Neti-pot anyone?

Scott called home this afternoon from work to see if he had time to run over to Whole Foods before dinner (on the other side of town...at rush hour, I might add) to pick something up.

Me: "What do you need at Whole Foods?"

Scott: "A Neti-pot."

Me: "What the heck is a Neti-pot?"

Scott: "Well, I don't want to tell you, you might laugh at me."

I don't think I have the words to decribe what a Neti-pot is, so here, let this short demonstration explain for me....

Follow this link, and then click play.
http://www.himalayaninstitute.org/NetiPot/NetiPotInstructions.aspx

I suppose I should add that his sinuses have been bothering him and he doesn't want to be bothered with going to the doctor with what is most likely a sinus infection....

Would YOU use a Neti pot??

And yes, I did laugh at him.

I just don't want to forget these things!

So today was garbage day, which in Nathan's world is a big deal. Why, you ask? Because he gets to see TWO big trucks right in front of his very own house! We happened to be outside when the garbage truck came by and Nathan was absolutely mesmerized by the truck and its' workers. The friendly "refuse collectors" were quick to wave and say hello to the little boy staring and pointing at them. Nathan's response? A lift of his foot and one word, "shoes."

Let me explain...I've noticed in the last few weeks, when a strange face comes up to Nathan to say hello, he becomes rather shy and automatically tries to avert their attention away from his eyes. How does he do this, you ask? He gets them to look at his shoes, but of course! It really is the cutest thing ever, and it's one of those things I don't want to forget! Without a doubt, everytime, he will lift up his leg and point to his foot while saying "shoes" so they will look away from him and down towards his feet. Perhaps he is using it as an ice-breaker? I don't know. But today when the insanely loud garbage truck growled in front of our house, and Nathan's response to their hello was a very quiet "shoes", I actually felt bad for the little guy! I thought there was NO way they would hear his attempts at conversing with them. Surprisingly, the garbage man either heard or saw him pointing and lifting his foot, and yelled out, "I like your shoes! Those are cool!" Made.his.day.

On a similar note, a couple weeks ago, the mail lady drove past our house and saw Nathan pointing and staring (yes, he does that a lot) and waved and shouted, "Hi, buddy!" as she continued on down the road. Well! Now, everytime we see a mailtruck, Nathan waves and shouts "Hi, buddy." We were outside yesterday when she drove by again and I had to tell her about how Nathan talks about her all the time. What did Nathan do as soon as she started talking to him? You got it...he lifted his foot, pointed and said, "Shoes." It was pretty funny when he lifted his bare little foot to show her his 'shoes'!! Oops!

Jo Dee Messina, baby!

My alltime favorite singer came to town last Saturday. I wouldn't miss her concerts for the world. She has the most amazing voice, she's beautiful, not to mention, I think we made eye contact a few times during the concert. That's right, Jo Dee knows I was there! Of course I wouldn't spend a Jo Dee evening with anyone else but Megan, Rosie and Stacey (although unfortunately Stacey was just there in spirit as she didn't feel well :( )

Doesn't it look like she's singing to ME???

Jo Dee, Jo Dee, Jo Dee!

The girls. :)

To work or not to work? That is the question!

As I'm nearing the end of summer quarter and realizing I only have 3 quarters left before I'm a nurse (yay!), it's hitting me that my days as a true stay-at-home mom are numbered. I talked long ago about getting a job as a PCA or tech (nurse assistant) around this time in the program, in order to get more experience in the hospitals and working with patients. I'd also like to know that when I graduate along with the other 800 nurses in the Columbus area, my foot will already be in the door.

Suddenly, the time is now, and while part of me really wants to get that experience, the other part of me wants to stay at home. I'm already very distracted with school, and I hate to add more distraction by getting a job, however part-time it may be. So what to do? Does anyone have the answer?

18 months? Already?

Yes, my baby is 18 months old. And you know what sucks about turning 18 months old? Not the fact that your mommy wants to cry because she feels like she just had you. No. What sucks is going for your 18 month check-up and getting SHOTS!

Despite the dreaded "poke-poke's", as we call them, everything went well. Nathan measured in at 33 1/2" tall and 25 lbs. 14 oz. He does have terrible eczema that we finally broke down and got a prescription for. I've been trying to handle it myself because I don't like the idea of using steroids on my baby boy, but I think he's finally reached a point where aquaphor and hydrocortisone just isn't cutting it!

Poor Nathan obviously remembered the last time we visited that office and got shots, because as soon as the nurse came in with the tray of needles, he clung to me like a monkey and started screaming before I even layed him down! He also did the traumatic I'm-not-gonna-breathe-anymore-and-let-my-lips-turn-blue cry when she administered the shots, which absolutely breaks my heart.

But the good news is, he got to spend the afternoon at the pool playing with his (other) girlfriend (sorry Ava!), Lauryl, eating cookies, jumping, splashing and giggling. Hopefully he's forgotten all about those nasty little poke-poke's!

Wrestling squirrels?

I've been sleeping restlessly for the past few nights. No clue why, but that's besides the point. Scott informed me tonight that I have been saying hilarious things in my sleep and he can't wait to hear what I have to say tonight.

Two nights ago I kept blurting out, "What!!??" as if asking him to repeat what he had said. The only problem was, he wasn't talking.

Last night as he rolled over to go to sleep after watching tv (to which I was already snoring), our "conversation" apparently went something like this.

Me: "Geez, what are you doing, fluffing chipmunks?"

Scott: "What?"

Me: "What are you doing over there, wrestling squirrels?"

Scott: "Huh?"

Me: "Zzzz...." (<- that's my attempt at sounding out snoring)

If you know how to interpret dreams, please enlighten me.

I'm going wild tonight!

With the posting, that is.

We went out on the boat today with Brent, Traci and Ava. It was a beautiful August day!

Nathan posing as captain of the ship.

My princess

The future Mr. and Mrs. Moore. (ok, that sounds wierd)

Big sis and lil bro

This is our friend Brent. Brent likes to pump his muscles a lot. His therapist told us to ignore him when he does it. So that is what we do.

Block Party

Our neighborhood had a block party last night. Fun stuff! We spent a beautiful summer evening playing, eating, talking and laughing with all of our neighbors. The street was closed off and a firetruck and police car came for the kids to see. Nathan was in absolute heaven with the trucks! After the initial exitement wore off for the other kids, Nathan hung around the firetruck and police car until they left 45 minutes later. All the firemen knew his name, were giving him high 5's and talking with him. A group of teenage girls were hanging around the firemen (hmmm, wonder why?), sitting on a curb. Nathan walked right up to them, "talked" to them, then sat down next to them! I wanted to take a picture, but thought the 16 year old girls might freak. ;) What a ladies man! Once it got dark, Nathan went to bed and we went back outside to watch fireworks that a neighbor was letting off. Not the little smoke bomb fireworks, I mean the real, big, ILLEGAL fireworks. They were cool!

Nothing goes together better than watermelon and summer!

Madison is an expert pinata smacker.

Madison on the firetruck

Nathan driving the "beeduck" (aka: big truck)

He loved it!

Need I say more?

Get the fire out Nathan!

Thanks Hayley!

Aunt Hayley sent Madison bike charms for her bike. As kids, Hayley and I were all about the bike charms...apparently they've come back in to style, just like everything else from the 80's! In case you are unfamiliar with the famous bike charms, they are little beads that attach to the spokes on a bike...and the wheels move, so do the beads and voila, beautiful plastic-ticking magic music appears!

She's oh so proud!

She found a spot, dug some holes, planted the seeds, diligently watered all summer long....and here is the end result!

The helmet DOES serve a purpose!

So Madison gets decked out in her knee pads and helmet for every bike ride. Sometimes I wonder if it's overkill when I think about how I grew up. Did I even know what a helmet was? I certainly never had one. And forget about knee pads. I definitely didn't have those! But I hate to see my babies hurt, even if it's just a scraped knee. Better safe than sorry. But today confirmed for me the very reasons why I make her wear all the protective gear. Madison was riding ahead of me while I was running (2 miles again, whoo hoo!) and during the ONE split second she was out of my sight due to a huge bush in front of a mailbox, all I heard was the crash of her bike falling coupled with plastic/styrofoam hitting the pavement. The plastic/styrofoam sound was, of course, her helmet making contact with the concrete. Thank GOD I make her wear that thing! The girl didn't have a scratch on her, but was very shaken by the fall. It was, by the way, her very first fall off of her big girl bike without training wheels. Is that a milestone, or what?

Those darn teeth!

Nathan went down for the night at 7pm this evening. I ran an errand after putting him down and as soon as I got home, I heard him talking quietly on the monitor. Shortly after, he began playing his musical bear. Shortly after that, I heard, "Moooooommy...... Mooooommy." That was at 8:30pm. It is now 11:30pm and the child is STILL awake. In fact, Scott just got back from the store buying some tylenol because I used the last dose earlier today. Nathan sat in the dimly lit kitchen with me at 11pm eating strawberries waiting for the "candy" (as he calls it) to arrive. Fingers crossed this works or it's going to be a long night!

On a happier note, I ran 2.2 miles today, pushing the jogger up and down hills! Go me!

A monkey and a bubby

We spent the evening with friends, Traci and Ava, during which I bought a stuffed giraffe and a stuffed monkey for Madison and Nathan. I let Madison pick which one she wanted, she picked the giraffe. Traci's little girl got a monkey AND a giraffe. On the way home from their house, Madison commented that Ava is lucky that she doesn't have any siblings because she gets both the monkey and the giraffe. To which I responded, "Would you rather have a stuffed monkey AND a giraffe, or would you rather have a monkey and a bubby?" ("Bubby" is Madison's nickname for Nathan). Madison giggled and smiled, "I want a monkey and bubby." :) Problem solved!

So back to our evening. Traci enticed me to make the 2 hour drive (Okay, maybe it's more like a 30 minute drive, but it FEELS like 2 hours sometimes.) down to her house this evening with the promise of a "hot air balloon festival" awaiting us. Supposedly there will be 200 hot air balloons rising to the sky, kids activities, food, etc. Sounds enticing, right? We made the drive.

When we arrived 30 minutes before this supposed "lift off" and I saw not a single hot-air balloon, I began to feel slightly skeptical. However, we went in and let Madison wait in lines with hoards of people for a bouncy house/climbing wall/slide-thing; she got her HAND painted...no, not her face, her hand; and then listened to some music sung by men dressed as the Beetles. It was then that we learned that the hot air balloons that are twice the size of my house, could not take off in the current wind conditions that were barely enough to blow a hair off my face. Whatever! We turned to leave and Traci left me in a sea of lawn chairs, zig zagging through the crowd while my stroller got caught on every lawn chair, foot, purse, bag and cooler that was at the event. We finally got home to feed the children DINNER at 8pm! Poor kids. Madison was disappointed by the lack of balloons she was promised to see, and Nathan was probably wondering what in the world he was just dragged through. But the bright side is that we DID spend the evening with our wonderful friends, so despite it being nothing that we expected, we had a fun evening nonetheless!

Running!

I went running today for the first time in probably almost a year. It felt really good and actually, I surprised myself with how far I went. I need to go out in my car and track it, but I'm pretty sure I was somewhere close to 2 miles. Madison rode her bike and I pushed Nathan in the jogger. Pushing both of them in the double jogger is some MAJOR work, so I much prefer her riding and me pushing Nathan. My goal (for real) is to go running 3 days a week this fall, once Madison starts school. I need to get back into shape and I know running does that for me. The best shape I've been in, in years, was when I ran the half marathon a few years ago. Perhaps I should train for another one?

The photo shoot

A friend of mine is starting up her own photography business and wanted to "practice" on us. Well, I don't think she NEEDS practice! Look at just a few she sent me after the photo shoot. Words can't describe how absolutely thrilled I am with what she did. She's awesome!