Spring Break fun...or lack thereof (part 1)

The week of the 10th was spring break at Jacob's school.  I took off work to keep the boys.  I hardly ever take off work for a couple of reasons:
1) the University has great holidays so I can be off without using vacation time - SCORE!
2) my work doesn't stop when I'm not there

I used the vacation time to schedule different appointments for the boys...a much needed "dentalist" appointment for cleanings and an appointment with a pediatric allergist that our pediatrician recommended. 

I wasn't sure how the "dentalist" was going to go since Ryan's first and only appointment last year wasn't so great.  In fact, he wouldn't open his mouth for the dental hygienist to do anything.  If I remember correctly, I had to hold him down in my lap for them to even look at his teeth at the end.  Forget the cleaning, there's no way that was happening. 

They called both boys back and I waited to be summoned but no one came to the door and called for me.  When both boys were finished, they did call for me and I was told that they each did great!  Ryan actually let them clean his teeth and do x-rays.  Neither boy had cavities! 

After the "dentalist" we came home to each lunch and get ready for the allergy doctor.  Since this is a new doctor and it's been about two years since Jacob was tested, we knew they were going to do testing.  Not exactly the best way to start off spring break and having been through it twice, I enlisted the help of Daddy.  Allergy testing is terrible!!!  Especially when you aren't prepared or know what's going on (our first experience).  In order to be tested, he could not have any type of antihistamine five days prior to the visit.  In the five days prior, we had visited my parent's once (to celebrate my Dad's birthday) and they have a dog; he has pet allergies.  During the weekend prior to the appointment, he spent a lot of time outside on Saturday (he's very allergic to grasses and also allergic to trees).  Who didn't?  It was a gorgeous weekend!  He also spent some time outside on Sunday.  When I got home from my trip with the tennis team on Sunday evening, he was running a fever and wheezing really bad. 

We get to the appointment 20 minutes early and then we waited at least 30 minutes past our scheduled appointment time before we were called back.  The nurse got some information from us and the reason we were there.  You could easily hear his wheezing.  She did a breathing test on him and he did miserable.  Because of those results, they decided to give him a breathing treatment.  The breathing treatment lasted about 6 minutes and then we had to wait another 10 minutes or more before she could re-do the test.  He did better with the second breathing test but was still having trouble.  We met with the allergist and she was hesitant to do the testing because he was having such a difficult time breathing.  She decided to give him another breathing treatment to see if it would get him somewhat under control so that he could be tested.  No such luck.  He was still wheezing after the second treatment. 

She decided to try and get it under control with medicine and his inhalers and we would try again.  Poor kid...he's taking an oral steroid in the morning for 8 days, his nasal spray, his regular inhaler and his rescue inhaler (until the wheezing stops) and then at night we substitute the steroid  with Singulair.  We learned so much at this appointment.  For example, we weren't cleaning his chamber correctly, which in turn changed the static charge, making the medicine stick to the sides of the chamber instead of being delivered to him.  His rescue inhaler probably didn't have any medicine in it and what I thought was medicine was just the propellent.  He should be using his regular inhaler every day, even if he's not having symptoms.  You would think over the past 4 years someone would have told us some of this! 

We paid a lot of money for an ENT to treat his allergies with injections and no one ever told us any of the things we learned at this one appointment.  It really makes me mad to think about it.  Why didn't they tell us to use his regular inhaler everyday?  All they did was make sure we had a rescue inhaler and an epi-pen.  And, when we quit going, cold turkey, they never once called to check on Jacob or find out why he hasn't been in the office. 

After being at their office for over four hours, we left with several samples, four prescriptions and an appointment for testing.  I'm happy to report that he's not wheezing so something is working! 

Watch out for the "Cryptsteeburg!"

Our New Year's Eve tradition (the past few years, at least) has been:

• make home-made pizzas
• have a dance party in the kitchen/living room 
• watch a movie
• try to stay awake for the ball drop

Ringing in 2014, we made pizzas, had a dance party, watched an awesome firework show at the end of our street, watched a movie and stayed up until after midnight (thanks to fireworks and two scaredy cat little boys).  Last New Year's Eve (ringing in 2013), we introduced Jacob to the wonderful wizarding world of Harry Potter by watching "Harry Potter and the Sorcerer's Stone."  Since, in my opinion, the HP movies get a little scarier with each movie, we decided to go a different route this year and watched "Freaky Friday" with Jamie Lee Curtis and Lindsay Lohan (before she went crazy).  It's one of my favorite movies and is always good for a laugh.  I didn't know how the boys would react since it wasn't animated, but they both liked it.  In fact, they've even asked to watch it again and again.  

Sometime in January, Ryan came into our room during the night and climbed in bed with us.  Generally, when he does this, he likes to talk, talk, talk.  You can't get the kid to be quiet.  Here I am, trying to go back to sleep and Ryan's all talky-spice.  I roll over with my back to him, the only thing that helps with his constant chatter and he says to me, "What's wrong with you, punk?"  I said, "Excuse me?!?" and he repeated himself, "What's wrong with you, punk?"  Since punk is not in our vernacular, I was very confused.  He has no idea what punk meant.  I didn't think he was being disrespectful, so I eventually laughed and finally went back to sleep.  I told Jeff about the incident the next morning and he literally spat his drink of water out in the kitchen.  We talked about where he would have heard punk and came up with "Freaky Friday."  At some point in the movie, Anna, who is in her mother's body, says to Harry (her brother, who thinks he's talking to his mother), "What are you looking at, punk?"  

Weeks later, Jacob starts talking about the movie one day in the car.  We were on the way to pick Ryan up from preschool and he said, "Mom, you remember in Freaky Friday when the girl says, 'I'm old!  I'm like the cryptsteeburg!'?"  I died laughing.  The crypt-stee-burg, a.k.a. the crypt keeper.  

Jake's dream house

Often, when we visit Popi and Mimi in Georgia, we drive by this house:

The first time we saw it, Jacob told us he was going to live there when he grew up (and we could come too).  This week, Jeff came home from work and told Jacob he had good news and bad news for him and that I should come hear it too.  I thought, "Oh, boy...what's going on?"  His good news was that Jacob's dream house was for sale!  His bad news was the price tag...$15 MILLION.  Ouch!  We then took a "virtual" tour of the house and it's incredible.  During the tour, we saw it had an outdoor basketball court.  Jacob announced that Ryan could come live with us too.  Isn't that nice of him?  At the end of the tour, Jeff pulled up a mortgage calculator - just for fun.  If we didn't put a cent down and had a modest interest rate close to our current mortgage, our monthly payment would be over $66,000/month!  That's INSANE!  Jacob thought for a minute and said, "well, I guess I don't really need any new Lego's when we go to LEGOLAND Discovery Center for spring break.  I'll just save my money."  I think my heart melted right there.  Bless him! 

Thank you Lord for allowing me to be Jacob's mother and for his sweet spirit.
 

"Well, I guess this has been the worst morning of my life"

It's a hard job being seven, but someone's got to do it! This quote is what Jacob told his RoRo the other morning when she came by to take him to school. You can imagine her shock, when she innocently asked, "How are you? How's your morning going?" Little did she know that major surgery had occurred just minutes before she arrived at our house. And, by "major surgery," I removed a splinter out of the bottom of Jacob's foot. He had gotten a bath before school and when he was getting dressed, he said, "Momma, I think I'm going to be walking funny today because my foot hurts, or I've got a splinter...wait, let me check. Yep, I've got a splinter." I examined the bottom of his foot and sure enough, he did have a splinter. It was red around it and had to come out. Here's where the blood curdling screams came in. I'm surprised our neighbors didn't alert the authorities to the abuse/murder that was taking place. Poor Ryan was trying his best to be helpful and even let Jacob hold his, "Frosty of the Reindeer" (you're confused, I know...is it a snowman or a reindeer? Rest at ease, my friend, it's a reindeer) until the screaming got too bad and then he waved his hands in a "come here" motion and announced, "OK, give it back, give it back." He was my little helper and held the flashlight so I could see better...until he started moving it around and shaking it back and forth. When I asked him to please hold it still, he said, "but, Mom, my hand's shaking." Bless it! After about 15 minutes and countless screams and tears, the splinter was extracted. Jacob limped around the rest of the time he was getting dressed - until he forgot that his foot was supposed to be "hurt" and I caught him walking normal. Don't think I didn't point out that he was just fine.

Jacob slipped out the door while Ryan was going potty. We continued to get ready and Ryan didn't notice his brother's absence until we were in the garage to leave. "Where's Jacob?" Uh oh...busted! I did what any parent would do to avoid a complete meltdown...avoid answering the question! "Um, I guess we lost him?" Clever, right? Good thing Ryan's only three and doesn't see through my poorly thought of farce. "Oh, ok." Whew!!! Close one!

I take Ryan to school, all the way rocking out to some Veggie Tales. I get to work and my Mom calls me. I ask, "How'd it go?" (this is the first time we've attempted this school drop off). She replies, "Oh, good, he was very talkative, wanted me to come in to see his classroom." Blah, blah, blah...then she tells me he told her in the car, "Well, I guess this has been the worst morning of my life!" "Why?" she asks? "Because of the splinter, Ro!"

I laughed so hard that I literally could not breathe! My little drama king!

Guess who's back?!?

I have decided to revive my forgotten blog. It wasn't really forgotten...I've just had a bajillion other things to do besides blog. After scrolling through some blog posts, I'm sad that I've missed over 2 years of what's been going on in our lives. Here's to doing a better job!

The rocking chair session

It's hard to believe that Ryan is already 8 months old! He started crawling towards the middle to end of April and as soon as May rolled around, he was pulling up on everything. He's an excellent crawler and fast! Here are some pictures from what I've been calling "the rocking chair session!" (the antique looking chair was my Dad's when he was a boy, mine when I was a girl and now my boys...the other two chairs belong to the portrait studio)

Easter pictures...as promised.

Here are Easter pictures!