I'm finishing up with week 2 of my class - still lovin' it. I had gotten full credit for everything so far, but I did miss a question on the quiz I just took tonight (each question is worth a half a point), so the pressure has been relieved. As I explained to Jeff, it's one of the reasons I didn't really enjoy school. While this may sound cocky, I don't mean it to be, so don't take it that way...you see, I did so well in school, I was always just waiting for the plane to crash. Since I know I'm...

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I'm assuming that everyone is as busy as we are, either working or enjoying the summer sun and warmth...either that or the west coast has finally broken off and fallen into the ocean. If that were the case, however, I'm sure we would have heard about that - even if we never watch the news. We haven't been especially busy with anyting out of the norm, just the regular flow of every day life, but that keeps us hopping in and of itself. We went down to Dean and Kathy's on the 4th and spent a nice...

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Here's my dilemma:Starting in September, I will have to fix Kadie's lunch every day. (Right now, the school feeds her.) 1. I cannot send anything with any form of peanut ingredient.2. I have a thermos container for hot foods, but it's only"rated" to keep food hot for about 4 to 5 hours. From the time we leave the house until Kadie eats lunch, it's about 5 to 6 hours.3. I need a good, healthy source of protein for her...which leaves out a lot of pre-packaged, convenience foods you can get at...

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We got a call from Kadie's school today around one, telling us that she had been acting listless so they had taken her temperature...101 degrees. We picked her up and took her home, but we're hoping that this is just a fluke and not another round with supervirus. When we got home, I took her temperature again and it was normal. An hour later, it was 99.6. I'm going to wait to see what the night brings, and what her temp is in the morning, but, with the last go 'round, she was temperature free...

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We spent a very quick 10 minutes at the doctor's today to find that Kadie was fine, except for that whole virus thing. She's still running a pretty high fever - up to 104.1 this afternoon - and has added diarrhea (where it comes from being that she hasn't eaten since Thursday night...) to her very short list of symptoms. Thankfully, I, at least, know that her ears are fine. Since I still have a stethoscope, I wasn't too worried about pneumonia or bronchitis, but I don't have an otoscope so I...

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Christmas was good. Kadie woke up entirely too early, but she didn't start tearing into packages until we were all downstairs (which still happened faster than I had planned). After ripping into a package, she would inspect the goods and then hand them to me to open while she very tidily picked up all the paper scraps and put them in the garbage … don't know where that came from, but it was nice to not have to declare my living room a disaster zone. After everything was opened, we sat down for...

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That's what I read somewhere, once, while looking into insomnia...If all else fails, consider the nights a gift of time. That's all well and good on an occasional basis, but I think I've had my fair share of gifts and would really just like to get some sleep. Thankfully, tonight has been the worst in a long while. The last few weeks, I've been losing an hour or two at most but, tonight, I haven't slept more than that. Unfortunately, Tuesdays and Thursdays are our long days (Jeff has to cover...

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Busy time of the year, huh, guys? I hope your production goes well this weekend, Lisa. Even with some longer nights coming up, I guess it's good that the job allows for making up sick time. I'm looking forward to Thanksgiving as I don't have to do any work. We just drive down to Dean's and enjoy a full spread. He doesn't even really allow for donated dishes, so it's completely work-free (unless you count the endless running around I do, keeping track of Kadie and what she's terrorizing within...

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Yesterday, I was able to sit in on Kadie's class for about 50 minutes.When I went upstairs, I waited outside the classroom (which has large windows to both the outside and the hallway where I was) for the teacher to come get me. The children had just come in from outside and were all sitting down around the outside of the large center rug. The teacher was calling attendance (done by her looking at each student and saying,"Good afternoon, Kelly/Chris/Kadie," etc. - an assistant marks the...

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Kadie came home on Tuesday, telling us about the 7 continents. Of course, it doesn't quite sound like"continents" when she says it, but she's pretty close. Apparently, the class globe/map is in color, so Kadie told us that we lived on the pink one. The white one is, of course,"coooold" and where the penguins live. I couldn't do her pronunciation of Antarctica justice in writing, so I won't try - but it's adorable. I love the fact that my 4-year-old knows about continents. I'm really very...

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Kadie is doing well in her classes. She has made several new friends and, aside from a few mornings when I think she's dealing more with being a little tired than anything else, she very much looks forward to going. None of the"normal" first-year jitters here. She is getting better at elaborating on what she's been doing during the day and has been sharing several of the songs they've taught her (complete with minimal sign language). I'm torn between which type of class might benefit her more...

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Yep. That's what we've been up to the past couple of days. Sunday, Kadie was acting cranky but I put that down to her not sleeping well the night before and my schedule being off (she's amazingly perceptive of our moods). Monday was a holiday for everyone so I took Kadie out with me on errands. As a treat, I took her to the Chick-fil-A (a treat for me as well since it's an opportunity for Kadie to run out some energy in the play room while I eat a leisurely, albeit not entirely healthy, lunch...

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While certainly not on the same level as Dave's troubles, Kadie is having some of her own. We're back to not sleeping well and she's telling me that her"bones hurt". The mommy in me is feeling her pain as she is looking quite pale and tired during the day and, at night, comes out of her room almost completely out of it. The checkbook in my purse is feeling it, too - we just ordered her school uniforms for the year. Thankfully, I ordered them a little large with the idea that she'll grow into...

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Kadie has been officially enrolled in her first"real" school. She starts on 1 Oct. Jeff and I went, yesterday, for a tour of the two facilities. Both are owned by the same woman - they're just in different cities. The one we wanted (because it was closer to our commute) was full when we called last week to make the tour appointment, but they said that a transfer from the other school would be simple, once a spot had opened up. The first school we went to see (the one that's out of our way and...

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Lisa, you'll be proud of me for this. I asked for some intervention yesterday and got it. The story starts with this: several months ago, Ms. Tracy asked if we were going to start Kadie in preschool this year - she wanted to be able to plan for any forthcoming openings. I had been looking around (and had even gotten brochures for several different schools) but hadn't made up my mind yet and, when I asked Jeff, he was apparently thinking about kindergarten and said"no" as he thought Kadie was...

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Unfortunately, it has become apparent that I need to continue my search for a church that follows more closely to my beliefs. The Sunday before last, I found out their stance on baptism. This last Sunday I found a notice in the bulletin announcing an upcoming Child Dedication Sunday and I was also able to get a copy of their by-laws (they just redid them and are voting on them next week so they had a stack of them out for people to take home and read) and found that they also subscribe to the...

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Last Sunday, my current church held a baptism service. I have now learned their stance on baptism - they don't view it as a requirement for salvation but see it as something that God has asked them to do and, in doing it, they are obeying Him. I'm not sure if that's a"step beyond" the Baptist view of doing it for a show of faith or if that's just another way of saying the same thing. Either way, it was still nice to see so many step forward. They had about 25 or 30 people who had planned on...

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Though I'm trying hard to climb out of the pit, I think both Jeff and I are suffering from a bad case of the"Mondays" today. It doesn't help that someone drove past Jeff in the parking lot at 40 mph and soaked his pant legs (it's been raining all night) and then someone else almost ran him over. That kind of start will dampen most anyone's mood. I'm suffering from lack of sleep more than anything else. Kadie has definitely closed the door on her napping phase which, I would think, would help...

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We had Kadie's appointment at the allergist last week (which didn't go so well -"This won't hurt," my ass...) and came back with all negatives on the tests. So she's not officially allergic to anything but the doctor explained that the post-nasal drip and congestion could be caused by a sensitivity to something. Since the problems started 'round about the time we moved up to Hampstead, it's probably something that's found within the country (trees, flowers, weeds, etc.) that's not as prolific...

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I did a little research and tried out a new church yesterday. I don't know all its core values yet, but it's a non-denominational church and it had a lot of good points to it. People were friendly without being too"in your face" and they had a pretty good preacher that was able to keep my attention. No one said anything that made me step back and say,"Whoa!" and they had a very contemporary band (as a guest) playing, so they're not musically stuffy. They didn't have communion (the only...

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