Testing, 1, 2, 3

Lily counted to 10 almost all by herself yesterday. She got stuck on 4, but when I said it for her she went on to 5 and finished up to 10. Just out of the blue she started counting and since she can't quite get the word four I helped her out. Today she did all the counting by herself except the four was pretty unintelligible. The only reason you'd know it was a 4 is that is came in between 3 and 5. Still pretty good for 19 months old!

And the weight was lifted...

My brother came home a couple weeks ago and we met my dad at the airport tonight. It's nice to have my whole family in the same wonderful country again. Love you dad and T. We're so glad you are home safe and sound. [Thank You, God]

We met both of them at the airport with lots of family because they live close. We clapped and cheered for all the servicemen and women as they came out. It was a lot of fun. Seeing the smiles on the faces of the people coming back was priceless. Some stopped to shake hands with us and say thanks to us for the welcome. Some waved in appreciation, some just smiled and some(the ones who are probably most like me) just kept going and pretended they didn't see us. I get that, it's cool. I hope they feel appreciated and not too embarrassed.

Is Bob the Builder in Your Bible?

Ryan was looking through his children's Bible for which story he wanted to hear. He stopped on this page...

He asked, "Is that Bob praying?"
He is of course refering to Bob the Builder. We have a book that shows Bob without his hat and the resemblance is uncanny.

I couldn't help but laugh as I told him, "No, sweetie, Bob the Builder is not in the Bible. That is Daniel praying." I went on to tell him what was going on in the scene.

He patiently waited for me to finish then said, "Mom, Bob the Builder might not be in the Bible, but Pilchard is."

For those who don't know Bob and Pilchard see below. Pilchard is the cat. The chick is Wendy.

The Things Lily Does...

to get someone to get her from bed.

Some nights Lily does not want to go to sleep when we put her down for the night. We usually let her fuss or call for a few minutes before we would go check on her unless of course it sounds urgent. When we do go in we try not to have to pick her up to get her to calm down. That hardly ever works, but we go for the least intervention that we can until something works. Usually rocking in her room does the trick. Those are our strategies.

Now for Lily's strategies...

1) Call for Mommy
if that doesn't work
2) Call for Daddy
if Daddy isn't home or doesn't come
3) Call out, "I'm stuck!"

She pulled out her first strategy for getting out of her room last night. She took off her diaper and tinkled in the corner of the bed. Jay found her diaper when he was looking for her blanket in the dark. Good times.

Our First Field Trip

We went to the pumpkin patch on Ryan's first field trip today. He had tons of fun. We took a hay ride to the pumpkins and picked out one pumpkin for Ryan and three gourds for the table. Then we went back to the game area. It took a little while for him to interact with his classmates, but once he got started he was off. He ran through the hay maze with his friends. Then more friends came along and it turned into Ryan running and everyone else trying to catch him. He was running so fast he kept bouncing off the hay walls like a pinball. There was one kid who would tackle him every time he caught him. Ryan seemed to think it was fun though I was a little worried when I couldn't see what was going on and they were down for a while after he got tackled. He had one collision that brought him out of the maze for a minute or two for a kiss. By the time he got to me he had a big red bump, but after a few kisses he was off again. After about a half hour more of the running into hay walls (very prickly hay walls) I decided his little body had had enough even if he didn't know it. I called him out and he came right away (this was particularly impressive because several other parents had told their children it was time to go and they were ignored). He was sad about having to go and you could see it on his face, but he didn't fuss. I told him we could do the bean bag toss if he wanted and he decided to give it a try. Again he had a blast. He has a decent arm. At some point he made this noise when he got it in the hole. He said, "That's what I'm going to do when I make it and I'm going to say 'Awwww' when I don't make it." Here is a little video so you can get the flavor of the next few minutes.



This kid cracks me up!

Guess Where I Didn't Sleep Last Night

About the time I would be thinking of going to bed last night we heard some coughing on the monitor. It sounded like Ryan, sort of. Jay went up to check it out. The next thing I hear on the monitor is Jay whispering, "Jen, I need your help!" So I run up and find Jay holding Ryan. Ryan is barking like a seal and crying. Jay wanted to get him out of his room because we had just changed rooms around and Lily was in the room with him for the first time. It would have been a huge disaster if Lily woke up crying too. Ryan couldn't stop coughing or crying. I brought Ryan to our room and snuggled with him in our bed while Jay ran around getting medicine and such. Nothing was helping. I turned on a movie which stopped the full out crying, and helped him relax a bit, but he was still coughing and his breathing was labored. Jay was concerned that he might be having an asthma attack. So we took him to the ER. We were given a room right away. They gave him a nebulizer(sp?) breathing treatment and some steroids. Then we had to wait there while the steroids kicked in to make sure he was comfortable enough to go home. It was a little iffy for a while if we were going to come home or if he would be admitted for observation. The good news is that is was croup and not a lifelong disease like asthma. At 3:30AM we were released with the understanding that if he had trouble breathing again we would be right back in the ER. I didn't have any idea that croup could be that bad. The room we were in had one bed and one chair that didn't seem all that comfortable when I really wanted to be stretched out on my nice soft mattress. Since Jay and I had both gone with Ryan (luckily my mom is here so she stayed with the other two) we took turns sitting on the bed with Ryan and in the chair. After a couple hours the sitting on the bed became lying on the bed. Don't think there was one bit of rest going on while we laid on that bed though, Ryan was practically bouncing off the walls after he could breath better. I guess it had something to do with side effects from the breathing treatment. He is still sleeping as is Jay.

How was your night?