P (the Kiddo's idol at the moment) has a work in progress that's going to be amazing when it's done, my parents have a sprawler that has the best kitchen in the universe (*sigh* for two ovens!!). I have a friend with a house that overlooks a freaking lake (yeah sometimes I hate her heh). And another friend who's probably going to be buying himself a house in the next half a year. So I've got houses on the brain.

So here it is; if you were going to buy a house, and the livingroom window had to be facing either east or west which direction would you want? Assume the windows were really big and the view unhindered.

In my mind the house is on a hill, and the view includes the city (so that at night I get the city lights). I figure that location should ensure a fair amount of privacy. So since either view (in theory) would give me the night cityscape, then my big concerns are a) sun-heat through the windows, and b) sunset vs sunrise.

Course right now I deal with west facing windows and the afternoon sun is hot! That makes for an expensive a/c bill in the summer, but a low heat bill in the winter. Even still "a" really isn't much of a concern to me. If I can afford a house I can afford decent windows, and/or thick curtains to block the heat. So "b" is really my main concern.










I'm usually up taking the dog out at sunrise. I love watching the sun fight it's way up over the Wasatch mountains. But I also try to time the evening walk for sunset, and the colors are so much more vibrant. I think for me I'd pick sunset, because I could watch the sun go down and then, as the world darkens, watch the city lights come alive.

How about you?

Not your normal school parade

This morning at the Kiddo's school they had a Halloween parade. All the kids that had dressed up were able to be in it. It should have been one of the most fun mornings of the month ...

The Kiddo woke up a little early this morning, lately his usual schedule is medication at 7:30am, up at 8, next meds at 8:30, then breakfast at 9:30. Today he rolled out of bed at 7:30, and I let him stay up because I figured it would be mean to make him go lay in bed thirty more minutes.

He took his meds on schedule, but told me that he thought his head felt hot. I took his temperature and he was right, he was up to 100.6. So I gave him some Tylenol before we bundled him into the car to head to school.













As we stood in the hall outside his classroom waiting for it to be time for them to line up he started acting a little funny. Another kid hit him with a foam sword, the Kiddo came over and started to cry... he doesn't cry about stuff like that, he's a shake it off and breath through it kind of kid so we worried. The Man tried asking him what was wrong but the Kiddo just kept trying to lay his head down on his shoulder. Finally I crouched down to talk to him, I told him he needed to shake it off so he could do the parade. As I talked to him I watched his eyes roll back into his head as he struggled to stay conscious. I gave him a little shake and asked him how he felt. He said fine, but he swayed and started to pass out again. Immediately we realized that he was starting to go into crisis, no idea WHY but at least we knew what to do.. we got him some water, gave him an emergency dose of his AI meds, a package of fruit snacks and had him sit still for the next five minutes or so. He seemed to snap out of it enough that we felt okay leaving him with the teacher to do the parade.
I will admit I worried the whole time. He seemed a little out of it, didn't hear us call him when he walked past us, and didn't really look around any. I felt so bad for him, little guy has been so excited about this the whole week and here he was not able to enjoy it.

We brought him home and sat him down to watch cartoons for the next 45 minutes until it was time to go back for class. I gave him the option of wearing his iron man costume or his toothless costume again and he said now that he was feeling better he really wanted to wear Toothless so the other kids could see him. How could I say no to that? I dressed him up and am keeping my fingers crossed that it doesn't get torn or spilled on during the class party.

A little slow

I'm a little slow and stuffed up lately... That plus the computer issues I'm having, make for infrequent posting. Still I'm going to do my best to stay on top of the game, and hopefully soon the chest cold takes a hike.

Meanwhile I thought it worth reporting that Barns and Noble has now put out for pre-order their Color Nook! I knew it was going to happen soon, and the timing seems about right (regular Nook came out for pre-ordering about this same time last year).

It would be neat to have the full color screen for books in the Kiddo's age range, but if you ask me I'm happy enough with the regular Nook and not upset that I didn't wait.

What do you all think? Color Nook anyone?

here we go again

The first snow of the year happened sometime last night. Her Majesty isn't happy, the normal five minutes outside to poop before breakfast turned into 20 minutes as she struggled to figure out what the heck the cold wet white stuff was on her feet. Finally I found a big enough clear spot under a tree that she could walk in circles till she was ready. I hope she gets used to it soon!
The Kiddo is over the moon about it. As soon as he saw that it had snowed he wanted to go outside and play in it. Make footprints and throw snowballs is what he said... I told him that mommy has a chest and head cold and does NOT want to spend the morning cold and wet so he'd have to wait till the next snow to play.

Toothless

This is Toothless (the dragon, not the boy). He is a Night Fury and one of the main characters in the movie "How to Train Your Dragon". I posted several months ago about our trip to see the movie in the theater. The Kiddo loved it, and we really enjoyed it. Since then he's been on a little bit of a dragon kick and I thought I'd try my hand at making him a Night Fury costume this year.
I finished it this morning, I'm not 100% happy with it but he loves it. I think the wings are too short, and there is supposed to be another set of fins on the tail (up next to the body)... I'm out of black fabric though so if I want to add that second set I'll have to go buy some more.. which would be silly because as is the entire thing cost me less then 10 bucks! Odds are good I'll do it, I hate feeling like something isn't quite right...

King for the day

Yesterday, after we got homel, the Kiddo and I went through his backpack and looked at the things he had done in school. They worked on the letter y, so there was a paper with dot to dot y's he traced. Then there was a few other kindergarten type papers. And at the bottom was a little letter home saying that today was the Kiddo's day to be King for the day.

What the heck is that! I asked the kiddo and he said "well, it's when you have these papers and you get to do things". Well THAT makes it all much more clear... After a few calls to my support group (thanks D and mama) I decided to take a paper I had gotten from his old teacher and have him fill it out. Since according to the note the day is supposed to be about introducing my child to the class I thought the 'all about me' paper would be a good way to fake it.

The good news is Kiddo is so smart that while I was distracted getting pictures printed he was reading the questions about himself and answering them. The bad news is he spelled a lot of words incorrectly so we had to go through and erase and re-write them. Still he was very excited to fill it in and very excited to show his class.

Then when it was time for school we carefully rolled it and took it with us. When Mrs. S. stepped out of her classroom to line the kids up I quickly approached and mentioned that we knew it was the Kiddo's day but we didn't have the right paper so we'd filled out this other one instead. She took a look at it and said it was the same paper!!

So after a full day of stress and wondering what the heck to do we ended up doing the exact right thing. Probably not as fancy as we would have done it had we a little more warning, but hopefully good enough for the purpose.

aaachoo

Wednesdays are the worst day of the week for me. The lawn care guys (apartment complex) mow the lawn at 7:30am, which means lawn clippings and, now that it's cool enough to leave the windows open, allergies. I swear it would almost be worth the electric bill not to have the hour long sneezing fits.

Today was worse then usual though because the Kiddo gave me his cold (and I quote: "I'm sorry I shared my cold with you mommy, I didn't meant to give you half of it").

So anyway last night I slept like crap and had multiple dreams where every person I met handed me a tissue box and told me I looked horrible. My mom was front and center, she kept popping up in each dream to tell me I wasn't taking good enough care of myself and that snotting all over everybody wasn't very nice.

But now the day is over, and hopefully I'll sleep without dreams tonight and feel much better tomorrow....

note to self - running

I decided today was a good day to take a second shot at walking to drop the Kiddo off at school. We left with twenty five minutes to spare, but it only took us 15 minutes to get there.

See this time CC is bigger (and has longer legs) and she walks better on leash. That meant I didn't spent the entire trip dragging her after us. The biggest factor though was the Kiddo, he ran the entire way. Halfway there, knowing we had plenty of time, I reminded him that he didn't HAVE to run, he really could slow down and walk if he wanted too. He says: but mom I have to run, I CAN run, I wont give up.

He's very determined that he can do what other kids can, as fast and as strong... if not stronger and faster. I am proud of him for his persistence and his lack of fear in trying.

We arrived at school about 8 minutes before Mrs. S lined the kids up and took them in, I fed the kiddo some fruit snacks and hoped that the food would help boost his energy level and the extra exertion wouldn't effect his focus too much. It probably will, I feel bad for doing that to Mrs. S... I think for now I'll try to limit the on foot travel to coming home from school whenever possible.

writing

Lately the Kiddo has been all about books. I wouldn't go so far as to say he loves all of reading time, but he really enjoys the first 10 minutes or so, (after that his eyes get tired and it's less fun for him). Anyway lately he's been on a "write books" kick and it's been a lot of fun watching him make up stories and then draw pictures to illustrate them.

The other day he took a rhyme he learned a few weeks ago in class and made it into book:

*yes I know peek is spelled wrong... blame it on the Man, he's the one that helped him with the spelling on that page.

Officially growing

Today was the Kiddo's Endo appointment. I was (as usual) about a quarter inch off with my at home measurements, that's because I always forget and have him stand to measure first thing in the morning...
So what's the magic number for this month? 1 3/4 inches!! And one pound heavier.

To give reference that lowest sticker was his height on his birthday in February, he did not grow between then and the start of his growth hormone shots at the end of April. The second white sticker was his last doc appt in July, after about three months of growth hormone. The last one is today, three months after that.

He's doing a pretty steady growth pattern, and has grown a total of 3 1/4 inches since we started. He says he's going to grow to be as tall as Uncle P, and that when he gets that tall he'll be able to drive his "yellow bumblebee car"... it's good to have goals *chuckle*

Sleepovers - I am THAT girl

The Kiddo loves his new bed. He loves how big it is (I quote: it's the best that can be and it's the biggest bed in the whole world), and he hasn't fought bedtime all week because of it. I still think it is VERY cool that we already had sheets for it. I even got motivated and pulled out, and put up, a wall mural I haven't used since we lived in Flagstaff. His room is completely re-done is big boy style. If I'd known it was going to be free to do I would have done it a long time ago!
So last night I finally said yes to the Kiddo's constant request for a sleepover, though instead of him sleeping over in my bed, this week he's been asking me to sleep in his. So we got ready for bed at 9 and crawled under the covers. He was a little upset that I didn't have my own stuffy so he dug through his to find me one. Then he snuggled up to my side and we looked up at the nightlight stars on his ceiling. He spent a good 30 minutes telling me what constellation was what (there was a starwars ship, a lion space ship, and cupcake with her curly tail).

Finally he fell asleep, and the tossing and turning began. At 2am I gave up and snuck back to my own bed. Yep I'm that kid, the one that goes on a sleepover but calls her mommie and goes home halfway through the night because she can't sleep.

All I can say is oops... when the man went in to give the Kiddo his medication this morning the Kiddo asked him if he could please go talk to mommie to say he was sorry for being bad last night because she didn't stay and sleepover all night.

Well crap, I didn't think or I would have known that he'd be upset to not have me there in the morning. I had a talk with him later during breakfast. I told him that it wasn't anything HE did it was mommie being silly and that we could try another sleep over next week. He's happy again, and already planning the next sleepover.

Medical Allert

This is what we're hoping for, not just a companion but a medical alert dog as well... though since we are training ourselves we aren't sure if we can actually do it, but hey it's worth a try right?

The side effects of growing

I measured the Kiddo the other morning, looks like he's grown another inch since the end of August. We should get confirmation on that this Friday at his next Endocrinologist appointment. Till then I like my at home numbers, and so does he!

Except for the not so great side effects of growing... which would be that you outgrow things. I had, of course, thought ahead and purchased clothing a little to big for him. But there are other things that I hadn't thought of... like his bed.

The Kiddo has been telling us almost nightly that he wants to sleep over in our bed. He says his is not comfortable. So I took him in there and had him lay on top of the sheets, yep four inches to spare IF he's all the way up on his pillow. Then I had the man double check his position in the mornings. Kiddo is a very active sleeper, and generally by the morning he's scooted himself down off his pillow and has to sleep curled to fit.

We can't really afford a new bed for him but we started looking anyway, sleep is important when you're a kid and we thought maybe we could find something used that wouldn't be too scary. I've spent the last week or so looking through the online classifieds and the cheapest we could find was a used twin mattress for 20 bucks. Not bad, there would be 7 inch overhand sideways and lenghways if we used his crib base though so we looked into a frame as well. Cheapest we could get there was 50. So 70 bucks, then sheets... we started stressing a little.

I checked the classifieds daily for any new listings just in case. Last night I saw one, 2 minutes old, for a twin bed mattress, box, and metal frame... free. The person listing it said that the bed was a guest room bed so rarely used and in very good condition.

Holy crap, perfect, the Man called and scooted over to pick it up. He called me as he pulled into our parking lot to tell me how surprised he was that a twin sized mattress wouldn't fit easily into the back of our explorer. I thought to myself that it was indeed very odd, and it must be one fancy pillow top twin or something. But when he opened the back I started to laugh, definitely not a twin silly man... it's a full!

So now we have a full sized bed... even better I already have a mattress protector AND sheets (from a previous bed we had borrowed a few years ago) so the Kiddo's new bed is 100% free!! I cannot believe how lucky we got, and he is over the moon excited.
Tonight the Man will go back and get the box springs and the frame (the whole thing wouldn't fit with one trip yesterday) and the Kiddo can sleep on it. And if anybody needs Christmas ideas the Kiddo really wants an iron man comforter (which is pretty much impossible to find in the full size *chuckle*).

smile

This month is when they do school pictures. I have no idea what to do with it, should I pay 13 bucks (smallest package) and get them done? Or should I do my own and save the money. Normally I'd just shell out the 13 bucks but... well... this is what happens when you tell the Kiddo the smile for a picture:
When he thinks about smiling it ends up as a "put on" smile, teeth gritted and awful. I can get a real smile out of him, but sometimes it takes a few tries to do it. Of course it might be nice to get the class picture, and if I'm doing that I might as well spend the five more bucks for the photo of just him...

What would you do?

timeline in pictures

I really love it when family comes to visit, the only bad part is when they leave... I always end up spending some time kicking myself for moving so far away from them. Anyway having my brother here was great!

Kiddo wouldn't let anybody else hold his hand for Uncle P's entire visit.
He read to him every day, and did a pretty good job doing it :)
Uncle P gave the kiddo a really cool "airplane coat" and the Kiddo wore it to our nephews football game

After the game we took a trip up to the house we grew up in. It's been foreclosed so was empty. I wish I'd thought about it and called the realtor so we could have gone in and walked around.
Uncle P has a LOT of patience, he played with the Kiddo for hours. The Man pointed out that it's easier when you're visiting a kid vs living with him daily *chuckle*
The Man arranged for us to have a tour of the National Guard airport. The Kiddo and Uncle P were right at home in the Blackhawk. Kiddo is bound and determined that he's going to be an "army pilot" when he grows up.
It was a great visit, and the Kiddo wasn't happy to have Uncle P go. He is determined that either my brother will come back or we'll go to visit him sometime very soon.

pay your dues

Read an article this morning that I thought I'd get opinions on.

Rural Tennessee fire sparks debate

Personally while I feel bad for the guy I think he made an informed decision not to pay the dues. Sucks, I'd be really ticked... and I'm not sure why he couldn't foot the whole bill (probably a lot more then the dues would have been) but it is what it is.

What do you think?

Three Days...

My brother is coming to visit us this weekend. He flies in this morning and we will go pick him up from the airport before dropping the Kiddo off at School. He is SO excited that he gets to have his Uncle P drop him off at school (not to mention pick him up).

I'm not sure what we're going to do to entertain him but I do know that I'm going to do my best to feed him well. I'm planing home made lasagna, and taco soup, I even let the Kiddo picked some boxes of crackers for snacks. The rest is up to the universe.

My posting is usually light on the weekends but I thought it worth mentioning that with company I will probably not post again until Monday. But hopefully when I do post again I'll have some great pictures and funny stories.

Thanks for being patient :)