Can't help but make you smile

I shot this a couple weeks ago while Daniel was gone in between fevers, puking, coughing, and other good times.  Enjoy!

I'm pretty sure he's smart

We started doing baby signing with Aidan about a week ago.  We did it with Kate and it was wonderful.  If you have a baby I highly recommend it.  But we were a little surprised to find him already signing "more" while I was feeding him.  Clearly eating and letting us know he enjoys it is a priority.  You'd never know by looking at the poor skinny thing though. Watch and marvel at our little genius.

Halloween: √

Halloween was a success.  Trick or treating at the zoo: √  Trick or treating at the mall: √ Trick or treating in the neighborhood: √  Kate had a great time.  This was the first year she was really into it.  She fell only 3 times, filled her bag with far too much candy, and requested to go to bed at the end of the night.

Aidan wasn't as enthusiastic as she was.  He slept, stared at all the kids, and generally had the look of boredom combined with a why on earth am I wearing this dumb outfit look on his face all night.  Everyone kept calling him a bear and I'll admit if you didn't see the tail (he was sitting on it) or his feet (he kept trying to eat them) he actually did look like a bear.  He was cute but none of the pictures turned out that well.  There's always too much stress on holidays to try and capture the perfect pictures, that they always seem to end up looking forced, out of focus from the rush, and in general kind of blah.  I don't do well under pressure.

The weather was also a little un-Halloweenish.  Yes I made that word up and it totally freaked out the spell check.   Mid-seventies is not really the best weather for a baby wearing a big furry suit.  We also discovered we live 1 street off the highly desired trick or treating area and ended up not having all that many kids.  I think we missed a lot while we were gone though.  So here you go... Pics of the night!

Sittin' pretty

It's a mouse!  It's a bear!  It's a monkey!?

I'm a genie.

Lost his feet.

Sparkly eyes

B-O-R-I-N-G

Posing at the mall

Mad scientist guy

Rock Princess with not so rockish hair.  I should have used more hair spray.

Dr. Kill or Dr. Whoever?  He got called both.

Princess weirdo

Get ready

So despite my initial decision to NOT dress up for Halloween, I decided that wouldn't be any fun.  So... check in later for pics of a crazy mad scientist, a rock princess, a cute little genie, and of course a little spunky monkey.

Sneak Peek

Here's Kate getting ready to go to dance class to dance in her costume.  In case you can't tell she's a genie.  More pics to come...

Crossing my fingers

So at this very moment everyone seems to be well.  There's still a little snot left in Aidan that he shows off ala massive sneezes but his spirits are much improved.  Kate seems completely recovered and despite a strange crazy sneezefest Monday and Tuesday for me, I'm doing good.  My dear husband seems to have escaped getting sick.  Punk.  Our lives haven't been all that exciting and I've spent the last week not doing a whole lot besides recovering from a week where I did more then I should have while I was sick.  Why is that when something crazy is going on I tend to want to do things that aren't exactly apres pos  around here?  It's like when there's a tornado warning I start furiously picking stuff up like the tornado won't bother us if everything is in its right place or I like baking when there's chances of the power going out in the winter.   So I also apparently feel the need to keep my house clean when I'm sick and alone and there's no one to blame for things not getting done but myself.  Isn't it easier when you can put the blame on another person?!

So for those of you that care here's a rundown of what you missed over the last week...

MINUTES:
Saturday/Sunday: These are basically interchangeable because I think I was in pajamas most of both days and didn't leave the house.  We sat around, I edited photos, there was TV watching, I complained about football, Daniel complained about football but in a different way, I expressed sadness over not being able to go to Boo at the Zoo and we ate.  Yes eating is often a necessity.

Monday: Back to school and lots of sneezing.  That about covers it.  Oh and we had a yummy beef stroganoff for dinner.

Tuesday: Feeling better but not great, showered and forced myself to go to the mall to walk around.  It was nice and Aidan got a good nap in.  I found a pair of jeans I'd really wanted on sale since all the ones I bought since giving birth are too big (woohoo!) and the ones I had before that are icky.  Yes I needed a new pair of jeans because my old ones are icky.  I might be twelve.

Wednesday: School, Target at 8:00 a.m. to get cat food so those things will stop terrorizing me, discovered only weird people are in the store right after it opens,  Dance class in costume, church, and home.  I might have visited McDonalds for a diet coke too.

CURRENT EVENTS
Aidan's grumpiness last week might have been due to yet another tooth popping it's way through on the bottom row.  The more to bite you with my dear!  Muh, ha, ha ha!

There's some talk about a move to Chicago.  This time I think it's a real possibility.  I'm O-V-E-R the excitement and won't reignite it until there's a real offer on the table.

Kate's Halloween party at school is tomorrow.  This time I won't forget my camera like I did yesterday at Kate's dance party.

The Christmas stress is already starting to set in and it's not even November yet.  What to get people.  How to see everyone.  So much to think about.

You think you've had a rough time

I think all things considered, I've held it together quite well.  But everyone has a breaking point right?  Yesterday Kate didn't have a fever and although she was still coughing a lot she was doing better with that too.  Then the call from her Dr.'s office came in and they told me the radiologist that looked at her chest x-rays from Tuesday felt like she had a little pneumonia.  Great.  So I pretty much decided to go ahead and keep my hyper, incredibly bored child home yet another day.  Oh and Aidan is starting to cough a little and sneeze a whole lot.  So far he doesn't have a fever.

Kate clearly is in need of some social interaction with someone other then her crazy Mother, baby brother, and various characters on the Disney channel.  Yesterday she thought it would be a good idea to color on the walls, the coffee table, and 2 bath towels with paint pens while Aidan and I were napping RIGHT THERE and then proceeded to get into Aidan's baby swing and strap herself in.  She's a good 15 pounds over the weight limit and when I awoke to the phone ringing I found her strapped in without her pants or underwear on.  Why you might ask didn't she wake me up so I could help her get out?  Why you might ask was she not wearing underwear or pants?  She was afraid of getting in trouble (duh- of course I wasn't going to be pleased) and because she was trying to get loose and thought removing the "bulk" of panties and thin pajama pants might help.

Then there's the bouncing around, squealing during Aidan's naps, and the reenactments of some Shakespeare worthy poisoning scenes every time I have to give her Tamiflu.  She acted shocked when I told her Aidan took it better the she did.  Of course he eats veggies too so I'm sure she thinks he's a  little nuts.  So in essence I'm tired.  I'm tired of feeling rundown, not sleeping well, having coughing, feverish, snotty, pukey (which re-started today as well after a 2 day reprieve) and grumpy or hyper kids.  I just want to take a hot bath with bubbles and not have someone bug me.  I want to eat my pancakes without having to keep Kate from essentially eating Aidan's cheeks or taking his toy away.  I want these kids on Nick to stop singing the same damn song over and over again.  Why won't they stop singing!!  I'm going to have that stupid song in my head all day.  I want my husband to come home and I want to head to a luxury hotel and get pampered for a few days- since we're talking about things that ain't gonna happen.

Then last night was the kicker.  I had a massive anxiety attack.  I've had a few in my life and this was probably the worst.  The kids were asleep and I had just finished watching a particularly unsettling episode of Grey's Anatomy that the entire time I was watching I kept thinking I should just stop because it was making me nervous, and Oh never mind I'll just keep watching.  It was about a woman who died an unnecessary death because of a freak situation.  I sat up and was going to get Kate moved to her bed and realized my neck was really sore.  That was all it took.

When Daniel called this morning our conversation went like this... Him: "How's it going?"  Me: "Well... Kate is puking again, last night I couldn't sleep because I thought I was going to die in my sleep because I thought I had meningitis or carbon monoxide poisoning.  Then my head started hurting but not a normal headache a weird headache like none I've ever had before and then it started tingling.  Then my chest hurt, I felt like I couldn't breathe or swallow, I felt dizzy, and I had visions of having to drive myself to the hospital and I was scared to go to sleep because if I died I wasn't sure Kate would know what to do when she found me dead the next morning."  Then after he stopped in a questionable area to use the bathroom he called me back and said, "Hey I didn't get mugged!"  I replied, "Hey I didn't die in my sleep!"  His response..."Long distance high-five!"  Yep we're weird like that.

Yes the conversation was one big run on sentence, yes it was disturbing at the time but I can laugh about it now,  and yes I realized I was having a panic attack after surfing the Internet, checking the carbon monoxide detector, putting a heating pad on my neck, and eating some oreos.  I'm not sure the last part helped all that much but hey you've got to try anything.

I finally did go to sleep around 2 and relaxed as much as one can given the present situation, and am now counting down the hours until my husband comes home to rescue me.  Oh my word they're playing that song again!  Boycott the Fresh beat band!  Do it now!