Wednesday, September 29, 2010

Trendy!

Of course Abby didn't like it.

"MOMMY NO!! DON'T WEAR THAT SHOE!! TAKE IT OFF!"

But that's just how she is with new things.

Stephen thought it was pretty neat. It's a Phantom Dorsal Night Splint to be particular; plantar fasciitis treatment to be a little more simple. In layman's terms, I just hope my feet don't hurt when I get up to use the bathroom at night.

I'll just be wearing it at night, and during the day I can slip some new orthotics into my shoes. My original orthotics are from high school, so the podiatrist thought ordering a new pair was reasonable.

When I was getting my foot forms made for the orthotics, the tech offered to let Abby put her foot in a mold just for fun. But I figured she'd think he was a doctor and would be afraid of what else he was going to try. After her foot injury + boot for 3 weeks, she is not keen on letting strangers play with her feet.

If she were wiser, she'd learn to slow down so she doesn't have to go to the doctor to deal with injuries ...

Saturday evening she took a dive into the coffee table (which is not sharp). She didn't sustain an injury on the outside of her face, but her tooth cut the inside of her mouth pretty bad. The next morning it was gaping wide open and we were imagining how they were ever going to stitch her up inside her mouth. Thankfully, the nurse at Wilford Hall told us that we could just treat it at home and do our best to keep it from getting infected. Then last night we were leaving a friend's house and she fell flat on her face on the sidewalk. Didn't injure the mouth wound but did scratch her upper lip. Then after her rest today, she was in a hurry to race around Stephen to the kitchen and she fell and rolled into the piano. I feel like I'm always saying, "SLOW DOWN" to her.

Monday, September 27, 2010

Oops, oops, and oops

Last night, when we were winding down for the evening, we decided to fit a few more tasks in ... looking back on it, maybe we should have just gone to bed.

Ryan is having a photo taken today with the concert band, and he thought it would be good to clean his hair up a bit. So I got out the clippers and the cape and the stool and he sat down. All went well using a #2 and after I finished with his hair I took the attachment off to trim his neck. I took care of that briefly and then looked at him from the front. I noticed a few strands right on his forehead that got missed with the first swipe, so I took the clippers to it again. Only I hadn't put the #2 back on. I gasped when I saw what I had done, and in lieu of crying just started laughing. The whole time I was saying, "It's not funny! I don't know why I'm laughing! I'm so sorry I just messed up your hair!" He calmly said, "I guess now you get to have a bald husband." So we went back over his head with a shorter clipper. And all was well. (In my defense, I am not a professional. I cannot be expected to deliver a perfect haircut every time. However, I should not have received the haircut that I did last week from a professional ... who I will NOT be going back to. She would have kept cutting and given me bangs if I hadn't stopped her! I worked so hard to grow those out!!)

Also last night ... my phone needed an update, so Ryan hooked it up to the computer, and several moments later, the applications and music were all erased from it, too (though it was all backed up on the computer). Too tired to really be concerned with it, I just said, "oh, no problem," and I went to bed. This morning he had loaded some of them back on, but my iTunes problem is persisting. I guess we'll deal with that some other time.

Then this morning, I opened a new carton of orange juice before breakfast. The cartons are generally too full to shake well before the first glass. So I got Stephen's glass ready and then put the OJ back on the counter. After doing a few more tasks to prepare for eggs, bacon, and toast for breakfast, I went back to pour my glass. I picked that carton up and shook it -- only I hadn't put the lid back on!! HAHA! Juice flowed all over the counter and the floor by the fridge. Good thing no electronics were sitting there. I cleaned up as best I could and proceeded with breakfast preparations.

I guess Abby comes by her clumsiness honestly: It caused a giant gash on the inside of her mouth on Saturday night when she fell into the coffee table for no apparent reason! So far it seems to be healing fine on its own. Kinda difficult to put stitches in the mouth.

In other news, I am finally reporting that we are having lovely weather here in San Antonio!

Monday, September 06, 2010

Labor Day Weekend


With two weeks of school now under our belts, we had a long weekend. Hooray! Ryan was off and we enjoyed the weather cooling a bit--down to highs in the low 90s. Made for a beautiful morning at a river west of town. We gathered with our church group there at about 10 Sunday morning and the kids played and played in the water. They loved the rocks and splashing around with the other kids and even a few dogs. It was shallow enough in the area where we planted ourselves that they could roam pretty freely. The only near-disaster was when Stephen's shoe came off. A friend grabbed it and then we calmed a hysterical boy. All in all, the kids - young and old - enjoyed it quite a bit. Tyler took some photos.

Stephen turned 4 back in June, and we had thought about getting him a bicycle. Because of the heat in the summers here, we decided to wait until September to get one for him. Our outdoor time in the summer was largely spent at pools! So we headed out to test-ride a few. True to his usual experience of being a giant child, he is already at a 20" size, and his helmet size is 8!!

He is LOVING school. He sings the songs that he learns there so much that I'm getting them stuck in my head all day. (Thanks, kid.) Tonight Ryan said something to me about next January, and I immediately blurted out "January February Maaaaarch April May ..." I think each time Stephen belts out the days or months, he sings the whole list a minimum of 3 times. His teachers tell me that he is quiet in class, so I am hoping that he warms up and can be more interactive with the teachers and other students. At this point I'm fairly sure he's just absorbing it the best he can, as it's an entirely new experience for him. He had "homework" this weekend, which was to practice writing his name. The teacher said it was fine if they just got through one letter and that we shouldn't push them to do a lot right away. But he wanted to write it in 5 different colors so he wrote his name 5 times. Yup, already an overachiever.

Abby doesn't seem to mind the time alone with mommy every morning. I even asked her if she wanted to go to school like Stephen does, and she said, "No. I stay with mommy." Last week we got to go to Whole Foods and she pushed a little shopping cart. She was positively exuberant! We also joined some friends at a park one day and she played with her friend Nicholas another day. When we picked Stephen up on Friday, she was so excited to see him that she ran up to him standing against the wall where the teacher dismisses them and jumped up and down, chanting "OPPOSITES OPPOSITES OPPOSITES!!!" The only explanation I have is that she thinks he talks about opposites at school just like in the Arthur Goes to School book.

Big breakthroughs this week for her: She's been ASKING to wear her Elmo shoes instead of her red crocs. And pigtails stayed in her hair for a couple hours this morning. Must be time to have another baby. My baby is growing up.

On Monday we drove an hour south of town to Ryan's supervisor's house. They live on some land and have some chickens, goats, and even a donkey. We like that we can get farm fresh eggs from them!

In this first picture, you see a happy girl with a slightly less happy dog. A few minutes after she began to play with the dog, we heard a blood-curdling scream which was NOT preceded by a thud. I ran to find her holding the side of her face and screaming "THE DOGGIE HIT ME!!" We think he took his paw and clawed her nose, eyelid, and forehead, based on the scrapes we saw on her face. She pretty much left him alone the rest of the afternoon.


The next few photos are from our excursion outside to collect eggs from the chicken coop. Stephen actually grabbed a couple himself. But Abby also wanted to carry them. We had to watch that they didn't swing the bucket too fast. There's also a photo of William climbing up the windmill. I'm glad Stephen and Abby didn't try that.



Next up: the adventures of Tropical Storm Hermine!