Sleep Eating

I took this video a few weeks ago when Robert was sleep deprived during his toddler bed transition. I tried uploading it a couple of times since then but it just wouldn't work. Third time's a charm I guess. He rarely falls asleep anywhere but his bed, so this little episode was cracking me up. Hope you enjoy it as much as I did! I've watched it half a dozen times and it still makes me laugh.

Clara's Big Day

Last night, I surprised Clara with a couple of new books at bedtime. She was super excited when I started reading The Night Before Kindergarten and then was beside herself when I went and pulled out The Berenstain Bears Go to School. This was after reading a chapter in The Voyage of the Dawn Treader like we do every night. (I fully realize it won't always be this easy to be viewed as a rockstar mom so I have to enjoy it while it lasts.)

As I put her to bed with her customary songs (that she still insists are necessary for a good night's sleep) she couldn't wipe the smile from her face. I went over some of the things that she needed to remember for her first day of school and then I talked about letting her light shine and that now she has to remember all of the things she's learned from us and from Sunday school since we won't be there to remind her. I also prepared her for being around kids who come from families that don't have the same rules as us and that there may be kids who are mean or who say bad words and that while she still needs to be nice to them, that behavior isn't acceptable for our family. She didn't know what bad words were :) My poor sheltered child. She said, "Like counting in Spanish. Uno is one, dos is 2....... ". I said, "Yeaaaaah, something like that." Not sure where that came from. I guess we'll just cross that bridge when we get there. So after our conversation, I started tearing up just a bit, we said an extra special prayer for her first day and then it was time for lights out.

Morning came and she was up and at 'em as soon as I woke her up. No complaining and no dilly-dallying so that made me very happy. We even had time to leisurely take pictures instead of snapping as we ran to the car.

I took Clara to school on the first day, but Daddy will be her regular driver. School starts at 7:30, so it's not a big deal for him to drop her on his way to work. He wanted to just take her on the first day, but there was no way I was going to miss my eldest's first day of school. I relented with Robert's first haircut, but I had to put my foot down on this one :) Daddy's just don't quite understand. Chris stayed home with Robert so I wouldn't be distracted by his shenanigans.

The drop off line was chaotic even with a policeman directing traffic. Parking was terrible, with everyone parking in fire lanes. We eventually made it inside and I let Clara lead the way to her classroom. She went straight to her desk and started stringing froot loops on a string. There was zero hesitation, even though she was sitting next to a boy who was very distraught. She told me that if he was still upset in a few minutes that she would hold his hand and tell him it was ok. I told her that was sweet but he may not like holding hands. Turns out he lives at the back of our subdivision. His parents recognized us and knew which house we lived in. They actually toured our house before we moved in and decided to build the same model. Small world. Clara's teacher is Mrs. S and seems really sweet. Clara really likes her.

She didn't need me anymore so I got a quick kiss from her and was out of there. No tears for either of us.

I left the house to go pick her up about 15 minutes before school let out since I had no idea what to expect when picking her up. Of course, the line was backed up about a quarter of a mile, with more backed up in a turning lane to turn into the school from the other direction and another line backed up coming out of a gated subdivision. Seems to me there should be one line and those other lines should go do a u-turn and get in line with everyone else instead of trying to merge three different lines, but maybe that's just me.

I was surprised there weren't more kids walking to the subdivision that's right next to the school. There's a sidewalk straight into the subdivision, but I only saw 2-3 parents walk to get their kids and no kids walk by themselves. Hopefully more will after sitting in yesterday's awful fiasco. Cars would block the entrance in and out of that subdivision at times and I saw several people cutting in line and several near misses. It was insane. Robert kept quiet for about the first 10 minutes and then fussed the rest of the time. I finally made it to the front of the line a mere 35-40 minutes after school let out, so about an hour for the pick up.

I looked at the school district's facebook page and people were up in arms about the chaos at all of the schools. It sounds like our school had it good. I get that they needed to make cuts, but you'd think they would've had some kind of plan in place to get these kids who used to be bused in but are now car riders into and out of school in an organized manner. You used to have to be a minimum of .25 miles from school to be eligible for busing; now it's 2 miles. That's a huge number of kids! I looked at the transportation map for our school and there are 2 tiny areas of 2-3 short streets each that meet the new criteria. I would guess they're able to get all of those kids on two buses and not even fill them up.

Ok, enough griping. So Clara loves school. No surprise there. Her favorite part of the first day was the froot loops. She made some friends and can't wait to go back tomorrow.

We met Daddy at Pei Wei for dinner and then Tutti Frutti for dessert to celebrate Clara's big day. Then home and to bed so we can do it all over again tomorrow! And the next day. And the next............

A Very Star Wars Weekend

Clara got a special surprise this weekend when J Dog showed up at our door Saturday morning. She opened the door and just stood there in shock, looked over at me and then hid behind the door. Not the reception he was hoping for. (She's been a little out of sorts this past week. I think she's nervous about starting school. Could've been the facial hair too.) She quickly warmed up to him though and was attached to his hip and hanging on his every word in no time. His girlfriend came with him, so Clara had a some competition for attention to deal with this time. Then we all went to breakfast once they arrived.

J Dog came to visit for a very important, solemn occasion: Clara's introduction to Star Wars, which is apparently the most incredible cinematic experience ever. We were going to head home and start the movie marathon after breakfast but hit a snag when we went to buy them. Jason had forgotten to bring his so we figured we'd just go buy the box set. It's a set we've talked about buying before anyway. Well, Best Buy and Target didn't have it. We were shocked; I mean how is it possible to not be able to find Star Wars? It turns out they're re-releasing it in a couple of weeks, so I guess it's impossible to find right now. We were able to borrow Glenn and Becky's copy so all was not lost.

Clara loved it! I was a little surprised, but she sat through all three of them, completely engrossed during some parts. When one was over she was begging to start the next one. She did have an expert sitting next to her that was able to (patiently) answer every single one of her many, unending questions, so I'm sure that helped. She found the Ewoks to be especially hilarious and just laughed and laughed at them.

Between movies 2 and 3 we took a break and had a little surprise party for J Dog. Technically it was only a surprise until he went with Chris to pick up the cake earlier. What made it especially surprising was that Jason's birthday is 4 months away. It was the perfect party for him though because for Jason, being 4 months early made it even better (you just have to know the guy) and not weird at all.

We had Glenn and Becky over for burgers and a Star Wars themed birthday cake. And then the birthday boy got to open his many Star Wars themed toys, I mean collectibles. That's icing all over Clara's mouth in this next picture.

After church, we had lunch with them and then hurried home so J Dog and Clara could play with his new toys for a little while. They built one of his lego sets and then an epic battle between good and evil played out on the kitchen table for a little while before they had to be on there way home.

All in all, a very successful weekend Clara will not soon forget. Thank you J Dog for helping make her weekend special. Oh, and I got this post up quickly just for you. You're welcome :)

Sick

Well, Robert's sick. He made it about a week and a half after coming off the Pulmicort before coming down with something. He started getting a runny nose several days ago and then the night before last he coughed a couple of times so I immediately started the Xopenex and did them (roughly) every four hours. Then last evening he started in with the pitiful sounding barking cough so I started him on Pulmicort too. I now know to start the Pulmicort when his nose starts running and Xopenex as soon as the coughing starts. (As always, these are just notes to myself for future reference.)

I was prepared for an awful night last night and even went to bed early knowing I'd probably be up with him after a few hours. Sure enough, 12:30 rolled around and I heard a few coughs and then he woke up. I did another treatment and then it took a loooong time to get him back down. Thankfully the coughing stopped, he just wasn't tired, wouldn't let me lay on his floor and sleep and eventually got up to play. I figured I'd just let him until he got tired. I guess I dozed off and woke up when I heard "Vroom vroom" coming from downstairs. Whoops. He had mozied on down and started playing with his cars in the dark.

Finally around 4:00 I left him in his room to cry, praying that his crying wouldn't exacerbate his cough. He only cried for a few minutes before falling asleep and his cough never flared up. And then he was awake by 7:00.

He's been acting fine the whole time, playing, no fever and he just had a slight cough this morning, but I decided to try and get him in to make sure his lungs weren't infected. I normally wait it out a day or two but with it being Friday, I didn't want to wait.

Both the doctor and I were amazed that his lungs were clear!! I am elated! The doctor was sure he would hear wheezing and even felt weird sending me away without a steroid and antibiotic. This is the first time he hasn't needed both, but he felt like he really didn't need them this time. He also didn't want me to have to deal with Robert on steroids. For that I am appreciative. Of course, he may get worse, but his coughing is almost non-existent now, he isn't congested like he was and I've heard no more barking. I'm to call the doctor at home this weekend if he goes downhill.

I am so, so excited at the prospect of being able to control his asthma by starting the meds only when he's sick since during illnesses is the only time he's ever wheezed. After being on the Xopenex for 24 hours, he was biting and hitting all day yesterday and the fits have started back up. I haven't missed that stuff. I just pray this keeps it under control and we can avoid the daily maintenance. I guess only time will tell.

My Sweet Boy

I've spent a lot of time talking about Robert's behavior these last few months. It all started at the beginning of the year. The first couple of months I blamed teething for the awful behavior. And then I just happened across a website where people posted stories about adverse reactions to medication and I typed in pulmicort in toddlers just to see.

The stories I read were describing Robert to a T. Mainly flying into rages at the slightest thing and completely unpredictable behavior and loss of appetite. When I thought about when his fits started and went back and read my blog, it was about 1 to 2 weeks after starting him on the medication.

Some of you may wonder what I'm talking about because you've been around him and never witnessed these fits. He tends to do ok when we're at church or playgroup. A lot of times they happen when I'm putting him in the car, going to a store, in restaurants, when it's time to come inside, when it's time to stop playing at a friend's house, or when you take something away from him. But then again, we can do some of these things and he's perfectly content. That's what I mean by unpredictable. There are times that it takes me 5 minutes to get him buckled into his carseat. Or he'll do it when I'm checking out at the grocery store and just starts thrashing and screaming and I'm getting "the look" from everyone in the store. Those are the times that I just get in buckled in the car and have a good cry because it's mentally and physically exhausting to deal with one of them.

At his last checkup, I asked the doctor about taking him off of the pulmicort to see how he does. After all, I never intended to put him on a drug for the rest of his life and never attempt to see if he even needed it anymore at some point. When I suggested it, the doctor seemed very hesitant. Yes, Robert has not been sick at all since starting the medicine and for that I am thrilled. But how do we know his problems aren't seasonal and maybe he just needs to be on drugs certain times of the year? How do we know he hasn't outgrown the ear infections that seemed to trigger the wheezing? How do we know he needs it if we don't ever take him off to see?

He was on it twice a day in the beginning and I'm pretty sure he would still be taking it twice a day if I hadn't asked the doctor if we could try lessening the dose. He assured me that this drug wouldn't cause the behavior I was describing, but he reluctantly told me that if I wanted to take him off, that summer would be the best time. I wanted to wait until we were back from Pecos because the kids tend to get sick every time we go.

Once we got back, Robert climbed out of his crib, or more accurately, threw himself out and landed with a thud twice. We turned his crib into a toddler bed and we had the worst week ever last week trying to get the child to stay in bed. We were sleep deprived for several days there. Nothing we did worked. Staying in the room next to him, rocking him to sleep, sleeping next to his bed, leaving him in the room, putting him back into bed over 100 times in a matter of 15 minutes, spanking........ It was awful and we repeated the scenario every time he woke during the night. He was livid. I pulled almost everything out of his room because I knew he'd throw everything out of his drawers and toy bins. I have his dresser anchored to the wall, but he pulled two drawers out and bent the pieces that allow them to slide in in the process. Chris went in one time and the glider was balanced on top of a small toy bin. We have no idea how he managed that. He was in a complete rage. It was awful and we repeated the scenario every time he woke during the night. Friday night was the worst; he woke three different times, the last time screaming from 3-5 am.

I think Thursday or Friday night was the last time I gave him his treatment. Saturday night he went right down and slept through the night, same thing Sunday night and the next two nights. He had a harder time last night, but nothing like last week. He just needed us to stay in there a little while longer.

And lest you think it was just going to happen regardless of stopping the treatment, he also has not thrown one of his terrible uncontrollable fits since then. He's eating more than 2 bites at every meal. In fact, he's eating everything on his plate some meals. I don't remember when he's eaten this much. He's smiling more, he's giving hugs all the time and is sooooo happy. He just runs to Clara and throws his arms around her for a hug. He's more complacent about sitting and learning things. He's interacting more, trying to talk a little more and he's just all around more pleasant to be around. Chris has noticed the difference too. He still has normal 20 month old moments as I would expect, but those I can deal with, and more importantly he can deal with and work through. I can't tell you how relieved I am to have my sweet child back and to know that it's the drugs and not him. And it just breaks my heart that he's been living with this and unable to communicate how it was making him feel.

So now the question is, what do we do if he gets sick next week? I hate the prospect of having to choose a between a sick child and an absolutely unbearable one. I just hope the doctor is willing to work with me and experiment with dosages and treatments because just saying "the drugs make him crazy and we just have to deal with it" is not going to cut it.

Last Trip Out West For Awhile

The kids and I made one final trip to Pecos and Carlsbad before Clara starts school. We won't be able to just pick up and head out whenever we want now. Sigh. This is a looong post in which I go on and on about Robert's behavior, so feel free to just look at the pictures :)

So Robert did pretty good on the drive there. He did get antsy here and there along the way, but we made it without any significant crying fits. He would only make it about half way through any movie before he was tired of it. I have to give Clara props for not freaking out every time we had to change the movie so Robert wouldn't cry. I guess she didn't want Robert to cry as much as I didn't want him to. We left the house at 6:30 and got to Pecos at 4:30. He only napped for about 30 minutes.

After a long day, I went to put him in his pack and play to go to sleep. He stood up as I was walking out but I figured he'd lay back down and fall asleep quickly. I was very wrong. He screamed for a couple of minutes and then he came waltzing down the hallway. I was mentally freaking out. What on earth was I going to do with him this week! Almost every nap and bedtime was a battle. He didn't get any good naps that week and it took about 1-2 hours to get him down almost every night. I'm sure my mom and dad were ready to see us go. Again, Clara did so well. She didn't complain about his incessant screaming every night while she was trying to go to sleep in the same room.

Then Robert decided to go and add more misery to our week by cutting some two year molars. He was impossible to handle all week. He was soaking through shirts like he did when he was a baby and even Tylenol wasn't helping most of the time. He threw more fits than ever and they were more intense than ever. There was nothing I could do to help him get through them. There were several times he just screamed at the top of his lungs for an hour or two. Trying to hold him or distract him just made it worse. The one thing that pulled him out of some of them was watching a Dora video. As a result, he watched just a bit too much tv on this trip.

We got to Pecos on a Monday. On Tuesday we drove to Kermit to have lunch with Linsey, Brody, Cooper and my dad. His office is in Kermit. Then we went to the little water park in Wink to let the kids play. I hadn't been there before and assumed it was a flat surface with the buckets and sprays just dumping on the ground, but it was 1.5 feet deep. I hadn't brought my swimsuit or any kind of floating device for Robert so it was a little difficult chasing him around and keeping him from falling into the water face first. That's why there are no pictures. It was past naptime when we left and Robert was none too happy about that. I was sooooo embarrassed at the angry fit he threw as we were leaving. I could not get out of there fast enough. He wouldn't walk, wouldn't ride in the wagon, wouldn't let me hold him and was screaming uncontrollably. We got him back to the house and he switched it off like nothing ever happened and happily scampered off to play.

We took it easy on Wednesday and tried to let him regroup. On Thursday we headed to Carlsbad for a few hours. I had intended to take the pack and play and let him get a good nap so we could extend our stay a little while, but since that idea was off the table, the trip ended up being shorter than I had wanted. I couldn't spend an hour or two trying to get him to nap in an unfamiliar place and he couldn't go all day without a nap. We headed back to Pecos when he started getting tired and hard to handle. Robert had fun showing Nanny all of his cars and telling her what noises each of them make. Christmas was the last time we had been to Carlsbad, so Robert had changed a lot since the last time she saw him. We got in the car and Robert was asleep in under 3 minutes.

I honestly don't remember much about the next couple of days. I think my mind has blocked out the horribleness. There was outside play, fits, I think we ate, Dora, and more fits. When we came inside from playing, he threw a fit, when we left the park, he threw a fit, when we went to the store, he threw a fit, when we went out to eat, he didn't eat. And then he threw a fit. The temperature didn't start dropping to a bearable 100 degrees until around 8:00 pm, so we would go out to play late. If we hadn't done that, they wouldn't have gone outside at all since the temps hovered around 110 during the day.

Linsey came over on Saturday and stayed the night. We went to church on Sunday and as we walked into the auditorium from class, Robert recognized where we were and he did an about face and headed in the opposite direction. That was my first clue that church wasn't going to go over well. Indeed it did not. I think we made it through a song or two before he was screeching and I was already tired from wrestling with him. He was being too loud for the cry room and trying to escape and it was too hot to be outside with him and I was exhausted from our week, so I put him in the car and drove around with him. He fell asleep within a few minutes. I went and got a sonic drink and sat in the church parking lot until church let out.

I figured that half hour power nap was just what he needed and so we headed over to Dairy Queen for lunch. I can't adequately describe how awful it was. It was completely packed and he was throwing one of his worst fits yet. I decided to get ours to go and told Clara we needed to go. Well, in dealing with Robert, I hadn't been clear on what to order, so I thought my mom was getting Clara a hotdog and she thought Clara was just eating some of mine. When her hotdog didn't come and then I abruptly said we were leaving, she broke down crying too because she wanted to stay with Bia. AHHHHHHH! To those of you reading this that bore witness to my very public display of inept parenting, I apologize :) Once I got him home, he was fine. That afternoon we took a few pics before Linsey drove back home but Robert and Brody wanted nothing to do with pictures. I decided not to attempt church that night and got packed to leave the next day.

After his outburst on Sunday, I was really afraid of how our drive home might go. The trip has the potential to be a very bad, very long day if Robert isn't happy. Thank goodness he was fantastic! He took a short morning nap, then we stopped for breakfast in Ozona. They have an indoor Sonic with a play place so the kids played for awhile. Robert went down the big slide that had what looked like almost a vertical drop to it. Yeah, he fell forward, hitting his forehead on the hard surface. I heard other, bigger kids saying "Ow!" as they came down the slide too, so I think it has a bit of a design flaw.

After he got over his bonked head and I was sure he was ok, we left. I made sure to give him Tylenol for the teeth and now the head. He fell asleep and ended up sleeping about three hours. I didn't have to stop until we got to the other side of San Antonio. I was giddy. It could not have been more perfect. I needed to stop for gas and lunch and was going to have to wake him but he woke up just as I was about to exit and at that same instant, the gas tank light lit up.

He was perfect for the last few hours and we pulled into the driveway exactly 10 hours after we left Pecos. There were some really happy kiddos when Daddy got home a little while later. Robert made a liar out of me when he was a perfect little angel all evening. That boy must have just wanted to be home something fierce.

5.5

I just wanted to write down a few of the things Clara's doing at the age of five and a half. The biggest news of all is she's an official reader! She's been able to read words here and there for some time now, but I wouldn't have called her a reader. She would get to a word she didn't know and just guess. Like if the word was 'sandwich', she would blurt out 'snake', paying no attention to context and wouldn't even try to sound it out.

And then one day right around 5 1/2, it just clicked and she's reading everything. She's just started reading level 2 learning to read books without any help so I think she'll be ready for chapter books very soon. She amazes me with her ability to read. Even when she first started reading some of the very basic books like the Biscuit series, she used inflection in her voice. Questions sounded like questions, exclamations like exclamations and she even stressed words that were in italics (after asking me why some words leaned). I wasn't expecting that at all.

She learned to tie her shoes about a month ago and is very proud of that accomplishment. She was getting extremely frustrated that she couldn't tie them. The girl can even tie her dresses that tie in the back all by herself!

Clara loves cars right now. She's been watching Chris play Gran Turismo on the playstation and so he started teaching her the car symbols in the game. I don't think I've mentioned it before, but Chris actually loves cars. He would love nothing more than for his wife to let him rebuild some old car in the garage, so he's loving Clara's enthusiasm for cars and is teaching her all about them. She knows 3-4 dozen cars by their symbols. She knows all of them from your basic Toyota and Honda to Ferrari and Opal. I'm driving with the kids one day and she looks out her window and informs me that the Jaguar driving next to us is an old one and you can tell because of the wheels. Proud Daddy moment when I told him that one. She was watching a British car show called Top Gear with him for a while and now she wants a Top Gear birthday party.

Clara is having a really tough time right now with not getting enough attention. Robert has required an inordinate amount of attention these last few months, throwing amazing fits and generally taking up all of my time and energy. It's like a switch gets flipped with him and there's nothing you can do but ride it out and it's really been a drain on me and obviously on Clara too. She's been talking baby talk which drives me up the wall. Her voice goes up an octave and she only says one word over and over. Instead of saying, "May I have a drink?", it's "Dink! Dink! Dink!" Ahhhhhhhh! Either that or she just points and makes a little baby sounding grunt. She also will cry like a baby when she doesn't get her way.

She also can't handle it when Robert is getting physical attention from us. She has to come over and get a hug, get in the picture, play with the toy, read the book, etc, etc, etc. I'm sure that's normal, but it's just so annoying. We try to explain that she got four years of alone time with us and Robert also needs some alone time with us, but that falls on deaf ears of course. I can tell this whole sibling rivalry thing is going to be loads of fun.

Her new medications seem to be working well. She's not had any allergy problems since switching to the Nasonex and saline rinse and I don't think I've had to give her any Zyrtec either. Hopefully it will continue to work into the fall months. August of last year is about the time the monthly infections started for both of them, so we shall see shortly if it's effective.

I've been trying to give Clara a lot more freedoms and was going to list some of the things she's doing, but it was getting kind of long, so I think I'll make it a post all it's own.

And that's about all I can think of. I can't believe my child is going to be a kindergartener in only a couple of short weeks!

Backtracking

I have this irritating need to go back and post about old stuff before posting about anything new. So when I get behind, it's hard to get the motivation to get caught up again. Anyway, here's some pics from the 4th of July parade. We got ourselves a nice, sunny spot to sit for the extremely looooong parade that started a little late. In other words, we were all hot, sweaty and irritable by the end.

For some reason, there were huge gaps in the parade. The firetrucks went by and then it was another 3-4 minutes before the next float came by. Then close to the end it looked as if it were over and lots of people got up and left only to have the last few minutes of the parade come around the corner several minutes later. It was really weird. I felt bad for the groups at the end who came through Market Street with only a scattering of people left.

Robert's got his eye on you, Clown.

The bank float was handing out quarters.

Later that day we went to a friend's birthday party and then headed over to the Quinn's 4th of July celebration. We just caught the tail end of it, but it was fun to catch up with some old friends and Clara had a blast running around with Leah to all of the kids' games they had set up. Robert spent his time jumping on the trampoline for the first time. There is a burn ban in effect here so there were no fireworks this year. The 4th of July just isn't the same without fireworks.

Sorry, Sorry, Sorry

Is anyone even reading here still? I don't know why I've been so bad at blogging lately. There's nothing too exciting going on. Just getting everything ready for Clara to start school in a couple of weeks, haircuts, school supply shopping, clothes shopping....... She can't wait and keeps asking me when summer is going to be over already.

The kids and I just got back from a trip to Pecos, we're transitioning Robert to a toddler bed and we've finally gotten a lot of much needed rain these last few weeks. I took these pictures after one of the first storms we had. I've been giddy with all the rain we've gotten. My lawn is giddy too.

I've just taken on the role of coordinating the 2 year old Sunday school class at church, so I've been spending time getting things ready for that. I'll try to be back and post some more. Promise.