Down for the count

I have good news. I am finally feeling human again and I have a while pile of cute videos and stories if I can get time to sit with my thought for a few moments. So, check back!

Wednesday I had a little headache that hung around all day. I went to bed early and woke up shivering at 3am. I felt terrible. John took my temperature several times throughout the night and it was always solidly above 102.

In summary:
Thursday: called in sick to work, first time in three years! Swabbed for flu at dr visit, came back negative. Slept the rest of the day.
Friday: misery, still high fever, thought I was getting better. Slept most of the day.
Saturday: the mild sore throat is now a raging one and it hurts to swallow. Urgent care visit strep test is positive. Which means I miss William's birthday party with his friends. I'm pretty sad about that one, although I'm not sure he even noticed I wasn't there.
Sunday: finally human again!

Overall, John missed 2 days of work to take care of us. Thank you just isn't quite right...I dropped every single thing in his lap with no notice. He kept all the important things going and took care of me and the kids. Tonight I was almost shocked to realize I hadn't changed a diaper since Wednesday. That is almost 4 days. I think it has been 6 years since that last happened....

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Tooth #5

Gemma got tooth #5 on Wednesday (Jan 30).

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T. rex

He isn't so scary with underwear on his head, is he?

Cute baby!

Yes, we need to fix that cabinet!

 Our big boy is 6 today!  He (barely) consented to let me take some pictures of him this morning to celebrate.  We had a fun day filled with William kinds of things: we spent the morning at the Science Museum checking out their dinosaur exhibit with our favorite dino guy, Jeff.  We ate pizza for lunch, opened presents, played games (battleship and guess who?), we read books, ate dinner at the restaurant of his choice (Panera), and had cake and ice cream at home.  It was a good day.  Even with a crabby start.

William is super into dinosaurs right now and is just so interested in learning more about them.  I wasn't super excited when he was in to Thomas the train, but I'm not sure I'm liking this any better.  In my opinion, there aren't very many dinosaur encyclopedias that make very good bedtime reading - which is William's number one choice right now.  He is also interested in just about everything else for roughly 7 seconds.  If you can't make it exciting in the first few moments, then he is Done.  Game over.

In other staggering news, I had William put on a size 7 pair of jeans this morning...and they fit.  I about fell over. (William does NOT try on clothes.  He will wear what ever I ask him to most days, but he will not change clothes multiple times to see what fits or to humor his mother.  Even if he looks ridiculous.  Which, is why more than once I have sent him off to school with some very short looking pants in the last month or so.)

So, he appearently fits into size 6/7 in clothes and is getting all big and grown up.

William has weathered a lot of change this last year.  He gained a baby sister, started kindergarten, rides the bus to school, switch the room he sleeps in, lost a tooth, among other smaller changes.  I am always impressed how he just rolls with the changes and takes it all in stride.  I work hard to keep my worries and anxiety to myself and he just continues to make it all look so....easy.  I will say it isn't always perfect, but overall, William is a very flexible kiddo.

Kindergarten continues to go well.  From all reports, William is a social butterfly who knows and plays with everyone.  He enjoys seeing his new friends every day although I suspect he is somewhat bored by the curriculum at times.  His teacher and I have been together off and on to continue to challenge him appropriately.  It's a work in progress!

Oh.  And John wanted me to add that William requested a vanilla cake with vanilla frosting and vanilla ice cream.  Boring.  I considered it.  Really.  Then I found a recipe for chocolate, chocolate chip cake with powdered sugar topping.  Sorry buddy.  Your mama has a chocolate problem.  He rolled with it and I totally plan on getting him his vanilla-ey request for his small friends birthday party next weekend.  I promise.

Babble On

This last week Gemma has found her voice and put it to very good use. She is babbling a steady stream or vowels and a few consonant sounds. It is adorable. And loud. We may never have a moment of peace in this house again.

Today:

Gemma: aaaaaaaaaahhh....(raspberry sounds)
Amelia: mom! Mom! Gemma spitted on me! She needs a time out!*

*no time out is given

-----little later
Gemma: aaaaaaaaa.....gaaAaaaaaa.....dadadaaaaaa

Mama: (uh oh) no! Gemma! Say mamamama! Say mamamama! Not dadadaaaaaa!

Gemma: (giggle). Dadadaaaaaa!

Naughty baby.


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5 for a little bit more

William celebrated his birthday at school today with his classmates. Lucky for him, it was also a school holiday- the 100th day of school. So, the day was full of special activities based on the number 100. I was fully anticipating the dreaded "bring 100 of something to school for sharing" assignment and had prepped with several options (Cheerios, pennies, milk lids, stickers). And alas, my time was wasted as no such assignment ever materialized. Tomorrow we have some Plans to do Fun things with our boy. Hopefully, he will agree because at dinner tonight, he informed us that the birthday boy gets to decide EVERYTHING on their birthday.

"Everything, mom. Really!"

This mama is not buying, but nice try kiddo. He will be able to pick his clothes, the meal tomorrow evening (from several choices) and a few other things. He will not, sadly, be able to drive the car as he is planning. We're so mean.