Bullet Points

I have a lot of thoughts I'd like to get down on paper, but none of them really go together in any kind of flow. So I'm just going to do one of those bullet point deals, and see where we get to from there.

• I feel bad for the little girl across the street. Not her brother so much, because he's mean, but they both come home from school every day to an empty house because they're mom works. The boy is probably 10 or so and the girl is about 8, I think. Anyways, that wouldn't be so bad in and of itself, but about half the days of the week they are locked out of the house. I know this because we used to manage our apartment complex and the girl would come by to get the keys to get in. The mom won't give the kids a key, because she says they lose it, which I guess I can see, but I wouldn't feel comfortable having my kids locked out of the house every afternoon either. For awhile, we didn't have an extra key to their door, so the kids would wait outside for a couple hours until their mom got home. Finally Aaron taught them how to open the kitchen window from the outside and climb in. The mom got mad. Dumb. So I feel bad for them. It seems like there should be a better solution.

• I think as a family we are going to go to the Discovery Kids Museum at Gateway for Ivan's 2nd birthday in March. I'm pretty excited, because Aaron is agreeable to us buying a 6 month family pass (since if we go more than one and a half times it will be worth it). Besides all the cool exhibits they have, they also offer little mini classes during the week, and at least 3 of them are geared towards 18 month - 3 year olds. Perfect! And they are fun things like musical instruments, and story telling. The classes are small, 12 students max. The classes are half hour long and you just register for them at the front desk when you get there, I think kind of like big kid story time at the library. I'm pretty pumped about this, because I'm seeing it as a way to get past some of this Winter cabin fever we've been having. Really the only downside is that I have to drive to Salt Lake. But Aaron even said he wouldn't mind if I drove down once a week, because he thought the activities and classes seemed like a valuable way to use time/money. This makes me even happier, because I was a little bit bummed that because we aren't moving any where far, that I would have no where cool to buy a family pass to (like OMSI in Portland, for example), but I think this is going to be fun. (I'm also looking into getting a family pass to Thanksgiving Point, but not until after we are done with school and have a real job/income). So if any one out there is interested in getting a pass, or already has one, to Discovery Gateway, let me know, and we can plan trips together! 

• Sickies, that's what we are around our house. Two days ago, Ivan got a fever, and that was the last straw. I decided that since we weren't getting any better, that we would go to the doctor and check things out. I'm glad we did. Ivan has a double ear infection. Both are about a 6 on a scale of 1-10 for severity. And the infection (probably started in his ears) has made its way down into his lungs, hence the coughing. He's on an antibiotic. Adelia's ear infection has cleared up but now she has bronchitis. They think the bronchitis is being caused by her spitting up and then aspirating and the spit up getting into her lungs and causing irritation and infection. The doc said she's probably had bronchitis off and on since she was born, for this reason. Acid reflux is also probably why her voice is so raspy. Super. But that would explain why she's been so unhappy since birth. I'm taking her in for her 6 month check up in two weeks, and I'm supposed to talk to the doctor more about it, and then he might order a chest x-ray, and see what else we can do. For now, she's on antibiotics to get rid of the bronchitis, and we are supposed to feed her slowly and burp her very frequently. We've been doing that the last day or so, and it does seem to be helping. She's spitting up less, so that means she can't aspirate as much. Also, today I went and bought a bunch of slow flow nipples for the bottles. I'd been using medium flow, but we thought we'd switch. The doctor also told me that he thought Adelia was over weight (18.9 pounds, is what she weighed in at), but I don't agree. At 6 months, the average baby is about double their birth weight, he said. So Adelia was 8.5 at birth, and if she were average that would put her at 17 lbs two weeks from now. So, yes, she's above average by about a 2 lbs, but my kids have always been high 90 percentiles, and it's only 2 pounds, so I'm really not worried about that. But ya, that the latest on our health. Lincoln and I are just so sick of being home we can't stand it. But thankfully we have wonderful neighbors who have come and offered to take Lincoln to preschool, or on walks with them, or to let him come play at their house during quiet time. We do have some really great neighbors here. 

• HOUSE HUNGRY!! I am hungrier for a house than I ever have been for a baby. We pretty much aren't moving anywhere until April, but that hasn't stopped me from getting on Craigslist at night, and looking up rental possibilities in Spanish Fork, Springville, Salem, and Payson. Just for fun. My husband thinks I'm whacked. And I probably am, since the listings I'm looking at probably won't still be around by the time we can even realistically start looking. But oh, how I want a master bathroom, and a backyard, and a laundry room...

• Speaking of laundry (look! I connected two ideas! Yay for me.) I hate laundry. I think I am starting to truly understand the meaning of "never ending pile of laundry". I used to think it meant that laundry was just one of the chores that never went away because you had to do it again once all the clothes were dirty. I was so wrong. Never ending pile of laundry means that the pile quite literally never ends. It means by the time you get one load washed, folded and put away there is another one coming out of the dryer or going into the washer, or sitting on the couch, and it's a vicious never ending cycle, with no break in between. When Aaron and I were first married, my weekly laundry consisted of one load of whites and one load of darks, that probably could have been done together, except that they were whites and darks. I could do our laundry in an afternoon, including folding it and putting it away, and then I was done for another whole week. This week, I think I've done two loads a day every single day. No matter how much I fold and put away there is always more piling up on our couch. It's like a nightmare where you are trying so hard to get away from the scary monster, but no matter how hard you run, you're going in slow motion and the monster will surely catch you.  So there's my laundry spiel.

• I haven't made it to preschool the last two weeks because of sickness. Linc went yesterday, but none of us went the week before. The week before they made snowmen. And I've seen them hung in everyone's windows around the apartment complex, and they were way too cute to pass up. So yesterday Lincoln and Ivan and I made snowmen. I cut out all the pieces before hand, then let the boys glue them on how they wanted. Linc did his all by himself, and I helped Ivan quite a bit since all he really wanted to do was squeeze the glue. :) These are now in our window as well.

• I don't think we'll be building a ladder to the bunk beds any time soon. :) 

• I am in the process of becoming a writer again! Like a real writer, not just the word vomit I put on this blog every day. I call it word vomit because I rarely go back and revise it, I just type it as it comes out of my head, and then I'm done. But back to my being a writer. My sister-in-law Lisa writes for an LDS Homeschooling newsletter. The newsletter comes out once a week, but there are enough writers that each writer only publishes once a month. Anyways, the newsletter was looking for some new writers, and Lisa recommended me! I'm so excited. My column is called Scribble Scholars and I'll be writing about homeschooling preschool and other thoughts that people just starting to home school, or those thinking about homeschooling might be interested in. It's going to be a great opportunity to get published and gain some experience. I think my first article will be coming out in February, and I'll post more about it then.  

• We finally finished our 2009 blog book and it is being printed as we speak! It took us long enough, I know. But it was worth it. It looks REALLY nice. I was getting so frustrated with Blurb and their stupid booksmart program, that does give you some freedom to do what you want with the layout, but not as much as I wanted, so I finally started doing my blog book in Microsoft Publisher. Aaron helped me, and between the two of us, we did a fantastic job! I'm so excited to see it. We turned the publisher files into PDFs with Kelly's help, and then sent the PDF into Blurb to have it printed. And now the book is exactly the way we want it for the same price. I'll post some pictures when we get it in the mail.