My happiest lunch hours…

…are spent at our local mall’s fantastic educational toy store. I love shopping there. When I can’t be with Jamie during my workday, finding him awesome presents at the mall on my lunch hour is the next best thing.

 

Today, I was on a mission. For some reason, over the last few months Jamie has started getting really excited every time we’re out somewhere and see something with Thomas the Tank Engine on it. I have no idea where or when he was exposed to this, because he’s never watched the show with us at home (it’s on during the day on weekdays when we’re at work) and his preschool has never shown it either. Somehow, though, Jamie knows who Thomas is and just goes absolutely nuts every time we see his picture on something, whether it’s toys, or sippy cups, or whatever.

 

So, I decided to poke around the toy store today and hook Jamie up with some Thomas stuff of his own. Luckily, My Favorite Toys has the largest selection of Thomas toys in Southern Illinois. (That place really rocks. They have a lot of obscure stuff, and hard-to-find stuff, and classic stuff from when parents and grandparents were little kids, and just all sorts of neat stuff. They also have tons of Folkmanis puppets, which family members have been buying for Jamie since he was born. He has quite the collection these days.) I am putting a link to this toystore’s expansive website in my list of links, because I really want these folks to stay in business for a long, long time. They are so friendly and knowledgeable — it’s like they only hire teachers or something. I’m constantly telling people to go check them out if they’ve never been in there or browsed their website. I like to keep our bucks in Southern Illinois, and I love having them as a local resource. I want them to stay put!

 

Anyway, getting back to Jamie and his Thomas obsession, I bought him two Thomas & Friends videos, two books (one with magnetized pages and cool magnets of all the Island of Sodor trains, and one with a clock with moveable hands so you can change the time on every page as Thomas goes through his railway schedule — how cool is that?) and a little Jamie-sized railroad engineer’s cap to wear when we watch his Thomas videos. I called Geoff, who usually gripes that Jamie has too much junk as it is, and he got really excited about coming home and playing/watching Thomas the Tank Engine with Jamie. Geoff really wants to do train sets with him when he gets older, so he was chomping at the bit to come home and have “train night” at our house.

 

I can’t wait to surprise Jamie with all his Thomas presents!

 

 

 

Makes me wonder what the kids in Iraq are dealing with today…

Miss Saigon Bui Doi

If you can watch this and not cry, something is wrong with you.

 

Masterpiece in Mixed Media…and a Contest!

My computer has decided that while it still does not like photo files, it has no problem with scanned images, so I decided to try it out this morning (see below).

In sad news, my sister, along with seventeen of her co-workers, lost her job on Tuesday when the Tulsa World newspaper decided to lay off its Community World staff. Her office had no warning that this was coming. Basically, they just walked in and started handing out pink slips. Rat bastards.

Anyway, Jamie and I decided to cheer up Aunt Emily by sending her some artwork from her darling nephew. (Watch out, Auntie Em — it’s on its way to you as we speak!) I bought Jamie some finger paints last night and he thought they were mighty fine. I decided to scan his masterpiece before sending it off into the mail so Jamie’s art message could be experienced by all.

Painting: Untitled

(A mixed media in crayon, finger paint, and 3-D stickers featuring “Thomas the Tank Engine & Friends.”)

I have studied this piece for a long time now, attempting to discern its theme, as the artist currently lacks the verbal skills to explain his work. I have narrowed the list down to three likely subjects:

A.) A portrait of Frida Kahlo

B.) A depiction of the Seventh Bowl Judgement of Armageddon, as felt by the cheery residents of the Island of Sodor

C.) A bowl of fruit

You can all vote on this if you like, or even better, you can offer up other ideas. Yes. I like this. Send me your own guess of Master James’ artistic theme, and I will choose a winner later and send that lucky person an original work by the artist.

That is all.

 

Test

Just a few photos Aunt Emily shot on her last trip to see Jamie … testing to see if WordPress is going to cooperate on the photo uploads this time.

 

Blecky, blecky, bleck.

So I am a complete jerk and still have not had time to figure out how to fix those photos so wordpress will accept them. I do not know what is wrong…but thought I would post anyway…it is raining outside and completely disgusting and there is a tornado watch all day today so this may be a limited shot online before power goes out or something…Luckily, Jamie’s day care is also an official town storm shelter so I am not too worried about that today.

Nevertheless, the boy never lets me off the hook completely with things to worry about. He was running a fever yesterday afternoon when I picked him up from school. I should’ve known something was up — it is the first time in over six months that I’ve shown up to get him and he was actually asleep, in his crib and everything, at school. Got him home, stripped him down to a diaper to cool him off, and put him in his bed so I could go get some baby Motrin from the kitchen.

Got back with the medicine and he had worked himself up into such a mad tantrum in my absence that the minute I stuck medicine in his mouth he started throwing up everywhere while simultaneously peeing his pants. (And I had JUST changed that diaper 2 minutes before…) He threw up all inside his basket of clean clothes I’d set in his room that morning and all over the bed and stuffed animals and everything else. The dogs were quite upset that I would not let them help me clean it all up. One minute later, he completely passed out, face down. I figured if he had any more throwing up to do, he may as well be lying on his stomach, so I let him sleep rather than wrestle him for a bath that second. He was already starting to cool down, so I just left him alone for an hour or two before bathtime, and just carried the baby monitor around the house with me. When he woke up later, he acted just like his old self again, as if nothing had happened.

Good grief.

 

Catching up…

With the holidays approaching, it’s hard enough to figure out how we’re going to have time and money (mostly money) for all the things we’ve got planned, and I’ve been more than a little stressed lately. Still, that’s not a very good excuse for not keeping my blog up-to-date.

What IS a good excuse for having no computer time is that I’ve been quite busy training a new counterpart at work. She’s fantastic, she catches on to everything quickly, and I’m so unbelievably grateful for her presence now at the office! I was a bit worried how December would go, what with our regular deadlines and the office still being closed for a whole week, but I am completely confident now. It is SO nice to have another person sharing my work with me. She’s been absolutely great, and I am so relieved that now there will be less pressure for me to show up when Jamie is sick or stuff like that, because we can take turns holding d0wn the fort, so to speak. What a blessing!

And now on to all things Jamie…

This is Jamie playing last weekend on the sweet Radio Flyer roadster my sister brought him for his birthday when she came to visit. I cannot BELIEVE he is going to be a year old this Saturday!! Where has the time gone? I asked my mother if every year goes by as quickly as the first, and she said, “Actually, they go by even faster from this point on.” Yikes! I didn’t think I could handle this whole parenthood thing, but apparently, I’m just going to blink my eyes and he will be a self-sufficient adult, so maybe it’s not as hard as I expected… 🙂

I have tons of photos to post, but wordpress is not allowing most of them to get posted for something called “security reasons,” so I’ve got to figure out how to save these suckers differently first, so I can get them up on here…

–Gracie

 

Even less of me to love!!! Yay!!!

I’m now officially down 10.5 lbs! I started this diet almost three weeks ago at 187.5 lbs. This morning, the scale showed 177.0 lbs! Woohoo!

Diet Journal for Yesterday: High-Protein Slimfast shake for breakfast, High-protein Slimfast shake for lunch, very small salad (sans cheese but with regular buttermilk dressing) and hardboiled eggs for dinner (Eggland’s Best, of course!!), and a midnight snack of a Clementine tangerine that I shared with the pups.

My boss, Darin, did me a big favor as we were leaving work yesterday — he warned me that he would be bringing in Panera breakfast today for everyone in the office, and graciously promised that no French Toast bagels or raspberry flavored cream cheese would make it into his bag this morning. As long as those two things aren’t in there, I can totally trust myself to be good in the face of temptation. 🙂 Thanks, D!

In other news, Jamie continues to improve. He has gone without Albuterol the past 2 days, and is still doing better all the time. He’s still very, very tired at night and won’t stay up and play with us longer than 15 minutes, but he was quite agreeable this morning and even let me put his coat, hat, AND mittens on him before school. (Usually I have to settle for some sort of diminished combination of those things.) I did not press my luck and attempt shoes; instead, I just located the newest pair of socks I could find in hopes they would still be extra warm and fuzzy on the inside. His corduroy pants were long enough to cover his feet this morning, so I think he’s fine. Plus, I think we left his sneakers at Grandma’s house. Oops.

And that’s the latest from here. More later. Hopefully by Monday I’ll have shed a couple more pounds to post about!!

–Gracie

 

This and that…

It’s been a while since I updated the ol’ blog…here’s what’s going on in our world:

Jamie: Is getting over a nasty double ear infection. He’s finally starting to feel better, after being on half a dozen different medications. He has to continue the Cephaclor and Albuterol for several more days, but we’re starting to see some mild improvement so I hope we’re almost out of the woods. Other than being ill, he’s been really, really hyper from the Albuterol. The clinic said it’s like handing him a pot of coffee. We’re finally able to back it off from three times a day to once daily, so at least his hyperactivity is controllable in the evening now. He watched part of “Ratatouille” on DVD the other night and loved it. He fell asleep watching it on my lap. He NEVER falls asleep on my lap. It was very sweet.

Geoff: Is still up to his eyeballs in press coverage for this whole Herrin cop conspiracy nonsense with the state’s attorney. Several friends from his hometown came to visit last weekend so he was able to get away from all the hype for a couple of days and enjoy some R & R, which he desperately needed. Other than that, he is good.

Meanwhile, I’ve been busy, too. I’ve been doing some serious dieting and have already lost 9 lbs. That would be really great, except that it made my wedding ring become too loose and I LOST IT last weekend. We think it got lost in the house, but I’ve turned the place upside down every night and still can’t find it. Dismantled the washing machine (thanks Daddy), went through the garbage, checked inside pockets and oven mitts, followed the dogs around while they did their business….I cannot figure out where it is!! I even checked inside Jamie’s vaporizer. No ring.

Still, it’s nice to be losing some weight finally. Maybe I can reach my first of several goal weights by Christmas. That would be a nice present!!! (Though finding my ring would be even nicer…I feel so sad about it.) 😦

Well, I guess that’s about all the news from Lake Wobegon…I’ll try and post updates as I continue to diet and pretend someone else cares if my butt gets smaller…but I have already gone down a jeans size! Yay!!

 

Won’t the real James Ritter please stand up?

Charlie Brown

Jamie trying (and finally succeeding) to pull himself up on the crib rails while wearing his Halloween costume at Grandma and Grandpa’s house.

He is getting way too good at pulling up on things.

 

From the studio of Jackson Pollock, Jr.

Here is more of Jamie’s recent art work from preschool…

If you look closely near the top of the apple, you can see that Jamie added his own special touch to this one — part of a Cheerio. I am pretty sure that part was all him, and not his teacher. Jamie likes to share Cheerios. 🙂