An Afternoon at the Aquarium

Today was great.  We all needed to get out of the house.  Home bound from surgery and snow days have worn thin.  We drove into Baltimore to go to the aquarium.  Our membership this year has more than paid for itself.

I LOVE the bubble tubes.  Jaelyn is listening as the bubbles "bubble" up to the top.

Caden and Jaelyn brought their camera with us too.  Jaelyn filled her memory card and Caden drained his battery.  I can't wait to see what their pictures look like.

The cowfish - I don't know what it is about this little guy...maybe the horns or the kissy mouth, but I am truly fascinated by him.

It's all about perspective, right?  You might be calm and serene on the surface, but underneath you are paddling like crazy to keep your head above water.

I'm watching you!!!

They added the dolphin show to the membership package.  We haven't gone the last few times because it was always extra.

Allie got so excited.  She clapped and smiled throughout the entire show.

Jaelyn was enthralled by the show.  I didn't see a lot of clapping or laughing, but she sat very still and took it all in.

Caden had more fun playing with me than watching the show.  He could have taken it or left it.  I don't know when we'll go to Disney next, but when we do, we are doing Dolphin Cove (is that it's name?) and swimming with the dolphins.

Our last stop before heading home is always the Jellies.

I love editing pictures of the jellies.  It's so fun to play with the color and contrast.  This one was originally ghostly white, but I think he's much prettier as a glowing pink jelly :-p.

I've realized it's time to start packing things to see and do into our schedule .  Our time is going to fly past.  We've done a lot in the last 4 years, but there is still so much we want to do.  On our wish list is a trip to the Federal Reserve in DC to watch bills being printed and a trip to the Mint in Philadelphia to see coins being minted.  We also still need to see the Liberty Bell and tour Betsy Ross's House.  The kids really want to climb the Statue of Liberty.  That one's a little more intimidating to me (holding onto 3 little kids in busy New York City...).  We are thinking of signing up for an MWR tour.  It'll take us to NYC for the day.  We can do the Statue of Liberty, the American Girl Store and maybe go up in the Empire State Building.  We are also planning a trip back to Wolf Lodge and to Busch Gardens the end of March for a late birthday present for Caden and an early birthday present for Allie. 

Through Caden's Lens

Caden got a real camera for Christmas.  He's been a picture taking fool.  We finally dowloaded his pictures today.  Some are pretty good.  Some made me laugh so hard.  Some need help with the focus. Tell us what you think!

Caden on an Albuterol High

I discovered this little gem of a video clip yesterday.  Jaelyn's camera battery was dead so I let her use my old camera.  We found it when we downloaded her pictures.  This was taken the day Caden was diagnosed with asthma.  He'd had a couple albuterol treatments and was extremely hyper when we got home from the doctor's office.

Entertaining Ourselves

Playdates and Playdough

Pipe Cleaner Art

Beauty Parlor

Stickers

It's not looking good for schools to be open tomorrow.  I have a box filled with new puzzles.  I'm running out of tricks.

Let It Snow, Let It Snow, Let It Snow

We had a little winter storm Tuesday night and Wednesday. 

The kids and I took a walk this morning with our cameras to see what we could see.



After our walk, I dug our van out and we headed to Chick-fil-a (which was closed) and then Walmart.  We had lunch at Subway and then the kids spent their gift cards on new toys to occupy them.  School's been out since Friday and we are all going crazy.

Blah...Ewwwww....Harump

Its been a rough few days. Neither Kelly or myself are thrilled about the possibility / probability of heading to FT Leonard Wood. I do not have orders yet, and there are still some wickets that must take place before it is final, so keep us in your thoughts as we continue the process. Dan again.

Where Are the Woods of Misery, You Ask

Either you got my last post or you really didn't.  So for those that didn't, here is the explanation....

We were given a list of available jobs.  I naively researched houses and schools in 3 of the areas and was really excited about all of them.  There were 12 new 52s and 15 slots and as the Army tends to do, they don't really care what you want.  I don't quite understand why they even gave us the whole list and let us dream.  It was really mean.  You see, there's a new job in Lost in the Woods of Misery and the biggest requirement is that the person comes from the 20th.  Encase you are wondering, Dan has worked at the 20th Support Command for the last 4 years.  There are no other new 52s from here; so with your powers of deduction, you can guess who is getting the crappiest job on the list.  Well, maybe the job isn't going to be crappy, but the area sure is.

If you google Lost in the Woods of Misery, you'll get a map that looks something like this...

 and if you zoom in, like this...

The other nickname for Ft. Leonard Wood, MO is the "other" armpit of the Army.  The first being Ft. Polk, LA.  I can't even begin to explain to you how not excited I am about this.  This is such a horrible place, that instead of the 3 year typical assignment, the branch guy has promised to only keep us there 2 years and he says Dan can have his choice of schools or assignments leaving there.  I don't believe anything anyone in the Army says.

Ft. Leonard Wood is in the middle of no where.  There's just the base.  The area is depressed.  The population has decreased by over half in the last 30 years.  There are a couple schools that look only OK.  I'm discouraged and depressed.  The housing reminds me of what we lived in at Ft. Lee and we don't want to repeat that, but it looks like the OK schools are on the base.  It's a lose/lose.  The nearest towns are Springfield (an hour and a half) and St. Louis (two and a half hours).  I've been googling things around the base.  There is a Lowe's and a Super Walmart.  Target is 50 miles away.  When I typed Kohl's, a store called "Ruthy's Variety Shop" popped up.  So not encouraging.

I've been searching online for an article, blog or anything where someone has something positive to say about living at Ft. Leonard Wood.  I haven't found a single positive thing.  The common nick-name pretty much says it all.  Dan found one message board comment that said there's a large outlet mall an hour away (that was the only positive the person could come up with and they didn't actually live there) and honestly, that's not a positive when I live where I do now.  I can get to just about every major chain store within 5-20 minutes from my house.  The UPS man and I are going to have quite the relationship because all of my purchasing will be done online just like when we lived in Germany.  Speaking of Germany, I'd actually rather go back there for three years than go to Missouri for two.

Dan's unhappy with my tears and negative attitude, but he doesn't get that I really need to get it out (the 5 stages of grief and all) so I can hit acceptance and "buck up" to be a good little Army wife.  Right now, my gut instinct is to be a horrible Army wife and pack me and the kids up and head to my Mama's house or maybe not pack at all and stay here for two years.  I'm just kidding about that, but the thought has crossed my mind.

So there you have it.  We'll move sometime this summer.  We have to sell our house and Dan has a 3 week course he has to go to.  He also has a 15 week course, but he's going to wait until we are leaving Misery so I don't have to sell a house, pack a house, move 3 kids and a cat halfway across the country and find and move into a new house by myself.

Lost in the Woods of Misery

The title says it all and that's all I have to say about that. The end.

Thanks, Mom

I keep folding it up and taking it back to your room, but it won't stay down there.  Hmmm, maybe we'll just leave it where it is now :-).

Games We Play

I love games and puzzles.  We spent a lot of time playing them when I was growing up and I love sharing the same games I loved with my kids.  I've been on the search for a game I used to play at my Grandma's house.  I couldn't remember the name or even what the game was other than a card game.  I bought Rack-O a few months ago in the hopes that was it.  It wasn't.  We did have Rack-O, but it was at our house.  A few weeks ago, I bought a skip-bo deck and I was thrilled to relearn to play.  Skip-Bo is THE game I've been looking for.  We would spend hours playing it at Grandma Mac's house.  I'm kind of cut-throat and a sore loser (I'm not too proud to admit it).  Jaelyn and Allie are both getting a hang of playing offense and defense.  They'll be tough to beat soon.

We've also graduated to grown up Monopoly.  Jaelyn got a U-Build Monopoly for Christmas, but the money goes into the millions and is hard for them to count.  It's a cool game though and we'll enjoy it a lot in another year.  I bought a "classic" Monopoly game a few yeas ago complete with wooden houses and the original little dog and car we used to fight over. We've opened it up and there was a 2 hour Monopoly game this afternoon.  Allie, Lucky Miss Money Bags, had a pile of money but I managed to get hotels on prime real estate and she went bankrupt.  Cut-throat, I tell you.

Free Child Labor

We had a delayed entry on Friday because of snow the night before.  Jaelyn wasn't too interested in getting ready for school until she looked out the window and saw that Daddy hadn't shoveled our walk.  In 5 minutes, she was dressed with her hair fixed and her teeth brushed because I agreed to let her shovel the walk IF she got ready for school quickly.  There's nothing like a reward of helping Mommy to motivate Jaelyn.

 As she was shoveling, Jaelyn informed me I need to buy her a kid's shovel. 

Later, all was quiet upstairs.  There should have been noise as Caden got ready.  My investigation found Jaelyn styling Caden's hair into a faux-hawk.  I helped by adding mousse.  He looked cute, but I couldn't believe when he actually went to school with his hair like that.  He is normally very vocal about wanting his hair to lay flat.

Dan the 52 Man

We've been talking a lot about Dan's military future and what direction his careers needs to take.  In October, he applied to switch jobs within the Army.  I hope I explain this right.  Right now, he's EOD (explosive ordnance disposal), but as he makes rank, it's harder to get EOD jobs.  The organization is bottom heavy where there are more junior officers and less senior officers.  He applied to switch to FA-52 which is a nuclear counter-proliferation officer (I hope I got that title right).  52 is top heavy so there will be room for growth and advancement to Lt. Colonel.  The board met in December to review the applications.  Two weeks ago, the 52 assignments guy was here at Aberdeen and wanted to meet with Dan to talk assignments even though the list hadn't been published.  That made us pretty positive he was on the list, but we needed to see the real list.  We were told the list would be published last week, but all Dan got was an email with a non-working link to the list along with a date the link would be active.  The Army is mean, I tell.  Tuesday morning, Dan checked and he is on the list!  This is something he really wanted and I'm very proud of him.  Our next step was to look at available assignments and submit a wish list.  We played the hurry up and wait ranking game and now we are waiting to find out where the Army is going to send us.

A Message from Allie

Too Much Excitement

I'm not quite sure where to begin. I guess the beginning? Last night about nine Allie started coughing blood. It probably only lasted for about five minutes, but it was a lot of blood to me. Honestly, I was scared half to death and my calm voice of reason, Dan, had duty so he was at work. I immediately called 911, then called a friend to stay with the other two. I had to go through a couple of phone numbers before I finally got the right duty line for Dan. Allie and I rode by ambulance to the nearest ER where Dan met us. From there we were transferred by another ambulance to John Hopkins in Baltimore. Dan followed in his car behind us and I guess I shouldn't leave out the snow, nasty roads and freezing rain. It was not a good night to be out driving.

We stayed in the ER until about three when they finally admitted Allie for observation. She never bled again thankfully. This morning the ENT resident said her throat looks good. He didn't see the clot the doctor had seen the night before when she scared us with the worst case scenario of going back into surgery. We are now waiting on the attending doctor to come take a look. The nurse said if everything looks good, they'll discharge us around dinner time.
Sent from my iPhone

Magic Medicine

Everyone told me the worst part of a tonsillectomy recovery after the initial few days was the end of week one.  Those first few nights were pretty tough with Allie crying in her sleep or waking up in pain.  I followed everyone's advice though and gave her medicine every 4 hours around the clock.  We started with Lortab, but quickly moved to Tylenol because Allie didn't like the taste of the Lortab.  We are on our third bottle of Tylenol.  Yesterday, we made it a little longer without medicine, but today, we've hit the day 5-7 pain and she's been asking for medicine after 2 hours.  She's even consenting to take Lortab again.  I'm hoping it'll get easier again in a couple of days and she'll be on her way to a full recovery!

PS For anyone following along, her popsicle count is up to 25.

Just What They Meant to Do

Normally when my parents come to visit, we do things.  There's always a breakfast at Ikea.  We spend days shopping and playing.  I normally have a camera filled with proof of the fun times we had.  This time, not so much.  My parents came up here to help us after Allie's surgery and that's exactly what they did.  My mom spent time everyday rocking with Allie.  When she wasn't rocking, she was helping fold laundry, fix food and do dishes. 

Okay, we might have spent a few hours shopping for get well presents : )



We also spent a lot of time learning to play a new game (which needs it's own blog post later so stay tuned.)

We took Baba and Grandpa back to the airport today.  I'm so thankful they were here to help.  I had trouble getting going most mornings after getting up several times in the night to check on Allie and give her medicine.  I'm not quite sure how I did those every two hour feedings when Caden was a newborn.  Of course, I was 6 years younger.

Anyway, Allie is on the mend.  She definitely feels better as she's more active, but her throat is still hurting.  She's unhappy because she's hit the "I'm hungry" point, but her throat hurts too bad to swallow anything more than soup and macaroni and cheese.

Jaelyn in the Groove

Allie's Got Rhythm

Dance Dance Revolution

Dan and I found a DDR clearanced yesterday. The mat is too big for the kids so we dug out the balance board. It is hilarious to watch them wiggle their hips to the music. We are out of school three days next week and I think this will be the perfect thing to entertain us.

Finally Real Food

Allie has been surviving on soup and Popsicles. She's been begging for real food and I granted her wish. She was thrilled to see macaroni and cheese for dinner!

I hope this works!

I learned something new today for all you blogger's with smartphones.  If you set up your email option in blogger to email posts, you can attach short video clips and pictures taken with your phone.  It's so much easier and faster than uploading your pictures and videos to your computer and then posting to blogger.

Allie's Update

It's been two long days, but thankfully Allie is doing really well.  Allie was calm on the outside but I could tell she was antsy Tuesday morning because she went from one thing to another in my bag of entertaining tricks.  She was excited to open Jessica's present and discover a doll sized hospital gown that matched her own.  Mommy did good.

When the anesthesiologist came to talk with us, he brought Allie an infant sized mask she she could put Jessica to sleep for her tonsillectomy.  Everyone at John Hopkins was truly wonderful.  Allie picked for me to walk with her to the operating room.  They let me stay with her until she was asleep.

It took about an hour and a half before they came and got us.  Allie's surgery went really well.  Her tonsils and her adenoids were enlarged.  The doctor feels like this will solve her CO2 problem, but we still have to follow up with another sleep study in 3 months.  Allie later asked us if we'd brought her tonsils and adenoids home with us for her to see.  Hmmm...forgot to ask that question.  Anyway, we found Allie sleeping peacefully in recovery.  She did great with the anesthesia.  We saw two other kids who were waking up as they were wheeled into recovery.  They were kicking and crying and were totally out of it.  Allie went from sleeping peacefully to awake and talking to us.  It was much easier on her.  The nurses started handing out Popsicles right now.  Allie was up to 6 when they moved us to a pediatric floor around dinner time.  She asked for food and ate 2 bowls of chicken noodle soup and 1 bowl of tomato soup for dinner.  The night in the hospital was hard.  The oxycodone seemed to wire Allie instead of making her sleep.  She was in quite a bit of pain and cried a lot when she was sleeping.  I got two or three hours of sleep, but I think Dan slept all night.  We were glad to see the doctor and discharge papers the next morning.

Allie bounced quite a bit yesterday from lack of sleep and ADHD medicine.  The lortab also has no sleepy effect.  We switched to tylenol and she slept really well last night.  We've already done "home-school" for the day and now Allie's rocking with Baba happy as a clam.  Allie is begging for "crunchy" food so I foresee that as being a problem soon.  Yesterday, she scared me when she ate a cheeze-it out of Caden's snack bowl.

Allie Did Great

I'll update more tomorrow, but for today I wanted to let everyone know that Allie did great. She just finished her third popsicle.

The Kind of Parent I Want to Be

When I think of the kind of parent I want to be, I always look to my parents.  They've set a great example for me in their marriage and their parenting.  My parents have always been there for me.  It doesn't matter if I'm seven, seventeen, twenty-seven or thirty-uh um-something, at the slightest hint of need, they are there.  When we found out Allie was going to have surgery, there wasn't any questions where they would be.  Even though they'd just been here in November and we just left them in Florida a week ago, they got on a plane and came because I needed help.  Knowing that they are here holding down the fort and taking care of Jaelyn and Caden lets me and Dan focus totally on Allie and what is happening tomorrow.

I know that I know that I know when I'm forty-seven, they'll still be here.  Eventually, the tables will turn and I'll thankfully jump at their slightest need.  So thank you, Mom and Dad, for being such awesome parents and showing me the kind of parent I want to be to my children throughout their lives!

Cleared for Surgery

Allie had her pre-operative physical on Friday.  She's been cleared for surgery.  We have to be there at 8:30 on Tuesday.  Her surgery is scheduled for 10:30.  The kitchen is stocked with jello, ice cream, popscicles and soups and my parents are flying in tomorrow to take care of Jaelyn and Caden for us.  I've wrapped her "hospital present" which is a hospital gown and slippers for her new doll.  I think we are ready.

Back Blogging

I added a couple more blog posts from our trip to Florida.  Scroll down to December if you want to see them.

The Cade-man is SIX

Time flies when you are having fun and apparently we've had a lot of fun over the last six years because it has flown.  It seems like just last year that I was holding a sweet little 5 lb 13 oz baby boy.  Caden has grown into a tender hearted, funny little boy. 

Caden picked to go on a trip to Great Wolf Lodge for his birthday (in March - sorry little man, Mommy wasn't on the ball and Daddy has to travel too much) instead of having a big party with his friends.  We've had a couple little parties for him and he's opened his presents.  Tomorrow night, we are celebrating again at Longhorn after we pick Baba and Grandpa up from the airport.  My mom's birthday is tomorrow and Caden is excited about being sung to (with Baba).

(GUC, come visit us in May and you can wear the hat too!)

 

The Queen is Correct

I have a friend who calls herself the Queen of Brussel Sprouts on her blog.  I think she's a little crazy.  She says that brussel sprouts are yummy and that her kids fight over them.  Seriously???  I remember being a kid and I definitely did not fight with my brother over brussel sprouts.  I remember one particular evening sitting at the table until my bedtime because I refused to eat the gross little green balls my mom put on my plate.

I'm not quite sure what happened at the store the other day, but I walked out with a bag of fresh brussel sprouts.  I immediately called her royal highness to tell her the news and to find out what to do with them.  You see, she has three seperate recipes on her blog for the silly things.  I chose the frizzled brussel sprouts.  She told me the key is to use something to offset the bitterness and to add fat like butter or olive oil.  Orange juice is her go to ingredient for the bitterness.

The kids helped me pull the leaves off before washing them. I tossed them with about a tablespoon of melted butter and a tablespoon of orange juice.  I seasoning them with fresh ground pepper and kosher salt (the queen has also shared her view on salts with me).  I baked them on 400 for about 15 minutes turning them every so often just as she instructed.  I follow directions well :).

I was excited, if not a little nervous to try them.  I didn't even let them cool off before I popped the first bite in my mouth.  I now know what my mom did wrong all those years ago and what her royal highness does right.  I am officially a fan of brussel sprouts!  They were yummy.  The bitterness from the brussel sprouts, the sweetness from the OJ, the creaminess of the butter...it was perfect.  Dan agrees!

I made my kids all try one leaf.  We use a thumbs up rating system around here.

Caden said if he were starving on a deserted island and all he could eat were brussel sprouts, he'd starve to death.  Jaelyn would eat them if there was nothing else around, although she wasn't a huge fan.  Allie gave me a thumbs down right away.  Then she tried a second bite and a third bite.  That was her limit, but I think it's an acquired taste and with a few more servings, she'll be a fan too!