I think I made him mad

We headed to a "vacation club" but it's not a club, meeting.  It was one of those places that you pay money to become a "member" then you can be a life time member as long as you pay more money every year to stay a member.  Then you have to pay an additional fee to actually go on vacation.  However, we went to just get the free (but not so free) airfare and cruise.  Since we knew what we were getting into before we got there, I really didn't listen to the guy talking.  Then when the guy came over to ask us where we wanted to go I told him Egypt.  After about 30 seconds, I asked if there were vacation spots that would let me sleep in a pyramid.  I think I made him a bit mad.  He actually stopped, looked at me and asked me if I was serious.  I was, but I wanted him to stop showing me just how "awesome" this group was.  But I think that would be cool to sleep in a pyramid.  FUN!

Can't wait for next Thursday

I have to say as much work, pain and sleepless nights go into the OSLC garage sale, it comes at the perfect time every year. About this time every year I get sooo done with all my kids. Even the ones I love. As I was cleaning up my room today I realized why this is.

1. The weather is getting nicer and as the kiddos play outside more they decide to bring the dirt in to therapy with them. Ground into their clothes, under their finger nails, on their shoes, under their toes in their sandals which they insist they must take off.

2. The weather is initiating may spring time colds or allergies and every single little nose in the clinic is drippy, crusty or stuffy. Fantastic, I spend more time going between the Kleenex box, garbage can, and germ-x, than I do actually treating.

3. School is almost out, and so are almost all of the school aged kids brains. They are so checked out of therapy and life unless it is time to play, getting anything functional done is just a joke.

4. It's half way through the year, therefore all the kids who have scripts/reports due every 2, 3, or 6 months are due. Um.. yeah, that is just about all but 2 kids on my caseload right now.

5. it is really hard to sit inside and watch the beautiful weather pass by while I am stuck inside with all the above mentioned kids.

6. It's the time of year for sticky snacks. Ice cream, Popsicles, juice boxes for kids learning how to drink from them, juicy fruit, the list goes on. Many parents, me being one of them, think that now that the weather is nice you can take this wonderful snack/dessert and eat it outside, 5 hours later we are remembering we need to go somewhere and realize that half of the snack and the dirt in the back yard is now stuck to your face, hair, hands, and clothing. Oh well, no time to change, guess we will just have to deal with it.

7. I get burnt out on all the games we play. I try my hardest to pick one game and play it all week long, that means that I could play Trouble, or Sorry, or what ever game is special that week 30+ times. Yes, it is pretty awesome that I get paid to play games all day long but I can promise you we do not have 52 different games in the clinic and some of the younger kid games (i.e. barnyard bingo, or Mr. Potato head) get played almost every week. AHHHHH BURN OUT!

Therefore, I am very much looking forward to spending just about 50 hours at the garage sale cleaning, going through gross stuffed animals, moldy toys and broken pieces, these next two weeks on top of the time that I will be at work, just because I will not be SLP work!

Congradulations Bothers!

In the last 14 days Elijah, BJ and I rode to Michigan to watch my brother Brett graduate from Grand Vally State with a Degree in Accounting and Finance. He was possibly one of the most highly decorated gradates to walk that day. He wore three sashes (study abroad, fraternity, and honors college), he also wore a metal and three different cords. Elijah practiced wearing the hat for his graduation day (someday far down the line). Then we drove home. Then this past Saturday, Elijah and I drove out to Iowa to watch my brother Tom graduate for the University of Iowa with a Degree in Engineering and Mathematics. To bad Elijah was more fascinated in jewelry than he was in the pictures that we were trying to get. Again Elijah practiced wearing the hat. Once we were done with pictures Elijah was exhausted and needed a nap while he gave me enough time to peacefully eat my dinner. Little did I know that would be the last bit of peace for the rest of the night. Yes that's right my wonderful child screamed for an hour and a half before he was able to be calmed. It was a very long ride home. VERY long ride. However, before we left for the screaming ride home he got a little something to eat.

Over all, I am super happy for both my brothers! Now it's a big fat welcome to the real world.

On a side note, last night I caught Elijah standing all by himself, not holding on to anything. I think this had to be the most excited I have been about his developmental milestones to date. However, I don't know if the flu bug that had decided to call my body home for most of Sunday had anything to do with my increased emotions, but I actually cried. Way to go Little Elijah, keep up the good work.

I have so many idea's about what to post about maybe I will do a two part post. If you only get one idea out of it that is probably one of two reasons. 1) I forgot what the second idea was by the time I had written the first or 2) I am just to sleepy to continue. Who knows.

#1- Last night (Friday) BJ and I drove up to Minnesota after work due to BJ's grandpa passing away. We decided that it would be best, since we have a child under a year, to travel the 6-7 hours at night that way Elijah could sleep the entire time giving us peace. BJ ended up working Friday, while I packed, and cleaned. Packing for an extended weekend is hard work, especially since the last time I traveled with this little man he was eating and doing a whole lot less. But anyway, we traveled though the night and pulled into our Orbitz hotel at 1:30 am. Immediately we should have known we were in for a fun time, for a cop car was parked out front. Lights were off but unless these Minnesota cops were doing business on the side, it isn't typical for cops to visit a hotel in the middle of the night. BJ gets out of the car and goes to check us in. Not even 5 min. later BJ calls me and lets me know the pool is out of service. Well typically this wouldn't be a big deal except we had called both of BJ's brothers letting them know that we would have a pool and that there children should bring their swim suits. Then apparently the hotel lost our reservation because they had filed it under BJ's first name as his last name. At this point BJ being tired and slightly crabby wanted to leave and go else where. Me, I just wanted to go to bed, and I didn't think 1:30 am was the best time to drive around town and find a hotel. So we decided we would only unpack what we needed for the night and the next morning and deal with the situation then. WEEEEELL when you have a baby, what you need for the night and the next morning= everything you put in the car. Stepping into the room my initial thought was, "it smells" then I saw the carpet, my next thought was, "ewww, Elijah is not touching this floor." We set up the pack and play, and put him to bed then quickly followed suit. The next morning BJ was awake and on the phone with orbitz around 6:30 canceling our reservations and finding a better place to stay. (I like this place). However, what I have learned from this experience is that when I stay in a hotel it has to be 3 stars or more. If that is not an option, then I will 1. not go or 2. camp. Because in all fairness, camping is sooooo much more clean that the state of some of those hotel rooms.

#2-Funerals. It is funny, okay not funny but interesting, how a time for mourning turns into a happy and fun family gathering. I have been to my fair share of funerals where I have not been part of the family or the person who passed away was young and it is hard to be there, however, when an individual has lived a good life, and made a strong family with lots of memories, funerals are a good time to get together with all your loved ones and remember the good days. I'm sure there will be a different thought tomorrow, but until then this is my thought.

#3- Traveling with a 10 month old. Remember my post about traveling with a 6 month old. Yeah, it got a little worse. Here is what I packed for our 4 day trip.
6 different casual outfits some short sleeve, some long sleeve, some shorts, some long pants
2 different pairs of shoes
dress outfit
3 pairs of PJ's
socks
diapers
swim diapers
swim suit
baby soap
butt paste
thermometer
nose sucker
nail clippers
pack-n-play
2 big blankets
2 small blankets
a quilt
3 stuffed animals from home
pacifiers (even though he doesn't use them at home, in new places he typically will forget he needs to sleep)
5 bottles
formula
Cheerios
puffs
3 boxes of 2 pack stage 2 baby food fruit
3 boxes of 2 pack stage 2 baby food veggies
animal crackers
wagon wheels
another finger food thing
3 bowls
6 spoons
4 small snack cups
oatmeal for several feedings
bottle cleaner
dish soap
all of his toys
high chair
I'm sure there is more but I just can't think anymore, I need sleep. Good night.

Traveling with an infant/not really an infant

Many times as a soon to be parent or a new parent you read about how easy it is to travel with a new baby. They seem to be really go with the flow and ho hum about life and when you travel for long distances they will most likely sleep through the car ride and life will be good.

With this in mind we up and left for a short, long weekend when Elijah was just shy of 4 weeks old. BJ and I took the LONG road trip down to Tennessee for my cousin's wedding. At that time we were still new parents and the challenges that we faced were more along the lines of feeding a child that wasn't on a schedule yet, bringing the right number of diapers, packing the right amount of clothes for the child and bringing things that we just weren't yet used to lugging around with us. The hardest part of the whole trip was Elijah waking up screaming bloody murder as we were stuck in crawling traffic in a construction zone. It was awesome! The second hardest part of the trip was realizing he had blown out a diaper at one of the feeding stops on the way home and not having any way to wash the car seat cover.

Overall, I felt that that trip was relatively easy. Granted I had my wonderful husband with me to help me carry the heavy car seat, and child when my still recovering body just couldn't manage. I also had my wonderful mother with me during some very long and potentially lonely feeding sessions. But as I look back it was very easy to travel with Elijah at less than a month. With that in mind that is what fueled the thought that BJ and I could make the annual trip to Michigan this year to show off the little guy almost 5 months later.

However, last minute we decided that due to BJ's work schedule it wasn't practical (or necessarily safe) for BJ to come out for just over a 24 hour period with the family so we decided I would go alone with the boy. At this point in time we have just passed Elijah's 6 month birthday and I feel that as his parents we are really good about reading him, anticipating him, and fulfilling his needs before he breaks down in utter frustration and anger which makes parenting easier. However, we are able to do this typically when we are at home and have everything our little hearts desire at our finger tips and we also have each other. This makes packing for a 4 day excursion interesting, especially when you throw into the picture the fact that I was now riding up in someone else's car and the instructions were to pack light. Okay well this should be fun. Here is what we brought just for the baby.

8 containers of baby food

4 bottles

1 can of formula

The "pump"

5 outfits

3 backup under shirts

2 sets of pajamas

2 towels

1 washcloth

baby soap

Enough cereal for 3 tablespoons of food 2 times a day for the 4 days way

2 spoons

5 bowls for food

Diapers and lots of them

Swim diapers

Wipes

1 quilt

2 thick blankets

1 receiving blanket

3 stuffed animals

4 hard covered books

1 soft book

2 rattles

Talking Cookie Monster

A Talking spinning ball toy (we knew there would be minimal baby toys)

Ice pack to keep the pumped milk cold

new baby shoes

diaper bag

stroller

car seat

What I learned: It is easy to travel with an infant if, your child has begun to stick to a schedule, is only on breast milk and can exclusively breast feed, you have NO solid food to transport and if you do it doesn't have to be refrigerated, and where ever you are going has infant toys to entertain your child, or your child still is uninterested in toys it doesn't matter if you have toys or not. Even packing light I feel I brought half our house and to make things more fun it is just me lugging (every time we leave the hotel) just about all this stuff. Fun time!! I will eventually post pictures of Elijah's bath time in the hotel.

A week of nothing

I made an executive discussion a couple weeks back. I decided that after I graduated I would take the week off and just enjoy myself. And that is exactly what I have done. Monday I slept in and started cleaning/packing my room, which is actually really hard because I'm not moving for a month. Monday night I went down to watch BJ play softball. Tuesday I spent the day at BJ's house and then watched another softball game for BJ and then one later in the evening for his brother. Wednesday mom and I went shopping for a mother of a bride dress for her. It wasn't as easy as you might have thought but we did finally find a dress that looked good on and wasn't a fortune. Thursday BJ, McGuire and I went couch shopping and we found one we really liked. And today is Friday and I am doing more of the room cleaning/packing.

Also though out of the course of the week I have finished two books "L is for Lawless" and "M is for Malice" and I have done a bunch of cross stitch.

What I did on my Blog Vacation

I figured it has been several days since I have last posted. A lot has happened in those days so I figured I would write this blog as if it was an assigned paper in fifth grade. I will be doing my presentation on Monday if you want to see the live version.

Well on the first day of my blog vacation the snow that had fallen the day before was perfect packing snow so Tania and I went out to make a snow bunny. He was real cute then we decided to move our snowmen from the previous day so they could all hang out together by the side of the road. Here are our snowmen the biggest on is Bunny, the medium sized one is Frosty, and the littlest one is Alien baby.
Then over the next week we had our going away/Christmas party and we said goodbye to each other. I got a whole bunch of polar bear stuff. Tania made me a quilt and on the squares she ironed on pictures she had taken when she went to the Detroit zoo way long ago. It is super cute. Jen made me a shawl that is so super soft and prity, and I got a polar bear stuffed animal. Tarra made me some beautiful Christmas ornaments. Jenny gave me a polar bear fleece blanket and a framed picture of us from pub crawl along with a Sudoku book of puzzles. And Molly gave me a pink thong with a cute Victoria Secret bag.

I then took the last of my finals. It was really kind of pathetic because as I was sitting in the test I started thinking this is my last final ever! I almost started to cry, but then I pulled myself together so I could finish the test without totally breaking down. Then I said goodbye to all my friends at school and got a bit teary eyed. Then I went home and finished loading my car and said goodbye to Jen and Tania. That made me really cry. So after I was balling I got in my car and drove home. The entire drive home (4 hours) I cried. I don't know why really because I hate school and I kicked and and screamed when it was time to go to grad. school and I always hated being there so it was stupid for me to cry all the way home. But then I realized that I was crying more because I was finally done with school, and after 6 years of college the hardest part was done. I was also crying because I made some real close friends while I was at school. I have had close friends through out my life, but these girls I got along with in a wired way. It is hard to explain the type of friendship I have made with these girls but I hope that I can keep these friends.

So then the Christmas holiday started for me. I had Christmas with my mother, then step-dad, then my father, then BJ's family, then we drove to Michigan and had the last Christmas with my family in Michigan. I got theater tickets from my mother, a wireless mouse for my laptop from Brian, some puzzles and clinic materials from my father and Kelly, luggage from BJ's family, a Vikings football jersey from BJ and some mind teaser puzzles from the dirty Santa in Michigan. This Christmas was just as stressful as all the other Christmas' before and it seemed different because I didn't get to spend my three days with Katie in Michigan.

While in Michigan I went ice skating and didn't even fall!!! It was real cool! Then we went to the U of M basketball game. They one as they have for the past three years that we have been going to the games. Brett is so funny when we go to these games. He gets so excited and so worked up it just makes me laugh. Him and one of my cousins decided to sneak down and sit in the student section. It was funny. Then they decided to stay late and watch the U of M football game on the big screen. Then they came home at half time and watched the rest of the game on Granddad's new TV. IT was a close game with an awesome ending play that was so close to scoring and winning but granted, they lost. It was sad. Maybe next year.

While I was in Michigan, BJ was home sicker than a dog. Apparently one of the people who came over for Christmas brought the flu virus with them. Everyone but four people came down with the flu. It was bad. I thankfully was one of the ones who did not come down with the flu.

Tonight we are off to a wedding for a high school friend and tomorrow we will be going out some where for the new year. However, the plans keep changing so I don't really know where we will be going or how we will be spending our new year. Lots will be happening this next year so the beginning will determine how much fun this next year will be.

Thanks for listening to me ramble. Let me know how you spent your vacation!

Weekend

So as I mentioned in my last blog I was going to Minnesota with Tania. We had a great time, we didn't even get lost!! Well as long as you consider getting the right directions to the wrong hotel not getting lost. But it was all good when we made fools of ourselves at the wrong hotel. Then we went to The Mall of America. We ate dinner then ran around and shopped like mad. I got BJ more Christmas gifts and Tania got a bunch of shopping done too. We spent about 90 minutes in the Build A Bear Workshop and it was soooooo hard for me ton to buy anything. I love that store. Then we had just missed the bus back to the hotel so we had to wait another hour so we went to Victoria's and I bought one of their new seamless bras. It has to be my favorite.

Oh yeah and Friday night! Yeah it really wasn't as much fun as our other pub crawls, probably because it felt like nobody showed up. Normally we would have like 30 people going out but we had maybe like 15 and it was just boring and cold. Perkins afterward was fun though! Thanks for driving us Rusty!

Okay so back to Saturday. So BJ's brother and sister-in-law and kids were also going to The Mall of America that weekend because its tradition to have the kids go see Santa and Camp Snoopy. So I called BJ to see if they were at the mall the same time we were and found out that we were actually staying in the same hotel. WEIRD! So once I found that out I had to stop by and say hi. Come to find out, they were staying like 6 doors down from us. REAL WEIRD!

Well I got my first clinic grade for the term and my supervisor gave me an A-. This is awesome because she was the one who put me on the remediation plan last term, so this was great. I got up enough courage and asked her to write a letter of recommendation for me and she said yes, so that's cool too. Now it's off to study so I don't fail my finals and have to stay an extra semester, because that would suck really bad.

It's a long one today

I haven't posted since last Wednesday, so there is a lot of catching up that needs to be done. When I left you all I was in the middle of making eye balls with my client so I thought I would up date you all and show you how they turned out. They are actually really cool looking and they tasted really good too. I have never actually made peanut butter balls but after this experience I wouldn't mind making them every so often. So here they are.

Well BJ came up this weekend and we went to Minnesota for his cousins wedding. We had a great time. Here are some pictures from the weekend.

This one is of Laura and her parents at the alter.

Here is BJ and I at dinner, Aww what a cute couple.

This is a picture of Laura, BJ, and Michelle. And the two pictures below are what Michelle created for the family gathering, YUMMY

All the food was great. That was our weekend in a nut shell. We had a lot of fun. BJ, however, was stuck in traffic after he left me here. The 4 hour drive turned into a 6.5 hour drive because there was such a huge traffic accident on the way home. Poor guy he just wanted to get to bed. But he is all safe and at home.

What to wear?

Okay, so how many times have you sat around thinking what should I wear? There is such a fine line between being over dressed and being underdressed. But how do you know where that line is when your sitting at home trying to figure out what to wear. Well I have figured out a soluition, wear what you want! But bring at least two other outfits in case your definition of "casual" was not the same understanding as everyone elses definition of casual. This way it saves you the embarisment of sticking out the entire evening.