Laying With Christmas

With Thanksgiving being so late this year we started Christmas decorating before Thanksgiving. I have been sick all week and was struggling to get into the Christmas spirit, by that I mean I have no energy and don't want to do anything. Also, this year has gone by so quickly, it feels like we just took down the Christmas decorations yesterday. However, I had forgotten how magical everything Christmas is when you have an almost three year old. I had brought the boxes in with no real plan to get anything out until the big boys got home from school, but Thatcher managed to open one and started pulling stuff out. With every tiny thing he pulled out his face would light up, with a great look of surprise, and he would exclaim, "Mommy look it's CHRISTMAS!" He'd pull out one little berry and get so excited. I sat on the couch watched as Thatcher decorated. "Mommy look, I lay out Christmas." When he found the fabric advent calendar he laid it out and said, "Mommy look I lay with Christmas."


So that's what we've been doing this week, we've been laying with Christmas, slowly easing into the season. I put up a few decorations everyday, instead of going crazy and trying to do it all in one afternoon. We had a family meeting to make sure everyone remembers what the season is about. Everyone was reminded that this year we're trying to reign in the craziness, there will be fewer presents, but that's ok because no one needs anything and we've historically gotten them way too much stuff.

 Earlier this fall I read the book 7 Days of Christmas: A Season of Generosity by Jen Hatmaker. It talked about seven ways during the Christmas season to practice both generosity and restraint. There were ideas ranging from figure out ways to donate to local charities to ways that you can cut back on spending and not get lost in all the craziness of the season. There was a lot about the book that I really loved, but my goal after reading it was to not buy any new Christmas decorations and maybe even give some that I don't love away. If you've been to my house in December you know it gets a little out of control. I have told my children to slap my hands if I try to put any decorations in my cart. With all that being said, the Christmas tree that we've had for the past ten years died and we had to buy a new tree this year. So.... not exactly not buying any new decorations, but I'm determined for that to be all I buy this year.

Getting the tree was a classic make time to do it twice situation, or more appropriately make time to do it four times. We ordered one from Target. Zach went to pick it up at the wrong store, then went to the correct store, brought it home, put it up then I got home from work and hated it. Zach took that one back Sunday. Monday I went to Hobby Lobby and found one I liked, got it home and it wasn't the right tree in the box. It was all labeled correctly, but it was not that tree. I distribution center error which meant I had to take that one back as well and get the right tree. Finally, Monday afternoon we had a tree up and ready to decorate.


Monday evening we decorated our new tree. Below is the perfect representation of the difference in parenting a first child and a third child. The first photo is of Zane at roughly the same age as Thatcher is now, being carefully lifted up to place ornaments on the tree. The second photo is Thatcher standing on the top step of a five foot ladder, leaning over the front, to place ornaments on the tree. All while I'm taking a picture and not being concerned about how terribly dangerous the situation is.
Thatcher's fine, no one fell off the ladder and the tree looks great.



Also, you might think that it's late at night since Thatcher is in full PJs. Nope it's ten till six, Thatcher just wears pajamas all day everyday. They are truly his favorite thing at this moment, besides his Batman costume of course, and I fully support it.

 See Batman costume mentioned above.

This year while decorating the Christmas tree I felt more nostalgic than in previous years for some reason. We've been through a lot of Christmases now and there are lots of cute memories that stir up once you start getting out old ornaments from years past. I'm going to miss having toddlers at Christmas, each boy was so cute in their own way when they were little. I looked through old pictures and remembered all their Christmas joy. Now they are older and less cute but I'm still very excited for another year to make more Christmas memories. 



T's November

There have been so many things happen in Thatcher's life over the past two weeks it's kind of hard to wrap my head around. The first weekend in November we haphazardly decided we'd start working on potty training in earnest. This came about because Thatcher was terribly constipated so I think for the first time really could tell when he might need to poop. After a pained filled Saturday of trying to make that happen he finally pooped in the potty and there was much rejoicing. He'd been able to pee in the potty for awhile, but had never figured out that other half of the equation. So we headed into the first week of November with him in undies, thought we'd just see how it'd go. Things went great, minus him being terrified of public toilets causing a accident right when we got home from running errands for two hours.




It should be noted here that during all the insanity of October I had a stretch of eight days off that was the light at the end of the tunnel. It was when I was going to get rested up before all the end of the year, holiday insanity started. I didn't plan these eight days off for that reason, my schedule just so happened to work out that way, but they were what got me through all the horribleness of my October schedule. I worked the first Monday and Tuesday in November then headed home for my much needed eight days off to REST!!! Fast forward to Thursday at lunch time with Thatcher. He bit his tongue when he was eating. He cried a little bit, quickly recovered I thought nothing of it. Then on Friday he woke up a crabby cuddly, mess of a baby who didn't really want to eat anything, but managed to keep some ice cream and yogurt down. We went to the doctor and on top of the conquer sore he now had on his tongue from biting it, he also had double ear infections.




Let me just say that my first child had had two heart surgeries before he was eight years old. My middle child broke the same arm twice in one year. I have never in my almost ten years of parenting had a child cry so much, be so miserable, or sleep so badly as sweet Thatcher that Saturday-Wednesday of that week. He didn't drink anything at all on Saturday until almost four in the afternoon when we tried giving him milk from a syringe. He decided he could handle milk as long as it was fed to him from a syringe, like a little kitten. So we narrowly avoided the ER Saturday then spent the next three days forcing him to drinking and trying to get him every soft food imaginable. He didn't eat anything for a solid three days. He screams in pain and had to be held this whole time. For four days he never slept more than maybe an hour at time, then he'd wake up screaming in pain. It was the craziest, worst, saddest, most exhausting week of our parenting bar none. Much worse than any post heart surgery recovery. Insanity!!! We took him to his pediatrician and to the ENT on Monday just to make sure there wasn't something else going on that we were missing. They all agreed he had just bitten his tongue and the whole side of his tongue was a massive conquer sore that we just had to wait to heal. His ears were looking better from a few days on antibiotics, but the tongue would take awhile to get better. The only silver lining was we did get him scheduled for new ear tubes before the first of the year when all our insurance stuff starts over.



Through all this he learned how to draw up his own drinks with the syringe and give it to himself. This is not a life skill he really needs, but it came in handy. 

This was after two days of screaming and having to be on my body. Thatcher finally allowed Rowan to cuddle him long enough for me to get the dishes done.

 Through it all Thatcher wore his Batman costumes, alternating back and forth while we washed the other one.

 On day three we set up a toddler wet bar of sorts. He reverted back to the baby sippy cup, but had to pour his own drinks, of course.

 First bite of food in days!



So six of my eight days off Thatcher was a screaming, sad mess. In no way were these days off restful at all, but on to the craziness of the holiday season we go. No one will be surprised to hear that now I am sicker than a dog after a week of no sleep. Through all these debacle Thatcher continued doing phenomenally with potty training, all be it he wasn't peeing much since he wasn't eating or drinking. He told us when he needed to pee and frequently would go an poop all by himself. Miracle of miracles. The second weekend of November, while trying to plan for upcoming Christmas decorating, we decided we'd switch his toddler bed out for the twin bed that was in the office, freeing up the office to house all the playroom toys that will need a new home when the Christmas tree goes up. No one sleeps in our guest room anymore so it seemed like a great time. This meant that within a span of two weeks our two year old went from being in diapers in his crib to being potty trained and in a big boy bed.



This wouldn't be such a huge deal but he is our last baby so this meant the end of all sorts of things in one fail swoop. We moved his changing table dresser into my room, got rid of the changing table top Zach had made, and took the crib down for the first time in almost ten years. My Grandpa sent me money to buy a crib when I found out I was pregnant with Zane. This meant we got to by a nice crib and a matching dresser. I loved it. I wish my bed was a bigger version of the crib. That crib has been moved multiple times and transformed from infant crib, to toddler crib, to toddler bed multiple times. It kept all my little babies safe for a decade. I can't believe we won't ever need it again. Rowan slept in the crib until he was four and we moved into our current house. He was tiny and still fit in the crib, as a toddler bed, just fine. We didn't have another twin bed for him to go into so it worked out perfectly. Our years of baby parenting have been nicely housed in this decade. As we start a new one it feels right to be tying up all the lose end of that phase of life. It feels right, but it also feels so sad to me, but here we go!

October 2019 Recap

October is always crazy busy at our house and this year was no different. I blinked and it was over. Here are the highlights from our fun filled month.


1. You know it's a good October when you're cheering for the Cardinals in the post season. They had a good run, but ended up being swept by the eventual world series champions, Washington Nationals. I loved sharing the post season excitement with my boy, who were completely into the post season hype. We miss watching baseball already.

 2. Fall ball ended with a few freezing evenings at the ball park. I missed both of their last games, either working or home keeping T warm. Here's Rowan at the last game I got to go see. He's improved so much this year, learning how to be quite the hitter in coach pitch, even after missing all the pre-season practices with a broken arm. It was just me at this game, which meant I got to go to dinner with just Rowan which was a special treat.

 This led to lots of confusion when the kid in the Cubs shirt asked if we could turn the TV to the Cardinals game. Believe me I know how unnatural this situation is.

 3. Fall finally arrived, then quickly turned to all out winter. The first fall feeling evening called for a bonfire and smores. The boys went on their fall campout this month as well, but I don't have any pictures of that. I hear it was a smashing success at a camping location they've never been before.

 4. October also means time for tree planting. We've been waiting all year for fall to arrive so we could finally plant a tree at third base. There is always an argument about the location of third base and a tree was a perfect solution to this problem. We got a little red bud because it's the state tree and because this particular location needed a smaller tree to avoid messing with sewer lines. We planted it over fall break when we were all sick with a cough/cold situation and struggled to do anything productive. Zane felt miserable, as you can see, since he didn't have any energy to help with the tree planting.

 5. We had previously planned on going to the farm on fall break, but all our fun activities had to be cancelled since we all felt miserable and had no energy. We tried to put together a few fun things, in between naps. Cut out Halloween cookies aren't a yearly tradition, but we did it this year in our attempt to do fun things on our pathetic fall break.

 6. We also went back to the pumpkin patch, where three years ago Zane and Rowan had posed with a little pumpkin for a picture that would announce we were having another boy. Here they are three years later, our littlest pumpkin isn't that little anymore.

 After pumpkins we headed to Pops for soda and dinner. Pops is overrun by honeybees on their patio, which gave Rowan a chance to find his bee whispering skills. It also gave me a chance to tell the kids about having honey bees growing up and my dad killing all of them when threats of killer bees heading to Oklahoma came out. Such a dad thing to do.

 7. Our first official Halloween activity this year was the Cub Scouts Trunk or Treat. This was supposed to be outside, but do to freezing temperatures and rain it was moved inside. We'd worked on all sorts of Harry Potter decorations for our car, that we ended up not being able to us, but everyone still had a fantastic time. This was the costume Thatcher had planned on wearing for Halloween, but we couldn't fit any clothes under it, so we had to switch it to the very warm dinosaur costume.

 Luna and Voldermort once more, our go to costumes.

 The giant spider was originally supposed to be on top of our car, but this worked too I guess. Throw the skulls into the cauldrons came about with little to know thought, but it was a huge hit.

 Batman was very excited to see his pal Woody.

 8. Zane decided, once again, to celebrate his heart birthday at school this year instead of end of the year summer birthday celebrations. He's done this every year so far and it's proven to be a great experience. Each year he tells his class/teacher about his experience as a heart warrior and why he celebrates his heart birthdays.

 This year his sweet teacher gave him special claps for his heart birthday at the whole school assembly on Friday. I could have never dreamed of being blessed with such a supportive and loving school family, nine years ago when he was diagnosed. I might have cried a little at the assembly, just so grateful for these wonderful teachers who truly adore my kids.

Here is Zane on his ninth heart birthday, with our traditional heart shaped cake to celebrate all the miracles thought brought us to this day.

 9. I got to go with the first graders on the most ridiculous field trip, potentially ever in the history of field trips, this month as well. This day it was thirty five degrees and spitting freezing rain. Oh and that morning the pumpkin patch/farm was out of power due to the storms from the night before. So there were no lights in the buildings and no heat. There was one building with a few animals to feed and one where they could ride horses, everything else was outside in the rain and mud. Sounds like a great time, right? It was fully miserable. Rowan and I lasted almost an hour and a half before we bailed on the whole thing, went home, snuggled on the couch, and watched a movie. After we regained felling in our hands and feet it was a wonderful way to spend an afternoon.

 Rowan looks exactly like his father, especially when he's in this hat.

 10. The October birthday party was supposed to be at Able's house this year, but Able was sick that day so we had a make shift one at my house the following evening. Pumpkins were carved, smores were had, and a little tiny hedgehog toddled around my house. So cute!

 This was the first year that both of my big boys carved their pumpkins by themselves. Grandma tried to help Rowan, but from what I hear he refused all help and had a clear vision of what he wanted his pumpkin to look like.

 11. We ended out the month with Zane's yearly cardiology appointment. This is a day that Zane and I spend together and always includes white mac and cheese from Panera Bread. I think the mac and cheese makes all the surgeries and doctors visits worthwhile to Zane. This year it was freezing cold outside, raining, and everything was running behind in the clinic so it was a long, drawn out, process. However, we got great news from the doctor who said his valve is working wonderfully with almost no regurgitation. This hopefully means that Zane won't need another valve replacement for a good long while. I think he will outgrow this valve quicker than the experts think since he's bound to be a huge man. I'm still preparing myself for another surgery as a teenager and if he ends up not needing it until later that will be a pleasant surprise. Never again will I be caught completely off guard by the inevitable.

 Freezing to death while waiting to see the doctor.