The Face of Misery

I have discovered that the only thing sadder than when I myself am sick, is watching my poor baby when he is sick. So crazy, Tuesday morning he was feeling SO good that he was an actual danger to himself just because of the way he was careening through the house. Woke up from his nap at about 3:30 that afternoon and seemed fine until about 15 minutes later when he proceeded to lose the contents of his stomach no less than 5 times before 6:00. Yikes! Took him up to urgent care because he doesn't have any weight to spare. Fortunately the doc gave us a script for phergan as it made it possible for him to keep down at least water yesterday. He didn't have a fever on Tuesday night, but by the time we took him in to see his actual pediatrician yesterday at 2:00, it was up to 101 and she diagnosed him with his first ear infection. In order to get him feeling better ASAP, she decided to give him the antibiotics via two shots instead of oral antibiotics which he just LOVED. So basically it seems that in a matter of 24 hours, he's managed to come down with a stomach virus AND ear infection! Doesn't that just seem like a bit much?

Needless to say, the day was spent on the couch yesterday alternating between sleeping on me and his pillow/blanket combo. Now, those of you who haven't spent time around him don't realize how bad this means he's feeling. My child has fallen asleep on me maybe 3 times in his life and never on the couch. He's definitely a "put me in my bed and let me sleep" kind of kid. Poor baby.

Here's hoping that today is better!

Memorial Day Fun at Red Rocks

Ok, so I've had to readjust my thinking, since living here, that Memorial Day should be spent around a pool. For some reason, no matter what the weather conditions just before or after, Memorial Day is never pool weather.

No biggie...I'm nothing if not flexible, right?;-)

And so we move on to what I did do for Memorial Day. Actually pretty cool. I agreed to have lunch with my friend Ivi and her friend Kristen up in Morrison, CO. This is a small town that is located in the foothills overlooking Denver and the home of a place called Red Rocks Amphitheatre. Now, although I have lived here for what is rapidly approaching the 6 year mark, I had never actually been out to Red Rocks and Ivilina found this fact appalling. I guess I've hit some kind of statute of limitations in such matters;-) Needless to say, lunch wasn't the only thing on the agenda...I needed a proper introduction to an important part of the Denver landscape!

Little bit of history just because I think it's cool. Red Rocks is a huge outdoor amphitheatre that plays host to any number of events from concerts to outdoor movies to Easter Sunday services (during which it always snows and thus, your's truly, will likely never be able to verify this personally:-)

Sorry for the tangent...moving on...Red Rocks was actually one of the works projects completed during the Great Depression. It began as a private venture before the depression, but was finished after being sold to the city of Denver and having the labor provided by the Civilian Conservation Corps (CCC) and Work Projects Administration (WPA).

(Is it just me or are there an awful lot of amazing things that came out of the Great Depression...hmmmm....food for thought.)

According to what I've read, the theatre is bordered by two three hundred foot sandstone monoliths, has perfect acoustics and was once listed as one of the seven natural wonders of the world. Who knew?? I just know that it is really beautiful up there and I'm thinking that I'll have to go to an event out there at some point.

Hey Steph...if you ever make good on that vacation promise maybe we can catch one of the movies out there...fun!!!

And now some additional pics...just to fully share the day with all of you. Enjoy!

Now if this view doesn't make your heart happy...nothing will.

How cool is this??

Isn't it amazing when plants seem to be growing out of sheer rock?

Time to play catch-up!

Ok, things have gotten a little on the crazy side over the last couple of weeks and so I've decided to do a "catch-up" post. That's allowed, right?:-)

Well, as some of you know, I have been helping out at my old office a couple of days a week this past month and will finish up by the end of June. So, on Tuesdays and Thursdays while I'm at the office, Rusty is spending time with my friend Janice and her two children, Ashleigh and Ethan. Rusty has a great time at their house, especially playing with Ashleigh, as you can tell from the pictures!

Hmmm...seems to have a thing for blondes;-)

Last week, my parents came into town and we had a great visit with them both. Rusty, of course, loves getting to spend time with his Mimi and Papa! Mom actually watched him while I was at work last Thursday and had a great time, according to all reports:-)

Mom's excuse for this visit, in addition to getting a "Rusty fix", was actually to attend a family baby shower on Saturday morning. We had a great time getting to visit with family for a couple of hours!

Aunt Colleen, me, Jackie, Brooklyn, Stephanie, Emma, Aunt Penny, Michelle, Mom, and Bailey

Saturday night we had our good friends, Chuck and Ivilina, over for dinner and feasted on grilled steaks, courtesy of my wonderful husband, potatoes, salad and key lime pie for dessert! Yum! Chuck and Ivilina just recently returned from a trip to visit her parents in Bulgaria followed by an eight-day driving tour of Greece. How fun would that be? They very kindly brought me the following gift from their travels and I absolutely love it!

It was such a nice evening. Good food, good company, and good conversation....doesn't get much better than that!

Happy and full...note the empty plates!:-)

The rest of our time lately has been spent being VERY thankful that the weather has finally gotten nice enough to spend a good amount of time outdoors. Rusty's days are awfully relaxing (in my honest opinion) and generally start off cuddling on the couch with his blankets, leisurely enjoying his oatmeal and then moves on to hours of playing at the park, in the backyard, or with his new "scooper truck", interrupted only for a two-hour afternoon siesta! What a life, huh?

Oh yeah...big stretch!

Car blanket & oatmeal..check..

The playground is ALWAYS a hit!

Who doesn't like a scooper

truck?

Sorry Mama...just have a few calls to make!

I'm sure he's just getting my flowerbed ready for planting;-)

And just because we thought these were too cute, I feel the need to show ya'll the shoes we picked up for the schnitz this afternoon. Aren't things just so cute when they're in miniature??

Well, there is my not so short version of the terribly exciting events in our lives over the last few weeks. I hope you found this novella absolutely stimulating and if not just remember...caffeine is a most wonderful thing!!

Seven Random Bits of Info

Ok, my friend Steph posted her seven random things approximately a million years ago and tagged me to list seven random things about myself, so here goes:

1) Ok, let's start with the most random....the pinky nail on my left hand is crooked. Apparently, when I was about one, I wasn't always so good at doing what I was told and when my mom asked me to walk ahead of her through a door, I turned around and the tip of my pinky got snipped off in the door. No need for a lot of sympathy here (well, you should probably have some for my mom!), the doctor did a great job putting me back together and my memory doesn't extend back that far!:-)

2) I am completely incapable of answering the question, "where are you from?" without a five minute explanation. I'll put the shortest explanation here and see if any of you can help me out with a shorter response (map provided to help you follow along):

Born in Scottsbluff, (western) NE then left for Loveland, CO a few weeks later. Apparently, my parents had technically moved prior to me being born, but my mom didn't want to change doctors at the last minute.

Moved to San Jose, CA at 6 months, on to Henderson, CO at 1 1/2 years old and then back to Scottsbluff about 2 months later.

Moved from Scottsbluff to Mitchell, NE (just down the road) when I was five.

Moved from Mitchell to Herndon, VA at age eleven (beginning of sixth grade) and to Plano, TX at sixteen (middle of junior year).

Graduated from high school and left for Tech.

Stayed in Lubbock for two degrees/seven years then moved back to the Dallas area.

However, during those seven years, my parents had moved to Phoenix for one year and then to Richardson, TX.

Lived in Richardson for two years with my parents while finishing the 3rd degree (because I am a TOTAL glutton for punishment!) and then moved into an apartment across town. Stayed there for two years until I was thirty at which point I got married and moved to Denver....making a GIANT circle!

I'm sorry, is it just me or would that make it a difficult question for anyone to answer??:-)

3) I have something of an unnatural level of irritation revolving around the delivery of phone books. I'm sorry, but who uses an actual phone book anymore and why would anyone need one from every phone company in the area plus a local edition? Seriously, give me a choice to opt out on this one...I don't need anything else cluttering my house and even my environmental consciousness kicks in when I think of all of that wasted paper!

4) I absolutely LOVE to read, but have an almost equal loathing for writing. Thus the reason you should all be very impressed that I'm actually making an effort to keep up this blog:-) The most tormented times of my scholastic career were initiated by a teacher saying, "Take out a piece of paper and write a story". "A story about what??" "ANYTHING"!!!! Uggghhh. I am a total imagination parasite...just give me a book and test me on it...don't make me troll the wasteland which is my imagination:-)

5) The only thing I craved while I was pregnant was tomatoes. Any kind really. I would down a bag of cherry tomatoes in a day and a jar of salsa almost in a sitting. Crazy! Oddly enough, my child is a big, big fan of them too!

6) There are a couple of commercials that, without fail, make my head want to explode. The first are the Pepto commercials where they sing about a variety of bodily functions over and over and over and over. Ugghh....do they really think the entire population is made up of 13 year old boys? The other series of commercials that make me crazy are those new "Clearasil gives you confidence" ones. You know, the ones where they use Clearasil and apparently lose their zits AND all sense of socially appropriate boundaries?

Feel free to laugh at my rant about the commercials....Brad does frequently!:-)

7) My husband and I were just friends for nine years before we ever decided to date...even though everyone we knew said we would get married one day! What can I say, neither of us listen very well:-)

Ok, I'm tagging Janice and Andi...can't wait to see what you come up with!

You Gotta Love a Sense of Humor!

Those of you who have spent more than about 5 minutes with me know that I love to laugh. I figure that most of life can be pretty much separated into "laugh or cry" and the former is SO much more fun! And while I like a good joke as much as anybody, one of my favorite reasons to laugh is the humor that can inevitably be found in everyday events.

Well, it seems that the schnitz has inherited this particular trait which I really love! He's been demonstrating it in a variety of ways over the past couple of weeks. And thanks to the wonder of internet access, now I can share them with you!

Vignette #1:
First to set the stage, you must know that my child has decided over the past several months that the FASTEST way to get my attention is to emit an ear-piercing shriek that truly, only dogs should be able to hear. My only bit of hope where this behavior is concerned comes from the fact that he is a boy and eventually will be unable to hit those high pitches! As you probably ascertained from my description of this shriek, this is not exactly my favorite behavior.

Well, one morning a couple of weeks ago (before the epiphany about the coffee maker when he was still waking up at 6 am), I was standing in the kitchen when he starts shrieking from the living room. Now, if we lived in a bigger house, this might have minimized the sound, however, we don't and the sound travelled just as well as he intended:-) Given that it was only about 6:45 and I hadn't finished my first, much less second cup of coffee, my ability to respond to just about anything was somewhat....shall we say, retarded? So I'm standing at the counter just staring at my screaming child thinking, "wow...that is SO annoying" and "hmmm...what am I actually going to DO about this?". While these thoughts were moving like sludge through my foggy brain, the schnitz stops screaming and starts staring back at me, probably wondering if I were all there (he's perceptive, that one!). All of a sudden, after about 30-45 seconds of our inadvertent stare-off we both started just cracking up, apparently simultaneously finding the stare-off more entertaining that whatever we had been occupied with before the whole episode began. A much more pleasant end to the situation than it could have been!

Vignette #2
Later that same day we made a trip to the grocery store. Since it was getting close to snack-attack time, I stashed a container of oatmeal in my purse. Sounds weird, but when your kiddo has multiple food allergies, the snacks tend to get increasingly odd:-) Well, we finished the shopping and were heading to the car when he decided that he was hungry and needed some oatmeal RIGHT NOW. I was wanting to get home and he's gotten really good with a spoon, so I decided to leave it up to him to take care of the oatmeal craving while I drove. About five minutes later, I pulled up to a red light and realized that he'd been really quiet for a while. I look in the rearview mirror and see him holding the spoon in his mouth, arm up and sticking out perpendicular to his body, totally just staring off into space. That was amusing enough, but he sat like that for probably another 30 seconds (long light!) while I'm thinking, "what does a 21 month old get lost in thought about anyway???" All of a sudden, he catches me looking at him in the mirror and just gets that look on his face that we all get when we've been caught and just cracks up! I think I ended up laughing as hard as he was!

Vignette #3:
This one tells me that I am in SO much trouble! This past Friday night, Rusty and I were hanging out after dinner, just playing until it was time for him to go to bed. We were in the kitchen playing with this Leap Pad barn toy that sticks to the refrigerator when I noticed that the back half of one of his animals was missing. Logically, I ask him, "Hey Rusty, where did the back half of your sheep go?". He looks at me and then gets down on his hands and knees and points under the refrigerator. So, being the trusting individual that I am, I lay flat on the floor to dutifully retrieve said sheep piece from under the refrigerator where my child has informed me that it resides. Yeah, about 1.2 seconds later, he TACKLES me and once again starts cracking up!!! He totally got me! The intentionality of this was confirmed when I saw that the piece was actually right behind where I'd been standing. He'd actually glanced at it right before he got down and pointed under the fridge. Ok, if he's able to pull things over on me this easily before he turns 2, I have a feeling that I am SO in for it!

I am firmly convinced that part of the reward for all of the diaper changes and lost sleep is the sheer entertainment value that kiddos bring to the table!:-)