When it rains....well you know

We woke up this morning to a nasty, grey rainy day. The ground nourishing water fell steadily all day.

But along with the rain comes the "pouring". Not only is Christmas a mere 5 weeks away, and we are supposed to leave on a long weekend trip Thursday morning, but my van has been having a temperature issue. Thinking this is just a small thermostat issue, we took it in this grey morning to have it looked at. Three hours later we get the call.

$600.00.

ACK...SIX H_U_N_D_R_E_D dollars.

Blah.

Oh well, at least we can lay our hands on it and get the van fixed, but...ACK...the rain! The pouring!

Croup

A week or so ago, on Friday night, Cameron woke up with a horrible cough. I stumbled into his room at around 12:30, telling him to calm down and take a deep breath. As I began to emerge from my sleepy haze, I realized that he could not calm down or take a deep breath. He was in a constant cycle of; *cough cough cough GASP* *cough cough cough GASP*.



I picked him up and took him outside into the cool, damp night air to help him open up and get his breath. As we stood on the porch his cough was not letting up. I brought him back into the kitchen to pour him some juice and call my mom. I handed him his juice, he has still not had a break in the cough. He can't drink his juice, not even a sip the coughing is constant and I am getting scared.



With my mom on the way I took him into the bathroom and turned on the hot shower hoping that would help calm his cough. It did not. Mom arrived, walked into the bathroom, listened to his chest, and said "take him to the ER now". She would later tell me what I was not able to see, I guess because I had been looking at him up close for better than 10 minutes, I had not recognized that he was pale and his eyes were swelling from struggling for air. She also had heard that he was moving next to no air through his lungs.



As we blew into the ER, the triage nurse saw that he was still struggling for air, though his cough had finally subsided, he was still retracting as he breathed and was noisy while gasping for air. She took him from my hands and straight into a room, his oxygen stats were only 87 upon arrival. This had been one of the scariest experiences of my parenting life, standing there helpless while my baby coughed and gasped was terrifying. That feeling that there was nothing I could do to help him was sickening.



While we were at the ER he was treated with two breathing treatments and an injection of steroids, diagnosed with croup and sent home. Now starts the comical part of this story........



Cameron was sent home with steroid therapy to be given twice a day for four days. Well....when an already very busy 5 year old boy is treated with sterriods...well....lets just say 'hyper' is an understatement. To prove this, I will leave you with some humor. This is MA with a steroid hyped up Cameron attached to his leg. After trying unsuccessfully to shake him off several times, he gave up and just let him hang there....for 30 minutes.

First Time Out

As Olivia traverses her second year, her sense of "self" is ever evolving. She has learned that certain words, phrases and tones get laughs, some get the "mama look". Also that some actions get chuckles and some get her in trouble.



She is still learning what "trouble" is .



Last Sunday she was the center of attention, her favorite place to be. She repeatedly made a grand entrance from the hall into the living room to of the claps of our family. She then would proceed to prance through the living room, while her captive audience would say "come see me Olivia" "Olivia, come over here and talk to me". She would cut her eyes sharply, and give a coy little grin and in her sweet, two year old, sing-songy voice say "noooooo"



This scene repeated its self over several times, much to her delight.



However...........



A few days later she was watching "Super Why" (on PBS...what you do not know what Super Why is? You have not lived.....) While watching her favorite show, she began to empty the clean sock basket one sock at a time. (yes, clean sock basket....we have it because her mother hates to fold socks and leaves them for last...don't look at me that way....you come fold them then....yeah...didn't think so) As I gently redirected her to please pick them up and put them back in the basket, she said "NO!" I took a deep cleansing breath and silently reminded myself that she is two. Again I said, "Olivia, pick them up and put them back in the basket" At which point she furrowed her eye brows at me, picked up the edge of the basket and dumped them all in the floor and then threw the basket.



*deep breath....deep breath*



I once again, calmly told her that was not a nice thing to do, and told her to pick the socks up.





She threw the basket at me.



As I felt my blood pressure rise into my face, I introduced her to "time out" Was it for me or her? I am not sure.....but she sat there for two minutes (one for each year of her life) and then picked up the socks.

I can not help it...she is cute, even when she is in trouble.

Yeah Yeah...I know...end of the week and all

So...last week I told you that I would tell you all about the Fall Festival, show you the fruits of my labor and let you know how it went. To be honest, I was to lazy all week to make that happen, well lazy and drowning in turkey. We had a dinner at our house on Sunday for 17 people so I was a *little* busy.


Never the less, I want to keep my word, albeit a few days late.


The piles of diapers that I showed you in my floor? They were to make two diaper cakes that our family donated to the benefit auction. What? You don't know what a diaper cake is? Well my friend, let me show you.


At around 3 hours each, these pictures represent a lot of work.

One for a boy;





One for a girl;





Each class room collected items and made baskets to be in the auction as well. This is the basket that Makaylas' class collected, the theme was toys.






This...this we will call "When Good Ideas Go Bad"

My first attempt at a "Lolly pop tree" yeah...I use the word "attempt" lightly. More like goofy looking mess that I created and blush to admit that.


Second attempt. Better, more like a "Lolly pop flower" instead of a tree, but it is late, and the Fall Festival starts in just a few hours, it will have to do.


The Fall Festival was a success. The games all came off with only one or two glitches, nothing major. The auction was lucrative, and the school raised a very good amount of money. Exhausting...yes. Worth it? Definitely.

Groceries

OH MY!

I am so glad that gas has come down, here it is now below 2.00 a gallon. Very nice. So, when are groceries going to follow suit?

I went grocery shopping today, I had to buy items for a Thanksgiving meal I am preparing on Sunday, do you know how much I spent?

Guess?

$200.00!

Yes, it is insane. I swear I do not know how you can live today, it makes my heart skip a beat or two.

*SIGH*

update

The teacher has spoken;

"You are all too young to have boyfriends/girlfriends, and I do not like it taking up your focus in class, so you are all to break up"

Another installment

Our saga continues. No not the wrap up of the Fall Festival, to be honest I am too lazy tonight to do that. So I am opting to bring you all up to date on Makayla and "As the Second Grade Turns". The wrap up of the Fall Festival will come soon, before the end of the week...I promise.

So, I started to pick up in the last week or so that Makayla was not so interested in Logan anymore. She was telling me that she did not play with him on the play ground, and instead played with Jon or by herself.

Saturday night at the Fall Festival, MA over heard Logan telling Makayla to "Come get your boy friend! Come and chase me!" Makayla completely ignored him and continued to play with her friends.

Sunday at church, she told Logan that she did not want to be his girl friend anymore, and she said that he said "noooo! take me back!" she replied "no"
"give me another chance!"
"no"
"please!"
"no"
etc etc etc...

As she was telling me this, I asked her why and she told me that he says stuff in front of her that she does not like. I asked her what. She said "he says, poop and butt and fart and burp and I think it is gross. Also he is not nice to the teacher, sometimes when she tells him to put his name on the board he will tell her no"

"I see, well he should respect you more than that"

"huh?"

"he shouldn't say things that aren't respectful in front of you and he should respect his teacher"

"huh?"

"that's not nice is it?"

"nope"

Fast Forward to today;
Makayla jumps into the van after school and says, "I have three boyfriends now"

"huh?!"

"Yep, Ben, Treyton and Logan" (lets take a minute to review. Ben was her boyfriend last year, but he is a bit of a playa'. He usually has three to seven girlfriends at any given time. Also does the name 'Treyton' ring a bell? Yep, he is the hand holding boyfriend of Ann from the Zoo trip, the one that nobody is supposed to know about...ok lets continue)

"Oh, how many girlfriends does Ben have now?"

"seven"

"wow...that's a lot, I thought Treyton and Ann were boyfriend/girlfriend?"

"we both are"

"oh...ok, and Logan is back?"

"yeah, I told him I would take him back"

"oh, ok"

It all makes me giggle, I have not told her daddy yet, he is still recovering from the conversation her overheard on Saturday night.

Fall Festival...what has thou' done to me???

Several weeks ago I agreed to chair the games at the Fall Festival. The Fall Festival is THE major fund raiser for the kids school. I have done this twice before and swore to never do it again. However, I have this speech problem. I have trouble pronouncing this one little word. "NO". So when I was called upon I was not able to say that little word, I tried and I tried. I sputtered and stumbled, instead the word that came out was "YES".

So for the last four weeks I have been immersed in planning, organizing and work. Lots and Lots of work. I have been up until 2am every morning this week, followed by another day of constant running. If it were not for the help of the Committee chair, Jessica, I may have very well gone insane. She is one of the moms that I walk with in the mornings, so we were able to bounce ideas and concerns off of one another and keep each other sane.

Anyway, lets take a look at my house on Tuesday night shall we?

Every time I would walk in the doors of the school, I was handed another task.

This project was given to me by Makaylas teacher. Each child donated a toy to make a basket for the auction the night of Fall Festival, and the basket needed to be assembled. Here are a few toys and basket. On another day we will view the end results of this. But for today lets look at my poor house....see the chips? That is part of supper for this night. Oh geez...see that brown thing hanging there? That is a fly strip. Yes...a fly strip. My face is red and hot even admitting that. MA hung that there because flies have been coming in since we have the windows open right now and he was tired of hunting them down. Wow...that is pretty red neck...ha.

My neglected stove, it has not been on for over a week. Instead I am using it as counter space. See the pizza boxes? That was supper. See the groceries that did not make it into the cabinets? See the drinks? Those are part of a game for Fall Festival. Poor poor little empty ice trays and dirty dishes in the sink. Oh and last but not least...the empty paper towel holder, with the paper towels sitting UNDER it? My poor family. They are ready for Fall Festival to be over.

The table. Well, I think the table is under there some where. That is the items needed to make two diaper cakes that we donated to the auction. Again, that little word escapes me.

Oh, and the diapers for the diaper cakes. In my living room floor. Poor house.

The Fall Festival is tonight. As the weekend progresses we will view the results of all this work and conclude the 2008 Fall Festival together.