Mark

So I normally write stories about the kids, since they tend to be the most entertaining these days, but Mark caused enough drama today to get his own post so here the story:

Mark hasn't been to the doctor in years, so I mention it occasionally. Well Sunday he started feeling horrible and Monday wasn't any better. By Tuesday he couldn't hardly pick up either of the kids or tie his shoes, so I said you are going to the doctor. So he went in today ~ I don't think either of us really expected anything serious, maybe he would just get some meds and that would be good. Well he called me after the appt., cause he was going to run some errands for me and he said he had bad news. The doc wanted him to go straight to the hospital and stay the night. Apparently the doc thought he might have tetanus since about 10 days again he stepped on a nail, but decided he didn't need a shot since it pretty much just went through his shoes and barely touched his foot. Hopefully everything will be fine, he does feel better than he did yesterday, but still they wanted him there for observation. AJ doesn't really understand and on the way home from the hospital he asked if dad was almost feeling better. Kids always seem to ask the questions that require the greatest thought in how to answer. We are praying that in the morning he will be released.... he is supposed to be getting an IV through the night and a shot I believe. He also had to see a neurologist. I asked him why and Mark said it was to check his brain to see why he didn't go get that shot! Seriously though to anyone that reads these if you think you need that tetanus shot GET IT!! If he isn't making a lot of progress by morning then the neurologist may decide to give him a shot that would help him get better but could cause renal (kidney) failure. Obviously I was trying to fight off a panic attack so my mind was drawing a blank as to what renal was. On the way home from the hospital I was talking to a friend that works in the medical field and she asked if I knew what renal was... I told her I couldn't remember but I whatever it was I was sure I didn't want it failing! Anyways I guess it isn't a significant chance that that would happen, but in this family those little chance seem to be attracted to us! Speaking off I'm hoping to start a new blog or website or something that would spread that word about Essure Procedure and the issues I have been through with that, since no where is it mentioned that what happened to me is a possibility! (If you read this and don't know what I am referring to feel free to email and I'll explain.)

So sorry for this lengthy non-laugh story, but please pray for Mark tonight and that we will have some good news in the morning!!

What a day!

For those of you that know me, you know that one activity a day is about max for us. Today we did two big activities so hopefully the kids will sleep well (-: First we went to the zoo with some friends so AJ had a blast. I didn't know if TK would be interested in the animals or not, but she loved it ~ she was pointing and babbling! It was so cute. AJ and his little friend were running all over the place looking for new animals. She almost convinced him to ride the carousel, but as soon as he was about sit down he changed his mind. Oh well one day he'll ride I'm sure!

This afternoon we went to some other friends new house that they recently purchased for renovation. It was so much fun! They bought 5 acres with a pond and woods in the middle of a bunch of cornfields. AJ heard so many bugs it was funny to watch him stop and ask what he was hearing. Plus they played in a huge dirt pile and moved rocks... such a boy. He kept asking when we went to the pond if we were going to see frogs, snakes and lizzards. (He has this bag he carries around with frogs, snakes and lizzards in it.) It will be so fun to go visit them as those boys find more things to do. AJ's friend tried to get him to ride on the tire swing or in the trailer on the back of the tractor. Apparently AJ is not interested in riding on things that you don't have to be buckled in to. I wish I had a digital camera to post some pics of the boys out there... maybe soon! Well hopefully everyone sleeps well from all the fresh air!!!

The Break

Well I hope I am not a horrible parent for saying this, but I am so relieved that AJ wants to take a break!! This morning I asked him if he was ready to get dressed and he said, "Mom I just want to wear diapers." My first thought was Hooray!!, but then I thought oh no what if he never learns that potty ~ obviously that was silly, because he will in hiw own time. So after 3 weeks of nothing but wearing underroos he is back in a diaper. I am a little sad he doesn't want to try anymore, but I am so glad I don't have to watch the clock and figure out ways to get him to use the toliet. Plus maybe he'll stay in diapers for a few weeks, which would be convient for me since we are going out of town next weekend. Well I am going to enjoy the break and hope next time it will be a little smoother and hopefully permanent.

I am writing this at the end of the day.... the diapers lasted until about noon. So it was a nice little break, but he decided the diapers really were for babies and he wasn't a baby. But I do have to say he didn't have any accidents the rest of the day (-:

The end of summer

It seems weird to me that it is mid-August and I write something titled the end of summer. But living in a college town, I think, has made me ever aware of when summer is over. All the signs welcoming the students back, suddenly exceptionally long check out lines that normally you zip through, campus areas now lined with "those young whipper snappers". And the pool is now closed that pretty much does it too! It seems like we have had a busy summer, but I'm not sure how much we really did... I'm just glad that we have made it through each day, since that is my current goal, to make it through the day. Some days we just have to focus on making it through the hour~ but thankfully those days are few and far between. And I'm proud to say that I'm not medicated and still making it... not that there is anything wrong with med and I know I sure enjoyed my medicated time (-: but I'm just glad to be learning to get through things on my own and trusting in God this time.

I can't believe how much has happened in just this summer... AJ is riding is two-wheeler, TK cut teeth (almost 6 of them now), AJ might be almost potty trained, both kids have learned to LOVE Popsicles, TK learned to crawl and pull her self up... I'm sure there are a million more things, but at this hour my mind is blank. But speaking of potty training, AJ decided he was big enough to wear his under-roos to bed tonight, after much prompting to put on a diaper, I put him to bed in his under-roos. Five minutes later he was standing in his door soaked. Still he didn't want to put the diaper on. Finally after Mark and I explained that most 2 year-olds don't wear under-roos to bed he decided maybe the diaper would be ok. I'm sure this argument will be appearing soon again. He does wake up dry a lot of mornings, but I just see this as the little sliver of hope of sleep I did have going right down the drain. (I haven't slept at night since before AJ was born and he will be 2-1/2 on Wednesday.) Oh well one day.

Mark and I had a parenting argument on the way to church this morning.... always a lovely time for an argument. When it come to parenting I tend to have more of a "who cares" attitude than Mark. So I wasn't comfortable in my shirt this morning so I went to change... AJ noticed I changed and decided he needed to change his shoes and get more "dressed up". So he went in to my room and got my sparkly turquoise shoes and put them on and said he was ready to go and didn't want to change his shoes when I asked him. I said ok and put his sandals in his bag and buckled the kiddos in. Well Mark was slightly appalled that I thought it was fine he wore those shoes. AJ tends to get obsessed with something, but as soon as something new comes along he dumps the old for the new. Mark stated he was not going into church wearing those shoes, I said who cares let him. Well thankfully when we got there the shoes had fallen off and he didn't care that I put sandals on him ~ he was just concerned if he was going to get to play with Halle!

Well this was a lengthy one so I'm off to bed.... 6:30am tomorrow Lucy will be here (-:

oh my

Well AJ has decided to show his stubborn streak. Today I think we had approximately a million accidents! Of course they were everywhere except the bathroom... my rug, some books, bath towel, the deck and who knows! Meanwhile TK is dealing with cutting her top four teeth, so we are having some fun times here! The kids think it is a blast to play out in the tent... I set it up again after my attempt the other day when I didn't stake it down and the wind blow it over our fence and onto the neighbor's porch! I don't know why I never thought to put it up before. Well they are filthy when they get done playing, but at least they are happy!

Our air conditioner is fixed!! Yeah!! I told AJ that we had to pray so we would be able to get it fixed and it wouldn't cost very much, but after some of his questions, I think he thinks God is the guy who came and fixed it! Well hopefully we'll get that worked out (-;

Hot Days!

Well before I begin this I just want to say this is the second time I am typing this, since I just accidently erased everything I just typed.... so here we go again! Well Sunday night (it is now Monday night), I realized the air vents in the house weren't as cool as they normally are and after some more checking we knew the AC wasn't working. Not a lot you can do about that at 8:30 at night, so we just prayed it would be working in the morning. Well it wasn't but thankfully the weather had cooled off and we could open the house and cool it a bit. Needless to say that "cooling" was gone this afternoon when the temp inside almost reached 90 degrees! So we are hoping tomorrow they will give us some good information on the replacement parts or at least a good payment plan if we have to replace this thing! One thing I know for sure is we are going to be eating a lot of ice cream here until it is fixed!!

A little update on the potty training ~ I think we are almost there.... we are doing great going out in public and have conquered the automatic flush. I also convinced him today that superman absolutely doesn't like to be pooped on and he should at least let me put a diaper. We'll just keeping working on that. Well I'm off to move some fans around and try to get some sleep!

The poop

This post is pretty much about excrement so read as you wish:

Well the potty training is going well... it's just the poop that is a bit of an issue. AJ hadn't gone since we started so I know I was in for it. He is just so distracted by everything that he doesn't want to take the time to sit for awhile. He's got cars to play with!! Anyways I was giving TK a bath and Mark came down to say that AJ wanted a diaper (he hasn't asked for one since we started), well it was to late the spiderman underroos when already done in. So that was interesting to clean up. But he did say that tomorrow he would try to do it again on the big toliet. So hopefully I won't have to deal with that too many more times. THANK goodness Mark talked me out of using cloth diapers ~ I think that would have been a big waste of money.

Potty Time

Well we are in day 2 of potty training... going pretty well all things considered. So far this morning we have only had 2 accidents and they were both in front of the toliet in the bathroom. Some friends invited us to go to the museum last night so Mark stayed with TK while I took AJ to play. I didn't want him to think that we put diapers on when we left the house so I just kept him in his "under-roos" as he calls them. Well the museum has automatic flush toliets, which scared AJ. He jumped off that toliet and there was no going back. I tried to get him to go on a different floor ~ he took one look at the toliet and said "no, you do it." So needless to say we changed his clothes on all 3 floors of that museum! (Then it was time to go home, since I only had 3 changes and I didn't want the car seat to get wet.) So this morning I had to go take care of some insurance since we are switching carriers, so after sitting in the office for awhile I asked him if he needed to go. He looked at me and then looked at the lady and said,"Do these toliets have handles." Once we confirmed they were the "ok" kinda of toliets he decided he could go. Thankfully we got out of there and back home with no accidents!!

Tonight we went to Fun Run (only one more night to go!!) and no accidents there, even used the toliet there after much discussion that the toliet would not automatically flush and the nice lady in the stall next to us giving us a warning that she was about to flush. I'm optomistic that this will stick with him and hopefully in a week or so we will be well on our way to diaper free days... not sure what to do about naps and bed time yet.... maybe next year???

TK top teeth finally came in and she is quite proud of herself for learning to "grind" her teeth. I remember AJ doing this and hopefully it won't last that long, that noise drives me crazy!!! She was 10 months old yesterday... I can't believe how fast everything is going.

Update - pretty much about Ellie

This is just a quick note for everyone so far from us. Things are going well ~ Mark loves his new job. He is actually flying to Wisconsin for a quick day trip tomorrow, so he is getting to do lots of interesting things.



The fish are doing well... but Ellie discovered that we now have fish. Even though we showed them to her when we brought them home. She is insane!!! She barks at them and tries to jump up on the dresser and get them and if you pick her up she will shove her nose and mouth into the small opening to try and catch them... the glass is full of smudges from her trying to bite them. She used to sleep all day and now she just sits and whines and begs for you to pick her up so she can see them closer. I've considered putting her back on her anti-anxiety medicine!



Well not a lot going on these days... it is so hot!!