Mikey Update

For those of you who know Michael Hendren, his baby girl was born early Tuesday morning. She and Kelly are doing well. Michael sounded tired but happy. I'm thrilled for them.

Friendly Poll

So, I was "thumbing" through old posts today with a friend and I have a question.
Follow me here...
I was looking over my posts from the Fayetteville years and they seem much more balanced between me and Emma. Now most of my posts seem to be about the kids. Don't get me wrong, I love my kids and I love writing about my kids. I just feel like maybe I've gotten a little lost lately in the shuffle.
So this is my question: Should I begin another blog just for me and leave Controlled Chaos for the kiddos?
Yes, yes - all you non-comittals out there (read: Andy). I realize that ultimately it's my decision. I just wondered what you guys would have to say.
Be gentle.

New Twilight Trailer & Half-Blood Prince Trailer

The newest Twilight trailer is awesome. Check it out!

Also, the Twilight Soundtrack will be out Nov. 4. My friend Ellenbarger sent me a link to a youTube "video" of Bella's Lullaby. It's awesome too! The song, not the video.

Perhaps the Half-Blood Prince trailer isn't "new" but I hadn' t checked in a while. It's pretty cool too.

Behold: The Bruise

Emma whacked her head against our bed frame the other day when she and Jackson were playing on the floor. He tried to grab her hair and she dodged out of the way. She smacked the orbital bone on the outside of her eye right into the metal on the underside of our bed. It created a HUGE knot immediately and these photos were taken about 3 days later. The purple you see is not the shadow of the crease of her eye. It's the dark part of the bruise with the yellow/greenish extending all the way to her ear. It was a doozie!

Feeding and Crawling

Short post with some fun photos and footage. Mom is not the only one who enslaved her children early. Here's Emma doing her stint as nursemaid.
Now here's some footage of the "crawling". He's got the idea, we just need to work on follow through. The form is good though. I also like the video because it shows how the "ba-ba" factors into our day-to-day existence. I like the way he turns his head to the side to get the ba-ba in the right position. He gave up in favor of chewing on a marker. Apparently there unspeakable tastiness to be had in ColorWonder! markers. Who knew?

Right now he's chasing sweet potato puffs around his high-chair tray. Gotta run. Enjoy!

Sneezing, Kleenex, and sniffles.

Jackson and Emma were both sick last week with coughs. I ended up taking J to the after-hours clinic last Tues. night where he had to have a breathing treatment and x-rays. They determined that he had a viral-bacterial combination thingy and gave him an antibiotic and some Albutirol to help his wheezing. The breathing treatment was fun since they didn't give us a mask. The woman said, "Just hold the end of the nebulizer in front of his face so he'll breathe in the mist." Right. Um - have you seen him since we've been here in the last 15 minutes? Have you had an 8 month old, EVER? The next 5 minutes I frantically tried to balance the boy and the nebulizer tube on the paper-covered doctor's table, in heels (I hadn't changed from work), while keeping said tube in front of his face so he could breathe in the mist. Yeah. I'm proud to say the doctor did confirm the treatment had worked since his wheezing was lessened. Then came the, "Just hold his arms above his head, keep him sitting on this block of florist's putty (the green blocks they stick the arrangements in) and make sure to keep him still so I can take the x-ray," part of the evening. Surprisingly, it only took 3 shots to get 2 good x-rays. He was so confused having his arms above his head and pressed against his ears that he just looked around with wide eyes like I'd handed him over to alien experimentation. But, he's finally better and he passed out at 7:15 tonight after a huge dinner. He literally fell asleep on the changing table while I put on his PJs. How cute is that? Then I had to put him down in the really deep, not-a-baby-anymore crib. (More on that later.)

Emma had a pretty decent cough and hers has finally bid farewell after about 10 days. She's finally stopped waking up at 2:00 asking for a drink. School is going well for her: they're learning letter F this week. She was so pumped that letter E was for Emma! She and her friend Ella Grace were superstars all week last week. We went to the Dollar Tree today to buy some Halloween decorations. She of course wanted the huge window cling of the skeleton-playing-Grim-Reaper with a blood covered scythe to hang in the screen door. I convinced her a cartoon Dracula was much less scary for the "little kids" who will visit the house on Halloween.

I contracted some kind of hybrid virus from E and J. I never miss school. I'm usually good with some DayQuil and cough drops to power through. Any teacher will tell you it's easier to be there sick than to stay home. But, after Friday night through Sunday night of miserableness, I succumbed to the inevitable and stayed home, sort of. I had to go in on Monday because we have to get our own subs and my sub list was, of course, at school. I spent all of 1st period convincing my students I wasn't going to give them the Plague and praying our personnel director would find someone to come in before my 3rd period class started. Meanwhile one of my students kept saying things like, "You are breathing your germs all over me. That's what you get for putting me in the front row. Now you're gonna have to listen to it because I ain't trying to get sick. You just need to go on home." Thank you for your concern. Two days later with tons of sleep and hot tea, I'm feeling much better.

Now, to the sniffles. The boy is growing up. I know that it is inevitable as most children do tend to crawl, walk, speak, etc. but if Emma's babyhood flew by, Jackson's is a blur of mach-3 proportions. I cannot believe he is already 8 months old. He is mastering crawling day by day. It's amazing to me to see how much he progresses each afternoon. He can move both arms in tandem with his legs which he could not do this weekend. He's a genius! OK, ok - I won't get too carried away. He really wants to stand up more. He loves to stand up with me holding his arms. He's already starting to pull up on tables and chairs. he's been pulling up on his crib rails for about a week now and we finally (read: I) broke down and moved his mattress from the mid-level position for "sitters" to the lowest position for babies that can stand and walk. I almost cried. I can't believe it. I looked over at Andy and said, "He's not a baby anymore." Simultaneously we said
R - "I'm so sad."
A - "Thank God."
Hmmm... I guess that would explain why when my next comment was, "Let's have another one!" Andy looked at me in horror, made a cross with his fingers and said, "Stay away from me, woman!"