Faster

e loves scooting! I took this action shot by snapping it before he was even on it.

this is my favorite picture of e right now. He's watching tv in this shot, the day before his 3rd birthday...but such an angelic look.

Ok....it's become obvious to me now that I suck and getting the blogs posted. Can I blame it on the job? Yes! Is it fair to say that having a 2 to 3 year old is a huge time suck? Yes. Would I change it if I could? Well, the job, yes...but not the kid. I mean who doesn't wish for a better job?

Well, little boots boy is probably happy with this job.

I work for a department at a University as an Assistant to the Head. It's a fancy sounding title, but I end up just feeling like e knob...like a pee-on, like a person who is helping someone else succeed in while at the same time not succeeding. I rarely write anymore....except for the job and that is not creative writing my friends, it is not at all. I rarely craft. I made E a doll for his birthday, but that's about it for the last year. I hardly even read blogs. I think it has everything to do with being too busy both at work and home. Obviously, blogging and reading blogs at work is a no no...though I might be doing it right now because it's spring break and no one is here, and at home, by the time E is asleep and I have cleaned the kitchen, I'm ready to watch one TV show and call it a night. That's it.

Night is a bit of a circus sometimes. It's hard for me to deal with in a rational way...I think because I'm so tired from working and then I have to just swing into high 3 year old gear and roll with the punches. And E is getting better at playing by himself, but he isn't the kind of kid you can turn your back on. He just might scale a bookshelf or find something he shouldn't have. He's gotten so tall that there is only one home surface he can't reach that I can reach. This has made said surface into a verifiable disaster area...as everything gets stuck up there that needs to get out of his reach. And if he has the idea to do it, he simply pulls a chair over and reaches the top and all the things on it easily. he knows he isn't supposed to do this, but sometimes, he does it anyway.

All of this is to say why I haven't blogged in a while. I just can't. By night's end I'm wordless...and wordless blogs are ok now and then, but it's not why I blog.

Now that I have that off my chest, I will let one other thing off and then I will update and go. I am still planning on making the give away winner her squirrel. If you still read this, please know that I think of it often.

ok....updates.
1. E was sick with stomach flu this weekend. He HATES throwing up. Even while he is doing it he says how yucky it it (yes, talks while the puke is coming out). I hate throwing up too, but I was impressed that he was able to talk while doing it. He said later that he wished it didn't have to come out of his mouth.
2. His 3yr old healthy boy visit found him 3 ft 1.5 inches tall and 31 pounds.
3. We live in a sketchy neighborhood and the other day I drove through a fight and someone tried to get into my car. I didn't mean to drive through a fight, it was just there.
4. As a result we are moving....though we were moving before that too...this just makes it even more important.
5. We just found out that E is pretty far down on every waiting list for every school we applied for him to go to...thanks Chicago Public Schools. We really needed more stress. We'll just send him to the neighborhood school where the fight was that I drove through.
6. I need to breathe and stop thinking the worst.
7. I'm tired of being run by our debt.
8. I've still only lost 20 lbs at wait w..atch.ers. I think I am going to juggle the money and just follow the program but use the money spent there to join the Gym here at school instead.
9. in the more than year since I have written: I had emergency surgery for a hernia, J's mom had a stroke, then J's mom had open heart surgery to repair a hole in her heart, my brother went to and came back safely from a non military mission in Afghanistan, e learned how to use the potty and now only wears a diaper at night, we moved and will move again, I took a new job at the university.
10. I have missed blogging but can't promise I'll keep up.

Have a good day...I'm going to try to do the same.

gotta start somewhere

When i was a wee thing in catholic school I remember learning about the order of things. We had to memorize our house number, street, city, county, state, country, continent, hemisphere, planet, solar system, galaxy etc, and had to recite them on request. This occurs to me now because I'm so far behind, but I don,t feel like I can skip anything. It would mess up the order. I also think I need ti start with explaining what's going on with me before I can really go into what's happening with e. That is in an ideal ordered world, which I don't live in.

As I was walking to the computer last night, in fact, I ran into my son who had just gotten out of bed to tell me the room was too dark, but actually the heat emanating from his body and flushed cheeks told me something else...he had a fever. I did take him back to bed, J was at book group, but he stayed awake for over an hour. So much for writing. But I am writing now. Literally, its been an day of working and child care...and A certain bald 4 year old who's name shall not be uttered for the next 10 hours, at least...i hope. We don't usually let e watch much TV, but right now we feel he needs it when he is sick. he doesn't slow down on his own. So it was a long day of "I'm just a kid who's 4..."

He's sleeping now and so is J. when i blog i often get very tired. Its because the light right here is poor. So I'm working in a dark corner and can hardly read the keyboard. I try to stay awake by eating snacks and drinking decaf coffee, which isn't healthy but leads me to one update.

1. I am joining weight watchers this week.

I tried lots of other things and can't stick with them...but a recent realization that I'm much bigger than I used to be (recent, more like constant nagging). I usually put myself last, but I know that is no good for heath.

me about 10 years ago...finding this picture was a wake up call.

me post half marathon.

me now.

its not even so much how I look, though Im not happy with that. It's also that I have so little that fits me well and I dont feel strong and healthy anymore. so anyway...i know this is a superficial post, but its one of my updates. I have so much more but it's 1 am, j is sick now too, and I need to get the last of the chores done.

Thanks for reading.

Holiday 09

wa hoo. that's what this amazing toy santa brought is called. If you have a kid this age, get one.



December 28th

Well, I've been away from blogging for a while and part of that is to do with the utter lack of time and the preponderance of things to do. But it's also because I've been on a digestive rollercoaster since Christmas eve....maybe before. Maybe my body is looking out for me so I don't overdo it on cookies and candy, but I can't eat much. At around 2 AM Xmas morning, while I was sewing a doll for my mom I could no longer deny I felt bad. What happened next was a 12 hour hell fest of many visits to the porcelain deity, constant nausea, and well, we had to un-invite my family over. We had to cancel christmas. Not for the almost 2 year old, but for everyone else. I haven't felt this sick in a very long time. Given the fact that I was under the weather for a few days, I am sure it was a bug. But it was a lot like food poisoning.

Despite all that, I managed to make some great stuff, most of which I forgot to photograph. I'm still working on the felt nativity set for peanut. Made of felt and fabric scraps. I made my sister a glasses case, quilted, to protect her sun glasses, and my mother an art yoga doll, which she was a bit surprised by at first...not in a good way. The hedge hog for my sister my law, a shirt for my brother.

my brothers bills shirt that i made, by request!!

the hedgehog pin cushion...if you've been reading for a while, you know this is a long time coming.

BLOG POST interrupted..........picked up again 12-31....................by the flu. Seriously, while I was writing this, peanut woke up. I tried to go get him back to sleep, but he was fussy, and I got him up. Moments (and I mean moments) later, he threw up all over me and all over the living room rug. Now I was just recovering from the Xmas stomach flu. So I'm surprised how well I handled it. Also I was surprised at the volume. O Man.

Today was his first day back in the OK.

He lost weight, was really sad and threw up a lot. Worse yet, J came down with it a few hours later. So not one but 2 sick people in the house.

So I hope you all forgive me for bowing out of blogging until January. I have to get to wrk on the big craft of the xmas season. Stay tuned for that.

but before I go, I will say that the peanut has a verbal breakthrough. He talks all the time. His cute new thing though is to call himself peanut. And he says it so cutely.

Sucktober part 1

If you read my blog, you know that J sprained her wrist in October. That put her out of commission for baby care for almost a week. Her wrist is better, still a little sore sometimes, but better. My blog post title, Sucktober is about how October 2009 sucked. I like to modify words to express how I feel about something. I would like now to include a numbered list describing why I renamed October Sucktober this year.

1. Sept. 29th to October 6th J out with sprained wrist
2. October 8th, J out with Migraine
3. October 12th-14th, J out with Vertigo
4. October many other times, I play catch up at work for missing so many days
5. October 23rd, J feeling better goes to the Museum of Science and Industry and a strap on the Stroller breaks, rendering the stroller un-usable.
6. October 29th, J accidentally leaves ergo baby carrier in a cart at a local thrift store. It is lost.
7. October 30th, early AM, peanut woke us up because his fever was so high we could feel it.
8. October 30th, late afternoon, peanut goes from being happy active baby to listless and frowny. Develops cough. overnight, fever spikes through medicine to 101.9. Worried moms take him to walk in hours at 8 AM on October 31st.
9. Dr. diagnoses Peanut with croup.
10. October 30 - present Peanut recovering, but still sick. won't eat, hates medicine, nurses like a baby every few hours. Cries when he coughs. Breaks our hearts.

I'm not trying to garner pity or say darn my life is real hard aint it. Just that October was a mix between Sick and Suck.

There are good things too.
Peanut is using more and more 2 word sentences. He says "Yes, I do." or "No, I don't" instead of just yes or no. He also says i do, or me do, if he wants to do something that we are trying to do to him (like, administer medicine, or put his shoes on.) Today he sang to a song we were listening to. "if you got 1" by justin roberts. So cute. Sang and danced. I'm in love.

He also got his first real taste of tv and movies. We watched Mary Poppins with him for something to do through his fever. Then we bought him Ice age and Annie. He still prefers MP, and now I have all those songs buzzing through my head again. I like it... i mean who doesn't want

Ain't it a glorious day?
Right as a mornin' in May
I feel like I could fly
'Ave you ever seen 
The grass so green?
Or a bluer sky?

going through their head 24/7?

I'll leave you with that, hoping that I didn't ruin your day
with Jolly Holiday.
If I did I found a remedy for Jolly Holiday is
All Along the Watchtower. 

poor sick boy and me, night 2 of the croup.

Spring Illnesses

So usually I consider myself to be pretty healthy. We are a healthy family overall. Peanut has had some coughs and colds, and some ear infections, but nothing big since a heart scare early on which ended up being pretty normal and not scary. Anyway, the point is, and maybe as I write this I realize the very fact that I'm in denial here, the point is, healthy...that's us. Well, as the post title hints, not so much just recently. I've been down with sinusitis and my very own (and very first) ear infection. I've actually missed two full days of work. And I don't do that. Plus I had to cancel my dog training class. It was terrible stuff. I think I'm on the upswing though. I've not coughed but a few times in the last hour.

So that's me, and though sick, I still made time to do this with peanut:

I'm trying to get in shape for summer and shed some of these extra lbs. So I walk with him on my back. Carrying an extra 23 lbs on your back is a workout. I just put him in the er;go and um, go! (note: if your little one is big like ours, get an er.go. They make baby carrying much easier) And it's been so nice being home with him so much. J and I noticed today that he's really getting so smart and aware of things. It's awesome.

Speaking of Peanut....Peanut had...wait for it....

Pink eye. I know! try putting eyedrop medicine in a squirming and noncompliant 14 month old. It's crazy fun. Another thing to be greatful for my partner for. Another reason to be glad I'm not alone.

We are watching with amazement the leaps P is taking in his development. He knows things now. He knows what he wants and knows a lot of the time how to ask for it. Language is still creative. He has some really clear words, like tickle, tea, hi, and ball (though he drops the ll sound). But then he also says dog, tree, teeth, head, banana, balloon, and tries to say other things. He's still signing, though he uses the same sign we taught him for potty for outside. That's my fault...oops.

In addidtion, if he hears the word "head" or "toes" he tries to break into the Head, Shoulders, Knees and Toes song...pointing at each part...but he waits for us to join in keeping his little hand pointing to his head until we do. Sound cute? It is. Other songs he sings are Irish Lullabye and Itsy, Bitsy Spider.

Ok, and when I say he knows things, I was getting him dressed and we needed socks and shoes. So I said, what else do we need, and so he walked to the sock drawer *(which is on the other side of the room) and pointed at it. He knew what came next!

My smart boy.