It was worth it, It was worth it...

I noticed an additional student loan coming out of our account this morning. Now, when adding it all together, Adam and I pay $800/month in student loans. It's not much more than we were paying previously, however, I didn't realize it was so high, I always thought I was exaggerating when I said $800.

What's depressing about this, is that I finally got the buy in from Adam to have a second child, with the requirement that additional daycare can be afforded.

On the plus side - I met my husband at college, AND.... we're going to be RICH when these things are paid off!!! Yahoooooo!!!! And... isn't this such a fun pic, LMAO.

A night at the Hospital

Me: Do you like this Tinkerbell movie?
Ares: No!
Me: OK, then we won't watch it again.
Ares: No, I don't want to watch it ever again. Buuuuttt *sly face* Umizoomi would be nice.

We had an awesome mommy / son evening. Since we had a late lunch with Grandma, I hadn't planned on doing much (if anything) for dinner. So when Ares asked for popcorn, cheerios and juice, I said, 'why not' and we had a very nice 'dinner'. (I even added chocolate chips for color.)

This has been a rough week for Ares, but you would never know it. He has a staph (impetigo) infection on his lower back, butt, and upper thigh. there's three (large) open wounds, the biggest being 3'x3' on his ENTIRE left butt cheek. All open and drippy and really gross. Aside from the fact that he cannot sit or lay on his back, you would never know he had anything wrong. He runs, dances, jumps around, and plays like his normal self.

He had a 9am Dr appt on Thursday, and another one planned for 9am on Friday. Thursday's appt, they cleaned it, and cultured it, and he didn't even cry - not once. Thursday evening, it got bad enough that we had to take him to the Pediatric ER. There, he got mad that we made him leave the waiting room, he wanted to 'play'. This is already at 9pm.
Once in the examining room, he jumped around, and played with his cars for a couple of hours. this is with his butt looking like a piece of raw meat.
After two unsuccessful IV sticks, (they actually managed to stick his artery, which is very uncommon), and a few hours watching CARS dvd the Hospital provided (amazing!!) they dosed him up with amazing antibiotics. A shot in each thigh - and then a Popsicle (grape, his favorite).

The ONLY time he cried the entire evening, is when he was being restrained for the IVs and shots. This kid was amazing. He even asked to go potty when we got home at 1:45AM(this is a big deal, as the open sores would hit the toilet seat and hurt a lot). He slept great, and woke up better. Today has been one of the most fun days EVER with Ares. He is the most amazing kid - all of that pain, and yet, the best spirit, most energy and nicest/fun kid ever.

And - while I'm bragging, I must say, Ares is completely potty trained - he even has been dry at night. We're past the 'making-him-go-every-hour stage' and he now tells us when he has to go potty. Not bad, and he's not even 2 and a half. (Although, he's very close).

I haven't decided if I'm going to post pictures of his staph infection - as it's on his butt. That's not considered child porn, is it? I mean, it's not an attractive picture at all, AND this blog is not public, unless you know the exact blog address. Not sure if it'll get posted.

Can it be true?

I'm not sure how he did at school today, but Friday, he was wearing the SAME clothes he had on in the morning, on Saturday he stayed clean, as did he on Sunday. That was 3 straight days! (nights are still in a diaper, and only 1/2 the time does that stay dry). My good little boy is GREAT!

**OK, too good to be true, he had 1 accident yesterday. They can't wait 3 hours in between potty breaks.

Hopefully by the time Adam gets home, he'll be completely trained (where I'm confident). Ares hasn't seemed to miss Adam too much (which is good). He's made a couple of comments here and there, but not much really, except for last night. He REALLY wanted a hug and kiss goodnight from his daddy.

Missing Adam a lot. I've gotten a lot done around the house. It's kind of like I'm nesting. I've painted the master bathroom, done all laundry, mowed the lawn, started on Christmas presents, and I have a WHOLE BOATLOAD of projects in my head to do. I've been keeping busy though, the time away is easier than I thought it would be (for me... for Adam, it's a different story). Although, he was in NYC for the 10th anniversary of September 11. The actual memorial was closed to the public, but he got to see a lot of things there. He walked the city for 12 hours, and even went to a local pub and hung out (read: drink) with lots of police and firefighters.

All Aboard The Potty Train!!

He woke up dry yesterday morning (which is not unusual). For the first three hours of yesterday, I let Ares run around with nothing but a shirt on. Then we went swimming and to see Uncle Justice at grandma/grandpa's house. We went home, ate, took a nap, played, watched TV, went outside, went to Auntie Cindy and Uncle Mike's house for dinner. The ENTIRE day, he did not have a single 'accident'. I was told he woke up dry this morning, and aside from one mishap (that happened 20 minutes after going to the bathroom) everything has been great, and it's 2:15pm. One mistake in our first REAL time trying, that's my big boy!!!
I say "REAL" because we had randomly been putting him in training underwear, but it was never consistent. We'll see how school goes tomorrow, I'll make sure I have lots of changes of clothes for him!
Here's some pics from the weekend: PS, it's hard to get 1 two year old to look at a camera, getting three to look is IMPOSSIBLE.

First weekend / Potty Time

It's our first weekend without daddy being home. It wasn't bad at all, as Grandma Karen and Grandpa Doug came up to visit. Ares had a blast with them, and was really sad to wake up without them being there. After a few tears, we decided to start a new potty training regimen.

Saturday morning, grandma recommended we let Ares run around without any underwear on when we're at home. While I was running errands, they were brave enough to allow him to wear big boy underwear to the park and restaurant, and he stayed dry for a couple of hours. We met Eli's family and Davis' family for the Looney Toon's Orchestra performance, which was a great time, and the weather stayed nice as well. i was SUPER impressed that Davis was completely potty trained. Darrah said that they used the same method that was recommended earlier that day to me, so we're all in now!

It was amazing to see the boys play and run and wrestle together at the concert. these 3 kids are so fun to watch. they kept running ahead of us to get to the concert, and then, stopped running, and started holding hands- it was TOO cute!! I wish I had my camera with me (bad mom!)

Another fun day on Sunday with my in-laws as we went to the Taste of Hudson. There were lots of things for kids to do, although, it rained and we got soaked. It was still fun. After a super late nap, Ares woke up and we started the 'free range' baby idea. A few drips before bed, but we ran to the potty to finish, and so far this morning (we've only been up for 2 hours), but we've gone potty twice already.

Adam has been working REALLY hard these past few days. Friday he worked a 14 hour day, which is crazy! Good thing he only worked 8 hours on Saturday, and at least 10 yesterday. Today is the only day I want him to put in LONG hours, as it's a Holiday, so he will get double time and a half! Nice!! At least he's keeping busy, but I miss him lots. I think today I'm going to take Ares to the pool (indoor) and practice his swim moves.

Swim Lessons / Deployment

I wanted to sign Ares up for swim lessons, but thought he was too old for the mommy and me class they recommend for his age, so I signed him up for the 3-5 year old "beginner pre-school" class. Thank goodness I did that. Ares' first day of swim lessons was on Tuesday of this week. There were 4 kids in the class, but I think it's down to 3 now. Parents had to watch from a balcony, couldn't even watch from the deck, because the teachers didn't want the students to be distracted. Some kids waved the whole time to their parents, mine didn't wave at me once =(

I was nervous that he would act out, or not go in the water (turns out, the child next to him threw a terrible tantrum) I was worried that it would scare Ares, but it didn't. He was the first one in the water (there's a ramp to walk into, so it's not a plunge or anything), and after about 30 seconds of standing in waist deep water, the kid disappeared. I didn't see him for a full 5 seconds and started to get worried. Turns out, he dropped his round dive toy he was holding, and went underwater to retrieve it. He was the only kid to put their head in the water the entire day.


As I toweled him off after the (fast) half hour, he asked if we could come back again. I told him we sure could, how about on Thursday, and he responds "And Friday too??" LOL. I think Friday is the only day of the week's name that he knows. Needless to say, I still think my kid is amazing. But it scares me that he would just jump in the water without anyone watching.




Also Tuesday morning, Adam was told he was being added to the CATastrophe list for work to potentially get called to Hurricane Irene's affected area. Tuesday night, around 6pm, he was called and told he needed to be on a 2:55 flight to New Jersey. He will be returning on 9/20 (so a total of 21 days, helping adjust claims from the wrath of the hurricane and it's flooding). Exciting for him, although, he missed out on our three days of planned cleaning to get the house ready for visitors that we have coming over a few times over the next couple of weeks.

It's good that he'll bring in a lot more money for working lots of overtime, but I don't think I've been away from Adam for more than 5 days since we've been married (and he'll be back the week of our 7th anniversary), so I'm REALLY going to miss him. At least I know he'll be safe, unlike those who's family members are truly deployed overseas for military.