Poopy Peter

WARNING: This is a poop story. And parenting at its best. And no pictures for this post.

At the end of February/early March David came home sick with the runs. It was the pits for a couple days, especially as the rest of us cycled through it. Andi avoided it, Jonathan avoided it. Peter got it BAD. And diapers and diarrhea do not mix. We gave him tons of fluids, kept him hydrated, and we figured he'd clear up like everyone else did within a day.

Well, four weeks later, and countless diaper-explosions and blown outfits later, we finally had had enough and exhausted all of our tricks we knew to do. Time for a trip to the doctor.

Doctor took in all of his symptoms and complaints, and then looked at a rash that we thought was just eczema. He believes they are related and asked us to eliminate gluten and dairy from Peter's diet.

So I give up. My kids are just weird and can't tolerate a lot of the things most others can. Means I just need to give up all of the processed stuff and just make things for myself and my family from scratch.

Whatever. More work is totally fine, I can handle it.

The last couple days Peter actually had NOT had any diaper explosions. But he'd only had wet diapers. And then today he had another explosion. It was so bad. Squished like mud between his toes in his footie pajamas, up past his belly button, and everywhere in between. It was bad enough I didn't even want to take him to the bath, it would have spread too much on the carpet between the living room and bathroom. It was crazy. And I really hope that changing Peter's diet will help. *sigh*

Pinewood Derby

Last night was our pack's Pinewood Derby. The boys were beyond excited about the event, and David was no exception! We actually checked the car in Wednesday night and got to check out all of the other nifty cars. There were some amazing cars there (including a fantastic, sparkly, pink Hello Kitty car for the open class race)! We have some really creative kids in this pack. :)

Yesterday I realized I hadn't seen a sign up for snacks, so I asked if I'd missed them. Turns out we hadn't even discussed them! Oops. So I volunteered for the snack committee.

  Root beer floats, rice krispies, fruit trays, and popcorn to the rescue! Someone added their kids' fruit snacks and we were all set. We had just enough for all of the guests there.

Then the races began! Tiger den was up first. Just two boys...

 And David came in second. Next year I think Jonathan will put the wheels in...

 But David still got a medal and was happy. :)

We only have one more meeting before we switch to our new pack and we sure are sad to go. We've really enjoyed being a member of this pack! I won't miss the hour drive to and from pack meetings, but I will miss the friends we've made there.

Saint Patrick's Day

David made a new friend on the bus and then discovered that his new friend was also a member of our ward! Turns out he lives on the next street over, and getting to his house will be very simple this summer. While at the ward's Pinewood Derby we learned that this same family, along with David's new friend, are students at the Irish Dance school I'm so very interested in! They invited us to go watch them perform at a nearby library, and thus began our Saint Patrick's Day celebrations!

 Andi, of course, loved the sparkly dresses. She kept asking if she could be one of them for Halloween and if I would make her one of those dresses (ha).

 Peter loved the dancing, too. He sat through the entire 30-minute performance and didn't get squirmy until the last five! He also decided he needed to go stomp his feet on the board they laid down for the hard shoes. It was pretty adorable.

 David's new buddy is the fuzzy boy on the front row. Turns out there is an entire class of six to seven year old BOYS at this school. David is pretty interested now. :)


Saint Patrick's Day itself was pretty low key. We wore green. I made a fun lunch for everyone. David's got packed up:

I made GF Smac n' cheese for dinner and boiled the noodles in green water. Kids loved it!

We read a little from Saint Patrick's Confessions and recapped his story before going to bed. We listened to a lot of pennywhistle and accordion music during the day and the kids hopped and skipped around the living room. I really like simple days like that. :)

Can Drive for Cub Scouts

David and I went out Saturday afternoon to pass out flyers for his can drive fundraiser. We walked down three streets and passed out 66 flyers! Took us three and half hours... David was very good and didn't whine, but cheerfully worked for most of the time we were outside. At the very end he slipped on some ice and hurt his foot. He said it hurt, but despite the pain he finished out the street while we waited for Jonathan to come pick us up.

We took one break about half-way through and stopped in at Kroger for a snack and treat. We both appreciated the warm store and getting out of the cold wind!

Today we drove around the streets again collecting the donated cans. After just one street we'd filled the car to capacity and had to stop at the bottle return place before we could pick up the other streets' donations.

 David was so enthralled with that machine! He thought it was pretty nifty how it scanned the cans and bottles and rolled them into a storage bin in the back. I guess for a boy heavy machinery is a pretty fascinating thing. :)

After getting almost $70 for those cans we headed off down the other streets.

Again we filled the car to capacity, but we weren't able to turn in those cans yet. We'll have to make a stop by WalMart tomorrow to deposit those, Jonathan needed the car to get to the church tonight.

I'm very proud of how hard David has worked on this fundraiser. He was very worried before starting that no one would take his flyers. I coached him to say, "Hello! I'm doing a can drive for Cub Scouts. May I leave this flyer with you?" He was afraid everyone would say no. In the end only one person we talked to said no, they didn't like Cub Scouts. Instead most doors we knocked on happily took a flyer, and a number of them said they'd have cans for us.

David asked me today why the one man said he didn't believe the Cub Scouts did good things. I told him that some people just disagree with the program and how it is run, but that's okay. People are allowed to think differently than us, it does not make them bad people. He thought about that for a bit, then said, "I like Cub Scouts. I think it does good things." And I agree. I also believe it has helped him a lot, too. Since being involved with the program, any work Cub Scout related has been met with enthusiasm and cheerfulness. He doesn't complain that it is a hard thing to pass out flyers, or to work on projects, or build his pinewood derby. His usual sullen attitude is markedly more pleasant when we are doing anything Scouts. I hope it sticks, because I firmly believe that Cub Scouts and Boy Scouts builds good men and good leaders. The best boss I had was a firm believer in the good Scouting can bring, and I'd place money on him learning some of his leadership skills through Scouts. (He also always had an emergency preparedness kit in his trunk, I wonder if he still has one there...)

Anyway, I'm excited to see the fruits of David's labors as we get the final tally's on our first weekend can-driving. We're going to go for one more weekend at the end of this month. I hear it is the opening day for baseball here soon... ;)

Sunday

Popcorn and Sunbeams don't mix. Makes a huge mess (though I should have expected that, it is a classroom of three-year-olds).

Despite the mess today, a couple of minor tantrums, and one HUGE diaper explosion (none of which involved my OWN three-year-old), I'm really loving my new calling to teach the three/four-year-olds. They are a delightful group of girls and one funny little boy. I think I would be quite happy to spend a long while there, they are very easy to please. :)

When we got home from church today David discovered that his mouse cage was cracked open. Max was missing. Crap. We hunted through his room but no mouse was found. After a desperate prayer (on my part) we actually SAW Max the Mischievous Mouse run under the dishwasher. At some point he moved to under the refrigerator. David spent the entire afternoon (about four hours) waiting to see if Max would come out. He never did. I'm almost convinced he's moved on and found another hiding place. And I'm not quite sure what to do besides more praying. Blah!

Spent some time in a Google Hangout with Baba and Gran this afternoon. Emma joined a little later. Peter played an adorable game of Peek-A-Boo (one of his favorite games) with them. And we played around with adding a bunch of people to the hangout...

Gotta love the goofballs in the corner:

:)

After discussing a big Michigan visit (YAY!!!) we said our good-byes. So hard being far away from family. So grateful for the technology that keeps us close!

After dinner we read a bunch of books: three Fancy Nancy books (Andi's favorite) and a chapter from a Magic Treehouse book (David's favorite). Kids went to bed and I had a folding marathon while watching Swiss Family Robinson.

Looking forward to another calm week. AND I get to pick up my new glasses this week, so I'll be seeing better soon! My night vision has really been suffering the last six months or so and got to the point that I was scared to drive at night, especially if it were snowing or raining. The dr remedied my near-sightedness (my astigmatism remained the same from my last Rx) so the night vision should be fixed! I also got sunglasses, something that has been recommended to me by several drs because my Rx is so heavy. Sunlight bends right through my lenses and burns my eyes. After the dr pointed out slight malformation of my right retina on a picture he took of my eyes (!!!! Never had THAT done before!!!) I determined a little less damage to my eyes would be a good thing: sunglasses were in order. (As a side note, the dr said the picture looked weird, but everything looked normal when he looked at my eyes himself, and he spent a LONG time on that right eye. He does not think I will be going completely blind anytime soon. So don't freak out, Mom.) All around excited to see clearly and distinctly again. Yay!

David's Pinewood Derby is this week. Wish him luck!

All About Andi

This week Andi had a very specific movie she wanted to watch. She called it "Beauty and the Rest".

Jonathan was stumped and never figured out what she wanted. Andi and I had the following exchange a couple days later:

"What movie do you want to watch, Andi?"

"Beauty and the Rest!"

......... "What?"

"Beauty and the REST!"

"Beauty and the Beast?"

"NO. Beauty AND THE rest."

A few minutes pass as I try various interpretations to no avail.

"So you want to watch Beauty and the Rest?" (I enunciated each part carefully...)

"Yes! Beauty and the Rest!"

....... "Sleeping Beauty?"

"Yes!"

"Ooooooooh! The Beauty that RESTS!! Geez."

And she happily watched her movie. Jonathan was glad I finally figured it out.

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We've completely switched to gluten free, and she has a special bracelet she wears during grocery shopping trips, church, and any time we think we might come in contact with people who might try feeding her. Though I'm not sure she needs the bracelet, every time someone hands her anything she asks one question:

"Hm... Is this gwooten?"

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Sometimes the gluten thing gets us in trouble. Like when we serve her "oatmayo" for breakfast and she says,

"This has gwooten, it make me sick."

"Um... no. It is gluten free, you can eat it."

"But I don' wike it, so it has gwooten in it."

-.- So if she doesn't like it she decides that it has gluten in it. Great.

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She picked out her Easter dress; a big puffy, 50's style dress with a collar. She wants gloves and a hat, too. Her favorite things are purses, nail polish, and pretty things. Sometimes I am included in those pretty things, especially if I wear a dress for the day. :)