As They Grow Up

I got to meet a whole bunch of new people last night at the London Ontario Pagans Coffee Social! Dona decided to have an open house to discuss what we could do to get more people out, and tada! A little entertainment, and a little freedom to discuss what they want and the people will come! We even ran out of coffee for what Donna announced is the first time! :) Yay! Definitely had a great time and got to see some friends I hadn't seen for a while!

What a lucky kid! From us, he got a bullet bill (Super Mario) t-shirt, a new gui top, and tickets to Medieval Times (details to follow). From Aunt Fiona and Uncle Andrew he got three bionicles. From Uncle Mike and Aunt Ni-cool he got a ninja motorcycle and King Kong cartoon show. From Grandma and Grandpa Ross he got Mario at the Olympics for Wii. From Grandpa and Grandma Susan he got a trip bowling and a bit of money. Finally, from Nanny and Papa, he got a IOU for some heeleys and new snowpants and a card with some moula from Uncle Drew! Uncle Jason and Aunt Amanda sent him a gift (the lego set right?) with the Christmas bundle too! What a lucky kid!

And the details for Medieval Times!...

I picked Monkey up at 1pm from school on Friday, Feb 5 so we could get in the car and head off to Nanny and Papa's (I had a delightful class that morning by the way!). We got off on schedule and Kanga settled in nicely! As soon as daddy arrived, we were off to Toronto! We took the 403 for the first time, and it was a rather simple drive!

Once we found our parking, we realized we were only a few metres from the entrance! Score! Walked right in, no lines as we were nice and early. ;) We got our yellow knight passes for table 4 and in to the castle we went!

We got Monkey a foam sword and shield right off the bat, and paid for his birthday knighting. That meant that he got a little ceremony, his picture, and his name announced with his birthday in the event! Pretty cool for $20! That was all done by about 6:30 though, and the show wasn't until 7. We wandered around, and went through the dungeon of torture. Not really a Monkey appropriate show!

Time passed quickly enough though, and before we knew it, we were listening to the master of ceremonies introduce the story, and in we went! Yellow got to go first! :) We were seated in the second row, and right at the centre back of the auditorium. I thought it was great! Soon we were being served our soup, and we bought Monkey a yellow flag to cheer for our knight.

We ate tomato soup, roasted chicken (1/2), a rib, 1/2 a roasted potato, and a slice of garlic bread. It was all eaten with our hands and we loved it! For dessert we had an apple pastry, and Monkey's had a candle in it. The show was great, and our knight was very skilled. I won't tell you the story though, you can go see for yourselves! ;)

After the show, and all through it, Monkey kept saying "This is the best birthday ever!" He loved it! Hooray! Once the show was over, Monkey bought a t-shirt and a dvd. He also got the yellow knight to sign his flag. All the characters were standing around the bar to chat and sign things. It was cool!

We headed out and on to Fiona's around 10, and had a nice visit before heading off to bed. In the morning, Andrew and Fiona made us a huge birthday breakfast and had cupcakes too. Monkey thought it was great! After wards, they took us all to Zellers for Monkey to choose a birthday gift (the 3 bionicles mentioned above), and then it was off to Nanny and Papa's to have a birthday lunch and get Kanga!

From the updates, we knew that she had slept well, and all night! I wasn't concerned a bit! Then we found out that our poor little girl had been sick a couple times and needed her bed changed, and a bath to wash out her hair! Poor thing! Nanny didn't want to worry us, and she hadn't had a fever, so Nanny and Uncle Drew took care of her and made her feel better. Luckily she was over that bit of flu quickly! Still not very hungry for the next couple of days, but happy and not throwing up!

We had a light lunch as we got in a bit late, and then had burgers and fries for supper. Monkey was getting tired, and time was flying, so we headed out after a home made cake.

Yesterday (Feb 13) dad and Susan came to take us bowling. We went to Fleetway, which has an attached Dairy Queen, so we had lunch and then hit the lanes! We all did quite well and had a blast! Monkey broke a hundred for the first time, and yes we love the bumpers. ;)

So, I promised some pics of Kanga in her new mitts and of the fort we built! Here ya go. Monkey and Kanga in our rebuilt fort.

The Original Melting

Kanga crawling into the freshly rebuilt fort, and Kanga breaking the freshly rebuilt fort. Monkey wasn't too happy, but I had to laugh! She had watched Monkey and I crash through the melting fort and thought she should try it too! Clearly her new mitts were working! She had such a riot in the fort that day that I had to stay out with her a little extra! We went for a walk to the end of the sidewalk, and then I threw her in the snowbanks a few times. She thought that was the greatest!

We also now have an orange belt in the family. Monkey progressed through the 10 little dragon belts (red, yellow, orange, gold, purple, green, blue, brown, black, black 1st dan) and then joined the black dragon class at the yellow rank in September (skipped red and red advanced due to completing the little dragon program). He chose to take the summer off to try gymnastics, and then went right back to the karate training when school began.

Monkey has been doing very well at school since returning after winter holidays too. His communication book has had little but good comments! :)

And on to illness...Kanga yet again had a bout of bronchitis. Last weekend (January 15,16,17) she started to get a cough. When she gets a cough it tends to quickly get into her chest, and by Monday it sounded like it was going that way, so I took the morning off of volunteering to take her into the walk-in clinic. We were in and out fast enough, but the doctor wasn't very helpful. He asked what was wrong, and I said that she had a cough, and having had bronchitis two times since her birthday (late May early June and in September) I was concerned that it would quickly turn that way again. He said that bronchitis is over diagnosed, and that any chest congested cough is bronchitis. Okay, fine. He told me to just call it a chest cold and not call it bronchitis. Okay, fine. He told me my little girl was fine and not to worry about it. Uh, no.

Home we went, momma unhappy, baby still coughing and her inhaler not doing a whole lot as far as I could tell.

Tuesday I kept her home too, as she was still not better and we'd been up all night between her coughing and just being miserable. I got the vaporizer out at 2:30 and she felt well enough to fall asleep around 4:00. We got a whole 2 1/2 hours of sleep! Yay!

Tuesday night, listening to my poor baby, I decided that if we were up all night again I would be taking her back to the walk-in to get another doctor to take a look at her.

Indeed we were up all night once again, and I had the vaporizer going an hour before bed to make sure the air was moist, got her risers under her crib legs to get an angle so she could get to sleep, and alas! My poor baby couldn't sleep until about 5:30 when she was just too exhausted to keep her eyes open any longer!

Wednesday morning we dropped of Monkey and in we went to have Kanga looked at again. We got the doctor who did her follow-up in June (and prescribed the inhaler after the liquid Ventolin was a pain in the ...) and she was not impressed. She saw Kanga in the waiting room on Monday and assumed she'd been looked after. When she saw my baby she said who let you get so sick! I told her that I brought her in on Monday and the doctor had said she was fine. She looked at the chart and said she'd be speaking with him. Nice.

She then listened to me and my concerns, including that Matt had strep throat on the weekend and that the other doctor hadn't looked in her mouth. Poor Kanga's throat was red and tonsils swollen, her airway was very congested, and she told me that if Kanga started wheezing at all to get her straight to the emergency room... She prescribed her some antibiotic for her bronchitis, potential tonsillitis, and said that if there was an ear infection rather than bothering Kanga more by probing, the antibiotic would wipe that out too. As she hadn't had any fever, I doubt she had an ear infection, but she's all cleared out now!

Anyway, my baby was on antibiotic every 8hrs (so a dose at 2:30 with Monkey's potty break), Ventolin (her inhaler) every 4hrs, and Tylenol for her throat every 4hrs. I gave her Tylenol before we left (I'd given her Ventolin at 7:30 so it wasn't time yet) and we were off to Shoppers! I also needed to get her the bigger AeroChamber spacer as her baby one from a few months ago is too small!

A week later, and she is MUCH better. All that 1st doctor had to do was give her a script so she didn't get so bad. She has a history, we know what is going to happen, and yes, the A word (asthma) was brought up again. Matt doesn't think she has asthma, as he sees kids with the condition all the time, but we will find out either way and it doesn't matter one bit to me. It is a lot more controllable now then it used to be, so she won't be limited if she does have it, and it would seem that it is a seasonal when sick thing for her anyway!

The kids are getting bigger, and so they are moving more in their beds! Soon I'll need to be making Kanga some sheets, and this pattern is awesome! I'm going to put it in action as soon as I can get some time and some money for fabric. :)

I also made some adapted mittens on a string/mitten shirt for Kanga. She refuses to keep her mitts on, and while making a fort today this was a big problem. She was having a great time for about a half an hour, and then she just started screaming, and between the bit of snow on her hands and the bit that got into her mitts, I couldn't get them on. Matt took her in and decided to make some hot chocolate.

Anyway, we now have the base of our fort started (photos tomorrow), and Monkey and I worked for about an hour. After the yummy hot chocolate I went upstairs and measured (with Matt's help restraining) Kanga's arm span and grabbed some scrap polar fleece. I had some left over leopard print so it'll match her jacket! It's a strip and then folded over to cover half of her arm. No snow up the arms either! Once done (double layered with some pink) I strapped them on and sure enough she couldn't get out even without her jacket on! I think this will work perfectly! No thumbs, but at 20mos (so very close) she doesn't really need them! It'd just get in the way, and we don't use them in her mitts anyway. I'm excited to see how much longer she stays out tomorrow once she stops fighting the mitts!

If I missed anything in the title, then sorry, but it has been a while again!


1. Work:
I have had a relatively consistent work load since getting that call October 19th-ish. I get at least two days of work a week, and have met a wonderful teacher who calls me in regularly. For professional, student safety, and privacy reasons I can't disclose any names or locations, but I really enjoy his grade 8s. They're a great bunch of kids who strive to achieve rather than slumping off their work! It's great!


2. Earrings:
Ms. Kanga has learned to take them out. This started in September, and wasn't really an issue. I'd just put them back in and we'd be fine. About a month ago, I believed she'd eaten one. I found her earringless and one chewed. I could not for the life of her find the other. I got some gloves, fed her plenty of prunes (which she eats like candy) and off we went. Several movements later I had still not found it and concluded she must not have eaten it, but mentioned it to the dr at her 18mos checkup anyway. We came home with an x-ray req and that night while changing Monkey's sheets I found the missing earring! YAY!


She still takes them out, but I now know she's not going to eat them, and more often than not she hands them to me. Sometimes I am missing a back, but for now she's wearing a cleaned up pair of my old studs that are quite difficult to take out. I'm looking into getting her some labret studs (flat back and screw on ball) so she can still have her pretties but I don't have to worry about her taking them out! ;)


Yule:
As many of you know, I am a practicing pagan of the Correllian Nativist Tradition. That being said, Yule is the time of year when we mark the changing of the seasons. The Old God Cerunous, passes into the dark, and the Mother Goddess gives birth to the Young God. For this reason, the colours of white (Maiden Goddess and birth) and red (Mother Goddess) are used to decorate the Yule tree and domicile.


I also purchased our first live Yule tree this year. Unfortunately it will not fit my master plan. I started out on a 10 year plan of purchasing one young potted Yule tree per year for 10 years (to start with). In the spring, the tree will be planted with the ashes of the previous year's Yule log to fertilize it. After 10 years, the tree should be of appropriate height to be harvested and light our home to repeat the cycle. Well, I didn't notice that the Alberta Spruce I bought was a dwarf. This means that it grows exceptionally slow (about 2"/year) and will never be more than 6". That might be tall enough if I can get under it right to the ground to harvest, but we will see! 2"x10yrs is 20" on top of the already 20" in height. That would not be a very tall tree! Anyway, I'll just have to get a proper sized tree in the spring to fertilize with the ashes from our Yule log, and buy a harvested full grown Yule tree for the first year!


As to our festivities, on Monday the 21st, we woke before the Sun to open gifts. The kids each got an activity tray, 3 neopets, and a movie/game. Monkey got Ratchet and Clank: Tools of Destruction, and Kanga got Dora Saves the Snow Princess. Then Monkey also got a Bilibo Pixel. It's a cube with interchangeable button like sides in six colours. This way, Monkey can make up as many games as he likes and it's all in a neatly (40% off) packaged sack. It also came with a few suggestions to get him started. As always there was also a book to go with it all! :) Kanga's other gifts were a stuffed lavender scented puppy, and a Crayola colour wonder Dora pad. The colour wonders are the markers that only colour on the colour wonder paper and nothing else. Great for little ones who want to use markers, but also enjoy colouring themselves! Matt gave me some jammie pants and an iTunes card, and I gave him a palm wallet and an iTunes care. Korbin gave me an "I love my mom" photo frame, and Matt a TimsCard (for TimBits!). We also had a family gift of Harry Potter Year 6 (gah! can't remember the name right now!).

After opening gifts (stockings included some mommy made chocolates so Monkey could eat them too), Monkey and I went out on the porch (as the Sun was rising) and said thank you to the Goddess for giving us back the God to warm the Earth again for Spring, and then it was off to Donna's! We hung out for the day (quietly as Rod was sleeping) and then had a pot luck dinner. I brought sweet potatoes...mmm!

4. Christmas:
Christmas Eve we headed over to Wayne and Olwyn/Papa and Nanny/Matt's parents to begin our Christmas traditions. Kanga was in a mood unfortunately, so she and I stayed back while the rest went to the Christmas Eve service. When they got back, we hung out, and chatted. Other years we put up the tree, but this year it was already done!

Christmas morning, we woke up Monkey, and the kids and Matt opened their stockings. After they let me sleep in a bit (Kanga does NOT sleep well in other places the 1st night) I got up and opened my stocking. Then it was breakfast cake time before digging into the tree. :) This year I made soap for every one. I made lavender, milk and honey, calendula tea tree, and aloe oatmeal. I found neat little boxes to put them in and wrapped them in tissue paper so they could keep drying. Soap is best aged at least 5 years, and optimal at 10 years. Home made soap is no different, but will last a lot longer as it doesn't have any chemical alterations other than the necessary soaponification of the olive oil. It seemed to go over well!

Monkey got some comfy jammies, reindeer book, and battle ship from Dad and Susan. A StarWars telescope and books galore from Nanny and Papa. Clothes galore, a toque from Roar of the Rings, and a dinosaur cart action player thingy from Mom and Ross. He was spoiled again and he loves it! He also got gifts from a few of my friends. :)

Kanga got some comfy jammies, a horse cart, and a soft bowling set from Dad and Susan. A dancing Dora and books galore from Nanny and Papa. Clothes galore, a toque from Roar of the Rings, and an baby surprise Cabbage Patch Kid (a baby girl!) from Mom and Ross. She too was spoiled and is loving her gifts, and she too got some things from my friends. :)

5. New Years:
HOME ONLY! :D We decided again this year to stay home and just chill out for New Years. Kanga stayed up until about 9, which is quite late for her, and the boys played Wii. I played Wii Frisbee golf with them but had to miss a few holes to take Kanga to bed. Matt did quite well for me! ;)

After that we put in Harry Potter and the Philosophers Stone to begin our Harry Potter Marathon. We only got through the first two that night, so I watched four more yesterday.

Yesterday, the boys were playing Wii, or maybe Ratchet and Clank...I don't remember, but I told Monkey he needed to take a bathroom break, and halfway up the stairs he started crying! He's a tough kid, so I thought this was really weird and called Matt up. We had no idea, but when we couldn't settle him down stairs Matt decided to take him to the ER. Originally he was going to take him to University, but he decided to take him to Victoria just in case because they have the children's ER and facilities just in case. They left around 3:30pm, and while they were away, I got calls from mom and Wayne. I'm not one to announce anything before I know what's going on, plus I didn't want to worry anyone, so I didn't mention it.

On their way out the door, I told Matt to keep me up to date so I wouldn't worry to much. I didn't get any updates though! At 7:30pm when they finally got home, Matt told me that he'd forgotten his phone. It turned out that he likely had a tortioned testicle. A good thing we took him in. If it stays tortioned and undecended too long he'd need surgery to remove it. Luckily, on the way to the ultrasound, something in the way Matt was carrying him 'fixed' it. Monkey actually said to Matt "Dad! It's fixed!"

Like a good mommy, as soon as Kanga was in bed I headed outside to shovel the foot of snow off of our parking spot. Then I watched it, both waiting for the boys to get home, and making sure that my spot didn't get parked in! I hate it when I shovel my spot and others steal it! It happens too often, but not last night.

~*~*~*~
Well, I think that's it for now! Thank you so much everyone for all your generosity and hospitality. I had a great holiday, and hope you enjoy your soap! :)