Cousin Group Photo (Takes 245 through 248)

What's Jack Into These Days?

So what's Jack into? Oh, the lazy susan. He literally got into the lazy susan. He was wrist deep in the potted plants, he got his stomach in Bean's water dish, he crawled under his crib when the side was down, and under Luke's bed. He napped quite a bit on Wednesday, which was good because when he was awake I could only work in 10 second intervals.

What is Luke really into though? Playing with his cousins! Yea! The cousins are here! Pictures to follow as the weekend progresses.

P.S. Jack had roseola last week - that was what caused the fever and the rash. Febrile seizures are a side effect of roseola, which I did not know until the danger had passed. But I did think that Jack felt hot, and immediately gave him tylenol. As he was swallowing the fever reducing nectar like a baby bird, I was remembering what a febrile seizure was like and hoping to never observe another one. Which reminds me! Happy half birthday to Luke! In six months he'll be too old for a febrile seizure. At 14 months, it was not at all a relief to hear that the seizures stop at 6 years. I am glad that there was just the one!

Mamas for Obama

I watched the speech tonight and it seemed different from any other political speech that I can remember. I felt a weird feeling that was hard to identify at first, but it turns out to be optimism!

Kindergarten Day 5

"Do you know why I am playing with the Speak N' Spell so much? Because she hasn't taught us to read yet."

***

Also! Jack pulled himself up to standing on the Knights Castle and then pushed it across the floor, walking behind until he the whole thing ran into the wall.

A Break From the Funny

Luke hates after school care. The reason: He has to sit on the floor and wait for the Y-Care teacher to come get him while every other kid says, "I see my mommy!", gives the teacher a high five and walks out the door.

It breaks my heart.

I know a second grader who loves after school care, and a first grader who begs his mom to sign him up. I know a family that says their kids love every minute and are sad to be picked up. I am sure this is a phase and that I am more upset than he is, but it's rough.

I am trying to remember how long it took from Luke to go from missing his mommy at pre-school to wishing I wouldn't come to get him so early. I'm not going to try too hard to remember though because I am afraid it might have been a couple months.

Settling Into the School Year

Sometimes I don't really feel like a mom, or like my idea of what a mom is. I remember when Luke was able to stand and play with the tupperware in the bottom drawer in the kitchen, that made me feel like a mom. Probably because I have memories of my sister playing in the bottom drawer in the kitchen. Kid playing in drawer while you work in the kitchen = quintessential mom. I hadn't had that, "weird I don't feel like a mom" feeling in a while - possibly because I have two children, and five and half years into the whole thing I am used to it. But last week when I was packing lunches (like the third of 3,960 peanut butter and jelly sandwiches that I will be making over the next 16 or so years) I had this "wow, I really am a mom" feeling.

The next feeling I had was, "wow, that's a lot of plastic baggies."

So I took a sandwich sized tupperware to Luke and said, "Can you open this?"

He tried and wasn't able to. He said, "Sorry Mom, you'll need to get Daddy to help you."

So I am investigating alternatives.

Also, Luke was very concerned about the homework situation before the school year started, and I really had no idea what to tell him to expect. So every day he has come home and said, "No homework!" But it's almost like he'll be relieved when he gets homework so the whole thing isn't a mystery anymore. He did come home with a little piece of paper that was a xerox of the type of paper that you use to practice your letters. His name was written on it in dotted lines. He said, "No homework! But look! I have this!" And I said, "Maybe you are supposed to trace over that with a pencil to practice your letters? Maybe that's your homework." He said, "I don't think so. I think that's optional."

Oh, one more thing. We were reading a bedtime story of Scooby Soo and the Alien Invaders and Luke was looking at the pictures. There was some graffiti on a wall and that said, "Aliens go home." He pointed out the "go" and I asked him how he knew what that word was. He said, "We have a calendar at school and it lists everything we do for the day and it says, "Go Home" at the end." I said, "What else is on it?" He said, "Recess." And I said, "What else?" And he said, "That's all I remember."

At Long Last: The Redneck Roadtrip

It's a beautiful Saturday, the weather is a perfect 75 degrees, the sun is shining. Jack is napping away his fever, Luke is playing in the basement, and I am working. I have two processes going, and there is no way I can start a third without getting confused and causing problems, so it's time to blog the Redneck Roadtrip of Late July/Early August.

We started it all off with a trip to the Boulder County Fair for the Demolition Derby. It was about 800 degrees, and we kicked things off be eating our dinner in line to get into the grandstands. Dave and Luke and I unanimously agreed that our dinner consisted of the best corn dogs we had ever had. The. Best. Poor Jack just got milk and baby food. I brought a bottle, because nursing a baby at the county fair just didn't seem quite right. Sure I would fit in... with the animals. And it was the Boulder County Fair. But it was also the demolition derby.


I took a lot of pictures.

Have you ever been? No? Enjoy - this video is mostly demolition anticipation.


Then we hit the rides - (note to self: next year purchase a wrist band for the rides.)

Or, for just slightly more money, buy a plane ticket, and go to Cedar Point.

Then, we left the fair at about 10pm with a sobbing child and an overstimulated baby and headed home in time to catch a few winks and head to Keystone for The Beer and Bluegrass festival.

We went with our good friends, our oldest Boulder friends, such good friends that we almost never get together because we now live 20 minutes away instead of in the same house.

We drank beer,

listened to bluegrass,


bounced in bounce houses,

swam in the pool,

played putt putt, drank beer,

mountain biked, danced,

and managed to cram it all in before 9pm when we all passed out.


I'd go into more details, but that is all that I remember.

Two Face Vs The Six Million Dollar Man

*** Alternate Post Title: Does your face hurt? ***
*** Alternate Post Subtitle: It's killing me! Wacka wacka Wacka ***

So Dave started off as Harvey Dent, progressed to Two Face, and is practically Col. Steve Austin less than a week later. And by that I mean his massive head/face wound seems to be almost healed. The face wound that was only visible if you looked at him from one side. Get it, two-face? And the fast healing part is like the 6 million dollar man. In case this doesn't make sense, it's because I am mildly delirious.

I told Dave to call his parents before I posted about his injury, and he did, but he just left a voice mail. A voice mail that probably said, "hey call me." Not, "we don't know exactly what happened but Megan found me on my back, passed out, snoring, and bleeding from three parts of the left side if my face. Rob tried to do mouth to mouth, which, based on the snoring was probably unnecessary, but Rob really wanted me to live, and possibly always wanted to kiss me. Megan panicked at first and then pulled it together to get me some ice, wrap me in a blanket and then put more wood on the fire. She also managed the four children in such a way that they view the whole experience as interesting and funny and not something that will scar them for life. We were camping and it was dark and we didn't seek immediate medical attention for those reasons. I still haven't been to the doctor because Megan hasn't scheduled me an appt because I haven't updated my google calendar so she doesn't know when I am free. I am almost totally healed now except for the chunk missing from my nose. Call me back when you get a chance, love ya!"

So new information has come to light that indicates maybe Dave was just a little under the weather and that is what caused him to faint. Here is what makes me think that: The green boogers coming out of both my children's noses, my sinus infection and general yucky feeling, and the fact that we were up all night with a feverish Jack. Luke leaning over the toilet and saying he was going to throw up on the first day of school may or may not support this theory. Anyway, I am a zombie today, but Dave is recovering nicely from his injury!

My Son, My Son, The Younger One

Poor Jack, in all this excitement and stress about kindergarten, there has been nary a post about Jack and his many accomplishments.

He now eats crackers:



That's really such a short lived milestone because after one, you realize how disgusting they are.

He pulls up to standing, and as you can see, has three teeth on top:



He looks cute is his fall wardrobe:



But he hates last year's winter wardrobe because he's like Ralphie from A Christmas Story, combined with a turtle on it's back:



And the biggest news is this: He said Dada. Dave was playing peekaboo with him through the car window while we waited for our carry out pizza at the start of our camping trip (we camp in style) and when Dave disappeared Jack said, "Dada!" and looked for him out the window.

And at dinner tonight he made something that vaguely resembled the sign for "more". He hasn't been too keen on learning the signs because he has found that screaming at the top of his lungs is an easier and very effective way to get more food.

First Day

I had everything perfectly organized. But I should have known it would all go horribly awry when Jack woke up (again) at 5:30. He was supposed to wake up at 6:30: after I had done my knee exercises, but in time to be changed, fed, and dressed before Luke got up. So I made Dave go in and get Jack to sleep again, which he did. (Now if only that would occur to me at 1:30 am.)

The next problem was that Dave set Luke's alarm to radio instead of beeps. Then Luke bumped his knee, then he became aware that he had a cough. All things that would be cause for angst on a normal day, but today culminated with him pulling up a chair to the toilet and preparing to barf. Poor boy, the thought of school didn't give me stomachaches until at least 3rd grade.

He didn't want to eat the pancakes that I made, but he managed to choke one down. Then I remembered about the wee one. Jack! By now it was 7:15 or so and I still needed to get Jack fed, and dressed in his coordinated madras plaid shorts that I had ironed in anticipation of the front porch picture. So I woke Jack up, fed him, took off his pajamas and realized we were within minutes of inaugural arrival of the school bus. Cancel the group shot, hand the baby over to Dad. Run out the door with the shoes and wait on the porch with the camera for Luke to cross the threshold. Snap photo of frowning boy, only to notice later that Dad was in the background, shirtless, in bike shorts. Plan to put photo in baby book anyway.

I was literally dragging Luke down the driveway until it occurred to me to offer a piggy back. We piggy backed down the driveway and turned towards the bus stop where Luke saw all the kids and slid off my back and started walking. We got to the bus stop at 7:29, the exact time the bus was supposed to arrive. I confessed to the parents there that I planned to bike to school to meet Luke when he got off the bus and the other parents said they planned to do the same, or already had a spouse on the way. We waited. And waited. Finally the bus arrived at 7:45. Great, what if we were the last stop? Hopped on bikes and pedaled away hoping to beat the bus, which we did, easily.

From there it was no big deal. Luke got off the bus and got a bracelet that marked him as a bus rider so the teachers would know where to send him at the end of the day, and we walked to the playground. Luke was pretty stoic and he just stood next to me, not letting me take his picture until it was time to go in.



We said our good byes and he walked in the door.

Another mom hugged me and asked how I was doing and I teared up a little, but pulled it together.

After school he was all smiles and full of "You know what? Guess what!" which was good because I quickly wasted two of my five questions:

"How was it?" "Good."
"Did you eat your lunch?" "Yes."

Information gleaned:

* We went on a search for the gingerbread man! And we went in the office, to the gym, the music room, the library, and back to our room! And I think the search for the gingerbread man was just a way to give us a tour of the school.
* We went to see Coach L. He's the teacher of maybe P.T.? Yeah, P.E.
* I had to go to the bathroom and I didn't say anything, but then the teacher said, "Bathroom time!" And the same thing happened right when I felt thirsty! It was time for a drink of water!
* Everyone colored on the gingerbread man, but I didn't color anything I just wrote my name.
* Mikey took the rocket I was playing with, and then I started playing with his, and I put a guy in it, but then Mikey took that one back. I guess he wanted a rocket that had a guy in it.
* There is a girl named Clara in my class.
* I had lunch with Kobie and Kaj and I played with Elsa on the playground a little.
* The kids that didn't bring their lunch had pizza!
* We had nap time, and I took a green mat, but when I laid down on it it was so tiny! Only my body and arms fit. And we didn't nap, it was just quiet time
* The teacher has a disco ball, but it doesn't hang from the ceiling, it sits on the floor and that's the light we use during quiet time
* I rode on the bus!
* When I say "guess what" you always say "what" but you are supposed to guess!

We retook the first day of school picture at the end of the day, and that worked out well.


So we survived, but considering the amount of effort that went into that one day, I'm not quite sure how we'll pull it off on a daily basis. I supposed I can skip the pancakes, and the photo ops.