No Worries

I was sure that Evan would have to have his tear duct surgically opened; after all, the pediatrician acted like his life depended on it. We took him to a fancy pants pediatric eye specialist at one of the world's most prestigious children's hospitals and he told us it was no big deal, but he would prefer to wait a few more months to do the procedure. Yay. More waiting. In the meantime, Evan will just have goop in his eye twenty fours hours a day. And just so you know, there is very little that freaks me out about parenting, but seeing my baby with his eyes dilated gave me the heebie jeebies.

Then, I started worrying about Liam's lack of speech. I'd chalked it up to the fact that Sydney rarely gives anyone else a chance to speak, but then she went to kindergarten and he still didn't talk. So I called the state agency to evaluate his speech and cognitive abilities. They came this past Monday and he does have a slight speech delay, but he is cognitively right on track and his fine motor skills? Well, let's just say he tested off their charts. No wonder the boy doesn't talk! He's too busy fine tuning his skills by stacking up to nine blocks (and balancing them which amazed the evaluators), drawing circles and stringing half inch beads like a three year old. They think there's nothing to worry about and his speech will just explode one of these days. Then I'll have two kids who won't shut up talk.

And then my hives came back in full force. I had them all over - in my ears, on my eyelids - you name a body part and it had hives. I was certain that my pregnancy with Evan caused them. I've had hives after each of my pregnancies and I was told that the huge hormonal change can make your body suddenly react to allergens that didn't bother you before. I gave myself allergy injections for three years after I had Sydney because allergy testing revealed two dozen things that I was allergic to (but had no idea). To avoid the long drive to the old allergist, I went to a new one in The Land of Fruit and was retested last week. Turns out I'm not allergic to the things the other doctor said I was because he did the test all wrong. I've been avoiding chocolate because of what I was told by my former allergist. Chocolate! The new allergist did admit that my years of allergy injections probably did build up my immunity to various pollens, but I probably never was allergic to the foods I was told to avoid. Needless to say, I've been indulging in those foods the last few days.

So I did all that worrying for nothing. Just goes to show that worrying gets you absolutely nowhere.

Now if I can just remind myself of that from now on.....

Pass the Kleenex, Please

I've been crying a lot in the last week.

No, nothing terrible happened. A lot of good things happened and as someone who cries at everything, I just couldn't help myself.

Sydney attempted to ride her bike without the training wheels for the first time. The bike is a bit small so it didn't quite work out, but she tried and for my reluctant five year old this is a big deal.




She also started reading this week. She's been reading small words for a while, but yesterday she picked up a book and just started reading it. Here she is with her free pizza for reading twelve books in October (OK, we read them to her, but that still counts in kindergarten):




And who stole my baby and replaced it with one that rolls over both ways




AND sits up?




Liam wasn't about to be outdone by his siblings. He started saying several words this past week and, sniff, got his first real haircut. We knew it was getting too long when Sydney started putting it up in a pigtail:




So he got a haircut. Here's the before:




And the after:






He did fine during the haircut. Me? Not so much. Bawled like a baby. My sweet baby boy is now a big boy.

Someone please tell me how to keep them little for awhile longer. I don't think my tear ducts can take much more.

********

P.S. Thanks to everyone for your responses to our birds & bees dilemma - we feel armed and ready for the next time we get "the" question.

Oops and Uh-Oh

The Oops: I didn't mean to get everyone's hopes up about Ryan's birthday present! (We actually had someone call to wish Ryan a happy birthday and ask what he got after reading this.) We just usually don't get each other much so I was excited about buying him something he didn't specifically ask for. Unfortunately, for you, and perhaps for Ryan, it was not anything spectacular like a flat screen TV or a new iPod to replace his dying one. It was one of these. See? Not all that exciting. But he's mentioned getting one for a couple of years now (especially after painful dental cleanings) and it's something I didn't think he'd go out and buy for himself.

So now you know that we're really old. Because who buys a toothbrush for someone's birthday unless they are really old?


The Uh-Oh: The following conversation took place the other evening while I was putting the finishing touches on dinner. The whole family decided to join me in the kitchen and this ensued:

Sydney: "Mommy, you know how you had me and Liam and Evan in your tummy?"

Me: "Yes."

Sydney: "Well, how do you make a person? How did a baby get in there?"

Liam: "Ba la la ma pa la la la la la ya ya ya ya!"

Me: "Liam, hush. What?!?"

Sydney: "How do you make a person?"

Me to Ryan: "You wanna field this one, Mr. Biology Major?"

Ryan to me: "Not particularly. I'll let you handle this one."

Me to Ryan: "Oh, come on. You have a degree in this."

Ryan to me: "I didn't learn this in college. I learned it in elementary school."

Me to Ryan: "But not from a teacher. From your friends. This is Texas, after all. There is no class on this in Texas."

Ryan to me: "True."

And then Sydney wandered off, tired of waiting for us to give her an answer.

You'd think we'd have come up with an answer for this by now, seeing as she's old enough to remember both of her brothers being in utero. But, like the stereotypical ostrich, we've had our heads stuck in the sand hoping that she'd never ask.

I guess I should come up with some sort of age appropriate answer, but I have no idea what that will be. We don't want to overwhelm her with too much information or scare her or whatever, but we also don't want to lie to her.

Help? Anyone?

Happy Birthday!

Today is Ryan's birthday. I won't tell you how old he is, but he's five months older than me, so if you know how old I am, well, you can do the math.

Tonight we'll be having steak for dinner and cheesecake for dessert to celebrate. Sadly, I don't know how to cook/grill steak, so Ryan will have to make his own birthday dinner. But, I did make the cheesecake, so I'm not all that terrible of a wife.

And he'll be getting a surprise present from all of us, too. We usually don't get each other much for our birthdays (the adults, that is) and if we do, it's usually something we've asked for so there is very little element of surprise on the birthday front. But he has no idea what he's getting this year and since I bought it while Sydney was at school, he can't grill her for information. I guess he could try to get it out of Liam or Evan, but I think they'll keep my secret safe.

Anyway, in honor of my super old husband, here are a few pictures of him being the great dad he is. These were taken at Sydney's school carnival a few weekends ago:













And here's a few without him, just because I think my kids are so cute:










Happy Birthday, Ryan!!!

Wordless Wednesday

Where's the Beef?

I posted a while back that we were going to start going meatless at dinner twice a week. Ryan informed me that Sundays would count as one of ours meatless days: we have a family tradition of eating popcorn, fruit and cheese in front of the TV while watching AFV every Sunday evening. He also informed me that chicken and fish were borderline vegetarian to him as well. What can I say - the man likes his beef.

So, I planned our dinners accordingly last week.

He had band practice Tuesday evening and found his own dinner between work and practice, so I made vegetarian pizza for me and the kids. Their half was plain cheese pizza and my half was spinach and artichoke pizza (and no, we didn't eat it all in one sitting - Sydney and I ate leftovers for lunch the following day):




To avoid too much sugar, I didn't use jarred or canned pizza sauce. Instead, I combined half a can of tomato paste and a tablespoon of canola oil (Dr. Oz says to use olive oil, but I'm allergic to olives).

Wednesday was our official vegetarian night. I made lentil or "healthy" hamburgers as Sydney likes to call them. I found the recipe on allrecipes and we all scarfed them down. Sydney had American cheese and ketchup on hers while Ryan and I had Swiss cheese and fresh spinach leaves on ours. I couldn't find sweet potato fries (a healthier alternative to regular fries that we usually bake in the oven) at the grocery store, so I opted for veggie chips instead for the side:






This recipe is definitely a keeper despite the fact that the patties tend to fall apart a lot more easily than beef ones.

Thursday was also semi-vegetarian. My friend Tory suggested that we give spaghetti squash a try instead of eating traditional wheat pasta. I'd tried it before and Sydney turned her nose up at the "crunchy spaghetti", but this time she gobbled it up. I made my own spaghetti sauce, again from allrecipes and made meatballs to appease my carnivore husband.




Two thumbs up for this one, too, especially since the sauce recipe made enough for two meals. We now have a canister of yummy sauce in the freezer for another night. Score.

So, the experiment is going well so far. I haven't decided what we'll do this week - perhaps a spinach quiche. I can't wait for it to cool off a bit more so I can break out the soup recipes!

Twitter Meme

I was tagged by Mommy Daisy for the "Six Things About Me Twitter Meme." I'm supposed to list six things that you probably don't already know about me. No one is really sure why it's called a Twitter meme (really short statements maybe?) and I'm not actually on Twitter, but this meme will let me pretend that I am. :)

1. I've never dyed my hair.
2. I love dried cranberries and put them on/in anything I can think of.
3. Green is my favorite color.
4. I think it would be fun to be a meteorologist.
5. I like playing games, but I'm overly competitive and a sore loser so no one will play with me. Although, I would like to add that I think I've gotten better about both of these things over the years.
6. I've made Christmas stockings for Sydney and Liam, but haven't even started on Evan's.

Consider yourself tagged (if you want to be)!

The Rules: If you’ve been tagged with the meme game from Twitter, you must post 6 things no one knows about you on your blog. Then you tag 6 more people. (don’t forget to let them know they’ve been tagged.) Leave me a message letting me know that you’ve accepted the tag. Let me know when you’ve posted your list. Have fun!!!