Cream of Potato Soup

The boys are still coughing and snotty, the house is a mess, and Grady hit his face on the table leg and chipped his front tooth. I'm ready to collect my Mother of the Year award now. Honestly, by last night I was starting to wonder if it could get any worse. And then it snowed half a foot and I woke up with the creeping crud too, so now I know better than to ask that question. But it's Wednesday night, so that's pretty good, and I'm hoping that by the weekend we'll all be on the mend.

Yesterday Mike went to Evan's teacher conference. I wanted him to go instead of me, and though it almost pained me to give up complete control, I had to do it. I think it's so important for both of us to do the school thing, for both of us to be involved. Mike said that the teachers had glowing reports about Evan--he's doing great at all the academic stuff, and he's starting to really come out of his shell with the teachers and his classmates. He even makes jokes with them now, and has taken the lead on some class assignments. It looks like he'll be in a regular classroom again for first grade, and next year he won't spend any time in the support room at all--great news.

The only thing special that Ev really needs anymore is speech. His therapist at school was at the meeting yesterday, and she told Mike she was concerned that Ev was losing sounds--specifically "l", "r", and "th". I am of the opinion that he never had those sounds to begin with, but the therapist said that some testing shows that he did. So I'll mention it to his hospital therapist tomorrow just so she knows what's going on, and we'll start working on trying to get those sounds to emerge. He does still have trouble with getting his tongue to make certain sounds or movements, so maybe we'll start back at the beginning with that.

Ev's IEP for next year is set for the third week of April. I can't believe we're planning for next year already, and that we'll have to write goals for first grade. It's exciting, but odd to think that kindergarten will soon be just a memory. It's gone better for him than I ever imagined, and I only hope that he can continue loving school and enjoying learning the way he has this year.

Posted by jenny at 8:12 PM | Permalink | Comments (1)

This was supposed to be a nice, relaxing family weekend. We were going to hang out around the house, take a walk outside, go to the Children's Museum. What actually happened? Grady barfed all over himself, me and the floor of the notions department in JoAnn Fabrics. I sat on the couch and whined about my cramps and bawled over stupid things. We all played musical beds Saturday night because everyone was crying and coughing and restless. Evan and I spent the bulk of Sunday morning at the Urgent Care for his double ear infection. Mike got the grocery shopping done today and spent the rest of the day in bed with stomach troubles.

It was definitely a family weekend, with tons of togetherness, but I wouldn't say it was very relaxing. I'm going to need a week to recover from all of this.

Posted by jenny at 8:22 PM | Permalink | Comments (1)

Grady doesn't want to go to sleep tonight. He was up for about three hours last night with a fever, and that has since developed into a lovely drippy nose and cough. He's clingy and crabby and sitting on my lap right now, so it's a good thing he can't read yet.

This month is creeping by. I'm feeling clingy and crabby too, so I guess I shouldn't blame poor G. I'm tired of snow and ice and getting shocked every time I touch electronics and not being able to open the windows. And I'm sick of everyone being sick. And it's leap year. I don't know what that has to do with anything, just thought I'd throw that out there.

I started out this entry talking about puke, and when I told Mike that he said that maybe it was time to hang it up. I erased the whole thing and started over, but this isn't any better. I just felt obligated to write something because I haven't in so long. I won't be back again until one of my kids does something funny. That shouldn't be too long, but we'll have to wait and see.

Posted by jenny at 8:27 PM | Permalink | Comments (3)

Earlier this week at the grocery store, we had to buy our monthly jumbo pack of diapers. I know it's different everywhere, but I've found that Giant Eagle has the best prices on Pampers Baby Dry here, especially if you can get a $3 off coupon. This month we had to bite the bullet and move from size 3 to size 4, which means more ball room for the boy but 12 fewer diapers in the box. I shouldn't complain, since G's been in size 3's for over a year now, but it still hurts to get less bang for your buck.

Lora recently wrote about the same thing, though her little guy was making the jump from 4's to 5's. (As a note: Jake is about three months older than G, so this is further proof that I have birthed a very tiny guy.) Lora has seen this as a call to the potty, while I'm figuring it will be another year until we even attempt that one. Grady may prove me wrong, but so far he's only interested in flushing the toilet repeatedly, not sitting on it. And after the fun that was training Evan, I learned a valuable lesson--he'll do it when he's good and ready. It's all too clear that G is not anywhere near ready for that one. I hope Lora has better luck with Jake!

So it will be more (and bigger) poopy diapers for me. I've been changing somebody's diapers for over six years now, so I'm really used to it. It will be a strange day when I no longer have to carry a diaper bag--I might actually have to buy a purse. It will be an even stranger day when I'm only in charge of wiping my own ass again. Dare to dream.

Posted by jenny at 9:09 AM | Permalink | Comments (1)

It's been a long week here. Evan has been sick--nothing too serious, but he's coughing a lot and it keeps him from sleeping. I kept him home from school on Tuesday, and then he threw up on the van on Wednesday (he really doesn't like his cough medicine) so I picked him up at school and he spent yesterday at home too. The kicker is he doesn't feel sick. I mean, he sounds like hell, but other than that he's perfectly normal. So it was great having him run around the house like a wild boy all day yesterday.

Grady is doing well. He's talking a lot more now--he seems to add a new word almost every day. Sometimes I have to push him a little though. He'd much rather go over to the fridge to point and grunt than say "more milk". But that will come along I think, and it's a relief not to be so concerned about his development. Grady does things almost effortlessly. I remember these long development checklists I used to get for Evan, and we'd work and work trying to get him to do things on them, like stacking blocks. G just does them--I don't think I realized before just how tough it was for Ev to learn.

Other than that, things are pretty quiet. We've been starting our bathroom remodel, and I can tell you that it's going to suck. As with most things we've done, it's going to be a lot more work than we first thought. But better to get going on that while we're stuck inside. Did I mention I'm ready for spring?

Posted by jenny at 11:54 AM | Permalink | Comments (0)