Our Murhpy Bed

This is my new favorite baby product!

George has been home recovering from his sinus surgery. He says it is so much worse than he ever anticipated. The doctor had told him to take two weeks off from work but I know George thought he would have returned to work today. He mostly sleeps and can’t be up more than 15 minutes. He’s having a difficult time tolerating the pain meds too. We all had to take him to his dr. this morning to have all the packing removed-it sounded painful. I’ve been trying to keep the kids busy and quiet so they don’t bother him as well as help George with whatever he needs. Needless to say, we are all tired around here. God has been gracious though. The boys are being patient with George and with me. And I have managed to not lose my mind:) Ethan keeps planning what he and George will do when he is better. In the midst of everything, our murphey bed was ready to be installed so they came today and installed it. It’s very cool and blends in perfectly with the floor. Our first visitors to try it out will be at the end of October when my parents come for a visit.

Around my house, we’re always looking for stuff to do with the kids. I always end up hearing about a fun event or festival that we missed out on because I didn’t know about it. I just learned about a cool new widget that can be installed on a blog, social networking site, or website. ParentsConnect.com provides information about upcoming events and activities in your area. Anyone who visits your blog or site can then type their zip code into the widget to see what’s going on in their area. Go check out their website to find out more and to install the widget. After installing the widget, register your blog or website, because they are having a contest to see whose widget gets the most views. If your blog or site gets the most views, you win $1000.

George had his sinus surgery yesterday. We had arranged for his mom to come the night before so she could watch the kids since I would be with George. Originally he was slated to be first in line for surgery but the day before, he was placed to second. His mom had to leave around 2pm and we realized as we were on our way to the surgery center that there would be no way we would be home by 2pm. So we arranged for last minute babysitting for yesterday afternoon (thanks Cathy and Steve!). It’s a good thing we did because his surgery ended up being delayed even more when the machine broke that the dr. intended to use during the surgery. He decided to go without it and instead just go by the CT scans but we had to wait for someone to courier them from forty-five minutes away. Another person ended up going next for surgery while we waited for the scans so he didn’t go into surgery until about 2pm. What a long day! I was productive with my time though, I read one entire book and worked on two others. I worked on invitations for the boy’s birthday party and I even went next door to the mall and did some Christmas shopping. I saw Dr. Phil and Oprah and more news than I care to watch. The dr. came at 4:30 and said he was finished and that everything went fine. I waited and waited expecting them to call me back. The front desk staff closed up for the day and soon I was all alone in the waiting room and I began to wonder if they had forgotten all about me:) At six a nurse came and said George was having some trouble with the anesthesia and she would come and get me soon. Eventually I was allowed back to recovery. There were only two nurses left and the cleaning staff had started cleaning up. I could tell they were anxious to leave. Poor George was not ready to get up and leave as he felt horrible but the nurse wanted to clock out at 7pm so we ended up leaving. When we got home it was such a relief to know the kids had been cared for so well by their grandma and then by George’s boss and his wife. The kids had a blast with their sitters and I don’t think they even noticed we were gone all day:) This morning Ian said “fun, Miss Cathy.” And even better, she had made a dinner for us which I got to have by myself at 9:00:) I was up a lot during the night with George and also with Ethan who had bad dreams and a wet bed. George has been sleeping all day today and struggling to get past the symptoms of the anesthesia. I’ve been keeping busy being a nurse and keeping the kids from disturbing him. They have been very gracious and Ian seems to have figured out that there will be no wrestling or pillow fights with dad today. A friend brought dinner by tonight which was awesome (thanks Kristine!). I just love the way God provides in unexpected ways!

I strongly dislike snakes. They are at the top of my list of creatures that I freak out about when they are near. For the past month or so we’ve had a black snake that has been constantly getting onto our back porch. We have a large screened in back porch where the kids ride their bikes, play ball and where our pool is so we are out there all the time. When I see one on the porch we do not step foot out there until my husband comes and takes care of it. I think that the one that keeps lurking out there was a momma who layed eggs on our porch (is that what they do?). I found two smaller snakes this past week out there and because they were smaller I had more guts to take care of them myself. One of them kept lunging at me and in the process of trying to get it out the door, I think I killed it. The other one decided to go swimming with us in the pool but that made it easier to get because I caught it with a net. I was proud of myself for conquering nature. But after the little snake incident, momma snake came looking all around the porch for them and when George tried to get it out the door, it jumped up three feet and tried to bite him. Yikes! He got it out the door but it was back again today. I am really passed any tolerance I may have had for nature at this point. I called a neighbor and her husband came and killed it for me. Thank you, thank you, thank you! Apparently our property is a favorite hiding spot for snakes in our neighborhood. I frequently hear of incidents of people walking by our house or driving by and seeing a snake slither from our property. Recently a friend saw a rattle snake in our yard. I draw the line at poisonous snakes. If one gets onto our porch or in our house, I am getting a hotel room and calling a realtor to have our house listed immediately. Living in the country is not my thing, guess I’m a city girl at heart:)

Today was Ethan’s first day of Pre-K. He’s going to school every day now, a big change for all of us!

Ethan has been doing Happy Feet soccer the past couple of years at his preschool. We decided to enroll him in their Saturday program as well where they learn to play the game. They start out each Saturday by practicing and then divide into teams and play a game. It’s really a great program.

This morning we went to Ethan’s open house at his school. We met his teacher and learned about everything he’ll be doing this year. I looked at the curiculum they are using and to be honest, Ethan was doing that level of work when he was 2. I talked with her about his reading skills and that he recently started learning multiplication. She said she would provide him with his own worksheets to do in class and send him home with “homework” so that he wouldn’t get bored. I really appreciated her saying that because we’ve been concerned about him getting bored. His teacher last year expressed concern about him getting bored in school and he has even said to us that he is bored. Not sure that he’ll like getting homework though:) I’ll also sign him up again for Happy Feet soccer and My Gym. We then picked up our friend Miss Karen and went with her to take some brand new clothes to a day care center. She has a ministry called Never Naked Children’s Clothes and gives brand new clothes to less fortunate children. The boys always love going to the day care center though it’s hard for them to understand that they can’t stay and play all day. We always have so much fun with Miss Karen, thanks for including us!

I had a couple of Dr.’s appointments yesterday so I got a sitter (thanks Rachel!) and also met George for date night. I keep having trouble with my allergies and so I went back to my allergist yesterday. She thinks that the bacteria in my sinus’s isn’t going completely away so whenever I am exposed to whatever I am allergic to, the sinus infection returns. So I have a CT scan next week and they may want to check my immune system. Then I had a endemetrial biopsy at another Dr.’s visit. My doctor wants to do surgery in my uterus to cauterize it so the first step was a biopsy (not sure when we’ll schedule the surgery since George is having surgery next week and will take a couple of weeks to recover). I did okay during the biopsy but then she had to show me the sample she took, then I felt ill and had to lay down for a little while (why do dr’s have to do that?). I enjoyed a trip to the toy store without the kids and got some great deals. I got to look at things closely and not have little people ask me to buy them toys every 5 seconds. George and I went to a nice restaurant near the inlet and had a nice dinner and then went to see the Time Traveler’s Wife (wasn’t that nice of him to go to that movie?). It was a good movie, yet sad.

We went with Miss Karen today to the beach. She is a friend who is our main babysitter for the boys and they dearly love her. One of the beaches in our area has a reef and when the tide is out it creates a bathtub effect which is great for little ones. We explored in the tide pools and saw fish, crabs and even sea slugs (one of them sprayed purple dye at Miss Karen!). The boys had a great time exploring and swimming.