Green Thumb

Master gardener I am not. But I have fond memories of playing in the dirt in the backyard with my dad when I was younger. Fresh cucumbers. Beans. Carrots. Tomatoes. Straight from our back yard. From our hard work. Ok, my dad's hard work. But I'm sure at the time I thought I was helping. It was fun, but I must not have been paying too much attention. Because the last two years I tried to grow a garden have not turned out so fruitful.

But alas, I have decided to try it again. I've sort of been trying (key word) to embrace the slow food, clean eating movements. I'm actually totally excited that I think we're going to start getting meat delivered from a local, organic farmer this summer. Love, love knowing where our meat is coming from. What could be better than looking the farmer who raised your meat in the eye when he hands it over and being able to ask him questions. In theory I totally admire these philosophies by the way. However, so far I have proven not to be organized enough to completely give up fast food, convenience and processed foods. Which is ok with me. Maybe I will get better the more I do it and we can slowly phase "down" the convenience foods. i say down and not out because I don't think I ever want to totally give them up.

We dug up a lot of worms. And Kaelyn freaked out every time she saw one.

Dada had to come along and rescue her by throwing the "wormies" out of the yard.

The plastic shovel isn't good enough for him. He has to Mama's real shovel. Cause he's a big boy. If he's missing a toe the next time you see him you'll know why.

Anyway, however successful the garden is this year it doesn't really matter. It's still a great activity to do with the kids. A little science lesson on how things grow.  A little responsibility lesson on taking care of things. Teaching them where their food comes from. Even if we only get one cucumber out of the whole garden it will be that much more delicious because we grew it. Not to mention it'll be about as fresh as you can get. Although I have to be honest. I think I will be a little disappointed if my basil doesn't grow. That's the one thing that did amazing for me last year and I loved it! I love cooking with basil. Yum! My mouth is watering just thinking of some fresh bruschetta or caprese sandwiches with basil (and hopefully tomatoes) from our back yard.

So far both of the kids have enjoyed helping to get the garden started. Of course they both love watering. Although Bren's water usually ends up mostly down the front of him. Kaelyn loves helping with everything these days and wants to do everything herself. I thought I would let her have one section of the garden all to herself, but in reality she helped plant the whole the garden. She even got really into pulling some weeds from the flower beds last week after we finished in the vegetable garden. And has asked to do it every day since. I love her enthusiasm. If only she could go out there and do it herself. Sorry, sweetie. Mama's tired. And sore. After only half an hour pulling weeds.

I'm holding out hope that we'll actually be able to enjoy some of the fruits of labor this year. But I think we'll have a good time working on it either way. 

First flight

Oh, well hello there stranger. Long time, no blog. I've been a little (who am i kidding, a lot) behind on everything in life lately. I just mailed thank you notes from Bren's birthday that was 6 weeks ago. I'll probably never get caught up but I can at least try. There's a ton I've been wanting to write about but I guess I'll just take it one post at a time and see where I get.

So, first things first. We finally took Brennan on a plane! I'd been avoiding it as long as possible. But in hindsight I'm not sure why. It actually probably would have been easier to travel with him when he was tiny and immobile. Oh, well. Flying with two actually isn't too bad. As long as you have two adults, a lot of snacks, an ipad and a pacifier. Flying with two kids and only one adult is a completely different story, however. Logistically speaking I actually think it's impossible. But for all you cynics out there, thank God for so many nice people who were friendly and offered to help pretty much every step of the way. There are still good people in the world.

So, I guess it was almost two weeks ago already (wow, I'm even more behind than I thought) that we faced our fears and headed out to Virginia for Auntie Care-Care's bridal shower. Now, we actually got the maid-of-honor and other bridesmaids to schedule around Matt's work schedule so he could come out with us, to help with the kids on the plane, while we were there and just to visit one last time in Virginia. Turns out he actually would have had to leave earlier than us for work anyway, but besides that our soon-to-be brother-in-law's bachelor party ended up being scheduled for that weekend as well in Atlantic City. So it worked out that Matt was actually able to fly out with us and then drive up to "the AC" (do people call it that or am I just channeling some Ryan and Marissa?) but he couldn't fly home with us.

 Bren loved running around the airport while we waited to board. And of course everywhere he went his big sister had to go, lest she miss out on something. Getting the car seat on the plane is always an adventure, but unfortunately even though Bren is still considered a lap baby I'm pretty sure he wouldn't sit still on someone's lap for even 5 minutes of the flight. So, we choose to lock him in for the flight. He actually fell asleep for part of the flight so things went pretty well. And Kaelyn was chomping at the bit as soon as we got on the plane to play iPad games. As soon as they announced it was ok to turn on electronic devices she gave Matt a look that said, "Dude, get the iPad out already. What's taking you so long?"

 I was just a little nervous about the flight back by myself. Ok, that's a lie. I was a lot nervous. Not about the actual flight more about getting all of our stuff through the airport, getting through security with two kids, carry-ons and a carseat and mostly actually getting on the plane with the kids and the car seat. I was also a little worried about the seating situation. It's a small plane with only two seats on each side of the aisle so Kaelyn would have to sit across the aisle next to someone we didn't know.

Well, somehow I managed to go into the airport with a good attitude and decided I was just going to try to stay relaxed and not let anything bother me. And everything went pretty smoothly. Security was a little crazy but everyone was pretty friendly and the kids were surprisingly calm and cooperative. And there was someone who offered to help get the carseat on and off the plane. And luckily Kaelyn's seat mate was a very nice aunt-like lady who was not only tolerant of sitting next to a three-year old but was helpful and friendly to her. The biggest problem of the trip was probably that Bren was overtired (he didn't take much of a nap) and he started to cranky and fussy but wouldn't fall asleep. Luckily I was able to keep him somewhat entertained between snacks, turning the reading light on and off and bouncing the armrest on his car seat. I was quite exhausted by the time we got back but we survived! Whew!

And of course we all had fun at the party and a great time visiting all weekend.  But that's another story and I think I'm about caught up as I'm going to get for tonight.

Hippity Hoppity...

... Easter's come and gone.

It was a quiet Easter at home with just the four, I mean five, of us. (You count too, Rudy.) With all the travel coming up we didn't really feel like traveling this weekend too.  So we stayed home and had a low-key, family weekend.

On Friday Kaelyn and I dyed Easter eggs.  I had grand plans of making some natural dyes or doing some actual painting on the eggs this year, but when it came down to it I had two dye kits leftover from last year in the pantry and none of the supplies to do any of the other stuff. So, I phoned it in and did the quintessential dye kits.  Brings back memories from Easter's growing up.  Except neither of our kits had the clear crayon to draw on the eggs with. She did get to paint sparkles on some of the eggs though.

We had trouble finding a leg of lamb for our Easter dinner. We checked what we consider to be the "nicest" grocery store in the area. Not even a lamb chop. So I called another market that has a pretty good meat department and butcher. No lamb. Finally, after searching online, I found an actual lamb farm about 20 miles from here. No bone-in legs left but they did have some with the bone removed.  Matt drove out to pick it up. He'll have to tell you about that experience but I guess it was a little strange because there's no store front or anything, he just had to go into their house to get it.  And get it he did.  This was one large piece of meat. It's two days later and I think we still have about fifty pounds left in our fridge (or five, whatever, it's still a lot). Lamb sandwiches and egg salad all week long for us.

Saturday was pretty quiet but fun.  We did some yard work and the kids helped me get the garden started.  More on the garden in another post.

Sunday consisted of Easter baskets and finding eggs.  Kaelyn was quite funny. Every time she found an egg she'd exclaim in her goofy voice, "What's that doin' dere!?" Bren was still trying to wake up during the hunting and wasn't really sure what was going on. Until he saw the chocolate.  He was so sure about the chocolate I had to pull two pieces out of his mouth with the wrappers still on.  It appears he has gotten his mother's sweet tooth as well.  We went to a nice Easter mass and then just hung out at home and cooked the lamb. And Kaelyn ate a lot of jelly beans.

By the way, how on earth am I going to be ready for the beach in a month with all these jelly beans and chocolate eggs in the house.  What was the Easter Bunny thinking?

Hope you all had a lovely Easter too!

The things we do

Oh, the things we do for our children. (Sorry, baby. This is just too good to pass up.)

And the rewards we get for it...

Snuggliest little boy ever. He stayed that way for probably at least ten minutes.

A foreign body and a tour of Riley

Ok, so it's been a while since I've written. And I have a million valid excuses. But basically I should just be trying harder.  I also need to apologize that my writing's been a little off lately, to put it nicely. I just can't seem to put my thoughts into coherent sentences on "paper" lately. But oh well, we still have stories to tell and I don't want to ignore them, however awful my writing may be.

So, apologies aside, we had ourselves a little adventure at the end of last week. Let me preface this story by assuring you that everyone is fine. The drama all started about two weeks ago with a broken wine glass.  We seem to break a lot of wine glasses around here for some reason. And no, I wasn't drinking at the time. I was cooking or doing dishes or something one afternoon and knocked a clean wine glass off the edge of the counter.  Whoops! Guess I should have put those away first.  So we went to great lengths to keep the kids out of the kitchen while we cleaned up all the glass.  We even made them wear shoes to walk in the kitchen the rest of the day.  So I guess it was the next day or day after, my memory isn't so good and it really doesn't matter when, we were sitting down to dinner when Kaelyn cried out and then sat down on the floor and started crying.  You guessed it. She stepped on some glass that we missed.  And let me tell you, right after it happened I got out the alcohol and tweezers and was all set to do a little surgery and pull some glass out of her foot.  But we couldn't see anything and well, to tell you the truth, my sister and brother must have gotten all the medical genes in our family and I couldn't stand the thought of digging around in her little foot when she's already bleeding and crying. The poor thing. So we cleaned the wound and bandaged her up and after a couple days it didn't seem to bother her at all. I figured if there was anything still in there her body would reject it and start to push it out on it's own.

Fast forward a week and half and suddenly her little "owie" isn't looking so good and she complained that it hurt her.  So now I'm worried that there is still glass in there and it's infected. Part of me thinks it's not a big deal and we just need to try to keep it clean and keep an eye on it. But part of me, the worried, paranoid, overreacting mommy part, starts imagining drastic scenarios where she ends up needing to have her foot amputated because it got too infected. So I call the doctor to be on the safe side, pick her up early from school and head up to the pediatrician's office which is a good forty-five minute drive.  We don't have time for lunch before the appointment so I feed the kids a couple snacks and figure we can stop at McDonald's after for a little treat (healthy, I know).  If only I could have foreseen what our day would turn into.

So the pediatrician (not our regular doctor but one in the same practice) couldn't feel if there was anything in there. But she was at least a little concerned being that there was some stuff oozing from it, it was colorful and it had been close to two weeks since the initial wound. Not wanting to cut her open and dig around if she couldn't feel anything, but also thinking there was a good chance there was something in there trying to push it's way out, she ordered an ultrasound of Kaelyn's foot and the nurse called to schedule one.  We wait to hear when and where to go. At one o'clock we find out we have a 1:30 appointment at Riley, which is downtown.  We are on the west side.  So we go straight there. No lunch. And Bren has only had a fifteen minute nap in the car so far (have a I  mentioned that he won't take a nap for me anymore? Just me.  Fine for Dad. Real fun for mom who's the one home with all day).

We get to the desk to check in about two minutes late.  No biggie.  I'm still hopeful that we can grab a late lunch and get home for Bren to take a nap.

Now let me just say, other than the lady that registered us, everyone was super friendly and nice to the kids.  They really know how to treat their little patients.  Which is a good thing, being they are a children's hospital. One of the best.  I guess I should fess up and say this whole ordeal is probably my fault.  I jinxed us.  Twice in the last couple months I had conversations with people about Riley and both times I said, "I hear they are excellent but I'll be perfectly happy if we never have to step foot in there." Guess I should have knocked on wood. Still, if this is the most serious thing we have to go there for I'll consider us blessed (knocking on wood this time, at least I hope this is real wood).

Her special bracelet. The girl does like to accessorize.

So the ultrasound shows something that looks like it's close to the surface. The doctor definitely thinks there's something in there.  I'm positive it's glass but they just keep calling it a foreign body. Now I know there's a good joke in there somewhere but I'm no comedian and won't attempt to craft a joke. But I will take this time to mention one name.  Colin Farrell. My favorite foreign body. Hmmm...

Oh, what? Sorry about that. What was I saying? Moving right along...

Call to the pediatrician. She wants us to go down to the ER and have them take it out.  Ultrasound tech walks us down to the ER. Fifteen minute wait. Get checked in. Take all her vitals.  Super nice nurses. Kaelyn got to have a princess light on her finger. It glowed red. Very cool. We're led back to a room. Another nice nurse. Take vitals again. Another glowing princess finger.

So I guess it's like 2:30 now. Kids are doing great so far, all things considered.  Kaelyn is being super brave and by this time she says her foot is better. It doesn't hurt any more. Bren's a little squirmy, but who can blame him.  I have more snacks in my purse but there are signs everywhere that say "No Food or Drink." I figure water in a sippy cup is ok though.

We wait a little longer. Two residents come in.  They are very nice to Kaelyn. Look at her foot but they're not sure what to do and have to check with their boss.

Waiting, waiting, waiting.

Orthopedic NP comes in. Not overly friendly, but nice enough.  Looks at Kaelyn's foot.  Tells me the Orthopedic surgeon is in with a pretty bad accident and is very busy. She's going to go check what the surgeon wants to do.

A surgeon?! Is that really necessary? I guess I'm not the only one hesitant to dig in her foot for a little piece of glass.

More waiting.  By this time Brennan is beyond exhausted and just wants to keep running out in the hall. Which I feel bad about, being that there are true emergencies going on all around us. We have a little wrestling match. He almost falls asleep in my arms. Then he gets a second wind.  Less crying but he still wants to go in the hall and "peek" Kaelyn through the glass door.

NP comes back with the ER attending.  Look at her foot again.  Attending is super sweet and nice to Kaelyn.  Surgeon is too busy.  They'll schedule us to see her Monday up at the North side office and prescribe her an antibiotic to make sure there's no infection. "Oh, and try to keep her off her foot as much as possible over the weekend."
"Oh, yeah, sure.  Piece of cake with a three-year old.  I'll get right on that." 
"And let's get an x-ray before you leave."
"Perfect! We just finished paying for Brennan's delivery. Like literally today. We need more hospital bills to pay."  Ok, I know they are just doing their job and it's good that they're being cautious and thorough. I'm just feeling a little snarly since I haven't eaten and I have a crying one-year old running around the ER halls.

Waiting, waiting, waiting again. Kaelyn's hungry. I'm sure Bren is too. I sure am.  I'm not one to skip meals very often. Like ever. Kaelyn keeps reminding me that it's taking a long time.  Orderly finally shows up to take us over for an x-ray, which is right back where we started for the ultrasound.  Super nice tech. Kaelyn was especially brave since I couldn't stay in the room with her. And then back to the ER to be discharged.

Whew! I feel like I ran a marathon. I can only imagine how the kids feel. Finally back to the car at five o'clock. Now some of you might not think this is very long for a hospital visit.  But I am not used to this and when I left the house was totally expecting to walk back through the door within two hours.

Now while all this was going on my amazing husband went home early to get dinner ready so I wouldn't have to deal with it when we got back. He wasn't going to be home because he had to run a rules clinic that night but he had everything ready for us. Unfortunately Kaelyn didn't forget that I had promised her chicken nuggets and pink shake for lunch. Her first tears of the day. So I resign to getting McDonald's and saving Matt's dinner for the weekend.  Thank you though, honey, it was super thoughtful of you.

Not surprisingly the kids fall asleep in the car.  Didn't even wake up in the drive through.  Didn't wake up when I stopped at CVS to fill the prescription and was shaking them.  CVS is another little story, but I'll spare you the details.

Foot soaking. Water was involved so Bren had to get in on the action.

So, to make a long story even longer... it's impossible to make a three-year old rest her foot for very long, especially when the whether is even a little nice.  I even try getting her to watch a movie but she only wanted to watch an episode of "Little Einsteins," her new favorite show.  We soak her foot several times over the next three days while she watched her shows, and I keep trying to remind her to rest it.  Finally, Sunday morning, after soaking her foot during the entire movie "Up" Matt can see the glass sticking out a little. Sure enough, there it is.  I run and get the alcohol and the tweezers.  I squeeze Kaelyn's hand while Matt pulls. And pulls. And pulls! Ok, I may be exaggerating a little but this thing is quite a bit bigger than I was expecting based on the fact that none of the doctors could actually feel it in there. Dr. Dad to the rescue! We had another five minutes of drama when I dropped the glass in the carpet while trying to take a picture of it. We were frantically combing through the carpets. Hmm, when was the last time I vacuumed?  Dad to the rescue again! Phew! That was a close one.

The intruder. I would have been much happier to find Colin Farrell.

The patient. She only looks like she's scared and in pain. She was fine. That's just how she looks when she tries to smile.

So... in conclusion... drum roll please! The surgeon still wants to see her next week. But hopefully this will be a shorter and less expensive visit than it would have been to have her take the glass out. And apparently Matt missed his calling as a surgeon.