doctor updates

So I'm glad to know I'm not the only person with a crazy neighbor! You'd think people would have some respect and not do insane things in their yard at all hours of the night. I know, some people work odd hours and all, but ugh!

Today we had Scarlett's 18 month checkup and Matthew's 3 year one, just a month late. They were both declared "perfect" - do you think she says that to all the parents? Surely not, I must be the only one out there with perfect kids. :)

Matthew weighs 35 lbs and is 38.5" tall - ~75% for both.
Scarlett weighss 24.5 lbs and is 32.5" tall. Her head measured 47.5cm. Her weight was ~50% and height ~75%, they didn't tell us a % for her head.

We asked about Matthew's nosebleeds (oh yeah, forgot to post about that - he's had more, one waking us up around 4am to clean up...poor kid). She said what we expected - they're pretty typical for this time of year with the weather like it is and suggested a humidifier and saline spray. We also asked about him not saying "c" sounds very good - he does fine with some words but not others. He can't say "car" or "corn"...instead he says "Par" and "Po.rn" - (gotta love it when we're in a restaurant and he asks for corn!). Again she said it's nothing to worry about, which we weren't really worried, just figured it was better to ask than not ask.

It is snowing again today and Matthew asked if we could build a snowman. I promised him that we would tomorrow...that way David can join the fun. Sunday we will watch the superbowl (for the commercials of course) and enjoy fattening food. David will make wings and I'll make sausage dip and buffalo chicken dip. Yum!Yum!

Weigh in this week I didn't lose, didn't gain. But my scale gives me body fat % and I did drop 0.9% fat. Boot camp is paying off. I'm already planning extra exercise so I can eat what I want Sunday.

crazy neighbor

My neighbor is crazy. I actually like my neighbors just fine, but the man in the house west of us is a little snow shoveling crazy. I can remember when Scarlett was "new" and i would be up breastfeeding her in the middle of the night he would be out shoveling. She'd go back to sleep easily, thank goodness, but when I got back in bed all I could hear was "scccrrrraape, scccrrrrrape" and it kept me awake. At 3am! Seriously, who the hell shovels at 3am?!?!

Friday while my MIL was here she asked "what's that noise?" I listen for a moment and I hear it "sccccrrrraaape, sccccrrrraaaape" - huh? We don't even have fresh snow! I'm not sure what he's shoveling and I don't want to be obviously nosey & look out the window (our blinds were closed).

Then Monday night we got about 1/4" of snow - not much, right? He shoveled around 6am yesterday! UGH! I hate the sound of scraping first thing in the morning. When I went out to get the mail at 11am, all the snow from our sidewalk, driveway, and steps was gone...we just still had it all in the yard, but yeah, that's gonna be there a while. So why did he shovel that 1/4" of snow yesterday morning? Cuz he's crazy!

Last night it started snowing and we were supposed to get 3-4". David & I start bets on how early he'll be out shoveling. Imagine my surprise when I don't hear him out there "scccccrrrraape" all night! Then, I go out to get the mail, he STILL hasn't shoveled! Wow. This is a record. I wonder for a minute if I should go over & check on him. You know, cuz he's a shoveling maniac who gets out for 1/4" of snow, I can't imagine him leaving 3" on the ground for more than 10 minutes. But I have kids to see about, so I do the most un-neighborly thing possible and ignore that there could be a problem. No worries though, about an hour later he was out there with the shovel.

In all seriousness, for those of you who live where it snows, how much snow do you let fall before you shovel?

a good weekend

So this is the 3rd visit we've had with my mother-in-law in the last 2 months...she came the first weekend of Dec, then Christmas, then this weekend. I am amazed that they all went GREAT! Who is this woman? LOL - seriously, I think David's mema (her mother) must have given her a talking to. At Christmas she told me "you're on mema's good list and S (my SIL) is on her bad list" - and mema made the comment several times (in front of MIL) that "you are such a good mom" or "you do such a good job with the babies" - so I think maybe MIL is realizing that her way (or my SIL's way) isn't always best and that David & I are doing just fine with our children. Thanks mema!

She got in Thursday evening and we had a nice night. I had supper in the crockpot and she asked immediately if she smelled meatloaf. It wasn't but turns out she loves my meatloaf so I decided to cook it Friday night. She also brought with her a Wii Fit. She'd gotten us a Wii for Christmas and I asked for a Wii Fit (from David) but he was unable to get one (without paying mucho extra for it and we're too frugal to pay more than suggested retail) so we've been watching for one since then. She found it in FL and picked it up for us. So we played that a lot this weekend. I was embarrassed that with all my weight loss and going to the gym, SHE was beating me on EVERYTHING! Seriously, she is twice my age and had records on all the games. David finally broke most of her records but even so - I can't believe she beat me. I know if we were to go to the gym I'd totally hold my own but geeze! It was embarrassing. Finally, the last night she was here, she fessed up. She told us that she got a Wii and Wii Fit a couple of weeks before her trip & she had been playing at home every night! LOL - I had to laugh. She's as competitive as we are so she practiced before she came!

David & I went to see The Dark Knight at the IMAX theater. I'm not too into Batman but I really enjoyed it. Didn't hurt that I had lots & lots of butter on my popcorn ;) Other than that we didn't go out - I wanted to go see Benjamin Button but it wasn't playing at convenient times (at least not when the Batman movie wasn't playing) and I didn't want to go out for too long. We didn't even go out to dinner because we decided to order chicago style pizza & David & I would rather eat that than most restaurants around!

David took her to Canada Sunday so I had a quiet afternoon to myself. Matthew & Scarlett took nice naps so I knitted and caught up on some tv. Plus I napped. Can't forget that. Oh, and David went to boot camp with me at the gym. He is faster than I am on sprints but has no endurance. I felt bad - he had to sit down and rest a couple of times. He really didn't pace himself well at all. I think he had a rougher first class than I did! Too bad he can't go back with me...the gym daycare isn't open as early as the class starts. :(

David also talked to her about us hoping to move back to Georgia this year. She didn't seem bothered that we are trying to move back to my hometown, so that's good. I figured she'd be pissed about it.

fershor

I was leaving a comment on someone's blog today and they have word verification on. Usually I hate word verification, either it's hard to read or it's just such a mess of a "word" that it's really difficult to type. This one today though, well it just made me smile. It was "fershor" - you know, the way us southerners say "for sure" - so it was easy.

It's funny, I really don't say "shore" for "sure" but I've noticed Matthew does. He will say "My shore do love you" or "My shore did miss you" and lots of other similar things. So I'm sure that if he said "for sure" it would come out "fershor." (Yeah, I know...using "my" like he does instead of "I" isn't proper either, but he's 3 and it's cute. He is learning proper pronoun usage, he usually gets he, she, him, her, we, me, and they...just not "I" and "my".)

clean up anyone?

So this morning I was cleaning the upstairs bathroom while the short people played in Matthew's room. After some time Matthew said "Mommy can you help me clean up?" I was almost finished in the bathroom so I gave him the hated response of "in a minute" and he said "but I really want you to help me clean up this mess." I assured him I was almost finished and then we would clean up and go downstairs. A couple of minutes later I was ready to head downstairs so I went to his room to help him & Scarlett pick up toys. I was shocked to see him covered in blood. And I do mean covered....it was all over his face, his hands, his clothes, EVERYWHERE! He says "now you are gonna clean up this mess?" OH! MY! GAWD!

I very calmly picked him up and took him to the bathroom and started wiping - first trying to figure out if the blood was coming from his nose, mouth, or both. I asked him what happened and he told me he was snotty and then it started. So I knew it was his nose. Do I know how to stop a nosebleed? Hell no! I grabbed my phone and called David to ask him - he's the parent with the first aid training. I got Matthew almost clean and left him sitting with tissue stuffed up his nose while I went to clean up his room. The damage in there wasn't too bad - there was a lot of blood on toys but it was all plastic and easily wiped away. Fortunately Scarlett had stayed out of it.

I am quite impressed that I stayed calm when my baby was covered in blood. I'm glad I did, because right now he thinks blood is pretty cool and I wouldn't want to scare him by freaking out. The bleeding seems to have stopped now. Finally.

No more clean up today, please!

(and I lost 0.8 lbs - I'm 4.6 lbs heavier than my lowest low last fall, but that lowest low only lasted a short time, I've fluctuated between here & there for months. Maybe now I can get over that plateau. I was bad all week, eating Burger King one day, poutine one day, and pizza one day. I'll probably be bad this weekend too, MIL is visiting so D & I are going out.)

happy feet

Monday was Matthew's 2nd ice skating lesson. He wasn't any better this week - he spent so much laid out on the ice we had to change his clothes before we left. We spent the rest of the day searching for skates to fit him better - the smallest ones we'd been able to find were still too big. We had no luck here or online so we headed across the border to Canada. I've never had an easier time crossing the border - we told them we were going shopping & they didn't even look at our papers! I guess they want us spending our money, huh? Anyway, we found a pair of skates that we hope will work but who knows...they're still big seeming.

Also, at the skate lesson Monday the teacher told us the big problem is that Matthew turns his feet out instead of keeping them straight. Of course he does - he has been trained to turn his feet out since his clubfoot was corrected right after his birth. He still wears his special shoes & bar to bed every night in hopes of keeping this correction and not needing surgery down the road. If our choice is that he can skate or he can avoid surgery, well um, I guess he'll never skate.

But then we had an ortho appointment this morning - it had been 6 months (give or take) since his last visit and it was time for a checkup. I was not surprised when the doc said his feet look great and we can stop the brace wear. David & I had talked about this, and we both feel that with the statistics supporting brace wear until age 5 and especially since Matthew does not fight at all about wearing his shoes, that we would rather keep him in them as long as is reasonable. We discussed it with the doctor and he said there's no harm in leaving him in them now so he told us to do whatever we are comfortable with and come back in 3 months. (why 3, I dunno, but we'll do it.) So here I sit, doing yet MORE research on the statistics, so that David & I can make sure to make the best decision for Matthew. Yet deep down, I know that the best thing to do is just leave him in the shoes for now. There's nothing to be gained by taking him out...NOTHING.

on another note, weigh in is tomorrow - I think I'm back down after my holiday gain to where I was mid-November, when I was fluctuating back & forth, back & forth, back & forth - tomorrow I'll know!

friday favorites

Some of my favorite moments from the past week have been with things Matthew has said. One day he was pottying and while he washed his hands I decided to potty. He asked me "do you have a winkie" to which I replied "no." He said "My have a winkie." I said "yes" and he said "where's your winkie?" so I told him girls don't have winkies. After we both finished washing our hands he went straight to Scarlett and said "do you have a winkie?" and she quickly said "noooooo". Of course that's her favorite word right now, so I am not assuming she knows.

Another day after Matthew pottied, he asked me "what was that noise?" I had not heard a noise so I replied that I didn't know. He told me "I just tooted and it went in my underwear." I was afraid it might have been more than a toot since he said it went in his underwear, but I checked and fortunately it was just a toot!

Matthew doesn't quite understand what cousins are. He told me Rhett was his cousin (true) and Belle is his cousin (also true) but then he said "and you are my cousin." Obviously NOT true. I'm from Georgia, not Alabama ;)

We signed Matthew up for skating lessons. He had his first one Monday and seemed to enjoy it. He's asked me several times this week to talk about skating or to watch skating on the computer. (I pulled up videos on youtube to show him before his class.) Anyway, today he told me he wants to go skating with a stick. Maybe he's gonna be a Red Wing someday.

Sorry I'm so slack about posting lately - I'm knitting so most of my "free time" is spent on the couch. And yeah, I still have a daughter, since this post is all about Matthew, maybe next week I'll have a fun Scarlett story to share.

(Sorry about the quality of the pic & video - they were with my phone since I FORGOT my camera!)

Goodbye John

Today is a sad day - I've read that John Smoltz has signed a contract with the Boston Red Sox. Nothing against the Red Sox - they are the AL team I cheer for most, but *my* team has always been the Atlanta Braves. Even before they were great, I was a Braves fan. I remember going to games as a child and buying cheap tickets but they didn't care how far down the stands you moved - so we ended up sitting in the low rows in the outfield or right behind the dugout. Good times, made even better during their worst to first season in '91.

Since moving to Michigan and having a family, I don't follow them as closely as I used to, but they are still my team. I hate that the Braves didn't understand what Smoltz meant to the fans, instead of making it about the money. There have been numerous times in the past when Smoltz has stayed in Atlanta even when offered more money by other teams, but the discrepancy in the offers had to be insulting. Why choose $2.5mil when you can have $5.5? I'll sure miss seeing him in a Braves uniform, but I'll be watching more BoSox games now.

Maybe I'm pms'ing after all - every time I think about this I cry. It's freaking baseball, it's a business, yada yada yada, I know, I know! But I still don't like it one bit!

gag (or things to add to my spreadsheet)

Before we left town Christmas Day, I tried to make sure the house was straight and that there wasn't anything besides kitty litter that would smell when we got home. I got the dishwasher loaded, washed whatever dishes don't go in the washer, cleaned the sink, cleaned the bathrooms, etc. All this on top of it being Christmas morning, washing diapers, and packing. I was bound to miss something, right?

Imagine my surprise when, after lunch, I started to unload the dishwasher and oh my, the smell when I OPENED the door was enough to make me throw up in my mouth. Yeah, it reeked. I thought at first it was broken, because I knew I started it before we left the house. But um, no, there was no soap in it, and there had obviously not been any soap in it 2 weeks ago. So I held my breath, put soap in, and ran it. Didn't help much - most of what was in there was so dried on that it still reeks. But now I have the lovely task of unloading it & hand washing everything. I'll have to find a clothespin for my nose.

And while I'm at it, I better open my travel spreadsheet and add a task for turning the dishwasher on. I really should do that any time we're travelling long enough that I need my list!

back but busy

We had a great birthday (Matthew), Christmas, and New Year's. We had family here and then we went to visit family. It all went pretty well. I think it was the best visit we ever had with MIL. Maybe she's accepting how David & I are as parents and has decided that we are doing ok. Of course we might hear in 3 months how we did something horrible while she was here, but oh well...I'm not going to fret about it. I enjoyed her visit very much and hope that the next visit is just as good. It helps that I felt like I got a lot done while she was here - having her entertain/play with the kids while I cooked and all was just awesome. I think everyone enjoyed their time here - we got a TON of snow, and my 5 year old nephew kept telling his mom that Michigan is so pretty! While that is true, we are definitely not in the pretty part of the state, but it does look nice when blanketed with snow. He also told her at one point "this is the best Christmas ever" - and that was before he got any presents!

For Christmas Eve & Christmas Day, it was just the four of us and David's mom. Christmas Eve we went to see Santa. Scarlett wouldn't have anything to do with him until he offered her a stuffed bear. She took that but was holding on tight to her daddy the whole time. No great Santa pictures, even though some of the ones I took with just Matthew & Santa are ok. That night David & I enjoyed playing Santa - wrapping presents and putting the bigger things together so the kids would see them right away. Christmas morning was a lot of fun - Matthew's face lit up when he saw his bicycle (Smart Cycle) and he immediately ran over to it & climbed on. Scarlett loved her princess chair. We left home after lunch Christmas Day to visit with David's dad's family. We spent the night in Tennesee and then drove Friday night to Georgia. That's my favorite place of all. :)

We really had a great time in Georgia - the weather was so warm and Matthew & Scarlett enjoyed playing outside almost every day. I think Matthew has a little farm boy in him - his favorite activity is riding or driving the tractor and he insists on going out in the field.

David & I enjoyed a little time away - we bought tickets to the Peach Bowl, which is a New Year's Eve bowl game, and we booked a hotel room for the night. Ordinarily we would have gone back to mom & dad's, but the game was a 7:30pm game, and it was NYE. We left the kiddos with my parents and went to Atlanta - we somehow were running late and didn't have time to do much before the game. The game sucked, we got our butts kicked, but it was entertaining watching people fly paper airplanes around the dome. Someone threw one from the opposite side of the field that actually made it all the way across the field - that's a minimum of 160 feet, plus the sidelines - that it crossed. Pretty impressive!

We then went to the Peach Drop. I can't believe all the years we lived in Atlanta we never went. We had a lot of fun - the crowds were terrible but people were in party mode and pretty much everyone was nice & fun. There were a couple of obnoxious assholes, but in that size crowd, a couple isn't too bad. After the peach dropped we walked back to the hotel. From our room we could see fireworks going off around the city. I enjoyed sleeping in the next day, because even though I have a super awesome husband who lets me sleep in pretty often, I've been nursing for so long that even sleeping in meant getting up to feed Scarlett and then going back to bed. It was nice to sleep late, but I did wake up around 8am, then realized I could go back to sleep.

I had a really hard time this trip saying goodbye to everyone. I almost lost it Friday night at supper, even though it was just me & David eating, since we were trying to pack when everyone else ate. I just hate being this far away from home, because as much as we've made this home, it will never truly be home.

We got back home Saturday afternoon & it was like christmas all over again for the kids - so many new toys at home that they barely had time to play with. Of course now my house is a wreck since we haven't really unpacked, we just unloaded & dumped stuff everywhere. It can wait, right?