Easy As 1-2-3

Cooper is a genius. I know all parents think their kids are smart, but it's true in my case. Proof:

Me: (counting my stitches last night as I crocheted) One

Cooper: Du

Me: (looking at Cooper, trying to figure out if he just said two) Two

Cooper: Dee

Me: (certain that he just said three) Three! Hurray Cooper!

So there you go, Cooper is 20-months-old and he can count to three. I know that there are kids his age that can already read, but I'm counting this as a win.

Girls in White Dresses

I unraveled another project last night. (Stinking gauge...) Maybe I'll just send everyone a skein of yarn for Christmas and tell them to be creative.

Speaking of creativity, I'm throwing a bridal shower this weekend for my fabulous sister-in-law. I've got all the food assignments handed out and have people in charge of the activities, which basically leaves me with the task of decorating. We're having the shower at Bryan's aunt's gorgeous home, so really, my job should be pretty easy.

Except that I've decorator's block. Our theme is "My Favorite Things" and the only thing I've thought of so far is to have pictures of the happy couple for people to peruse. I'm using this post as a brainstorming session: what else could I use to decorate that would fit the theme?

I'd like to go for a less-is-more motif. Would it be weird to have items signifying my sister-in-law's favorite things? The things that come to mind are dance shoes, a flute, classical music CDs, a journal, perhaps a microscope (she teaches biology)? These don't really scream bridal shower to me, and it's not like we're having a memorial. Oh, I don't know.

What do you guys think?

Together

Peter is home. He's still sick, and has shared his illness with the rest of us, but at least he's home. We have to keep reminding him to drink water so he doesn't end up back in the hospital. That sounds cruel, doesn't it? It's what the doctor told us though. He's even well enough that he's been fairly ornery since coming home, which is both reassuring and frustrating.

I'm so thankful that's he home and that he's starting to feel like himself. I think it's a good way to start the week of Thanksgiving.



I'm thankful that my little boy is healthy enough to be naughty, and that's something I never thought I would say.

What are you thankful for?

UPDATE: Dehydrated

I don't have the wherewithal to write anything good today. Usually when I feel like this I look around until I find a funny clip or some interesting site that I can link to. Not this time. I would feel flippant putting something funny on here today.

First I will say that we're all okay, but three of us are more okay than the fourth. Peter is in the hospital right now. Well, right now as in while I'm writing, but hopefully not the right now of when you're reading. I thought we were all feeling better from our weekend illness, but I was wrong. I took Peter to the doctor today for fever, vomiting, aches, runny nose, and a cough thinking he might have picked swine flu up somewhere (he can't have the vaccine because it contains egg). The good news is that he doesn't have swine flu (probably). The bad news is that he was so dehydrated the doctor sent us over to the hospital to do an IV treatment.

He said it would probably take a few hours, but there was a slim chance that Peter would be kept over night. After running some tests, they discovered that Peter's electrolyte count was frighteningly low. I felt really bad that he was in such bad shape, that I hadn't taken better care of him. He had only thrown up three times, so it never occurred to me that he might be dehydrated. The usual indicator of dry lips doesn't mean anything in this desert we call a state. I have some guilt over this.

The doctor decided that Peter needed to be kept overnight. Bryan took the first shift, I took the second because Bryan had an appointment he couldn't reschedule, thank goodness my sister-in-law dropped whatever she had been planning on doing and came to stay with Cooper (no one under fourteen was allowed into the hospital as a visitor). Peter was acting much more like himself when I left. When we arrived at the hospital to begin the treatment he has so weak and shaky that he couldn't walk and he was extremely pale. Peter is usually a rosy-cheeked ball of energy, so I could tell he didn't feel well, I just didn't realize how bad it was.

He should be coming home today. I hope he does. We still don't know what made him so sick, but whatever it is, I hope it goes away. Far, far, away.

Next week I hope to have something funny or clever or insightful to say here, but for now, I just hope for a healthy Peter.

Update:

By the light of day I'm calmer about this, although still concerned about Peter. The pediatric ward did everything they could to make Peter feel better. His popsicle count when I left was four, and I think he'll ask for more this morning.

Here's the thing, I know that lots of kids have to go through much worse than being poked in the arms and hands repeatedly in a twenty-four hour period, I can think of some off the top of my head. To many people this might seem like a little thing, but for our family, and for Peter especially, this was a fairly traumatic experience to add to our been-there-done-that list. I thought about this as I fell asleep last night and again as I woke up this morning. He won't have to go back for repeat procedures, he won't have to live in his room on the pediatric floor for months, he won't have to come home and inject himself with medicine for the rest of his life, and for these things I am truly grateful.

I wrote about this to get my thoughts and feelings down while they were fresh. If I had waited until today it would have been a much lighter, more watered-down version. Instead, I think some of my guilt over his being dehydrated came through, which is good for me to look back on. Anyway, I just wanted to complete my thoughts and give a little more perspective to what I wrote last night.

Tis Better To Give

The year that I was pregnant with Peter I kept having the thought that I should do my Christmas shopping early. In the past I've made regular Wal-Mart runs during the week leading up to Christmas searching for last minute items to put under the tree, so this was a foreign concept for me.

I followed the prompting though and did the last of my shopping the week of Thanksgiving. If I remember correctly, I even wrapped the gifts early. I had no idea that a week and a half later I would be put on bed rest for signs of preeclampsia. Two days before Christmas my doctor released me from my rest. If I hadn't done my shopping early Bryan's gifts probably would have consisted of socks and a hug.

I'm not pregnant this Christmas, and don't anticipate any edicts from medical personnel that will keep me from running errands. That means I should plan to do all of my shopping the week before Christmas, right? Actually, we've decided to get our Christmas shopping done early. We're actually almost done.

I've chosen to be mildly crazy and make some of the Christmas gifts I'm giving. Why did I do that? Did I forget that I have little-to-no experience making things? Since some of the gifts I'm making are for people who read this blog, I can't talk about them in specifics.

Except for one. I'm making a scarf for my brother-in-law who's serving a mission in Wisconsin. I was about a third of the way into it when I realized that it was horribly uneven. My friend reassured me that it could be fixed without unraveling any of it. I tried to believe her, but the more that I stared at the scarf, the more it bothered me.

I did something even crazier than starting the scarf: I unraveled it. All of it. On a positive note, the five rows that I have on the new scarf are beautifully even.

Are you making any gifts this year?

Krump, Yo

This is for anyone who watches So You Think You Can Dance (which, in all honesty, I haven't seen this season) and thinks krumping just doesn't get enough screen time.



I chuckled to myself throughout the day yesterday because this scene kept popping into my head.

Time Marches On

On Sunday Peter counted to two-hundred and ten. Bryan and I kept sending each other looks of, "This is amazing," and "Can you believe this?" across the table at each other. He did most of it on his own, although there were two notable places that tripped him up. He has a hard time remembering thirty and fifty. This was demonstrated by a conversation that Peter and I had last week.

Peter: I'm almost four.

Me: Yes, you are.

Peter: And Cooper is one.

Me: Yup.

Peter: How old is Daddy?

Me: He's thirty.

Peter: And how old are you?

Me: Twenty-nine. If I'm twenty-nine now, how old will I be next year?

Peter: Sixty.

Happy Working Song

A few months ago our Bishopric made the announcement that they loved to see our faces at church, but they didn't want our germs, so, in case of illness, would we please stay home. Two weeks ago our Relief Society President made a similar plea, in part because we have families in our ward that have decided it would be better to stay away from church until flu season is over rather than be around all those sick people that drag themselves to church, no matter what.

Yesterday we did our part to stop the spreading of germs. The boys had been showing signs of not feeling so great for most of Saturday, but I didn't think it was anything major. Then Peter woke up at 11:40 on Saturday night and said he felt funny. Boy, did he ever. I will spare you the details, just know that clothing changes for both Peter and myself were necessary after clean-up was complete.

And on that happy note, we decided he should stay home from church.

The rest of us woke-up in a less than awesome state on Sunday. I really wanted to feel better because the choir was singing a beautiful song in Sacrament meeting and I wanted to be there for it. But alas, such was not to be.

A funny thing about Bryan when he's sick: once he gets enough energy, he starts to clean. I do this to a certain extent as well, but Bryan led the movement yesterday. Yes, I know it was Sunday, but Bryan pointed out that maybe something in our house was making us sick (we did discover a container of shockingly pungent broccoli lurking in the back of our fridge) and maybe we would start to feel better if we got rid of the culprit. I couldn't argue with that logic.

So, Bryan and I sifted through stacks of old mail and evaluated the contents of the refrigerator. Our two-hour cleaning jag was interrupted with brief rests so we wouldn't pass-out. (I've never actually passed-out, but I have come close, and I don't love it.) By the time we slumped into our chairs at the dinner table our house was much cleaner.

I hope we feel better today. And if we don't at least we can be sick in a clean house.

What Are You Worth?

Thanks go out to Kendra for posting this on her blog. Apparently I'm worth $158,389.00 per year. Too bad that's hypothetical money...

The Play's the Thing

One of my biggest worries as a mom is that I don't play with my boys enough. You might ask, "Then what do you do all day at home with them?" Excellent question.

I spend a lot of time cleaning, which I have mixed feelings about. I want to have a clean house so that the boys have a safe place to play, but I don't want to spend so much time cleaning that I ignore them. I usually compromise on this by:

1. cleaning where ever they happen to be playing, ie. sweeping when they're driving cars around the dining room, folding laundry when they're playing in the living room, wiping down the bathrooms when they're asleep because those are no-play zones in our house
2. having them clean with me

When we're not cleaning, we're often reading. This is something that I have no mommy guilt over. I am very good at reading to my boys. Sometimes I like to think this counts as playing with them, and maybe it does, but maybe it doesn't.

When I say I'm not very good at playing with them I mean I kind of stink at building with blocks and Play-Doh and drawing. I can do them, but my architectural repertoire is sadly small and I run out of ideas pretty quickly. I'm good at the make-believe stuff though, so usually as the boys are playing I'll sit in their room and talk to them while they do the playing. Often I'll have a project in hand so I don't fall asleep (is that a normal concern?) and I'll ask questions about what they're doing or about the things Peter is telling me about his cavalcade of invisible friends. I'm there with them, but I'm not really playing.

On Monday though, I really played with the boys. Peter made a train out of the dining room chairs and we sat in our cars and rode the rails.

Our chair train

And it was really fun.