Tests and Measurement

I was a psychology major in college. While I haven't directly used my degree to obtain a job in the last 5 years I have used several components of my degree in all my previous and current positions.  Most recently, in being a mom.  There was a class, PSY 361 - Test and Measurements - this class was supposed to teach us how to make effective judgements in our own lives, and be able to better deal with tests we will face in our own lives (and how to apply psychological testing to real life situations). I have felt like my degree has led me to over analyze things... so recently I've attempted to take a more laid back, wait and see approach with many things. Most recently ear wax.

Or, what I thought was ear wax.

A few weeks back J got a cold.  It crept up right before his birthday, and earned him a few days at home with Mommy.  We got back to good health and had some fun at school, a busy weekend and were enjoying planning for Memorial Day weekend when I began to notice that Jacob had some serious ear wax all of a sudden.  I didn't think much of it, grabbed a baby Q-tip to clean up the outside of his ear canal, and moved right along. My new laid back approach allowed me 72 hours of cleaning one ear 3 times a day before I began to google toddler ear wax followed by toddler, lots of ear wax.  Google told this Mommy that some kids just have lots of ear wax, and while you might not like it, just clean it up at bath time and move along.  Another 36 hours of ear wax and  I called the nurse at the pediatrician's office and began our conversation with...

"Should I be concerned..."

She decided since it was a holiday weekend coming up, that J should be seen, just to make sure all was well.  That afternoon I picked him up early from daycare and hoped right over to the pediatrician for a quick check of the ears.

The pediatrician checked Jacob's first ear and said everything looked good, tube is still in and clear.  And then she checked the ear wax ear...

*gross moment ahead*

Let me tell you, I was nothing short of surprised when she said

"Oh honey, that's not ear wax... that's puss."

EEEEWWWWWWWWWWW!!!

Jacob had his first real ear infection since getting tubes over a year ago.  The tubes were doing their job, draining the infection away, not causing Jacob to have any pain... but super mom over here thought she was dealing with ear wax.

You can go ahead and ship me my mom of the year award. I will accept it graciously! 4 1/2 documented days of draining ear infection, which means it had been there a little before that, is a great recomendation for that mom of the year award.

SERIOUSLY?!? What mom does this?

I think I'll take my psychology degree and put it back in force. Laid back, wait and see Mommy is not good for this little guy!



Had to toss in this picture from Chuck E. Cheese too.

To, Too, TWO!

Our own little man turned 2 yesterday. TWO!!!

He's such a happy little guy.  We'll get his stats this afternoon, but he's been growing!
He wears size 4 diapers, 24 month - 2T shirts and pants (as long as the pants have an adjustable waist), 18-24 month shorts, size 7 tennis shoes.  I swear he's getting skinnier.  We've had to break out the shorts from last summer his waist is so small. He is go-go-go all day long, so I'm sure this contributes to the little waist.

He's been progressing really well in his speech therapy and we're starting to hear him try and string together a few words here and there.  His favorite now is, "Mommy (or Daddy) mo mon" which is: Mommy, come on.  He waives his hand in the direction he wants us to go with him, or he'll come grab our finger and take us to his desired destination. It's very sweet (and sometimes demaning) but always fun! He's also very good about adding "peas" to his requests. "Milk, peas" , "Nakin, peas", "More, peas". Of course, he just ate his first peas willingly this past weekend, his "peas" is really please.  It's the easiest way for us to get him to use two words in rapid succession. He's very polite :) most of the time.  He's a stickler for his napkin in his lap at meal time too. If you are sitting at the table with him, be prepared to show him that you have your napkin in your lap - or you'll be putting it there ASAP! What a little gentleman. He's also not shy about his "wuv you"s and gives big hugs and kisses to go with them.

He loves music, as I've posted here.  And continues to sing and dance when he hears something he likes.  He can entertain any group of people with his head bobbing, stomping, jumping and swinging hips.

Everynight he reads with Daddy before bedtime, and his two favorite books right now are his Bible and The Very Hungry Catipilar.  We can't get through too many nights without reading both along with his other books.  And then... they say their prayers together. I caught them the other night on the monitor, hope you can see just a bit and hear Jacob's little voice. **turn your volume up to hear it, it's pretty quiet.**  Jacob knows the end is comming and starts trying to say amen during the last few lines.



For Birthday weekend, yes...weekend, we went to a friend's birthday party at Monkey Joes,

hung out with Nannie a little bit, did some shopping, had some friends over for a cook out, ate cake,

played in Jacob's new play house,

watched Daddy spend ALL DAY building a swing set, played on the swing set,

ate his first meatloaf with GiGi, Sissy and Nannie, had some cupcakes at school and then topped it all off with a trip to Chuck E. Cheese.

It was quite the weekend. The celebrating continues tonight, and tomorrow...birthday week isn't over in our house, it continues tongiht with a pool side dinner with Pappy, MiMi and Gracie and Thursday Night Live on Thursday! WHEW. It's been a fusy few days... and keeps going. But SO FUN!

Mean

Jacob has two new songs these days.
his FAVORITE is Taylor Swift's Mean. He will request this song be replayed over and over again. And he knows the words! Well, three words. "mean" and "I'll be".  I caught him while we were at a stop light this morning. The chorus is his favorite part. You can't quite hear him, but you can see him singing along.





his second favorite is Steven Tyler's new single It Feels So Good.  He enjoys playing his air guitar along with the music :)

Stolen Wordless Wednesday–>Why Boys Need Parents!

I've seen this a few times, and it cracks me up every time... so I have borrowed it to share with others.  My son is already pretty good at the refridgerator one.


full blog here
http://obnurse35yrs.wordpress.com/2011/05/18/wordless-wednesday-why-boys-need-parents/


Why Boys Need Parents!

Egg Free Sweet Tooth

I love cakes...and cookies... and things with sugar. LOTS of sugar! And I love to bake them myself or have a reason to buy one that is beautifully decorated and I didn't have to take the time to make :)

Living in Baltimore we were quite spoiled with Charm City Cakes.  Chef Duff was just getting started in his cake world when we lived there.  The company I worked for was celebrating their 10 year anniversary and Anitra and I were in charge of the celebration - we immediately called and spent a Saturday afternoon on Remington Avenue with Chef Duff and ordered a masterpiece.  While our experience wasn't quite what you see on TV, I was still in awe of the other cakes they make.

When we moved back to Lexington, I found a neat little bakery that ladies I worked with told me about, and I picked up a few cupcakes and ordered our house warming cake and one of Pat's birthday cakes from there. Their cakes were pretty, but not different enough, like a Charm City Cakes. 

And THEN, I was introduced to Confused Confections.

It started out so innocently.  Jennifer was hosting a baby shower for me, and saw a picture of a baby carriage cake.  She went to the creator and asked them to make one for my shower in Bowling Green.
We indulged.

AND THEN, we just had to have one again.  So for Father's Day we ordered this popcorn cake.  My dad is obsessed with popcorn, and so it was very fitting for the occasion.

AND THEN it was time for Jacob's baptism at church. and I needed a cake. So I took in some pictures and brought home this beautiful creation!

And next thing you knew, it was time for Jacob's birthday.  A few weeks before he was turning one we found out about Jacob's egg allergy, and I knew that I wouldn't be able to tackle cakes for him - maybe cupcakes, but not big cakes. I called up Confused Confections, and wouldn't you know - it was no big deal to make an egg free cake! They had three flavors to choose from, and had NO PROBLEMS accommodating Jacob's food allergy. Other bakeries in town either couldn't accommodate it or acted as if it was a huge problem and would need to charge me an arm and a leg to make an egg free cake - as if I needed any reason to never go to another bakery - we were hooked! And they've been WONDERFUL to work with ever since!!

Jacob needed several "smash" cakes for his birthday. One for his one year pictures...

And then one to match his big cake at his party.  His party was a week after his actual birthday, so he also had a small cake on his actual birthDAY.  Confused Confections made three smash cakes, a big cake and the cupcakes we took to school to celebrate.

Two days later, my parents were not ones to leave out a birthday celebration, so I got a seahorse cake.

For Pat's birthday we wanted something fun! It was the big 3-0.  So, what do you get the man who has a bar instead of a coat closet in his living room? A bucket of beer of course! If you look close you'll notice they changed some of the beer labeling around to say Patrick, and 30 years :)

Jennifer wanted her own cake too. I forgot to take a picture - she picked out a keylime cake.  Hers looked just like the one below, only with green zebra instead of black.

And often when I do my first Kelly's Kids open house of the season I stop by to get cupcakes that coordinate with one of the clothing patterns.  This spring they made some great cupcakes to go with the Tropical Turq line.

We've used them for multiple events and can not say enough wonderful things about this bakery! They have been so accommodating to the food allergy we have in our home - and I am quite thankful! 

I've already ordered Jacob's 2nd birthday cake and cupcakes for his class - I CAN NOT WAIT! It's going to be a Thomas the Train topsy turvy cake.  SO EXCITED!!

Motivated

To say we've been motivated to do some spring cleaning, might be an understatement.

Our activities began Thursday night with some outdoor planting.  I had found some hydrangeas {my favorite plant!} at Sam's for cheap-o.  Pat enlisted the help of a little guy to dig and plant the hydrangeas {and a few other small flowers} in the back yard.



Jacob kept trying to chase me and give me a hug with his dirty hands and dirty mouth. Apparently, boys do eat dirt.


Friday night we set out to pick up a mattress for Jacob and then moved all the furniture out of Jacob's room to clean the carpets.  He was upgraded from a nursery this weekend to a toddler room.  Complete with twin mattress and a toy wall.  Saturday morning our work began.  Before Jacob and I woke up Pat went to Lowe's and picked up some mulch and two trees.  They were in the ground and the lawn was mulched before our eyes opened.   As soon as Jacob woke up we began the transformation of his room.

First the mattress came in, and then the crib went out.  Jacob supervised Pat's progress.

Then we began to put together the new unit for Jacob's toys, books and puzzles.  When we were almost done I decided that the dresser in the guest room would be better in Jacob's room, so we had to preform a minor switch-a-roo.  After a quick drop off at Goodwill and trip to Target, we were headed back home for Jacob's first night in his new room.

We've got the basics done.  Most wall items remained and Pat wasn't about to tackle the stripes he painted so patiently 2 1/2 years ago, so they stayed.  A few other items had to be moved, because once Jacob got onto his new bed, he realized that he could reach items that were previously out of reach.

Saturday night was Jacob's first night in a big boy bed, and he did great! I, on the other hand, stayed up all night checking on him.  I had purchased a video monitor a few weeks ago in anticipation of this move.  I was convinced that Jacob would get up and run around - but I wanted to be able and let him have the opportunity to get back in the bed on his own, without us barging in all the time to redirect him. So, all Saturday night I would roll over and turn the monitor on and make sure he was doing okay. And of course, he was, and he never got up.

Sunday morning we were up with the sun and ready to go! After a big family breakfast Pat used the carpet cleaner machine to deep clean our slick floors (LONG story) and the chair and a half in our room, all before church! After church we came home for a quick change and a quick quick nap and then headed to Keeneland.  Jacob's nap went more like I had anticipated when I purchased the video monitor.  We were checking to see if Jacob was still asleep and he was NOT in his bed.  While we were checking the monitor a little blond hair boy ran from the opposite side of the room towards his bed - he. was. awake.  :) Knowing we had big plans for the afternoon we went right on in and got Jacob ready for Keeneland.

Jacob loved Keeneland! We arrived in time to really enjoy most of the very windy but super sunny afternoon.  Jacob got to see tons and tons of horses, which thrilled him! He was such a joy to be around and was laughing every time he saw a horse.  He loved every minute of our afternoon and zonked out as soon as we hit the car.

What a weekend!  I'm motivated to keep moving and cleaning out. WATCH OUT! My next room is the TV room - I'm trying to figure out how to switch the main TV to the complete opposite wall... wish me luck!

LaLa Tuesday's

We have been very fortunate to get to spend some special time with my friend Laura the past few months. Her new job has brought her to Frankfort every Wednesday since March 9 and also for the entire first week of March.  Instead of camping out at a hotel, she has been coming to stay at our house on Tuesday nights, and WE. LOVE. IT!
So much so, that when we pull into the garage after I pick up Jacob from school each day, he starts repeating - LaLa LaLa LaLa
He affectionately knows our guest room to be LaLa's room, and shuts the door when she's not there occupying it. Wednesday mornings have become quite funny - he wakes up with a smile on his face and then holds on tight to the crib rails as he bounces up and down yelling and laughing "LaLa! LaLa! LaLa!" And last week, he got LaLa to come in and get him out of his crib right when he woke up.



Clearly I need an updated picture of these two!

 So today is Tuesday, and I'm looking forward to getting Jacob out of the car when we get home and turning him loose as soon as he gets inside the garage door - because when we get home - LaLa will be there waiting with big hugs and kisses for Jacob.