Bye-bye bubby

Well, I did it. Cold turkey. No looking back now. They're all cut up and in the garbage. No more giving in to the urge to use them. Now, we just have to make it through the withdrawal. I'm not sure how that's going to go. I assume it will just take a few days, but it's going to be rough.

That's right, no more binky for Miles. I've been thinking that I should do it for a while, but I've been dreading it. We have let him use the binky only to go to sleep for several months now and we figured that it’s time to wean him the rest of the way. We stopped Tess around 1 year, and Miles will be 2 in December, so he’s getting pretty old for a binky. Anyway, I had a horrible, horrible drive home with Miles on Wednesday night from Tooele (1 hour and 15 minutes of screaming; by the time we got home he was hoarse and just “beside himself”) and so I figured, hey-he's screaming his head off anyway; I'll just put him to bed with no binky and he can scream some more. And, miraculously it worked! He screamed for about a half-hour more and then zonked out for the whole night. (I was really expecting the 3 a.m. scream for the "bubby.")

Today at naptime there was another half-hour of screams, (and I'm not sure what happened tonight because I'm at craft night with my girlfriends right now.)

Bye-bye bubby!

Blacksmith Fork Canyon

This past weekend we went camping to our favorite spot. It's up Blacksmith Fork Canyon and it's a really beautiful place. There are two spots that we love, that we have marked as waypoints in the GPS, and fortunately we got one of the two this time. It's right by the river and far enough off the road that it seems private. There are huge trees all around the site so there is shade all day long, and even if it rains our stuff doesn't get too wet because of all the tree cover. It's awesome.

We just did the normal camping stuff: roasted hot dogs, made peach cobbler in the Dutch Oven, waded in the river (at least for as long as our feet could handle it because it was freezing!), went for a long, beautiful hike, played in the dirt, and drove into Logan once to go out to eat (doesn't everyone do that when they're camping?!) I believe that Miles single-handedly raised the level of the water in the river by the sheer number of rocks he threw in it over the 3 days we were there. He couldn't get enough of it.
Tess's favorite game was called the "Bashing Game." There were two small green branches with the leaves still on them with which she and Miles would each "bash" each other. The idea was to just bash the other's branch but, more often than not, Tess would bash Miles in the face instead. He was a pretty good sport about it (I don't think it really hurt him; just annoyed him.)


Tess and Bryan also climbed some small "cliffs" in our campsite. (They are really just huge rocks, but they preferred to call them cliffs; I guess it seems more exciting that way!)

Early Sunday morning, I could hear the rain on the trailer and I said to Bryan "I'm thinking about all our stuff getting wet out there, like the cards, our magazines, the plates, the paper towels, etc." (this was before I knew that stuff didn't get wet in the rain...because I went out to gather it all in and it was dry!) Anyway, after my comment Bryan said "I'm thinking about how bad I need to barf right now." Poor guy...I guess the food he ate at the restaurant in Logan didn't agree with him (although we all ate the same stuff and we were fine.) Anyway, he soon was outside adding to the level of the river himself. (Funny side note: Miles is in the stage where he imitates every sound he hears, like airplanes, birds, someone whistling, someone singing, someone hurling up last night's dinner... It was hilarious to hear Bryan puke and then two seconds later hear Miles mimic the sound. I felt so bad for Bryan but I was cracking up at Miles. Bryan probably didn't find it so funny.)

So, after that, we decided it was time to pack up and head home. All in all, we had a really fun trip.

Ouch!

Well, we had an eventful day...we had two of Tess's best little girlfriends from Riverdale come over for a playdate. After lunch they decided to get in "dress-ups" and then play in the basement playroom. So Tess came running out in her plastic high heels and when she made the u-turn from the hallway around the banister to go down the stairs, her shoe slipped right out from under her and she biffed it on the wood floor. She immediately started screaming, more vehemently than usual, so now I'm checking everywhere for blood and can't find any. Then, I see this little drip of blood on the bottom of her earlobe so I turn the earlobe over to find a huge deep gash there. Apparently she (somehow!) hit the back of her earlobe on the corner of our banister.

I took her to the doctor's office and the nurse there described it perfectly--she said that from the back it looked just like someone had had her earring pulled clear down through her earlobe. Miraculously the front of her earlobe looks as good as new! Anyway, they decided to glue it shut instead of stitches and I think she'll be fine. (In the meantime, I carted all 4 kids to the doctor, because I didn't have the friends' mom's cell number. So, right in the doctor's office while Tess was crying, lying on the exam table, their frantic mom called because she was in our driveway to pick up the kids but nobody was answering our door.) Crazy stuff!

But, all's well that ends well.

Miles...

I haven't posted about Miles for a while....what a kid. I'll tell you what, that boy is a really happy kid. Until he's not. There is no in between, "I'm getting whiny," time. It's just "happy" to "I AM REALLY TICKED OFF AND I'M GOING TO SCREAM MY EVER-LOVIN' BRAINS OUT!" I'm really trying to work with him on the screaming thing, because I've about had it. (Bryan had it long ago...) I know that most of it is because he doesn't have the words to express when he's frustrated or needs something from me. So I've been trying to teach him to just say "Mama" when he needs something so that I'll give him my full attention and try to figure out what he wants. Because if it gets to the point that he wants something and I haven't already figured out what it is...the screams come.

The other day Bryan installed a storm door for us, so he was outside on the front porch for several hours. (Outside. With the doors and windows shut.) When he came in he said, "I bet the neighbors think we torture our kid in here all day from the amount of blood-curdling screaming going on every five minutes."

Gotta love toddlers...

(However, he started saying "hi, buddy" to me a few days ago and it's so stinkin' cute. Instead of "buddy," it's "bubby" so it almost sounds like he's saying, "hi, baby." I love it.

"Noi, noi, noi"

So, Miles started making this funny noise when he's in his highchair eating. We think it means "more," but he knows the sign for "more" and he has used it properly for a long time now...so we don't know why he changed to this noise. Anyway, it's dang cute.

Girls' Night

Last night I had a fun girls' night with two old roommates from my freshman year at USU. We have stayed friends through all the years, through kids, husbands, stepkids, and the craziness that goes along with them. All of our birthdays fall within a 2-week period so we like to get together for dinner to celebrate. We pigged out and then just stayed up talking and laughing (and even crying a little!) until midnight. It was a great night.

so much technology...!

Well, I've been really reluctant to start an official blog. Many, many people have told me that I should blog, because I currently send a regular e-mail to friends and family that includes pictures and news about me and my family. It's basically a blog already, but just in e-mail form. I have always been nervous to blog because I just don't know if I want all that information about me (and especially my children) just "out there" in the blogosphere, where anyone can read it. I also know that I can make a blog private, but that's kind of a pain for readers to always log in for the privacy feature.

But then this week I decided to join Facebook and it has been so much fun catching up with old friends and reading the day-to-day activities of people I know and love. As I've connected with old friends I've discovered that many of them have blogs and I really have enjoyed reading them. So....I figured I'd give it a shot. I still have some misgivings about blogging (I don't know why!), but I guess I'll try it for a while and if I don't like it I can always go back to the more old-fashioned e-mail correspondence. (Hey-at least I'm not sitting down and writing out my letters longhand...I may be old-fashioned but I'm not THAT old-fashioned! :)

So that's it for my first blog entry. I'm going to play around with blogspot and see if I can bring in some of my older stuff (the e-mails and photos) before I write much new stuff. Or, I may wimp out and pull everything off completely! We'll just have to see.

Swimming

I put Tess in a swimming class and she just finished up this past week. She went for two weeks, 4 days a week. (I guess 8 days is pretty typical for swimming lessons…I am a little surprised; I thought that they lasted longer than that…oh well!) Anyway, she had a blast. Her teacher was really cute with the kids; some of the other teachers just looked bored, like they wished they were anywhere but there. But Tess’s teacher was really fun and made the kids laugh a lot. I think she really did learn from her lessons—the main thing she learned is not to be so afraid of the water, which is great! We went water-skiing this past Tuesday and all she wanted to do, over and over, was jump out of the boat and swim around. Then, we also went to the aquatic center on Saturday and, again!, she just wanted to jump to us and swim back to the ledge, then jump and swim back, over and over again. I’m really glad that she’s feeling comfortable in the water. We also got Miles in the water both at the lake and at the swimming pool—so that’s real progress—he usually just screams until he’s back on dry land again.

Speaking of water-skiing, we went to Willard Bay on Tuesday and had the lake almost completely to ourselves. It was wonderful. My niece Bayli learned to ski and was thrilled to be able to do it. I, however, had a not-so-good experience on one run…I wiped out worse than I have in a very long time and I really jacked up my neck. For this whole past week my neck has been really sore; I hope I don’t wake up one morning with terrible whiplash, unable to move at all, like Bryan did last summer after a biking accident.

Also last week….I’m another year older. My birthday was last Monday and it was a very nice day. Tess and Bryan made and decorated my cake together. Man, I was just about to type “I can’t believe I’m 31.” Then I realized, holy crap! I’m 32! My, how time flies!