Happy Labor Day weekend

I hope everyone has been enjoying their Labor Day weekends! Phil, for once, was lucky and is getting the 4 day that everyone else in the army is enjoying. We are thrilled. Matthew has been celebrating this fact by being extremely fussy most of it. I am at my wits end with what to think about him. I just want him to go back to being a happy content little man. Today was better than yesterday.

Saturday we spent a large amount of the day running errands and hanging out with my friend, Angela. Hopefully we didn't bore her toooo much. She only had to watch us shoe shop, phone shop, pack, visit my family, and finally take her home. She was such a good sport. After we did all of that we left Matthew with my parents and went on a date night. Dinner and a movie. Can't beat that. We finally got to see Dark Knight and enjoyed it. Except for the fact that the movie theater was, in one guy's words, "Colder then my ex wife!"

Today we hung out with my parents for awhile. I cruised by an auction and vetoed all items. We came home and started ripping out the dining room carpet and pad. We also took down another section of paneling and found more delightful patch work to do. Yippee! A room without huge holes in the plaster wouldn't be fun at all. It also appears we have a hole behind our half built in desk and behind some of the radiators. The good news is once I track down salvaged baseboards, plinth pieces, door frames, doors, door knobs, floor boards and Phil's sanded and varnished the floor several times, it will be a beautiful dining room. Plus of course once the bay windows have been lifted, afore mentioned patch jobs done and several layers of wallpaper steamed off, walls painted, it will be finished. Sound like a small undertaking? I think I have tracked down a significant amount of the salvage stuff though.

Sigh of relief

I'm pleased to report that Matthew was feverless today and when asked if he wanted to go to school today with Mommy he ran to the door. I guess someone was ready to get out of the house and on the go. He actually had the best day yet at work. They tried to take him to the daycare at 4, but I just kept him. Slightly more crazy perhaps, but less tears. Tomorrow we'll try the daycare route again, if they have room for him. All in all, it was a pretty nice day. And tomorrow will be better since it's the beginning of a 3 day and Phil will come home. Yea

And the other shoe dropped...

It was amazing, but after spending an hour tracking down the cat upstairs Friday, we actually left for Phil's apartment. I got stuck in construction for 20 mins (I went 1 mile in 15 mins, pretty neat at 10:40 pm) and finally we arrived at 11 pm. Boy was I glad to finally get there. We actually had a pretty great weekend. Sat. Matthew and I met Phil for lunch and then went shopping. I binged on Halloween clothes (bad, bad) and when we got home, Phil did too. Then we packed up and went to a guy he works with house, so that the men could put a new radiator in the mans drag car. It was kind of interesting. While they did that I met and hung out with the wife. Matthew absolutely loved her and was on his best behavior. And amazingly enough he didn't kill their house. Sunday we just stayed home and lounged around. Ahhh...and the rash finally faded Sunday night...

Monday we came home. We ate with Mom and Dad at DQ and then we came home and got ready for work. By now Matthew was really fussy and crabby. I thought to myself, "this is going to be a fun day." I walked in and miracles of miracles, Matthew could go to daycare the whole day. Yea! I went on with my business of working. At 5:30 I got a phone call. "Your son has a fever of 102.5..." Great. Just great. So I go home with my fussy, overheated bug-a-boo and start the rounds of Tylenol. Poor guy. The Tylenol gets his fever down to maybe 99.6 or 99.9 and then when it wears off it rebounds back up to 101.5 or 102.5. I hope it isn't going to be like last fall where he has a 102.5 temp for 5 days. He was so miserable. And other then extreme fussiness and seeming to be achy, the temperature is the only symptom. Last year I could go to work because Mom would take him, but she doesn't work at the same school anymore and now she's sick too. So what do you do? Just stay home and try not to grieve the lost of half your weeks pay. Maybe at some point this year I'll be able to pull full-time hours...not having so far...

Rash

Poor little guy. Yesterday he had a little bit of a rash when he woke up, but he's had little things like that before and it always goes away quickly. Not this rash. It was worse by nighttime and even more so this morning. Plus he is very grumpy. It is definitely a rash. Something evil...well maybe not evil, but not good. I think it's probably viral. My guess, rubella. Or he's teething and it's caused a strange rash. The only reason I have time to write about this is he fell asleep (and still is) and my boss said not to try to wake him to come with him not feeling so hot. I would take him to the doctor, but of course they won't have any available appointments till Monday. Of course we were going to take pictures of him this weekend and now we can't. Not with a rash on his face and neck. I'm not even sure we should take off and see his dad. I guess we'll see how he wakes up. I don't think our weekend is going to be all it was cracked up to be. Ohhhhhhhh....

Adjustments

Poor Matthew doesn't know what to think about all the changes these last couple days. First he is adjusting to living apart from Daddy again. Second to the new changes at work. Third adjusting to being older and possibly going through strange stages. He is not having good days at work. He goes in a great mood, gets mobbed/hurt by the afterschool kids and then when 2 hours later he can go to daycare, he is tired, clingy, and upset. I hope that we can work out some compromise so that he can be a little happier. I am going to try just telling the kids Matthew needs space. We'll see if that works. He used to love seeing the older kids. Of course he didn't get mobbed as much.

Today he got up early and demanded we play outside for a full hour. He is so excited to have a yard. Phil and I wave to our neighbors as they drive by. Matthew now is waving to every car that goes by. It is the cutest thing. He has to look at me to make sure I'm noticing. He's come a long way of the summer. Half the time he now waves goodbye to checkout people. It's very exciting watching him grow and change. I love watching him grow new skills, but a part of me is very sad to see I no longer have a baby, but an independent little boy. It's especially noticeable now that we cut his hair cut again.

Today's picture is another oldie, but goodie. I am hoping that sooooooon we can resolve this camera issue or come up with the money to buy a new one. I'm missing tons of picture taking opportunities and I can't strip wallpaper until I can take a picture. Darnit.

4 days of school down, 170 to go...

It's been an interesting last 4 days of work. Somehow there was a flub up and Matthew can only go to daycare for around an hour everyday, which means he's with me the rest of the time. It gets a little crazy. Today an ADHD kindergartener headbutted him to the ground. He started crying and trying to get to me while about 5 little girls all tried to pick him up and console him, all at the same time. Poor guy. He just gets mobbed. It's also hard for me to get homework done, while chasing him from behind the librarian's desk away from the adult scissors and markers. Oh my. Yesterday they got to have rolls with peanut butter and jelly and of course he stole one when my back was turned. I turned around to him happily munching away. At least I can take him with me. If not I'd be job hunting.

At home I am busily trying to rearrange the living room. I think I have it now. I just wish I had a cupboard for by the front door. Maybe one day. I think it'd be neat to put a wardrobe there to hang coats in, but I think it'd be to big for the space. At some point I need to start stripping wallpaper and do more painting outside. It just never ends.

Very busy day

Awwww...wasn't he small! Some of you have never seen pictures from when he was 10 days old, well here is one of my favorites. We had pictures of him taken with as much family as we could gather. There was 4 generations represented that day.


Matthew and I got up at the crack of dawn today and went to school. He was not real thrilled at being left at daycare, but he made it. I went to all of my meetings and did not fall asleep. This evening my boss and former coworker came over with pizza and hung out. One of them offered free manual labor to help pull down paneling and strip wallpaper. Yes! Maybe this weekend we will actually get some work done. That would be really exciting!

I am so bummed that we can't find our powercord because there is pictures trapped on our camera I can't get to and I can't take pictures of Matthew or anything else for that matter. Hence the very old picture shown today. At least he's a cutie. Hopefully soon I unravel the mystery of where my mom and Phil put the cord. Especially since the cord is plugged into the converter that I need to plug in our foreign tv. REAL NEAT. At least no one lost my computer...

Homecoming

It's very funny wearing Grandpa's hat!

And very funny going piggyback or maybe it's because I'm ripping out Mom's ponytail...

I wonder what mischief I can cause out here....

We're back!!!! It's so nice to be back in the land of real yards and homes with more then 4 tiny rooms. Matthew especially is enjoying the new found freedom. We will go to our house today to start setting it back up since I have all day meeting tomorrow. He will be going to daycare for most of the day. I hope he's up for the challenge since he's been very clingy to me all weekend. This weekend I went to a huge antique auction and bought a antique kitchen hutch. It has the neatest art deco iron handles.

Since I last wrote, Matthew finished swim lessons, we tried to do alot of family things since we are going to be living apart now, and mostly tried to avoid the heat. Matthew is learning to run and saying more and more stuff. Well, it's becoming clearer now I should say. My first day back at work is Thursday. I'm not ready for school to start so soon. But it will be good to have the extra income coming in. Phil and I have almost the whole lower half of the house primed and then we can start painting. Phil is taking a 4 day so we are hoping to get it all finished so it's done before winter. We've decided that I'm going to work on redoing the dining room. I'm so excited. Even if it means hours of pulling down paneling, steaming off who knows how many wallpaper layers, filling cracks, and then finally priming and painting. It will be worth it in the end. We are even going to pull up the carpet! Yes! That would be even more exciting if it was the kitchen carpet, but that'd be a huge job! At least the bathroom now has a new non-carpet floor. Whoever thought carpet in the kitchen and bathroom was a snazzy idea, and made it ultra popular, should be shot. It is not a cool thing.

I better go. I have to pack so when the boy wakes up we can head to our house!