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    Well that didn’t work…

    May 29th, 2012

    Guess who has a double ear infection. Again. Yeah, the little one. So we’re back on an antibiotics course for 10 days. We’re kicking off with Augmentin since that was the last antibiotic that worked. Except this time this little stinker wants no part in taking his medicine. He’ll still take infant Tylenol fine, but the Augmentin? Not if it was the last liquid on earth. But oh the things we’re trying.

    S took S2 to the pedi appointment and picked up the prescription on the way home. Except for the fact he didn’t know to get it flavored. My bad, I always do, I just never thought to mention it.

    With that first dose you’d think we were trying to get him to drink castor oil (although, in full disclosure I have never tried either castor oil or this medicine). He drank about an milliliter of it and then spit city kicked off. I don’t think he actually took more than than first mL.

    So off S and I took the medicine back to the pharmacy to get it flavored. Try 2? Same effect. I ended up wiping up more medicine than he consumed.

    Try 3 involved food dye. Little stinker has the memory of an elephant, and I was thinking that maybe he was associating the color as the yucky medicine and just wasn’t willing to give it a chance. ‘Cuz the pink Tylenol he took without problem. I went yellow. Sure I could’ve created a master-piece of pink, but I didn’t want to jeopardize the success we’re having with Tylenol and have him think ALL pink medicine is gross. I’ll stop now and tell you that coloring it didn’t help any either.

    Try 4 involved me sitting on him, shoving my finger in his mouth and holding his tongue down so he couldn’t push the medicine forward and out of his mouth. Him not having all his teeth in actually helps. But he actually drank about 75% of his dose. Side effects, however include a gnawed-on index finger on my end (from the teeth he does have chomping down on me) and one kid that is plain mad at me. I am now the bad guy for administering said medicine, and I received the cold shoulder all day. Daddy was king. I gotta tell you, this hurt, but I don’t blame him: I dished out abuse and he retaliated by telling me I’m no longer #1 on his list.

    Try 5 repeat of try 4.

    Try 6 was me calling in the infantry and having Ms. S from daycare do the medicine deed. She had him drink it, but with no better luck than S and I.

    I have now reached out to S2’s pedi to ask him for an alternative to the medicine. And an ENT referral. I am very ready to talk tubes if that’s the right next step. I am a little worried if he gets tubes he won’t be allowed to go to swim class for awhile. S2 loooves to swim. Seriously, he’s such a happy clam in the water and I hate to take it away from him, but I guess if I have to decide between healthy ears during critical speech development and swimming, I’ll opt for healthy ears. I guess we’ll see what we’re told.

    P.S. I’ve been prophylactic-ally been giving S2 olive oil in his ears when colds pass through. I don’t know how much it helped during the last cold, but it certainly didn’t hurt anything. Clearly missed this event. I’m also thinking I need to shove a clove of garlic in my little olive oil dispencer, as I’m reading that garlic has much more therapeutic qualities to this end. You can tell I’m willing to try (almost) anything, right?


    Who is this strange kid?

    May 27th, 2012

    G’s hair of late has been a bit on the longish side. So I took him in for a hair-cut. I’ve been missing the short hair do he had as a wee little toddler, and it’s what I went for (although I’ll be the first to tell you S was speechless when he saw it: doing one of those “if you can’t say something nice, don’t say anything at all” things). Don’t get me wrong, G looks super handsome, and this look works for him.

    BUT… for the rest of the afternoon, as I would look at him, I felt startled because I can barely recognize him. He sounds the same, talks the same, behaves the same, and on a whole is the same silly monkey… but I’d gotten so used to the surfer boy look, he just feels so different to me.

    Wanna see?


    Foto Friday

    May 24th, 2012

    These photos are courtesy of Kelly M: a morning at home with our crazy children


    My personal trainer

    May 22nd, 2012

    His name is G.

    I’ve been trying to get on the eliptical each night for at least 15 minutes. Tonight, while watching me sitting on my rear with a laptop on me (meaning now), G asks “Mommy, did you work out today?”

    Me: Not yet buddy.
    G: Go do it!!!

    Well now… slave driver!!!


    Dang wabbits!

    May 14th, 2012

    Remember the awesome garden we planted last year? It did work out. We grew some veg. And we “shared” it with our local wild-life. As a matter of fact, they ate so well, that I harvested absolutely 0 zucchini last year, only about a dozen strawberries (out of 6 plants) and a handful of tomatoes (although the tomato crop was really more my fault for not having pruned properly).
    This didn’t bother me much to be honest: I am happy to co-exist with my local rabbit and squirrel neighbors, but this year someone (thing?) crossed the line.
    You see, I planted 3 awesome tomato plants. They grew a bit, until one morning I woke up to find one of my tomato plant stems pretty much down to a nubbin. I mourned it’s loss and thought “Damn winds! Broke off my plant. I should start to tie them when they’re this young” Shortly after, the other 2 plants met the same fate.
    So I went back out to the store. I got new tomato plants. I staked them early. I even put a cardboard wind-barrier around them (not great for sun, but gave them a chance against the wind). Within days, same thing: seared off an inch above the dirt. And that’s when I realized the wind wasn’t the culprit: some little critter was.

    I bought a third set of plants. Planted, and covered my existing fence, with an even finer mesh. All but about a 2’x4’ space had ¼” whole netting, while the rest had about 1.5” wholes. My whole garden area looked scary from all the netting over it. 2 days. That’s how long my plants survived.

    And I was mad! I really wanted to grow some Black tomato varieties this year. Home depot occasionally has them, but really, not common. The war was on. Especially since in my 3rd planting, my mom had sent me some tomato plants she grew from seedlings my grandmother had sent her. Seedlings all the way from the other side of the world, from my grandma’s famous tomatoes (I almost broke a leg one year trying to get a ‘mater off a vine – these things are good stuff). When I saw the remnants of my grandma’s plant, my heart sank. It’s over now!

    The worst part was not being able to identify what was getting to my veg: if it was a rabbit, I can do a finer mesh all around and not have to worry about access from the top. Since my garden backs up to the neighbor’s house, and their roof-line is only 3’ above our side-walk, it’s not difficult for a squirrel, or rat, to shuffle across the drain pipe, stock up on dinner and be on their merry way. But also if it’s not a squirrel now, it likely will be come fall.

    So S and I spent a week designing an enclosure. And then another week (just about) building it. But it looks awesome! Sides and top. I love building things w/ S. He has the experience, know-how and ideas, and I bring some awesome 3-dimensional thinking, problem solving and reality checks to the table. We make a good team.

    We made THIS. Ta da!

    At this point, if an animal can get through this, they deserve the veg, and I will cave.

    Another side effect to all this garden re-shuffling is that I’m making more of an effort to learn about gardening. Last year my approach was, plant, put drip system in place, tie up plants as they grow, and leave them alone. This was just an experiment for the kids: if it worked, great. If not, oh well: grocery store is just down the hill. Clearly the result of my poor “harvest”. Now with all this turmoil, I’m actually reading up more on gardening (and also copying a lot of my gardener friends). I’m excited to see what will happen by the end of the summer. In our yard we have: tomatoes, strawberries, spinach, lettuce, and basil. Let’s see what we’ll be eating in a few months.


    Mama’s Day 2012

    May 14th, 2012


    There’s a new conductor in town

    May 11th, 2012

    S2 got sent home yesterday with Hand Foot & Mouth. Yes. Again. At this point in time I’ve lost track of how many times this virus has rolled through my house. Each kid has had it at least twice. Not a fan, but I’m hoping it will be a mild case. This by the way, if AFTER S2 spent Monday and Tuesday at home from a viral infection. I guess he decided he wanted to be on vacation this week. Joy!

    So today he’s home asking to play with our train set stuff. Finally — more use.

    I love this kid! Crud, nose booggies and all! Even when he wines that you won’t let him go for the dangerous “toys” I try to keep out of reach.


    Oh go fly a kite!

    May 11th, 2012

    A week ago I bought kites for the boys. It’s been something I’ve had on my shopping list for awhile, and I procrastinated long enough that I literally bought the very last two Bed Bath & Beyond had in stock. S and I spent all week-end (plus a bit into this week) building a fortress around our veggie garden: it had fallen pray to what I’m assuming is either an adorable bunny or a wily squirrel. So there was no kiting for us. So last night, with no particular desire to eat at home I had an idea: let’s do our daycare pick-up, go to McD’s for some chicken nuggets (no I’m not winning an award for nutritious dinner here), have a picnic dinner and then fly our kites. G was totally down for it – it was a surprise at him at pick-up.

    Even I got to fly a kite: something I had never done before. Woo hoo. Clearly there’s no way to navigate the ones we had, but it was fun anyway.

    G and S2 got tired of the kites quickly, and spent a good portion of our evening just climbing the play-structure on the far end of the grounds. G otherwise is now permanently attached to kite string. That boy: he and strings — he must have been a cat in a past life or something.

    Who rules?


    Nursing: an end

    May 10th, 2012

    I believe the nursing chapter of my life is now over. I don’t know how to feel about it to be honest: I never thought I would be so conflicted about it, and yet I am.

    I guess the term “nursing” is an exaggeration. To be clear, I haven’t really been producing anything substantive for quite some time. While in Vegas for a week, I “pumped” to maintain what little supply I had, and during those sessions I was really only getting a pity-full 0.5 ounce of milk. S2, being the kind soul he is was just humoring me.

    So knowing I had nothing to give him, why is it so hard? We made it to 18 months, which is far longer than I ever would have thought possible. Given my family history I fully expected nursing to NOT be in the cards for me. I gave it my best shot, took it day by day, and I would say made it much farther than I ever expected. Was it worth it? Yes. Did enjoy it? To be honest, not really: it was something I knew was the right thing to do for the best of the boys, but I can’t tell you I loved it. So again, I don’t know why it’s so hard to give it up.

    Maybe because this is the last kid. The last time. It’s one of the many things I’ll do for the last time. In full anticipation of this, I had Kelly photograph us nursing during our last session together (total fakery because we don’t even nurse during the daytime anymore). I know these images will likely make the boys go “Yuck!” any time they see it, but they’re not for them: they’re for ME.

    I keep thinking that there should be one  last official event, but S2 isn’t asking, and I haven’t pushed to offer. A final, final session is more for my closure, and to some degree I think I’m afraid to get it. Right now, I can live with the illusion that while we’re done, we’re not really. And maybe I’m not ready to let go quite just yet of that thought.


    Movie Monday

    May 6th, 2012

    G had his second performance at school’s Spring Sing on Friday (see the first here). Still impressed he volunteered to go up on a stage with a room full of people watching. He’s got excellent toe tapping skills!

    [youtube=http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=6U9HIdCTs5w]

    Yes, my video taking skills for today’s performance are also sucking, but better this than nothing ;p