Booger

This is kind of gross, but for some reason Darren has the biggest boogers I have ever seen. They are probably larger than most adults. With the slight head congestion he has had, he seems to get big boogers quite frequently. The other day he sneezed and it must have dislodged a booger and landed on his chin. If I didn't see a small string of snot going from his nose to his chin, I would have thought that it was piece of phlegm that came from his lungs. The booger that was resting on his chin had to be the size of a raisin!

Six month check-up

I had Justin's six month checkup appointment today along with his follow-up visit for his bout with bronchitis. Today he weighed in at a weight of 17 lbs 13 oz which puts him on the 55% percentile for his age. He was 27 1/4" long and in the 75% percentile for height. To be honest, I was a little shocked that he is only average in weight and a quarter above average for his height. Otherwise, he is doing everything development wise on and before schedule.

After the examination, the doctor determined that Justin is still wheezing. (You didn't need a degree for that as I could tell that he was still having problems) His ear infection is gone, and his eye infection has cleared up. We now have to make an appointment with a pediatric pulmonologist to run several test. They are to determine if he has asthma and that is causing the continuous wheezing, if he just has chronic bronchitis or if as a result of his spitting up, that keeps causing bronchitis. My pediatrician will call a doctor at Children's and refer Justin, and then the doctors office from Children's will call and set up an appointment. Justin is also to have a barium chest x-ray done at Children's.

Poor guy. I hope that it is not the start of asthma, but another issue that he can outgrow that is causing him problems. If he has asthma, that is going to make everything so much harder from him. Gym class, sports, even wrestling with his brothers, could mean big problems depending on the severity of the asthma.

Fireman

Last night we were at my parents for our monthly Sunday dinner and to celebrate Mom's birthday. After we were done eating, my brother got up to put on his hunting clothes because he was going to go coon hunting.

Bill walks back into the kitchen to say goodbye, and Darren said that he was a fireman. After Darren said that, I could see why Darren thought that. His hunting clothes are the same brown canvas looking material that firefighters wear and it had a few patches of the hunting orange color, like the reflective material a firefighter would wear. He has a good imagination!

First tooth

Since we had card club at our house this past weekend, Mom & Dad watched the boys overnight. When we pick the boys up Sunday, Mom asked me if I knew that Justin had a tooth. I immediately feel his gums, and sure enough there is something pointy in his gums. I've said it before and I will say it again; I am such a good Mom!

Justin got his first tooth two months before Nathan did and two months after Darren did. Isn't that funny how different they all were?

Making progress....

I have mentioned before how Justin gets up on all fours like he is attempting to crawl. Last night he was on the kitchen floor while I was making dinner and the boys were having "arts & crafts." I was constantly having to look down when I moved so that I would not step on Justin since he was rolling all over the floor. At one point I looked down and seen Justin on all fours. I then watched him actually crawl forward the tiniest bit. What a bittersweet moment!

Magic word

Bruce and I are trying to teach the boys good manners, so we are constantly prompting the boys on what to say when someone holds the door open for them or compliments them on their appearance. We also are trying to teach them to say, "May I have some water please?" or "May I go outside please?" Then they are obviously expected to say thank you when we grant their request.

Last night Nathan decided that he was going to teach Darren some manners; either that or aggravate him by not sharing. Darren wanted to play with Nathan's scissors, but Nathan kept holding them out of reach. Finally Nathan goes, "Say the magic word." Darren replies, "Magic word." Nathan and I started laughing and Darren is confused because he doesn't understand what we find so funny. I explained to him that the magic word is please, and he finally got to play with Nathan's scissors.

King Day

Every now and then, the boys get a desire to talk on the phone. When this happens, I let them call either set of Grandparents and talk to them. Last night Darren wanted to talk and he wanted to talk to Grandma Deb. So I call Grandma and hand the phone to Darren. He talks and when he is finished, I talk to her for a while. Nathan then decides he wants to talk, so when I am finished, I hand the phone to Nathan. Grandma must have asked him if he learned anything in preschool that day and he told her, "I didn't have preschool today because it was King Day."

That gave me a good chuckle, because he obviously misunderstood what day it was. I wonder what he thought King Day meant....

Monday meals

Since the day we were married, I have never cooked dinner on Monday's. That is the day that we just eat leftovers, have cereal or eat whatever strikes our fancy. It is a day we "fend for ourselves." Bruce is more than capable of cooking, but I think that he doesn't mind our Monday meal tradition. This has continued even after we have had kids.

Last night Nathan tells me that he wants toast with cinnamon. I am not a cinnamon fan, so I asked him where he heard about putting cinnamon on toast because I don't think I have done it since I was a kid. He said Derrick told him at daycare. Last night I make seven pieces of toast for Nathan. All had butter and some had sugar, some had cinnamon and some had cinnamon and sugar. Since that was what Nathan was having, Darren also had to have toast. I made him five pieces of toast. I went through a loaf of bread last night! They ate all this after they each had an apple for a snack! For dessert they each had a drumstick.

Karaoke - Darren style

Darren likes to sing and watch country videos. His favorite group is probably Sugarland and he claims that the lady singer is his girlfriend. Sugarland sings a song, and I have no idea what the title of the song is, that has the phrase, "Joey, I'm so sorry."

Darren likes to sing this around the house, and it is so funny! It is a sad song, so the phrase is really drawn out and sorrowful, but he is so funny when he sings that. Once when he was in trouble, he gave me what I call the sh*t eating grin and goes, "Mommy, I'm so sorry." He is going to be my trouble child.....

Are you there???

The other night, both boys fell asleep in the living room. Since Darren fell asleep on Bruce's lap, he carried Darren to bed and I carried Nathan. (I got the raw end of the deal because Nathan is 60 pounds plus and he is enough to break your back) I lay Nathan down first and cover him up. Bruce lays Darren down and covers him up. As we are getting ready to walk out of the room, we see Darren lift his head up and turn so he can see Nathan. After he spies Nathan, he turns back around and lays his head back down.

Apparently he just needed to reassure himself that his brother was there. I don't know if he expects Nathan to protect him or if he is protecting Nathan, but it was pretty cute!

Tubing

About a week ago, we got about four-five inches of snow. In addition to the snow, we have had extreme cold weather. The boys beg every night to go out side and play in the snow. Then when they get outside, they don't want to come back in the house. Even Darren, who is cold-blooded, claims he is not cold so that he can stay outside. He will tell you that he isn't cold, even though his jaw is chattering.

Friday night, I am only home from work about five minutes when I see the neighbor out with his four-wheeler pulling a tube. The boys are oblivious to what is going on for a few minutes, but when they finally see what is going on, they are crying, whining, and begging to go out. We allow them to go out, but tell them that they are not allowed to ask Scott for a ride. Bruce goes out with the older two boys, and I am not sure if they asked Scott, but the next time I see them they are on the tube having a great time.

On Saturday, Nathan goes out and plays with Leslie. They come into the house and play when they get cold, go back out and them come back in. On their second trip out, Darren goes out with them. As they are playing in the house, Leslie sees her Dad come home and announces that they are going back outside (for the third time if you are counting) and asking her Dad to get the four-wheeler and tube and pull them again. As they are tubing, (I called it sledding and got yelled at by Nathan) Grandpa & Grandma Kunk come over. They watch the boys tube until Scott decides that is enough for the day. We call the boys home. While Grandpa & Grandma are over, Nathan crawls into bed about 6 o'clock because he is tired. I didn't want him to go to bed that early, but I knew he had to be exhausted. He ended up getting out of bed about 7 o'clock, and when we all went to bed about 10 o'clock, he had no problems crawling back to bed.

On Sunday, Nathan goes back outside to play with Leslie. I don't allow Darren out because it was only going to be a high of 8. They must have sweet talked Scott to getting his four-wheeler out again, because before long I hear the four-wheeler in the side yard.

Big boy at night...

Darren has been insisting on wearing underwear to bed at night instead of a diaper or pull-up. Since he had been waking up with a dry diaper and/or pull-up, I decided to let him sleep in his underwear. In the two weeks or so that he has been wearing underwear to bed, he has only had one accident. He had been doing great.

On the flip side, last night he was so eager to get something to eat that he peed his pants after daycare. Bruce said that they got home, Darren took his coat off and stood in front of the pantry where we keep the snacks. He was begging for something to eat and must have forgot that he had to pee, and he peed himself.

Deja vu

Here we go again. Tuesday evening, Justin started that deep cough again like he was trying to cough something up. I had also seen him tugging on his ear. Since he just had bronchitis three weeks ago, I wanted to get him into the doctor before it got to bad. I called Mom and she said that she could pick Justin up and meet me at the doctors. We get in there and Justin had bronchitis, double ear infection and a double eye infection.

Poor guy. He wasn't his happy self, but he was far from being an irritable baby with everything that was wrong with him.

Rainbow

Anyone who knows me knows that I am not into wearing cutesy clothes. I like to be fashionable, but I won't wear a shirt that has kittens on it for example.

The other day, Darren points at my shirt and says, "rainbow." I am confused as I would not wear anything that has a rainbow on it. I look down and see an arch of writing; which looks like a rainbow.....

Strawberry

Last night Bruce and Nathan were goofing around. Bruce said that since he did not have a kiss from Nathan yet that day, that he had to give Bruce a kiss right now. Of course Nathan thinks this is a great game and refuses to give him a kiss and leans over and gives me a kiss. Bruce gets up and holds Nathan's hands behind his back - like he had handcuffs on. Nathan refused to give Bruce a kiss and lots of laughing ensued while Nathan demanded to be let go. At one point Nathan picks up his leg to try and kick Bruce behind him in order to gain his release.

Bruce finally decided to let Nathan go at the same time that Nathan picked up his leg to deliver another kick. Since Nathan was off-balanced, he falls flat on his face and does not break his fall at all. He lands face first on the floor of the kitchen. He immediately starts crying. I try to soothe him and check for injuries. There was no bleeding and because he was so worked up, I could not detect any marks. After a bit, I can see a big strawberry under his left eye. He has calmed down some, and tells me that he wants to call Grandpa to tell him that Dad beat him up, so Grandpa needs to come over and beat Dad up.

Nathan has to dial the phone, so I give him the number because he does not trust the number that Bruce is giving him. My brother Bill answers the phone and he tells the story to Bill. It had to be hard for Bill to understand what Nathan is saying because I know the story and I barely understand what he is saying. Bill must have gotten the gist of it because Nathan said, "Yeah I want you to beat Dad up." Then he repeats the story for Grandpa and after he is finished, he passes the phone to Bruce. Bruce had to explain what happened. Grandpa told Nathan that he already had his pajamas on, and he was watching football, so him and Bill would come over tomorrow and beat Dad up.

He told everyone at daycare this morning that his Dad beat him up and that his Grandpa and Bill were coming over tonight to beat Dad up. I made sure to tell daycare the actual story this morning before I left. Bruce and I are slightly worried that he is going around telling people that his Dad beat him up, but we keep explaining to him that it was an accident.

Diapers

I have previously wrote about how I have been putting Darren's diapers on Justin at night because his diapers are soaking wet when he wakes up from sleeping on his belly. About the week between Christmas & New Year's, that plan was no longer working. His diaper would explode for lack of a better word. He would have, what looked like gel, all over his belly and legs in the morning.

To remedy this, I went out and bought Huggies-Overnights in a size four. They are still a size bigger than what he wears during the day. So far, they have held up very well. That diaper is soaking wet in the mornings and weighs a ton.

Sitting up?

It never seems to fail. As soon as I am holding Justin, one of the boys want me to open something, fix something or get them something. Sometimes I will hold Justin while I help the boys out, sometimes I will lay him on his belly or have Nathan hold him. About two weeks ago, I thought that I would try to sit him up on the floor. He does VERY well. He kind of leans over like he is doing toe-touches, but he can stay up for a few minutes at a time.

I am surprised at how well he can do because he doesn't like sitting in his Bumbo seat for more than about ten minutes. He does do a good job in his exasaucer though. Mom said that when she watched the boys the week before and after Christmas, that Justin loved sitting in her walker and roaming around the kitchen. I asked my sister Carla if I could borrow her jumper because I did not want to go out and spend $80 on a new one for my last kid. I will get that from her in the next week or two, and I bet that he will really enjoy sitting/bouncing in that. I have a Johnny-Jumper and I had him in that while I was cleaning the toy room, and he loved it. I am just afraid that he is going to choke himself, so that is why I do not like to use it.

Battle of wills or stupidity?

Since Justin was sick about three weeks ago, he has taken to getting up in the middle of the night to eat. He has not gotten up every night, but he has woke up more nights than he has slept thru. Last night I decided to just let him cry and hopefully he will just go back to sleep.

Well, about 3:00 am I hear him start fussing. A few minutes later he starts actually crying. I look at the clock to see how long he cried. He would cry real hard for a bit, calm down some and just when you think he is done, he will start crying hard again. After one hour and fifteen minutes of him screaming, I get up to make him a bottle!

Because it was the middle of the night, I will excuse Bruce's comments. He kept saying things like, "How long are you going to let him cry?" "What are you going to do?" I told him that Justin is his kid also, and if he wanted to get up with him now and in the future, he was more than welcome to. After forty-five minutes or so, I am able to start falling asleep. Unfortunately every time I would fall asleep Bruce would make a comment like, "Is he ever going to shut up?" I got tired of him flopping around in bed like a fish out of water and making comments. Then to add to the problems, he turns the TV on in our bedroom and turns it up loud enough to cover up Justin's crying.

It was a battle of wills on who was going to last longer. If Bruce could have shut up and laid still, I know that we would have out-lasted Justin. Luckily with the hour and fifteen minutes of crying, neither one of the older two boys woke up. I will have to try and outlast Justin tonight if he gets up again.

Darren's skin

Awhile back I bought some generic fabric softener. I am not sure why I bought it as we got along fine for years without it, but I must have been in a mood that day. Once I got it home, it sat on the shelf for a long time. I recently decided that instead of letting it go to waste, that I need to use it. For the past month or so, I have been using it when I do the laundry.

Yesterday evening, I was tickling Darren and noticed fine bumps all over his stomach. I inspect his belly a little more and then start looking at his back. He has these bumps everywhere his shirt is. I pull down his jeans to see if he has the bumps there, but I do not see any. I did see some bumps around his jawline where his sweat shirt was rubbing. The only thing that I can figure out that I did different was use the fabric softener, so I am going with the assumption that Darren is allergic to it.

I will have to go against everything I have ever been taught and waste it by throwing it out.

Justin's illness

The evening of December 19th, Justin woke up during the night and then the next night (Sunday night/Monday morning) he was up again. Bruce declared that he was coughing too much and told me that I needed to take Justin to the doctor since I had a vacation day for Monday (the 21st) already scheduled. I thought that it was silly to get him into the doctor as he had the cough for some time and other than waking up in the middle of the night, he was fine.

I was able to get in to the doctor for a 10:45 appointment. Imagine my surprise when the doctor says that he has bronchitis and a double ear infection! I felt like a bad mother, again, because I wasn't even going to take him to the doctor. They gave him a breathing treatment in the doctors office and then they sent me to the hospital to have a chest x-ray and have blood drawn. My sister Carla works in the Lab, and when she seen what we were there for, she refused to draw Justin's blood. Luckily he tested negative for RSV and Whooping Cough.

Much to my dismay, Justin has now taken to waking up during the night to eat. I always get up with him so that he doesn't wake his brothers up, but I think that he is healthy enough that I need to stop that bad habit of eating in the middle of the night. I am going to have to let him cry and hopefully if he wakes his older two brothers, they will fall asleep on the couch. Justin is old enough to cry himself to sleep at night, so I need to let him cry.