Boots

On a much more pleasant note than my last post, I wanted to share a picture of Aidan when he put his shoes on to accompany me to the grocery store yesterday evening. He chose a lovely pair of navy blue rain boots to accompany his black sweats. And to top it off, he tucked the sweats into the boots! He would not let me change his shoes to leave, so we went this way. Ah, the joy of letting your toddler dress himself. This was a little more entertaining than when he puts his shoes on the wrong feet. I usually let him do his shoes by himself, so more often than not, he gets them switched and I leave them, since he did it by himself. I have to explain that one a lot. Total strangers come up to me to ask me if I know that I've put my child's shoes on the wrong feet. Yes, I know. I let him do it himself. He's becoming independent!

Boys will be boys

Well...we have now successfully lived through our first emergency room visit...wait, that's not right. We have now successfully lived through our second emergency room visit with Aidan. Or I should say I have. John was midair somewhere between here and Kansas at the time, of course. Here's the story.



At about 10:00am on Friday, I decided it was high time the kids and I get out of the house. I had Neely all ready in her carrier, the diaper bag was packed, I had my shoes on, and as I went to put Aidan's shoes on him, I realized we needed to do one more diaper change before leaving home. I took him up to our bedroom and changed him in the middle of the floor. As I was bundling up the dirty diaper and he was exiting the room, he tripped over his own two feet and whacked his head on the floor. This kind of thing happens all the time. Aidan has just hit a little growth spurt, and he's usually clumsier until he gets used to his new, bigger self. When he turned around, he was screaming and clutching his head. It took me a minute to pry his hand away from his forehead, and that should've been my sign that this was not the usual bump on the head.



The poor kiddo's head was split open pretty deep, deep enough that I was seeing things in there that you're really not supposed to, and it was bleeding like crazy. That's when hysteria set in. A million things are running through my mind...what to hold it together with, who to call for help, what to do with Neely, what emergency room to take him to, etc. I get hold of a friend down the street to come over and help me, and as I'm waiting for her, my adrenaline kicks in. I don't know how it affects you, but me? Adrenaline just makes me nauseous. I honestly thought I was going to pass out in the floor. It is at this point that I realize that I will not be able to drive him to the hospital and, for the first time in my life, dial 911. I had to repeat my address several times before the dispatcher could even understand me, Aidan was yelling so loud. I'm sure the recording of my call is hilarious. I am shouting at the top of my lungs, "1-0-7 F-O-U-L..." You get the idea.



A few minutes later, I have two EMT's and three MP's (that's military police for those who're unfamiliar with the acronym) in my living room firing questions and trying to take care of Aidan. What's Neely doing? Sleeping. No, I'm not kidding. No amount of hysterical shrieking could wake her.



Now, it's time for the ambulance ride. Aidan was so excited to be riding in it, that he actually forgot about his head for a little while, and he was compliant enough to actually let me hold an ice pack on his head. The EMT's got word that there were trains coming (and we had to cross two tracks before reaching the hospital), so they actually turned the lights on and did the whole crazy driving, weaving all over the road thing. Whenever we'd take a sharp turn or hit a bump in the road, Aidan would go, "Whoa! Whoa!" It was funny.



The benefit of taking the ambulance to the emergency room is that they have a room waiting for you when you get there. You get to skip all of that waiting room stuff. It still doesn't make them treat you any more quickly. I think we were there for an hour and a half before they tried to stitch him up the first time. Yes, I said the first time.



I'd asked the nurse preparing all the things in the room for the doctor if Aidan could be sedated for the procedure. She looked at me as though I were nuts for wanting to drug my child and assured me that they'd be able to hold him still. They wrapped him in a bed sheet and strapped him to this board thing with Velcro. I think they called it a papoose. It was, essentially, a straight jacket of sorts. Actually, come to think of it, a straight jacket might have worked better. My friend Ashley and I (she's the one who followed the ambulance in the car with Neely and was a total Godsend all day) were trying to keep Aidan's body still, while two nurses were supposed to be holding his head. Cue hysterical screaming again. It was along the lines of, "Mommy! Mommy! I don't want to lie down! I want to get up! Mommy!" It was awful. The nurses could not hold him still enough for the doctor to stitch him, and the doctor stormed out of the room telling them to go ahead and sedate him. I mean, I hate to say, "I told you so." But seriously. He's two years old. What did they expect?



An hour later, he's being given a shot for conscious sedation and getting his little head fixed up with six stitches. Next, we had to wait for the drugs to wear off again. He was so funny while he was sedated. It was like he was in slow motion. Everything he said took twice as long to come out. At one point, I was hanging over him, playing with his hair and talking to him, and he points at me and says, "Mommmmmy.......four.....eyes." I can only assume he was seeing double. I laughed for a while over that one. He said a lot of other funny stuff, I just can't remember all of it.

At 3:15pm, he was released to go home. The child still wasn't back to normal until closer to 6:00pm, and luckily, he really hasn't noticed that he's got stitches in his head since. I guess he'll be reminded on Wednesday when we go and have them removed.

I'd attach a photo, but I have no clue how to get them from my phone onto the computer. It's probably just as well. It was pretty gruesome.

God's Clues

I repeated this story to a friend on the telephone yesterday evening, and she assured me it was blog-worthy. While Aidan ate his breakfast yesterday, I was reading my Bible and copying down some notes into a journal that I'd taken during church a couple of weeks ago. The night before, we had worked on his letter to Santa Claus (I'll have to scan that and share it at some point). He looks at what I'm writing and asks, "Is that your Christmas list, Mommy?" I told him, "No, Mommy is writing in her journal." He looked at me like I'd just grown a third eye. As in, "Does not compute. I do not know this 'journal' you speak of." I tried again, "It's my notebook." I could tell a little light was dawning, as if he was trying to figure out how he knew what a notebook was. I got there before he did. I told him, "You know how on Blue's Clues, Joe writes down the clues in his notebook? Well, Mommy is writing down the clues God gives her from the Bible in this notebook." To which he says, "Yeah!" Who knew you could compare your daily quiet time to Blue's Clues? Only the parent of a preschooler.

This one's gonna give you deja vu.

I got Aidan's turkey t-shirt done this afternoon. I couldn't find a solid white shirt for him, so I had to go with green. I think it turned out nice, and this way, he and Neely won't be too matchy-matchy. I love making turkeys. They're so much fun! I wonder what John would do if I made him one...

Lil' Turkey

I got a little crafty today, and I'm very proud of my handiwork. On Sunday, Christina and I painted t-shirts with our teenage gals, and I was inspired to make Thanksgiving shirts for the kids. I went to Joann's and chose a few festive colors last night. I cut out feathers, circles for the turkey's body, and a little beak from the fabric. I used Stitch Witchery to attach the pieces to a little onesie for Neely. (I have oodles of these white ones, so I figured if this turned out as a disaster, it wasn't a huge loss.) I glued on some googly eyes and traced all the pieces in coordinating colors of shiny fabric paint. Then, I did the lettering on the bottom by hand. I think that's the only thing that I would change. Next time, I'll probably buy some of those printable iron-ons and do the lettering on the computer so it looks more uniform. Now, I need to do one for Aidan. Should it say "lil' turkey" too, or should I write "big turkey" on his?

Two-month-old girl

My tiny little girl is turning into quite a chubby little baby. I love it! Chubby babies are the BEST anyway. I'm posting the best/most recent picture that I have of her...taken yesterday wearing an outfit her Granny bought her while she was still in preemie clothes. We thought sure it'd take her six months to fit into it. Ha! Two months, it only took two. She had her check-up today. Neely now weighs 9 pounds 15.8 ounces, so in another hour or two, she'll be exactly 10 pounds. She's a little over 22 inches long now, too. I think the last time I shared her height/weight, she was in the 5th percentile. Now, she's in the 50th. She has definitely made up for lost time. She's grown so much! And having to watch her get shots for the first time was awful. She really is not a crier, so when the nurse stuck her with the first one, she did that whole silent scream deal and held her breath for about 10 seconds. She turned purple. When she finally caught her breath again, she was screaming. I've never heard or seen her get that upset. She had the biggest crocodile tears, too. And Aidan's standing in the corner saying, "Poor Neely." I'm also adding a photo of the little man today, so his grandmas and grandpas and aunties and uncles can see him, too.

One last thing

Sorry! I keep forgetting things that I meant to post as they happened. Joe and Maggie sent Aidan this adorable card this week asking him to be a ring bearer in their wedding. I showed it to him and read it to him and then asked, "Do you want to be in Joe and Maggie's wedding?" He answered, "Yeah!" Emphatically, I might add. I showed him the picture on the front again. "Do you want to wear a little suit like this one?" Again, he says, "Yeah!" I hope he's that excited come June.

Bake Sale

I love bake sales! Our squadron OSC is having one in front of the commissary tomorrow beginning at 8:30, and I have been baking all week to get ready. It's the one productive thing I feel like I've done all week. I hope the weather is nice in the morning!

Nightmare

Aidan has been a little monster this week. I have found that his happiness is directly related to the amount of time we are able to spend out of our house each day, and this week, it has been raining and raining and raining. In the photo to the left, you can see that Aidan spent the better part of the morning destroying his room the other day. He pulled his rocking horse in front of the dresser, climbed on it, and pulled everything within reach off the top until I heard a telltale crash. Apparently, he was after his piggy bank, and he got it...in a zillion tiny pieces on the floor. See that look on his face? That's the "Dang, I just got busted," look.

He's also been throwing tantrums like crazy, I guess because he doesn't really know how to express that he's going nuts from being cooped up. Yesterday afternoon, he refused to take a nap, and later on when John took something away he wasn't allowed to have, he ran screaming through the house until he finally crashed in the corner of his playroom. We let him sleep there until he woke about an hour later, not missing a beat. He immediately started screaming and ranting all over again. He got to go to Mom's Day Out today. Hopefully he'll be happier this evening.

Help me!

My Christmas mantel is a work in progress. I started working on it Saturday, and I still can't get it quite right. John is no help. He can only tell me what doesn't look good. Right now, I know it looks kind of barren on the ends, but I'm not sure what to put there. Tall candles? I intend to hang our stockings at either end (two on each side), since with the way I had to rig my nativity, I won't be able to put stocking holders in the center at all. I need suggestions! Post me a comment if you have a good idea of something I can use to fill in the dead space.

New Window Hanging

For those of you who follow The Nester, you know what a window mistreatment is. For those who don't, you can go hunt around her blog for a definition and wonderful pictures of some of the windows that inspired me. Ever since I worked at Pottery Barn, five years ago, I have had this blue silk curtain panel that I've had no idea what to do with. I bought it on clearance with my discount on top of that, and it was dirt cheap. I couldn't pass it up, but it was only a single panel.

Ever since we moved into this house in April, I've had this naked bathroom window. So when I saw some of the Nester's mistreatments, I decided to try one with that lonesome curtain panel.

I had a hard time getting a good photo of it because this bathroom is so small, but I think it turned out pretty well. (Yes, it's just tacked to the wall, no curtain rod.) Now if I could only find a shower curtain for in there. Maybe I'll mistreat the shower somehow as well.

I couldn't wait...

...any longer to get out my Christmas decorations. I'm not sure why I was so eager this year. I may have Aidan confused. As in, why are we celebrating Thanksgiving with Santa Claus and the baby Jesus out? Oh, well. I've taken a picture of my sideboard in the dining room. It's very festive. It's my favorite little decorated "nook" so far. I haven't figured out exactly what to do with my fireplace mantle yet. I've never had one to actually decorate before. The big bummer is that my nativity is too big! I finally get all the components collected, and now I haven't got a good spot to put it. That figures. I may have to buy a new table especially for putting it out. I've also gotten another rag garland finished. It is also adorning my dining room.

Over and over yesterday, John would say, "I can't believe you're decorating for Christmas already." I told him he's an enabler. I asked him if I was allowed to, and he said it was fine as long as I didn't put anything up outside (where people can see it and think we're weirdos, I guess). He even brought down a couple of boxes from the attic that were too heavy for me to carry. Ergo, he's my enabler.

So Merry Christmas!

Arts & Crafts

I had fun with paints while Aidan was at Mom's Day Out today. I can't wait to hang them up with my Christmas decorations! I'm so ready to decorate. Maybe I'll start tomorrow.

Photo Session

I took the kids for portraits today. Aside from the fact that I thought I might have to build an ark to get them to the car this morning and Neely staying asleep for most of the session, we came away with some really adorable photos. Here are a few.

It works!

Those of you who know my laundry drama of late will understand why I have posted a picture of my WORKING DRYER on my blog. For those who don't, the short version is that over the last six months, we burned out the motor on our old dryer (which wasn't really even that old, actually) by running it on an outlet that was putting out too much voltage. This is the shiny new dryer plugged into the outlet that the electrician fixed this afternoon. It has now run for over 40 minutes, which is twice as long as the old one would go on the crazy voltage. I am now able to dry a load of laundry all at once, rather than at random intervals throughout the day. Hooray! Now I must attack the mountain that has accumulated in the absence of a working dryer. I've never been so excited about doing laundry in my life, nor am I likely to be ever again.

Our Halloween

Another Halloween has come and gone. (and only those who dressed up got to be in our family picture) We had a lot of fun this year. I dressed up as the tooth fairy, Aidan was a handyman, and Neely went as a ballerina. We started celebrating with a party at John's squadron on Thursday night, where they played "It's the Great Pumpkin, Charlie Brown" and had a haunted house/trick-or-treating throughout the building. Several of the offices had scary decorations up, and the kids had to go into them, frightened or not, if they wanted candy. Aidan was hilarious for this portion of the evening. He'd see something he was apprehensive about, and he'd talk himself out of being scared. It went kind of like this...if we walked into a room with a cauldron full of fake fire, he'd say, "I'm not scared of fire, Mommy. I'm not scared." It was funny. The most widely feared costume by all children present? You're never going to guess. The squadron mascot is the red devils, so lots of the guys were dressed as the devil, of course. But the costume most of the kids were terrified of was...wait for it...Jesus. Yes, Jesus. It was very strange.

On Halloween, Aidan went to Mom's Day Out, and they had a big party there. Aidan came home from class with more candy than he got actually trick-or-treating. It's nuts.

Aidan actually got to go trick-or-treating for the first time this year. Last year, he refused to put his costume on when it came time to try, so he didn't get to go. We probably went to about six houses before he tripped and fell, spilling all his candy, and he got very upset. I think he was more embarrassed than anything, but he really wasn't into the door to door deal after that. We went home and he got to help pass out candy and go through his bucket, so it turned out to be alright.

We ended up our night by getting on the webcam and being serenaded by Willie Nelson. It was a wonderful Halloween night.