Movin' blogs

Well, we have made a big exciting change!

We have purchased a 5th wheel trailer and are in the process of selling our house, selling our van, buying a truck, and taking off on a two year adventure traveling to see the country and visit friends and family along the way.

Since I highly doubt I'll be able to keep up with two blogs, this one will be updated only sporadically. If you want the real scoop, head over to http://rvcrazyyesvr.blogspot.com That's where the details will be! I'm going to do my very best to become a daily blogger now that our life feels blogworthy again. :)

Plans? Who needs them!

It seems like every time we make long term plans, something changes.

We planned to live in St. Louis for 5 years so Jeremy could get a PhD, but after a year we moved to Thailand instead.

Coming back from Thailand, we planned to move to the Chicago area as soon as Ian was born, but we actually settled in Jacksonville.

We planned to stay in Jacksonville until Ian was ready to go to kindergarten, but now we're selling our house.

We intended to move straight to Cleveland, but now we're talking about traveling for the next few years instead.

I guess we're just not very good at following through, huh? At any rate, we've had a lot of adventures along the way and we're looking forward to more!

Walgreens

Today was a good day at Walgreens!

It took 8 transactions, and a lot of time with a calculator, but in the end here was my total:

4 4oz tubes of toothpaste (with 4 free trial sizes!)
4 6oz tubes of toothpaste
4 bottles of eye drops
1 tube of Carmex lip stuff
1 bottle pepto-bismol
1 gallon milk
6 book covers
1 can potato chips
8 bars of soap
4 bottles of lotion

Total with tax $16.57
Register rewards left over $23.50

So they paid me $9 to take all that stuff, even with the milk & potato chips! Woohoo!

Walgreens

I got a little escape from the sickness yesterday making a quick trip to Walgreens.

2 packages of Triaminic
4 packages of pads
1 bottle shampoo
1 large bottle witch hazel (clearance)
1 bottle bactine (clearance)
1 fancy lip gloss
1 fancy foundation
4 Hershey dark chocolate bars
2 dozen eggs
1 vacuum cleaner (yep)
2 bottles excedrin
1 pack throat drops
1 Thermacare heat wrap

$81.66 with tax

But I'll get a little over $66 back in rebates. :) The vacuum alone was $20 after rebate, so I came out ahead on everything else. Yea!

When it rains

What a rough week.

Ian started coughing late last week, but the ped's office was full so he got a Monday appt. By Saturday, both kids were congested & coughing, and Ian was clearly not feeling well. Neither one was sleeping well, either. Monday morning we find out Ian has a sinus infection & get antibiotics, but the ped's office was too busy to look at Rinnah (even though she already had an appt to get a shot). Ian started to improve on the meds, but Rinnah got worse. Wednesday I call for her and they tell me they're still too busy and short staffed. This time I insisted, and got an appointment where we found out she has a raging ear infection. Poor girl, the dr stuck the otoscope in her ear and she SCREAMED at the top of her lungs for literally the next 30 minutes. So we got her some antibiotics and hoped she'd get better too.

Then today she woke up with hives. Ugh. So we call the ped's office who is still really busy and makes me feel like I'm being a total nuisance, but agree that she should probably be seen. I take her in, the dr spends less than 3 minutes in the room, tells me that this isn't a serious reaction and some kids just get rashes on antibiotics, but I should call if it happens again. He tells me to keep her on the same meds. Okay. I took her home, gave her another dose, and put her down for a nap. She woke up with hives again. I called back (had to go through the answering service, since it was 3:30pm and they had already stopped answering the phone) and after an hour and a half, got a call back from a nurse who basically told me that this is just going to happen for at least a few days and it really isn't a big deal, but if I'm "freaked out" by it they could call in a different antibiotic. But it really isn't necessary and I'm being ridiculous for considering it. Just give her benadryl.

Jeremy and I decided that hives are uncomfortable, and even if they aren't a life-threatening reaction they certainly aren't helping her sleep. Plus we didn't feel confident that if things got worse, we'd be able to get a response from our ped's office over the weekend. So we asked for a new medication for her which they grudgingly called in.

It's the only ped office in town, and the next closest would be 45 minutes away. I know my dad liked this dr, and as a person I think he's probably great and that's why my dad liked him-he's involved with his church, he's good with his family, he regularly goes on medical missions trips, etc. But this office always makes me feel like I'm being a huge inconvenience for them every time I need to bring a kid in, and like I'm completely overreacting every time I have a concern. And they have this same-day scheduling nonsense where you can't make appointments ahead of time; it's like a phone free-for-all at 8am. Sometimes it takes over 30 minutes to get through. And I am always rushed in the room and never get to ask all my questions before the dr is stepping out the door.

I hope we can find a better office once we move. And I hope our kids sleep tonight-Rinnah has been up most of the night, every night this week, and any time she slept for more than an hour Ian was up during that time. Jeremy and I are really tired. I'm just glad he helps-I would not even be walking straight if I were doing this alone.

Cleveland

We spent last week in Cleveland exploring the area we hope to move to in the next few months. I had been looking forward to moving before, but after visiting, I am really excited. There is so much in that area! Plenty of museums, parks, classes, stores-so many more things to do and see. Within a two hour drive we have tons of daytrip options, and within a day's drive we could get to almost anything except some of our family & friends. It's also beautiful out there. There was a foot of snow on the ground last week and Ian loved stomping around crunching the snow.

There are several options for housing and we're now thinking and praying about what we want to do. Ideally, we'd like to have a "dream house" out there-nice yard, good neighborhood, good school district-eventually for the kids to grow up in. We're not ready for that now, partly financially but mostly we want to get more familiar with the area before deciding exactly where we want to settle. So we're trying to decide what to do for the short term.

We saw one apartment that we liked. It's a 3 bedroom, so Jeremy would have an office and the kids would share a room. The pluses: no maintenance issues, no down payment, no long term commitment, and it's in a good area. Downside: small, no separate playroom for the kids, probably will be loud for Jeremy trying to work, parking is kind of far from the building, and we won't be building equity.

Another option is a 2200 square foot mobile home. The layout is perfect for us-one one side of the house is the master bedroom and beyond that, an office just the right size for Jeremy. There are tons of huge closets, and three bedrooms besides the master, so the kids wouldn't have to share and we'd still have an extra room. There is a separate living room/family room for the kid's toys. There is also a small yard-big enough for the kids to play in a splash pool or kick a small ball. Downside: kind of rural, a good 10 minutes from the highways & shopping. The lot is rented, not owned. It could be hard to resell, since the current owners have had it on the market since last July.

A third option we're looking into is a very cheap mobile home. It's in a better location, closer to the highways. It's still 2200 square feet and has an attached garage and deck. It also has a little yard. And did I mention it's cheap? Like less than our car cheap. We could probably buy a new house in 2-3 years if we lived there. Downside: we haven't seen it in person, we don't know what the layout is exactly, and we're not sure why it's that cheap.

At any rate, it's really nice to know that we have several options out there that would enable us to buy a great house for the kids to grow up in after only 5 years or so. Just have to decide what route to take.

Bath and Body Works

I used to think it was an expensive store. Not so much anymore.

Today I got 4 full-size "signature collection" items-body spray and hand cream, plus 4 travel size shower gels. Grand total with tax?

$2.56

:)

Photography

That's my new hobby. Or at least, I'd like it to be.

My mom gave me an awesome camera for Christmas, and I'm reading everything I can about photography trying to learn how to use a 'real' camera. Some of my online buddies take downright stunning pictures of their little ones, and I am jealous! The pictures I'm taking are definitely better than with my little Walgreens camera, but I have SO much to learn to make these better. Here are two I liked from the first week I had the camera:

From Rinnah 12-29

From Rinnah 12-29

One current speedbump in the learning curve is that everybody in the world does post processing with Photoshop. I was all set to download a trial version, but my laptop is limping along with only half of the minimum memory. Hmmph.

Christmas Eve

was quiet but nice. We went over to my mom's house for dinner. All my brothers are home, but no one else this year. We had our traditional snacky/hors d'ouerves dinner and chatted for awhile. Then Jeremy and I brought the kids home and tried to get them to bed while my brothers picked a game to play.

They came over with Texas Hold 'Em. It was fun to learn a new game. Of course, Rinnah didn't stay down long, but she played fairly happily in the swing while we played cards. It was nice to have people over and still be able to play with Ian in bed.

Tomorrow morning we'll go over there to open gifts and hopefully play some more games. It's a good thing we have a van now to 'travel' for the holidays...even just to go for the day we're going to bring over a crazy amount of stuff. I'm glad we don't have to travel far though, especially with the icy roads.

Fantastic trip at Wal-mart!

Today I got this. My original total was $155.69

After coupons, my total was $17.13! (typo on facebook, ignore) And $8.34 was tax!

1 Baby Alive doll
1 Clue game
3 packs of Play-doh
1 FurReal baby panda
1 Monopoly Town game
1 Mr Potato Head chef outfit
1 Mr Potato Head Spud Buds
8 TGIF frozen appetizers
12 Post-it page markers
12 pairs of toddler underwear
4 boxes of baking soda (2.5 pounds)
1 bottle of generic vapo-rub
2 packs of Pillsbury crescent rolls
1 trial size conditioner
3 packs Hefty Onezip bags (21 bags)

Ian will get some of the play-doh and the Mr. Potato Head things, but the doll, game, FurReal, and at least one play-doh I want to donate to Toys for Tots. I hope I haven't missed the deadline for donating.

I apologized to the people in line behind me since I knew it would take awhile, and we struck up a conversation about couponing. The lady was a former couponer but had given it up because she had trouble staying organized. She & her husband said I inspired them to start clipping coupons again! She was cheering for me too and was excited to see how low my total was. It was fun, and I hope these toys will make a better Christmas for some kids.

Potty training day 2

Turned out better than I thought it would.

Apparently he's only afraid of the toilet when he's tired, which includes the first 30 minutes or so after he wakes up. Then he's okay.

Mixed results again today. Far more pees on the floor, but he's getting the idea and he's trying. We sort of got a poop on the potty today. He started to poop, then came & got me, and shook it out on the toilet. Not a bad start, IMO.

We're giving up on the nighttime thing for now. He can just wear a diaper at night. Yes, we're copping out because we're tired and feel kind of guilty for that. But at least until he starts telling us he needs to go, rather than just realizing he started to pee, I think it's the best choice for all of our sanity.

So tomorrow we want to leave the house. And we were considering taking him with us. That will add a whole new dimension.

Potty training-day 1

had mixed results.

All morning, he happily sat on the potty, although the only times he peed it was on the living room floor. At naptime, he peed on the floor to his room (better than the bed, right?) No biggie.

But when he woke up from his nap, I don't know what got into him. He was cranky because he hadn't slept quite as long as normal, and when I tried to put him on the potty it was like he had developed a sudden huge terrifying fear of the toilet. He screamed, flailed, and absolutely refused to sit on the potty. He wanted to be held. But he kept letting little squirts of pee loose. I did not want to hold him at that point, which made him madder. After an hour and a half of fussing and struggling, he suddenly decided he was ready to sit on the potty. Lo and behold, we got our first pee in the potty!! Granted, it was only a tiny amount, since he had been spurting all over the house, but still, major progress! We did the whole big hoopla, called Daddy upstairs from work, got the dog sticker he's been eying for weeks, the whole nine yards.

The rest of the afternoon went okay. Lots of sitting on the potty and lots of peeing on the floor. But when he's in the potty, he clearly has the idea of what he's trying to do now. He did get one really good pee in. I think it was actually a pretty good first day.

Then came nighttime.

Night has been more challenging lately because Rinnah will go down around 8-9pm, but then she's back up after half an hour and won't go to sleep until nearly midnight. She usually only gets up once and often sleeps until 9-10am. By herself that's great for a five month old, much better than Ian. But when Rinnah doesn't go down until midnight, Ian and Rinnah are each up once or twice, Rinnah eating once, and then we're all up at 7-it's taking it's toll. I went ahead with potty training anyway because I figure I've been tired since Ian was born; if I wait until I'm getting good sleep he'll be in college.

So, last night we decided to try the underwear. Ian's still back and forth between the crib and toddler bed, so the plan was to make up two sides of one mattress plus the other bed. We figured he could have two accidents in the toddler bed; after that we'd put him in a diaper in the crib. Good idea, but Ian wanted to sleep in the crib. Okay, fine.

Jeremy & I took turns with Rinnah until about 11:30, then I went to bed and he got her to sleep. At 12:15 Ian wakes up wet and completely hysterical. Won't sit on the potty, doesn't want to wear underwear OR a diaper, doesn't want new pj's, just wants to sit in my lap naked in a room that reeks of pee because I haven't been able to clear off the wet sheets yet. Needless to say, I am not excited about this plan. Eventually, with Jeremy's help, I got a diaper on him, and then Jeremy went back to bed. A few minutes later, Ian suddenly decided he was fine with putting on new pajama pants. But he still wouldn't lay back down. He has a bit of a cold, but it's not that bad. I think this was mostly confusion about waking up wet, plus he's normally a beast when he's tired. I spent an hour and a half with him, thought he was asleep, slipped into the hallway, and heard Rinnah awake. So I got her resettled, came back out, and Ian's awake again. I tried to help him, but I just reached a point where I told him Mommy had to go to sleep and thankfully, he settled down. Now it's 2:30 and I'm finally back in bed. At 3:20 Rinnah is up. She probably doesn't need to eat yet, but I'm not awake enough to process that idea until she's already half done eating. At 4am I had Jeremy rock her back to sleep. Then I had a dream that we had hired someone to get the kids for five hours a night and I didn't have to get up, only to realize it was only a dream and Ian was awake again. Not even sure what time that was, but it only took a few minutes to get him settled. Then at 7 it's time to get up. Ugh. I hate nights like that.

So this morning we got up, I mustered up some enthusiasm from somewhere, and got all excited for Ian to get on the potty and wear underwear again. But he was like he was after his nap. Completely and utterly refusing to even take off the diaper, let alone sit on the potty.

My current plan is to leave him in this diaper until he's ready to try again (provided he doesn't poop) and then go at the potty training again. I'm too exhausted to push him any harder than that. I know consistency is important, so I'm not quitting, but my goodness this would be easier on a few more hours of sleep. I think my kids are conspiring against me already.

Potty training

Well, here goes nothing.

I was all set to start yesterday. I've been making some freezer meals, we did the big trip to pick out underwear, and made sure all his pants are clean and ready to go.

But then Ian started coming down with a cold, and was up sniffling and hacking until 1am, then I was up with Rinnah at 5:45 to feed her and she never did go back to sleep. And then Ian woke up uber cranky. I tried to do the "You're a big kid now!" thing anyway. I took him to the potty and was all excited for him, but he said "no" and ran away. On 4 hours of sleep, I didn't have the patience or energy to fight him, so I gave up.

We tried again this morning, and thus far it's gone better. He likes the underwear and is wearing them proudly. We're setting a timer and he's sitting on the potty every 20 minutes. So far, nothing has happened on the potty, just one accident on the floor in the living room right after a potty stop. Hopefully this afternoon will get us off to a better start. I really think that if he could just go on the potty once and get the concept, we'd be well on our way.

Our first ER visit

Well, it was bound to happen sooner or later. I'm kinda surprised we made it this long.

Tonight I was making dinner and of course Ian was trying to help me (Jeremy was out at Home Depot). He did fine until we were trying to clean up. We had used chicken broth and he grabbed one of the cans by the lid. I started to say, "No! Don't touch that." He went to yank his hand away and wound up slicing off at least half his fingertip. Still attached on one side, but a pretty deep cut. So I called Jeremy to come right home and thankfully my mom was able to come over and stay with Rinnah, who was sleeping at the time.

He did awesome. He calmed down within a few minutes and wasn't even crying. He did cry when they gave him the shots of Lidocaine, but I don't blame him. Those suckers burn, and there were four people holding him. During the stitches he didn't flinch. He actually was trying to watch. They said they have 10 year olds worse than him. They'd called in an extra nurse because they said normally stitching a two year old is pretty terrible, but we didn't need her. He sat perfectly still through the whole thing.

So four stitches later, he's doing great. They gave him a whole pile of stickers. He though he was just picking one, so that was very exciting. And he had a great time saying bye and waving to all the nurses and the other patients.

Walgreens

Woohoo! A great run at Walgreens today, even though they didn't have the best product for my deals. I still think this was pretty good:

5 12-packs of Sprite
5 fancy soap bars that I'm not allergic to ($4.49 each-ouch!)
2 packs paper plates
12 Lindt chocolate bars
4 Hershey chocolate bars
1 large roll Reynolds foil
3 tubes toothpaste
4 toothbrushes
2 air freshener candles

Pre-coupon total: $117.74
Coupons: $79.35
Register rewards: $23
Net total: $15.39

So that was cheaper than the original price of just the soap! I love it when Walgreens pays me to buy what I want, as long as I take a bunch of other products home with me too. :)

Peek-a-boo

That's the new game around here.

Ian plays with Rinnah. He hasn't quite got the words down yet, but he'll go up to her, cover his face with his hands, then pull them away with a big grin. She always laughs.

Today she was really cranky, in that just before sleep point, when Ian woke up from his nap. I laid her down to get Ian out of his crib and she just started wailing. Poor Ian was a bit groggy and not at his best either, but he was such a sweetheart. He came over and gave her a big hug. Then he said "iss", and gave her two kisses on her head. By this point she had stopped crying and was smiling at him. Then he played peek-a-boo with her until she started laughing before he went back to being grumpy and whiny himself. It was the sweetest thing! I love how he thought of her and took care of her even when he wasn't feeling his best.

They're playing together more and more. They each think the other is ten times more entertaining than either mom or dad, and it's so much fun to watch! I wish Ian were more cooperative about us catching these moments on video!

A milestone

We are now officially OLD.

From Van

We just bought this.

The only thing more embarrassing than owning a minivan is the fact that we really like it.

It's amazing how much smaller our cute little sporty hatchback got once we added the second car seat, the second diaper bag, and all the extra sorts of luggage that seem to go along with small children. Just for a day out we find ourselves needing the stroller, two diaper bags, snacks, books, toys, a baby carrier, blankets...it's crazy. When we went to Chicago for the weekend we had more than we did when we moved to Thailand for a year.

Now we have room galore. And when the kids are fussing, there's room for me to sit between them with both my hips intact. I can even put my arms beside me instead of in their car seats. And the next time we buy a dresser or outside toy off craigslist, or we want to take two friends along somewhere, we can do so all in one trip.

Chalk one up for team "minivan mama".

Long overdue update

I keep thinking I'll wait until I get all my pictures uploaded and then make a big post, but that may be awhile yet.

Recent events-my grandma passed away last week. She was 86 years old. My dad's death last spring was especially hard on her. He was the second son (of 3) she's had to bury, and she just never got over it. She got depressed, stopped eating, and stopped taking care of herself. In some ways it may be for the better. She was getting more forgetful, and there was some question of whether she should still be allowed to drive. If you knew my grandma, you'd know that living with someone else to help her was just not an option she would consider under any circumstances. As it was, she passed presumably in her sleep, in her own room. It's the way she wanted it.

We were able to make it to Chicago for the funeral. Jeremy had been out of town for work but was able to catch an early flight back and we left at 5am Saturday morning. Thankfully, both kids slept for most of the way and we were able to get there and change clothes with 15 minutes to spare. Ian was not happy about sitting still after the long ride, and Rinnah was fidgety so neither of us got to hear the whole service, but I'm still glad we were able to be there. We spent the afternoon with my family and then came home that evening. The trip home didn't go so well, and for a couple days afterwards Ian was still pretty difficult. Overall though, it gave us hope that maybe someday we could go somewhere. Not yet, but maybe someday.

This week Rinnah had her 4 month checkup. She is now 24" long and weighs 13lbs 11oz. She's growing! She is a very happy baby-she smiles all the time and laughs a lot.

This week all 4 of us seem to be fighting some sort of a cold, so that's not much fun. Hopefully we'll all be rested up and better by the time the weekend is over.

The sweetest moments

Tonight Jeremy was playing with Ian, tossing him on the couch and blowing raspberries on his tummy while we were filling the bathtub. I had Rinnah, who has been unusually grumpy all day from teething. But every time Jeremy swung Ian around or blew on his tummy, Rinnah just burst out laughing, big old belly laughs. Ian of course was having a ball too. It was so much fun to have the living room full of laughter. What a great way to end the day!

Back to normal

Jeremy's been back for a few days now and I'm finally feeling like we're back on a normal schedule. We had a nice weekend-got a few things done around the house, and even made a trip to Springfield and Rinnah only screamed for about 60% of the driving.

Our next major goal around here is working on potty training. Everybody seems to have a different idea about what the best or easiest way is and everybody is convinced that their way is far superior. We'll probably just try a few ideas and see if we make any progress.