Jen's Blot

Off to Conference!

Mon, 13 Jul 2009 22:02:58 -0500

The main thing on my mind these days is Pampered Chef National Conference. I fly out to Chicago on Wednesday - leaving Steve to tend the three kiddies on his own until Saturday night. Conference is just amazing. When I went in '04 I came back so very motivated to move mountains! I came back having learned things that apply to my day job as well as to my own business.

I love working with The Pampered Chef. I do well when I get out and do shows for people. I love the products, and I love interacting around FOOD :-). But I'm not so very good at following up and getting the shows on my calendar. I'm working on that. It's easy for me to point to things (I have three kids, I work FT, etc) that interfere with this part of my business, but the fact is that it's just something I'm not very good at. Knowing that, I can take steps to correct it :-) but I need to choose to do so.

At any rate, just one more regular work day stands between me and that airplane. I'm a teensy bit excited!

... in other news...

Nothing yet from Ry's sleep study - but I really don't expect anything before the end of this week at the earliest.

Holly has done a phenominal job with potty training. Really, we put undies on her and she was there. She had an accident or two that first week - but she was all about the potty. She still is! She loves the potty. She sits on it and sings "Holly loves the potty, so do you!" Actually, she's singing about most things she does this day. "This is my friend kitty, I love my friend kitty" " I am in your room. I am in your room" and so on. Life is a song, and she is going to sing it!

Kyle is loving having our pool up - even though there hasn't been much sun to warm up the water. The last two or three days have been nice and we keep kicking them outside to enjoy it. Tomorrow the boys are going to a waterslide park for the day with their summer camp. This is one of their favorite field trips. Maybe Kyle will remember to ask about the towel he left there 2 weeks ago!!

It's a busy summer - the way we like it. Next week the boys will be at Cub Scout camp for each of the 5 days. The week ends with a family bbq on Friday. Fun! And in August the boys and I will be going to a Spinners (baseball) game - then camping in the outfield for the night with pancakes for breakfast...

Hope you're enjoying your summer as well!

Sleepless

Wed, 8 Jul 2009 14:06:20 -0500

Over the course of the last school year Ryan complained about being tired - a lot. We chalked it up to him finding a complaint that gets results. If he's really, really tired he can go lie down in the nurses office. But it persisted. So in addition to talking about the other behavior stuff with Ry when we visited his Doc in March, we mentioned his 'not sleeping' complaint. He claimed he wasn't sleeping at night. Other than chatting with Kyle for a while before drifting off, and continually getting out of bed earlier than I'd like, I wasn't seeing it. And so, didn't really believe him. But I took his plight seriously enough to chat with the doc. She was immediately concerned - she saw a link between nighttime and daytime (this is why she gets large chunks of our money and holds a medical degree - let me test my software thank you very much). She gave us some pointers on changing up our bedtime routine - and that if that didn't do it she wanted a sleep study done.

So we turned off all things with screens (TV, games, computer) at 7:30 with bedtime at 8:00. At 8:00 we actually read something (currently the 2nd Harry Potter), then we say goodnight. Most nights they are both asleep by 8:30 - sometimes they chat until 9 (after being reminded several times that they are supposed to be asleep. Ry tends to get up around 6am - sometimes much earlier.

After a week or so I also gave them 2" memory foam mattress toppers. This resolved the 'my mattress is lumpy' complaint. In fact Ryan declared for the first time ever that he slept 'GREAT' - but that was just once. Then he went right back to 'i'm not sleeping'. So I told him that if he finds himself lying awake at night, unable to get back to sleep, to come down and sleep with us. So that I know. And he did. He came down one night around 12:30 - snuggled right in. And rolled over. And snuggled in. And turned the other way. Repeat over the course of 4 hours. Yes, he really was having trouble. So I send email off to the Dr and she ordered the sleep study.

We went last night - treated it like an adventure :o) he actually enjoyed himself I think (me, not so much - lumpy foldy mattress for me combined with waking up every time the tech came in... i'm a little cranky and tired today).

From jul09

We won't get the results for a while I think. The Dr didn't actually tell us how long, but from what I'm reading I'm expecting a week, maybe two. Mostly, she's looking for Obstructive Sleep Apnea. Which is usually caused in children by abnormalities in the mouth. Like tonsils and adenoids that are too big, or swollen, or just don't fit quite right. I'm reading a lot about how this is resolved by removing this offending bits of tissue. On the one hand, if this is what is causing so much trouble at school - I would love to have an answer. On the other hand, I'm not sure I want my little guy to have surgery yet. (Even though we know several kids who have already undergone this ...) I don't know if the CPAP machine is an option for him or not. His Dr and I haven't had this part of the discussion yet. So I'll wait for the results and go from there. In the meantime I have all these wicked cute pics of him LOL

From jul09

"No Diaper Mommy!"

Sun, 31 May 2009 18:23:51 -0500

About a week ago Holly put her foot down and told me "No diaper Mommy. Undies." She was determined. But it was a Tuesday morning and I did not have the heart to drop her off with 80 changes of cloths at the center. But I did let her wear her undies over her diaper. And when she came home that night she wore undies (accident free) for just over 2 hours.

Yesterday she spent from 3:00pm until 7:30pm in undies until she went to bed. Dry.

Today I started her off in them. I reminded her to use the potty if it had been a while. We went to Target. We went to Sears. We roamed the mall. And she remained dry (and successfully used the potty all that time) until around 1:30. She's had a few accidents since we've been home, but we just handle them. "That's OK! Let's get you dry undies". She's thrilled to be a big girl. I'm hoping she remains enthusiastic at school. There's more distractions, so I figure she'll have more accidents.

I guess we'll see :o)

5 Months!

Sat, 30 May 2009 08:59:56 -0500

Gosh - it's been 5 months since I last posted. Anyone out there listening to the crickets?

Life here is happening! The boys are finishing up their final few weeks of school - that's assuming we don't close because of H1N1 - which I don't get. We don't close when there are other flu outbreaks... yes, it's very sad that so many have died in Mexico. But I feel like I need to remind people of what we are NOT seeing in the news... when I went searching I found a late April statistic from the CDC - there had been 55 Pediatric deaths from the *regular* flu this season in the US. That's just children. Just this season.

Wow - that was a tangent.

Anyway. The boys in school. Ryan is doing tremendously better this term. We've started a reward program between home and school where he gets a sticker for worksheets completed IN CLASS. Mrs C writes 'in class' across the top and he gives it to me. He just earned a brandy new game for his DS (about 80 stickers worth that was). Kyle also earned the game.

I did have Ryan evaluated by the school. I didn't think we'd come up with a disability - but I did want to know if there was anything hanging out in there that we needed to know about. Yes, he is sensory seeking. So there are recommendations from OT on sensory breaks, letting him do heavy work, maybe jumping really hard in a corner... those kinds of things. But without a disability there is nothing official. These things to not HAVE to happen. I'm slightly annoyed by this. If a child will learn better if they get the sensory input that they crave, they should be able to get it. The goal of the school is for the students to learn. My child should not need an officially labeled disability to get that.

But that's another tangent - I don't have a particular issue with the school there - just with the nature of how things are.

Holly is a jabbermouth. TalkTalkTalkTalk. It's great. She's growing up and is just adorable. I think I can find some pictures to put up here.

So sorry that I've been so absent. Mostly, I've been using my online time for game playing - like bejeweled. And I just haven't felt the need to write here ... which is obvious by the 5 month lag.

So if you are still out there - thanks!

Happy New Year!

Thu, 1 Jan 2009 08:46:20 -0600

Wishing everyone a very Happy New Year...

From dec08

For lots of pictures from December you can browse our December Picassa album.

Joy joy joy

Tue, 16 Dec 2008 08:42:30 -0600

There is joy in my world.
I have been baking and loving the Christmas lights. The baking has been fun and theraputic. The boys have even joined in. Tomorrow I have the day off and I will be baking again - this time for Steve. Darling Steven will turn 40 tomorrow. 40!!! He's also taken the day off - but of course things happen. The day will be interrupted with a meeting at school. And I have to go back to the periodontist... but for the most part we can spend some quiet time together. Maybe watch a couple more episodes of Trueblood :o)

We had a nasty ice storm up in these parts last week. We were very lucky. It's strange how one area can be fine and then a mile away there are trees down all over the place! There are lots of folks in NH who won't have power back until late last week - they've been out since Friday morning. And that's only if the wires are still connected to the house. If the wires were knocked down then it will be weeks!!! Nasty, nasty stuff. Again - we're very lucky.

I have my cards ready to go, just have to address them and stick them in the mail - need stamps!

We went to Breakfast with Santa on Saturday before heading down to Grammie's for an overnite. Holly told me "no Santa" - and she meant it! We got another picture of her wailing on Santa's lap - and Ryan 3 feet away from him. Maybe next year she'll tolerate him ;o)

So we went down to RI to visit Grammie Sat/Sunday and had a very nice night. Her place there is just wonderful - right on the water.

Other than today, I have just Thursday for work, then I'm off through Jan 2 :-) I am so looking forward to the downtime. I have some odds and ends that I'll tie up, but otherwise I'm not working!!!

I also have all my shopping done!!! Woohoo! That includes gifts for 'Jay' - a little boy we 'adopted' for Christmas. I picked up a sweats set and flannel shirt, Thomas the Train sneakers, and a couple of toys for him. I'm also going to see if they'd be interested in some clothing from Ryan that's in good shape. Ryan's just grown out of Jay's size - so it's good timing.

We're spending Christmas at home this year. Then traveling down to my Mom's on the 26th. Hopefully, we'll get to spend time with friends that we don't get to see real often. And my parents haven't seen the kids in a while - Mom saw pictures of Holly from November and didn't recognize her!

Snowflake continues to act as a perfectly healthy cat completely unaware of the tumor that you can now see sticking out the side of his ribcage. He's slowed down a little, napping in the proximity of the kids more often... Sarek seems to be losing his sight a little. He's now waiting at night for Journey to go down the deck steps first - then he follows her. If she doesn't go, he just stands on the deck and barks. Poor thing. At least he has his buddy to help him. We have all 4 animals on special diet blends of food from the vet now. They are all old. We're just happy that they continue to seem comfortable without any specific interventions from us.

The boys are doing well at school. We continue to meet with the school to tweak the things we have in place to encourage them to perform well. And of course it's different for each of them! Kyle has started riding again and is really taking to it. It is so very good for him. Ryan has expressed an interest in riding as well, but wants to wait for the warm weather to come back - it's cold out there!!

That's where things are for the moment. Hope everyone is taking some time to slow down and enjoy the season!!!!

A moment of down time

Tue, 25 Nov 2008 09:08:27 -0600

Things have been crazy and busy around here lately. I'm still trying to get Kyle back into horseback riding. That may actually start in December (which is next week!). The year has totally gotten away from us. I've been crazy busy at work - so much so that I have over 2 weeks of vacation left to take at the end of the year! It will be some much needed down time.

Proof that the year has gotten away with us - the things we normally have done, or at least started, by now are not. I've usually done a lot of Christmas shopping by now. Once I was even done before Thanksgiving. This year we've only just started. Though now that we're focused we're making quick progress there.

Thankfully I took care of Steve's birthday present wicked early - and gave it to him LOL. There was no reason to keep it, and he got a little bit of early celebration. I'll still have to do something with the kids, but at least the gift won't be some Christmas afterthought for him (his birthday is 12/17).

Speaking of Steven ... he's hitting a milestone this year! 4 decades is a pretty long time! I'll have to make an extra special cake for him I think. We did manage to get away for a weekend without the kids - to celebrate both his and our friend Mark's birthdays. It's been so long since we've done something without the kids. It was SO nice to just do what we wanted without worrying about their schedule or if they'll eat the food... the kids stayed with 'Ms Beth' - and had a blast. She has an 8 year old boy, and the boys all played and romped and had fun. Ryan told his afterschool teacher on Monday that he had a great time and Mommy needs to go away more often :o)

Besides shopping, I haven't gotten my act together on our Christmas cards. I've made them the last several years, and while I have the stamp set I want to use, I have yet to settle on a design. AND I haven't even started our Christmas letter.

We're having a nice, quiet Thanksgiving, with Steve's Mom joining us. I'm excited to get to cook a real meal again. So I had a fun time sitting down on Saturday and planning out my menu.

Kyle's orthodontic work has been going splendidly. His upper jaw expansion is complete. He'll keep the pendex in place for another 4 - 6 months, but the Dr couldn't be happier with the progress that was made. In 6 weeks we go back and Ky will have brackets put on his 4 upper-front teeth and he'll work on straightening them. He can't go to full braces until he has lost all his baby teeth... so that's a year or so out (thankfully!). We had Ryan in for a quick consult - yes he has an bite problem (it's off center) - but he's only lost 3 teeth. Unless something happens that forces us to act sooner (like with Kyle) we'll not do anything there for a few years.

Holly is finally talking up a storm. She's still behind, but at her 6 month re-evaluation for EI she tested out. That's good! And it's not so good :( - her therapist had some other things she wanted to continue working on. Now she only has about 45 days to complete it. So I'm sure we'll be left with lots of instructions for keeping Holly improving. Most of the work stems around making her say things and try new words. She's now comfortable to attempt almost any word I ask her to and she's using a ton of words on her own now.

So much of the same around here - I hope everyone is healthy and able to have a peaceful Thanksgiving with family or friends (or both!).

Monday Morning Meanderings

Mon, 27 Oct 2008 08:32:18 -0500

Where to start, where to start... I think this will ramble with my thoughts.

A month ago I moved my home computer up to 'Holly's Old Room'. I still haven't reconnected the audio cable, but the webcam is now functional! Last night Holly sat on my lap to wave at Poppy. Though she was confused and looked around the room to see where Poppy might be hiding!

So if you have Yahoo Messenger, and maybe even MSN Live? and you'd like to 'see' the kids - let me know. I know it works with Yahoo... I'm working on what else I use that might support it. I might even venture into Skype... but without my audio cable connected (it's lying on the desk right in front of the machine - you'd think I could get around to doing this so I have sound? ) - we'll see what happens!

We had a great weekend. It was a really nice Fall weekend, with pleasant weather. Kyle had a Den meeting on Friday, then the boys had their Space Derby on Saturday, and we attended the Boy Scouts' pancake breakfast on Sunday. Sunday also included a Family Target Run and general grocery shopping for me. I made a Lemon Herb Chicken Ring for dinner too :) The grownups and Holly loved it - the boys weren't interested. Which is more the norm lately. Totally not interested in new foods. But I keep putting them in front of them! Sometimes they try them. The rule is that they have to try it. Really try it. Unfortunately, I can make them try it, but I can't really make them give it a chance if you know what I mean? When they are convinced they are going to hate it, they usually do. Every once in a while they surprise me and eat more... but if asked they'll tell you they didn't like it. Hmph!

Looks like watermelon is finally, really out of season. They were down to three mini watermelons yesterday. And when I cut open the one I got today it was 90% overripe. Argh. Very dissappointing. Especially since that's what the boys take for lunch. Fruit and a yogurt. It's what they want AND it gets a bunch of fruit servings in them. Today I sent watermelon, cucumber, carrot, celery and yogurt :o) which is actually more veggies than fruit. Not sure if they will touch the celery, and the carrot depends on their mood. We'll see...

The new barn I thought we were going to start riding at isn't working out. They can't seem to complete their scheduling - every time I talk to them I get 'we're working on it' - an the last time I left a message they never returned my call. Since it's been since June that Ky has been on a horse I restarted the search last week. I found what will hopefully be the new barn! They are responsive and have great information. They have individual and group lessons. The prices are better. They are only a 15 minute drive (probably less). I'm bringing Ky by tomorrow to look around, pet some horses, see how the place feels. They I'll sign him up for 'by the month' - which is a great deal if you are doing weekly lessons. Then I'll splurge and ride once in a while. Might even get Ryan there on occasion if he so desires. We'll see what the options are as we get into it.

Ky has been more emotional lately, and there's been a resurgence of self image/confidence problems... "I'm an idiot" - though not frequent. This had all dramatically improved when he started riding, so I'm trying to see if this is the key.

I officially started Christmas shopping! I made the very first gift purchase on Sunday :o) It felt good. Usually I've started long before now - and we pace it out over 4 or 5 months. So we'll have a compressed buying season this year ;o)

Work is crazy at the moment... we're trying to get a release out the door among the 753 distractions that hit us daily. But we'll get there!

Oh! So Steve got me a gift certificate to a local spa last Christmas. About 2 weeks ago I finally used it. I went for a Full Body 1 hour Massage. The best part? Lying there for an hour with absolutely nothing to think about. The massage was great too, but hurt - which I expected because of the problems I've had with my shoulder/neck/back. But she got the pain to go away! I was sore from the massage for a few days - but the old pain was gone. I really, really, have to work harder on strengthening my upper body. To the gym must get!!!

So those are my thoughts this Monday Morning - have a great week!

Holly's Vocabulary

Tue, 14 Oct 2008 09:00:34 -0500

Holly's third speech therapist came out on Friday and spent some time with us. Future visits will happen at the daycare center - which makes life easier! She asked me to start writing down the words Holly 'knows' - 'know' meaning she's used it spontaneously and appropriately more than once. The goal is to have her at 50 words with some two word combinations (like "hi mama") by 24 months old. We're almost there!

I sent the current list into the school... having written them down let's see how many I can remember...

hi, bye, sit, chair, hat, shirt, nose, ears, eyes, hair, teeth, shoes, socks, baby, mine, more, again, Nanna, Mama, Dada, on, off, up, down, please, dressed (as in to get dressed), kitty (though it doesn't sound like much of anything it's consistent always means the same thing), kiss, bye, Alba (teacher), Chelle (teacher), Danielle (teacher), thanks, no-thank-you, wee, uhoh, brush, help, book, ball, train, done 42!

hi mama, hi dada, hi *teacher*
bye Alba
my *item* (my book, my train, my ball...)

So she's quite the little chatter box these days. She's also not afraid to try out new sounds and new words. She's doing a lot more babbling than she used to. All in all we're pretty happy with where she's come. She'll be re-evaluated in November (after 6 months of services). We'll see how things go.

Weekend festivals...

Mon, 6 Oct 2008 08:40:42 -0500

Alright. I'm going to tie myself to the keyboard and not leave until I get a real post up!

Actually this should be fairly easy :)

This weekend was OctoberFest here in town. Steve went to visit friends for the weekend (left around noon on Friday) and I had the three with me at home. Friday night we made personal pizzas :) though Kyle didn't want to put any effort into. Ryan is ALL ABOUT cooking lately though and eats up (ha! no pun intended!) any opportunity to do so. So we had yummy pizzas Friday night. Tucked Holly in and called Daddy to say good night.

Ryan had a real conversation with him - and then resorted to telling knock knock jokes :o) but hey - he didn't push the phone away. This is improvement.

Saturday I got everyone up and dressed and we headed downtown for the 'Fest. We stuck Holly in her stroller and brought the Cub Scout gear so that we could do some candy selling while out. They were SO not into it - but we managed to sell ONE bar. Good thing we'd already done our part around the neighborhood!!! After 'selling' candy we hit the bounce houses. And the boys spent a few rounds on the obstacle course. As Ry came down the sliding part he was 'singing' (more like humming but singing the notes 'da da') the theme to Indiana Jones. Funny stuff.

After burning off some energy we got hot dogs all around and some fries. Holly ate the whole thing - AND the bun! I broke pieces off so she didn't have to hold the whole unweildly thing, so she had 4 mini-dogs :). Then we got the obligatory ice cream. Which I shared with Holly.

We did more walking, played some Town Trivia - both boys won prizes. They watched Animal Adventures... skunk, hedgehog, bearded dragon (Ky volunteered to be a 'rock' for this one), tarantula, corn snake, ferret, chinchilla, boa constrictor, and an alligator - Fun!

On our way out for the day we stopped at a vendor selling carved boxes. Kyle fell in love with a small pyramid and Ryan picked out a box to act as 'baby giraffey's bed'.

We went home and vegged for the rest of the afternoon (holly took a nice long nap too!).

Sunday came and we had to venture out fairly early (for a sunday). We were at the good old KMart by 10:00 - we needed to pick up a gift for a party Ky was going to at 12:30. I also grabbed some Tinkerbell undies for Holly and some diaper pins. Holly has become very interested in everyone's undies - even came out wearing a pair of Ry's so I thought she might want some of her own. We're not anywhere near officially potty training - still in the potty 'friendly' mode. Occassionally she sits on it, and even less frequently she's successful there. But she's very willing to go and sit when I ask her to. The undies go her excited. She sat on the potty and I let her wear them. Fearful of accidents I had her go back to the potty after about 7 minutes. After sitting she declared 'all done' and handed me the undies back LOL!

The pins are to keep her zipped up at night. Now that we're getting colder weather she's into zip up sleepers at night. And yesterday when I came up to get her she was naked! So we'll go back to what we did with the boys - slip a diaper pin through the top of the zipper to keep it up.

Oh! While in line at the Big K - I noticed their display of pools at the exit. They had this one for just $42.50 - so I snatched it up! Now we have a replacement pool for next summer :)

We dropped Ky off for the party and then me and the smaller two headed off for groceries. Holly took a VERY long nap and I got some cleaning and reading done. Ran out to get Ky from the party and then got dinner in the oven. Steve came home a little before dinner was ready - yay!

We found a new series of books to start reading with the boys - The Secrets of Droon. We're 4 chapters into the first one now. Looks interesting - and very much similar to the Magic Treehouse series.

That's enough for now. It's Monday and we're back at work. Have a great week!