When Aiden Picks Dinner

We have a fairly adventurous five year old who is not afraid to eat things that look like animals (see the Father's Day post regarding the calamari). This is what he picked from the fish counter at the grocery store for dinner. And he is VERY excited to eat it.

Prayer Request

A friend of mine had her baby on Saturday - a little girl named Kennedy. We got word the following morning that she (Kennedy) began to have seizures during the night. She was immediately transferred to Emmanuel NICU and remains there. They have done multiple tests and nothing is coming up as to what is causing them. She is on three different anti-seizure meds and so far, they are not working. Last I heard, it sounded like she is continuing to have numerous seizures per day and there is some brain swelling. Please keep them and the medical team in prayer as they try to work through this.

Father's Day Weekend

Just like we did for Mother's Day, we celebrated Father's Day all weekend. On Saturday, we let daddy sleep in and recover from the 50 hour work week he'd just had. He had worked 12 hours on Thursday, getting home at 9pm, then got up at 3am and went back to work, putting in another 10 hours. After hanging out at home for a while, we all headed out to the mall to buy the boys' outfits for their Aunt Laura's wedding in a few weeks. They're going to look so cute!

After the mall, we took John to dinner at Olive Garden. We had initially thought that going out to dinner on Saturday instead of Sunday would be less crowded, but that wasn't really the case. It was an estimated 30 minute wait, although they got us seated in less than 15. They were definitely very busy, as the waitress forgot my drink, and then gave John the wrong dinner. He had to wait a few more minutes to eat, but we'd gone for an early dinner so it's not like we were starving. The best part of dinner was Aiden trying a new food and LOVING it. You see, a few days before, Aiden was looking up squid online. I told him that squid could be breaded, fried, and eaten and it was called calamari. He asked if we could eat it and I told him that when we took daddy to dinner, we'd go somewhere that had calamari. When we got our menus, I asked Aiden what he wanted to eat and he said, "Calamari". I told him yes, we'd get calamari for an appetizer, but what did he want for dinner? Again, "Calamari". So he ordered ONLY calamari. When they brought it to the table, Aiden was fascinated by it. He picked it up and said, "It's a squid tentacle!!". I thought for sure he'd refuse to eat it, but he popped it in his mouth, announced that he loved it, and proceeded to have a plate of calamari for dinner. It was quite entertaining!

We skipped church the next morning because I came down with a sore throat late Saturday and the boys were dealing with a hacking cough, so we relaxed with daddy. We made blueberry pancakes and gave John his gift - Band of Brothers on DVD. The rest of the day was pretty low key, but it was just what we needed after a long week and dealing with prolonged illness.

To John: Thanks for being such a hard working, loving father to our children and for giving me the two best little boys in the world. I love experiencing parenthood with you!

Working It!

Thanks to some very motivational facebook friends, I began working out regularly again a few weeks ago. Holy cow. There are some muscles that have not been used in a while!

My first week was interesting. I started out really easy, but was still in a constant state of soreness all week. A few days into it, my appetite exploded and is still all wonky. I think my body is confused and is having trouble spreading out my needed calorie intake throughout the day. Instead, I'm barely hungry for half the day, then I'm starving at 2pm, again at 5pm, at 9pm, and at midnight. And I mean STARVING. Like I haven't eaten in days. I guess it's good that I'm not trying to lose any weight; just get myself back in shape and firm up some muscles after having two babies.

For now, I'm just exercising here at home. Eventually I'd like to sign up for a dance class, but I don't feel like my body is ready yet. I did a home instruction ballet video and ended up in tears. My legs have not been used like that since I was 19! My word, it hurt so bad. I was pretty sure that I used to train in ballet professionally, but after 45 minutes, I wasn't as convinced that I used to do that 40 hours a week.

One of the great things about our cable package is that we have OnDemand and ExerciseTV has an OnDemand channel. I LOVE it. There must be at least 100 videos available that cover any sort of exercise you could want. And from any time frame from 10 minutes to an hour. It's great and it keeps me from getting bored. I've done Jillian Michaels videos one night, then a belly dancing video the next, then a basic cardio, then weight training, then kickboxing.....it's awesome.

I'm loving how I feel. Although since the boys were sick, I spent five nights with just a few hours of sleep, barely being able to function during the day. There was no way I could work out - I'd collapse. My body just wasn't capable with the amount of sleep I'd been getting. So I didn't work out for almost a full week. And when they say that your body forgets quickly, they mean it. I felt like I was starting all over. But John noticed that my little love handles on the sides were smaller than they were before and I could actually feel my ab muscles starting to come back to life. I know I'll never be back to my high school professional ballet training days, but I hope to get close. I've got a ways to go still, but now that I'm beginning to see little changes, it's giving me motivation to keep going. Plus, I'm setting a good example for my children and we're beginning to eat healthier too. It almost makes me wonder why I ever stopped working out in the first place!

Preschool Graduations

Yesterday, Aiden and Nathan had their preschool graduations. In Nathan's case, it was just a graduation from his 2-3 year olds class into the 3-5 year olds class that Aiden just graduated from, but since it was his very first graduation, we celebrated it just the same. (click on any picture to enlarge)

If you remember, I was the class rep for Nathan's class. For the end of year gift for their teacher, I had the kids put their hand prints on a canvas and I turned them into plants and a sun. It gave a nice little personal element to her present. And us parents got together and got her a gift card from Black Rock Coffee Bar.

Isn't he so cute??

This is where Teacher Casey asked Nathan what he wanted to be when he grew up and he answered, "An ant". That was very different from what he told me his answer would be (a daddy).

And he's all graduated!!

Nathan and Teacher Casey, who has known him since he was 9 months old when Aiden started in her class way back in 2008!

We hung out in Nathan class for a little while and had some snacks (Nathan told Teacher Casey that it was the "tastiest graduation ever"), but pretty soon it was time to go next door to Aiden's graduation. This one was the big one! Even though he's had two preschool graduations in the past, he was actually graduating from preschool this time. My little baby is soon to be in kindergarten!

Aiden's class waiting to do their end of year play that they wrote! It was all about dogs.

Cutie pants Aiden waiting to graduate!

Singing 'The More We Get Together' and looking super cute while doing it!

Graduating! He made his cap himself! When he was asked what he wanted to be when he grew up, he answered, "A scientist". A much more serious answer that last year's: A space robot.

And there he is: A kindergartener.

I was able to hold myself together until we got home. Then John came home with cards for both boys, congratulating them on their graduation. And Aiden read his by himself, without even hesitating on the big words. I don't know why that set me off; he's been reading at a 4th grade level for a few months now. But it just all came together that my first baby isn't going back to preschool ever again. He's a big five year old now. I am so glad that we were able to give him such an in-depth preschool experience. He really grew and developed by leaps and bounds, made lots of new friends, and will be entering kindergarten WAY more prepared for school than we could have ever imagined. Plus, mommy made some new friends, had new experiences, and I am looking forward to a couple more years at that school as Nathan continues.

And now, we begin the summer panic. We're taking the first few days of no school fairly easy, but starting next week it all goes full force: swim classes, Laura and Kevin's wedding and all the festivities that go with it, science camp, splash camp, putting our zoo and OMSI memberships to use, family visits, etc. It's going to be a full summer!

And Again

Aiden was sick, but the fever broke sometime during the night and was fine, although pretty tired the next day. We decided to go ahead and take the boys to their cousin's birthday party (he was turning 16 and it was just a small family get-together, so it's not like it was a hyper little kid party). But that was probably pushing it. The boys were definitely tired and ready to leave after just a little while.

The next day (Saturday), the boys were acting fine and I thought maybe we could take them downtown to see the ships that had come in for the Rose Festival on Sunday afternoon. Suddenly, Nathan flopped down on the floor and started crying. As I picked him up, I could feel it: Fever. His was higher than Aiden's ever got and I set him up on the couch to rest. He started complaining that his legs were hurting, just like Aiden had done. About 30 minutes later, I began to feel like my right leg was bruised from my ankle to my hip and my head started to hurt. Great.

The worst it got for me was feeling quite nauseous around 9:30 and barely being able to walk because of my leg. Nathan however, was up every half hour during the night and we got no sleep because of it. It's about 4pm now and he's still on the couch with a fever. We're at double how long it lasted for Aiden and the fever was much higher. I think I feel better but it's hard to tell since I'm going off of little to no sleep.

Aiden missed his last school field trip of the year on Friday (and had missed the one before that because he was sick). Tomorrow is their last actual school day with Wednesday being their graduation ceremonies. Aiden seems fine to go, but right now, I'm not so sure Nathan will be well enough. He may just have to be content with graduation being his last day. Just as long as they're both well enough to graduate!

Again? Again and Again and Again

This school year has been a total kick in the pants. We have been sick more times than I count and it hasn't stopped yet. Granted we haven't dealt with the swine flu and norovirus like we did the year before, but the frequency of our respiratory and stomach illnesses are almost as bad.

We were supposed to go see my dad in Tacoma this weekend, but we've had to call that off. Aiden slept about five hours last night and got up early this morning, saying that he was freezing and his legs hurt. He also begged me to not take him anywhere. Lucky for him, I only needed to go to Target because Nathan was wearing his last pull-up and he's nowhere close to being dry at night. Pull-ups were very much needed. So I promised him it would be fast and then we'd stay home for the rest of the day.

While we were at Target, he started acting really out of it. By the time we were headed out of the store, he was running a fever and shivering. I got him home, gave him ibuprofen, and he went to sleep. He slept for about an hour, then woke up acting very disoriented. He was holding his head, crying, saying his head was hurting too. I got him to lay back down while I called the advice nurse and he slept for another 45 minutes. By the time the advice nurse called back, he had woken up and insisted that his legs and head were no longer hurting. He's still running a fever and acting out of it, but the advice nurse just wants me to keep up with the ibuprofen and fluids. She said the illnesses are still massively out of control, so she's not surprised that he's sick again. I'm just ready for summer to be here for a while. But I'd also be happy if the germs would stop attacking Aiden - he's really been beaten up by all these illnesses and has been sick way more than anyone else. No wonder he's been so sleep deprived and crabby.

Graduation, Part 2

Even though John actually graduated back in March, the school's graduation ceremony wasn't until yesterday (he finished a term before the year was done). Originally, the boys were going to go to someone's house, but in the end, we had two extra seats available to us and we were excited to have the boys there to see their daddy graduate. And oh, were they excited! They had a little trouble sitting through the President's speech (but I'll be honest, it was a tad boring and I was having trouble sitting through it too!), but once they finally got around to everyone getting their degrees, they were ready to see daddy walk!

Sorry it's so dark - our camera setting didn't enjoy the crud lighting in the auditorium. Click to enlarge and you'll see John shaking hands!

I told the boys to yell "YAY DADDY!!" when they called his name, but instead Aiden yelled, "YEAH! I GOT IT!!". Everyone turned and stared. Oh well!

A future OIT graduate?

We found a random person to take our picture, but I wanted to make sure evidence that I was involved in his graduation was out there.

After graduation, we all headed to Old Spaghetti Factory down on the waterfront to celebrate John's graduation and his grandmother Ellen's birthday. It was a perfect joint party and the food was delicious. And because the day was so incredibly beautiful and that translated into a warm evening, John and I took the boys for a walk along the river. We were all very ready for bed by the time we got home!

Congratulations again, honey. We are so very proud of you and your Summa Cum Laude status!

Are We Sure He's 3?

On Tuesday, Nathan had his very first dentist visit. Yes, I know they're supposed to go by their first birthday, but we had opted out of dental insurance a few years ago (it was absurdly expensive and didn't cover very much, so we didn't see the point) and it's hard to get motivated when you're paying out of pocket for it. But he went and did such a good job! It helped that he watched Aiden's appointment just a few days before and he had our Little Critter book about going to the dentist memorized.

Isn't he just super cute?

They were able to do everything they'd scheduled (which didn't happen with Aiden because he had trouble holding the things in his mouth for x-rays), so that impressed them. They did find a small cavity since he apparently has his father's incredibly grooved teeth and we are watching one of his front teeth. He fell in the bathtub about a week prior and had hit his mouth pretty hard. I was surprised he hadn't knocked a tooth out, but the day before his dental appointment, I noticed that one tooth was slightly darker than the rest. The dentist thinks it may turn back to white and is essentially bruised, but we have to keep an eye on it. If a little "bubble" appears on the gum line above it, the tooth will need to be removed. At least it's a baby tooth!

We went back today to get his cavity filled. They said they wouldn't have to numb him up, so that was encouraging but I still had no idea how he'd react. He was perfect! They had him done and out of there in 15 minutes. He sat perfectly still, didn't move a muscle, didn't make a sound - it was incredible. They said they'd never had a three year old sit that still and be that calm and collected for any sort of appointment, much less a filling! We had numerous hygienists peeking around the corner to watch him. I've seen adults react more strongly to a filling than he did. Just another way he acts like he has an "old soul". Wise and mature beyond his three years. Way to go Nathan!