Baltimore Children's Museum

121) Last week we were able to spend a day up in Baltimore.  The kids had colds but aside from Erik getting car sick no one had a tummy bug that day!

I love the Baltimore Children's museum.  The kids can easily spend 4 hours there.  It is a 2 hour drive each way though so we only go once every few months.

 First time Erik's been able to do this successfully on his own.

 The kids loved this pulley apparatus.

On a side note:

Erik has been throwing up after 60 minute car rides even with a pretty big dose of dramamine on board.  We take other precautions too of course -- no jacket, heat off, full tummy before getting in the car, no screens or books, he sits in the middle row of the van, etc.  Doesn't seem to be working.  We have tried sea bands in the past.  He hates them.

Anyone have other motion sickness tricks?  We are planning a 3+ hour car trip a few weeks from now and I hate to think that he will spend it feeling miserable, not to mention I hate being on puke patrol. :)

I have a supply of Zofran and am considering giving him 4 mg of that prior to our next trip.  Thoughts? (Feifei and Kristal/Dave??)

Joy Project - Little Less Grumpy

119)  My sweet (although apparently hard of hearing as she has a lot of trouble listening recently) little girl and her love of babies.

We went to Lainey's friend Sophie's 3rd birthday party on Saturday.

(A hello kitty party which Lainey was quite excited about!)

Sophies brother Seth is about 6 weeks old (she also has a 19 month old sister).

Lainey LOVES Seth.  

All on her own she found someone (Sophie's grandma) and sweet talked her 

into letting her hold him.  Haha!  I didn't see what she was doing until I found her happy as a clam

holding him by herself in the recliner.  (Grandma was overseeing her still.) None of the other kids at the party seemed to even notice the baby.  Lainey truly is my daughter! I love babies immensely too and always have.

120)  Erik sat down today to do his homework and without any prompting read the directions out loud. I was pretty impressed.  Later, he read a book to me.  Watching him learn to read truly brings me joy.  I love seeing him be successful at such an important life skill. 

Now - if you are reading this tonight please pray that I'll be able to sleep.  My dear kids have given me their bronchitis type cough and I can not lay down without hacking up my lungs.  Ugh!

Carson talking to himself on camera

Grumpy Joy Project

I'm pretty grumpy and have been for a good 10 days.  Why?  Well, everyone in our house has been afflicted with at least one virus.

Carson - cough, cold, ear infection
Erik - stomach flu, cough and cold with lots and lots of wheezing, 2 pink ears
Lainey - cough and cold
Victor - stomach flu
Ann - stomach flu plus cough and cold that has disrupted my sleep significantly

So, I've been grumpy and this weekend Victor was the king of grump.  Not his fault entirely as he tends to take on more of the load when I'm sick.  He didn't feel well for a day but thankfully has been healthy otherwise.  He was so grumpy this weekend I sent him out for 3 hours of alone time yesterday afternoon.  He came home in a much better mood thankfully.  Now I just need to work on my grumpiness.

That being said, I know being grumpy about such minor stuff is so dumb.  I know that in my head, but fixing my attitude seems to prove a little be harder. I'm working on it!

Still there has been a few bright spots the during the past couple of weeks....

115)  Painting Lainey and Carson's nails blue.  Lainey likes nail polish.  I'm not very good at it but at this point she doesn't care.  While I was painting her nails Carson snuggled up next to me and insisted that I paint his nails too.  All of them.  He shows everyone his "paint".  Cute little guy!

116)  Carson sleeping in the van with his blanket over his head.  Haha!

117)  My busy little guy.  Carson likes to get in the pantry and stack the cans, pulls things off of the shelves, and help himself to snacks.  He can actually entertain himself in there for close to an hour.  I truthfully, usually just let him play.  The worst snack he can get into himself is raisins and I don't care if he eats a bunch of those.  He is a busy and mischievous little guy.

118) Carson Counting

Carson likes to sing and count.  He hums songs to himself a lot of the day.  In the past week or so he has also started counting.  He can get to six correctly (speaking it not actually counting objects).  He verbally has been talking quite a bit more recently but is still fairly quiet so I find it somewhat amusing that he can count higher than the other two at this age. (Of course on camera cooperation is limited!)

Land of the Sick

Well, I started the germ parade that's currently marching through our house.  I had the stomach flu last Thursday evening - Saturday morning.  During that 48 hours, the trio all started coughing and sneezing.  Lainey and Erik still just have colds (fine for school) but Carson has now spiked a high temp, has fluid in his ears, and a terrible cough with mild wheezing.  We are running his nebulizer (with albuterol)3x a day hoping to avoid the bad respiratory issues he had in November.  To top that off Victor told me this morning on his way to work that his stomach was bugging him.  He still worked all day but didn't eat and has a fever tonight.

Doesn't that sound fun?  Poor Victor will be home alone with the trio tomorrow as I have been threatened by my medical assistant (MA) that they will likely be printing my death certificate if I don't show up at work tomorrow.  (Tomorrow's schedule is the busiest it's ever been since I've gone back to work.) Haha!  So off to work I will go!  It's not often that a sick husband gets left alone with sick kids.  Wonder how he will fare?  Still him in your prayers tonight please (and add in that the trio doesn't get the stomach bug in addition to their respiratory bugs please!).

Jealous anyone?

Joy Project!

This has been a busy week!  Hence the silence on the blog.   It started with Victor getting back (Monday) and ended with the stomach flu (Thursday/Friday). So far, I'm the only one who got sick. I'm hoping it stays that way.  

So here are a few things that brought me joy this week...

110)  Victor coming home!

111) Lunch with a friend

112) Cool babysitter who values similar healthy eating habits that we do and made a dish at home and brought it to our house to share with us on Wednesday.  

113)  My dear husband who let me stay in isolation for 36 hours with the stomach bug.  He took care of the kids, house, and me without complaining.  Thank you.

114) Pastor John - He is our pastor and I am so thankful for him.  He is a kind, passionate man that really loves people deeply.  I found his sermon last week extra touching.  It was a reminder that christ is there to provide us with a full life today in addition to the promise of heaven.  One thing he said that stuck out to me was, "Even if there was no promise of heaven I would still spend my life following Jesus because he provides us with the truest for of life today."  (Or something like that.)  

If you want to listen to his sermon last week go here....

http://www.firstsaints.org/content.cfm?id=213

Does This Story Remind You of Anyone??

http://www.cleveland.com/sports/college/index.ssf/2013/02/love_game_toledos_ben_pike_end.html

Feifei, I hope you will never doubt how grateful we are that you love Daron so well.  We are thankful you are part of our family.

Young Love- Erik!

Erik has a befriended a sweet little girl in his class (M).  She lives a few blocks from us, goes to our church, and is in his class.  She is a wonderful little kid - so smiley and friendly.  They share a seat on the bus and she hops up and waves and shouts Hi loudly to me every day when Mr. H drops Erik off.  So cute!

Last week when I was spending time in his classroom I noticed some artwork on the bulletin board in the hallway.  They had made Valentine's projects out of paper plates with pink hearts glued around the edges and a picture in the middle.   M had drawn a picture of Erik and wrote, "I love Erik."  I thought that was cute and then noticed that Erik had drawn a picture of M and wrote, " I love M."   Haha!  So stinking cute!

Well, yesterday when Erik got off of the bus he showed us a picture that M had drawn for him that day.

I called M's mom this morning on my way to work to tell her about the bulletin board and pictures just because I thought it was cute.  Well, she quickly topped my story.

Apparently, M told her mom last night that they needed to go shopping for her wedding dress.  Shocked Julie asked M why she needed a wedding dress.  Very matter of factly M responded that Erik had asked her to marry him when they were using the computers and she had said yes.

When I got home tonight I told Erik that M's mom had told me M wanted to go wedding dress shopping.  Playing innocent I asked him, "Why do you thinking she's shopping for a wedding dress?"  He just shrugged and said, " I don't know?  Why do you think?"   I could tell he wasn't sure what a wedding dress was so I then said, " Well, you usually wear a wedding dress when you get married.  Do you know who Maddie is marrying?"   My shy boy, got a huge smile on his face, turned a little red, and sheepishly said, "I'm not sure."

Well, if he is going to marry young I'm at least glad I like his fiance'.  

Happy Valentines Day!

Joy Post!

108)  A clean playroom!

I'd have to say that Erik is overall a really helpful kid.  He sets the table before meals, cleans up his room when asked, runs downstairs or upstairs to get things when I ask him to, and cleans up the playroom.  Lainey helps with the playroom too!  Tonight I was upstairs vacuuming and put Erik and Lainey in charge of cleaning up the playroom.  (Carson was with me or he destroys the room faster than they can possibly clean.  Thankfully, if we shut the light off when they are done he is afraid to go back in the room so it stays clean until morning.  Ha!)

Here's what I found when I came back downstairs....

Pretty impressive for a 3 and 5 year old! 

I can't wait until they are big enough to clean up the kitchen after dinner! :)

109)  Ending the day with peace, quiet, and peppermint ice cream.  Ahhh! 

Lest you think my life is perfect....

The only downside to the joy project is that I'm afraid you will think my life is always perfect and problem free.  I don't want to come across as this woman who has it put together 100% of the time.  I do not and my life is far from perfect (although certainly blessed).  

The last few minutes of the day were a good example of that.  I had sent Erik and Lainey upstairs to brush their teeth.  I followed them upstairs about 2 minutes later.  Were they brushing their teeth?  No!  Erik had found the ipad and was playing it under a pile of blankets.  This wasn't the first time he did this today (I found him at nap time doing the same thing.)  I had talked to him calmly earlier in the day about it, reminding him that he always needs to ask before using the ipad.  Given the fact that he'd been reminded of that rule and ignored it for a 2nd time in the same day made me quite mad.  I may have loudly and sternly suggested he get himself to bed NOW and that he'd lost book privileges for the night.  He scampered off to his room quickly.  After putting Carson to bed, I was much less irritated about it and went to have another quick discussion with him about it and tell him goodnight, only to find him fast asleep on the floor.  So cute!  

Another frequent annoyance recently is Lainey demanding things.  She seems to have forgotten the need to say Please, Thank you, and May I.  Instead I get, " I need water!"  "I need the music louder!" all day long.  Nothing like having a 3 year old dictator around you all day.  I have stopped correcting her and just don't respond to the dictator type requests.  She usually figures it out quickly and corrects herself.  She's really a sweet little thing just happens to be a little demanding at the moment.  

And if you recall I mentioned Carson's massive fit yesterday.  He had another, milder version, of that while getting dressed this morning.  It didn't last long but made getting dressed interesting.  

So you see, I love my life and feel infinitely blessed but things aren't, and won't ever be perfect.  Being able to see joy constantly throughout your day despite frequent irritations makes life seem life such a wonderful gift (it is!). 

School Lunches

None of my kids eat lunch at school yet.  Next year Erik will be in full day kindergarten so that will be our first exposure to daily lunches away from home.  I've always planned to pack his lunch and still do but I am no longer convinced that a home packed lunch is the healthiest choice for most kids.

I've long been a skeptic of school lunch programs.  It seems that they focus more on cost than nutrition.  Recently, there have been new mandates placed forcing school lunches to be a little healthier.  Surprisingly, some people are completely pissed by the very reasonable new calorie restrictions and healthy guidelines.

For more info on the new program you can go here....

http://usnews.nbcnews.com/_news/2012/01/25/10234671-students-to-see-healthier-school-lunches-under-new-usda-rules?lite

or here......

http://sabethaherald.com/2013/02/01/usda-backs-down-on-school-lunch-mandates/

The caloric guidelines for elementary school kids is 350-500 for breakfast and 550-650 calories for lunch.  There seems to be a large portion of people who think kids eating 1000 calories between breakfast and lunch are going to starve.  Really?!  Cmon!  This might be why 30% of kids are overweight or obese in America today.

http://www.heart.org/HEARTORG/GettingHealthy/Overweight-in-Children_UCM_304054_Article.jsp

Anyway, I support the recent changes that have been made and hope they continue to make changes until healthy options are the only option.

Earlier this week I spent 2-3 hours with Erik at school.  He had a longer day at school and did eat school at lunch that day.  I had packed his lunch - popcorn, plain yogurt with blueberries and granola, cantaloupe, and brown rice and beans. (Water to drink.)    He seemed happy with his choices.

I am happy to say that I was 50% pleased with the lunch the school offered that day.

Choice one:  Grilled cheese on whole wheat bread, tomato soup, fresh fruit (raspberries), a salad or cherry tomatoes, (over)cooked broccoli.

50% of the kids picked this choice and I thought it was overall a pretty good lunch.

Choice two:  Fried chicken bites (15-20 of them for 4-5 year old kids), whole wheat baquette, salad, tomatoes, fresh fruit, broccoli.

Very unimpressed with that choice.  I personally don't think the school lunches should include any fried foods.  Clearly fried foods are unhealthy so why offer them at school?  Let the parents make that decision for their own kids.  Heaven knows kids eat plenty of crap at home.

They also still offered chocolate milk (lots of sugar) which I think is a mistake.  Erik's teacher very actively tries to get the kids to pick white milk but of course she can't actually require that.

More shocking than the school lunch were the lunches packed by the parents!!!  Oh my word!  I was kind of under the assumption that kids bringing a lunch from home would bring healthier food than the kids eating lunch provided by the school.  I was SO wrong about that!!

Every other kid, aside from Erik, had cookies (5-6 in some of the lunches), brownies, cheetos, fruit snacks, fruit punch, oreos, etc.  There was no fruit aside from 2 kids with fruit cups, and no one with vegetables.  Many kids had white bread with deli meat, some kind of chips, cookies/brownie, and fruit punch for their meal.

I honestly was completely appalled.  At the same time I felt bad for Erik.  Here was eating plain yogurt with blueberries and everyone around him was chowing down on cheetos and brownies.  My "poor" guy!  He didn't complain about it but I am certain he must be a little envious.

So, my opinion of school lunch choices has been elevated a little bit but my opinion of what other parents pack for their kids has been greatly lowered.  No wonder there was such an uproar when healthy mandates were enforced.  Clearly, everyone must not have the goal of healthy eating for themselves or their kids.

What a big problem for our nation this is going to be if something doesn't change!

Do you pack your kids lunches?  What do you pack?  If they eat the school lunch are you happy with the choices they are given?

Joy Project!

Victor is out of town again - just for 5 days - but that's long enough for us!  It's amazing how much easier it is to handle the kids on my own now compared to a year ago.  I am thankful for that!

103)  Thankful that Victor's trips are generally limited to 3-7 days at a time and are usually only once a month or less. (I have many friends with husbands who are gone for a month at a time or more.  Even more amazing than that is that these families rarely ever complain about the sacrifice that comes so frequently to military families.)

104) 3 kids that sleep through the night - that's why handling them on my own is so much easier.  Sleep makes a big difference.

105) A new children's museum in the DC area.  I took the kids there yesterday after I picked Erik up from school.  It's an hour from our house (without traffic) but it was a fun way to spend a rainy afternoon.  The DC museum does not compare to the Baltimore museum (it's awesome!) but it is closer so that's where we went.  The kids played hard to 2.5 hours, we ate an early dinner and then headed home.  Carson didn't sleep on the way home but was so so tired he threw the largest fit ever when we got back.  Yelling, screaming, slamming the doors to our TV hutch, failing about, gagging, etc.  He refused to get into the bath and finally collapsed into a naked heap on the bathroom floor clinging to his baba (blanket).  He managed to calm himself down and went to bed right after that (6:30 PM).  Poor guy!  I don't do well when I'm tired either buddy! :)

106)  A tender hearted daughter.  She likes to tuck her baby into bed before she takes a nap or goes to bed.  She does it so sweetly.  I love it!

107) Carson's weekly "gym" class.  It's basically a bunch of free play but he LOVES it and I love seeing him have so much fun.

What brought you Joy this week?

Joy Project!

99) Warmer weather (45 instead of 35)

100) Having time to volunteer in Erik's class - more on that later

101) A lunch date with Victor today

102)  Being friends with kind and generous people who willing give away their time and talents to help others.  To find out more about my cool relatives visit the following blogs....

A)  Cousin Nila is an ENT surgeon and about to head to Africa to do lots of corrective surgeries.  She has gone on many, many medical mission trips in the past.  I am hoping, once my kids are bigger, to join her some day.

                    Go HERE to read more about her trip!

B) My cousin Julie's husband Brad just got back from Uganda where they are building a school.  Brad and Julie live out in the middle of nowhere and their small town (village really) church is sponsoring this large project to build a boarding school for many needy kids.  Kind of like Oprah, only with a lot less attention!  


                 Go HERE to read more about his trip!

Joy Project!

88)  CWS days

89) Crock Pot Friday

Sweet Molly (and Katelyn's) Dad is on a ship in Seattle/deployed for 12+ months. 

Molly seemed to attach to Victor for most of the evening.

Very cute.

90) Good friends

91) Healthy kids

92) Hot tea

93)  Crab cakes -- I tell you I discovered this awesome food this fall.  Yum!  I had been missing out, thankfully they are abundantly available here in Maryland.
94) Cold, brisk walk to school this morning.  Erik is quite chatty on our walks and I love that!

95)  Lainey and Erik (and Carson)  singing the Annie soundtrack loudly in the back of the van.  They especially love the song, "It's a Hard Knock Life" which I find quite hilarious.

96)  Playing Boomba with Carson

97)  Watching Lainey play with her friend Katelyn.  Lainey has a strong desire for friends which is very cute and much different than Erik was at 3.

98)  My double decker yogurt maker - I can now make 14 jars at a time instead of 7 which is great.

Long Weekend Rambling!

We had a three day weekend curtesy of Victor's CWS day.  He is supposed to get every other Friday off.  Somehow it seems like he usually just has one Friday a month off but it's still better than none.   He has this because he works longer days on Monday-Thursday for the other 9 days, adding up to an extra day off every other week.  It's a great system!  This is the first time in our married life that Victor has had decent work hours.

The first couple of years he was working for GE and traveled (internationally) for 10-12 days a month, plus he was gone 3 days a month plus 2 weeks a year for the Navy.  It felt like he was never home.

Then we moved to DC (5.5 years ago) and he stopped traveling (yahoo!!!) but was gone for work 12-13 hours everyday.  That was still so much better than the traveling I would have never thought to complain.

The past two years he's been on a federal schedule.  His pay is quite a bit less than it was active duty navy but he is only gone 10ish hours a day and has 1-2 Fridays off a month.  He is traveling 3 days a month for the Navy again, sometimes more, but all in all it is an excellent schedule.  One I am quite thankful for.

So, anyway this weekend was a long one because he had the Friday off.  That was great because Friday evening we had a bunch of neighbors over for Crock Pot Friday.  Victor cleaned the house while I ran errands and cooked for the evening.

I love our neighbors!  This winter we've been getting together almost weekly for dinner so the kids can play and we can chat.  It's a very low key fun event.  This Friday there were 14 kids at our house and for 2+ hours they just played nicely together, no intervention needed from the parents.  Pretty impressive!

Saturday evening I went out for dinner with some friends for a going away dinner.  My friend Katie is moving to Seattle.  I love living in a military community but you certainly end up saying good-bye a lot which is tough!

Military families are pretty amazing!  In December four families I know moved to California/Seattle.  All of them have 3 small kids (well one has two but she is 6+ months pregnant with #3).  They all DROVE from MD to California/Seattle.  I can't fathom driving across the country with my crew but they made it seem almost fun.  (One poor family of 5 caught the stomach bug the last day of travel and spent the whole day driving while the 3 kids puked in the back seat.  Ugh! The parents had been sick the night before.)

Saturday Carson had a high fever (103.7) but no other symptoms.  He's been fever free since Sunday morning and never had any other symptoms.  Who knows?  Since he'd been sick on Saturday I stayed home from church with him yesterday.

Victor and I did catch the half time show and second half of the superbowl last night since it was free online (we have no TV).  I found the power outage to be quite hilarious.  Happy for my MD friends that the Ravens won but I really like the 49'ers QB so I would have liked it for his sake if they won.  Overall, I really don't care!

I hope your weekend was a fun one!