Jinxed It

Well, Daniel had a good day yesterday, but crashed around 4Pm, and had a rough night last night. Suzy took to the doctor today, double ear infections, both pretty severe. I guess that might be why he is such a whiner when he is sick, his ears are killing him. Sorry buddy. I should have more faith in your 'toughness'. The good thing about ear infections are they clear up pretty quick with medicine, so the doctor said he should be better by Friday. That means we can go to dinner next week at the Studio Diner to celebrate. Anyone want to join us?

A Little Sun

The weather here in San Diego has been a drag over the last few days. Rainy. Cold. Yuck. I know that things are relative, and where ever you are probably was more cold and/or more rainy, but I pay California taxes for a reason, I want my nice weather. I am a soft, weak person and I can't handle things when the mercury dips below 60.

My response to the cold and rain is exacerbated by the antics of my older child. Daniel is sick. Nothing serious, just a touch of the flu, so he is congested, feverish, achy, you all know the symptoms. Daniel is a terrible sick person. I say that without exaggeration, he is terrible. Ninety-nine percent of the time Daniel is a great kid. Kind hearted, a peace maker, smart, fun loving. When he is sick, yikes, whiny, crying, complaining. Wow. It is put into full focus by how his brother is when he is sick, Sammy roles right through it. Flu?, no problem. Fever?, not too bad. Runny nose?, just find a handy shirt to wipe it on.

Over the weekend I was home alone with Daniel and he was refusing to blow his nose. I don't know why, but he won't blow his nose. He was crying and yelling at me that his nose wouldn't work anymore, it was broken. I told him that it was just plugged and he needed to blow it all out. The response, just more crying and moaning. We haven't had a good nights sleep in three or four days (I have lost track) because Daniel wakes up screaming and crying.

'Help me! Help me! I need to go to the bathroom!'

'Uh, Daniel, why are you yelling, just get out of bed and go.'

'But, I don't want to wake up Sammy!'

At this point I look at Sammy, who is wide awake, of course, because of all the screaming. 'Let's go Daniel.'

This morning it finally happened. Just as the clouds have finally cleared up over San Diego's skies, Daniel finally reached a turning point in his battle with the Black Plague. He got the 'spit-ups', which is what he calls vomit. After helping him through his involuntary examination of his stomach contents, he started feeling better. I am at work right now, but I am hoping, and praying, that when I go home for lunch I will see my normal pleasant little Daniel running around with Sammy protecting their mama from the evil clutches of all the bad guys in the world.

Thankfully it appears that the weather has turned. Too bad it was too late for Suzy and Sammy's trip to Sea World yesterday, but I will leave that story for her...

Kindergarten Lessons

Daniel is learning an amazing amount of stuff in kindergarten this year. His reading skills are particularly growing at an exponential rate. He is not the only one learning stuff though. Suzy and I are getting many lessons as well. Recently we had to take the boys in for their yearly checkups and needed to figure out how to do that. When do you go? No appointments on Saturday. Daniel has school until 3:15 five days a week. Not wanting to take him out of school (hey, we are paying lots of money for him to go there!) we decided on the late afternoon time slot. This is a big departure for us, typically we try to get the first appointment of the day, to ensure that the doctor hasn't fallen too far behind. Now we were on the other end of the spectrum.

So Suzy gets the boys from school, then they all swing by and pick me up from work (we like to double team them at doctors/dentist appointments) and off we head to downtown La Jolla. We arrive a bit after 4 for our 4:15 appointment (Suzy and I are both like to be early for things) and settle in for the wait. And settle in some more. And settle some more. And settle... you get the picture. Thankfully we had the video Ipod playing Scooby Doo for the boys because boy did we wait. I think that we finally got called out of the waiting room just before 5. Yikes.

Unfortunately that wasn't the end of the waiting. Back to the exam room we settle in. And settle in. This time we mixed it up and played a raucous game of 'I Spy' with the boys. Sammy won, but only because he kept changing colors.

'I Spy something... red!'
'Blue!' - wait wasn't it just red?
'Red'! - rascal!

The exam room wait was also broken up by Daniel's eye and ear exam (both fine, thank goodness) and Sammy's eye exam (he did fine except instead of letters they showed him symbols and he had no idea what the '+' symbol was, also, Daniel was dying to help him, I almost had to physically restrain him from giving hints).

Finally the doctor comes in, and except for the fact that he is a Patriots fan he was great. Easy going, good with the boys, good with us. Both boys are doing great health wise. What a relief, you know that they are fine but getting the expert opinion is always a plus.

So, you parents of small children know what's next. The doctor checks his shot record notes and decides the boys should get a flu shot and Daniel got one more. The boys were prepped. They both were almost looking forward to the shots, and we haven't had problems with them about shots for years. Until the nurse came in and said, 'Okay, I am going to prick your finger to check your iron.' Daniel got this look on his face like, 'No way in heck I am going to let you do that.' He had no idea what she meant by prick, but he was convinced it meant take a big sword and chop that finger right off. The panic set in, and we weren't prepared. You are okay for the shot, but the finger prick is setting you off? The scream that resulted from the finger prick led directly to a massive squirm fest trying to avoid the shots, which made the shots much more painful 'cause he was moving all around. Of course Sammy is sitting in my lap watching all of this. When Daniel finally finished his near death experience and stumbled wearily across the room to a chair Sammy looked at the nurse and said, 'You're not doing that to me!'. So I had to carry Sammy to the torture expert (nurse, who was actually quite good), and restrain his arm so he wouldn't move it around. She pricked, she poked and it was over before he got too far down the path of hysteria. Of course both boys wore the badges of their battle (band-aids) with honor for the next twelve hours. Sammy didn't want to take a bath that night because the water would touch the gaping open wound in his finger from the prick. Of course when the band-aids finally came off there were no marks.

So, what lessons did we as parent learn? Last appointments of the day stink. Don't let one kid watch the other get shots. Don't forget the finger prick when you are prepping the kids for what will happen at the doctor's office. Video Ipods are worth their wait in gold. McDonalds for dinner after traumatic experiences works pretty well. They really are Happy Meals.

Two Down

Daniel now has a rather large gap in his mouth because tonight while Dan was brushing Daniel's teeth, tooth number 2 popped out. For the past week Daniel has been wiggling that thing like crazy and yesterday it was just hanging on by a thread.

Last time making the tooth for money exchange went without a hitch, but I have to say I am a little worried this time. My Dad finished the bunk beds and brought them down on Christmas and Daniel occupies the top bunk. While tucking the boys in tonight, I put Daniel's tooth holder close to the edge of the bed where I can reach it pretty easily, but if he moves it I'm not sure what I will do. I will probably have to climb up there and search around for the little tooth pillow I made. If I happen to wake one or both of the boys up I am not sure how I will explain to them why I climbed up to the top bunk. I am really hoping the tooth is where I left it.

I voiced my concern that the tooth fairy might have a hard time trying to find the tooth up on the top bunk, but both the boys seemed confident that since the tooth fairy flies she will have no problem making the exchange. I guess they have more faith in the tooth fairy than I do. Wish me luck!

Birthday Letter

Every year my Mom writes the sweetest birthday card for they boys. They always make me bawl like a baby as a remember all the things the boys have done and how they have grown and changed over the year. So here is this year's...

Dear Daniel,

Look at you now... going to Kindergarten everyday, learning to read and write, riding a big Schwinn bike, going snorkeling in search of humuhumunukunukus and sea turtles, chasing crabs with Papa, drawing pictures for stories you write about secret passages under bedroom floors, wanting to play drums and play in the snow, building Lego sets designed for 7-14 year olds, playing computer games, helping to read books like 'Burger Boy' and 'Three Little Ghosties (sitting on posties, eating burnt toasties), climbing tide pool rocks, memorizing lots of Bible verses, and coming to visit Tutu and Papa without Mama and Dada!

What hasn't changed is that you are still full of LOTS of love and snuggles. So here's to Daniel on January 15, 2008 - - HAPPY, happy Birthday to YOU!!

Are you crying too?

Poor Daniel

Daniel has caught a nasty stomach bug that is raging through the classes of City Tree. He has thrown up 6 times in the past two hours. Poor thing. After the last bout of retching Daniel said he thought it would be fun staying home from school today, but decided he would much rather go to school than feel like he is now.

At least I was not surprised at all. I was pretty resigned to the boys getting this bug. Yesterday while dropping Daniel off at class one of his classmates spilled her breakfast in the hall. Unbelievably her mother cleaned her up and then dropped her off in class. Daniel's teacher asked the principal if that was okay and the principal said that was definitely NOT okay and they sent her home. So when Daniel woke up this morning saying his stomach was not feeling well I was not shocked at all. I'm just glad Daniel didn't get sick at school.

I have been washing my hands like crazy, but this thing seems to be highly contagious. I fully expect Sammy to get it next. And then probably me or Dan or both. Oh well, what can you do? Poor Daniel. Poor, poor Daniel.

Six Year Old

Yesterday we celebrated Daniel's 6th birthday. Has it really been another year already? Can Daniel really be 6? I mean I have memories from when I was six years old. It doesn't seem that long ago that I was 6. Time sure does fly when you're having fun. And this past year has been fun. Daniel his grown and changed so much. He has become much more independent and mature. He is getting his adult teeth and starting to read. Although he has changed a lot during his 5th year of life Daniel is still very much the same. He still loves to play with Legos and sleeps with his Blipie and Spot. He loves reading and is a sweet, snugly boy. And thankfully he still lets me hug and kiss him.

We took Daniel to Legoland on Saturday for his birthday. Tutu and Papa met us there. We had so much fun, the weather was great and it wasn't crowded. Since Daniel had school yesterday we celebrated by going to Studio Diner, Daniel's favorite restaurant. Daniel was spoiled with lots of Lego presents. He is definitely in Lego heaven right now. I have to say that I am glad the flow of new toys is finally at an end, what with Sammy's birthday, Christmas and then Daniel's birthday. I think I will have to do some 'cleaning' and donate some of the plethora of older toys we have.

So now I have a 4 year old and a 6 year old. The best boys in the world. I am blessed.