February 17th, 2008

Hello all,

I didn’t realize you’d have to sign up to make a comment to my Update here, in Blog form. You can continue sending emails if you’d like.

I hope your Valentine’s Day was good. Tim surprised me with a night out, although I didn’t think we were going anywhere.

He called to tell me not to make dinner, so I assumed we were going out and started packing a bag for Devin and Bryce. But when Tim arrived home, he said a delivery was coming at 6:00. I asked who was delivering because nobody delivers to our house; I can’t even get Pizza Hut to meet me half way! Tim’s lips were sealed so I unpacked the bag and didn’t make the kids anything to eat. Then our sitter, Caleb, pulled in and Tim said the delivery was here. We were going out!

I had to yell at Tim, though, because he knows I just can’t get up and leave the boys without getting them dinner, digging out the disposable diapers, although Caleb did use the cloth last time, writing down our phone numbers, and giving Caleb The Talk, even though he’s heard it all before. Tim ordered me out the door so fast I couldn’t even run a brush through my hair! I told Caleb to feed Bryce small pieces of the chicken nuggets just in case, although I had nursed Bryce before Caleb arrived.

Tim and I had two hours of talking without interruption! We went to Blazin’ Bill’s, which has yummy ribs and sweet potato fries. When the waitress asked us about dessert we said we’d take a smaller version of the Brownie for Two we saw being served all around us. Instead, she brought us the full size but only charged us the small price as it was Valentine’s Day afterall. I asked hubby to carry me to the truck, but he told me to hush and to roll him out the door.

When we got back all was well. Hunter had his school party that day and brought home some candy and a lot of Valentine’s. Instead of treats he was asked to bring in 28 pencils. His Valentine’s Day card theme were character’s from his favorite cartoons on Cartoon Network. He got a little flustered with me if I asked him about any Valentine’s from girls. I didn’t name any names because I don’t want him to get uncomfortable with me (or her), but his teacher tells me that he spends a lot of time with a girl named Abby. So much that during the last desk switch, she put the two of them next to each other. His teacher tells me that she sees them talking in the classroom and outside at recess. He’s leaning over to her at his desk to see if she needs any help and has helped her pack up her things (so maybe that is why he’s been late on Tuesday’s when I pick him up!

Bryce is crawling! For over a week now he’s been doing two to three little crawls in a row. The other day I had put him down on his bum by the back door while I got my boots on to go into town. About five feet away was the dog bowl, filled with small nuggets of hard food. He focused in on those and before I knew it, he had crawled over there and was grabbing at the pieces! On the longer crawls he plops down on his belly, but he mostly does the shorter ones still and pushed back on to his bottom. He’s also still backing himself up against things and getting frustrated.

He’s eating more and more table food, although I have bought the occasional baby food in a jar, but not that often. I tried some bananas I picked up and they were awful. The only ingredients listed were extra ripe bananas and vitamin C. They had kind of a caramel taste to them, but not a sweet taste. He didn’t think much of them either, but it was a new experience and he wanted it in his mouth.

He had a nasty case of gas the other night, and while Tim was lightly bouncing him around, waiting for the gas drops to kick in, I went upstairs to check on Devin. He had a late nap the day before, so who we put down with a DVD at 11:00 and went to bed ourselves. The time was 2:00 A.M. and what did I see when I entered his room? Not a toddler dreaming the hours away, but a happy eyed little Rug Rat who didn’t look sleepy at all! I gave him the hug he wanted and told him to go to sleep. He said, OK. Bye, mom! and went back to his movie.

He was up with me at 8:00 A.M. but fell asleep on our way back from town to get haircuts. I should have taken a picture; both Hunter and Devin could have sported Mohawks if I could get close to them with some gel! We were going to go grocery shopping, but it was raining and I don’t like doing it in the rain with three kids in tow. He’s was so deep asleep when we returned home that I was able to move him from van to his bed without him moving one voluntary muscle. I think he’ll be out for awhile!

He’s still waking most mornings everywhere else but his bed. Some moms on my message board have said to lock him in, but he would just cry and scream. He’s not getting into any trouble; he’s just relocating and falling asleep, sometimes not even making it to a new location besides the floor outside his room, before the Sandman comes back to him. More magic sand needed, please!

I spend a lot of time on message boards, I admit it. Some of the ladies I’ve been chatting with for over two years now! I’ve even met one of them during our annual trip to KY. I almost met another while traveling north for Hunter’s Spring Break last year. But that mama was close to going into labor, so the timing wasn’t good for me to bring three more kids into the house!

Grrr! It’s raining right now. Mother Nature just can’t make up her mind! Hunter didn’t have school on Monday because we were hit by a blizzard the night before. It was very windy to begin with, and with our house being just outside of the snow belt, we don’t get that much snow. When Tim got a phone call that his weekly game of basketball was canceled because of the weather, we were like, Why? It’s not even snowing! We thought we’d just go out to eat since I don’t really plan a meal with him playing thru the dinner hour. As we drove into town we thought that it probably wasn’t such a good idea! The snow was thick and the wind was fierce. Some restaurants had closed up early because of it. That night I looked up the school closings before going to bed at 11:00 and saw that Hunter’s was closed. I went into his room to turn off his alarm, but he hadn’t turned it on. Apparently he wakes up on his own, but we’ve learned he is awake way before he should be.

One week day morning Tim had come upstairs to check on Devin and he finds Hunter under a blanket in the recliner, watching T.V. It was 3:30 A.M. Hunter was told in that tone of voice Tim gets that he, Hunter, is not to leave his bedroom earlier than 6:30. If it happens again, Tim is going to use a timer on the TV where power will not get to the set until 6:30.

Tim doubts any of you actually read my long Updates and told me of an experiment he did in his office. He had sent out some admittedly boring but needed to be shared information, and buried in the email he included a sentence that said; If you read this, contact me for a free _____. He told me it was a week later since he sent that out when someone, and only one, person contacted him. I argued that I thought my Update was a little bit more interesting than his boring work email, and he said that it probably is, however, my Updates tend to get long and not everyone has the time to sit at the computer and read them all. That probably no one except maybe my sister and parents actually read them to the very end. I didn’t like hearing that, but he’s probably right. So, to test his theory, if you’re reading this, shoot me an email and I’ll send you…something. Something small because I just know all of you on my mailing list read my Update to the very end! Prove my hubby wrong! Fill up my inbox with your email now!

Hunter had a friend over last week and they had a lot of fun just hanging out. We had pizza and they made ice cream in the ice cream ball maker the boys got for Christmas. I’m remembering now that the pictures I took of them doing that are on my cell phone. It’s new, so I’m not sure yet how to get those off of there.

Make sure you visit the Hunter in School page to learn about the recent Parent/Teacher conference held earlier this month.

Have a great week!

Yo