Park!

Overall it was a good weekend; I was disappointed because my photo shoot was canceled due to weather. I’ve rescheduled it for this weekend though, so I’ll have two shoots this weekend instead of one. I’m going to “open” for business at the end of March, I want to actually start getting paid for the photo shoots so that I can justify the expenses and maybe one day quit my day job. It would be super awesome to take pictures for a living.

Friday Mel came over and we played rock band. Saturday was so wet and windy that we mostly spent the day inside. We did go out to lunch, which was fun. Sunday morning Bobby and I dropped the boys off at Grandma’s house so that we could do the 8K. The trail was washed out, so they made it an 8K road run. It was neat to see all the people. It did rain on us while we ran. After the run we went home and changed, then had a nice brunch together before picking up the kids.

The kids had a good time with Grandma and Grandpa. Landon was sad he didn’t get to spend the night. Landon and Ollie were both very good this weekend, although Landon had a couple of weird breakdowns. Ollie only wants to walk; he doesn’t want to be carried at all. If you pick him up, he struggles to get down. We’ve been walking to the park with the boys when the weather permits, and Ollie doesn’t want to ride in the stroller, he wants to walk under his own power.

Monday the boy’s school was open, but Bobby and I had the day off work for president’s day. We decided we needed a date day, and took the boys to school. Then we went to the Ren Fair! We hadn’t been in 4 years, and we had a lot of fun. Weirdly, we didn’t buy anything other than food! We had a good time overall, and it was nice to get away. When we were done we went and got the boys from school. After dinner we took them to the park where they enjoyed themselves and I got some good pictures of them playing.

Ollie’s well visit and the loss of his hair

Oliver had the very bad luck of living with a lice infested older brother yesterday. Bobby felt pretty strongly that our best line of defense was to just shave everyone’s head. I managed to convince him that shaving my head would not be a good idea, but I was unable to save Oliver’s hair. Bobby has wanted it to be shorter than it is for a while now, and it was his turn to win. Lice is a very good reason to have short hair.

Oliver watched Team Umizoomi and sat in my lap as Bobby trimmed him up. Oliver handled he experience rather well, and actually looks sort of cute with his short hair. I admit to missing his frumpy, long, baby hair though. At least this wasn’t his very first haircut. Bobby was totally right, it was the smartest thing to do. It’s cute, but I do miss the hair!

Ollie had a well visit with the doctor today. He weighs in at 28lbs and 10 oz, in the 95%. He is 33 inches tall, in the 90%. His head was 49 cm around, which was also at the top area of the percentile. I don’t remember exactly what the number was. He is doing well and is on track overall. Poor Ollie got three pokes as well.
He’s a bit of a grump due to that, but mostly has been having a good day.
He’s also started this thing where he takes off his pants. Sometimes he takes off his diaper too. I’m hoping this is a temporary situation. If not, anyone have any tips for keeping pants and diapers on toddlers who want to and have the power to take them off?

Landon’s very bad day

My Poor Landon. Yesterday, was just not the poor boy’s day. He was having a hard time waking up and getting going, which is normal. I already knew that his night was going to be less than fun. See, once a year we do a blood test in order to check the severity and trending of his milk allergy. Landon has recently decided he doesn’t like “pokes.” When we went to the doctor on Friday, he didn’t want to go because he didn’t want a poke. I told him that he shouldn’t get a poke for a cough. He told the doctor, “Cough’s don’t get pokes!”
And, since it was a virus, he did not need a poke. But alas, Tuesday Feb 15th had come, and Landon did need a blood draw. I went to get him from school, only the teacher discreetly asks me, “Did they call you?” I am bewildered! Landon looked fine. The teacher than told me that they had found bugs in his hair. BUGS! As in LICE! In Landon’s hair! I felt terrible! So I loaded up the kids and told Landon we needed to shave his head. We’ve done it before. It’s not a look I love, but it’s one he can pull off. Landon didn’t want me to do it. He wanted to go to the barbershop. I checked the time, and we had time. I stopped by, but we were turned away at the door, because They Don’t Service People with Lice. They also don’t understand how lice spreads, but whatever.
So I explained to Landon that we had no choice, I had to cut the bugs out myself. I shaved his head, and I TOTALLY FOUND LICE. BIG HUGE ADULT LICE! I asked the school today, and he was the only one with it, so I have NO IDEA where he got it from. I checked Ollie, but he seemed cleaned. Bobby felt it was best to be sure, so we ended up shaving his head as well. My poor boys!
Bobby then took Landon in for his blood draw, and let Landon play with the iPad in the waiting room. Landon was good up until the actual blood draw, where he freaked out the normal amount.

So he got his head shaved by me, which he hates, and a blood draw, which he hates, within about 90 minutes of one another. Luckily he still loves us!

LICE!!!!!

Landon 4.6

Dear Landon-

Happy half birthday! You are four and a half years old. I told you this today on the way to school, and you responded by telling me you didn’t want the number broken. I asked you what happened if the number broke, and you informed me that it turned into a Three!

You are such an amazing person. You are getting better about spending time with your brother recently. This makes me happy. You love to watch Pink Panther. I’m not sure why, but I think it is your favorite show. You were sick the past couple of days, and when you felt well enough to have input, you requested to watch either Pink Panther or Pokemon.

You are obsessed with the Wii. You want to play videogames every night. We usually only let you play for about a half hour a day, and only a couple of nights a week, if you are good. Your second favorite thing is digging in the dirt with your various cars and trucks.

You are doing well in school, and you’ve got a new best friend. One of the other boy’s in your class is named Austin. You told me the other day that you were going to marry Austin. I asked you if Emily would be sad. You said no. Laura asked you if you wanted to marry both Austin and Emily, to which you told her, “No! Only two!” So apparently you are progressive enough to endorse same sex marriage, but conservative enough to be anti-polygamy.

Swim class is going well. You seem to enjoy is and are able to swim despite it being the middle of winter. I know we are all looking forward to it warming up enough to get into the pool in a few months.

We did tell you that we are planning to go to Disneyland this summer. You said you’d rather go to Mario Land. (As in Mario from Super Mario Brothers). I’ve been trying to expose you to the concepts and rides at Disney using the powers of the internet in the hope that you will not be scared when get there. You will be tall enough to ride just about everything, and I think you’d enjoy all the rides.

Happy Valentine ’s Day sweetheart!
Love
Mama

Picture and Video dump

poor landon

Part of me feels like I should have realized something was up last night, because Landon asked for a blanket. But if I really think about, Landon asking for a blanket that early was a little unusual, but not out of the norm for him. He likes blankets. He likes to cuddle under them when he watches TV. He gets this from me, I’m the same way.

We stayed late at Laura’s weekly Hench Dinner. And by late I mean we didn’t leave until after 8pm. When I tucked Landon in, I realized he was a little bit warm. Not hot. Not warm enough for me to do anything about. Just warm enough for me to realize he was probably slightly fevered, and that he had been acting cranky all night. So I told Bobby when I climbed into bed that we might have to figure out how to keep him home tomorrow.

A little after 2AM, Landon woke up crying. He said he had a nightmare about people with swirly eyes. And he was burning up. I don’t know what his temperature was, I just quickly gave him some Motrin and tucked him back into bed. After about 15 minutes I checked on him, and he was sleeping peacefully, and his temperature was back down.

I had calculated that he could have another dose of medicine around 8:30AM. I fixed things so I could work from home today, and around 6:30AM Landon woke up. He was warm, not hot. But he kept getting warmer. At a little before 8AM, I took his temp, under his arm. I got 103.2. Under arm temp, you are supposed to add a degree. So, while still on Motrin, he had a 104 degree fever. I gave him more Motrin right away, and took him to the doctor.

She looked him over, said it looked like a virus, not the flu, and not an ear infection. Lots of rest, fluids, and all of that good stuff. Landon is miserable, and has spent most of the day sleeping or watching tv. I’m keeping him on something for his fever, but he pretty much still has a mild one. I’m pushing fluids, because Landon doesn’t want to eat or drink anything. And I’m stressing.

I am totally going to lose it if Ollie gets this same bug and ends up with such a high fever.

Bobby should be home with enough time for me to download all the medication information, and then hopefully I can head out to my photography class tonight.

stuff and doctors

Yesterday was stressful.

I was working from home and kept Ollie with me. He was a little grumpier in the morning yet, but not terrible. We dropped Landon off at school, and I still had an hour or so before I had to start work, so we went shopping. I got valentines for the kids from us. I need to take Landon to the store to let him pick out his valentines for his class. They are having a party next week.

I got some chores done, got some work done, and Ollie started to act tired around 9AM, so I put him down for an early nap. Since he’s been sick, he’s been taking two naps again. He was trending towards one nap before he got sick.

He woke up from nap around 10:30 and was almost inconsolable. If we were in his room, in his chair, reading one of his five favorite books, he would calm down while the book was being read, starting up again as soon as I finished the book. I called his doctor and got an appointment, but the next opening was at 2pm. So around 11:20 I tried Motrin. He didn’t have a fever, but I wasn’t sure what else to do. Within 15 minutes he was happy and playing again.

We went to the doctor and she checked his ears. Still infected, she didn’t know if they were better or worse than before, but based on what I said, and a lack of anything else really being wrong with him, she decided to up his antibiotic. That’s pretty much what always happens with him and amoxicillin. He’s 28 lbs and 5 oz. He has a well visit next week, so we’ll be able to follow up on his ears then.

On top of that, I lost Morocco. Ollie wanted to play (after the Motrin) and he likes to go up and down the hall, so I shut all the doors except the one to his room. I wanted to make sure no cats were in the room, so I checked for them both, and could not find Rocco anywhere. I searched the house, IMed Bobby, everything. Finally I decided he must have gotten out front when I brought in groceries or something and so I went outside and checked for him. I mean, I looked for him for hours and could not find him. I was so upset. And then he just turned up. I have no idea where in the house he was hiding, but it was somewhere good.

Needless, I was pretty stressed out yesterday. I got to take Landon to swim class, which made me happy. He’s doing pretty good. The last few days he’s had trouble listening at his preschool class and didn’t do his writing, so we had a long talk and he didn’t get to play Wii last night. Hopefully he’ll turn that around. He’s not been bad, he’s just been, as his teacher put it, “a rambunctious four year old.”

Ollie is walking and jabbering and generally being awesome, when he’s not being a total grump. Ollie tends to get grumpy on us around 5pm till bedtime, which sucks on weekdays because we mostly see him from 5pm till bedtime. He’s a happy little morning baby. And he LOVES books.

I’ve got a photography workshop this weekend, really looking forward to it!

Ollie has ears and long nights.

Landon and Ollie have both had colds the last few days. Last night Oliver became fevered and fussy, and he started pulling on his year. Around 10:30 he wouldn’t sleep anymore, so I packed him up and took him over to Good Night Peds.

It was very busy, and we were there until 2AM. Yes, he has an ear infection, nothing else going on. He didn’t enjoy all that waiting and was very fussy and difficult for most of our wait. One of the children ahead of us ended up needing an ambulance to transfer them to the ER. I am so grateful that Ollie was doing well and did not need such drastic measures.

Anyway, I got him medicated, but as a result I went to bed around 3:15AM last night. I normally wake up at 5AM to go into work. Thankfully my manager is awesome and my work is flexible. I’m working from home and caring for a sick boy today.

Ollie’s doing a little better today. We managed to get some a nice long nap in. Bobby took Landon to school this morning, which was good because I don’t think I could have driven him on that little amount of sleep.

Ollie had pasta for lunch, and loved it.

Needless to say, he got a bath after that.