8/8 - Getting adjusted

This first picture is a couple weeks old. The last week we were in Alabama a little girl in Eli's class at daycare got Fifths Disease. I had never even heard of it but did some research and kept my eye open to see if he would get it. We made it past a week or two and figured we were safe. Haha. Not so fast. As a nice kick in the seat pants from the boys' daycare, Eli got it about 3-3.5 weeks after we left AL. He got these little red bumps all over his arms and some on his legs. His cheeks also got crazy pink. In fact, the disease also has a nickname of slap-on-face or something like it because one of the key characteristics is that it looks like somebody slapped him on the cheeks. By the time someone with the disease shows symptoms (especially the rash), it is no longer contagious. He had a very mild fever for 2-3 days before the rash came and I thought perhaps it was an ear infection because his one ear has been bothering him alot. I took him to his primary care to get a physical so he could attend daycare and the dr confirmed the Fifths disease and no ear infection. The last picture in the bottom right cracks me up. I went to go check on Eli before I went to bed and he fell asleep holding his toy water gun. 

We got back from our family vacation on a Saturday late afternoon and then Brad took off 1.5 days later on Monday morning. Here is a picture of Aiden helping Brad tie his motorcycle down in the back of the truck. Aiden was so scared Brad was going to leave without saying good-bye. Once Brad got his bike in the back of his truck (he put his back wheels in the gutter in front of our driveway), he got in it to move it back into the driveway and Aiden flipped out and almost started to cry because daddy was leaving. I had to quickly let him know that daddy was just moving the truck. It's safe to say Aiden is finally at the stage where he really does understand what happens when daddy leaves. Eli clearly does not yet. He didn't even really say bye to Brad because he was getting distracted with a toy. Eli tells me everyday how much he misses daddy and he also asks everyday if daddy is coming tomorrow or soon. Eli has a horrible understanding of time so that doesn't make things any easier. 

The day after daddy left, the boys had a dentist appt. It's been a little too long since they have visited the dentist. The pediatric dentist the boys go to is awesome. Eli went first and he did NOT do such a great job. He started crying a few times but eventually got control of himself. He was super glad when he was done and I never got to take a picture because I was too busy trying to calm him. As for Aiden, they did x-rays and he needed some extra assistance so the assistant helped him while I pushed the x-ray button. Fun! I was shocked she was able to get Aiden to take x-rays. He thought it was way too bright in the chair and they didn't even have the light turned on. He put his sunglasses on and was good to go. He was uncomfortable during the cleaning but totally rocked the cleaning in my book. I thought for sure he was going to gag and almost throw up and be crying and none of that happened. The picture below of Eli cracks me up because you can see a little tear in his eye still from crying. He was smiling in the picture because he was opening his goodie bag and was super excited about his new Diego toothbrush. He thought the dental floss was really fun to pull but has no desire to put it in his mouth at all.

This picture of Aiden cracks me up because he was so excited to make this dinosaur and cut it out and yet his facial expression does not portray that. 

The other day we had fruit kabobs (thanks to mrs. Rusty introducing us to them) at breakfast. I'm getting them used to these so I can rock their world soon and add different kinds of meat!! mwah hahah

I just love that Aiden could sit and listen to someone read his Bible to him all day long. He loves it.

Little Eli ... man does he give me a run for my money. Good thing he is so cute. I don't remember what we were doing put I can only assume that the only reason he has a shirt in his hand is because it's a requirement in our house in order to get food (and Eli loves himself some food). I must say though. For someone who loves food as much as he does, he does not like flavored drinks. It baffles me but I'm okay with it since most drinks that kids (and adults) have are full of sugar anyway. He likes almond milk and water. And special water (water with a little Mio flavoring). He also cannot stand smoothies of any kind. We make green smoothies on a daily or at least every other day basis and he is required to have a sip at least twice a week but he doesn't like them. Even non-green smoothies which have fruit only. He doesn't like those either. Unfortunately, getting him to take any kind of liquid medicine is a nightmare because he doesn't like the taste of anything.

Last week Aiden and I had a knock down drag out fight in the shower. He cried and screamed the ENTIRE TIME. I tried calming him down, giving him options, etc and nothing was going to work. He just (as he put it) "didn't want to get wet." I was going to have them shower together in our massive shower in the master bedroom but made Aiden eventually go to his bedroom because he was crying so much even though he hadn't even gotten in the shower yet. Eli had a blast in his shower and does such a great job. I guess God gave me one child who loves to bath and clean himself with soap because I have another who despises it so much.

In case you were not sure who this is, it's super hero Eli. I can't imagine those jammies actually stayed on during the night but I officially have proof that he does have jammies that fit him; he just usually chooses to not where them. 

On Saturday I took both boys to the pool in the morning. It was fun. Aiden tried to make it miserable by saying he "changed his mind" and wanted to eat his snack at the pool rather than in the van on the way to the pool. He was so upset when I said there was nothing I could do about it this time. He was crying and said he wanted to go back home. I inappropriately asked him if he wanted me to make him throw his bagel back up so he could then re-eat it at the pool. I told him we were not leaving and he could sit and cry in the chair  if he didn't want to come and have fun with Eli and I (see picture of him in chair). I called Eli over to take a picture before I put my phone away and I saw Aiden look at us. I asked if he wanted to be in the picture and he jumped up and came over and put his arms around us. He had a smile on his face for the rest of the pool time.

Eli loves animals. It's unfortunate he thinks they want to play with him and they are perhaps toy to be played with. Here he is with Pouncer after he put his blanket on him and was petting Pouncy on the head.

On Saturday afternoon, Aiden started to get the sniffles a little. I put him to bed at his normal time and then he was up 2 times a coughed a few times and then went back to sleep. About 45 min after he originally went to bed, he was suddenly up and somewhat barking like a seal. He couldn't catch his breathe. It was freaking me out because it wasn't the same thing as when he had croup when he was younger but you could tell he was not able to breathe very well. I ran and got the nebulizer and started to give him a breathing treatment but he hasn't needed one in so long that he freaked out with the noise of the machine and the "smell and taste" of the medicine (according to Aiden). I stopped it and just have him his inhaler. I searched frantically for my stethoscope which hadn't been unpacked yet. I have no idea how parents who don't have a stethoscope and know how to use it survive. Yes I realize that is the majority of the population but I felt like I was flying blind. By the grace of God, I found mine and was able to listen to him. His lungs didn't sound as bad as his cough did so I tried to calm him down (thank you DVR and Handy Manny). I got his breathing under control but it was still labored and I was still feeling borderline about taking him to the ER. I propped him up on the couch and slept near him all night. I had to readjust him a few times because his breathing would get all crazy but we made it through the night. I was so glad my mom was here because it brought peace of mind knowing that I could take him to the ER if needed and Eli would still be okay. We stayed home all day sunday with Aiden. He was breathing better but had a yucky cough. 

Of course the law of life when your hubby is away dictates that both kids will get urgently sick within the first week of being gone so Eli followed suite the next night with the same thing. He was fine and then BOOM, severe coughing bouts. Eli is a little more dramatic but he also has reactive airway disease so I guess he thinks he has the right to be more dramatic. Haha. In order to allow everyone the ability to sleep on Sunday, I eventually brought Eli in to my room and propped him up and he was able to sleep for a little bit (as was I). He felt pretty yucky on Monday but thankfully Aiden was getting better. Eli's sleep has been off for the past few weeks and I'm not sure what is going on. He didn't fall asleep until 1 hr and 50 min into his nap time and I didn't let him very long because I'm trying to get him back on a schedule. That said, the child was complete mush in my arms and didn't want to wake up on Monday. Monday and Tuesday night I (and Eli) didn't get much sleep but hopefully we have his cough under control now and things will start to improve.

We stayed home for a few days so that we wouldn't get anyone sick and we were starting go a little crazy. We got out the store bought play-doh one day and realized it was too hard so we decided to make some new stuff. I love making our own play-doh. It's so easy and pretty quick. It would be such a great sensory experience for the boys to play with it while it's still warm and cooling put .... I don't think that will ever happen. We played with play-doh and put toothpicks in them. Here is the lego man lifting his barbell of play-doh.

This picture to the right makes me smile. Eli is trying to put sunglasses on Pouncer and he's got this devilish smile on his face. I'm starting to see more and more of that crazy devilish smile but he's just too cute.

3/22 - Playground and Brush Buddies

We came back from Atlanta and enjoyed just hanging out and lounging in the backyard one night. Below is a picture of daddy and Eli in the hammock and Aiden crawling up top.

I just love this picture below of Brad and Eli. Daddy is giving Eli is a kiss and Eli is as happy as can be in his daddy's loving arms. Love it!!

I even got a chance to get in the hammock and get a little snuggle time with my boys.  It was starting to get chilly so it was easy to get them up there with me.

Of course we couldn't get through the week without someone getting sick. Eli probably had the flu. Now that Aiden has had it twice and Eli has had it at least once, we are becoming experts. Eli did get a really high fever and I tried to take him to the ER but we sat there for 2 hours and had not even been triaged yet so I left. We knew what to do but were hoping to get him some tamiflu. I got him home and and to bed and we just let him have the next few days to heal.

Eli had to take a trip to Target with me one day and I tried putting bunny ears on him but he wasn't quite in the mood for that. I still think he looks cute. :)

Eli really missed having his friends and Aiden to play with during the day while he was sick.

After having the thermometer used so much on him, Eli said he was going to see if daddy was sick. Eli really does pick up on the things we say and do. He would tell Brad that he was sick and needed to stay and bed and drink lots of water. 

On Saturday morning, Brad decided to take the boys out so I could get my mid-term grades submitted. He took them to the commissary and exchange and they had fun. Aiden decided he doesn't like the new drink cups because "they make him use too many finger muscles." Brad and I started laughing and I said Mrs. Rusty (his OT therapist) would be so excited to hear that. We love these cups because they truly do not leak at all AND there are no dumb valves to clean or anything.

Saturday afternoon we played around the house but it was so nice out that the little boys and I decided to go to the playground at the elementary school down the street from us. We walked over there and played for a little over an hour. Here is Aiden on the top of the climbing dome thing.

Eli enjoyed riding on the 4-way teeter totter.

Here they are both climbing the dinosaur rock wall. Aiden (on he right) is doing the hard side and made it all the way up. Eli (on the left) had just decided he didn't want to do it by himself and started climbing down.

Eli and I had a battle of the wills the other morning. To make a long story short, he didn't get his way. It was a really tough morning for both of us. He has to learn that there are consequences to his decisions and crying will not reward him for the things that he wants. We just pulled in to daycare when I took this picture. He has no shirt on ... or socks ... or shoes. It was pretty chilly out too. Needless to day, once he got to his classroom he calmed down and put his shirt on and socks. He then had to eat breakfast at daycare for the first time because he chose not to eat at home. He settled down and started using his words and his world became much better. I must say, it would have been so much easier to give in and just let him get what he wanted (eat breakfast in his pajamas) but thought would have taught him that when he cries, he gets what he wants. No Buena.

Aiden had therapy on Tuesday. He got to practice hitting a ball while on a scooter board, catching and throwing bean bags while on a trampoline, and climbing up a rope into the spandex swing and then having to put on his socks once he was in the swing. The person that sees Mrs. Rusty after Aiden was going to do feeding therapy so Aiden asked, "when do I do feeding therapy again?" I said we could do it anytime and asked if next week was ok. He said, "no, I like playing better than eating." Haha.

There is this bridge on our way to therapy that Aiden has always wanted to stop at and walk on (it's a pedestrian walkway) and we stopped after therapy on Tuesday. He was so excited and had a blast just walking around. I felt like one of the semi-trucks was going to whack into the bridge but Aiden was not nervous at all. 

He said he wanted to bring Eli back with us and go on the bridge again. what a sweet heart this little boy has.

After therapy we came home for rest time. After an hour of no sleeping for Aiden, I let him up and he helped me paint a paper towel roll. I'm not sure what exactly we are going to do with it but it worked out perfected to paint on the paper towel holder in the cabinet.

So I apologize if the post below is gross. I've even made the picture smaller so it's not too gross. Below is a series of pictures from Aiden's arm. You can actually see it in the picture above (it's his right forearm). We took him to the dr on Monday and they are not sure if it's a brown recluse spider bite or this weird childhood rash/skin thing. It started off as a tiny little mark like he was bitten by a mosquito or something and then started growing. I meant to take a picture of it today because even though it has grown in size (it's about a quarter-size now versus starting off about a dime-size), it is actually looking better.

Yesterday the boys got a special treat - it was Brush Buddies day at daycare. It happens once a month and costs $12-15. They did it a few months ago for Christmas but they have been doing Big Green Bus rather than painting. They both asked to paint this month so Brad and I let them. Eli was in the 2nd group of kids. This poor child isn't sure if he's a righty or lefty but primarily used his left hand to paint on this day. He holds the brush all funny but he gets the job done. He was having a blast. He did a great job of following instructions. 

Aiden went in the third group. I wasn't planning on staying at daycare this long but both boys wanted me to see them paint and take some pictures. Aiden did a very good job as well. He used the correct grip only about 50% of the time but managed to do a pretty good job of staying within the boundaries of the cross. I was asked to take Aiden's group downstairs to the nap room after they were done. I didn't realize how long it would take all of them to go potty and wash their hands. Actually, going potty was pretty fast but for some reason, they only have one stool for the kids to use in the bathroom to wash their hands to when you have multiple potties but only one stool, there is going to be a long wait to wash hands or some nasty kids with dirty hands. I'm not sure why they don't bring in another stool because I think that would significantly speed things up. Either way, they all went potty and made it down to the nap room. 

The boys had fun this week at daycare. Next week will be a short week because they only go to daycare on Monday and Tuesday and then we head to TN to go to Chattanooga. Fun times.

2/13 - While Nana was here; Eli sick

We had 1-2 days of both boys feeling pretty well. The boys had so much fun with Nana while she was here. Eli is getting pretty good at playing catch. Here he is with Nana and you can see how excited he was about catching the ball. You can see Aiden in the background. He wanted to shovel dirt into the driveway entrance so that the rain wouldn't get on the road (there was lots of rain in the forecast).

The boys asked to play with play-doh while Nana was here. I got the stuff out and they had lots of fun with Nana. She is very creative and she built them baskets and then they put little balls of play-doh in them.

I thought we escaped with just Aiden being sick. Nope. Exactly a week later, Eli came home with a fever from daycare at noon. You could tell he really was not feeling well. His face got all flushed from his fever and his nose started running a ton.

It was just after nap time when I went to daycare and Aiden wanted to come home too. Here he is playing on my phone while Eli was laying around not feeling well.

Eli just wanted to cuddle for the rest of the day. Thankfully Nana was here and could give him the attention he wanted :)

While the boys were lounging around during the afternoon, I got a text from Brad that said he was about to fly over the house. He has gotten his private pilot rating and has been flying about once a month or so. We all ran outside (well, I carried Eli), and got to wave to him. He even made the wings of the plane flap so it looked like he was waving to us. Here is Brad flying over our house. He had a great time flying and took a friend with him which made it even more fun.

I took Eli to the doctor on Thursday just to get him checked out. He didn't have a really high temperature like Aiden did with flu Type B but I couldn't be sure it wasn't the flu without a test. Also, he had said a few times that his ears hurt and I didn't even know if his tubes were still in so it was possible he had an ear infection. To make matters worse, there was another boy in Eli's class that was just diagnosed with strep throat. There were too many unknowns so I needed to take him in. They swapped his throat for strep and his nose for the flu. We went home and waited for the tests to be done and the results phoned in. Amazingly, he didn't have strep or the flu!! Praise the Lord!! Both of his tubes are still in but the right one is facing upwards somehow and she said it's probably causing him discomfort. The left one is in and looks fine. It was just a cold. He "rested" on Thursday with me at home. In the afternoon, we got Aiden and the boys had lots of fun opening a package from Ms. Jen, our neighbor in Jacksonville. Eli was starting to feel a little better and decided to try and balance his new Mr. Potatoe Head cup on his head.

Eli said he was feeling pretty good on Thursday night so we all went out to dinner at a new pizza place that is in downtown Prattville. We had a good time and the food was yummy.

This is a really cute picture of the boys and Nana below. Aiden wanted to make sure his lizard was in the picture and Eli was starting to feel much better and was being goofy.

They boys played for a bit once we got home. Aiden has discovered that he can take his new ball that Mrs. Jen sent him and bounce it against the brick column by the front door and it will come back to him ... assuming he hits he column. Otherwise, it goes into the toy room. :)

Both boys went to daycare on Friday. We did lots of yard work during the day. Nana and I picked up the boys early on Friday and took them to the YMCA to play. They had fun and enjoyed getting to show Nana where they like to play at. I think they had more fun with the containers that hold the shoes than they did with the actual play structure this time.

Nana let the boys open a little present she gave them for Valentine's day. It was a painting book. Actually, 2 books. One has a strip of paint at the top of the page for each page so you don't need anything else besides a paint brush and water (in theory; the paint doesn't really show up though). The other is a water color paint book. They had fun playing in those. I got out the bingo markers for them to use to paint with and they then decided to put a mark on their finger and then run to the bathroom to wash it off. I'll let Aiden put ink on himself all day long. He did it about 2 times and then realized he doesn't like washing his hands so he went to another activity. Eli put ink on himself and washed his hands for a good 40 minutes. I'm not kidding. It was too funny.

The boys stayed in their jammies almost all day on Saturday. Nana left on Saturday so we were just enjoying our last bit of time with her.

Here are Aiden and Nana being goofy with a pvc pipe that was leftover from our tent (I'll blog about that in the next day or so). It's so amazing what will entertain kids!

Eli was really sad that Bronco was going with Nana. He was sad Nana was leaving too but this little boy is quite fond of animals. Here he is petting Bronco and then giving him kisses with Aiden.

The look on Bronco's face cracks me up. He is like, "hey boys, stop kissing me and just leave me alone. I'm not allowed to give you kisses so you can't give me kisses."

The boys both decided they want to start taking pictures with my camera. The one of my mom and I was taken by Aiden.

Here is one taken by Eli. Eli cracks me up because he tells you what kind of face to make before he takes the picture and then he shows you. I need to take a video of it.

We had a great 2 weeks with Nana. Both boys were sick and I was so so so scared Nana was going to get sick. God is great though and kept her protected and healthy. Brad safely drove her to Georgia and then my dad got her back to St. Pete. I am behind in blogging because 1) I've still been pretty darn tired and 2) I've spent the little energy and free time I have had obsessing about a tent project.