Things for which I am thankful this November . . .

1. That our pediatrician has regular weekend hours so we could get Bam into the doctor the morning after his birthday eardrum bursting extravaganza.
2. That my plantar fasciitis (6 years' worth) was totally gone before I (probably) broke my toe so that going barefoot to mitigate toe pain hasn't killed my feet.
3. That my washer was in perfect working order when the school called to tell me of CW's vomitous/diarrheal state so that I could put his awful clothes directly into the washing machine upon returning home. Then I could finish making M's birthday cake.
4. That I was current on laundry when M began vomiting so I could remake her bed in the middle of the night with little creativity. (although I did need to get creative about "bathing" all the friends--Elmo, Abby, Zoey, Foofah--in her bed).

But even better is watching Miss M dance and sing all morning long (the day after her day of vomiting and diarrhea) because her body is rid of its toxins and she is happy again. Also high on my list of happy things is the fact that DH is not going into the office for the rest of the week, after months and months (and month) of rarely if ever being home. Life is good; life is crazy and tomorrow we're going to eat our fill of comfort food and enjoy the companionship of loved ones. Really, what could be better than this?

I think I love Two

M is quite a kid. She is at that precocious nearly verbal stage. She calls her siblings (in age order): Sissy, Yackie, Ella, and Papul. The other day, Bam was growling (because really, why shouldn't you growl when you're 4 and a boy) when M woke up from her nap. She was waiting for me when I opened the door and asked me "What Papul saying? What Papul saying?" When I told her he was growling, she spent the next several minutes (and even hours later for her father's benefit) saying "Papul say rowr."

She loves to dance, especially to the Do-re-mi number from The Sound of Music. She loves Sesame Street and sleeps with Elmo and Zoey dolls. (except she calls the Zoey doll "shoey"--took us a while to figure that out). She is ALL girl: she loves shoes, purses and prancing about with them. And she prefers dresses to wearing almost anything else. Really, I think this being two thing is lovely.

For whatever reason, for two year old birthdays in our family, I always make chocolate chip cake. I think, originally, it was my attempt to slowly introduce them to the world of heavy sugar and chocolate. M sniffed out the Halloween candy remnants on her own this year and could often be found dragging a chair to the hiding place for some "canny," so really there is no delusion that she hasn't had plenty of chocolate and sugar already. But a tradition is a tradition. I think, really, by this point in my family the chocolate chip cake is because the birthday child is still too young to successfully articulate a cake theme of his/her own.

M got into her cake just a bit (she's already quite a climber), so I had to make the drizzly glaze extra stiff to cover up the finger holes. What I didn't expect though was for M to be terrified by the lit candles:




Gratefully, big sister CE was able to calm her a bit.



And so now we have a two year old (although, when asked she says she's three). And on we go.

Bam turns 4

Bam turned 4 on Friday. I'm not sure exactly how this is possible. The years are becoming more and more of a blur. Is this because I am too busy, or just getting old? Perhaps both.

Bam is the sweetest of boys. He is tender hearted and cuddly. But he knows his own mind. This means that he ALWAYS knows what he wants/needs and can very rarely be dissuaded. This is particularly a problem when he can't actually articulate what he wants. We're working on that.

Since this has unwittingly become the year of no friend birthdays, we just kind of glossed over that part of the celebration and went straight to planning cakes. Bam said he wanted a Billy Blazes cake. For those who have no boys or are otherwise uninitiated into the world of the unfortunately discontinued toy line (no, we haven't told Bam they are discontinued) "Rescue Heroes": Billy Blazes is a firefighter. So, I found a fire engine cake online and constructed my best approximation.



Everything was going well. DH was picking up pizza for the birthday dinner (a compromise from the originally chosen Happy Meals), the cake was ready and local relatives were coming for presents and cake. Then Bam began to cry that CE had hurt his ear. He was crying genuine tears of pain, but CE swore she had not touched his ear. He cowboyed up a bit once the pizza arrived, so I blew off the prior calls of trauma. Pizza was the best $5 can buy (Lil Caesar's, his favorite); family came, presents were opened and then it was time to blow out candles and cut into the fire engine cake. Bam stood up next to the cake, blew out his candles and said he didn't want cake and could he go to bed now. Really he did.



So, while helping him change into jammies, I asked him if his ear hurt (YES!), gave him Motrin and we cuddled him to bed. An hour later when we were quietly bringing up the rest of the hooligans, Bam was up and playing. I chalked it up to powerful drugs and we moved toward bed time. The next morning, the boy was whiny and said his ear hurt, so DH took him to the doctor and it seems our lovely birthday boy burst his eardrum for his special day! Antibiotics were applied and we moved on.

Or so we thought.

Grandpa T came to play with us for the weekend (which was lovely and we are so glad he came and hope he will come again soon, even though he spent longer in the airport trying to leave than he was actually at our house due to unfortunate community events like the PRC championship and a NHRA race, in addition to the usual conventions in this strange town) and we had tons of fun playing with him.

Sunday morning, I gave Bam his second dose of the amoxicilin and we went to church. Half way through the sacrament service, I began to notice spots on Bam. The spots multiplied and spread all over his body. So, on the way home from church, I called the pediatrician and he agreed that spots were bad and he issued a new prescription and directed me to give Benadryl until the spots abated.

What a birthday for Bam! But true to his sweet nature, he is happy. He is playing with his new toys. His new medicine is not itchy (a big plus) and even tasty and life moves on. Never a dull moment eh?

Low key Halloween goodness

These are my kiddos and their alter-egos for the season. It's not a fabulous picture, but it's what I was able to take. We are not serious Halloween people. We enjoy a good trunk or treat with our ward congregation and some limited trick or treating on the actual day (assuming it's not a Sunday) of Halloween. We don't decorate our house--I didn't even manage to get out my few token "Harvest" pumpkins this year. My nod to "decorating" my car for the trunk or treat was some "enter if you dare" tape and some gel pumpkins for the car windows which promptly fell down. I'm not creative and my sewing skills are not equally matched with my time to spare and my patience, so I find the best deals I can on the characters my children will most likely want to dress up as during the year and consider the money spent an investment in a fully stocked dress up bin.

Each year we try to balance our candy purchasing with our candy gathering so that we don't end up with too much excess. This year we almost got it perfectly matched. We were able to completely distribute all candy we had purchased AND all candy gathered from the trunk or treat during the actual Halloween evening AND we were able to distribute all M's Halloween evening gatherings as well. We let the kids chow down on the remainder for a few controlled pig out sessions and that got our harvest down to something manageable we could stash for emergencies (emergencies being when the piano teacher gives out treats to the 2 piano players and they don't want to share with the 3 pre-piano players or when I need to self-medicate with chocolate to avoid more extreme measures).

Add to this success the fact that the weather was neither too hot nor too cold for my children's choice of imaginative attire and it was the perfect Zen of holidays for us. Funny what passes for success these days, eh?