Harry Potter

I am a Harry Potter fan. More like an addict. I LOVE the books. I've read all seven at least 5 times each...the first 6 probably more than that. When I pick up one of these books, it's like...coming home. I feel so comfortable with them. Even though I now all the words and I know exactly how the story is going to play out, I still love reading them. We've got the movies too. The movies, while entertaining, have one giant flaw for me - the don't follow the books to a "T"! Anyhow, those of you "non-Potters" out there may not get a kick out of this, but the other day, I was reading book 1 and Douglas kept trying to take it out of my hands. So to distract him, I asked if he wanted to watch a movie. I said, "Do you want to watch some Thomas (the Tank Engine)?" To which he expressed an extreme disapproval (he kind of growled at me and started throwing a fit). For those of you who know my son, you will realize this is HUGE because he LOVES Thomas! So I said, "Do you want to watch Harry Potter?" Now, keep in mind that Douglas doesn't talk a whole lot yet and resorts to non-verbal communication for quite a few things and when I asked him this - he nodded!!! My son LOVES Harry Potter! He really is my kiddo!!! :-)

Halloween!

I know a lot of you who read this blog don't participate in Halloween and for many years, I didn't either. However, in the past several years, I have participated - handing out candy to the kids in their awesome lil costumes just brings a smile to my face! So, for the past two years, I have been making costumes for Douglas. Last year, he was a pumpkin...and he HATED it. All he wanted to do was get out of that stupid thing! This year, I decided to make a costume that might fit his interests a little bit better. He's always getting into my pots & pans, silverware, dishwasher, microwave, etc. so I figured, what better way to help him grasp hold of his kitchen addiction than to dress him as a chef!! The costume was pretty easy to make - time consuming, but easy. Thank GOD that Meg was here to help keep Douglas away from my sewing machines otherwise the costume would never have gotten done! The costume consists of pants, a chef "jacket", and a chef hat. I kind of figured that the hat might be a waste of time (because Douglas NEVER wears hats) but I made it anyhow. We put him in the costume and headed up to the community harvest fest last night and much to my surprise, he kept the hat on the entire time! We are going trick or treating tonight in a neighboring town so we will see just how long the hat stays on then. Hope you enjoy the pictures (sorry about the blurry ones -- we couldn't get him to hold still)!

She's Here!

Baby Girl Chattic - 9lb 8oz - 21.25in! Momma & baby are both doing well!!! Congrats to Kate & Nate on the arrival of their beautiful baby girl!!!!!

Croup!

Douglas has croup! He went to bed Thursday night with a slightly runny nose. About an hour after he fell asleep, he woke up screaming & coughing & fighting for air. This went on ALLL night long. He'd sleep for an hour or two & then wake up FIGHTING to breathe. Kinda scary to say the least. However, when he got up Friday morning, he seemed just fine - just a little bit of a runny nose. I was debating whether or not I should take him to the doctor - Allen said to go but I kind of like the 3 day rule (no fever, just a runny nose? I figured it could probably wait, but the breathing thing really had me nervous.) Anyhow, Douglas took a 3 hour nap in the afternoon and the whole time he sounded like he was having serious issues breathing - like he had a giant phlegm wad in his throat. When he woke up - it was the same thing, screaming & fighting for air. It was like he couldn't get any air into his lungs - something was blocking it. So I took him to an Urgent Care center. The doc there was FANTASTIC. I gave him a very basic description of D's symptoms and Doc Bennett said, "Was he coughing like this?" and demonstrated PERFECTLY what Douglas sounded like. "And was he breathing like this?" and again demonstrated perfectly how D was breathing. Then he told me it was a classic case of viral croup! They gave him an oral steriod treatment and did a nebulizer treatment too. Doc Bennett said to make sure we have a cool mist humidifier running in the room that Douglas sleeps in and a list of instructions to follow to help make him a bit more comfortable. So we got home last night and it was obvious that the medicine worked. Douglas slept like an angel. He woke up one time but went back to sleep really easily. He did have a couple of issues breathing last night, but nothing major - not enough to wake him up anyhow. He's got a bit of a cough today but we are still following the Doc's orders. Things should clear up in the next day or two but for now, it's kinda yucky!!!

Talk About A Long Night!

Douglas has taught himself how to get out of his bed.

Let me go back a little bit...a few months ago, before our last trip to Illinois, Douglas got out of his crib one time in the middle of the night. I think it was an accident because he didn't do it again for a while. Then we went to Illinois for a visit and on July 12 (my birthday!), he got out of the pack 'n play that we were using for his bed. And that was it...just those two times until this week.

Our house is kind of torn apart at the moment due to the installation of the new HVAC system - Douglas's room being in the worst shape of all. So, right now, all three of us are sleeping in the guest room/sewing room. Douglas has been sleeping in a pack 'n play and has been since we got home from Illinois in July. Two days ago, I was doing some cleaning/straightening in the sewing room and happened to have a storage tote parked right next to the PnP. Douglas climbed up on the tote and flipped himself into the PnP....and promptly got right out again. This went on & on for about an hour. It kept him quite entertained. He didn't put his new skill to use again until yesterday.

We had a playdate yesterday morning and on our way home, I noticed that Douglas looked VERY sleepy, so I expected that he would fall asleep in the car. Nope. We got home & I made some lunch. Douglas looked VERY sleepy so I figured he would fall asleep in his highchair. Nope. So, when he was done with lunch I put him in the PnP for nap time. And he promptly got out. And I put him back. And he got out. This cycle went on for about 30 minutes before I finally gave up. He didn't nap at his normal time but I finally got him to go to sleep around 3:30 and he slept for about an hour. This is about half as long as he's normally been napping. Needless to say, he was kind of grumpy and so was I. At this point, I really began to dread bedtime. As you all know, Tuesday is NCIS night at our house.l usually I would have Douglas in bed no later than 7:30 but since he napped late, I let him stay up. At 8:45, I put him in bed. And he promptly got out. And I put him back. And he promptly got out. And I put him back. This cycle lasted for an hour and a half. Allen got involved as well and Douglas got several spankings throughout the process. I can easily say that I was spent emotionally. Frustration was running HIGH and I even broke down crying at one point. Finally, at 10:15 I realized that he was asleep and this great wave of relief washed over me! The battle was over!!! I went to bed shortly after that but I should have known that although the battle was over, the war was still being waged.

Douglas woke up at 2 am and despite my best efforts to get him BACK to sleep, he just wanted to be up. I brought him out to the living room, gave him some juice, changed his diaper, rocked/bounced/walked him but still no luck getting him back to sleep. I put him back in bed and he promptly got up. And I put him back. And he promptly got up. And the cycle continued. I didn't want to wake Allen up (because, like I said before, we all are sleeping in the same room) so finally, after Douglas had been up for 2 hours, I packed him in the car and drove around the lake a few times. He FINALLY went back to sleep about 4:30 and stayed that way until just after 6am. I got him up & brought him out to the living room again, gave him his juice & cuddled with him until we both went back to sleep. Douglas woke up at about 8 (although I had been awake for a while before that due to him tossing & turning).

Needless to say, I am exhausted today and decided to forgo our usual routine (going to the library for storytime) and am blowing off our "new" routine (playdate with the kids we met yesterday). I am sincerely hopeful that today will be better than yesterday but at the same time, I have a lingering fear that today's battles will be much, much, much worse than yesterday's.

SO...if any of you mom's out there have ANY advice for me WHATSOEVER, my ears are open and I am listening!!!

How Horrible...Absolutely Horrible

I'm a killer. I killed a dog. A long-haired Dachshund. Poor lil guy. At least he went quickly and didn't suffer. Poor lil guy. And no, I didn't use my bare hands or anything. I hit him with the car....

Oh my....

The end of another week has come. The end of what feels like an exceptionally long week. Douglas has been....keeping me on my toes, to say the very least! As I've mentioned on facebook & in emails, Douglas has discovered climbing and has turned the living room (and bathroom and bedroom) into his own personal jungle gym. Nothing is safe from his climbing abilities! Needless to say that this makes me quite nervous. I keep having visions of him taking a nose dive off the arm of the sofa and busting all his teeth out or breaking an arm or something - I suppose that I just need to chillax about this because he is a little boy and this is something that little boys do, right?

School is going. Right now I have bean sprouts (sugar snap pea sprouts to be more specific) growing in drinking glasses on our kitchen counter....aaaah, the joys of doing science labs in your own kitchen!

Work is keeping me busy too. In fact, I had a customer this past weekend who required LOTS of assistance - picking fabric, how MUCH fabric to get, how much poly-fil to get, etc., etc., etc. She had an idea that she wants to make "floor pillows" for babies so they can lay on their tummies & still be on something soft. So I helped her as best I could. She told me she had NO sewing experience, didn't know anything about machines or sewing & was going to send this material & everything to somebody else to make the pillows for her. Well, all my help with her caught the attention of my manager & earned me a set of "cut above" scissors. These are little pins that we can wear on our name tags. They are symbolic of going above & beyond our job descriptions. Technically, this is my 3rd set! A few weeks ago, I had a gal send an email to our corporate office regarding the help I gave her & that earned me another set of scissors. It's nice to be appreciated. Anyhow, back to the baby pillow lady. I go into work last night and find that this gal left a message for me & wanted me to call her as soon as possible. I thought perhaps we had overcharged her or she had questions about the care of the material or something. Nope, nothing like that. She actually wanted to talk to me about sewing these pillows for her. The gal she was originally going to send everything to lived in Indiana and she wanted someone closer to sew these for her so she could be a little more hands on. Now, I don't mind helping people out in the store - answering their questions as best I can, giving tips, etc. But when it comes to someone commissioning me to do a sewing job for them, well, I just don't have the confidence to do that! Or the time. I barely have time to do my own sewing let alone someone elses. Needless to say, I told the gal I would do what I could to see if I could find someone who would be interested in doing a bit of sewing on the side for her. But it was nice to know that my help & assistance gave this lady the confidence in me to do sewing work on the side too! Apparently I can BS my way along quite well!!! :-)

That's the story for the week anyhow. I did get my kitchen curtains cut out. Yippee! Have I started sewing on them yet? No siree, Bob! Maybe this weekend (if I can get a few moments in the sewing room) I might be able to get the panels done at least. Whenif I complete them, I will be sure to post pictures so you call can enjoy them too!