Lollipop, anyone?

My kids have always been thrilled with lollipops. The DumDums brand lollipops are about the greatest invention on the planet, in my opinion. They're small, so are still a great treat, but don't take nearly as long to eat and don't make nearly the mess. They heal all wounds (ever give a crying child a lollipop?), they have a shelf life of practically FOREVER, and they're CHEAP!

Uncle Corey understands the thrill of lollipops. He gave Emily two bags of DumDum's lollipops for Christmas when she was 2.5 and she went NUTS. It was her favorite present. She hugged the bags and talked nonstop about how much she loved lollipops.
(look at what a munchkin she was!)


Claire's understands the thrill of lollipops. When Emily got her ears pierced (her reward at 3yrs 3mos old for learning her entire address and phone number), she cried for a whopping 30 seconds, max, until they handed her a red lollipop.
(see the pinkish residue around her mouth? LOL!)


The doctor's office understands the thrill of lollipops as well. When we were there on Friday about Emily's Urticaria, they gave all three kids lollipops on the way out. The horrible WHINING that had previously been coming from the boys was suddenly QUIET. Blissfully QUIET.

And Connor...He pitched a royal fit this morning when he saw Emily and Jared eating their lollipops from Gram and nobody had given him his yet, so we set him up in his highchair with a bib and let him have at it.




Someone's had more than their fair share of lollipops, wouldn't you say?


LOL Just kidding. He's got a pot belly, but when he raises up his arms, it goes away and he's solid as can be.

Here's some friendly advice from me today (on my 7th anniversary! Happy Anniversary to me!!): ALWAYS have some lollipops on hand.

The reluctant football player

Connor was all about wearing that helmet until the second I actually had my camera in hand and then he just wanted to take it off and throw it on the ground...

Urticaria

Emily came home from school yesterday and I discovered a very pink rash-looking mark on her chest. Upon further investigation, I found it sprinkled over her shoulders, across the bridge of her back, and very lightly down her sides. I assumed it was just from the sweater she was wearing, even though she'd worn it before with no issues. She put a t-shirt on and went about her business. I checked her out about two hours later and was VERY startled to discover that the rash was now BRIGHT RED and spreading, and was very warm to the touch. Now it was THICKLY spread across her chest, fully covering her shoulders and the bridge of her back, spreading down the undersides of her arm from her armpits, much more thickly down her sides and belly, and then we discovered it was pretty heavy where her legs join her body. I immediately called the on-call doctor who said it sounded like hives and that we should give her some liquid Benedryl, and watch her for lip/tongue swelling and difficulty breathing. I checked on her around 11:30pm after the Benedryl had had some time to work and discovered that the red patches had faded significantly, but were still visible, but now she had red speckles up her neck and on her cheeks and ears. It was too soon to give her more Benedryl at that point, but I checked her lips and tongue carefully and sat by her for a few minutes to make sure her breathing was okay. Dan gave her Benedryl at 4am when he got up for work and when she woke up at 8:30am, she looked pretty much totally normal. We'd already made the decision to keep her home today just in case it was something contagious, so I just let her sleep as long as she wanted. She was a totally new kid, very rested and energized and ate two bowls of cereal and drank three glasses of milk!! I was debating just taking her to school afterall (arriving about an hour late) when I noticed her face was starting to turn pink. In the amount of time it took me to finish changing the baby's diaper, Em's face got worse and much brighter red. I called the dotor's office and got an appointment with a doctor we'd never had before (ours was booked up for the day already). She immediately called it Urticaria (I made her write it down for me, so I wouldn't forget), which I discovered is HIVES once I came home and googled the word. LOL She said we'll probably never know what set off the reaction. She gave me the option of either waiting to see if it ever happens again, or going ahead and treating her for allergies now. She said the downside to waiting is that the more reactions they have, the worse the reactions generally are, and the harder they are to treat. She pointed out several rough patches of skin on the back's of Em's arms, legs, and on her belly and said those are classic signs of someone who is prone to skin reactive allergies (not her exact wording but that was my understanding of it in a nutshell) and she was very surprised Emily's never had Urticaria before (it's kind of fun using the fancy word! LOL). SO, now I have to decide if I really should start medicating my child daily, based on ONE incident, or wait. My initial reaction is to WAIT, but I would feel really horrible if this happens to her again and could have been avoided by a daily medicine (Allegra in liquid form twice a day). I'm very undecided. Either way, I felt really bad for Emily. It can't have been comfortable to be covered in a hot red rash like she was. I tried to take pictures, but the lighting just wasn't right no matter what I tried and no flash didn't show the redness and using the flash washed it out. OY! Oh, and we missed school for nothing today! At least I know it's safe to take her to dance class tonight. She cried this morning when I told her she probably couldn't go to dance either.

Serious Steelers Fan, Future Football Star

I found this costume online at Walmart awhile ago while researching Steelers items that Dan might be able to pick up for Emily and I while in PA for the Seahawks/Steelers game next weekend. It was an online only item, so I asked Dan about it and he LOVED the idea of Jared having it, so I finally got around to ordering it last week. It arrived last night. I checked the website today and they're totally out of stock! Talk about LUCK. I got practically the last one, I guess.

Anyway, you all know that we're Steelers fans in this house and Jared is just taking it to the next level...

HOW CUTE IS HE?????






I decided to go dig through my stash of make-up (which I never wear) and get a black eyeliner pencil to make him look more authentic




I'm making this one be for his rookie card! LOL!!!!!!!!!


The wound on his nose makes him rather authentic as well, don't you think?

Holy Tantrums, Batman!

How evil am I? My child throws a fit and I run for the camera thinking, "This could be a really great entry for my blog!" The boys were both just OUT OF CONTROL yesterday. Connor's got molars coming in, so I'm sure that was his issue, and I have NO CLUE what was wrong with Jared. I'd tried food, snuggles, games, books, and everything else under the sun and finally decided to just leave them be to let them ride out their tantrums and be FINE again.

Here they both are:


Jared screamed "NOOOOOOOOOOO!" and ran for his room after I took that picture. I guess he wasn't interested in having his tantrum documented in pictures


Connor stayed put and gave me some good shots.


"maybe if I stand here looking really sad and pathetic, she'll make one last effort at making me happy" (which I did, and he screamed louder, and flailed around, so I put him back down again)


"Maybe a little whimper instead of a full-fledged cry will do the trick"


"Fine! I'll just chew on your chair then!"


"wahhhhhhhhhhh!!!!"


"How about I just throw myself down on the ground and yell even louder!"


"And then I'll fling myself backwards and whack my head on the ground like I'm so fond of doing, and then I'll roll around a bit and kick my feet"


"I'M REALLY MAD!!!!!!"


I never did figure out what was wrong with him, but he gave up the tantrum very shortly after I stopped taking pictures and turned back into the sweet little Connor we ENJOY having around!

Pirate stuff

I read this the other day and it made me laugh. Okay, so I'm a nerd, but whatever...

"To err is human, to arr is pirate."

And since we're on the subject of pirates, here's a joke for you:

What is a pirate's favorite place to eat?
.
.
.
.
.
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.
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.
Arrrrrby's

And some more pirate stuff: Jared has two very fun books about Pirates. One is called How I Became A Pirate, the other is called Pirate's Don't Change Diapers and is a Part Two to the first one, (written by Melinda Long, illustrated by David Shannon). The illustrations are REALLY goofy, but the kids really get a kick out of the books. I especially like the first one, where it specifically mentions several pirate-talk phrases. I keep waiting for the opportunity to use "landlubber" and "scurvy dog." And some day at dinner-time, I think I'll just suddenly shout out, "Down the hatch, me laddies!" The kids would think I was the coolest mom ever. HA! The second book introduces us to the phrase, "Shiver me timbers! What be this vile smellin' swill?" I can't wait to use THAT one some day, too!





(David Shannon is also the author/illustrator of another of our favorite books, Alice the Fairy. Emily was given this book for her birthday (when she was four?) and we've read it several hundred times since then, I'm sure. VERY CUTE.)


I should mention that Jared is planning on being a pirate for Halloween. You should see his pirate face!!!

Connor's 1st Haircut

Here is Connor before his haircut. Look how long it got in the back!!! LOL


We put him in the car and he went NUTS "driving"


not real sure what to think


He was a little wiggly, but did very well overall




Every once in awhile he'd beg for some rescuing...


...then two seconds later happily go back to "driving"


All finished!


They tried to give him a green balloon, but there was something wrong with their batch of green balloons because they kept popping or deflating, so he got purple. He didn't mind!

Tough Guy

Look at Jared, already getting into brawls... The cupboard door won this round, unfortunately.



He hollered pretty good, that really BAD cry, where after the initial SCREAM, you don't hear ANYTHING. And then he came running to me, hands over his face, sobbing SOMETHING I couldn't understand. I finally pinned him down enough to pull back his hands and found blood and a thick flap of skin. SIGH



It stopped bleeding rather quickly, but the flap of skin kept wanting to curl under instead of laying flat, and being dead-center on his face, I wanted it to heal as nicely as possible, so we packed into the car and headed for Prompt Care to get it dealt with professionally.

Here he is sitting in the big chair just after the nurse cleaned it up a bit. He was SOOO good. Didn't flinch or cry or anything.


The doctor came in and decided the lowest portion of the flap of skin was too far gone to try and lay flat with steri-strips. It would have left steri-strips stuck to the actual wound since the flap wouldn't come down far enough to fully cover it any longer. He decided to stick steri-strips on either edge where the flap of skin DID meet up properly with the undamaged areas to help hold the flap in place. The central part of the wound had to be left uncovered. He will probably have a raised section of skin where the flap reattaches funny, but supposedly scar massage should get it to lay rather flat. He said little kids have such amazing healing abilities that in a few months we'll probably be hard-pressed to see a scar at all, whereas in an adult, it would be rather significant.

Doctor explaining to Jared what was going to happen


(notice Jared's eyes are crossed as he's trying to watch what the doctor is doing!)




doing a strip on the other side...


Good as new. ALMOST!


Picture day at preschool is October 4th. Let's keep our fingers crossed his recovery is DOUBLY speedy! LOL

CHECK BACK!

check back later this evening for pictures of Jared's run-in with a cupboard door and the resulting Prompt Care visit... We're on our way to get Em's and J's vision checked or I'd post pics now! BUSY DAY!!

The politics of football

The politics of football are something I will never fully understand, and don't plan to invest much energy in TRYING to understand either! Yesterday, I walked past Dan watching a football game on TV on my way to the laundry room with a load of towels. He started cheering LOUDLY so I paused to see what it was he was cheering about. He was cheering FOR the Seattle Seahawks. Dan HATES the Seattle Seahawks! Cheers AGAINST them on a normal day. My jaw must have dropped open clear to the floor and my eyes were bugged out, for sure. Upon questioning him as to WHY IN THE WORLD he was cheering for the Seahawks, I was told that the Seahawks were playing against a team in the same division as the Steelers, so if that team LOST, it boosted the Steelers' ratings within their own division. So in the interest of the Steelers, he cheered for the Seahawks yesterday. But come October 7th AT Heinz Field in PA, he will NOT be cheering for the Seahawks; he'll be in the stadium cheering for the STEELERS.

Medicine

People fall into two categories when it comes to medicine. They either HATE it, or they don't. They may not LOVE it, but they at least dont' mind it.

I fall into the first category. I get the heeby jeebies taking any sort of liquid medicine and feel compelled to get a quick SOMETHING to drink (water, milk, juice, WHATEVER'S HANDY!) afterwards. Emily falls into the first category as well. Starting at a very early age, it turned into a two person job giving her medicine. One person to pin her down and pry her mouth open and the other to actually serve up the dose of medicine. The ensuing yelling and screaming (mostly her, but partly us) and kicking and thrashing (her) was EXHAUSTING, stressful, and frustrating. We tried mixing the medicine into juice, or milk, which didn't work. We finally resorted to bribery at one point, which didn't work all that well either. I even mixed the dose of medicine into partially melted ice cream one time, of which she took one bite, caught onto my plan, and didn't look at ice cream again the same for a long time. I believe she was THREE YEARS OLD before she was finally "willing" to take the medicine and even then, it was only if we used the words "big girls drink their medicine without arguing with their mommies and daddies" and she was all about being a big girl. These days, she takes her medicine rather well. There's generally some whimpering involved, an occasional threat ("you take it yourself, or I'll do it for you!") and there's ALWAYS a glass of water nearby to wash it down with.

Then along comes Jared. He LOVES medicine. Starting a very early age he would cry when the dose of medicine would be all swallowed up and gone because he wanted MORE! Didn't take him long to figure out which cupboard I keep our medicine in and he would stand in the kitchen and point at it and cry. Who in their right mind WANTS medicine? JARED, apparently... For any injury or illness, real or imagined, he informs me he needs some medicine. You'd think it was Christmas morning the way he jumps around in excitement over being told he needs to take some medicine. (Or GETS to take medicine, if you look at it the same way HE does!).

Connor and Dan don't mind medicine. Connor will take it rather eagerly, but doesn't mind if I walk off without giving him more. He seems very uninterested in where it's stored. And I wouldn't say Dan LIKES the taste of medicine per say, but he certainly doesn't get the heeby jeebies like I do! And he doesn't bother with something to drink afterwards.

I'd be interested in knowing exactly which section of tastebuds are responsible for NOT liking medicine. And then I'd be interested in removing them! HA!

Things I've learned recently...Part Two

In additional to the Things I learned recently from the other day, I've recently learned some more (Isn't great that we continue to learn new things all the time?!?)

...That Connor knows what a dogpile is, and he's only 15 months old! Dan was on the floor so I yelled "DOGPILE" to get the older two kids to come running and jump on him, but Connor's the one that headed into the room and landed on him first! LOL!!!

...That Connor is very resourceful. He saw that Emily and Jared were each eating a piece of candy, saw where they'd gotten it from, and decided to take matters into his own hands and help himself


...That when Connor screams and reaches for his crib after you get him out of bed in the morning, it's NOT, ABSOLUTELY NOT because he wants to go back to bed. It's because he wants his blanket


...That the highchair apparently has a "SNOOZE" button, because Connor sure seems to like like SNOOZING in it!


...That Emily likes buying hot lunch at school. I let her do it Monday; there was a bit of confusion over her lunch money. I sent in cash in a sealed, labeled envelope which she didn't give to the teacher, the teacher assumed I'd started an online account already since I hadn't sent her a lunch, supposedly hadn't sent her money, and HAD sent in a note mentioning Emily would be doing hot lunch and was worried about not knowing where to go. SO, Emily came home, raved about how good it was, I said we'd have to do it again soon. Packed her a lunch for Tuesday, but found the lunch still in her lunch bag when she got home. I asked her, "Were you not hungry today?" her reply, "I was REALLY hungry and the rice and meat in sauce (teriyaki dippers, by the way) were REALLY REALLY GOOD." The child had taken it upon herself to decide to have hot lunch again! NOW, becuase I had NOT created an account already Monday, and had sent in cash (which we didn't use, as stated above), we'd already gotten a call home from the school that we were MINUS two dollars so far in her supposed account. THANKFULLY, I had gotten the info I needed to finalize our account first thing Tuesday morning, so there WAS money in her account to cover hot lunch Tuesday, but we had a nice long chat about how we don't just get to buy hot lunch whenever we feel lik it; we have to sit down and discuss it and plan it out TOGETHER and that if mommy packs her a lunch, THAT'S what she's supposed to eat that day! I don't mind her doing hot lunch here and there, and she should have plenty of money to cover "here and there" for this school year. But HOLY COW, can you imagine how embarrassed I would have been had I not gotten that account up and running that morning and had gotten a SECOND phone call home about owing money????? aughhhhhhh!!!!!!!!!!

...That ten years and a few beers heal all wounds. Dan is now suddenly all chummy again with a kid he had a falling out with in high school after seeing him at their ten year class reunion last night. I'm not a real fan of the kid (man!) myself, so have mixed feelings over this! LOL

...That people are REALLY chatty when they're drunk! I was Dan's DD last night and you have NO IDEA how many drunk people came up to me wanting to chat. Some were people I had no idea knew me in the first place! I heard the life stories and sob stories from several people last night. And one guy was so drunk he was slurring and SPITTING while he talked. I gave up trying to end the conversation nicely, told him to have a better next ten years than the last and just walked off. LOL!

...And last, but not least, I learned that a mother should NEVER attempt to function on only four hours of sleep!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!

(oh, and that for some reason, no matter how long I leave the laundry laying around, it refuses to fold itself and put itself away...SIGH!)

Fair Fun

We took the kids to the fair Wednesday afternoon/evening/night. I had to include the word NIGHT because we stayed WAY later than we'd planned! We didn't get back to the car until almost 10pm! And THEN, we still had to drive home. THANK GOODNESS I'd told Dan to stick close (he came straight from work so was in the company truck, not in the van with us) because we got to the on-ramp to I-5 and it was CLOSED! I do NOT know how to drive around downtown and would have been in a world of hurt trying to find my way home, but thankfully Dan was in front of us and he led us home. YIKES! I should really invest in a map to avoid situations like that in the future!

Anyway, lines were LONG LONG LONG this year so it took FOREVER to get much accomplished in the way of riding rides, but it didn't seem to bother the kids much (by about 8pm, the kiddy area started clearing out and then they pretty much had the run of the place). Here they are on the dragon roller coaster


Jared was big into all the motorcycle rides


aren't they cute?


Jared was REALLY talking about the carousel ALL DAY, but then when I asked him about it afterwards, he said, "it was sort of fun." LOL


Connor was in the Mei Tai and kept sticking his hands on my face and saying, "Hi!" over and over again, so I took a picture of him in action. He'd give me the sweetest smiles while he was doing it, too


driving the dumptruck! Jared LOVES dumptrucks


Emily started getting into waving at me at this point






They were both laughing the whole time on this one


Look at Emily with her hands up in the air! Totally her father's daughter...




close-up of the one above (look how much fun J is having!)




more motorcycle fun


Biker Babe in training?


GASP! A bear ate my children!




Poor Connor...He desperately wanted in on the action. Enough so that he spent a good chunk of time trying everything imagineable to try and fit through the gate. First one foot, then tried the other, then tried to shove his head through a few different times, then tried his feet again. THEN, he resorted to hollering "Hi!" at the ride operator a few times, until the guy looked over, at which point, Connor got excited, pointed, nodded his head and said, "yeah!" Next year, Connor, next year!


And you can't go to the fair and NOT get cotton candy...




The air was really moist or something because the cotton candy was just melting on it's own and getting EXTRA EXTRA sticky and messy. The following pictures were taken about halfway through the cotton candy




Five people don't fit very well in those photo booths, but I love these pictures anyway!!