Sunday, January 31, 2010

The snow...

How can I wish the snow away when Ash has so much fun with it?

Saturday, January 30, 2010

Our Piano

Soo... the hamster.

I keep forgetting to write about it.

Ever need a REALLY good white elephant present? Try a white hamster. Very funny. We found this out at my work's company x-mas party.


We then bought Megan one for Christmas because she liked it so much. Hers is a cute chocolate brown one. A NON-biter. Ours is a BITER. Ash kept saying... "give the white one to Megan."

Ash named her Piano. He actually really likes her. He talks to her all soothingly, like a baby. He also makes sure we get her out into her ball every now and then.

We got her a new cage with a slide and a wheel. It has metal bars... that she bites and makes a horrible pinging noise with. The night I was awake with a tooth pain I wanted to beat her. I kept moving her farther and farther away. I finally had to put her downstairs.

Tom is working on trying to get her to stop biting. She better try to learn... otherwise she might just become an OUTSIDE PET. We'll see.

Ellee's Birthday

Cute pictures from Ellee's 2nd birthday party. It has made Asher fascinated by birthday's now... he can't wait for his own party. We gave Ellee playdough, which Ash thinks is the perfect gift. He keeps suggesting it for his daddy's birthday next week!



Tuesday, January 26, 2010

Worst weekend, EVER!

OMG

Words cannot describe it.

Tooth pain. The worst pain in the history of the world. Worse than child birth. Worst than a million paper cuts (ok... I don't officially know that, but I'm fairly confident).

Friday afternoon... right before the weekend started. I ran to the dentist and said I have pain... please fix it. He said... I can't tell which tooth is the problem. It could be either of these two. Take this medicine and call me when you can tell which tooth it is.

Saturday afternoon... morning wasn't so bad... afternoon horrendous. Dentist was dumb enough to give me his cell phone number. I call him and explain the pain is horrific even with the Lortab. He agrees to meet me at the office for another inspection. Does a full x-ray. Says there is possibly a mass in my jaw causing the problem. Wants me to wait until Monday and see an oral surgeon for a biopsy of the mass.

Saturday night... awake all night. Drinking water. It is the only way to get relief from the pain. Want to kill the hamster (a story for another day).

Sunday morning... debate visiting ER. Can't take the pain. Still drinking water.

Sunday afternoon... make panicked call to my dad to watch Ash while I go to ER. Probably freaked him out. He is heading out... would probably have come, but I pull myself together and decide to go by myself, leaving Tom with Ash. Fully cry at ER and panic the doctor. He makes me drink hot water and I want to punch him in the mouth for the pain it causes. He says "it's a root canal." DUH... but which tooth? He says... UMM... one is a crown, guarantee that is it. See Endotist on Monday and get root canal. Gives me higher strength Lortab and Percocet for the pain. (he obviously felt my pain).

Sunday night... New medicine makes no impact on pain. I have drank so much water that my body can't take it. That combined with medicine makes me start to throw up. My family rallies for support. Make another call to dentist and tell him I don't care... just do a freaking root canal on both teeth. I want to die.

Sunday 8PM... Dentist meets me for root canal on crown tooth to start with. He swabs numbing goo in my mouth. I can't take a drink for pain relief. He actually says "I forgot something" and leaves the room. By the time he comes back I am fully on bawling with tears down my face. Feet kicking... arms flailing. He's like OH SHIT and gives me the numbing shot.

Sunday 8:30PM... Entire left side of face is numb. He felt my pain and gave me five shots to the side of my face to numb it. Root canal is hard one and takes two hours.

Sunday 10PM... home. So relieved. Entire face is numb. My stomach is anxious and upset with the fear it was the wrong tooth or the cyst and the pain will come back. Wonder how it will be to throw up with swollen and numb face... turns out pretty normal.

Monday 2AM... wake up. Not so numb... no pain. I SURVIVED.

Thank you a million times over to Dr. Flynn for his time and weekend nights. Being cautious isn't a horrible thing...

Thank you a million and one times over to my great husband for filling in for me. He now realizes how much I do and appreciates me a million times over as well.

Thank you a million times over to my family for your help. Especially Sergio who was going to stay even though he was sick. I sent him home.

Thank you a million times over to my awesome baby. He treats me like a princess. And he was good for his daddy while they waited for me at the dentist (even though Daddy needed a little time out according to Asher).

Asher conversations...

A few of my favorite sayings for the moment:

When Tom gets home Ash runs to open the door and says "Glad to meet you." EVERY NIGHT.

"What I do?" Any time we laugh at him.

"I don't care you do it." Saying its ok for me to do something I asked him about (I must say I don't care A LOT when he asks me stuff).

Dentist = "Cleaner" As in, "Mom, we going to the cleaner?"

Wednesday, January 20, 2010

A daycare update...

Ash got a new teacher in December and it has made a world of difference at daycare. She is great. She loves him. He's ok with her. Not totally in love yet like he was with Elshia.

They started a superstar of the week program and Ash got to be the first Superstar! Each kid has a little paper cookie taped to the door and every time they do something good their cookie moves up a little. The first one to the top for the week is Superstar. The Superstar gets to always be first in line, make all the choices, get special privileges, and bring the movie for movie day. Ash chose Ice Age 3 and he was so excited to take it (but only with the understanding that it was still his and he got to bring it back home).

He also doesn't use his binky at daycare, which is an awesome first step to getting rid of it.

At old daycare they let the kids get a treat each day when they left. Ash loved picking out a tootsie roll or whatever each night. At new daycare they don't do this... and Ash was VERY disappointed. So I started bringing him a treat each night. Every night he runs up to me and says "What you have in your car?" And if I don't tell him... he gets in the car and starts climbing over the seat into the front to try to see what it is. I also use this treat as a bribe to keep the binky out on our way home. So far car rides and naps are must have binky times. Most days he will take the bribe, but occasionally he has missed the binky so much, he'll opt for the binky over the treat.

He still misses old daycare. We were talking about birthday parties (since Elle turned 2!). Ash wanted to know when his birthday party was. I told him it was in the summer... he looks at me and says, "but it will snow tomorrow!" (with total sadness). So he knows summer is a little ways away. He told me he really wanted Kemper (his best buddy from old daycare) to come to his party. I told him that would be fine. He says, "but what if there is no room?" So I had to assure him we would make room for Kemper.

Ash has also learned just about nursery rhyme and starts randomly singing them. He's got ABC's almost down. He belts out John Jacob Jingle-heimer Schmidt all the time. My favorite is You Are My Sunshine. One day at daycare he got a prize for singing "loud and clear." They told me he loves to sing.

So... daycare is better. We're surviving the change. Ash still doesn't have a best buddy like Kemper, but just in the last two days he started talking about Matthew. Hopefully Matthew is a nice sweet boy who likes to break out into the lollipop song and dance around just like Kemper did...

Monday, January 18, 2010

Happy moments...

Do you ever have those moments where your just content?

You look around and think, "wow... I'm really happy right now."

Been having them a lot lately.

Sometimes it's brought on by looking at my FUNNY cute little chubby cheeked boy. Other times it's my sweet totally hot handsome husband. And every now and then it's my beautiful warm homey new house.

Either way... I'm happy.

Sunday, January 10, 2010

I got chastised by a 20 year old...

and I KIND OF deserved it... not totally... but kind of.

Tom bought me a nice camera for Christmas. The kind I've been dreaming of forever. It was a total shock. I seriously sat there for like three minutes afterward not saying anything cause I was in such shock.

He bought me a Nikon. I have bad luck with Nikon. I tried taking some pictures and a bunch came out blurry. I decided I need to switch to Canon. I took it Best Buy and talked to the camera guy for a while and decided it would be a good switch.

UNTIL... I figured out the Canon doesn't let you use the LCD screen on the back to take pictures. WHAT? Why is it even there then? You can use it in "creative mode"... but who really uses that? The pictures where ok... but I still liked the Nikon's better.

So... I wrapped it all up again. Nice and neat so they wouldn't know I opened it. And then I returned it back to Best Buy. I switched it back to the Nikon.

After I got everything I needed and went back to the register... the girl rang me up without a word. I had excuses prepared, but she never asked for them.

UNTIL... the very end. As she handed me my bags she looked at me and said, "Did you really not open the Canon box?"

UMM... let's see... there's a sticker right on the top that says if you open it they will charge you a 15% restocking fee. Soo... I gave her a look like I can't lie about it, but I don't want to say yes.

She said "I hate restocking fees and I'm not going to charge you one, but I just need to know. While you were looking I noticed fingerprints in there."

UMM... ok yeah... I opened it.

By that time I felt so dumb I couldn't squeak out any of my excuses (like how unhelpful the camera guy there really is)... so I just grabbed my bags and ran.

And I felt bad about for a few minutes. Being chastised about lying by a twenty year old.

Oh well. I guess I deserved it a little bit. I should have just been happy with what my hubby gave me. It was such a sweet thing that he got it.

Lessons learned:

1. Be happy with what you get.
2. I'm officially old.
3. I'll still lie to save myself a 15% restocking fee.

Take from that what you will.

A busy new year...

We have been so busy the last few weeks. Tom has been out of school so Ash and I have been just trying to spend as much time as possible with him doing fun things.

One night I drove up to this:


A sled hill in our own yard. The picture is a little deceptive... Tom is actually standing on a step, so that hill is almost as high as his chest. I drove up from the grocery store to see him sending Ash down the hill.

I held my breath to see what would happen, and...



He loved it!

He and I went out a few days later and he goes all the way through the yard and down into the road. He loves it. He gets a little funny and crazy. Jabbering and laughing.

We decided to take him sledding to a real hill... he wasn't so sure about it.


He would walk up the hill whining, "no, I need daddy," and then right when we'd get to the top he jump in the sled and say "go." He's so funny.

We got rockband and Ash loves it. He prefers the drums, but he will also sing (la la la la).


He still taps the drum sticks (same as his one year birthday):


He also still wrestles his dad...


We took Tom to the Kangaroo Zoo and showed him how much fun it is. Ash LOVES it. He wanted to bring one of the slides home with us. I had to explain there just isn't enough room at our house to fit one.


He got really daring and did all the slides... even the biggest ones.


He even learned to climb up the ladders by himself. He fell once and got a little scared, but after I helped him up one more time he was back ready to climb by himself.


Ash really likes his new bed. It is a reversible bunk bed... so we have the bunk part on the floor for now until he is ready to start climbing up there. I'm still afraid he'll roll off in the night. There is a tent that goes over the top though... and of course his shark is on lookout.


We also got a haircut from Crystal. Ash is so much better for her. He lets her cut it without screaming. This time she let him squirt the water bottle and he covered her mirror with water. I've been debating a total haircut because he gets called a girl so often. Everyone thinks he's a girl... it's bizarre to me since he is such a boy. Tom and Brandon have talked me out of it for now, but maybe this summer. After the haircut we went to play with Ellie for a while. It's so nice to have a cousin close to his age that he can play with.




Last night we played Apples to Apples. We play the "Asher version," which means he and I each pick a card and then I read the cards to Tom. Tom chooses which one he likes better and the winner gets to keep the cards. Ash was so funny... he kept going "I gotta find a good one." Then he'd shuffle his cards and go "I gotta think about it for a minute." It's so funny the adult things he comes up.

Tom starts school tomorrow and my heart is a little broken to lose him for another semester. Luckily this is the last semester of school though! Then he'll start a year of rotations (guaranteed to suck just as bad as school though). Almost there babe.