Congratulations, Rich and Christy!

My not-so-little brother got married in Vegas last week - May 21! Mitz, Pops and I flew out there on Wednesday, returned Friday. Had lots of fun! It was nice to see Rich and Christy again - it's been 2 years since I've seen Rich and a little longer since seeing Christy. They had a lovely wedding at the Wedding Bells chapel - outdoor gazebo, lots of lights and candles - really pretty! Christy was a beautiful bride, and Rich cleans up pretty nicely! And their wedding cake was delicious! Rich is supposed to send me a link to the professional ones - they own the rights to them. I know you are reading this, (B)Ri(t)ch, so step to it!

Rich and I also stayed true to form and drove our mother crazy. :-) As per usual, we found something appalling on which to fixate and drove it into the ground. This time around was an obscene, really obscene hand gesture, and I'm not talking about the finger. It was incorporated into many photos. LOL. Rich started it!

Best wishes to both of you - we love you!

Here are a few pictures - the rest are linked to the right - mine and Mom's are mixed, so they are out of order. Too lazy to arrange one-by-one. Probably dup shots too. Sue me. :-P

And Christy's brother Timmy discovered the #1 reason why you don't fall asleep after my brother and I have been drinking, and have access to a bottle of nailpolish! To his credit - he was a great sport about it - kept the pedicure for the rest of the trip, and even answered to Twinkle Toes Timmy (Mitz's contribution!). :-) Nice guy!

Secrets

A couple of days ago, Natalie was whispering in Oliver's ear and cracking him up. So the last couple of days at naptime and bedtime, I've been whispering in his ear. Today at naptime he reached up, brought my ear down to his mouth and whispered back! Whatever he told me must have been pretty funny, since he cracked himself up!

Also, yesterday he had a shot visit at the doctor. He weighs 29.5 pounds!

End of the school year!

Already! This school year, Natalie's first full year, really flew by! Her last day was Thursday, and that night, the school had a potluck luau to celebrate the end of the year, as well as graduate the kindergarteners! Earlier in the week, they had Zoo to You - the Phoenix zoo visited and brought four animals for the kids to see. I stayed and volunteered in Natalie's class that day, per her request. It was a lot of fun! The zoo brought a tarantula (creepy!), a Desert Box turtle named Wonka, a hedgehog named Tank (cutest thing ever!), and a really cool bird - looked like an owl, but was a Tawny Frogmouth, native to Australia. The zookeeper was very informative, great with the kids, brought the animals around to each kid so they got a close look, and everyone got to touch the turtle! When we got back to class, Mrs. Blackledge asked the kids what their favorite animal was - and all but one or two kids chose the turtle. She didn't know ahead of time which animals would be brought, but had a happy accident with the art project for the day - she had the kids paint turtles. :-)

Natalie had a nice last day of school. The afternoon class got to watch a movie with popcorn, were allowed to bring a stuffed animal, and pillow and blanket from home.

The luau was a lot of fun too. Natalie had a great time chasing her friends around, and she brought her little Fisher Price digital camera and took lots of pictures. Each class got to go up to the stage, and everyone got a certificate. Natalie got two as she was in AM and PM preschool. Her teachers gave them the most thoughtful gifts too. The morning class received a bound book of special art projects they made that year, plus a picture of the class with their teachers - the kids made frames out of popsicle sticks and glued buttons on them. The afternoon class received a CD with the 30 Bible based songs they learned this year. One of the other moms in class also made each kid an autograph book - so cute!

We're looking forward to next year at First United. We couldn't ask for a better school for Natalie. We're 90% certain we'll put her in Early Kindergarten, per her teacher's recommendations. If not, she will be in pre-K with the extended day still - she really thrives with the full day.

I'll get pictures up tomorrow, hopefully!

Oliver news

Oliver cut two more teeth! All four first year molars are coming in - the bottom right one is through, and the bottom left can be felt over the gum - I think that one is in. He gets peeved when you try to check, so I all I could do was poke around with my finger. Hopefully the other two will come in quickly - from what I understand (and have observed!), those teeth are tough ones to cut.

He also sings along to a song now! The last time we had dinner with Mitz and Pops - Oliver went to the sliding door and every time Beau and Diva came by, he'd "woof" at them. I thought that was pretty cute! Then last week, Natalie had me play "Who let the dogs out" in the car (we have a kid version). As soon as Oliver heard "Who let the dogs out", he started "woofing" at all the appropriate parts. It was so cute and funny! I played it several times in a row, even though that song makes me crazy, just so I could hear him do it. He also sings "his" song with me. A while back, I was being silly, and made up a song that incorporates all of the little noises he makes. It goes "Oliver says", then you cluck your tongue, "Oliver says" cluck again, "Fluffy headed Oliver says" cluck three times. Repeat with a raspberry sound, kiss sound, blowing sound. When he hears me sing "Oliver says", he immediately starts clucking - he knows how it goes!

April pictures are going up after I post this. A few things - they are way out of order - I have some pictures from my mom's camera, our old camera, and our new (finally. God I hated our old camera) camera - so the file names are all varied and couldn't be sorted in the appropriate order. You'll also notice he has a lollipop in one of them. No, I haven't gotten totally lax in my second go-round of motherhood. :-) He had a stomach flu again, and was getting lethargic, wouldn't drink Pedialyte (and the strips I found pissed him off, and he'd gag), or juice, so the doctor's office recommended a small lollipop. Yeah, that worked! He loved it! I have to admit though, if I had to choose between Pedialyte and a lollipop, I'd take the lollipop too. Pedialyte is foul, even the flavored versions. Also, those of you with keen eyes will notice a picture of the kids in a kennel - there's a pill bottle at Oliver's feet. It was filled with screws, not pills (!), and he had a lot of fun shaking it - thank goodness for childproof caps!

Mother's Day Tea

Today was Mother's Day Tea at Natalie's school, and we had such a wonderful time! Natalie and I have been waiting for this day for weeks! The kids had lots of secret plans for the tea, and Natalie didn't spill a single bean! For weeks, I'd ask how school was, and she'd start to say something, then *finger to her lip* "No, no, no, it's a surprise! I can't tell you!".

Jon drove Natalie to school, as the tea wasn't until 10:30, and I didn't feel like making three trips to and from school today (30 miles RT each way, so cut me some slack!). For some reason, Natalie was afraid I wasn't going to come, so when I arrived, she started jumping up and down - it was so cute!

They had the tea in one of the room's at the church facility - lots of tables set up, pretty place settings, decorations, all that good stuff. Natalie's class performed first - they sang two songs and did such a nice job! Natalie sang nice and loud - I could actually hear her! She made me some lovely presents too - a pretty paper hat, a placemat that had her name, Mother's Day Tea 2009, and her hand prints - it's laminated so I can use it all the time. My favorite gift was a planter on which she glued buttons, and stuck in the planter were her handprints, painted, laminated and cut out (they made the handprints at Father's Night a couple of weeks ago), representing flowers - her hands represent her, and the stems represent me "to show we are friends - the best there can be". I'm a sucker for the kids's handprints, so I couldn't have asked for a better gift.

We had tea and lemonade, cake (Natalie couldn't wait to dig into hers!), strawberries, cantaloupe (Natalie gave me hers), and watermelon (Natalie took mine). Then the kids played for a while, the moms chatted. It was just a lovely morning. I walked Natalie back to her class, and received a perfect ending to the perfect day. I was talking to one of her teachers before I left, and mentioned how glad we are that we decided to put Natalie in school for the full day (I received a wonderful email from her teachers over the weekend talking about how well she's doing). Her teacher told me that Natalie has been good for the afternoon session too! She told me that Natalie has been so helpful, and participates really well which helps the other kids participate, and that she has a calming effect on the class. We couldn't be more proud of her, seriously. What a lovely compliment. She is thriving at school, and while of course some of it is just who she is, a big part of it too is the school and her teachers. I'm reminded daily that we are so blessed to have found her school - and are so grateful that her first school experience is in such a loving environment. We were asked again to consider placing her in Early Kindergarten this upcoming school year, and if we can budget it, we intend to. At the very least, she'll be in pre-K, with the extended day option as she loves it, and the routine and structure seem to be something she needs and does very well with.

She also had a follow-up at the Melmed Center today with her developmental Pediatrician. I was happy to report that her sleep issues are (and please sleep Gods, don't let me be jinxing us) almost non-existent, and good sleep = all around improved behavior, how well she's doing in school and Sunday School, and just in general, she's opening up a lot more with people. We don't feel that any of the issues are outside the range of normal, the screaming tantrums are rare these past few months. Dr. J said that Natalie was the one bright spot of her day today, was so pleased with the progress we've made - gave Natalie a super star award, and suggested one last follow-up in four months, and then if things continue as they have, "you don't need me any more". :-) If you just look at today, she had all the excitement of the tea, the rest of her school day, then we went from school to Scottsdale (where Melmed is), long drive home in traffic, and she was a trooper through all of it, no hassles at bedtime.

She has her moments for sure (who wants a Stepford drone/child anyway. Not me!), but she's just a typical 4 year old kid. Overall she's a funny, happy, outgoing, thoughtful, helpful, sensitive girl, and we are so very glad she's ours!

On the drive to Melmed, she was being so silly! She took off her shoe, and stuck her foot out at me and made it speak - "Hi, I'm Mr. Dirty Foot. How are you doing? Shake my foot!". Then the other foot came out, and she affected a really high-pitched tone "Hi, I'm Mrs. Stinky Foot. How are you? I'm married to Mr. Dirty Foot". I'm sad to report, her feet do stink after playing all day in her shoes. She gets that from Jon, of course! :-P

Oh and she informed me today that Jack at school wants to marry her, and the other day Paul told her he loved her. She was already torn between wanting to marry Charlie or Walker! :-)

Faith healing

Thursday morning, as I was finishing getting ready, Natalie walked up to me adorned with a bunch of necklaces and announced that she was a healer. I asked her what she meant, and she told me she can heal people "Like Jesus". She told me she was going to heal Oliver's head. I asked if she could heal his stomach flu, but apparently that was beyond her powers. She then threw out her arms, and intoned "Jesus and the spirit of God. Now touch a cross", went over and touched a cross that I have in the living room. It was all I could do to keep a straight face! She told me she was going to heal her friends at school too. I told her to remember to be respectful, and if her friends didn't want to be healed, to not force the issue.

I gave her teachers a head's up so they'd know that they had a little healer in their midst, and to also see if they had been talking about Jesus healing the sick or something - I couldn't figure out where this was coming from. They had been talking about Paul all week, but not healing, so who knows! But it was funny!

Talk about a God complex!

Sick again

Poor Oliver. He came down with the stomach flu again on Tuesday. The last couple of days he's been miserable - he was OK enough until Thursday, and he continues to be really sick through today. Throwing up less this time around, but it's coming out the other end - his diaper area is enough to make you cry. And he's so gassy. Added to that, he has all four first year molars coming in. Hopefully this passes soon. The poor little guy isn't himself at all. No energy, very fussy and clingy. He's drinking a lot of water, and so far doesn't appear to be dehydrating. Took him to his ped on Thursday just to be sure, and for now we just need to ride this out.

And the icing on the shit cake? In the last week, both cars have cost us a lot of money. Four new tires for Jon's car. I was driving his car to the Minute Clinic last Friday because I missed my doctor's office hours (sinus infection, yay!), and there was something in my lane, to the left. I veered to the right to miss it, and thanks to the truck ahead of me, I didn't see until too late that there was something just ahead to the right of my lane. I almost missed it, but the back tire clipped it (almost looked like rebar). By the time I got to CVS, the tire was flatter than flat. Two other tires were bad = four new ones. Ugh.

Then mine died at Safeway Monday morning. Fortunately, Jon was scheduled to take a later flight that day. But, guess where my cellphone was? Yeah, home charging. Safeway let me call the home phone, but Jon didn't hear it. They wouldn't let me call his cell because his # is long-distance. I didn't go off, but that kind of chapped my ass because I worked for them twice, the last time for 6 years, Jon worked for them (hell, we met there!), and my mom has worked for them for almost 36 years. Not to mention the small fortune I drop there weekly. I wanted to scream "just let me make a freaking 2 minute call and I'll pay you". The CSR took pity on me and let me use her cellphone. Jon got Oliver up from his nap, came over and tried to jump the car. It didn't do anything - just clicked and all the gauges went haywire. Had it towed, Jon took a later flight. As it turns out, my iPod charger/auto kit was draining the battery - I never unplug it (so word to the wise - unplug your iPod chargers every time you turn off your car!) and totally fried it. Since it was a non-standard component, the car repair shop was kind enough not to charge us for the diagnostics, but of course we had to pay for the battery and labor. And the front end was out of alignment, the brakes were at 20%, and the front tires needed to be replaced. We had all the work done - we were told we might get 6 months out of the brakes, but that's not a chance we were willing to take with the kids.

I've been trying to look on the bright side and actually be grateful. At least I was the only one in Jon's car when the tire went. With three bad tires, one of us could very well have had a blow-out on the freeway - you see tire pieces all the time on the road out here. And of course the kids could have been in the car. And with my car, we were told that it could have shut off when I was driving. Again, I do mainly freeway driving, usually with both kids in the car at 70ish MPH - the car shutting down on the freeway could have been a disaster. So I'm grateful that no one was hurt, but it still sucks.

On a brighter note, when Oliver got sick Tuesday (he woke up covered in vomit, but I was hoping it was a one-off thing because of his molars), it was as we were walking into Natalie's school. I was just floored, I couldn't speak, I was afraid I'd start crying, which I did anyway, I kept thinking "Oh God, not again". I was so worried that he'd have to get IV fluids again, Jon's gone, it's hard enough solo parenting when both kids are healthy, etc. etc. I just kind of lost it at school and on the way home (it's been a rough six weeks, it really has). One of the moms at Natalie's school helped me out with cleaning Oliver, myself, and getting hold of myself. The director offered to keep Natalie for the afternoon session so I could have more time at home with Oliver, and of course she lent a lot of moral support as well. I was a wreck driving home, just worn out, and our priest came over and sat with me for an hour and half so I could just get things out, and also get Oliver settled and comfortable, remake his crib. Then my mom came by for a couple of hours. She also picked Natalie up for me that afternoon - and the mom that helped me that morning sent a beautiful, encouraging letter home in N's backpack. I was given a lot of love and support when I needed it most.

Of course now Natalie wants to go to all day school all the time! I sent her all day for the rest of the week - the drive is 30 miles RT each way, and like Kristie said, it would be good to have more time in between the drives for Oliver. Many of her classmates are there, the bigger kids are there, she had lunch with the big kids and her friends. She did SO well - her teachers and Kristie (the director) kept telling me how great she did. She really thrived last week. Tuesday night she had all these stories to tell me about class and the kids - and you could see how happy she was. She really latched on to one of her teacher's son - Neil. He's 2. She kept telling me all about this little boy named Moo Moo that she played with, took down the slide, watched out for him crossing the parking lot (to the big playground). I asked who Moo Moo was, and she said Mrs. S's baby. I said "Neil?". She said "No, Moo Moo". I've attended a parenting class with both Natalie's teachers, and never heard Neil referred to as Moo Moo, but I went with it. The next day, I asked Jen if they call Neil "Moo Moo". She look puzzled, said no, but then told me how sweet Natalie had been with him the day before. I told her that Natalie calls him Moo Moo and we had a good laugh!

I like the afternoon session too - it's pretty much all Biblical - so they have their regular class (which is also Bible based, just not as heavily so) in the morning, then PM preschool (which is how they handle daycare) is different, so it's not a repeat of what Natalie already did that morning. We need to sit down and see if we can afford the extra fee through the end of the school year, it's beyond reasonable, but budget constraints, you all know the drill. I know Natalie won't be happy going back to her shorter day, she's already told me so, and she's doing so well all day, I think it's good. Also, another plus.... Natalie sometimes has a hard time with transitions. And she's already been a little apprehensive about having a new teacher for pre-K next year. Well, the afternoon kids eat lunch in the pre-K room, so Natalie got to spend time with Ms. Agnes (her teacher for next year). The first day, I asked her if she met Ms. Agnes. She said "yes". Before I even got to say "isn't she nice" (she is, the entire staff there is incredible), Natalie yelled "I LOVE HER". I told her Ms. Agnes would be her teacher next year, and she did a happy dance, yelling "Woohoo! That means I'm a big kid!". Part of me feels weird having Natalie in school from 9-2:45, but she loves it, so I need to get over myself I think. :-P

Then Wednesday, after dropping Natalie off, I was hoping to get Oliver down for a morning nap, then nap myself. Got him down, and a half hour later he was up. I was a little disappointed at first, as I was so tired.... Once he got up and got past his grumpies though, we had the nicest morning. First he'd run up to me, kiss my arm, laugh, run away, come back, gnaw on my arm, shake his head no, laugh, run away, repeat. Then he just started running up, throwing himself into my arms for a big hug and a kiss, would go back to playing, come back for hugs and kisses. It was the sweetest morning, and better than any nap. Just what my heart needed.

So highs and lows.