The end of this story

My Grandma Gustavson died this afternoon.  She'd been in a downhill slide since her brother died last month, so it wasn't totally unexpected, but still a little sooner than we thought.  In case you missed it, I've written about her before-- here, here, and here.

Life is going to be dull around here.  Who is going to accuse Brian of stealing diet coke now?

Migraines

I am prone to headaches.  It's how my body responds to stress.  And too little sleep.  And allergies.  And certain hair dos.  It's not my favorite thing in the world, but by this point in my life I'm used to them.  I typically know how to handle them based on what's causing them, and you know, I just live with it.

I had my first migraine in high school.  Now, I've never actually been diagnosed with migraines, but all the symptoms are there: visual aura preceding the headache, severe pain, light sensitivity, and nausea (sometimes vomiting.)  I've only had half a dozen or so ever, so obviously they aren't a common thing for me.  My best method for dealing with them is laying down and going to sleep.  The sooner the better-- I try to lay down as soon the visual aura starts.  But here's the thing: when you have two small people needing you all the time it's hard to drop everything and go to sleep.  And I've had two migraines in the last couple months (even though in the past they've always been at least a year apart.)  So I'm not sure what to do about them now.  Fortunately the last two have hit right about nap time, and both times Brian has been able to leave work early to help me.  But I'm sure I'm not always going to get that lucky, so what do I do?  Should I go get officially diagnosed and see if they'll prescribe me something?  Is there a great over the counter medicine that will kill off the headache so I can get on with my day?  Help me!

Please?

Easter outtakes

See, I told you I was going to post too many Easter pictures.  This is the: what I say vs. what they hear edition.

I say: Turn around and smile for the camera!
They hear: Just keep walking away!

I say: Show grandma your happy face for the picture!

She hears: Practice your bored teenager face!

I say: Now open your eyes and smile!

She hears: Keep your eyes closed, but be sure your mouth is open!

There are no words for this one.  I just wish it was clear instead of blurry.

  

And I promise this is the last Easter pictures post.  Probably.

Hair cut time

Will's hair was getting long.  Too long.  So we cut it.  And by "we" of course I mean Brian.

Before (the crazy was helped along by Brian and a wet rag):

And after:

Brian called it a "respectable half inch."  I called it "Wow.  That's really short.  Also his hair is very blond."  Anyway, there it is.

The Easter eggs

So, I was running around Wal-Mart on Saturday morning, looking for Easter basket stuff (what, doesn't everyone put Easter baskets together the day before?) and I thought I should probably pick up an egg coloring kit.  I glanced over at the million various themed kits and what do you know, there's a dinosaur themed one!  Since both my children are currently obsessed with dinosaurs, it seemed like a good bet.  Right I was.

Look how cute those eggs are!

I couldn't get over the cuteness.

We decided officially that each year the kids will get a book in their Easter baskets, no other gifts.  Will got a touch and feel book, and Kalena got a little kids board book bible.  Seemed appropriate for Easter, no?

Will didn't so much like looking for eggs.  He was content to carry one around.  Just one.

And then he would hold it up periodically to announce his victory over the egg finding.

Kalena, showing off her basket of eggs.  

How was your Easter?

Happy Easter! Or, How many Easter pictures of my kids do you want to see?

I'll stick to the Easter dressed up pictures.  For this post.  Because no way am I going to be able to resist posting pictures of the ridiculously cute Easter eggs.

I was actually surprised to find this one- both kids looking AND smiling (well, Will is smiling the best he can around that finger of his.)  As it turns out, the only way I can get Kalena to smile like that is to say, "Okay, now show me your teeth!"

My best shot of Kalena's hair.  The lovely hair is courtesy of my mother, of course.  I don't have near that kind of talent.  I can't even do that to my own hair, let alone to the hair of my wiggly toddler.

And apparently I used up all the kids' picture-taking tolerance taking pictures of the two of them.  Because this is the best one my mom could get of me and Kalena.  And we couldn't get ANY with me and both kids.  Oh well.

My mini-me

One thing I'm discovering about having a child who talks is that it really makes you realize the things you say often.  Kalena has picked up many phrases from me, such as:

"No ma'am."  She says this all the time to Will.  She doesn't quite understand the ma'am/sir thing yet.  I'm working on it.

"Do you think we should (fill in the blank)?"  She doesn't usually phrase hers as a question though.  She just tells me what she wants to do, starting with "think we should"

*big sigh* "Oh Buster Brown."  I usually say this when he makes a giant mess during meals, so that's usually when Kalena says it too.

It is amusing.  Also makes me careful of what I say!

Sneaky violence

Kalena has been coming to me often over the last few days to inform me that Will has hit or pushed her.  But I am never witness to this.  I don't think she's lying to me, but I also don't think she knows when he's doing it on purpose and when it's an accident.  I feel like I ought to be disciplining him (in our house hitting is a no-warning straight to time-out offense) but I don't want to discipline him for something he's not doing on purpose.  I'm sort of at a loss for what to do besides watch them more.  But I know I better get something figured out because I'm pretty sure having to resolve problems I didn't witness is only going to happen more often as time goes on.  Any great ideas?

Another update on the finger: Photo edition!

So, it's been a month since Will's finger got slammed off in the door.  (Alright, just the tip of it got slammed off.  There was a lot of blood though.)  We cancelled any further appointments at the orthopedic place when we realized that they were seeing him for approximately 8 minutes, looking at the finger and telling us it looked good and then charging us more than $100 a visit.  *I* could tell you it looks better.  And let me just tell you, I'll call if it starts looking worse.  Anyway, for the morbid curiosity in you, here's a picture of what it looks like now (or a few days ago anyway.)  But I'm posting it way down at the bottom so you don't have to see it if you don't want to.

Just know that it's healed enough that I can look at it without wanting to pass out.  (And that's saying something.)

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Not so bad right?  Right, after a month of healing, it's not so bad.  And his finger isn't red from Brian pressing on it, it's red and swollen because it's GROWING BACK.  I don't have a good picture from the other side, where you can see that it's all flat on the one side.  If you are crazy curious though, Brian has a picture from the day it happened (or maybe a day later?)  I have yet to look at that one.

The sleep schedules are always changing

I don't know what to do about Kalena's naps.  She naps every day from 2 to 4 (ish).  This is fabulous and I love it.  BUT.  Recently she's been having a harder time going to sleep at night.  She still goes to bed willingly at 7, but then we hear her in there talking/playing in bed until like 8 or 8:30.  She does have the occasional day when she doesn't nap, always because we're busy, not because I try to get her to nap and she won't.  On no-nap days she's fine and she goes to sleep quickly after she goes to bed, but if she goes more than a day without a nap she gets mighty cranky in the evening.

I know I could just move her bedtime back to 8:30 or so, but frankly some days the only thing that gets me through the afternoon is knowing that the kids will go to bed at 7.  And I'd rather put up with listening to her in her room than, you know, actually have her be up for another hour and a half.  Anyway.  When did your kids give up napping for good?

Cake Pops

I posted at food lush today about my experience making cake pops.  But I wanted to tell you guys the non-cooking part.  After deciding we were going to make them, my mom and I were out picking up the stuff we would need.  There wasn't much we didn't have, just the candy melts and a can of frosting.  My mom said she was pretty sure she had some sucker sticks so we shouldn't worry about those.

We got home and started rounding things up and my mom started looking for the sucker sticks.  Pretty soon she pulled a little baggie of sticks.  There were probably 30 or 40 sucker sticks so I figured that's what she had been referring to.  She kept digging around in the cupboard, but I thought she just wanted to see what else was down there (she was in a cabinet full of stuff that doesn't get used often.)  Then she pulled out this box:

And that label is correct.  There must be like a thousand sucker sticks in there.  And then?  She found ANOTHER box of them!

So yeah, we definitely didn't need to buy any.  

P.S.  I know it seems kind of random that my mom has a gazillion lollipop sticks, but it's because her parents used to own a candy store.  We also found the lollipop candy mold, so we could make actually them if we got ambitious.

Tidbits

I let the kids play outside after dinner tonight for maybe 15 minutes.  They both got SO dirty that not only was bathing them a necessity, I now have to clean the bathroom floor and the tub.  I wasn't aware two kids could accumulate that much dirt in 15 minutes.  Lesson learned.

Kalena's favorite response to any question is: "something else."  Well, it sounds more like "sompink else."  This is before you even give her any options.  Kalena, what do you want for lunch?  "Sompink else."  What do you want to do today?  "Sompink else."

My dad taught Will that dinosaurs say, "Wooooo."  That's what he'll say if you ask him, even though Kalena informs him otherwise every time.

We are starting to get the bills for all Will's doctors visits re: the finger.  Two thoughts here.  1) Our insurance really sucks despite being insanely expensive.  2) I'm glad we hadn't already spent our tax return money when this happened.

I am reading The Devil in the White City.  It may be the most interesting non-fiction book I've ever read.

 

The logic of a(n almost) 3 year old

The other day we were over at my parents' house and my dad was playing outside with Kalena.  He was explaining to her why she shouldn't play in the street, and then at dinner he wanted her to share her newfound knowledge.  So he asked her, "Kalena, why don't we go into the street?"  And she responded, "Okay."

An update on the hand

Will had his third appointment at the orthopedic place today.  The doctor said his finger is looking "great."  That was her word.  I would describe it as "still missing a big chunk."  It's definitely healing though, and we've been cleared to just keep a regular old band-aid on it instead of having to wrap it in gauze and tape every day.  (Which is very much more convenient since he was pulling the dressing off like at least once a day.)

In other news, I think I can officially say that Will is walking.  He still only walks like half the time, but it's definitely more than just practice steps.  It's pretty cute, and it also makes me realize how short his little legs are since he's always walking around on the hems of his pants.

Just wanted a visual reminder of the cute.

Also, go read about my delicious peanut butter cookies at food lush.

Alternate Easter photos

After the fancy-pants pictures Ann did some candid shots.  Apparently my kids are better with the unscripted.

I may be framing some of these...

 

Easter pictures a little early

My aunt Ann was here over spring break and (because she's awesome) she took some pictures of my kiddos in their cute Easter outfits!  If you missed it, she did this last year too, check out the pictures here.

These are pretty much the best of the bunch, my kids were totally NOT cooperative when it came to actually looking at the camera and smiling.  Especially not both of them in one picture.  Because you know, heaven forbid any of the pictures be good enough to frame.  Ah, the joys.