Your child's digital history

Not surprisingly I've fallen about 2 years behind on scrap booking and Kaden's baby book is sadly neglected. I've been looking at pictures that we've taken of him, one being his first time on the potty or him in the bathtub. I know that most if not all of you who read my blog were born before the Internet ever existed. We've also heard a story or two on the news about pictures that people took ages ago coming back to bite them on the behinds.

Here's my philosophical question: How much consideration to your child's future do you give before you post a picture of them on a blog, twitter, facebook, etc.?

A little bit of heaven

Kaden was sitting on my lap helping me check Facebook. He's 18 months right now (19 on Saturday) and you don't really realize how smart children are until they do something totally out of the blue. I gave Kaden a hug and told him "Do you know how much I love you?" He decided to stand up on my lap and wrapped his right arm around my next. No big deal - he likes to be king of the mountain. He made my heart melt when he leaned over and kissed the top of my head three times. How adorable!

For Aunt M

I'm getting complaints from people about not updating my blog. I've been enjoying time away from the blog for a while and here's what's happened since then. (I'll try to post a new entry for each, but this is a start.)

• Kaden now has 12 teeth - four front uppers, four front bottoms and first molars on each side
• My younger sister and I hosted a baby shower for our older sister at my house.
• Ryan and I took a trip to Winter Park, Colorado to go ski for a few days.
• We came back from vacation to find a very sick cat. Amy is the one on the left in the picture of the two cats in the right column. We had to put her to sleep. :(
• I had to replace the catalytic converter in my car.
• Kaden got his second haircut.
• I got my very first pair of 4", peep toe sling back shoes. **squeal**

Perfect Day

• Cooked chocolate chip pancakes for family for breakfast
• Worked out at the Y
• Went shopping with my Mom
• Completely finished all laundry before Ryan woke up
• Had dinner with Ryan and Kaden
• Started a fire in the fireplace
• Gave Kaden a bath and he went to bed shortly after Ryan went to work

All in all, I'd say that today was pretty close to perfect.

Another reason why I love my husband

Neither Ryan or I are big sports fans. I'm thankful that we both don't care about watching basketball or football games on tv. Case in point: Superbowl Sunday. Don't care who won or lost or even who played. Just another Sunday.

20 bucks and a pack of gum

In addition to my regular dentist appointment this week, I got to visit an Ear, Nose, and Throat (ENT) specialist. Since Kaden was born, there have been a couple of times that my salivary glands swell up so bad when I try to eat that the pain made eating unbearable. It comes and goes so it wasn't anything that is cause for alarm, but it was time to have someone look at it.

My appointment was Friday afternoon and I didn't get called into the doctor's office until almost 25 minutes past my scheduled time. He looked in my ears, up my nose, down my throat. He poked around in my mouth to see if he felt any stones in my salivary glands. Finally he sat back down and gave me his diagnosis. Chew gum between meals and drink water. For a 5 minute appointment, 25 minute wait and a $20 copay ... chew gum? Seriously?!?!

Kaden likes to share

I haven't had the motivation to update my blog recently and it's been quite a while. Kaden had a doctor's appointment last Thursday for his second H1N1 shot and to see if his double ear infections had cleared up. (They did.)

Just a few days later daycare called to inform us that they thought he had pink eye. We took him in to the doctor on Monday and indeed he did. In both eyes. And another infected ear. So as the daycare rules go, I stayed home with my little monkey. With minimal fussing, he was a good patient.

Apparently we taught him to share well because this morning I woke up with - you guessed it - pink eye. Luckily I was able to call into my doctor's office and they called in a prescription. So poor monkey and I will be getting eye drops for the next week. It will be painful to go without my beloved contacts for a week, but what can you do?

Where'd that come from?

Thanks Amy and Jenn for posting comments on my poor sick baby. He's doing better now and is as ornery as ever. I think the reason why he's getting all these sick periods is because of day care. (I would post the story about how Kaden went from in-home day care to where he is now, but I'm not going to tempt karma only to have it bite me in the butt.) Our day care center is awesome and I'm so grateful that Jenn suggested it and we love it so much.

Here's some pictures from our week so far:

Kaden and the Christmas tree

"What's wrong with this picture? Oh, silly grandpa! You put my diaper on backwards!"

I came home to this scene. Kaden helping daddy cut trim in the garage.

Thank you Daddy for protecting Kaden's ears.

And it was bound to happen sometime. Kaden's first Happy Meal. He ate a few fries, the bottom bun and most of the top bun, no burger and all of the milk.

My Poor Baby

Poor little Kaden hasn't had a good couple of weeks. We took him to the minor emergency recently to find out he had two infected ears. He got the bubble gum medicine for 10 days and we hoped that would clear it up. Kaden also had a few days of puking up anything and everything he ate but it would only happen at night. I think I changed the sheets on his bed 4 times! To top all that off, Ryan took Kaden in for his 14 month checkup today and he got 6 shots - 2 for flu (regular and h1n1) and four boosters. It sucks being a kid.

Month of Firsts

Kaden turned 9 months this month and he's growing in leaps and bounds. He's learned how to crawl -not army crawling (where your tummy is on the ground) but full fledged crawling. Ryan, Kaden and I went to my parent's house on July 3rd for dinner and fireworks. Kaden surprised us all by clapping. Two days later he started giving high fives. I don't remember exactly which day it was, but he will now crawl over to us and pull himself up to a standing position. He'll then put both hands up in the air and want to be picked up.

Last weekend we went camping with Brent and Terri. It was Kaden's first camping trip and the first in four years for us. Kaden slept in the camper with his grandparents. Ryan and I slept in hammocks called Eagle Nests. We had bug nets so we wouldn't get bitten. It was so wonderful to go to sleep under the stars and wake up to the birds singing in the morning. (They could have waited until after 6 am though.)

Kaden is drooling up a storm and has been blowing raspberries most of the day today. He's fairing well with the hot weather. He's crawling everywhere and we're slowly baby proofing the house. A baby gate is next on the list as well as re-installing the baby locks on all the cabinets. The homeowners before us had baby proofed the house and we tucked the locks away for just this time.

Grounded

I'm sure everyone makes a mental grocery list of things they need to buy when they go to the grocery store.  Light bulbs, toilet paper, milk, eggs, etc.  I have a problem of taking things off the list after I've purchased them.  Not only do I buy them once, but I sometimes have two or three extras on hand.  Right now I'm grounded from buying Italian Dressing.  I ran to the store to get milk and "remembered" that I needed dressing only to come home and find that I now have a total of 5 bottles!  In all fairness one bottle has about a 1/4 inch of dressing left so that's just a little more than 4 bottles.

Other things I have been grounded from buying:

• Rice (Ryan found 2 or 3 opened bags and 1 unopened)
• Zip lock bags (hard to say no to a good deal when buying in bulk)
• Cereal
• Peanut butter
• Tea (I went through a tea phase and had several different flavors)

Just a quick update

We had a wonderful trip to Arkansas last week. The weather was great (most days) and we were able to see a few family members from out of town. I was able to get some sun although very pale to kind of pale isn't much of an improvement. Kaden did very well in his big boy car seat, but I have a feeling that he was bored part of the way there.

Kaden is officially crawling. We'll have to start baby proofing the house soon - plug in covers, baby gates and more. He learned to crawl literally over the course of a few days. I'm so impressed by our growing little baby.

I've also had my fourth migraine headache in two weeks. Not much fun at all. The latest one woke me up in the middle of the night with light sensitivity, vomiting, and a splitting headache. If it was just a little bit worse, I might have had Ryan take me into the ER. I did go to the doctor today, so hopefully bloodwork will show up something. That's it for now. Off to bed for a good night's sleep. I'll try to post pictures of the trip soon.

Yard Work

I was exhausted after working all the graduation ceremonies yesterday so naturally that means that Kaden decides to wake up at 7 am. No sleep for the weary. I was able to take a nap for an hour after Kaden had his first bottle of the day.

We decided to do some yard work today. We had tomato plants last year but only produced about a dozen or so tomatoes. The two trees in our backyard grew so much over the summer that they cast almost constant shade over the garden. This year we decided to move the garden to the other side of the yard. He was such a hard worker today. He moved the garden to a different location in the yard, tilled the ground, planted the tomatoes, mowed the grass in the old garden, moved the wood rack (which was full) and swept off the patio. Where was I the whole time? Holding the baby. I did take some time out to pound in some nails that had popped out of the fence. I feel productive even though I didn't do much.

Kaden has been fussy for the past few days. Ryan and I think that he may be getting some more teeth in somewhere. He hasn't cut any new ones yet, but I think they're coming.

We had family pictures taken on Thursday and I'll be posting some of them soon. They were all very good and Kaden behaved very well through the whole shoot.

23 Hours

WSU held graduation this weekend. I'm on a leadership committee that helps out with commencement every semester. There were 2 ceremonies Friday and 4 ceremonies Saturday. Between the two days I volunteered close to 23 hours. I'm beat, worn out and sore. One of our other leadership members wore a pedometer and logged about 8 miles over the two days. I can't think anymore words to type. Brain and body hurt. Need sleep.

Happy Valentine's Day

This is in honor of my friend Jenn (Fincham) Erickson. Happy Valentine's Day. Hope your house is feeling better than mine!

Sick Family

I came home from work early yesterday to finish the day working from home. Ryan was sick and wasn't fully able to take care of Kaden. Like the loving family we are, he ended up passing his bug to me. 3 a.m. rolls around and I'm spending at least an hour in the bathroom throwing up. Did I mention that Kaden seems to be coming down with something too? This is not the type of quality family time that I had in mind.

Happy Groundhog Day!

Punxsutawney Phil saw his shadow today. Today's holiday got me thinking. Who in their right mind decided to pull a rat out of a hole to see if it casts a shadow to determine if winter will continue? When you break it down to simple terms like that, it just sounds weird.

Anticipation Crushed

I was running a little short on time getting ready to go to work this morning so I opted to skip breakfast at home for some yummy biscuits and gravy at the Rhatigan Student Center (RSC).  You know how you anticipate ordering something and how good it would taste?  Imagine my diappointment when I found that they are no longer offering biscuits and gravy.  :0(  The next best looking thing was 2 plain cake donuts that didn't taste good at all since my anticipation of the "better" breakfast was completely ruined.  Karma sucks sometimes.

Have a happy and safe New Years!

Time for some updates!

Ryan finished putting the six cabinets in the laundry room. We had a minor setback but they are all up now. Yay! That more than tripled our storage capacity for that room which will be a good selling point for whenever we do decide to sell our house (which isn't anytime soon). I'll post a picture soon - just after the battery for my camera charges.

The insurance guy came out and looked at my car. He's suggesting to State Farm to replace the whole stereo. Another yay! I'll either get the same stereo or an upgrade if they can't get the same one through their ordering program.

Kaden is still growing as fast as ever. He's starting to wear some 3 - 6 month clothes. He's 3 months old tomorrow, but it still makes me feel that my baby is growing up so fast. Kaden can blow raspberries and is working on sitting up on his own. He's still a little shaky but can at least lift his head very well when lying on his stomach.

New Years Eve! I'm so totally excited for this New Years Eve since it will be only the second time to spend the evening with Ryan. He was in the academy the second year we were dating and was working the other times. Those years I got my New Year's kiss but it was always 4 hours early. This year I am grateful not only that he got to spend both Christmas and New Years with Kaden, but also with me.

I hope that everyone has a safe and happy New Years. Drink in moderation and get home safe!

The thing about being sick ...

I've had a nasty sinus infection since Monday. Tuesday, Wednesday and Thursday I had no voice. Does anyone remember what I do for a living? I teach classes to faculty and staff at a college. Teaching. As in talking. I already had to cancel classes on Tuesday because I had no voice. I did go to the doctor Thursday and got started on antibiotics. The bad thing about being sick is I woke up at 3:30 coughing and I'm still not back to sleep at 4:00. At least my husband works fourth shift (9 pm to 7 am) and he woke up to take care of me. Sigh. Here's hoping I'll get to sleep soon!