Our Family Blog: No wonder I don't get much done....

It's been a long, busy week! Seems like we're always doing something, people coming over or we're going somewhere. When we are home, I just want to relax and either be online or play with the kids!

On Sunday I bought a toybox off Craigslist. It's a lot bigger than the old one and fits the bigger toys. We did get a few things done that day. Dawson's teacher came over on Monday. That went well. Dawson recognized her right away and grinned. He then ran over and sat down where they sat last week. He sorted shapes perfectly, matched colors and did some puzzles pretty easily too. He really enjoyed the hour. I went through his toys a bit. I'm trying to get the sets of things together and in separate containers so I can bring them out when he wants them and get them put away again, instead of them just laying all over the place.

Here's the new toybox compared to the old one!

Tyler had an appointment at the Children's Clinic on Tuesday. My mom came and picked up Dawson at 8am. He happily ran outside and stood by the sliding door of her van, patiently waiting to be let in. He sure loves Grandma's house. Then Tyler and I headed to the cities. It was an uneventful drive there. Funny how driving to the cities used to be a big deal, now it seems as common as finding my way to the grocery store. It had been a few weeks since we'd been there, since Tyler's counts were low. The security person looked sheepish and apologized for forgetting my name. They often have my sheet half filled out by the time I get to the desk when they see me coming! Tyler loved seeing his nurses. He showed off his new crawling and supported walking skills to them, as they cooed at him and told him how cute and big he is and how much they missed him in these 3 long weeks!

His chemo didn't take long at all, they also checked under his dressing at my request. I thought it looked funny. Sure enough, he has a yeast infection at the site. After chemo we went up to the 8th floor and saw his old nurses, who apparently were just talking about Tyler, wondering how "their baby" doing. Afterward we dropped some cloth diapers off with Jen in Princeton and then headed to my parent's house for the evening.

Tyler's infected site. I'd taken a pic to maybe email the Dr but it wasn't clear enough to really see all the yeasty spots. But wanted to post it since the tube will be taken out soon and it'll be interesting to look back on. I only have pics of the dressing, not of it uncovered. The black stitch used to be almost level with the skin, it's pulled out that much and the cuff that's underneath the skin is pushing up on the skin, which is what's causing the biggest red spot right above the hole. Hope it doesn't gross anyone out!

Wednesday I had some shopping to do. I got a cart/highchair cover for Tyler at Once Upon a Child. Now once he outgrows his infant carrier, he can sit in the shopping cart seat without worry of germs. I bought a mini trampoline for Dawson. He loves bouncing and uses the couch. I've tried keeping him off it and it's just not happening. I can be sitting right on the couch and he'll still go back up and bounce after I've told him no! The boys were good in the stores, Dawson slept while Tyler played with a toy I brought. I was thinking about going through the Taco Bell drive through, so I checked my window to make sure it wasn't froze shut. It went down a bit, but wouldn't go back up! So it was stuck down about 2 inches, that got cold in no time, even with the heater on full blast.

Wednesday's meds. The horizontal stuff is oral, vertical is all for his 1 IV chemo. 3 are flushes and the red capped syringe is the chemo. His meds top to bottom are liquid vitamins in the bottle, Bactrum to help keep his organs safe, antibiotic for his yeast infection, 6-MP chemo and Zofran for nausea.

Before we went shopping, they were playing with the slide. Tyler would push the truck down the slide, bursting into a fit of giggles. Dawson would giggle too and chase the truck.

Thursday I had to go back out because I missed the customer service desk being open and I needed stamps. So I we went and got stamps and hurried home again. Brr! I set up the trampoline after I got home. Dawson loved it and I haven't seen him bounce on the couch since! Yay! I spent most of the day playing with the boys.

Dawson loves his new trampoline!

So does Tyler, he thought it was cool to sit on!

Then he discovered that bouncing a heavy ball toy on it was way funner!

There's no springs, it's just these fabric stretchy straps. So you really can't get fingers pinched. I was very happy to see that! I touched it while Dawson was bouncing and the fabric doesn't even have big enough grooves to feel a pinch either. :)

Dan is home on Fridays and wanted to eat out for a change. We also wanted to get my remote start key fob that's been broken over a year now. Would've come in handy for the winter, but we've been too busy and they close at 5:30. So we got that finally, now we just have to get Charlie, a mechanic friend of ours, to program it for us. He's trained in that and does them all day long, so it shouldn't take long at all. We went to Arby's and ate in for a change. This reminded us why we don't eat out much! Dawson was making loud noises, Tyler wanted to throw napkins and things on the floor constantly. Dawson escaped over the back of the booth 3 times. We were watching him too, he's just that quick! This is why we make sure not to sit right by people! They only had 1 highchair, which Tyler got. This makes it more tricky. Usually if Dawson can't sit still in a booster, he goes into a highchair and then he's usually better. There really wasn't many people there, thankfully. Maybe 2 or 3 tables. 1 had a toddler, so they were just looking sympathetic! After we got home, Dan took my car to get gas. He also figured out the window problem. The window switch has some bad contacts. He got the window to go up, so that's a relief. He'll be taking that apart and fixing it soon. Hopefully the weather will warm up for him!

Dan's sister visited us that evening also. Dan had a good time visiting with her while playing with the kids. I actually got some dishes done without being bothered (shocking) and a couple other small things. Unfortunately, having late company had Dawson riled up and he wasn't able to settle down for bedtime. He's big on routine. We drink chocolate milk and he watches a short cartoon movie before bed. He usually runs right into his bed after I get his pajamas on. Instead he wasn't settled enough, I even waited until 2am, an hour past his bedtime, hoping he'd settle down. He banged on the door and threw a big tantrum. I tried talking to him a bit, he did settle down and gave a big tired sigh, but as soon as I left the room he was back banging at the door again. She left at 2:40 and he took until 4:30am to settle down and go to sleep. Tyler was up until 7am.

This morning Dawson woke up around 9am, so I'd gotten barely 2 hours of sleep. He ate his breakfast and I put his morning Blues Clues on for him. I fell asleep and he decided to make a huge mess. All the papers from my computer desk (I have 3 cubbyholes in my hutch) and the entire diaper box of CD's and papers next to the computer desk were all over the floor. A lot of the CD cases were cracked, batteries were out of the remotes, etc. Half the living room floor was covered with stuff. He's always tougher to deal with when his sleep routine is off, so hopefully everything will be back on schedule soon. Tonight I put him to bed at 2am, since it was 4am last night. He fought it until about 2:30 that I heard, though sometimes he just wanders around in his room for a while before going to sleep. Tyler is still up though, we're thinking of doing some Wii Sports to kill the time. Should be fun!

Me? Make a mess? Never!

The boys like sharing my lap sometimes when I'm at the computer. I don't get much computer stuff done while holding them both though!

Dawson was suddenly very interested in poking at Tyler. It wasn't very amusing to Tyler though!

When I plugged in my camera to upload pics, I was expecting to have about 10 new ones. Instead there were 56! I said yes to upload anyway and saw many interesting things. Apparently Dawson got at the camera again. I saw lots of floor, some of my computer desk and many unknown colorful blurs. These few were really cute though, so I had to share.