Vintage clothing vendor I'm trying to locate!

Found her! Soiree Vintage!

Cortland and his jazz hands!

 Dr. Rosenthal, Cortland's functional neurologist, has assignments that are already starting to help.

• One of his things we are doing is dancing to jazz. He said Cortland's brain over thinks processes and jazz puts it in order. Dr. Rosenthal has weird exercises, but great results!

• Spinning to the right resets his brain.
• Walking forward while talking about future events, and backwards when talking about past events.
• And my homework is to tape a giant calendar month on the ground so he can use his whole body to figure out time passing.

It's interesting and I understand it and see the results in practice, but have no idea how it works!

Yarn for Ravelry

Messaging Between Me and a Newishly Old Friend

Ciara, Lauren and I had a previous conversation about gifts and I told her I give everyone yarn. (I would too, if it meant it would be regifted back to me!) I guess we never got to the explanation and Lauren didn't realize knitting is my thing.

Lauren: Hey upcoming birthday girl!! What are your favorite color combinations? Or what colors do you find you wear a lot? Reds, oranges, blues, greens, pinks, blacks... Throw me a bone or you will be getting yarn for your birthday!

Me: Oh Lauren, if you only knew...

I am sooo addicted to the show Hoarders. The one I just watched had a daughter who wanted to throw away 10 boxes of yarn and her mother told her that if she did - they were through. Sadly, I'm siding with the mother on this one. Even after I saw the dead mice in the yarn stash, I side with the mother. Lord help me.

I'm a knitter to the core. I currently have 8 projects on needles right now. I know that if it ever becomes necessary to hide yarn purchases from Alan, one of the best places is in the arms of his suit jacket since he never wears it.

All that to say, if yarn came to me for my birthday I would throw it on the bed and roll all over it like catnip.

Lulu

Sticky sees an ER

UPDATE: Baby was fine the next morning and all was right with the world.

"It's only 7:30, maybe you should take him to the ER?" Truer words were never spoken, but I would have not thought of them on my own.

When my dad almost cut off the tip of his finger while working with sheet metal, his answer was,"Meh, it's only a scrape. Super Glue will hold it on just fine." We just never went to the ER. Maybe my family only got hurt or sick during regular business hours?

Thank goodness Ciara was there with some common sense. Sticky had an allergic reaction to penicillin Monday but it didn't look too terrible on Monday when I took him to the Pediatrician. By last night at 6:30 he was a hot mess. Literally. His fever was 102.4, his legs and armpits were fire engine red. So were his ears and they were starting to swell like cauliflower. And his little hands, oh, those little hands. Swollen and red with hives. Alan said it was was so sad that even his itchers iched.

They gave him oral steroids and lots and lots of Benadryl. By 10pm he was home and sleeping like an angel.

This was about 2 hours after the steroids started working.

Grace Ann

Grace Ann passed away last night. We don't know if it was her heart or pneumonia, but we do know she will be so missed. Anyone who met her loved her. The only thing in life she ever asked for was to be held and snuggled. I know she gave to us more than we could ever give to her.

Grace Ann Von Twinkle, we love you and will miss you forever.

From James

It is with a heavy heart that I announce the passing of my wife, Carroll. She was dearly loved and will be greatly missed.

After a wonderful birthday for our daughter on the 19th, Carroll, Lilly, and I took off for the Hill Country to visit family and friends. While there, Carroll noticed certain changes that encouraged her to make one last trip and that was to Georgia to visit Lilly's great-grandmother on my side of the family. From the first time they met, She and my grandmother had a close relationship. We stayed only a day due to the changes Carroll, and even I had now started to notice. 

By the end of Saturday, our first leg of the trip home, Carroll exhibited signs of a stroke, but told me that she was just tired. I later realized that it was also symptomatic of the tumor progression. We left on our last leg of the journey home with Carroll in pain from excruciating head aches, and with her heavily medicated I called ahead to have Hospice care and her mother meet us at the house.

She passed away at home late last night having finished the trip that she had started to say good bye to loved ones. Funeral arrangements have not been made yet, but will be announced as soon as they are made. If you can think of anyone that may not get this message, please feel free to pass it on in any form that is needed. Thank you for all of your support and prayers for us in the past, going forward, but especially now.

James & Lilly Pickering

Undone by Wheezer

If you want to destroy my sweater. Woah woah a woah. 
Hold this thread as I walk away. As I walk away! 
Watch me unravel, I'll soon be naked. 
Lying on the floor, Lying on the floor! I've come undone. 

I heard this song today and thought, "Hmmmm, this sweater must have been knitted from the top down or it wouldn't unravel." I must not have listened to this song since I've started knitting. 

Sword Fight!

Bumming Around

My husband just came home and said a friend from Austin called and invited him to come down for the  UT game this weekend. He told me, "That sounded pretty cool, but then I thought..." (and here's where he just started floating in a boat down Shit Creek without a paddle) "...nah, I think I'll just want to be boring bum around the house all weekend like we always do." (and then the boat capsizes)

My response was less than stellar. "Bum around the house like you always do? If you want to go then I'm okay with that, but know that you will be leaving a normal wife and returning to a crazy person. Please don't think I look forward to weekends because I miss having the freaking lawn mowed!"

With Cortland hanging on Alan's back while he's juggling a baby and I'm making supper, "See that? See this thing you're doing right now? That's the 'bumming around' we do!"

"So I don't care if you go. Truly, you deserve some time off, but I better get some acknowledgment that your going will turn me into a crazy person by Sunday, and not just because I got 'bored' 'bumming around!'"

I think jewelry would help.

Poops and Heritage

Much blog fodder in a three minute timeframe.

MOMMY: Who has poops?


CORTLAND: Me! I have poops! Jesus poops.

MOMMY: Well, yes. I imagine Jesus pooped.

A couple seconds later...


MOMMY: Oh Cortland! You have MAN poops. ***gaggaggag***

MOMMY: Your Grandpa Gunn had poops that smelled awful like this. You got this trait from him. You never met him, but boy did his poops stink.... You would have liked him.


CORTLAND: Did he like corn? I have Man Poops!

MOMMY: Yeah. Oh joy.

As a Matter of Written Record:

ADDENDUM
If a day is missed the 30 days DOES NOT start over, the missing day just gets tacked onto the end.

Heh, it's in writing so it can't be changed, Alan. Ha!

My Princess Crown is Tilted

Just so you all know that despite the ever-amazing persona I put forth, sometimes my days are just meant to be gotten through.

Email response just sent to a good friend:

I'm mad at my work mates today, too. Cortland is complaining about everything and is carting - literally carting - stuffed animals to the kitchen while I'm making dinner. And Sticky is s.o.b.b.i.n.g because I yelled "NO!!!!!" at him when his hand grabbed the oven door. Thank god it was the top oven and it was just the cool seal and not metal. 

I got no sleep because Sticky picked up on the crazy llama-drama concerning his his mommy and daddy during trick or treating last night. He was on high alert all night. Holding him, rocking in a chair with his eyes wide open. It was heartbreaking. So now he's exhausted but won't go to sleep for naps.  

Of course this very second both are eating spaghetti and laughing. Sticky is making Cortland laugh by rubbing sauce all over his belly like it's lotion and Cortland is making Sticky laugh by smearing sauce all over his face in an imitation of Sticky. 

And somehow I made up this crazy '30 days of sex challenge' with Alan and I DO NOT WANT TO FOLLOW THROUGH TONIGHT BECAUSE WHAT I REALLY WANT TO DO IS PUT IN EARPLUGS AND SLEEP THIS DAY GONE. Too much information???  

I love you! I feel better already just venting.

So there you have it. It's not the most normal of my days, but it is still one of those days.

Meet Our Newest Member!

INTRODUCING STICKY!!!!!!!!!!!!

I got permission from the powers-that-be to post pics!

Give Mia Kiss!

Binky Detox fail! We're not ready to give it up yet. Sanity in the Christensen house rules again. I finally have a name for myself for Sticky. He calls me Mia. As in I say, "give me a hug!" And there you go. Mia. The name thing has been a struggle for a month. I felt uncomfortable having him call me mama or mommy. I'm not either of those things and as reunification is the plan, I think it would be inappropriate. We tried Mimi for awhile, but that didn't feel right either. Too old sounding. So Mia it is. I like it.

And in other news Cortland is doing great! He turned four last week and talks and talks and talks... And he tested in the average range on the Peabody test for his neurological stuff! Yay Cortland! He has worked so hard and is amazing. He has gotten to drop down to OT once a week and his new goals include pedaling a tricycle and swinging by himself.

Swim lessons were a smashing success. He will now lay on his back in the bathtub to rinse his hair. He thinks if feels neat when the water fills his ears.

Binky Detox

So about the time we get the sleep thing licked I come up with the bright idea to mix it up again.

We are getting off the Binky. I say we because this is a whole family Binky Detox. The baby is making sure that if he has to suffer then we allllll have to suffer! Nights aren't as bad as naps. Once he falls asleep at night he's down until 7:30. Nap time, however, he has decided this whole Binky-less thing sucks and he's having none.of.it!

So for the last two days the poor child has been walking around with red-rimmed eyes and is crabby like a snowcone without a cup. And I didn't think he'd been here long enough to have hidden Binky's all over the house, but I found another one in the chair this morning. He's a smart cookie and I bet he anticipated this whole thing.

And PS - Peapod will now be known forever and always as Sticky. He is the stickiest kiddo I have ever seen and I think he's taken to heart the natural hair conditioning properties of mayonaise and peanut butter. So Sticky it is, and Sticky it stays!

Internets, Meet my Cheeks

Don't you just hate it when you essentially pin a sign to your forehead for all of the internets to see that says, "I'M A MORON AND A COMPLETE NUTBAG?"

We bought Cortland a new Britax Frontier 85 car seat so Peapod can have Cortland's Britax Boulevard since Peapod's now 30" and can't be in his infant seat any longer. (Yay Peapod! What a way to grow!) Alan and I hooked the new seat up with the LATCH system and it wiggled all over the place. It didn't just wiggle - it W~I~G~G~L~E~D. We decided then and there the seat was a big piece of junk and stomped back into the house to start all over again with researching seats and checking if others had this problem. (I stomped, Alan skipped. He's an even-tempered sort of fellow)

All I could find (again) were raves about how great this seat was. Liars.

So instead of thinking, "Hmmmm, could it be me?" I stopped all research and posted a review of the seat on BabiesRus. Yup. Right then and there I decided that this seat was horrible and all of the other millions of peeps who loved this seat must have just fallen off of the turnip truck and didn't love their children and had no idea that they were traipsing all over the kingdom with a w~i~g~g~i~l~y booster seat and oh.my.god what is wrong with them!

And then I found this website HERE.

And then (and this is the biggie) THIS. It's a review of the Frontier 85. Boring to those who didn't just buy one of these POS. Except there's this little sentence toward the bottom that changed my world. It says that LATCH isn't to be used if a kid weighs more than 40 lbs. Whaaaaa?????

So the seat wrestling begins again. And here's where I showed my ass to the internets. I finally picked up that handy book Britax supplied in the box with the seat. I didn't know there was this  little block that flips out from the bottom to stabilize the whole shebang. A sort-of important clue as to why the seat was a tiny big moveable the 1st go-around.

I wrote to BabiesRus begging them to please not post my review, that Car Seat Install Fever is real and it's treatable with the right medication.

Ode to If You Give a Pig a Party by Laura Numeroff

When the Mommy's tummy hurts endless questions make her ears hurt.

And when her ears hurt, it makes her head hurt.

And when her head hurts, it makes her eyes hurt.

And when her eyes hurt, she just wants to lay down and go back to bed.

And when she just wants to go back to bed she remembers that she has to get everyone ready to get out the door in 25 minutes.

And when she remembers that she has to get everyone out the door in 25 minutes it makes her tummy hurt.

Sleep

Our little visitor has had a few sleep issues, but *fingers crossed* things are on the upswing. He just did a little cry, which, three days ago, would have morphed quickly into a BIG cry, but seems to have settled himself back down in a few seconds. Shock! So excited. Maybe I won't have to sleep on the floor next to the crib tonight.

He's such a sweet baby. We're learning sign language and he's doing great with "more." I'm also trying to get him to put his sippy cups back on the table when he's done. Heh, a girl can dream!

ETA: Peapod slept all night! Without me on the floor! Yay Peapod!

Visitor

They are cute so we will continue to feed them in the morning.

We have _____ (no blog name yet) in our house right now because Marla has Strep. _____ (no blog name yet) misses his Mommy (our niece) and his Great Grandma (Alan's Mom.) (Now Marla, don't get in your car and swoop over here. We'll be there at 1, promise!) (And he's eating breakfast right now and talking up a storm, so no lasting harm from missing his girls.)

_____ (no blog name yet) got a pretty good nights sleep as long as I held him in the rocker all night long. I think I slept a little because 7am seemed to come pretty quickly. I forgot how nights with a baby was. Oh, wait, I didn't have nights with a baby. I had nights with Cortland and he was a sleeping champion.

I love this baby. I love his smile and his giggle and yes, even his crying. He's so precious. It's good to have a little one in the house again.