The Gift of Gab

Inara must have kissed the Blarney stone because she has been endowed with the gift of gab. Her vocabulary consists of about 20 words with the latest two being "Up" and "happy". She also loves to talk on the phone. I recently bought her her own little play flip phone. She'll open it, put it to her ear and say "hi" , "Hello" and "Bye" over and over in various orders. Her prize is the real phone. Even though her toy phone beeps and talks and even lights up she will drop whatever she is doing if she spots an opportunity to reach the real phone. The Inara teenage years should be interesting.I also took her outside to add to the fifty thousand other photos I have of her. I love her facial expressions. Maybe she'll be an actress. With her speaking abilities and facial expressions she might have been meant for the stage. Here are a few that I thought were pretty good.
We went to Ronan's nutrition appointment. Inara thought the waiting area was pretty boring so she fell asleep on Daddy. His tummy made a great pillow.

The nutritionist gave us some food suggestions. We are going to be buying Ronan a food processor this weekend to help him have more of a variety of foods. He was slightly anemic even though he's on pediasure and a supplement so I'm not sure if that is significant or not. She did seem too concerned just told me to make sure he's getting all his pediasure.Isaac packed up the turtles. We can't take them to the hotel so he took them to the reptile rescue. Xander took it especially hard and was the only one to cry. We got one last picture with the turtles before daddy drove them away. Daddy himself had to hold back the tears when he handed them over.The boys did some more lego building. They worked together on a project and created a large lego circus train to put their small stuffed animals in. Ronan's birthday dinosaur was the engineer. Landon made a theater stage out of legos and put on a show for me. His speed racer car was the star.

Tomorrow is extreme packing day. I already had the kids pack the toys they wanted. They were each given a bag and could take whatever they wanted but it had to fit in the bag. I let the big kids pack Inara's and Ronan's it will be interesting to see if they actually contain any of Inara's or Ronan's toys.
Lastly I had to share these sweet sister pictures. Jadzia adores her baby sister. She follows her around wanting to include her in games. Jadzia told me today Inara is her favorite girl. Jadzia loves to squeeze Inara tight and give her kisses. Inara is not always appreciative of squishy hugs..

Boxes, Boxes and more Boxes

The deadline of having everything out of the house and into the portable storage pods is Tuesday by 3:00p.m. As it inches closer the more nerve wrecking it seems. I have so much more to do but I was avoiding the huge stuff because I have two papers due this week and tonight I had an exam in Human Biology class. The tests are extremely detailed and require complete concentration. Now that I survived the test with an A grade. I can finish up my papers tonight and that gives me the weekend to pack.

My sister in-law and brother came over to help. My sister law was a huge help in keeping a mommy attached Inara distracted so not only could I finish six pages worth of Biology homework and study but I was able to get all my laundry done. They also brought tons and tons of boxes over. Here is Jadzia standing with all the boxes. This is good because we had fallen behind on box questing.

We are definitely taking the kids legos to the hotel. We have four big tubs of duplo lego blocks. This is the number one toys the kids play with. Xander especially is always devising elaborate contraptions. When he was two he built a helicopter that was about 15 inches long and looked precisely like a helicopter and it was equipped with propellers and everything. We were stunned at his capacity to create it so accurate at only the age of two. He's always been amazing that way. He was drawing perfect stick people at 18 months. He excels at hand eye coordination. He gets that brilliance from his Daddy. Below is the creation he started today. I'm not sure what he is making it into.Landon on the other hand is becoming a little techie. He can maneuver the computer better than most adults. He has been playing skilled computer games for several years now. He enjoys playing Zoodles. Zoodles is nice because most of it is free and that's all we utilize is the free components. But you can download an icon to your computer and then you can create a profile for each child with age and other facts about them. Zoodles then condences all the kid education websites and online activities and creates a unique toy box for your child. I also get emails every week telling me exactly where the kids went and what they did on Zoodles.

They even have an art center and when I get the weekly update emails it will show me the drawings the kids did on Zoodles and you can even share them on Facebook. Another site Landon loves to go to (this can also be accessed in Zoodles or by itself) is Starfall.com. This was the first site Landon every used. He knew all his letters, lower and upper case and what sounds they made before he was three. This was because he played on Starfall everyday.


Tomorrow Ronan goes to see a nutritionist to give me an idea of where he's at and where I need to be going with his eating. We are also going to be getting him a food processor so he will be able to eat most of the same foods as the rest of us. Well I'm off to write some Drama class papers.

Old Toys Made New

Jadzia is my little ballerina. She twirls around the house throughout most of the day supplying her own background music if need be. I always love to snap rapid pictures of her while she is doing her little dance routines. I catch some of the cutest poses. I think I might need to put her in ballet one of these days. Here are some of the poses I captured of her today.

Ronan at one point wanted to dance with her. He had been an enthusiastic audience member and gave her a lengthy applause. He decided he'd rather join in the fun than sit on the side line.

Daddy interrupted the fun and then all eyes were on him. Inara was the first to reach him and get scooped up. Ronan wasn't far off and tugged at Isaac's leg until Daddy had no choice but to pick him up.

We are continuing to pack everything and today we dug the old toys out of the basement. These toys had been long forgotten because I had had the intention of either selling or donating them. We had a huge overflow because when we lived in our Missouri house we had a playroom and had it full of toys. Here we just have the down stairs living room and it is significantly smaller. The kids didn't remember that these were toys of the past.

They thought I'd been holding out on them and had all these secret toys. I tried to be discrete but Xander caught me and ran to tell the others before I could say so much as a word. Within seconds I heard the pounding of tiny feet stampeding my direction. I let them pick out one old toy each. Xander chose a spiderman mighty mugg, Landon a monster truck and Jadzia chose a stuffed Fozzy the Bear.

You would have thought I'd gone to the store and bought them new toys. They carried them everwhere and acted like they were on cloud nine.

Sleeping Beauty's Camping Trip.

Jadzia went camping in our entry way. She said she was Sleeping Beauty and only Inara was allowed to join her. It was more like Inara was forced to join her. Jadzia lured Inara over with one of Inara's toys then blocked the exit with pillows and herself.

Inara contently sat playing with her ladybug. Jadzia pretended she was reading to Inara. What she was reading from was instructions to Landon's Computer game but to Jadzia it was a fairy tale complete with a princess, castle and a couple of dragons.
Ronan had his Endocrinology visit today which is something he is seen for every 3-4 months due to the fact he has hypothyroidism. Once he reaches 3 years of age he will go to every six months unless he has more problems. He has had hypothyroidism since he was one year of age and at first was borderline but by the time he reached about 15 months it was full hypothyroidism.The visit was lengthy because his pediatrician also had blood work she wanted done. She only wanted him poked once and so she sent orders to the Endocrinologist so her blood work could be added with the Endocrinologist's. The problem occurred when she just sent the type of blood work she wanted done and not the actual order. I did talk to his Endocrinologist about his tremors because she specialize in metabolic disorders including diabetes. She said they didn't sound blood sugar related and sounded more neurological.
After a two hour wait including the visit we made our way to the lab. Ronan is a tough guy. His pain tolerance is extremely high. He never flinches when they stick him. He starts getting upset if they hold his arm down too long. Today he stuck his little lip out and laid his head down on the chair rest in front of him. He sent the lab technician the saddest look and made her feel guilty. As she wrapped his arm he glared at her just to ensure she understood his disgust over her holding his arm down.I had to get Ronan's tremor diary to the pediatrician. She had been having me log his episodes, their length and what he was doing when they occurred. Before this week it had just been his head and arms but a couple of times now his legs have started shaking. This is progressive because it used to just be his head and only when he was tired.

I took Inara with me to deliver the diary. She got to take her first ride in her big girl car seat. She is still rear-facing but in a more size appropriate car seat. I plan on keeping her rear-facing until she is at least two if not longer.When I got home Ronan's pediatrician called me to tell me she was sending him to a neurologist. The particular neurologist she's sending me to is really good and really hard to get into. They had someone cancel so they fit Ronan into that appointment which will be on July 13th. Between now and then I'm supposed to try and record one of his tremor episodes. Hopefully I'll have the camera close by and ready the next time he has one of the more prominent episodes.

Big Cookies. Tons of Sugar.

Ronan had a sleep appointment bright and early this morning. His sleep specialist was wanting to follow up on how his oxygen was going. I told her he pulls the tubing out of his nose alot but the cheek stickers at least leave it on his face so it's easier to put back in his nose once it is out and we go through a lot less tape. Ronan was looking pretty stylin today. He borrowed his brother's sun glasses for the car ride. Someone want to tell me why he's willing keep the non eye sight improving sunglasses on but avidly tries to remove his glasses.You could tell when we arrived at the Sleep center just how much rain last night's fierce storm had brought. A small pond was covering half of the parking lot. The sleep doctor said Ronan will stay on oxygen until he get his tonsils out. His ENT won't take his tonsils out until Ronan reaches age four or five. Both the sleep doctor and Ronan's Pulmonologist were concerned with waiting that long but they agree that it is the ENT's call.Ronan and I went grocery shopping. I found a shopping cart made for me. I've seen the ones with the car in front that fits two kids but then there is usually no front baby seat. This cart had space for two children in the front and two in the toy car. Having four kids strapped in and still have room for food is a great concept.

In the Bakery they had a sale on really big frosted cookies. I gave in and bought each of the big kids one. The boys each got a spiderman one and Jadzia got a pink one with a butterfly on it. The cookies are huge so they will be a treat over several days. No way am I loading them with that much sugar in one sitting. I have no desire to have my children flying around the living room like they just ate a bunch of firecrackers.

In the afternoon I finished up some lengthy paperwork for one of the programs Ronan is in and mailed it. My Brother and his family came over for dinner. My kids were generous and shared some of their big cookies with their cousins. When I want them to share something that is theirs I always give them the option. I tell them they don't have to share it but it would be kind of them to share with someone else. Every time I use this strategy they willing share whatever it is I've suggested. I like this method because I'm not making them share they are building the character of generosity by their own choice.
A week from tomorrow we will be moving into the hotel. The kids are excited and I'm hoping the indoor pool will be enough to keep them from getting cabin fever during our three week stay.