Football...

I think I’m drowning in football related stuff right now :). Between practice, games, Razorbacks (Jay had quite the tantrum during last weeks game), Madden 13 for the Xbox, Camryn (see below), etc. It is everywhere! I feel like the donut man. Instead of saying “I’ve got to make the donuts” I seem to be muttering “I’ve got to wash the pants – bring me your pants”. That’s something else I need to bring up to the head of the youth sports….once I’m through ranting about the lack of notice for practices, not getting a game schedule until we were at the 1st game, the one parent who is helping that shouldn’t be I’m going to ask him why in the world they picked the color white for their pants. You know I won’t actually say all of that stuff to him – it just makes me feel better to have these one sided rants in my head.

But the football bug has even got to Camryn. When Cade isn’t around she will tell you he is at football (wither he is or isn’t). She was looking at a book with eggs this morning and called them footballs. Jay and Cade were tossing the football around Monday night and she preferred to stay and play with them instead of walking with me. She growls when she sees the snorting Hog on a pennant in our garage and in Cade’s room. She squeals when they play Madden. I have a couple of Razorback outfits for her and she got excited when she noticed the Hog. And even I’ve tried teaching her to call the Hogs. So far 50% of the time I can get her to lift her arms up. But she will only do it for me. The first time I finally got her to do it I was so excited I started clapping really big. Now part of the time when you tell her to call the hogs she grins and claps. We will keep working on it.

Cade’s first game was last Saturday. Since he went to the 4-H judging contest (we committed to that long before we knew about football hence my earlier rant about lack of notification) this Saturday will be his first game. Somehow Jay gets to go to the Razorback game vs Alabama (including a full day of tailgating) and I get to go to a 10 year old football game with a 1 year old in tow. Something about that situation doesn’t seem quite fair….. Oh and I looked at the 5 day forecast – looks like rain tomorrow and Saturday. So even if it is not raining during the game it might have rained prior. I have the potential to bring home 2 mudballs. And if Camryn is a mudball that means I will be a mudball. You know when you put them on your hip and their feet are dirty and their legs are just long enough that their foot is rubbing back and forth on your butt…..Forget school colors. I think I need to buy a brown outfit.

But the one thing that makes all of this bearable…..Jay is no longer doing the HS football concession stand. The FFA had done it since the 50’s and this year they finally decided to give it up. I can not tell you how much of a relief that has been for us at home. I know Jay and Lyle are having a better year without that extra work from the stand. Just this week alone – if they had been doing the stand, they wouldn’t have got home until probably 11:00 pm Monday and Tuesday nights. I could just giggle with the glee of it all. Not to mention being gone to get supplies, losing class time to get it set up, etc. It is nice to have Jay home more

Milk! Bottle!

Camryn is still taking a bottle. I’ve decided to not stress about it for a little longer, at least until we fly to Virginia next month. I had thought (or really Jay had thought) we needed to start cutting her back. Which that works well for him, but with me it doesn’t so much. And from what Stacy told me, it doesn’t work so well for her either. We are too soft and we give in. But the more and more I thought about it, I really didn’t want to get on an airplane and fly for several hours with a kid who was in a transition stage. That would not only stink for me, but for everyone else on the plane. So for those flying AirTran the first weekend in October you can thank me later(cash donations would be accepted ).


But I have been trying to offer her sippys with milk some of the time…ok, I’ll be honest…. when I remember to do it. Yesterday I poured her a bottle for church and then also a milk sippy (and a water sippy). When we got to church I offered her the milk sippy. She took one drink and then reached for her bottle. Towards the end of the service her bottle ran dry. I gave her the milk sippy and she handed it back. Since she does seem to understand what we tell her really well I tried reasoning with her. I took the lid off of the sippy and showed her it was milk and it was the same thing that had been in her bottle. Mistake…. Before I could stop her she shoved her bottle, nipple side down, into the sippy and said “Milk Bottle”. We had a milk volcano. Those times are when I’m most thankful that we go to a small, very understanding, church.

Note to self – reasoning with a 15 month old who is smarter than you is not a good idea.

A New Phase

As a parent it seems like you are always leaving one phase and entering another.  In your mind you think that if I can just get past this phase the next one will be so much easier.  Then you hit the next phase and you're longing for the good old days of the prior phase.

I believe we've entered a new phase with Cade.  I'm putting myself out there with this one because I always think that people who read this will think....my kid won't ever do that.  I'm here to tell you they will (if they haven't already).

We went through the bad word phase.  Maybe Jay and I are horrible parents - but there is just no way to shield your child from ever hearing a bad word.  I do think Jay learned his lesson after trying to watch the Dukes of Hazard (the movie version that came out early 2000's).  Cade was about 2 or 3 at the time and he picked up a couple of doozies from that one.  We had a few sweaty moments out in public during that phase, but we got through it.  I think we've gone over most of the basic bad words with him so we are ok there.

Lately we've moved on to phrases that aren't appropriate.  Not that any of the words are bad or that the phrases are just horrible - they just aren't the nicest things to say.  So far Cade has used these phrases around Jay.  I think after a few moments, once Jay's eyes go back in his head, they discuss how that wasn't a nice thing to say.  I think our theory is not to get upset or loose our minds over it.  We just casually tell him he shouldn't use that term any more - especially at school!

Then Jay comes home and tells me about and again I'm being totally honest - we have a really good laugh over it and then we move on.   But I do think it is highly important to never overreact because then I'm afraid Cade will never tell us anything.  Jay and Cade are going to a 4-H Judging contest in Columbia tomorrow.  I told Jay he might ask Cade if there are any other phrases he's been hearing that he is thinking about using in the near future.  It would be much better to get it out in the open in the car between the two of them then school or even worse - a church dinner. 

Oh the joys of 5th Grade. 

Goodbye iPhone 3

I'm afraid I'm going to have to say goodbye to my much beloved 3 year old iPhone 3.  We've been through a lot together.  It guided us through Disneyland, received everyone of our adoption match calls, took the first pictures of Camryn, been chewed on and dropped more times than I can count, had water spill on if several times and still it kept on going.  Apparently though falling off of the treadmill and being shot off of the belt onto the garage floor was more than it could take last night.  My screen is now white with black lines.  Sometime the screen comes back, but not for long.  I'm really bummed because I had just found some .69 songs I was in the process of downloading.  It won't connect to my computer now so I haven't been able to download my new information. 

I knew our time together was getting short.  She was starting to have some issues and I knew I was on borrowed time, but I was going to keep her until the last possible second.  Now I'm in somewhat of a bind.  I let Jay have my upgrade earlier in the summer when his Blackberry pooped out.  Now he is not eligible for an upgrade until 11/23/12.  Not sure what I'm going to do.  I think AT&T should give me a break.  I was eligible for an upgrade for a very long time before I had to use it.  I doubt they will take pity on me though. 

I'm thinking about just going without.  I really won't miss the actual phone part because honestly I hardly use any of my minutes each month.    I will though miss the texting and my internet access.  What will I do when random things pop in my head that I want to google? 

We will see how long I can go without a phone.  I'm sure by this weekend I'll be trying to figure out something.  I'm ok without one, but I do worry about going places and not being able to get a hold of someone if I have car trouble.  But then I think back to all the years I didn't have a phone.  I never once got left on the side of the road so surely I can make it 2 months.....surely I can????

More from last night....

Jay made it home in time from his meeting to get Cade. In other words Cade was not wandering around town and he walked into the house on both of his legs. He survived practice. Later in the evening Jay and I were talking about my great-grandparents. Jay made the comment about how times were different then and they needed to be tougher and harder than people are now. I said “yeah, they probably wouldn’t wanted to cry when they dropped their kids off for football practice”. Jay looked at me and said “you seriously almost cried?” Then he said “we will just say that it was the medicine doing that”.


My doctor said month 2 would be better than month 1 and month 3 would be better than month 2. He told me to just try and hold on and give it 6 months. I hope he is right….otherwise it will be a long 6 months!

A 10 year old and a 1 year old and the blahs....

Today I took Camryn back to the doctor to have her spots checked out.  He is calling them Chicken Pox.  Whatever they are thankfully they don't seem to be bothering her.  She probably has 10-12 spots mostly on the same leg where she got the vaccine.  I've heard that the incubation period is 7-14 days for Chicken Pox so I'm wondering if she could've even been exposed to them before she got the shot and this is all a coincidence?  I'm also thankful we have an awesome sitter who is usually not afraid of various skin disorders and diseases so Camryn will be going back there tomorrow.  Stacy would've taken her today after her appointment but quite honestly I was wiped out.  There is something about taking a young child to the doctor that exhausts me.  I did go into the office for a bit but Camryn slept through it and everyone there had already had Chicken Pox. 

Tonight Jay has a Ag Teacher meeting.  Again, I thankful that it is in Greenfield which is only about 15 minutes from Miller.  Cade has football practice from 6 until ??  I'm struggling a bit tonight with the whole 1 year vs 10 year old thing.  Tonight was a prime example of when it is hard having two 180 degrees apart.  Cade has practice, Jay is gone, it is still 95 degrees, practice is 2 hours, I don't think Camryn needs to be out in the heat, it is too hot to sit in the car, etc.  So I dumped Cade out and left.  I really, really hate doing that but I didn't have much of a choice.  I also don't need to have Camryn up there because her legs look terrible and it is too hot for long pants.  When someone would ask what was wrong with her I'd have three options...1.  lie  2.  ignore them  or 3.  tell them it could be Chicken Pox and then count how many seconds it took for them to find another place to sit. 

I blame the blah part on the birth control pill my doctor gave me last week.  My suspected endometriosis is acting up again so he thought we'd try this.  Tonight Cade fell asleep on the way into practice.  I thought I was going to cry when I looked back and saw him sleeping and knew I was going to have to dump him out in this heat and leave him.  I know millions of people do it every football season, but it bothered me tonight.  What if he breaks his leg and neither of us are there?  What if they let practice out early and he is wandering around town?  Thank goodness Cade doesn't read this blog or he would be really embarrassed to know I was worried about all of that stuff.  I asked him a couple of times if he was sure he was ok with me leaving him and he kept saying yes.  This darn pill!  I'm not sure the weepiness is any better than the endo symptoms.  Good grief...there are a few football mothers I've ran into over the years who would look at me like I sprouted another head if I admitted any of that to them. 

Camryn is now sleeping and I should be picking up the house but then I got a text from a work friend about an email that came out late today.  I feel hot and worn out and decided I'd blog instead of pick up.  Actually, I think I'm procrastinating.

Benadryl

It was suggested to me by a few different people to use Benadryl in Camryn when we fly to Virginia next month. Those same people also suggested we do a trial run of it prior to our flight since it can hype some kids up.

Today I used it on her. She finally got her 12 month shots in Friday. We can't decide if she has broke out in Chicken Pox or if it is a lot of mosquito bites. I figured if it was bug bites the Benadryl might help them.

Thank goodness I tried the Benadryl. Today has been wild! Clearly we have one of those who appear to be on speed with a tiny dose of Benadryl. And I mean it was a tiny dose because she spit a lot if it out.

She woke up at 7am, gave her the Benadryl around 11, she took a 30 minute restless nap and has been going like a crazy thing ever since. It is 9:06pm and I finally put her in bed with me to see if that would calm her down. She is training for the 2024 Olympic Gymnast team while I'm typing this. Several hours after the Benadryl dose I was asking myself why she was so insane and then it hit me. We will be leaving the Benadryl at home when we fly.

Im all for vaccinating my kids but I do not like this Chicken Pox vaccine. I've not had good experiences with either of my
Kids after they had it. In the 1 in 5,000,000,000,000 chance we have any more kids I'm going to delay that particular vaccine until they are a little older than 15 months. Or conveniently schedule myself to be anywhere but home after they get it.


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