Choo Choo I'm Two!

I wish I could take credit for the title, but it was on a shirt my mother gave Doug for his birthday. Instead of having a big party like we did last year, we decided on having a small family gathering this year. The day before his birthday we had my family over for BBQ and cake. On Doug's actual birthday, Jeff stayed home and we let Doug open his gifts from us. I think Doug had a fairly good time.


He had a Thomas themed cake this year. Surprising, I know.


My brother surprised Doug with fish! They are a big hit and are still alive a week later!




We gave him a Thomas alphabet puzzle that he had to put together right away.




We also gave him a trike, which he's still getting the hang of.



This is a slice of cake on his actual birthday. Doug's version of the birthday song goes something like this, "Happy birthday, happy birthday, happy birthday! (blow, blow)". We never did manage to get that on video.

Here's to the beginning of the third year!

Growing Up

This past week I feel like Doug's been growing up by leaps and bounds. I know two is just around the corner, but it all seems so fast!

Last Friday I thought I'd selfishly take a shower all by myself. I'd tried earlier in the week to just let Doug roam the upstairs while I showered. I made sure things were out of his reach, the gate was shut and I put his Elmo potty video on. I think the shower was on for about 3o seconds before he came running in shouting "SHOWER! SHOWER!". I'd left the door open because I didn't feel comfortable locking him out of the bathroom, in case he got hurt or needed me. I relented and let him in with me. So, on Friday I decided to go back to my old stand by, putting him in his crib with his toys. After I did that I went to check my email really quickly, and I heard furious screaming, and then jumping and then the door knob rattle. Sure enough, he some how got out of his crib. I decided he'd 'earned' a shower after that feat. After the shower, he went and sat down on his potty and peed in it for the first time since January. Since Friday we've gotten him to use the potty 2-3 times a day. Saturday I suggested a pull-up diaper, and he kept repeating "pull", so I got one out and put it on him, and then he ran into the kitchen, to the door just wearing a diaper shouting "pull! pull!". He desperately wanted to get outside. It took me a few minutes to figure out that what he was actually saying was "pool! pool!". He was under the impression that he was wearing a swim diaper, and wanted to go for a dip in the neighbor's nasty above ground pool despite that it was about 40 degrees. I bought him the cutest little Thomas the Tank underwear the other day, with the intention of having him wear them around the house for a few hours each day. But nope. Everything that is not a traditional diaper is evidently a swim diaper and you cannot convince him otherwise. So for now we're still using diapers. I suppose he'll just have to get over this with time.

We decided that we it wasn't safe for Doug to continue sleeping in his crib. In January we had taken the side off the crib, and Doug loved it during the day, but had a total meltdown that night, so we put the side back. When my in-laws came out in January they brought Jeff's old bed with them, which my father-in-law had made. We went out Friday night to look at mattresses. The bed is a little narrow and a bit shorter than a regular twin, so we didn't think we'd be able to find a mattress and were planning on special ordering one. We lucked out big time. We walked into a store and right by the door they had a mattress that would fit, on sale! We managed to fit it in the car and drove it home. We got the bed up from the basement and while I dashed out to Target for sheets, Jeff disassembled the crib. I managed to get the last set of Thomas sheets. Doug was pretty psyched about his big boy bed!


The first night, I laid in there with him until he fell asleep, about 15 minutes. Saturday night didn't go quite as well. For over an hour and a half I was in and out of his room. Finally, I just left. I'd moved his night light and changed it's color. I'd made sure his room was quite and as dark as he would tolerate. He popped out of his room about 3 times, and then we locked him in from the outside. The actual lock is on his side, but by using your thumbnail, you can turn it. And as I just found out, he can unlock it himself. After about 5 minutes he was asleep. We unlocked his door for the night and checked on him, he was asleep in his bed, all nice and snug. We haven't had to lock him in since. He'll open the door, scream and cry and then shut it. He definitely knows he's supposed to be in his bed. Nap time isn't going so well, he mostly plays in there. Hopefully he'll get over the novelty soon. Other than being a bit resistant to staying in bed and falling out (low tech solution: body pillow) he's adjusted well. The next big change will be turning his car seat around.

Accepting Failure

One of the effects of having a chronic illness or two can be a some what restricted life style. Most of the time when I look at my life under a small lens, I see that things are mostly fine and well. But if I look broader, I see that some aspects of my life are just not coming together as much as I'd like. And I'm starting to believe that's okay.

I recently started reading a book that was recommended to me called 'The Ragamuffin Gospel'* by Brennan Manning. I'm not too much more than 50 pages into it, it's a rather 'deep thought' kind of book, but I'm really getting a lot out of it. The central theme of the book seems to be about God's grace for us, and that we can't do anything to earn it, it's just given to us as a gift. Essentially, God knows we don't have it together, and that's okay.

This book was recommend to me ages ago by my pastor. I kept putting it off and putting it off and then last week I ran out of things to read and remembered this book. Some times when I pick up a book, it's the right time for me to read that book. Like I'm ready to experience it, that I may not have appreciated it as much if I'd read it earlier. That seems to have happened with this particular book. We've started the New Testament in my Bible study and I was starting to feel that I wasn't doing enough as a Christian. I started thinking "Well, now there's potty training, healthy shopping and cooking, exercise, Bible study, Church, story time, quality play time with Doug, quality time with Jeff and some time for me so I don't go postal, and oh yeah, let's work in some volunteer time too!" Yeah. I don't see it all happening either. This was helping me feel more anxious and overwhelmed. Then at one point in this book, a single mother tells the pastor that she feels called to a soup kitchen, but doesn't want to leave her kids with some one else. The pastor said something along the lines of ' you being a mother is enough for God'. And then my mind went "ooooh". It helped me let go of some of the anxieties in my life.

I have trouble sometimes accepting limitations due to illness. Things like not getting to church, or story time or making dinner for my family. I've come to slowly realize that failing can be okay, that I need to let it go. Tomorrow is another chance to make things right.

My ragamuffin.

*The full title is 'The Ragamuffin Gospel: Good News for the Bedraggled, Beat-Up, and Burnt Out'. See why I thought it was appealing?

Time Out!

I don't believe in spanking, I don't think it accomplishes anything. However, Doug was thisclose to a spanking yesterday. Recently I've begun letting Doug out of the grocery cart with me when I go shopping, provided he doesn't take off and run away. The last few trips to the store he's been very good, staying with me and helping me put things into the cart. We've had a lot of fun by having Doug help us find and count produce. In general the trip is less of a headache because he's not screaming to get out or running away from me.

So yesterday we went to Target and he was walking with me and helping me load the cart. After that we had to go to the grocery store. He wanted to get out and walk next to me and because he'd been so good, I was ok with that. We went up a few aisles, got some produce and then went to the condiment aisle. I was looking for some individual packs of ranch dressing for Jeff's lunch and Doug was roaming up and down the aisle looking at bottles of 'dip'. I then heard a rattling sound and realized that the bottle Doug had just picked up was glass. I very calmly told him to put it down as I walked toward him. He smirked, held the bottle over his head with both hands, and threw it with all of his toddler might. Glass and bbq sauce everywhere! I was shocked and absolutely horrified. To Doug's credit, he was pretty shocked too. I'm sure that he didn't know that the bottle would break. I don't remember what I said to him ( I was still in shock) but it was something along the lines of "you are in SOOO much trouble and there will be a serious time out when we get home!". I plopped him back in the cart and went to find an employee to alert about the mess*. Several minutes later I brought Doug back to the aisle to show him that some one else had to clean up his mess. For the rest of the trip, Doug was pretty subdued. He wasn't dancing to the in store music anymore or pointing out things he knew the words for. He mostly just calmly sat in the cart.

I usually give time outs right after the offense, otherwise Doug is unlikely to remember what he's in time out for. But a time out in the store isn't quite as effective as one at home and I thought this deserved a good one. When we got home I put him in his crib, his designated time out place and he began to jump in his crib, clearly enjoying himself. I realized that the crib no longer has the desired time out effect, so I had to come up with something fast. I realized that I could strap him into his highchair and put him in the middle of the dining room, which ended up working out nicely. After his three minutes, I talked to him about what he did and why it wasn't a nice thing to do. I have no idea how much, if any of it sank into him. He was rather exceptionally good the rest of the day, possibly because I told him that I don't take naughty boys to see GG (my grandmother) and he'd been talking about going over there all day long.

I was really glad that there weren't any witnesses to the 'Great Bbq Chucking' of '12. Had I seen that, my first thought would have been 'Wow, what a brat!'. And there was definitely some part of my mind that thought that. I know that the incident was pretty extreme for Doug. He did only intend to throw the bottle, not shatter it and make a huge mess. I may laugh about it at some point, just not this week.


On another completely unrelated note, I got yelled at by a door to door salesperson yesterday. It had happened shortly after I debriefed Doug on his time out. The doorbell rang and Doug started screaming, which is unusual (the screaming and the doorbell). Typically when the bell rings, we're expecting some one and I tell Doug that so and so will be over and he's all cool with that. So after calming down a freaked out toddler, I looked out my window and saw a young woman who didn't appear to have anything identifying her with any company. I thought that she could be a neighbor, so I opened the door. She then launched into some sort of spiel. I very politely, but firmly asked if she had seen my sign.

A quick word about my sign. The first month we moved into this house, we were getting solicitors at our door a couple of times in a week. I don't buy stuff from people going door to door. I don't give donations to people going door to door. I don't join new religions of people going door to door. I just don't do it. If some one is an obvious solicitor, I don't even open my door. So we got this lovely plaque for our mailbox, which sits right next to the door frame. It's bright red and says "NO SOLICITING!". Best three dollars I ever spent at Home Depot. All of our friends and family who've visited our house have noticed it. We had trouble on Halloween with parents not sure if it was ok to ring our bell. So basically, what I'm saying is that people notice the sign.

Anyway, back to my lovely saleslady. She said, very rudely, "Now why would I look at your mailbox?! You should put it on your door!!!" Again, the sign is about 3 inches from the door bell. I shrugged, said 'No thank you' and closed the door on her face. There were a lot of things I could have said but didn't. Like, 'Oh, I'm sorry you aren't able to read" or "Wow, I know soliciting is a pretty big word, do you know what it means?". Sigh.

Thanks for letting me get all that off my chest!


*I admit that I told the employee that Doug had dropped the bottle, not pitched it with all his might. It's also not a store we go to often. Or will probably go back to for a while...

Off and Running

I think the title should be more like 'Off and Walking' or 'Off and Strolling' but I thought the one I chose looked better. Anyway, we're a week into the New Year and life is going well. I love the holidays, but I'm glad they're over. I like it when our schedule relaxes and things can go back to normal. We do have a bit of a birthday blitz in the next two months, but that's not as crazy or as all consuming as the holidays can be.

I've started feeling better. I do tend to do better with my fibro in the winter. It's something about the heat that tends to increase my level of fatigue. Conversely, my hypothyroidism tends to get worse in the cold months, my thyroid's activity tends to decrease and I experience more aches in my joints. I'd rather be dealing with thyroid issues then fibro ones as the thyroid is relatively easy to fix. I've also been off of Lyrica for about a month and a half now. We added Lyrica to my regimen about a year ago to help deal with my skin sensitivity*, but it didn't work, so it just got increased and increased until I was taking a mind boggling amount of it. It was also causing unpleasant side effects, so I went off of it, which took forever because its a drug you have to back off slowly. So I noticed that when I was in Kansas City for Thanksgiving, that I didn't need to take naps that week. That was the first full week I was off the drug. Then one of my girlfriends mentioned that she'd been on a mood stabilizer that was causing her lots of fatigue. Then it just clicked into place. So now that I've been off of Lyrica I've had more energy. I was taking naps almost daily in the fall, and I rarely got anything done.

We've had a very definite upswing on the quality of our lives. The house is cleaner and more organized. We've eaten more healthy homemade dinners. Doug's gotten more quality play time. We've been attending church more. Yesterday we hit story time for the first time in months! So, here's to you, 2012! Lookin' good!


*The skin sensitivity has a fancy smancy name: tactile allodynia

Winding Down the Year

We're almost at the end of 2011. So I'm now ready to spend another six months trying to remember what year it is when I write checks. It takes about that long for the new year to sink in. Either that or I write '2001' everywhere. 2010 was really hard to remember because there was a '1' and a '0' just like in '2001'. But I digress.

We had a nice Christmas. I got the only thing I really wanted: Doug had a great Christmas. I also got some new Vera Bradley gear. We got to spend Christmas Eve with my Dad's family and Doug was really into my Grandfather's trains. Christmas morning we stayed here and my parents came to us in the afternoon. Doug got a lot of cool stuff. Our house looks like Santa just decided to stop at our house and dump all the toys from the rest of the block here. We had Christmas dinner over at my Grandma's house and Doug enjoyed a nice roaring fire in the fire place. Fires in fire places are evidently the most awesome thing ever. It was busy, but over all nice.


Doug's Grandparents in Kansas City sent him enough track to choke a hippo and we had a lot of fun on the 26th building track for his trains.


I decided that we were going to start the new year out with a clean house, so for the past few days we've been cleaning and taking down the decorations. We cleaned out the closets and pantry and donated things we didn't need or want anymore. I feel like it's a little easier to breath without the clutter, dust and decorations around. We're planning a very laid back New Year's Eve. We plan to go out for a late lunch and then come home and put on our pajama pants and watch movies and eat cocktail meatballs. I've been looking forward to this for weeks, it should be great!

Happy New Year!


Doug doing his part in the clean-up effort. Not pictured is his dancing to 'Some Kind of Monster' (I told him it was about Cookie Monster). If you can picture 'The Elaine' dance from Seinfeld without the kicking, you can picture Doug dance.

New & Old Traditions

I have to say, that one of the most fun things about having my own family is determining the various traditions we keep during the holidays. This year is the first Christmas we're celebrating in our new house, so it's the first time we've decorated it. We moved in a year ago in November, but spent Christmas in Kansas City.

We decided we really needed something on our lawn, so we got an inflatable Santa. I think he must be kin with the Wicked Witch of the West, because during the day he looks like a puddle.


We always hear about the Garden of Lights in Wheaton, but usually after the fact. This was the first year we made it out to it, and it was a blast. Doug loved running around and looking at all the light sculptures. He's wearing a nice coat that his Uncle John gave him last year. It finally fits!


Inside one of the buildings at the park they have a model train exhibit. Doug was completely fascinated by it and we spent a good half hour in there.



Here he's looking through the tunnel, waiting for the trolley to return.



Every year growing up we'd go with my Grandfather and Uncle and cut down a fresh Christmas tree. I was very excited to include Doug in on this tradition with my family. Below he's pictured with his Uncle John scouting out trees.


This is the tree that Jeff cut down. Doug is very fond of sticks, every time he picks one up I try to get him to say 'Expecto Patronum!'. No such luck yet.

After we cut down trees, we go for lunch. The place we eat is near train tracks. We happened to sit out on a screened in patio, about 10 feet from the tracks. We saw two trains go by and Doug was in heaven!


This is a picture of the tree at home. Note that Doug is diligently UN-decorating the tree. That's a train (with moving wheels) that Nan gave Jeff many years ago. Doug's pretty sure it's his awesome new toy. Also note the seasonally appropriate Darth Vader t-shirt.


My high school has a 'Cookies with Santa' event for Alumni and their families and this is the second year we've taken Doug. I've still yet to see any '01ers there (ahem), but we had fun. It's a nice no pressure situation for the kids to see Santa.


Last weekend we went with my family to to Strasburg PA to see Santa on a train. Maybe the reindeer were in the shop? Anyhow, Doug is very into trains and it was a blast.




Santa gifted Doug with a small engine, so I'm pretty sure any lingering anxiety about Santa is now completely gone.

I'm really hoping we'll add the Santa train ride to our Christmas traditions.