Halloween Fun

We enjoyed a jam-packed day of Halloween fun!

Happy Halloween 2009!!!!

The story of the three little pigs and the little bad wolf....

Three pigs and a wolf sat on a wall. They smiled and they laughed to avoid a big fall.


Then somebody noticed their friend wasn't pink. They watched him so carefully..what did they think?

The pigs were all sad each face with a frown. The wolf, they worried, would blow their house down.

His hands are all furry and so very small. We don't have to worry, not one bit, at all.

This wolf is so friendly and cute with brown hair. On second thought no, we think he's a bear!

The End.
Happy Halloween!
From The Three Little Pigs and the Little Bad Wolf.

Jonah the Talker

This little guy is starting to talk a lot more. Less whining and more talking... my prayers have been answered!

Problem Solved

I think that I finally found a new preschool for Wyatt. We are starting a trial run next week and will see how it goes. I am hopeful that it will be a better situation for him and will report about the new school as soon as he starts.

John has been out of town for the past few days and it was nice to have him get home tonight. He got on an earlier flight and made it home by 7:30pm so I had already got the kids in bed, but at least he was here for a late dinner with me!

This afternoon I played play dough with the boys. I made up a game where we made fake play dough money out of little circle cups and the kids used it to buy stuff from my play dough store. I made suckers, gum, bananas, hot dogs, etc. out of play dough and they would give me their money and I would give them their change and their groceries. They LOVED it!

Jonah sure loves money! He carries a ziplock bag full of money with him ALL of the time. I can not even explain how much he likes money. I can motivate him to do anything just by threatening to take his money away. He puts his bag on his dresser at night and it is the first thing that he grabs in the morning when he wakes up. I am thinking about getting a roll of dollar coins for him for Christmas for his stocking.

Now if I could just figure out something that the other two boys love as much as Jonah loves his money... I could rule the world!

The Allergy Verdict

It turns out that Shane is highly allergic to milk and peanuts. The pediatric allergist did a "top 5" skin test on him this afternoon that looked for wheat, milk, peanuts, soy, and egg allergies. Shane was positive for 2 out of 5 or 40% of the top five. Scary!

The test does not give threshold numbers so we still don't know how much of either peanuts or milk he can have before having a reaction. Therefore, foods with milk listed as one of the last ingredients may or may not elicit a reaction from him. The doctor said that this part is mostly trial and error! Ummm right!

Then he wrote me a prescription for an epi pen and taught me how to use it. The doctor said that if we had an epi pen on Friday night when Shane ate the cereal/milk we should have definitely used it. He said that any time the reaction involves the head or mouth the epi pen will stop the reaction. He said that an epi pen is a life saving device! Really scary!

The only good news is that Shane is not allergic to soy so he will be able to drink soy formula and soy milk which means that I will not have to nurse him until he is in high school! Yipee!

Tomorrow I am going to tour another preschool. My secretary must have had her head screwed on backwards when she scheduled the tour today because the cost of the preschool that I toured today was almost as much as a semester at Michigan State! What can I say...it's hard to find good help these days!?!?!?

Job Posting

I need a secretary.

I an in the process of finding Wyatt a new preschool. He is in a 4 year old program because he was in a 3 year old program last year. But he really should still be in a 3 year old program again this year based on his birthday and since I don't want him to repeat the same 3 year old program at the exact same school with the exact same teacher I am on the hunt. I am scheduling tours and making phone calls about availability and picking up forms and filling out forms. It's like a full time job finding a new preschool. So I need a secretary.

Then I am getting Shane into a pediatric allergist. I had to promise to be BFF's with the receptionist just so that she would get us on the schedule before Thanksgiving. The whole process involved getting a referral from our pediatrician, scheduling an appointment, getting a records release, getting a babysitter for the other kids, and health forms galore. I also had a epi pen called into our pharmacy and completely forgot to go and pick it up today. That's my fantasy
secretary's job.

I am on the steering committee for my Mothers of Multiples group. I am the secretary. I volunteered because nobody else did and I thought that it would be easy. My entire job consists of taking minutes at our meetings and I completely forgot to write ANYTHING down at our last meeting. I was cleaning out my purse while everybody was discussing their business. Now I am supposed to send my meeting minutes from October to the girl for our November newsletter. It should be interesting. Hello, fantasy secretary!

In spite of my scheduling issues today I did manage to take the kids on a LONG walk at the park. We hiked 1.1 miles on the trail today and it only took an hour. My favorite part was when the boys all pulled their pants down to pee along the trail and were trying to pee on each other's sippy cups! That was quite a sight! I am pretty sure that my fantasy secretary would have quit after that... I know that I wanted to!

No Hunting Zone

This morning we woke up and got to see two deer in our backyard. They were both bucks (a 7 point and a half rack for those who care) and we all watched them for over 30 minutes. The boys LOVE watching deer and these deer were practically tame. They didn't even run off when Maggie ran outside and walked past one of the deer or when we opened the back door to let her inside.

Deer always seem to show up in our yard on Sundays during hunting season. Lucky for them there is no hunting on Sundays in Pennsylvania. Even if it weren't Sunday I am sure that John wouldn't have tried to shoot the deer with the boys watching. The neighbors would also have been a little angry if a deer ran and died in their backyard. So the "daddy deer went back home to take naps with the other deer". Maybe they will be back next Sunday!

This afternoon we took the kids to an amusement park for their annual Halloween celebration. It was really crowded but the boys had a great time. I was glad that I dressed them in their matching orange coats since it would have been hard to keep track of them in the crowds otherwise! They were exhausted and went to sleep without a fuss so John and I are prepared to enjoy a QUIET evening alone for a nice change!

Update

Shane is doing fine today. He got more Benedryl before bed and slept fine all night. One of his eyes is still swollen and red, but it is a lot better than yesterday. I am back to giving him the standard 3 baby foods that he has eaten without incident for the last month... bananas, mixed grain and apples, and squash.

After reading the ingredient list on the mixed grain baby food today (which he eats without any problems) and comparing it to the box of oatmeal, there is only one ingredient in the oatmeal that could have caused the reaction... malt flour.

Malt flour is germinated barley or wheat, in dried form. He could be allergic to wheat gluten the protein found in wheat that is often a problem in people with Celiac's disease. But the published information on wheat allergies indicates that the reactions are typically eczema and asthma and only rarely anaphylaxis reactions like Shane had.

So I'm back to thinking that maybe milk was the issue. It's hard to say though. I am planning to call the pediatrician on Monday and see if we can get Shane in for some allergy testing. I am concerned that if he is that severely allergic to wheat or milk, he may be allergic to other foods as well. I don't want to find out the hard way since each subsequent reaction is supposed to be worse than the last.

In other news the big boys got the H1N1 flu mist today. It was painless and quick and I really appreciated how organized they were at the pediatrician's office. We were in and out in less than 10 minutes!

Even so Jonah cried for 15 minutes just for fun. Starting approximately 10 minutes before the mist and 5 minutes after the mist with a siren-like wail for effect. Maybe that is why the nurses got us out of the office so quickly. In any case the kids didn't have time to cover themselves in other people's germs like they usually do when they go to the doctor's office so we were happy!

The Emergency Room

Guess who has food allergies?

Shane and I spent our Friday night together at our local emergency room where we determined that he is either very allergic to cow's milk or oatmeal infant cereal.

Although Al's kids have had allergic reactions to foods and I have seen it first hand, none of my kids have ever had a reaction to anything in the past 4 years! It was really scary!

It all started tonight after I nursed Shane before bed. I got out a box of infant oatmeal (which he had never eaten) to mix with his banana baby food. After I mixed them together it was too thick so I added a bit of milk (which he has never drank) to thin out the mixture a bit. Then I started to feed him.

After a few bites I noticed that he was grabbing his eyes and rubbing his face. Then I realized that he had blisters forming all around his lips and mouth. Then Shane started coughing and gagging and crying. I yelled to John that he was having an allergic reaction and to find the Benedryl. We gave him a small dose and waited. He cried and coughed and finally puked 3 or 4 times and then seemed better.

He fell asleep on my shoulder and I put him in his bouncer to keep an eye on him. After 45 minutes or so he started coughing again and I realized that he was COVERED in hives. His head was one massive hive in the back. His eyes were swelling shut and his breathing was getting labored again. I took him into the shower with me to see if his breathing would improve and realized how bad his hives were getting so we dosed him again with Benedryl and decided to take him to ER.

By the time that I got to the ER with him the Benedryl had kicked in and he was improving again, but I had him checked out anyways. They basically told me to stay away from both the milk and oatmeal until I can get him tested and use Benedryl until the hives improve. My poor little guy was so sweet in the ER! The doctor wanted to know what kind of formula he normally drinks and couldn't believe that he has never drank formula before! Our collection of soy formula may come in handy now after all!
******************************************************************

I have never written about our nasty neighbors across the street before. They are the worst. I am not even going to get into how rude they are or how they are at war with their next door neighbors over a bike that has been in between both of their yards for over a month! I am above all of that.

I am just going to celebrate that they put their house up for sale today! Yipee! We are hoping that a family with little boys moves in. I am going to start strategically leaving all of the boys cars and ride on toys out near the street so that any prospective home buyers see that there are kids across the street. Then I am going to post a sign that says "Don't retire in this neighborhood... no empty nesters!"! That should do it.

The house on the corner sold too and the people moved out today. I am keeping my fingers crossed that a young family moves in there too, but I don't have a lot of hope. The house has a first floor master and is a corner lot on a busy street. That combo seems to attract old introverts! Plus I didn't have my sign up when that house sold.

*****************************************************************
We are taking the boys to get their H1N1 vaccine tomorrow! I am so excited. It will be so nice to know that they won't get infected and die from the Swine Flu. Apparently all it takes is a little milk and some oatmeal!

Leaves

The leaves are such a pretty background for hugs or dogs....

Jumpers

Shane even got into the action by the end of the video....

Handwriting and Helmets

When John and I first moved to Pennsylvania we signed up for a joint bank account. We both sat down with an account manager and decided what kinds of accounts we needed. When it came time to sign the account forms the woman asked us both to sign the necessary forms. We both signed on the line.

Then the woman looked at the signatures and she seriously said to John "your signature looks like an EKG...I've never seen anything like it! I can't even decipher one letter" Then she said "you should be a doctor". John said "actually, I am. I have a pH.D". She wasn't impressed, but I couldn't stop laughing.

Needless to say I vowed that I wouldn't ever let John's EKG writing skills rub off on the boys. So, last week I went to a "Handwriting Without Tears Seminar" at Wyatt's preschool. It was amazing! I learned so much about preschool writing and development that I didn't know. Some things I never thought about. Other things I was teaching completely wrong based on preschool development.

Stroke development begins in a particular order with kids able to do horizontal and vertical lines first. Then they learn circular components and finally diagonal lines around ages 4-5 years old. This is particularly interesting since the first three letters of Wyatt's name all contain diagonal lines. So my expectations may have been a little high for his age! Whoops!

Letters should be taught starting with vertical/ horizontal strokes L, F, E, H, T, I and U followed by Magic C strokes C, O, Q, G, S, J. Then Big and little curves D, P, B and finally diagonal strokes R, K, A, V, M, N, W, X, Y, Z.

All letters start at the top! The teacher said that this is the MOST important thing about writing. She said that when kids are little and write slow it doesn't matter much, but when they get to first and second grade and speed becomes a factor, starting letters in all different places leads to sloppy illegible writing. She even did a little exercise with us to illustrate the point. Up until then I had been teaching Wyatt to write a capital A starting at the bottom! Double whoops!

Proper grip is essential! You must show your kid how to hold a writing tool. This is not instinct. She said that as an occupational therapist she often has to undo bad grip in second or third grade when it is really hard to change. Using small writing tools helps kids develop correct grip by being small enough for only three fingers to grip. No big pencils or pens. Whoops x 3!

She gave us a lot of games and songs to use to help teach all of these things. There are also a lot of supplies that she recommends using, but she gave us ideas on how to make them all at home using inexpensive simple items that we might already have! Who knows if it all works, maybe Wyatt will be able to write this blog by next week?!?!

A few weeks ago when John took Sam and Wyatt to Michigan I took a cute picture of Jonah outside. I wanted to take a similar picture of Sam so that everything is equal and fair and all that. So, today I got out the same shirt and posed Sam in the same place and took a few shots. They were good pictures. And then about 1 hour later Sam fell headfirst off the Power Wheels onto the cement and got the BIGGEST goose egg in the center of his forehead that we have ever seen! We put ice on it for a couple of hours. He even ate dinner with a hat holding his ice pack in place. Poor little guy! John wouldn't let me take a picture of it. He was really worked up. Now he wants to get the kids helmets. I think that Sam's head is probably too big for a youth helmet, so we may have to check out the adult section tomorrow. Should I get one for Shane too just in case? I am picturing helmet head-butting and such.....

Our Favorite Show

And the Emmy for best Show in which 2 rabbits continually annoy the living crap out of each other goes to..... Max and Ruby! You know it's a good show when the theme song at the beginning of the show contains only two words...Max and Ruby. Seriously, is it rabbit season yet?

Yard Waste Removers

We don't even need to own a rake when these guys are around!

A Special Birthday

When I was a little girl I used to get so excited about my birthday. I thought about it for weeks leading up to the big event. I wanted a certain cake with figures on top. I had a list of birthday presents that I wanted. I planned a theme birthday party with friends. I got to brag about being one year older and that was a big deal. It was fun and exciting and birthdays were filled with anticipation.

Then I grew up.

After a certain age, birthdays seem like a let-down. The excitement is less. It's not socially acceptable any more to make a big deal about your own birthday. Cakes with figures on top don't hold the same appeal that they did as a kid. Theme birthday parties don't happen. And birthday presents usually consist of things that you already need (like new hairbrushes, gum, or clothes that fit). Birthdays turned into just another day at work or school.

Then I had kids.

Kids love birthdays. Even if it is a birthday for somebody else. They make a big deal about birthdays. They make you feel special. They want the cake, party, presents, and friends even if it is not for them. Kids just want to be a part of the birthday experience for anybody!

So tonight when we had Keith over to celebrate his birthday, the kids poured it on thick! They were pumped about the "party". They made Keith birthday cards, helped wrap his present, and dug out party hats to wear when he got here! He got to enjoy being the main attraction all night! It felt like being a kid again and that was a great present all by itself! So, happy birthday Keith, we hope that you feel special all day tomorrow!

Fall Farm Fun

Last Sunday I organized a trip to a local farm with my Mothers of Multiples group. I planned the event way back in August and inadvertently picked a Sunday when the Steelers were playing football. It turned out that by picking a game day we ended up avoiding the crowds and chaos that is usually part of a pumpkin farm in the middle of October. Next year I am going to purposely plan the fall event for a Steelers game day and enjoy having the farm to ourselves!

Our group consisted of 20 adults and 24 kids. I bought donuts for our group and got enough so that each adult was allotted 1 donut while each kid was allotted 2 donuts. I ended up buying 6 dozen donuts. Everybody was supposed to drink 2 glasses of cider, so I got 4 gallons of cider. My boys ate approximately 4 donuts and 3 glasses of cider each! It was a virtual competitive donut eating contest! Even so we ended up taking home 6 donuts and 2 gallons of cider. Oddly enough when I gave the boys the leftover donuts for breakfast this morning they acted like they hate donuts and barely touched them!!!! Weird!

At the farm we rented a pavilion, went on a hayride, visited farm animals, and ran through a corn maze. The hayride was cute and appealed to kids. There were wooden cutouts of a lot of the popular tv and movie characters along the wagon route for the kids to see and the ride lasted about 20 minutes or so. It was a great ride!

My favorite part of the day was when John and I were standing talking to some of the other Moms and Dads of multiples and somebody tapped me on the shoulder and pointed to my kids. We looked over and all three of our boys had their pants down and were peeing on the post of the pavilion. I told everybody that I was going to pretend that I didn't know what they were doing and didn't see them. John said at least they aren't peeing in their pants!

Six Years Old!

Grandma Kathie and Grandpa Bill came to celebrate Wyatt's birthday with us this weekend. The kids were so excited on Wednesday when I told them that Grandma and Grandpa were coming that they didn't even want to take eat lunch or take a nap. They stood at the front window for most of the afternoon watching and waiting.

At one point I overheard Wyatt say "Sammy, Grandma and Grandpa are coming to see me because it's my birthday. I already had 2 birthdays so now I am going to be six. I keep having a lot of birthdays lately." There's some interesting logic going on there I think....

After Grandma and Grandpa arrived I hardly had to take care of my kids. They never left Grandma and Grandpa's side. "Grandma, can you read us books?." "Grandpa, can you get us those toys down from the shelf?". "Grandpa, can you watch us play in the driveway". It was heaven!

I took advantage of Grandpa and Grandma's entertainment to clean the boys bedrooms. I spent most of my time switching the boys clothes in their drawers over from summer to fall and winter. I hauled 11 garbage bags of clothes into the attic for Shane to wear when he gets big enough. I threw out the stained clothes and donated all of the clothes that were really worn or outdated. It was a very productive weekend for me! I am so happy that I have everything organized and in one place now. Life is good.

Grandma and Grandpa got Wyatt a Power Wheels battery operated car for his birthday! He is walking on air! I knew that he would like his new car, but I never expected how much. He is walking around with a permanent smile on his face. I am sure that he is dreaming about his new car every night in bed. It is a great gift. Seriously it was the highlight of Wyatt's 6th birthday!

Shane's Trick

Drumroll please........

Shane officially has a trick. On command he can scrunch up his nose and breathe loudly. Then he laughs.

We have been working on it for 7 months now and it is perfect. We don't have a name for it yet or a purpose either, but it is cute. Really cute! See for yourself.....

Going Green

I am not the most green person in the world. When it comes to recycling I participate but mostly out of obligation. I do, however, try and be a good example for my kids when it comes to preserving and appreciating their environment.

So I recycle. And I take clothes to the Goodwill store. And I buy local produce. And don't water our lawn (unless it's on fire).

The kids understand that we bag stuff up and take it to the Goodwill drop off center so that other people can have stuff that we don't need anymore because they might need it. They enjoy helping donate. It makes us all feel good.

Last week when I prepared to take Wyatt's birthday snack to school I read over the instructions from his preschool. On snack day we are supposed to pack 18 plates, 18 cups, and 18 napkins and deliver them to the classroom along with our snack. After the kids eat their single snack they throw away their 18 plates, 18 cups, and 18 napkins.

This process is repeated. 18 plates, 18 cups, and 18 napkins x 8 classes per day x 4 days per week is 576 plates, 576 cups, and 576 napkins per week at Wyatt's preschool alone!

When I considered this I was shocked! I called a friend whose child goes to the same school and we decided that we are going to make it our mission to get our preschool a green makeover. What better place to teach the kids about preserving our environment than in their own school with a project about reducing snack time waste?!?!?!?!?

I don't know exactly how we are going to do it yet. I'm still working on it, but it will happen.

I may not be the most green person in the world. I still use plastic grocery bags. I run my dishwasher when it is only half full. I throw away poppy underwear instead of washing it. But at least I am trying to make a difference! Hopefully my kids are paying attention.

Happy 4th Birthday Wyatt!!!!

My baby boy turned 4 years old today! Part of me wishes that he could stay this age forever, but the other part of me wants him to see what kind of person he is going to be when he grows up!

I am so proud of my little guy!

Even though my days are crazy and I feel like I don't know what I'm doing half of the time, I know that someday I am going to look back at these days and realize how lucky I am to be raising these 4 little guys. My big guy makes me a very happy Mommy! Happy 4th birthday Wyatt!