Preschool ends...

A little cliche, I know, but it seems like just yesterday that Cal was this teeny tiny thing that raced into preschool each morning! Now one full year is over!! How can that be?! After this past long Memorial Day weekend Cal said to me at bedtime, "Mommy that was really a super, way too long weekend." meaning he wanted to go back to school. I said to him, "Well, Cal, you're about to have the superest, longest weekend ever - it's called summer!" So we'll see how this goes. Preschool just ended yesterday so I don't think it's set it quite yet that he's not going back for what's going to seem like forever.

He had so much fun ths school year and I think it was the best decision we made to send even though he wasn't even 3 when he started. Each child gets a "focus student" or a high school student that mainly focuses on that child's development throughout the school year. Cal had two students since he was the youngest of the bunch. Here's the pics below with each student:

Cal and Chelsea - his early morning student

Cal and Taylor - late morning student

They packed April and May full of lots of fun things. Here we are at the Tea Party (daddy was there too but didn't make it into the picture). They also had Sibling Day where I got to drop Ben off at preschool with Cal for an hour! I'm not really sure how it went. The teacher told me Ben was so excited to be there and play with Cal and Cal didn't want anything to do with him...awww...Ben seemed a little shell-shocked when I picked them up. He refused to talk or respond to me until we were in the car driving home (he was silent and staring off into space for 10 mins!!). I don't know if he was mad at me for leaving him or what?! He didn't cry when I dropped him off or anything so I'm not really sure. I don't have all the pictures yet but they also went bowling, had Beach Day, Camping Day, and took a trip on a big yellow school bus to New Castle Common where they got to play in the sand and on the playground and stopped for ice cream on the way back.

Graduation is on Monday night. They all participate and the ones that are coming back next year get a certificate instead of a diploma. Should be cute and a little sad...

Oil Tank Debacle!

Our latest house project is the addition of a mudroom on the back of the garage. They were supposed to start last Thursday and 5 mins into digging the foundation discovered a buried oil tank we knew nothing about...Yes, yes! previous owners SHOULD have disclosed this and gotten rid of it. But the fact of the matter is, people, that they didn't and now it IS our problem. So get over it - I have. Anyways, the environmental people came today and pumped all the sludge out and removed it uneventfully in one piece. This picture is my proof that we did take it out of the ground! So now we're only a week behind schedule and since contractors have nothing to do these days anyways we'll probably get caught up quickly. The foundation should be done and inspected next week!

Medical Mysteries

I'm not entirely convinced that Ben's surgery benefited him much. I've discovered he still snores (three weeks postsurgery). I've also witnessed him holding his breath and breathing irregularly while sleeping three times now. So who knows what goes on when he sleeps daily. I have a suspicion that he's waking or semi-waking himself up on a regular basis. He always seems tired and is especially cranky in the afternoons. I've got a call in to the ENT to request a sleep study. I'm hoping we'll be able to push forward with that and have some sort of conclusion to this all. There's still the possibility that he'll need to get his tonsils out. It would be nice to do that this year since we've all pretty much met our deductibles already (except Cal). Plus it might be nice to have another surgery out of the way before the baby if need be. Did I also mention Ben talks in his sleep? I've gone in on several occasions thinking he was awake only to find him sound asleep and babbling. Interesting - just another one of Ben's bizarre habits. Oh and I also scheduled an appt with an allergist. I figure I might as well cover all my bases and TRY to get to the bottom of this.

I've also decided to make sure that Ben is officially not delayed in speech. He babbles A LOT but still doesn't say many clear words. I just found out it's mandated in the state of NH that they provide free evaluation AND therapy in any speech or developmental delay if a child qualifies, which means a 33% delay. At this point, judging by the stuff the lady read to me on the phone, he probably won't be 33% delayed but I figure it's free so I might as well have the eval just in case. I'll also request a hearing test at his 18-month checkup coming soon.

Poor kiddos - they're both sick now and crying when they should be napping.

On the Eric's medical issues. He survived his colonoscopy last Friday only to find out it was completely normal. Great...no answers there.

I got published!

If you get Parents Magazine you'll see my name in the June edition! They published my tip (and paid me $25!) on Once a Month Cooking! I haven't actually seen it yet but I know it's in the "It worked for me" section which is usually near the back. I can scan it and post it when I get my magazine.

Today this random woman phones me and says, "I know this is going to sound really strange but I saw your tip in Parents Magazine and I wanted to know exactly what you do?" Taken aback, I said, "Oh, did they publish my phone number?!?!". Turns out, no, they didn't but the woman lives in Portsmouth and happens to know a neighbor of mine. She said she looked up my name and got our phone # since it's not hard to find....though I'm finding that hard to believe since we're "unpublished" and it's not under Kady. My neighbor must have given her my phone #. Anyways, totally BIZARRE! Actually I just talked to my neighbor and she said she did NOT give my number to this woman and what's even weirder is the lady knew I had 2 kids and was expecting another....is she stalking me??!?!

I just completed my second round of all day cooking this past Sunday! I only cooked from 7:30am to 5:30pm this time with an hour break. It's more exhausting to stand up all day when your six months pregnant :) I managed to freeze 19 meals even though I didn't get through all the recipes that I wanted to. Still fabulous to know I have a freezer full of food once again! The last batch got me through 3 months since I interspersed with vegetarian meals I would make the night of, plus going out to eat, or the times I forgot to take something out to thaw the night before and I had to just wing dinner....Remembering to thaw it out overnight IS key.

I wanted to say thanks to Heather S. in Florida for her idea on using frozen chopped onions! It really helped this time!!

Daddy had another successful day out with the boys too! He took them to New Castle Common for a day at the beach/playground. They came home super tired so they napped well and then off to walk around downtown and pick up take out for dinner!

Boys will be boys...

Here's Ben doing what Ben loves best - being silly. He's obsessed with Cal's helmet. I'm going to have to get him his own, sometimes he doesn't want to take it off!

Future NBA star? Not likely...

The neighborhood playground, their favorite "hang" spot.

They're both building this tower but Ben built one with 11 blocks all by himself today! Leave me alone, the kid ain't talking so I have to brag about something!!! haha...

Blooming and Painting in Progress!

Here's a pic of the cherry tree in bloom out front. We missed it last year since we got here in June and it had already gone by. Very nice touch to our otherwise disastrous and gloomy looking front yard!
Here's a sneak peak at the new and improved color of the baby's room. Ironically, this room was painted last May. I had actually chosen green knowing that it would be the next baby's room and it would fit either gender. Well, the green wasn't the exact shade I had in mind and I had a change of heart before I even knew the baby's sex and wanted to go straight up pink or blue. So here it is BLUE BEYOND!

Here's my little Doodlebop!

I really do need to take some new pics of the boys. This one is from a couple weeks ago. We've noticed Ben is babbling a lot more these days...still not saying a whole lot of REAL words but I'm thinking he's choosing to be that way since he can say "Doodlebop" which is his most recent obsession. Hmm....so if he REALLY wants something, he learns how to say it - interesting!

The boys were both super cute today and gave me a laugh. PS. Even Cal has me saying "super" all the time now! Anyways, we went to pick Cal up at preschool and Ben goes running off around the corner of the building. He comes back a few minutes later carrying Cal's backpack, proud as could be! They just pile them near the door outside so you don't have to go in and get it when the kids are playing on the playground at pick-up time. I was shocked he knew which one was Cal's out of the whole slew of them! Good job, Ben.

Today at lunch after being frustrated that Cal wanted me to "Help him finish his lunch" which means spoon-feed him. Here's our conversation:

Mommy: Cal, no 3 1/2 year old needs to be fed their food. When you turn 4, no one's going to help you anymore so you better learn to use a fork and spoon or you're going to starve!

Cal: Ok, I'll starve.....LONG PAUSE....what does starve mean?

Mommy: It means you'll be very hungry for a very, very long time so eat your food!

Haha...it gave me a good laugh that he actually asked what starve meant. Once he's decided he doesn't want anymore food, he'll usually eat the rest if we feed it to him. I know, I know...HORRIBLE pattern to be in but he eats anything this way! We really are in the process of abolishing this behavior. It's not like he can't eat by himself...he just decides to be lazy sometimes.

Cal at preschool

Check out the new slideshow!

Update

After sleeping the day away yesterday I thought I'd be in for a lot of wake ups last night but it wasn't so. We put Ben to bed a little later than usual - 7:30pm and he woke up a couple of times talking at around 3:30 and again at 4:30 but when I went in he was sleeping. He tends to talk in his sleep often I'm discovering. He was definitely up and blabbing away at 5:30am so I got him up a little before 6 and off we went to play until it was time to get daddy and Cal at 7am.

The little bugger didn't miss a beat. He's back to his usual self and normal naps/bedtime today! Mommy took the opportunity to use this as an excuse to have a "low key" day for Ben and get lots of errands done :) This way I didn't feel bad that he had to just ride around in the car all morning and get schlepped in and out of stores. He didn't seem to mind since he just plays the "how many people can I get to talk to me" game anyways.

Even though they told me he could eat anything right away. I stuck to pudding, yogurt, ice cream, noodles and the like yesterday. Today we're back to eating a full diet of anything and everything.

Thanks to everyone who thought of us yesterday and helped Ben have a speedy recovery!!!

Benny-bo SUPER trooper!

We were definitely proud of our little Benny-bo today. He did a SUPER (Cal's favorite word these days) job dealing with his surgery today. Mom and dad had to get up at 5am in order to make it to Lexington, MA at 6:45 this morning. Ben was the first patient scheduled at 7:30. Daddy had to bring him back for the anesthesia which was a little bit of a change from what we had planned on. Ben does a little better with mom since he's a clingy little monkey lately but Mom was forbidden in the OR because of pregnancy. All went well though and Ben didn't mind that daddy got the job of helping him "go to sleep". The surgery took 30 mins and the doc came out to give us the report.

Apparently Ben has a "short soft palate" so they only took out 80% of his adenoid tissue. The remaining tissue helps to close the space when he swallows so that liquid won't go up to his nose and his voice will sound less nasal. I think I'm explaining this right?! Anyways, they had to leave some tissue so that they didn't create a new problem while fixing this one. The doc also informed us that since he now got a better view of Ben's tonsils, they are, in fact, fairly large. So we have to keep an eye on them and see if the tonsils start to cause congestion and snoring in the future. I was hoping he was going to say, "His tonsils are big too, do you want me to just go in and take them out now since we're here". We would have said, "YES, PLEASE!" But no such luck. I think I'll likely push for another surgery if I see a hint of anything return since I had the unfortunate experience of having my tonsils out at the age of 23 and let me tell you it's 800 times worse than child birth. I can only imagine a really bad car accident or being shot in the head and surviving being worse than having your tonsils out as an adult. I'm not even kidding.

Anyways, we went back to the recovery room just as Ben was waking up. He was out of it and very fidgety and fussy at first. He kept turning his head to look behind him as if he wanted to keep an eye out for those nurses! Haha...he was quite happy to be offered water and drank a bunch right away which put me at ease. I had read all the pamphlets beforehand and they prepare you for the worst, a tonsillectomy, which is more difficult to recover from, even for children. Luckily, since the adenoids are more up near the nose and away from the throat his recovery is MUCH simpler and less painful. They said he should be fully recovered in TWO days and that he'd be eating normally by the afternoon!!

Back to recovery room though. The nurse suggested a popsicle and as soon as he got that thing, it was like magic. In literally, LITERALLY 3 seconds after putting the popsicle in his mouth he laid his head on my shoulder and went to sleep! He loved the popscicles! He'd wake briefly and suck on it or chomp it down and we had to keep getting him more. He was such a good little boy eating and drinking that they let us go at 9am. He slept the whole car ride home and continued to sleep until 2:30 this afternoon! He got a little morphine so I guess he was sleeping that and the anesthesia off. He got up and ate pudding, cheese, ice cream, rice cakes, milk, water....he was HUNGRY! So that was good. He was still a little groggy though and unsteady on his feet. He played a little, watched a little Doodlebops, read a couple books but by 3:30 had pretty much had it. He was getting cranky and sleepy so I put him back in his crib and he slept again from 3:45-5:30pm! Go Ben! He woke up and it was like nothing ever happened today! He started playing like his crazy, old self - yelling even! So we did some hardcore playing to try and expend some energy so that he'd sleep tonight. He went to bed at 7:30pm so we'll see what the nighttime brings. I'm ready for anything!

The most surprising news of the day was that it takes up to a week for his snoring to stop even though the adenoid tissue is gone. Who knew?!