My two youngest

Little Man is age 4 and this is his Pre-K photo. He missed out on today's Santa pictures at school, because he has Pink-eye. I think I have it too. The fun just never stops at our house! LOL
But isn't he cute? I know I am biased, oh well. I worked with the Gamma Correction function in my graphics program because his eyes are really too dark in this photo. He has beautiful brilliant blue eyes. Here is a drawing I did of him from an earlier picture.

Little Guy is 2 years old, and he had his picture taken last week with Santa Claus at his preschool. You can tell he's nervous because he's sitting there stiff as a board, but at least he's not crying.

Popsicle Time

I just love seeing Little Guy in the background on this one,
getting ready to chomp on that Popsicle!

The Thinker...lol

my annual croup blog post

I awoke at 4 am today, my toddler son (Little Guy, shown finger painting in yesterday's photo) was barking like a seal with the classic cough of Croup.

I ran into the bathroom and got the shower going with the hottest water I could. I got the bathroom all steamy. Then I went to get Little Guy and I held him on my lap in the steam for about 15 minutes. That has seemed to help. He would not stop hugging his large, stuffed Winnie the Pooh bear for anything in the world. I know stuffed animals aren't the best thing for kids with croup to be hugging (allergies, etc) but I think the psychological benefits of Pooh outweigh any harm the stuffed animal could do.

I took his older brother (age 4) to pediatric emergency care the other night, because his Croup seemed very severe and it scared me. The American Academy of Pediatrics book (we've nicknamed it Momma's Big Book of Worries) says that kids usually outgrow Croup by age 3.
The pediatric doctor said oh no - they can get it to age five.

Well, thank goodness for insurance. That's an expensive nighttime visit to the doctor just to find out there's nothing to be done about it other than treat it like a cold, encourage drinking a lot of fluids, use a cool-mist humidifier in the child's room, and the steamy bathroom treatment. All the stuff I was already doing. I know when the co-payment bill arrives in the mail, I'll open it and say to myself, "here's my bill for being stupid!"

So that's why I'm up at 5:30 am blogging.

sick little guy

Little Guy will be 2 years old in about a month. He is really talking up a storm these days! I love to see the satisfaction on his face when he has gotten his point across using some words. He uses "down" for "up," but we figured it out and hope he'll understand "up" soon!

He's so cute it's unbelievable, but all parents think that about their kid, don't they? So I will refrain from telling you how blue his eyes are and how cute his little cheeks are...oops! I need to get a picture put into the blog, I promise to do that soon. I have a ton of good photos.

He has the flu or something. Yesterday his fever clocked in at 102. I'm keeping a close eye on him and tempting him with yummy drinks like Kool-Aid that I normally wouldn't give him to get him to drink more. It's hard to see him sick but hopefully it'll be over soon and I'll have something interesting to talk about.

Today I took the boys to the pediatrician

Little Man is going to turn 4 on August 13. He weighs 58 lbs and he is off the chart...and I mean WAY off the chart (the doctor showed me) and it looks like he will end up being much taller than either myself or my husband. The downside of his visit - he might need a little bit of speech therapy, but maybe not...just that he should be evaluated.
He had his finger pricked to check his iron levels (fine) and had 1 shot. Don't ask me what it was, I'd have to go look it up. It's hard to remember the names of all the inoculations. We have all the paperwork we need now for preschool and pre-kindergarten. Yay! My daughter (age 13) was a big help, she would take each child out into the hallway while one was getting shots, so that cut down on the psychological trauma at least!

Little Guy is 20 months old and weighs 28 lbs. He's not way off the chart, but he's right on it, right on track. He was honored with 3 shots. He is doing fine with it, he had a really long nap today which kind of concerned me, but he is happy and all over the place tonight. His latest hobby is grabbing any DVD case he can and removing the DVD out of it. This keeps me from getting bored and is good exercise to bend over, pick them up, put them in the right case and put them away again.

dissed!

My soon to be 4 year old was watching TV this morning when a commercial for Life Alert came on.
That's the product that says "now you can be alone without feeling alone." Apparently my son was afraid that I would be lonely, so he said, "Mommy, you need to get dat." I told him that I don't need it now, but maybe later...when I'm old. He said, "You a-weddy old."

Well that was comforting!

georgia pre-k

<--- Little Man has been accepted into a Georgia Pre-K (Pre-kindergarten) program. I had heard that there are sometimes shortages of openings, so on the advice of friends I registered him at three different locations. Some preschool daycare centers have only one day they register students - only handing out exactly the number of applications for which they have openings. They'll only hand you the application packet if you have your child's birth certificate and Social Security card with you (I did, luckily).

Other places hand out as many application packets as they are asked for, and then they do a lottery to fill the spots, just randomly picking out applications. I favor the random picking, because it creates less of a frenzy for the center. The place that had the one-day registration was chaotic, with lines of parents waiting to get the application packet, then parents sitting or standing all over the place filling out the forms, then another line of parents waiting to turn in their paperwork. I can't see how this would not negatively effect the children in the center. I don't think it's very safe to do it that way, either. Of course, it had to be a dismal rainy day too!

Little Man will start pre-kindergarten in August. It will be a 6 and a half hour long day for him.
I think that is too long for preschool. I wish there was a 4-hour option. He'll probably do fine, it's me who will suffer during that long day - he's the light of my life!

Georgia's Pre-K is funded by the Georgia Lottery, so I will only need to pay about $17 a week for food costs. I think he will really enjoy it. Still working a lot on potty training him...sometimes I think we're almost there, and then other times I am afraid he'll go to college wearing Pull-Ups!!! We'll work on it even more this summer, and he should be totally ready by the time PreK starts.