Can you find it?

Can you find the hidden handlebar mustache?

Yes, these are mashed potatoes.

Drunkin' Sailor

Yesterday started out as any other Monday - it was Monday and I really didn't want to be at work. My cell phone rang about noon and it was day care. Uh - oh, that was my first thought. Ya see, day care doesn't call ya to tell you that your son is being a wonderful angel or he just said a new word. They call because something is wrong.
I could hear a child screaming in the background and Sonya (Spencer's teacher), said, don't worry that isn't your son. Whew.
With that said, Sonya begins to explain that Spencer has been falling down, falling down a lot. Unfortunately he used his face as landing gear. His tooth had a blood blister right above the tooth and the tooth itself had started to discolor. He wasn't in pain and everything else seemed okay, she was just calling me to let me know.

Okay, so not too bad. I'll take a look at it when I pick him up from daycare. I walk into daycare at 5:45 and the first thing I see is blood all over Sonya's shirt.
"Please tell me that is not my son's blood all over you."
Uh, yeah. Well, he fell again and hit the same spot on his mouth and the second time it did bleed. His mouth looked pretty gross, but the doctor's office was closed, so we would wait until morning.

Justin and I both talked that Spencer had been falling a lot over the past week and he always looked drunk when he was walking. The poor guy walked into two doors this weekend.
This morning we decided that we better take him in to the doctor; we were concerned that te had fluid in his ears again and it was messing up his balance.

So first things first, his tooth is TBA - if it turns grey or begins to darken, we will have to take him to a pediatric dentist. Not cool - Spencer only has four teeth, he can't afford to have any go missing!

Second of all, his ears. BOTH ears have fluid in them and it is a matter of time before they get infected. So as a preventative measure, he is going back on an antibiotic and adding the Claritin to his already daily dose of Singulair. This is to try and keep an infection from forming until we FINALLY, yes FINALLY get to go see an ENT (Ear, Nose, & Throat) doctor. We go there on Nov. 11th. Our doctor thinks that Spencer will have no problems qualifying for tubes. Thank goodness, we have only been pushing to go see an ENT, since the first 5 ear infections and 4 antibiotics since April.

So with that said, Spencer chews with his back gums and doesn't try to take a bite out of anything. He continues to walk crooked and fall a lot, so we have had to keep our eye on him a bit more than usual.

She's 12

Today is Madison's 12th birthday. WOW, it is so hard to believe she is growing up. I keep telling her to stop growing! She is wearing my shoes now. Thank goodness my shoes are "too old" for her.
Madison's Favs

• Food: pizza
• Book: Revenge of the Shadow King by Benz & Lewis
• Dessert: il dolce's gelato
• Board Game: Shadows Over Camelot
• Online Game: Wizard 101
• Color: green or purple
• Clothing: t-shirt with hoodie and skinny jeans
• Drink: Dr. Pepper
• Musical Artist: Daughtry
• Song: No Surprise
• Subject: math

Madison enjoyed the day playing Wizard 101 and her new Nintendo game that Spencer picked out for her. She choose to eat at Johnnie Carinos for dinner and tried something new: chicken parmesan. She loved it! Dinner was finished with a complimentary huge bowl of ice cream, with three spoons of course. I think overall she had a good day. We have a small party with some of her friends next week.

Are You Ready for Some Football?

Can I go outside?



















Pleeeeeaaaaassssseeeee mama!

Can you open the garage?

This is my "ba".






















Are you ready for some football?

Read the Directions

Last weekend Madison asked me to buy her some new face cleanser. Her friend was using it and she thought it would work for her (yeah, we never did this as a kid). She has had the typical pre-teen acne for a couple of years and we have varied our product usage trying to find what would work. We bought the new cleanser on Sunday and she began to use it that evening.
Flash forward to Thursday. Madison's face was horribly broken out. Her entire forehead was full of red inflamed bumps or what looked like really bad acne. It didn't surprise me because she has had these breakouts before. We have kept some prescription medication for "spot" treatments. I applied this to her problem areas.
Flash forward to Saturday. Her acne still looked horrible, but now she had some dry patches on her face. That night I started researching products and what to use for her. On Sunday, I broke down and bought a trial package of ProActive. That evening, Madison's face was "burnt" and I mean red, raw and burnt. Her skin had started peeling and flaking off, A LOT!
I washed her face with some of my gentle cleanser and whoa, burning and more redness. I caked her face with lotion, ya know the kind you pay ridiculous amounts of money for.
Monday morning I checked her face and it looked like an alligator. Nothing had changed. It didn't even look like the patches had gotten any better. If anything, there were more dry patches. I put more lotion on.
By Monday evening, it was still bad and not getting any better. I asked her to bring me the cleanser and tell me when she started using it and when she stopped. Justin and I both asked her how she was using it. FINALLY, something made sense. Ready, don't gasp - she was putting the cleanser (gel with acne fighting beads in it) on her face at night and patting it dry. She had mis-read the directions and missed the part about rinsing it off of her face. So for 5 days straight she had let this cleanser dry on her face. The "breakouts" were actually a reaction that her skin was having a "heat rash." To make matters worse, I put on the prescription medication on her face during this "heat rash."
Trip to the dermatologist today! Our dermatologist rocks! Madison basically gave herself a really strong chemical peal. Not really that good for an 11 year old. The awesome thing is that there is no permanent damage, but it will take about 4-6 weeks to heal. YEP, she did it good. She will use a prescription lotion for three days and then we switch to a new recommended cleanser (not ProActive by the way) and prescription. The doc made sure Madison understood how to do everything and explained it to her in words, in print and motions (how she should put the creams on and take them off). The whole time she talked to Madison directly, which was great. Have a mentioned I love her! She is such a fantastic doctor.
Needless to say, Madison and I both learned a lot today and she is confident she will have great skin in about a month. We go back for a check up in 5 weeks.
Moral of the story - read the directions!

Friday Favorites

Spencer will turn 13 months on Sunday. He is growing by the minute and learning so many new things. Here is just a few of my Friday Favorites to share.

• If he wants to go outside he will pick up his shoes or one of dad's shoes and bring it to you.
• He whines a lot for me to pick him up. If I won't pick him up, he immediately goes to the lap top cord that is plugged into the outlet. He knows I will immediately come and pick him up then. His arms are already raised waiting for me to get him. (Okay, so this really isn't one of my favorite things he does).
• When I read one of the Dr. Seuss books, he chatters back to me as if he was reading to me.
  If you ask him if he wants to take a bath, he runs into his room and tries to get his clothes off. He if very good at helping get his clothes off and on, but when he is in a hurry, he ends up making things worse because he is impatient.
• He loves bananas. If you set him in the high chair and he sees a banana, he literally starts grunting and swinging his arms in excitement.
• He likes to play "I'm gonna getcha." He runs excitedly down the hallway and looks back at you while laughing in order to see if you are chasing him.
• He likes to help shut doors (dryer door, closet door, etc.) and to turn on and off the lights for me. He just grins when he has accomplished the task.

He LOVES to clean out my kitchen cabinets. The worse time of day for me is right when I get home. The kids are hungry and I can't get anything done fast enough. Spencer decides to "help" me by pulling EVERYTHING out of my kitchen cabinets. We used to only have the two cupboards locked that contained the cleaning supplies, but alas, we have had to add more. (Once again, not really one of my favorite things).


Other bits of news:
Spencer finally had his top two teeth break through. That puts him at four teeth, yep, only four. It doesn't stop him from eating one bit. He enjoyed pizza tonight and ate the entire piece.



He is finally over the horrible ear infection that plagued us all last week. We will be heading to the doctor in a few weeks for both kids to get flu shots. Spencer will have to have two since it is his first time. I do plan on having both kids vaccinated against H1N1; that will probably be in October. There has been a lot of mis-information regarding the vaccine in the media and internet. Anyone who has heard of people dying from the vaccine or other horrible side effects, get the facts. Go to the CDC's website and look it up to be sure before believing what is out there.

Totally off the subjects from above, but too funny not to share:

Bad Hair Day & Blue Eyes
Spencer was taking a nap on Monday and it was warm. Evidently it was a bit warm in the house and he was sweating a bit. This is what I found when he woke up from his nap.




My last favorite thing:
Spencer's piercing blue eyes. LOVE THEM!

Who's the Doctor?

Little Man has been down with an ear infection since Monday. Monday night was horrible, oh well let me think, so was Tuesday and Wednesday night as well. We had to visit Urgent Care due to the fact that my peds office let two people go on vacation at the same time (what were they thinking). So, a LONG and scary wait in the Urgent Care lobby and finally the diagnosis is an ear infection on Tuesday. Okay, wait, it gets better. While I appreciate the doctor (yes, I use this term lightly) asking us what antibiotics he has been on in the past and prescribed one of those we listed, I am NOT the doctor. I shouldn't be making that decision. The prescribed antibiotic should be one that is effective and appropriate for the bacteria that is causing the infection.

So after four days of a temperature of over 100 degrees and alternating Motrin and Tylenol every four hours just keep the his temperature under control, I called the Children's Hospital on call nurse at 5am. Her simply explanation is: the antibiotic isn't working.

We are headed back to the doctor today (our ped doctor) and hopefully we can get this under control. Justin and I have missed work and school all of this week and missed a lot of sleep. The only thing that seems to calm him down is sitting outside on the porch swing. Granted, it is usually in the middle of the night, but I don't really care as long as it keeps him from crying. If it isn't the swing, I am carrying him around swaying or bouncing him.

My back and sanity really needs him to get better.