Under the weather

The title for this entry definitely has a double meaning....

Caleb woke up early Tuesday with a fever and I decided to stay home with him all day. He was a perfectly happy, active little man the entire day, he just had a fever of 101°F for most of the day. He watched too much TV and I managed to find the living room floor again. By the time Scott got home last night, the kitchen, dining room and living room were much better than they had been in the morning. Not company ready, but definitely nothing I would be ashamed of if some one stopped by expectantly. Since Caleb still had the fever this morning, Scott is staying home with him. Hopefully he can get the vinyl floor mopped and then everything will be as clean as it gets these days.

Also, it has been raining here for almost 2 weeks and they are calling for rain for most of this week again. The grass is growing so fast that is was just cut on Saturday and needs to be cut again on Wednesday! The only problem is that it doesn't dry out long enough for us to cut it. The sun has been peaking out a little between rain storms the last two days, but it is soooooo muggy that you could drown just by taking a deep breath. It is grey enough that it reminds me of being in Houghton in the winter....although there isn't any snow.

Sounds like Mom and Dad are having an enjoyable journey west in the Mini. Mom did say that it is completely different being in the Mini all day with Dad than being in the Envoy with him. Of course, the Mini is 1/3 the size of the Envoy so that is understandable. :)

I have my neighborhood bunco group tonight. Should be fun and exciting....NOT. I have been a member of this group for almost 5 years now and it is really getting old. I have less and less in common with these women all the time. Most of them are SAHM's and have quite a bit of disdain for my CHOICE to work. I am probably reading too much into it, but I really dread going most months. If I could only think of a way to back out of it gracefully, I would.

Tonight is also Caleb's last swimming less for this session. We didn't go last week because my parents were here and there were just too many scheduling conflicts. And other than the fever, he has no symptoms of being sick. A dose of Tylenol will keep the fever in check long enough to let him have the last lesson, followed by a quick dinner and then I am off to bunco. Should make for a rather unproductive evening to say the least.

Where did the weekend go?

Zoooooom! There went the weekend! How did they do that? Friday night I went scrapbooking with my friend Vicki, which was really nice. We scrapped at a church (not usually my favorite thing) but it had huge tables, great lighting and was open as late as we wanted it to be. Perfect! I got about 8 pages done, not bad for my usual speed. Hope I can find the time to get some of them posted onto the 2peas website, but I really want to get my space organized before I focus on that.

Anyway, we left the church at 3:20 AM on Saturday to head to Vicki's house. Got a few hours sleep and made it home around noon on Saturday. Came home to a house that had some how exploded in the previous 12 hours and a family that hadn't made it out of their PJ's yet. I jumped into the shower, got everyone else cleaned up and then spent most of the afternoon trying to get the house cleaned a little bit. Scott did the bathrooms and I worked at the downstairs, but couldn't concur the living room. I decided it was best to work on sorting and packing away the mound of toys than stuffing it into the corner and we are still working on that.

Saturday night we decided to go out to dinner, then take Caleb bowling for the first time. They didn't have bowling shoes small enough, so Caleb bowled in his socks. Very cute. We got through about 4 frames before Caleb had had enough and was dragging us towards the video games. Finished out the game as quickly as possible, then moved onto a trip to Culver's. Did I mention that it was pouring rain since noon? We dodged a lot of rain drops before settling into the house to watch the last half of the Packer pre-season game that we forgot was on.

We were up and going early on Sunday. Headed to see our friends just outside of Delafield, about 75 minutes east of Madison. Spent the morning with them, had lunch at McDonald's (with the playland), grabbed some MORE ice cream at Coldstone and headed to Oconomowoc to drop Mom and Dad's truck off at my aunt and uncle's house. Left there around 4:15 and decided to try for a stop at the outlet mall in Johnson Creek. Grabbed a bunch of clothes for me and Caleb before heading back to Madison. Ate dinner on the eastside of town, got home around 8:30. Watched a little TV, stuffed Caleb into his PJ's and collapsed into bed.

No wonder I am tired this morning. Some how even those weekends that we don't have anything planned seem to fill up really fast. This next weekend isn't going to be much better either, since Scott will be gone on Saturday and then we have a birthday party to go to on Sunday. Sheesh! maybe things will slow down soon? Pretty please?

Pooh's Fair

Last night was the "Pooh's Fair" at Caleb's daycare. Basically, they turn the playground into a little mini carnival with games and face painting and cotton candy. I thought he would love it! Instead, he freaked out and was clinging to me the entire evening. Huh? Maybe he was just freaked by the crowds, maybe having all those people on his playground was too much for him...I don't know. After a while he finally calmed down and seemed to enjoy playing some of the games.

The highlight of the evening for him was definitely the bouncy house. He went in there twice and wanted to go in a third, but they had to take it down. He ended up spending the most time playing in the sand box with Alex, his buddy from class, however, we had to leave when he grabbed the truck from Alex and then threw a fit when we made him give it back. We left there with him screaming, he screamed while we put him in the car, and he screamed all the way home. Lots of fun.

OMG! Toy recall!

I have heard about so many recalls over the past few years, but I got used to the fact that they never concerned us. I always over-research EVERY purchase we make and would only buy products with proven track records, etc. However, last week we were shopping for a birthday present for a friend of Caleb's at Target and we ended up in the "Cars" movie toy section. Well, Scott went crazy when he finally saw the "Sarge" Jeep toy available. We had been looking for this toy on and off ever since the movie came out almost TWO years ago! A full grown man jumping up and down in the middle of Target is not something you see every day, so how was I going to say no? So we paid the $3 for the small toy and took it home. It was out of the package and in Caleb's hands before we left the parking lot and everyone was happy.

Flash forward to this week and I innocently get an email from Fisher Price (I signed up for their newsletter when Caleb was a baby). I almost just deleted the email as I do with most of them but decided to read it. Lo and behold, it was a bulletin discussing the recall that their parent company, Mattell, had announced. So I said, "what the heck" and started looking at the items that were recalled. Sure enough, there was a picture of poor little Sarge. After some investigation when I got home, it turns out that our Sarge toy was made in China and was from the batch suspected to have lead paint in it, therefore, I need to send it back to them and will receive a voucher in place of the toy. And, oh yeah, make sure you allow 10 to 12 WEEKS for delivery of the voucher after receipt of the toy. I thought Scott was going to take it harder than he did, but he was pretty much OK with it. We just have to go find one that was made in Taiwan instead. Luckily Caleb is far past the stage where he has to put everything into his mouth. I would have been really worried if I even suspected he got it near his mouth, but I doubt he did.

Luckily, that is the only toy that we have that was even close to being recalled. The rest of them were all for "Polly Pocket" dolls or toys that are too old for Caleb yet. Definitely makes you think...

Some day I will be good at this...

Apparently, I suck a blogging. I have managed to make ONE post for each of the last several months. I missed July completely. This was supposed to be a quick method of recording the daily happenings in our lives, like an online journal, but instead it just started collecting dust like every other method I have ever tried.

I guess a lot of life just doesn't seem like it needs recording as it happens, thus it doesn't get made a priority. Besides, I feel like I am going 5 different directions all the times and end up spending any "extra" time I have doing something at least semi-relaxing. Most nights I am so exhausted that even watching TV takes too much effort.

Well, you haven't really missed anything during the last 6 weeks. Caleb is getting bigger, Scott and I are still working, and my parents are still hard to track down. They are leaving for a driving trip out west on Sunday morning to take a friend's Mini Cooper to Olympia, WA (long story). I got a chance to drive the little car yesterday and it wasn't as much fun as I thought it would be. Expected more zip, although Dad did say that without anyone else in the car is was plenty zippy.

Caleb has been taking swimming lessons and although he protests before each lesson, I think he does like them. At least they are only half and hour and he doesn't tend to cry once we have him in the water. We are going to continue his lessons this fall and winter, but it may be a challenge to get him to stick with them.

Scott and I are planning on taking our first real trip "away" next month, which we are both really looking forward to. Caleb is almost 3 and we have never left him for a full 24 hours with some one else. He has been over night with Nana and Bumpa before, but we were home before breakfast the next morning. I think he is going to be fine, but I may worry about it too much despite it. Anyway, we are headed up north, back to Houghton to take a stroll down memory lane. We haven't really spent much time up there since we graduated NINE years ago and really want to get back to see what has and hasn't changed. Plus, it will almost be peak color so it should really be beautiful. Did I mention that there is also some prime geocaching to be done up there? I can't WAIT!

We have really kicked up the burners on the geocaching this summer, since Caleb is finally old enough to "help" us out a little. He can walk down the trails and likes hunting for "treasures". Last night he even wanted to hide one of his toys and then we could "geocache it", which is his language is "find it". To funny!

It looks like my brother is having a great time in Florida. He has been helping Mike out at the Eden house with some repair and odd job type stuff. They have been so pleased with his work that he could be there for 3 years, just finishing the projects that Mike has started and not gotten back to. Glad he is finally getting away and a little more on his own. Plus, if he decides to relocate down there we will have some one to visit! I would love any excuse I can get to go back to Key West.

Well, that is just about all I have for now. Maybe if I do several short posts each week it won't turn into a huge event when I get around to the once a month post. :) Maybe that will happen....but don't hold your breath.

Trip to the Zoo

Caleb got to go on his very first field trip this morning. I dropped him off at school and then they rode the "big yellow bus" to the zoo and I met them there. They rode the carousel, saw the animals and had a great time. I love our little zoo here in Madison. It is completely free and just a gorgeous little facility. The animals are well taken care of and are in really nice enclosures.

I am glad I went because Caleb got freaked out several times. Miss Maria tried showing him a spider and he just about jumped out of his skin. Then, we went into the aviary and it was so loud that he started to freak, but we managed to get him out of there just fine. However, he was so jumpy the rest of the time that I think he was glad to get back on the bus and leave. There was one bright and funny incident....as we were leaving the penguin exhibit, Caleb asked if he could bring one home with us. Too cute!

All in all, it was a good trip and Caleb had a great time, but I am glad I was there to keep him from melting down. He just doesn't seem to do well in completely new situations like the zoo. I think we are all going to have to go back there a couple times this summer so he can get better accustomed to the animals. I don't want him to be freaked out by every little thing, but is isn't even 3 yet and he is so little that everything must seem HUGE to him, especially things like bears and lions, even if they are behind glass.

More highlights

Here I go again with the bullets:

• Caleb learned how to do "thumb up" this week (6/18/07) and has been eagerly showing everyone that he can do it.
• Caleb started swimming lessons two weeks ago (6/13/07) and is doing great. I expected him to be super nervous and stubbornly refuse to participate but he is taking to the water like a little fish. He won't put his face in the water, but for a kid who has only gone in the pool a couple times that isn't a big surprise. He was even jumping off the side of the pool into the water last week!
• Funny story: On our way home from daycare one day, Caleb grabbed his upper lip and said "Ow!". I asked him what was wrong and his reply was "My mustache hurts". Too cute!
• I think we can safely say that Caleb is potty trained! He still wears a pull-up at night but I am not worried about it. He sleeps so deeply that he just doesn't realize he needs to go and I refuse to get him out of bed in the middle of the night to make him try. He still wants help using the potty and for now I am alright with that as well.
  
• We went camping recently (6/15/07) with some friends and had a great time. Scott dunked his cell phone in the lake but we managed to get it dried out and working so I let him live. Caleb did great and only asked to go home at the very end. We got rained out the last morning but we were all so tired we didn't care and headed for home.
• We have been doing a lot of geocaching or "treasure hunting" as Caleb calls it. Found some great caches and met some great people
• My neighbor had a garage sale this past weekend and let me put some stuff in it. We sold quite a bit of stuff and made$22.50. Not a ton of money but more than if we had given it directly to Goodwill like we had originally intended.

I am hosting bunco night at my house this month on Wednesday and I have to get my house super clean in the next couple of days. Unfortunately, I have to continue the constant battle with clutter AND deep clean at the same time which makes things hard, especially with a toddler running around. I tried to get a bunch of stuff done this weekend, but just couldn't do much and entertain Caleb at the same time. I let him play in the backyard where I could see him while I did the dishes, but I was checking on him so often I still didn't get anything done. Scott spent the morning golfing 18 with Marty so he wasn't any help and then he wanted to work on the pergola refinishing when he got home so that didn't give me any relief either. Finally got Caleb down for a nap and then I had to go grocery shopping.

Hopefully I can make it through the next few days without passing out or screaming, but I am not making any promises.

Sara