Oh, Sick

This was the scene yesterday...

Nathan was just getting over it (but it still quite tired) and Aiden had just been hit with it. And I say "it" because we don't know what "it" is....just some random gastrointestinal thing.

Nathan began having high fever about a week ago and by Wednesday, stuff was coming out both ends. Although he only threw up once, the other end stayed quite active. I spoke to the advice nurse from our pediatrician's office on Wednesday just to make sure it wasn't anything to be concerned about. Every time I looked up his symptoms online, it kept telling me he had appendicitis! Well, I wasn't going to run off to the ER just because a certain medical website told me that's what he had. The nurse said that's certainly not where she went with the symptoms I was describing and that they were seeing more GI bugs that they could count right now, so that's probably just what it was. But since the fever was lingering for nearly a week, they wanted to see him if it was still there on Friday.

So by Friday, his fever was finally gone, but later that night, he woke up screaming with tummy pain and lots of diarrhea. He had woken up just as I was going to bed and I was up with him until 5am. He finally had one last big diaper and passed out. I got to bed for about 2 1/2 hours before Aiden woke up at 7:30 vomiting everywhere. He threw up about once an hour all day, unless he tried to drink anything or take any Tylenol, then he'd throw up immediately. I couldn't get his fever below 103 and after 12 hours of that, he was shaking and lethargic. I finally called the weekend answering service for our pediatrician. How long was I supposed to let him suffer before an ER trip was needed?

Just before they called back, Aiden woke up slightly from his fever-induced sleep and asked for peas. I tried to suggest every bland food I had in the house, but he wanted peas. As he laid motionless on the couch, we fed him peas one by one until he said he was done. John took over when the call came back. After a 15 long conversation on all the details of Aiden's symptoms, we were told that if he could keep the peas down, he was probably on the way to being done with the vomiting. But if he threw up just one more time, we had to head to the ER immediately.

Aiden said he was tired, so we put him to bed and I prayed my head off that we could make it through the night. Once the boys were in bed, the 2 1/2 hours of sleep I'd gotten the night before finally took over and I had trouble keeping my eyes open. I think I'd been in mom-mode all day and hadn't been feeling a darn thing. I was so focused on keeping my child out of the hospital.

We all ended up sleeping straight through the night and boy did we need it! Aiden hasn't thrown up since just before I spoke to the on-call doctor, although he still has a slight fever. He is eating and drinking and able to keep it all down.

Out Saturday certainly didn't turn out like we planned - John and I had tickets to Aiden's preschool auction party and dinner (1920s theme), but that obviously was out of the question once Aiden started throwing up. But I understand that once you've got kids, these things happen. I'm just happy that it was just one day of the really bad stuff. I do not like feeling helpless and out of control when my child is so sick!

Fingers Crossed for Wednesday!

The real estate agent called today (I saw his number on the caller ID and nearly died). The bank notified them that they WILL have an approval to us by Wednesday! Apparently the bank negotiator that was taking care of it was overwhelmed, so it (yet again) had to be passed on to someone else. That someone else took initiative and decided it had been in the system way too long and decided to get it done. Maybe there are competent people that work for banks.....who knew?

Apparently there is one small thing that needs to be completed by Wednesday (we were told it's not a big deal, so don't worry about it), but the approval should come in that day and we should be able to be under contract by the end of next week. AHHHH!!!

Part of me wants to be cautious since we've heard deadlines before and we all know how that's ended up. But it sounds like the bank negotiator knows what they're doing and is willing to get this done and finished. Our agent sounded quite excited over this and if he (the short sale expert) is excited, I feel like I can be excited too.

Keep this in prayer, send us good thoughts, cross your fingers and toes and maybe we'll finally be on the serious road to becoming home owners sometime next week!

Aiden-isms

Aiden can come up with the funniest things. There are also times when he can be a great show-off. Like this afternoon when he was glancing around our living room and noticed my poster print of Van Gogh's Starry Night (below). Aiden points to it and announces, "Mommy, that's a Van Gogh". Oh really?? But I do have to admit that I felt a tad proud. He can also tell me that Swan Lake was written by Tchaikovsky and tell me that Dvorák wrote Humoresque Number 7 in G Flat (although he can't say the title, he just recognizes the music). I love watching him learn! (More to read below the picture)

So then there's the funny stuff. We were reading a dinosaur book that we get quite often from the library and we were discussing the names of the different dinosaurs and certain characteristics from each one. First, I have to say that his pronunciation of dinosaur names is super cute.

Spinosaurus - Spikysaurus (I think he just believes this is a better name for it, although I'm not sure why....it has no spikes)

Pachycephalosaurus - Pachely-sephely-saurus (I never want this one to change! It's too cute!)

Compsognathus - Compsognathus-saurus (I love that he extends dinosaur names unnecessarily).

So then we were talking about the t-rex. Obviously, the t-rex is the most well known to little boys, so Aiden had a lot to say about it. I didn't know if we had discussed the t-rex's diet before so I mentioned that t-rexes were carnivores. Aiden crosses his arms and loudly protests, "T-rexes didn't have carnivals!!". After I stopped laughing, I had to agree with him.

Oh Aiden....what laughter you bring to our lives!

Hiking and Horseback Riding in February?

The weather here has been gorgeous. A little cold, but gorgeous. We made sure to keep busy while the sun lasted.
On Thursday, I took the boys for an outing at Bridgeport Village (the outdoor shopping area where I work) to pick up a CD I'd ordered from Borders. After the errand, we sat outside by the fountain eating cookies. We then went back out towards Hillsboro with a picnic lunch and a loaf of bread to feed the ducks at the library. We really enjoyed the day and the amount of fighting between the boys was nearly nonexistent.

On Friday, I filled in for a mom in Aiden's class for parent help and we had an outside day. Nathan spent the afternoon with the babysitter and was able to play outside with them.

On Saturday, I had plans later in the evening with Carrie Marie and Laura for a girl's night, but we had all day to have some family time outside. I suggested taking the boys back to the library to feed the ducks, but John wanted something a little more adventurous. He said he didn't want to go all the way to the coast, but would like to head in that direction. So I found Vernonia-Banks State Park. A 21-Mile trail along an old railroad (there are various railroad "relics" and extremely old railroad bridges that we drove under on the way to the trailhead). We didn't end up starting at the beginning, but found a trailhead starting around mile 9. The state parks website said that it was stroller friendly, but it would have been pushing it even if we'd been equipped with a jogging stroller. Our poor little umbrella stroller is close to dead now, but we wouldn't have been able to go as far without it. We walked a total of four miles, Aiden walking the whole way. He still had energy when we got home!
There are plenty of signs along the trail informing the hiker that digging for fossils and removal of fossils is prohibited. On our way back, we passed where a small rockslide had happened and we noticed something out of the ordinary. It was a clam fossil within the rock! Keep in mind that we're still a ways from the coast AND up at a higher elevation. Hmm...how did that clam get up there? :^) I completely forgot to take a picture of it, but it was really cool to see. I did take a few pictures along the trail.

On Sunday, there was a family dinner planned once Brady was done with his National Guard stuff, so we had the whole afternoon to keep busy until then. Laura suggested that we all head out to the horse barn to see Amirah, so we ate a quick lunch, got Nathan down for a nap at grandma's, and went out towards Newberg.

We figured out last summer that Aiden is a bit of a horse lover, but his level of comfort with horses is amazing. He wanted to brush Amirah and was not afraid to get near this large animal. Amirah was very careful and patient with Aiden all afternoon.

We all got a chance to ride out in the sun and Aiden rode twice! He was so careful the whole time, except for when it was time to get off the horse. This is where his comfort level should be a little lower. He kept trying to dismount all by himself! I love that he seems to be completely in his element with horses. It's fun to watch and it's a great experience for him at such a young age. Time to look into summer horse camps? I took a few pictures throughout the afternoon. These are just my two favorites, but if you click on the title to this post, it will take you to the whole online album.

Aiden to the Rescue

Anyone who knows me could tell you that I'm clumsy and accident prone (except while dancing, which is just pure luck I think). I mean, I'm still tending to a bum knee from tripping over the cat at Christmas. It was just a matter of time before one of my children would have to attend to me after a small self-inflicted accident.

I was attempting to get some organizing done yesterday (I plan on an organizational post later on) and was trying to organize the bottom part of our hallway cabinets. They are set up with two cabinet doors, one below the other. Since I was working on the bottom part, I was down on the floor and had forgotten that, at some point, the top cabinet had been opened. I go to stand up and bring myself right up into the bottom edge of the cabinet door. Where did I hit? The bridge of my nose and boy, did I hit it hard.

I fell back onto the floor, holding my face. Poor Aiden had been in the kitchen getting himself some juice and had seen the whole thing happen. He ran over to me and kept asking in a very urgent tone, "Mommy, are you ok?". I didn't take my hands away from my face because I didn't know why I looked like and I didn't want to scare him, so I tried to tell him that I was ok, but I don't know if he believed me. He sat with me for a minute until I was able to get up (I was fairly dizzy). He then closed the cabinet doors and said, "I'll just close these for you, mommy". I took a quick look in the hall mirror (my nose and eyes were red and the swelling was starting, but I didn't look too bad. Aiden helped me get the ice pack for my face and we sat on the couch for a while. I didn't know it was as long as it was, but we ended up sitting together for nearly an hour and a half. Thank goodness dinner was in the slow cooker or else Aiden would have been responsible for making sandwiches!

I was extremely impressed by the amount of caring and concern he showed. Even though he couldn't do much, he tried to help as much as possible. Maybe I need to make sure he knows how to dial 911 in case I do actually knock myself out someday. We've mentioned it occasionally, but I suppose it may be time for a longer conversation.

And as far as I go, I'm not too horribly bruised - just my eyelids are a little darker. My nose and eyes are tender and it hurts to sneeze, but what do you expect? I sort of suspect I may have given myself a mild concussion - I felt quite tired afterwards and my head still hurts. I slept REALLY well last night, but Nathan was my concussion alarm....waking me up every 3 hours (thank you, night terrors). My neck is also extremely sore from having my head knocked backwards.

I have to just shake my head at myself (no wait, that hurts). It's so stupid and I should have been more careful. But Aiden's care for me while I was collapsed on the floor really helps me know that I can trust him when I get hurt and need help. I love you, little bug. And you might want to just get used to helping your clumsy mom.

Minthorne Art Academy

Since Aiden didn't have school yesterday (and he wouldn't have gone anyway, since he has a cold that isn't cleared up enough), I tried to make our day a little more artsy and school-like for him. I set up the easel, wrapped paper around each side (there's a chalk side and a dry-erase side, so not exactly paint friendly), and then put up the painting paper. Both boys had some paints set up on chairs on either side and they went to town on their own paintings.

Nathan's painting process is very deliberate. Each brush stroke seems to have a set purpose - you can see it in his face. He didn't talk much about his painting during it, but kept saying, "Don't eat the paint" every few minutes. Can you tell he's been scolded about that before?

Aiden hadn't even started painting before he began telling me what he was going to do: "I'm going to paint an abstract painting. That means I don't need to paint anything while I'm painting". More power to you, kid.

They had a great time with it and I enjoyed seeing their final pieces and hearing about what they were. Here are some pictures to show you.

Nathan preferred standing while painting and always kept a very wide stance.

Aiden quickly realized that he preferred sitting and would often prop his left leg up and lounge back while he painted.

Occasionally the boys would pop around to see what the other was up to. Nathan also reminded Aiden to not eat the paint, although that wasn't a problem. He should have reminded him to not paint his eye. (Don't worry, it was just a little red paint on the eyelid)

This is Aiden's final product. It is certainly abstract and he made sure we knew it by reminding us that it wasn't anything.

This is Nathan's. Once he was done painting, he told me that it was a rhino, a dinosaur, a hedgehog, and a lion. He then proudly exclaimed, "I paint animals!". I think he's going to love preschool.

Super Gross Parent Moment

As parents, you will inevitably end up with some pretty gross things happening. You move past it. No big deal. We've had the basics: Pooped on, peed on, barfed on (I still haven't quite gotten past barf dripping from my hair last month after Nathan let go...), boogers on our hands, chewed up food getting smeared on us....it's all a badge of parenthood. But yesterday, one of the grossest things happened and it actually took me a few hours to decide if I should post it here. But I know that in time, we'll look back - actually, scratch that. One day, John will look back on it and laugh. I laughed already.

The boys had spilled some cereal on the couch (no milk) and I hadn't cleaned it up yet. John walked over to sit on the couch, grabbed a piece of cereal and popped it in his mouth. Unknown to either of us, one of the boys had apparently had a pee accident on the couch and on the cereal that John had just popped into his mouth. John's face turned pretty fast and the accident was quickly realized. I couldn't help laughing as John cleaned out his mouth. It was just such a parent thing to have happen. And this is why you shouldn't eat spilled cereal from anywhere.

Olympics Hater?

Ignoring the fact that I'm just not super interested in the Olympics this year (that luger's death definitely put a dark cloud over things), I have been attempting to turn them on occasionally. It seems that Nathan has some other plans or just flat out hates the Olympics. Whenever we turn them on, he yells, "NO!! Not that!!" and turns the TV off. It's a slightly strange thing to be upset over, but somehow, he makes it look a little cute. :^)

Addendum to the Previous Post

I wrote the previous post while Aiden was at school on Wednesday. When I went to pick him up, I ended up chatting with one of the other moms for a while and the subject of the sibling rivalry and behavior issues came up. It turns out that her oldest two sons (now teenagers) are the exact same age difference that Aiden and Nathan are. While she didn't have much in the way of advice, she was able to offer some much-needed encouragement.

She told me that her boys did the exact same things that Aiden and Nathan are now doing and she said it's just what happens when you've got two boys at that age span. She added that she has only ever had boys so she has no clue if girls do the same thing (probably not!), but that's it's just a stage that they will go through. Yes, it will drive me insane. Yes, it will take every single ounce of patience I possess to keep from screaming at them (and even then, I will still probably lose it occasionally). She said that it was one of the most stressful parenting times she has ever experienced (even with having two teenagers). She reassured me that I am doing nothing wrong and the way they are acting is not being caused by anything I'm doing.

I needed that reassurance from someone who had been there. And having met her sons, I can tell you that they are some of the most polite, kind, mature boys I've ever seen. Her 15 year old acted years beyond his age and I am still incredibly impressed. I can only hope for my boys to act with such maturity and respect when they are older. It lets me know that there's plenty of hope for my kids yet!

The Price of a Short Age Difference

Sibling rivalry is in FULL effect here at home. We're going on a few weeks of near constant fighting between the two boys and I am still without a clue as to how to get it to stop. Of course, they will stop fighting when grandma and grandpa are around, but that's not really a surprise. :^)

I have tried timeouts, spankings (even though we reserve spankings for more serious offenses, like running away in a parking lot), taking toys away, even just ignoring them when they start screaming and yelling. I do believe that John and I shouldn't step in immediately for every single fight, as the boys need to learn to figure things out/problem solve on their own, but that can only be used for a certain period of time. I have to step in once the punching and biting
starts. I also believe that they need to learn to respect people with their words and tone of voice, so when they start screaming at me, I tell them that I refuse to speak to them until they can speak to me nicely. But sometimes the screaming goes on for 30 minutes and I feel like I need to lock myself in my room to keep from losing it.

I am so tired of all the yelling, screaming, throwing things, biting, hitting, punching, kicking that has filled my days for way too long. I get it - they're both boys. Boys fight. But this is unbelievable and bordering on absurd.

On Monday, the boys both threw such huge screaming tantrums while I was driving, the entire car was shaking. I had to stop at a stoplight and what do you know, a motorcycle cop pulls up next to me. I was so convinced he was going to pull me over to see what on earth was happening with the two children in the backseat (had I kidnapped them??), but as I sheepishly looked over at him with my head in my hands, he gave me a look that said, "I am NOT getting anywhere near your car, lady!".

I have a few theories on what might be causing all the fighting and behavior issues, but unfortunately, there's not much I can do about it.
Nathan started having night terrors about two weeks ago and is up multiple times a night. Which means I'm up multiple times a night and Aiden is getting woken up multiple times a night. It's a normal phase for this age and there's nothing that I can do about it. So we're all sleep deprived and crabby. I've looked like I have two black eyes for a week now due to the dark circles. We have no extra room to move either boy into until the night terrors stop, so we're stuck.

I know that the boys feel cramped in the apartment. Obviously, we're attempting to fix the space issue by buying a house, but I can't make it happen any faster than it is. I can only take them outside so often and I know they don't feel like it's enough. I try to provide them with as much varying entertainment as possible: Playdoh, paint, chalk, crayons, blocks, train tracks, musical instruments, legos, board games...you get the idea. We've been baking. I take them shopping. On Aiden's school days, I stick around for a little while and let Nathan play. I'm trying and trying and nothing is helping.

It's possible that John being at work so much if causing some of the behavioral issues (they do seem to act much better when John is home). It's not fun for me to feel like a single mom for a huge chunk of the week, but the constant fighting between the two boys is making me feel like an absolute failure because I have no idea what else to do. I'm beginning to think that the "experts" who say that this age difference is "perfect" didn't actually have any children of their own.

This is a huge reason as to why we all need to get the heck out of Oregon for a little while. Every single one of us needs a big change of scenery and Disneyland sounded perfect. We just have to make it until March 24th.

Disneyland?

Disneyland!! Yes, we're going!

We are SO unbelievably ready for a vacation and after a few months of searching vacation deals, we finally found a great price and we are booked. It's part Aiden's spring break and part our five year anniversary. Yes, it's an anniversary trip with kids, but I'm really ok with it. We leave March 24th and come back March 30 (which is our anniversary, but I can't complain too much since we will have had nearly a week in Southern California).

While I've always been quite wary about taking small children (Nathan's age) to Disneyland (Is it realistic? Will they really remember anything?), we realized last summer that Aiden was getting old enough for it and we just couldn't imagine leaving Nathan behind. I know that we will have to take it slow and so we're planning about three days in the park while we're there. The only thing I'm really concerned about park-wise is explaining why we're waiting in such long lines to both boys. They are not the type to just sit still and wait, so that will be interesting.
I did reserve a hotel just two blocks from the park in case we need to go back for a little while for any reason during the day. It just felt like a smart thing to do with two little kids.

We are hoping to spend some time visiting Brady and Carrie and seeing their new home! We miss them terribly and we hope they can join us for some time at Disneyland. Laura is also in planning stages for spring break in California to attend a wedding, so it might just be a grand reunion!

Ah, I am so excited to have it finalized and I can't wait to break the news to Aiden tomorrow!

A Busy Weekend

John and I had a date planned for Friday evening, but on Friday morning we still had no idea what on earth we wanted to do. John left for work and I tried desperately to think of something more exciting than dinner and a movie. After a few hours a random thought came to me: "I wonder if there's a hockey game tonight?". And what do you know, there was! The Portland Winterhawks were playing the Seattle Thunderbirds and it sounded like a wonderful idea. I promptly bought the tickets and made sure I got us as close as possible.

Later that afternoon, we got a phone call from John's aunt Lorna asking if we would like to attend a George Fox Alumni awards ceremony for John's grandpa Verne the next morning. Uncle Price had gotten sick and cousin Josiah had offered to watch the boys and give up his ticket. This was a great surprise and also meant that we didn't have to go back to John's parents to pick up sleeping boys after the hockey game - they could just stay the night and Josiah would watch them there in the morning.

The hockey game was amazing and I had forgotten how much I loved getting into the action. I used to go to hockey games about once a month (sometimes more) in high school and have missed it greatly. We were about 15 rows up from the ice and we felt like we had a great view (except for one corner, but that's what the big screen is for). It was John's first hockey game and I think he really enjoyed himself, partially because he was amused by his tiny ballerina wife yelling and screaming over a hockey game.

Oh yes, I almost forgot. We ended up taking our seats at the game right at 7:30pm (start time), which I don't like to do. I prefer to have at least a few minutes to relax and maybe grab a drink before it starts. But why we were later than planned was worth it. Right as John was running out the door to get home in time, his boss called him into his office saying that he needed to speak with him immediately. You have to imagine that John was a little worried over this. But as it turns out, his boss gave him an impromptu review and a raise! The raise is fantastic and his boss said that it's the highest raise percentage that anyone in the company will receive all year. He also added that he thought John was worth much more. :^) A good start to the weekend, I think!

On Saturday morning, we headed out to George Fox for the ceremony and as it turns out, an old family friend, Dan Nolta, was receiving an award as well. His wife Judi was there and she was my mentor in high school, so it was a wonderful treat to see her again. I could go into a long story about the ceremony, but a lot of you reading this were there, so I'll just say that it was a good thing I happened to have tissues in my purse. I am extremely blessed to be a part of this family and I am so thankful that John and I were able to be there.

The rest of Saturday was less than exciting; John had to go to work for a few hours and only came home about five minutes before I needed to leave for work myself. I was at work for just two hours before they asked if anyone wanted to go home (it was too slow to keep everyone on) and I took the opportunity since my knee is still bothering me quite a bit.

Sunday was the Superbowl and we hung out at home with plenty of snacks. John cheered on the New Orleans Saints while I rooted for the Indianapolis Colts. Sadly, my losing streak with Superbowls is still in full effect and the Colts lost. It was not cool to see Peyton Manning (Colts Quarterback) cry when he realized they could not comeback from the interception mistake, but I know that the city of New Orleans was bursting with joy over their Saints winning and I got a little teary over their award speech.

And now we're back to the weekly grind, but there's still plenty to talk about. But I'll save it for another time since my laptop battery is ready to give out.

And the Bank Says:

They say two more weeks. My favorite sentence in the whole wide world!

The final negotiator has had it for three weeks now, but the way that they work is in the order of which the paperwork arrives. These negotiators can have up to 500 files at a time and the way ours sits, it will probably be completed mid-February. While I am tired of hearing "two more weeks", it does help to push us through when we are given some sort of time frame. Even if that time frame is totally false. Obviously we hope that the negotiator really will complete it mid-February and we can get the whole thing finished.

There are some apartment frustrations that are getting harder for me to deal with, especially with two growing boys on my hands. We would all appreciate some prayer for coping and figuring out solutions. We are not guaranteed this house by any means and it really would be in our best interest to learn how to work with our current space for as long as we possibly need to.

Maybe our cats need a bodyguard

A while back, I posted about a strange thing Aiden had said to me regarding eating cats and how once you got the fur in your mouth, it wouldn't taste so good. Well, I'm beginning to think we should be careful about leaving Aiden alone with either cat....

I came into the living room after getting ready for work and Aiden had turned Nathan's tricycle upside down and was spinning the wheel by working the pedals with his hands. I just figured it was interesting to him, so I didn't think too much of it, but I asked him what he was doing anyway. He says to me, "I'm making a cat squishing factory". I repeated him, thinking maybe I'd misheard somehow, but he confirmed it. "Yes, a cat squishing factory. So the cats can be flattened". Oh my. I have no idea where this came from!!

But I know he loves the cats. He is always nothing but gentle with them and enjoys snuggling with them whenever they allow it. He also likes helping to feed them if he notices their bowls are empty. He just has some strange ideas sometimes. So I won't concern myself too much until he actually attempts to squish a cat.