More!

Sometimes my kids fight me when I give them medicine and I was a little leery of how Justin would do with taking his medicine. All I can say is that this medicine must take like candy because the three times a day I have to give it to him, he never puts up a fight. In fact, as I am cleaner the dropper/spoon out, Justin always asks, "More!"

Justin's 18 month checkup

Justin has been sick off and on probably since Thanksgiving. He would get the runny nose, coughing for a few days, and then when it was getting ready to go into the 5-7 day time frame, his symptoms would clear up. As most Mom's know, most doctors won't even see the sick child (extreme symptoms non-withstanding; and I do not run my kids to the doctor every time they have the sniffles. Sniffles are a part of being a kid growing up) unless they have been sick for 5-7 days because it is just a virus that has to run it's course. Fortunately (or unfortunately?) this happened to be one of the times that he was coughing, running a low-grade fever and had a runny nose.

His weight gain in the past six months certainly reflected that he has been sick. At his one-year checkup he weighed 22 lbs and 8 ounces. Today he weighed 22 pounds and 12 ounces. He did grow about two inches though at 32 1/2". I have no idea what percentile he was in either height or weight because he screamed the whole time. Not cry; screamed. He was not happy. Dr G determined that it was because Grandma Deb wasn't there. Grandma Deb had to take my Grandma Ernst to a doctors appointment at the same time, so my Mom was with Grandma because she typically confuses her insurance cards.

Anyway, when Dr G tried to look in Justin's ears all he could see was wax. He got a pointy stick and pulled out a huge piece of wax out of one ear and then rechecked it. That ear had an infection. He went to the other ear and tried to pull the wax out. I don't think that he could get a good grip, and Justin was carrying on, so he just let it go. Dr G said that he had it in his ear and throat, so he wrote us a prescription. We were in and out in a relatively short amount of time, but I don't think that they could take the screaming so they wanted us to be in and out. He never has a problem going to the doctor or having his ears checked, but apparently he didn't feel good and was tired. A dangerous combination.

Twins

My cousin has twin boys who are a few weeks older than Darren; they will be four later this month. The twins would be second cousins to my boys and we see them several times a year as they live near by.

Last night, Nathan and Darren were acting all serious. They said that they wanted to be twins like G & L. I said that it was to late for them to be twins, but they could be nice to each other and that means that they would act like twins. They thought that was a good idea, but apparently to good idea was forgotten as Nathan got mad at Darren and then shoved him off the couch.

Big appetite

The boys asked if I would make pancakes this morning for breakfast. Since all I had to do was add water to the mix and stir, I decided that I could handle that. I made 13 pancakes.

Bruce, Nathan (6), Justin (18 months) each ate three.
Darren (3) ate two.
Me: One. Luckily I am not a huge fan of pancakes, otherwise I would have been upset that I only got one of the pancakes that I made.

Nathan's first date!

Yesterday morning Nathan went over to the neighbor's house. After he is there for a while, he calls the house and asks if he can go with Leslie and her family to watch Leslie's sister play a 5th grade basketball game. Once they were back from the game, both of them came back to our house to play. Of course, we are giving them a hard time asking them how their first date went.

They keep denying that they are boyfriend and girlfriend; just good friends. And as Nathan says, "We have never kissed. Our lips have never touched!"

Another movie line

I posted a while back that Darren has been watching the Little Rascals a lot lately and he has been going around quoting several lines in the movie.

His most recent is a play on what they say in the movie. He will come up to me and say, "Mom, you look so bee-u-tiful." (He really stretches out the word beautiful) I feel like I am on top of the world when he says. Then reality comes crashing back down as he will then look at the chair or some other inanimate object and say, "You are so bee-u-tiful."

Reading books

Nathan has been bringing home easy reader books from school the past week or so and reading them to me at night. He isn't reading so much as looking at the pictures and then saying what is on the page. Hopefully though he does look at the word and begins to associate the word with the picture.

Superman

Scene: Darren sitting on the toilet trying to poop. I walk in to check on him.

Darren: "Mom. When I grow up can I be Superman?"
Me: "Sure Darren. Why not?

Bats in the belfry

I am almost to embarrassed to post this. Over the long new year weekend, I decided to put away the roll of wrapping paper that I had sitting in my room just in case I had forgotten to wrap any Christmas presents. I go upstairs, go into the boys toy room and open the attic storage door. I turn on the light and I see something flying. At first I just thought that it was my eyes seeing shadows, but I quickly realized that it was a bat. I am ashamed to admit that I squealed like a girl and slammed the door shut. I ran downstairs and grabbed the phone. I called Bruce and told him that he had to get home to take care of the bat.

When Bruce gets home he grabs his weapons (a broom and a tennis racket) and heads upstairs. I follow him up shutting any and all doors behind us so that the bat can't fly downstairs. We get into the storage area, and nothing flies toward us. We tentatively make our way in. I make Bruce move all the tubs of clothes to scare the bat into activity. Nothing happens. I then make him look behind all the tubs to make sure that it isn't sitting there laughing at us. Bruce determines that the bat has left the same way it had entered. I am still a little intimidated to go into that closet, but I will make sure I go in armed!

New Years Eve

This year for New Years Eve we just stayed home. In the past I have always felt that this night is so hyped up that I am disappointed when it turns out to be just another night so we decided to stay home.

Earlier in the day the neighbor girl came over to play with Nathan and Darren. It was sunny and in the 60's that day, so the kids had been outside playing for a while. When they got muddy (just my boys) they decided to come in the house and rest for a little bit. All three were on the computer on the youtube website watching their favorite music videos. I hear the neighbor girl ask Nathan if they are going to stay up and watch the ball drop tonight. Nathan was confused as to what he meant, so he asked me. I explained that the year 2010 was going to be done at midnight and then 2011 would start. A big ball slowly drops as it gets close to midnight and when it hits the bottom, the new year has begun. I know that Nathan was up to watch the ball drop last year, but he must have not understood the significance. He just thought the horns and hats were fun! Anyway, later when Bruce came home, he told Bruce that he was going to stay up and watch the bell drop. Too funny. He never seen the ball drop this year as he fell asleep about 11:30. So close.