6 Miles

I love the science of genetics and love to seeing how the genes in our family are playing out.  The big question I get is “Who does Marcus look more like?”  Thanks to digital photography, it’s easy for me to let you go back and look with me! (Well, Will’s pictures were pre-digital but we got picture CDs with each role of film or scanned them later, that helps explain the poor quality of them.)

Will-Around 2 to 3 months:

(This one is a great one of him lying down…just not the best framed one. You can see how I’ve grown in my photography skills. At least now I keep diapers out of the pictures!!!)

Alex-3 months:

I figure you can scroll down to see the best pictures of Marcus.   Heidi and I were taking and we both think he looks more like Will.

Alex woke up yesterday morning with ANOTHER fever. I was going to go into all the details, but it was boring me, so I won’t bore you.  Here’s a quick rundown.

• Runny nose on/off
• Coughing on/off
• Sore throats that he’ll cry about on/off
• Tummy ache on/off – all of this started in mid-January, with 3 Doctor visits since Jan. 20

We had him checked for strep–nope. Then we had the rounds of the stomach flu last week, that came with a fever. I had hoped we were all on the mend but yesterday he woke up with ANOTHER fever. So we stayed home from church and today he stayed home from preschool…sometimes acting fine, other times being weepy and you could tell he didn’t feel well. This afternoon  I had just given him a dose of Motrin because he was crying  about how his head hurt and his eyes were watering. As I was holding him I realized he was REALLY hot, so I tried his temp again and was amazed at how fast the numbers went up.  I was shocked to see it get up to 104.7! Once we saw that, I called the Doctor and they told us to come right in.  Another strep test, another exam, and we’re told it’s just a virus, lots of fluids, etc.  By the time we got him the medicine had started to work and he was starting to feel better. Will was home from school and before I knew it, they were running around up and down the hallway and playing outside together.   (I just shake my head. Least you think he’s all better, I could tell EXACTLY when the medicine had worn off, suddenly he was crying because I asked him to help me with something.)  We’re praying he’ll get better–for GOOD–soon. We’d like to visit family this weekend and if he’s still sick, we’ll be staying home, I don’t want to risk spreading more illness around!

Yikes, this is the short version…aren’t you glad I deleted the long one? Sorry for those of you who found it boring but we’d appreciate prayers for him to finally get better!

James’ birthday was last Friday, the 19th (I guess that’s a week ago Friday by now, isn’t it? Man I’ve gotten behind!).  We had planned to get together with Mom and Dad on Saturday to celebrate, but Will was sick Friday night.

So we rescheduled for Monday (James’ day off)…only James and I were sick.

So they came Wednesday for the Derby (posted below) and we did a quick celebration for him. Then he went to work, and took a few hours off to meet us at the Derby later. (He tried to get a few more hours off to celebrate his birthday but it didn’t work out. It’s hard working for a larger company! We got spoiled by a smaller one that let him have much more flexibility.)

His gift from Heidi & Doug.

Alex, being silly.  Mom and Dad got him a cool Jimmy Johson shirt. It’s short sleeved so he hasn’t had a chance to wear it. I got him a scanner to scan all our documents (can you tell he picked it out?).

Mom and Dad enjoyed time hanging out with the boys!

Here’s a close up of Marcus talking to Grandma.

Sadly, it wasn’t that much of a birthday for James. (I just said to him “I can’t believe I didn’t blog about your birthday yet!” and he replied “What birthday?” So we’re going to have to try to make it up to him.)  And even more sadly, Dad came down with our sickness on Friday.

Last Wednesday was the Annual Pinewood Derby at church! Will was quite excited but I was pretty sure this year would not live up to last year (where he won ALL his races).

Will’s car is the red car in the middle (I’m still planning on getting a close-up of him holding it–I keep forgetting!)

The first heat, Will finished first, by a HUGE margin! Who-hoo!

The second race, he lost. So his undefeated streak ended. But in his third heat:

Another win! He ended up losing the final race to the over-all winner of his age bracket, not too bad!

He won an award for best workmanship on his car. And then, there was cake for everyone! The boys were quite excited.
And there was a very tired baby there. Thankfully Grandma was there to hold him, so both were happy!

(To my facebook friends, I really have been trying to keep separate content on the blog from FB…but this time I just couldn’t resisit sharing these pictures on both sites! So this is a repeat of the pictures I uploaded there, but if you scroll down there’s lots more new things!)

Marcus all snuggled up in his new hooded bath towel. 

Can you tell he really likes it?    Alex has been complaining because Marcus smiles more at me then him. I told him after all I went through when I was pregnant, plus delivery and then all the nights I’ve been up to feed him, I BETTER get more smiles! He didn’t seem to agree with me.

Will, sleeping.

Alex, showing his muscles in his muscle shirt. Nevermind it wasn’t above 60 outside, he felt it was warm enough to pull the shrit out and wear it.

Below is a series of pictures of me trying to show how close Marcus is to finding his thumb.

Here is a good example, but you see  a washed out baby about to be attacked by the shadow of his mobile. Stupid flash.

Ahh, better with no flash, but harder to see how close he is to finding the thumb to suck on.

Not any better, but really cute! He LOVES to watch that mobile move.

After a great weekend of basketball, Will has a bracket of 40 points and I am at 42. Whew!   We’re cheering on Purdue (who Will has going to the Final 4, but I had losing to A&M) and Butler (who Will has winning and I have losing this round–but don’t care, I’d MUCH rather see the local teams win).  Sadly the Thursday/Friday games come on after bedtime for Will, so while I might record a bit of the Butler or Purdue game, he’s not going to get to watch them live. Good thing he really doesn’t care that much about it!

That was about the only good thing of the weekend. Friday night Will came down with the bug Alex had earlier in the week. (Not sure if I blogged about it. Alex has had a runny nose/cough for about 3 weeks now. Tuesday he developed a slight fever and I was already going to the Dr. for Marcus (who’d had a bad cough for 2 days) so I added Alex on…only to be told both had colds. Though the sight fever made her think, like me, he might have an infection starting. So we got a prescription for antibiotics. I went home and talked with a friend we’d visited Sunday night and she told me her kids had come down with a bug that involved a slight fever, aching, sore throat and stomach ache–exactly what Alex had! So I knew he had a new bug on top of the cold. He threw up once Wednesday night. Thursday he seemed a bit better, Friday he was worse. He finally is starting to seem healthy and the runny nose is stopping!)  Only Will’s involved much more vomiting then Alex’s did. By the next day he was well enough to go out and play some, then would come inside and lay down a bit, then go back, then come back in, etc. His appetite is still not up to normal but he’s been acting fine other then that, he bounced back fast!  On Sunday night, I started to feel ill–surprisingly fast. In about 30 minutes I went from feeling fine to laying in bed. And I had what Will had. And then James came down with it as well.  Thankfully James and I somehow staggered when we felt the worst on Monday and traded off caring for the kids & get them off to school. Thankfully Marcus was fine with being fed and then stuck in the bouncy seat when Mommy fell asleep on the couch. And thankfully we both were feeling better on Tuesday–not 100%, but we were able to function.  

It was a rough weekend. I’m trying to be positive about it–first, it’s the first time in SIX YEARS I’ve had to deal with kids throwing up! And Will learned how to hit the bucket by the 3rd time! And we’re really thankful it passed so quickly.  But, now I’m struggling to get this week figured out. Losing a day in there really threw me off! And I had such great spring cleaning plans…now we’ll see if I can get some of it done.  First goal for tomorrow–organize the boys closet & move too small clothes out/next size up in. Suddenly all the long sleeved shirts are too short in the sleeves and waist on both boys. Maybe they shrunk after being washed all winter?

When I first moved to Indiana, I had no idea about this “March Madness” stuff.  It wasn’t until I started teaching that I got caught up in the enthusiasm and excitement of the opening weekend. Between the “office pool” and my students, I developed a love for this crazy time of year.

Then I had a baby and started staying home. And discovered it’s not quite as much fun without a group of people around you to “interact” with. (Let’s be honest, I’m competitive and like joining the bracket pools. It’s not as much fun when you’re the only one filling out the bracket.) But, the one advantage to not working is that I can watch ALL The games on Thursday and Friday! So, I started taking it upon myself to train up our children well.  The picture below  is Will’s first NCAA Tournament, back in 2004.

Six years later, it was time. This week I helped Will fill out his first NCAA Bracket.  This has created some fun and funny moments.

While filling it out, he picked Wisconsin (4) over Wofford (12) “because that’s where Laura and Mary lived in Little House in the Big Woods.” As we worked our way down the list, he also picked Missouri (10) over Clemson (7) because Laura and Mary later moved or traveled through Missouri (I don’t remember).

We had fun watching a few games yesterday and we’re going to watch Purdue today. (He picked them to go to the Final Four–even after I told them their best player is hurt and no one expects them to do well.)  Alex watched a bit with us and at one point said “Mommy, the game is over when they start jumping on each other, right?”  Can you tell we had an exciting day of buzzer beaters? He was sad when Butler won that they didn’t jump on each other.

At the end of the day (well, yesterday), Will was beating me in the bracket, by 1 selection. We’ll see how it’s going by the end of the weekend.

I LOVE these pjs–in case you can’t tell, they have the pattern of a giraffe skin on them, and then hat as 2 ears and 2 horns (but one of the horns kept flopping down). I’ll give you the with flash and without flash option since we’re in a debate over which is better here. (I think he looks cuter in the w/flash, but the w/o flash shoes the outfit a tiny bit better, so I’m doing both).  

Will’s class has been reading stories about leprechauns, and each student was given the job to make a trap for the tricky little guy who’d been running a muck  in their school (“Mommy, did you know he visited another class and made a mess? He turned ALL their chairs over and they had to clean them up!”)

There is a gold “coin” (Chucky cheese token) with a small hole drilled into it. Then a wire runs through the hole and is wrapped around the stick. The idea is when he grabs the coin, it will pull the wire/stick and the box will fall on top of him.

Here is Will demonstrating. Will came up with the idea and James helped him modify it a bit (I don’t think the drilling a hole was Will’s idea, and he was originally thinking yarn, not a wire).   Then Will decorated the box–green and gold, of course!  He took it to school. He and Alex were plotting what they’d do if he caught the leprechaun and were able to get all his gold!

He told me after school on Monday the leprechaun had visited their class and left a note about how they’d never catch him. He told me he hid is trap behind another classmate’s so the leprechaun wouldn’t see it and would fall for it.  He’s looking forward to school tomorrow to see if the leprechaun was trapped.

Once again, a list of excuses as to why I’ve not been blogging for you:

• Beautiful weather means we’re going to the park & outside more often (VERY GOOD!)
• James’ old company gave me a project to work on! (VERY GOOD!) But, it needed to be done quickly, so I’ve mainly spent the last two weeks working completely on that.  That’s done and I don’t have anything to work on right now (which is Good and Bad–I’m liking the change to earn extra money but am enjoying time to have the evening to myself.)
• I’m trying to finish scrapbooking our trip to Kenya last year, so I’ve spend some evenings working on that–not on the computer.
• Thankfully I don’t have the “My laptop doesn’t work” excuse anymore! We finally got the right part in the mail and James was able to fix my laptop about 2 weeks ago, I’m enjoying the comfort of our couch as I type! (The folding chair we have at the desk right now gets uncomfortable quickly.)
• We’ve been fighting a cold going through the house. While Marcus seems to have the mildest case, he’s not been sleeping well in the evenings and wanting to be held.  While it’s a cold that allows you to function mostly normally, it’s been lasting a LONG time in all of us.

But here we are, no more work, I have the laptop, my bracket is filled out–I realized it was time to catch up the blog as well! So I’ll be trying to do that today and tomorrow.