Tropical Vacation

No, we didn't go anywhere.  They decided to do a "Spring Picture Day" this year at Connor's school.  I really wasn't looking forward to ordering another set of pictures but he really wanted to do it because you got to pick your background.  Of course, I caved and went ahead and ordered it sight unseen (as you must with this company).  Thankfully, I am very pleased with how they came out and so is he.  :)

The Boys

Kyle is trying to use his sign language more.  He uses please, thank you, more, finished.  He doesn't use milk, but knows what it means.  The main problem is that when he's eating his more and his finished look pretty much the same.  This means I have to look at his other cues to make sure I'm understanding him.  His please he thinks he needs to rub my chest instead of his own.  You can see him do please in this video.  It is hard to video him doing it because he sees the camera and refuses to perform; he just wants to play with the camera.


This next video is super short.  It is just to show a face he makes a lot.  Not sure if it means anything, but he's always making this face.

Kyle desperately wanted to investigate the Iron Man mask Daddy was putting together.

 Baby Iron Man

 Peek-a-boo, I see you!

 Connor's turn

 Daddy's turn

Nicholas decided to use ALL of his shampoo (almost new bottle) to make a bubble bath, despite the actual bubble bath being right next to the tub.  Let's just say there were A LOT of bubbles and no shampoo left.

Weekend

This weekend's weather was beautiful.  We had lots of fun enjoying the sunshine and cool breeze.

 Looking to catch some bugs.  

He was hoping for flies because he knows how much they annoy Mommy.

 Playing with a snail.  Nicholas did NOT want to touch it.

 Our new Iron Man mask

Taking off the Band-aid

The doctor told me yesterday to leave the band-aid on for 24 hours.  He said to then take it off and apply Neosporin daily.  He said only to apply a band-aid again if Kyle was picking at the wound.  Today when I went to take off the band-aid, you should have seen his little face.  Poor little guy!  I apologized as I slowly pulled it off, since I could not bring myself to go any faster.  He kept giving me dirty looks until I was done.  Then when I went to put the Neosporin, again a dirty look.  Oh well!  I guess I will be getting dirty looks for a few days.  The wound itself hasn't really bothered him.  He's still a boy on the go and still quite happy for me as long as I don't walk away from him.  ha ha
I was amused that a boy at Connor's school saw the wound and knew right away; he said, "Oh, he had to get stitches, huh?"  

I also wanted to mention Nicholas.  Let me give some back story first.  Connor has weekly spelling tests.  These are not the usual run of the mill spelling tests.  The students are given a spelling pattern for the week and they practice any word they can think of that has that pattern.  Their test could include any word that has that pattern in it.  Previous patterns have been -in, -ing, -eat, -est and so on and so forth.  This week his pattern was -aw.  We had been practicing things like strawberry, crawling, drawing, jaw, crawfish, etc.  This morning on the way to school, Connor and I were practicing for his test.  As we went along, Nicholas chimed in with, "What about awful?"  Connor and I looked at each other and realized we had not practiced that word.  We went over it really fast, but in the back of my mind I kept thinking how amazing it was to me that Nicholas came up with that example. 

Ouch

This morning we had a 'first' that I could have very well done without.  Kyle was playing with Nicholas.  He was crawling around and was carrying some chunky baby toy keys.  Nicholas left the room, but when he came back, he came back running to bump Kyle.  He was going faster than he intended I guess, because he bumped Kyle's bottom, sending Kyle into a face plant onto the toy keys.  I was sitting directly to the side of Kyle and watched in horror as the whole scenario played out (very fast).  Kyle cried and so I picked him up to comfort him.  As I picked him up, I noticed he had a cut on the left side of his forehead.  It was bleeding a little but upon first glance it looked deep.   Nicholas was also looking in horror as he saw the bleeding cut on his brother's head.  He felt really bad.  I grabbed Kyle, had Nicholas grab his shoes, and off we went to Urgent Care.  I figured it needed to get looked at ASAP in case it needed stitches.  I was hoping I was being overly paranoid, but better safe than sorry.  We got to Urgent Care, checked in, and were seen within 10-15.  The nurse who saw Kyle said it was a very small cut, but that it did look deep.  The doctor who saw him said that it would indeed need stitches.  He said that given the shape of the cut was not quite straight, it needed actual stitches and not glue.  They applied some numbing agent and we had to let it soak in for 15 minutes.  The doctor said if we could not keep Kyle still, he would have to send him to the Emergency Room, where they would have to fully sedate him to get the stitches in.  We all hoped it would not come to that.  They swaddled Kyle and he complained quite loudly.  I told them that he had not enjoyed being swaddled, even as a newborn.  They lay him down.  The nurse was going to hold his head and I was in charge of holding down Kyle's arms in the swaddle so he did not escape or interfere with the stitching.  The nurse warned me that Kyle was going to probably cry a lot but assured me that it would not be over pain.  I nodded, but little did I know what was coming.  The doctor put a needle with more numbing medication into the cut itself in three locations.  I could not watch this.  I can look when they draw blood from my arm, but this is totally different when you are watching your child get poked.  The doctor started and Kyle was very upset.  He was desperately trying to struggle and I was holding his arms tight so he could not move.  The nurse was keeping his head very still.  All of this was frustrating him, so he was crying BIG time.  It was only two small stitches, but in the end I cried.  I tried hard not to, but I couldn't help it, a few tears escaped.  My baby was crying and unhappy and I had to hold him down for his own good.  Turns out, my poor heart probably could have used some numbing agent as well. 
When the doctor was done and had cleaned the area, applied antibiotics, and bandaged it, I was allowed to pick Kyle up and comfort him.  Once he was free from the restraints and in my arms, he was okay.  The doctor gave me instructions on how to care for him and the wound. 
We drove home and all is well.  Nicholas still has a guilty conscience, which I'm hoping will help him to see that he HAS to be ever so gentle with his brother.  I'm sure it helped seeing the whole process and hearing all the tears.  He has been trying very hard to be much gentler, but thankfully they both still really want to play together. 

Before this, Connor was the only one who ever got stitches and they were when he was 2 and 4.  Nicholas has managed to keep from getting any stitches.  Kyle now has had his first stitches.  The joys of rough and tumble boys!  :)  Here's hoping this will be the last stitches my kids will ever need. 

Nicholas and I have had many conversations about what happened today.  He mainly wants to know why God made us so fragile.  I told him that we are all fragile to help remind us to be gentle with one another.  Hopefully it is a lesson he has learned well today. 

Open House

Tonight was Open House.  It was the first time in over 20 years that it has been rainy on the night of Open House.  Thankfully, it only lightly drizzled for a small period of time while we were enjoying the class performances.  We had been told to get there at 6 and the performances would start at 6:15.  However, they decided at 6:15 to wait 'a little longer' since a bunch of parents were missing.  This meant that the students were sitting on the ground idly waiting with much built up excitement and anticipation for a half an hour!  It was a long time, but the performances were very cute.  I had asked Connor beforehand where he would stand in the performance so that I could stake out my place to get a good shot of him.  :)  At the end, he's not actually throwing something.  He was just pretending to throw a flaming fireball at Nicholas.



Nicholas decided to do a dance too!


After the performances, we got to visit the classroom where the kids showed off their work and all the great stuff they have been doing all year.  We also visited the Second Grade classrooms to get a taste of what is to come, but we only peeked in each room because Kyle was getting quite grumpy by that point.
Here is some of Connor's work from his classroom.

 In case you cannot read what he wrote on his 'Guess Who?' flower, it says:  I'm good at dribbling.  I like to eat.  Favorite color- all of them.  Favorite food- cheese pizza.  Best Friend- Kyle (yes, he means his baby brother.)  Favorite animal-  moose (Maybe Uncle Roy and Aunt Vicky will bring him one from Alaska!)

 A frog

 When I grow up I want to be a Policeman. 

 Frog in a pond

 Look at who I found hiding under the table!

Gifts from God

Tomorrow is Open House at Connor's school.  Each class will perform a song they have been practicing.  Then we get to visit his classroom and see what they've been working on and then go to their next year's class to see what he will be up to then as well.  Connor has given us a sneak peek of his performance in the following video.


On Friday night, I went out to see a play and to have dinner to celebrate the play and a friend's birthday.  Charlie stayed home with the three boys.  He told me that when Kyle realized I was gone, he was crawling around crying and looking for me.  When he failed to find me, he started following Nicholas around and crying more softly.  I thought that was sweet and figured either he thought Nicholas might lead him to me or just thought I'll hang out with him because he's the person I spend the most time with besides Mom.  In any case, Sunday afternoon I was busy sewing up a part of Connor's backpack.  I was in the living room and Kyle couldn't find me.  I was not eager to call out to him because I wanted to finish sewing really quick.  He started crawling around the hallway but couldn't see me sitting on the floor of the living room unless he came into the living room.  He gave up and started following Nicholas.  Nicholas said, "OH NO!  Not again!!  I am NOT your Mommy, stop following me!! Your Mommy is over there."  He tried to lose Kyle, to no avail.  Feeling guilty and being almost done anyway, I called out to Kyle and he stopped his pursuit of Nicholas and came to find me.

This morning, Nicholas brought me a package from his toy mailbox.  He said it was from God and that God had sent me a gift.  He said I should open it right away and that God had sent me this gift because He loved me.  I thought it was very sweet.  In the end, it turns out God sent me some invisible toys to play with. It ended with Nicholas smiling from ear to ear and saying, "See?  Isn't God so nice?"  He is indeed very nice to have given me such wonderful boys.  :)

This picture is from the Frog Jump a few weeks back.  

We just got them from the school on Friday.  :)

 This is the scene after Kyle pulled on the tablecloth to get to his banana cereal container.

 As I put the pieces back in the container, he was busy trying to get them back out.

 Here Nicholas is holding up the special package from God.