In West Virginia

To all my faithful followers who are wondering where I am....we are in West Virginia. My parents, the kids and I headed up North on Wednesday morning. We are all snug in my sister's house. We drove through lots of snow (safely), woke up to snow yesterday and today. Today we are headed to the train store and then the mall after naps. My sister and her husband also have 3 children so that makes 6 kids under the age of 7. Charlotte (the oldest) celebrated her birthday yesterday. We are having lots of fun...I'll have pictures to post when we return.

An artwork afternoon

We had a bit of a kink in our schedule Thursday afternoon. I decided to call our Dentist and find out if he could check on Peter for us. He was able to see us at 1pm. I took the "appt" since that was what was offered but I knew it was going to mean a rough afternoon. Ryan started getting cranky at 11:45 so I decided to put him down for a nap instead of trying to keep him up until we got home from the Dentist.

Dr. Bradsher, by the way, said Peter is on the way to recovery. It is just going to take a while for his jaw to heal and the less we talk about it the less he'll think about it and the quicker he'll move on!

So Ryan slept for an hour and wasn't interested in taking another nap when we go home. I knew we needed some kind of activity to get through the afternoon. When Ryan's awake, I don't always put Emma and Peter down for their normal naps. They won't sleep/rest because they hear us....so we did some art!
The initial project was to use the tissue paper to make flowers then they painted the stems and leaves with paint.

The first picture is Emma's and the following is Peter's.

They moved on to watercolors:





Ryan just had fun playing with the Q-tips that we were using as paint brushes.

Museum

We renewed our membership to the Museum of Life and Science in Durham this week. It has actually been since September that we visited the museum. I was really suprised at how much the kids have changed in the 5 months since we'd visited the museum. We were only planning on staying at the museum for 2 hours becasue I needed to go to Costco before we headed home. We spent the entire two hours inside. The museum is full of hands on things that the kids can, touch, do, see, play with, and experience. This time around Peter (especially) really spent time at each station. He was really captivated by the stations that had computers. Emma also spent more time looking, trying and playing with things. Ryan- well I didn't even take the stroller in with us. He had a great time as well.

The pictures aren't that great because we were inside and the lighting wasn't great!

 

 

 

 

Ryan's hair cut

Philip has always cut Peter's hair so he carried on the tradition with Ryan. I can't remember exactly when we cut Ryan's hair for the first time but it was a long time ago. We've been talking for like 6 wks about him needing a hair cut. I was holding my breath that someone would pop into our house that could scissor cut his hair. Philip only uses the electric razor which means very short hair.
So today we bit the bullet and Philip took out the shears. Say goodbye to "hippie boy" and hello to Peter with blond hair.

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A day with Peter

Peter and I had the unique opportunity to spend much of Saturday together; just the two of us. Unfortunately, this happened because Peter had accident so we were at the pediatrician's office and then at the ER.

The accident happened Friday night when we were walking around Duke's campus. Peter was walking behind us so he picked up his pace to catch up but sadly he didn't pick his feet up enough. His foot got caught on the uneven sidewalk and with his hands firmly in his pockets he hit the ground square on his chin. He let out a scream and cry that I have never heard from him before. He was inconsolable for what felt like 10 minutes. There wasn't much blood and he was unable to really tell us what hurt so bad. After getting him calmed down, we loaded him in the stroller and headed to the student union where we got a bag of ice from McDonald's. He laid down on a couch in the dining area and actually fell asleep. We let him sleep, while we grab dinner at McD's and woke him up when we were ready to leave. He was still a bit shaken up and at this point we figured out that it was his jaw that was causing the pain.

We got home; gave him some Motrin and put him to bed. The next morning he was unable to open or close his jaw completely. Based on the opinion of our friend who is an ER doctor we made the first available appt. with the Pediatrician's office.
Dr. Cloverfield, our pediatrician, recommended that we head to Durham Regional's ER for x-rays. She consulted with the ENT on call and they agreed that if there was a fracture it would be the oral surgeron's department b/c Peter's pain was in his TMJ joint. Our local hospital doesn't have the right x-ray machine for that joint and we don't have an oral surgeon so we went to Durham. After 4 hrs in the ER, the radiologist and PA deemed Peter to be without a fracture. Hurray!!!

Two days later, he is still eating gingerly and soft foods only, he can't open his mouth completely and said it hurts to brush his teeth. His pediatrician called today to check on him. She said if he is still having any pain in his joint by the end of the week that we need to check in with our dentist and possibly the oral surgeon!

I'm glad that Peter is fine. That was my very first ER experience and I hope it will be my last. Peter proved to me again that he is a very tough guy. He has done almost no complaining or whining because of the pain.

A snow day

As we were heading to bed last night I took a peak out the window and discovered that it was snowing and sticking! Sure enough when I woke up this morning we had a good accumulation of snow. I pulled out all of my winter/snow books that I had been saving and hoping to read on a snowy day. We piled together on the couch and read this morning as I was waiting for the temperatures to rise a bit before we headed outside. I was expecting a friend and her children this morning so I whipped up a loaf of Irish Raisin bread in my bread machine. However, we decided to reschedule for tomorrow morning instead. We finally got dressed and headed out to our snowy tundra.





Peter was definitely out with us but I just didn't get a picture of him. Our driveway was a sheet of ice which made it a bit frustrating for Ryan! However, I found a lid to one of our large plastic storage bins and made a sled out of it. Peter and I had fun sliding down the ever so small slope of our driveway. Ryan tried it a few times but wasn't quite as impressed.

After a snow ball fight and our toes got cold, we headed inside for some hot chocolate and raisin bread. We devoured over half the loaf so it was probably good that my friend didn't join us or we wouldn't have had enough!
It has been a fun snow day and now the snow is almost all melted! I hope we have more snow before the winter is over. It was a fun morning!

Brownies...

I decided to make my homemade (from scratch) brownies as a celebration in honor of Ryan's good report from the Dr. This past year, I didn't do as much baking as I usually do because of Ryan's allergy. I felt bad eating yummy things in front of him and as he got older he understood more clearly that he was being left out!

Great Husband Award

Philip certainly wins the award this week. I began feeling the effects of a "cold" arising on Saturday and Sunday I was really in full swing of a "cold". Philip had heard of a concert happening at Duke on Sunday afternoon and was interested in going. I was however not interested in doing anything other than staying on the couch and hopefully reading my book, The Island. He decided to take all the kids to the concert and eat dinner on campus. He packed them up a 3:30 and headed to Durham. I can't remember the last time that I was home alone. I kept thinking that I heard little feet stirring or thinking somebody is bound to wake up from their nap soon. It was really great. I finished my book and got a good dose of quiet peaceful - DeAnne time.

A poet in our midst

This morning I told the kids that the weather turned cold and we would have to wear our jackets when we went out. When ever they hear "cold weather" it sets off some signal to ask for hot chocolate. So they asked and I consented. We had hot chocolate with our breakfast. Peter said to Emma, we should write a story or a poem about hot chocolate. Then he proceed to create his own. I wrote as he dictated. He refused my help so this is truly his own creation!

The Hot Chocolate Poem
By Peter Ace Chryst

The question is quite simple
But the answer is not
Because how will you know if your hot chocolate is hot
Or not?

How will you know with out taking a taste
How can you know with out taking a dip

Well how do you like your hot chocolate
Do you like it with paste
Or do you like it with marshmallows.

When do you like your hot chocolate?
Do you like it in the morning, afternoon or night
When the night birds sing in flight

So dear fellows, how do you like your hot chocolate
With out taking a sip or a dip.

He went on to dictate 3 more cat poems and and one about animals. They too were good but not as good as this one. Notice the rhyming words... he did that on his own also.

Good news from the big city

Ryan had his one year check-up with the Allergist on Thursday. Dr. LaForce's office is in Chapel Hill so I took advantage of the drive into the big city. We left early and headed to Target and then stopped at Toys R Us. It has seriously been 6 months since I've been to Target. The one that is closest to us is 50 minutes away. I had forgotten how much I like Target and how much better it is than Walmart.

The news from Dr. LaForce was excellent. After 2 skin tests, Ryan appears to have grown out of the egg allergy. His milk allergy is still present but definitely mild. I will take Ryan somewhere to have some blood drawn to confirm the negative egg and get a base line for the milk. I am very thankful for this! Because his milk allergy is mild, I the Dr. said I could "experiment" with foods that have been baked with milk.

Field trip Monday

It was slated to be a nice day on Monday, we decided to take the kids to the NC Natural Science museum in Raleigh. It was a bit of a sentimental trip for me because I have some great memories of the museum and the boa constrictor that they had for a really long time who made "head lines" when he died. Does anyone remember his name?

Since my time at the museum they have pretty much just built a new one next door. We had a great time looking at all the exhibits and participating in story time. Philip really loves museums and is one of those folks who likes to do a lot of reading of the signs. I was hoping to do more reading of the signs myself but the kids were just so excited that they moved between places quicker than I could read aloud to them. Peter was so excited about the dinosaurs. I think we should have just gone there first and then seen the remainder of the exhibits. There's so much to take in and some many things to see. It's hard to tell what they really like the best. I just know they had a great time. We had mentioned that there was a history museum next door. Peter and Emma wanted to go there so bad. We will save that for another day.

Since the day was going to be so nice, I packed a cooler and we picniced on the lawn of the capitol building. I enjoyed seeing the familiar places and remembering the memories of my childhood.

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