Backyard, Pool, Sickness, and a Funny Kid

-It's my 11th day of being sick today.  I still feel terrible.  I don't think I've ever been this sick this long.  I've been sicker than this, for sure, but I've been fairly sick with no letting up for 11 days now.  It's really getting on my nerves.  And it's keeping me from getting a decent night's sleep, which in turn makes my nerves easier to get on in the first place.

-My backyard is a disaster.  The guys are off for the next three days because of the long weekend.  In the meantime, my backyard looks like this:

They're killing the grass we have left, which was previously quite nice.  And there is no usable space for Noah to play in.  Meanwhile, it is freaking 110 degrees outside (literally), and my pool, which would be so wonderful right now, looks like this:

Not exactly swimmable.

Everything looks so small in those pictures.  Granted, the pool isn't enormous.  It's only as big as the town's bylaws will allow because of how far it has to be from the fence on all sides (and we are putting a fence down the middle of the yard).  But the pool seems much larger in person.

It's hard to believe it will be up and running in a week.  And after watching them work for the past 5 days, Justin and I are actually shocked at how little we are paying.  It's shocking to see everything that is involved in installing an inground pool. 

-The swimming pool fencing bylaws in my town are very strict.  You can see in the one picture that my deck is 6-7 feet above grade  It then has a 42 inch railing.  We were going to put a 5 foot fence all the way across the middle of the yard.  Apparently this is not good enough.  Apparently the deck has to have a 5 foot railing. Personally, I think this is ridiculous.  If someone can manage to scale the railing as it is, they will plunge to their death by falling 10 feet onto concrete.  They will definitely not be drowning in the swimming pool.  

My contractor was trying to find some way around this new section of the bylaw, like having an alarm installed on the sliding door.  Apparently that was rejected by the inspector.  So their new plan is to create a new 5 foot railing to go along the one side, only bring the fence up to the bottom of the stairs, and then skirt the one side of the deck that faces the pool, using fence boards.  I am crossing my fingers that this doesn't cost me extra money.

-We also have to install child safety locks on the four windows that face the pool.  Apparently it doesn't matter if they're second story, main floor, or basement.  I find this annoying, and I will not be keeping them on once the pool is finished and the inspector has come and gone.  They're supposed to prevent the windows from opening greater than 10cm (about 3.5 inches).  That is ridiculous.

I just want this to be done with.  This has been a long week and this coming week feels like it's going to feel like a month instead of 7 days.  Blaaaah.

-This post is most definitely coloured by the persistant throbbing in my head, which, as I mentioned, has been going on for 11 days.  I've taken 1000mg of tylenol four times today, and have not been able to get rid of it.  And I'm pretty sure I have PMS, as I'm expecting my period in 3 or 4 days.  Which also sucks.

-The good thing is always this:

His new thing is standing still for pictures (but not necessarily smiling) if I tell him he can see them afterward.  This facial expression cracks me up:

"Ok, I'll stand still, but I don't like it.  And I really want to see the picture right now."

He makes me laugh every day.  And he is starting to obey much more, which makes it much more tolerable when he doesn't obey, since that's no longer the 'rule'.  Time outs really have worked wonders in this house.

-We had a family photoshoot done on Wednesday.  We've never had out pictures done professionally before, and our photographer does amazing work.  I am very excited to see the pictures!  

Alright, I'm out of here.

Sick Again:(

For almost a week now I have been sick.  I think it's a mild flu.  I have a headache constantly, which radiates into my neck when I'm lying down.  I also have a slight cough, a dry throat, which is very sore, a slightly runny nose, and sore skin (a typical symptom for me when I am sick).  Every morning I wake up worse than I was the day before.  Of course, it's better than the stomach flu, which I had 3 times this winter, so I didn't bother to mention it.

But now Noah has it:(  His 13th illness.

He woke up to nurse last night burning hot.  Not sweating at all, but his whole body was burning hot, obviously fevered.  His fever, about 101 degrees, has persisted throughout the whole day, despite giving him Tylenol.  He is really tired and kind of irritable. Poor little nugget. He fell asleep for his nap almost 2 hours earlier than he normally would, and then I had a hard time keeping him awake when he was nursing already at 5:45pm. That is so unlike him.  He can stay awake and be happy almost indefinitely, it seems.

Plus he's been asking to nurse a lot today, which he hasn't been doing as much lately.  And he doesn't want food or water if I am low on milk (my supply is down because he's been nursing as little at 4 times a day this past week), he just wants to nurse. It's a comfort thing, which is completely fine, but combined with everything else it's a definite indicator that he's not doing well.

He fell asleep tonight by 7:10, and I had to push bedtime to be that late because I didn't want him waking up at 6am.  When I put him in his crib he was all limp. Normally he wakes up, rolls over, and sits up. At the very least he rolls onto his tummy. He hardly ever stays asleep when I transfer him anymore.  He was completely passed out.

Poor little guy.  I guess we had a good 2 months without illness... that's pretty good, right? 

I thought so, anyway.

Cycle #5

I'm late in posting this, of course.  Writing about cycle info just isn't high on my list of priorities when I have a rambunctious (but wonderful) 17 month old toddler running around.  However, this is my most reliable place to store information, so here it is.

Cycle #5 was very different than my previous cycles.  I ovulated (or appeared to ovulate) much earlier than I have been.

-It was a 31 day cycle.

-CD 1 was Tuesday, July 5.

-I had EWCM from CD 15 to CD 19 (July 19 - July 23).

-I had very sore nipples on CD 19 to CD 21.

-My period came on Friday, August 5.

-I think I ovulated on CD 19, July 23.

-My luteal phase was 12 days. I think.

So this cycle was 8 days shorter than my last two cycles, but my LP seemed to be one day longer.  I found it interesting that that change happened so quickly, instead of my cycles gradually getting shorter.  Also interesting is the fact that Cycle #6 seems to be following along in Cycle #5's footsteps.  EWCM on the exact same cycle days.  The difference this month is that I haven't had the super painful nipples.  Just slightly painful on CD 19.  This makes me doubt whether I really ovulated or not.  Not that I can really know for sure anyway.

I should be getting my next period just in time for our new pool to be open.  Because let's face it: despite all our efforts, we are not going to get pregnant by ourselves.  Stupid male factory infertility.  My body may appear to be fixing itself, but you just can't overcome MFI without ART.

A Pool!

Earlier today I spent 25 minutes writing this big long post about the big decision we were making, how we might possibly be getting a pool, but we were waiting for the contractor to come over to discuss the final price, so I didn't feel like it was final, yada yada yada.  I spoke of my fears, along with my reasons for wanting to do it despite my fears.

I wrote all this while Noah was playing with Justin.  Then he came upstairs before I could finish.  Then the contractor came over.  And the blog post never got finished.  It is now moot, because the decision is made.

We are getting a pool!

We are using 80% of our savings, which is freaking me out a little.  Okay, a lot.  But I decided that we need to make the best of where we live (ie. in the sticks), since we will probably never move.  And I didn't want to be so concerned with paying off the mortgage a little faster (which is what we've been using our savings for so far) that I would deny us the opportunity to bring something into our lives that would give us so much entertainment and enjoyment.  For 4 months a year, anyway.

Construction is set to start Monday.  Although it may start as early as Saturday.  The pool will be open the first week in September.  Of course, I really wish we had done this in May or June.  But oh well.

I'm excited!

17 Months Old

At 17 months, here is where Noah is at:

-He is probably about 24lbs.

-He is about 34.5 inches tall.

-He is in size 4 diapers during the day and night.

-He wears 24 month clothing, for the most part.  He still fits into 9 month shorts, but they have gotten pretty snug.  I'm trying to get through the rest of the summer with what I have, though.

-He nurses on demand, 7-8 times a day.

-He pretty much exclusively feeds himself.  Using a spoon and fork has become less messy this month, and he really enjoys it.  I can get him to eat pretty much any vegetable if I give him a spoon or fork to eat it with.

-He has 16 full teeth.  The only ones left are his 2 year molars.

-He has one nap a day, usually about an hour long.
-This month he's been sleeping 11.5-12 hours at night, getting up to nurse once. Bedtime is after 8:30pm most nights, and we've been sleeping in until at least 8:15am every morning.


-He still gets up to nurse once a night, but he seems to be consistently pushing this later for the past week and a half.  Almost every night he has slept 10 hours straight before getting up, sometimes sleeping until 7:30 (and then going back to sleep until 9:30!).  I'd like to think he is maybe night-weaning himself, but I know better than to think this will last.  Over a year ago he was consistently sleeping 10 hours straight before nursing, and that didn't last!

-He still does just three signs: nurse (the sign for milk), water (waves his hand up and down), and eat (sticks his finger in his mouth).  I don't do any other signs, because he picks up language easy enough.

-At 15 months Noah was saying 18 words. At 16 months he was saying 42 words.  At 17 months he is saying 79 words.

His old words that he's still saying are: Mama, Dada, uh oh, more, this, that, cat, night night, hot, up, yes, woof woof ("what does a dog say?"), baa ("what does a sheep/goat say?"), moo ("what does a cow say?"), car, ball, shoes, cracker, Noah, water, orange, clock, blech, hi, done, dirt, Bert, puff, swish, fluff, book, buzz, Papa, Nana, boo, fish, phone, again, home, sunglasses, Gramper, sit.

His new words are: stretch, glasses, food, laptop, love, hair, quack, bye, tshirt, shirt, aunt, poop, slide, cheese, Colton, danger, banana, feet, please, clock, cold, toes, ooo-ooo-ahh-ahh (monkey sound), bad, burger, boo-boo (as in, an owie), nurse,  block, fly, stuck, chalk, out, fit, hat, bye-bye, and shit (yeah, I'm not proud of that).

-After he poops (and sometimes beforehand) he will inform us by saying "Poop!  Poop!  Poop!"  He still doesn't really care if you change his diaper or not, though.  I think he might actually be content with a poopy bum all day long.

-Noah still loves to point out things that are hot.  He waves his hands around saying "Hot!  Hot!" and then blows air out his mouth like he's trying to cool something down.  He really pronounces the "t", and the way he says it is sooo cute.  He looks so proud of himself for knowing everything that is hot.

-His verbal comprehension continues to be above average.

-He still gets into everything and anything, but he is starting to obey the word "no" more often (up until the past few days, he seemed to think it was optional).


-He is a super-climber.  He wishes our entire house was his jungle gym.

-He loves pools!  He loves to swim.

-We started doing time outs this month.  Just 1 minute in his crib when he's been disobedient.  I resisted this for awhile because I didn't want him to have bad associations with his crib.  But then I figured it was much better for both of us if I did it anyway, rather than letting my frustration turn to anger and build to a boiling point.  The time outs are working, and I stay very calm.  I've felt much more 'in control' for the past month than I did before.

-Every month Noah gets better with strangers and with separation from Mommy.  He's much better when it's on his own terms, though.  He's still not okay with being left in the church nursery, but we're working on it.  For now, I'm spending most of the church service in there with him.  I'm not going to force it and make him scream for an hour and a half.  It will come.

-No more illnesses this month!  The count is still at 12.

-He has a thing for pretty blonde women.  I'm sure it's because I am blonde.  It's really funny though, how he'll warm up to a blonde who is about my age in about 30 seconds, and want to sit with them and cuddle with them.  Actually, come to think of it, we have a gorgeous model friend who is a brunette, and he has a thing for her, too.  What can I say, my boy has discerning taste;)

-He is such a cuddly, affectionate little monkey.  He loves to hug and be hugged, loves to get and give kisses, loves to sit in our laps.  He such a sweet little boy.

Sorry People

I apologize to all of my readers out there who are having difficulty commenting on people's blogs, even though they are logged into google.  I know my blog is causing trouble for some people, and you WERE able to comment anonymously and sign your name at the end. 

Until now.

There is a moron out there, who I am guessing is not a parent (and if s/he is, I feel sorry for his/her child), who has felt it necessary to be ignorant and rude on my blog more than once now.  Although the comments are actually laughable in their ridiculousness, I have no desire to be part of unkindness and drama (especially when it makes zero sense), so I've turned off anonymous commenting.

If you ARE having trouble commenting on people's blogs, if you right click on your Internet Explorer icon on your desktop, there should be an option to start InPrivate Browsing.  I've been able to fix my problem by doing that, so hopefully it'll work for you, too.

As for Anonymous... take a hike.  I can't believe I have to say it, because any decent person knows this, but: if you don't have anything nice to say, don't say anything at all.

My Little Mischief Maker

This month Noah has been especially mischievous.  He's always been a boundary pusher, and I've posted somewhat recently about his penchant for doing everything I don't want him to do.  This picture somewhat represents what Noah might like to do at any given moment:

I'll break it down for you.  He is holding a large, sharp fork, which he snagged from a kitchen drawer.  He has taken our bathroom garbage can, emptied it, and although you can't see it in this picture, it now contains my alarm clock.  He had put said garbage can and alarm clock into his car, and is attempting to join them, while holding the large, sharp fork.

This is very tame.  It is just the only picture I have of him engaging in activities with things I'd rather he didn't play with.

Moving along. 

Lately Noah has continued to push boundaries like crazy, both in 'secret' (when he thinks we're not watching) and for attention.  There have been a few particular instances lately that were hilariously funny after the fact, and I don't want to forget them. 

The following events are in chronological order.  They happened over the span of about a week and a half.  And they get better as they go along.


Number 1:

I was sitting at the kitchen table eating lunch and reading.  Noah had been playing with his toys independently (hooray!  a rare occasion), and all was very quiet.  After a few minutes I realized I'd been hearing a swishing noise for quite awhile, and it occured to me that I had no idea what he might be swishing around.  I figured he had reached up onto the bar-height dining room table and taken down a sheet or two of paper, and was playing with them on the hardwood floors.

Um, no.  I went into the dining room, where I saw Noah sitting in the middle of this:

That would be a wallet with approximately $3500 in cash spilling all over the floor.  Noah had climbed up onto the bar-height chairs, gotten the wallet from the middle of the table, and taken most of it out.  He apparently wanted to know what it felt like to be 'rollin in the dough.'



Number 2:

Noah went into my closet, opened the zipper of my purse, and got my deoderant out.  I told him to bring it to Mommy, and he started walking away from me.  I then told him very sternly to bring it to Mommy.  Amazingly, he started walking toward me to obey my command.  However, on the way he took the lid off of the deoderant and proceeded to shred it all over my carpet.

The bright side is, now when I turn on my dustbuster, it smells like Cool Breeze.


Number 3:

I stepped out onto the deck, leaving Noah inside, because I needed to start the barbeque.  When I tried to return to the house, I discovered that Noah had locked the patio door.

I'm locked out on the deck.  Noah is in the house.  Alone.  Smiling sneakily at me through the glass.

I did not realize he knew how to lock the door.  I am pretty sure he just realized it himself in that 30 seconds.

I had a small panic attack, until I realized that Justin was training in the garage, and therefore that door would be unlocked.  However, I did manage to get Noah to unlock the door and let me back in. 

I will be hiding a spare key outside my house in the very near future.


Number 4:

This one happened yesterday.  I left my dear angel for about 30 seconds in order to check my email.  I was sitting on my bed.  Suddenly Noah walks into my room and hoists a 2lb leaky bag of raw, bloody ground beef over his head and onto my comforter. 

"Here Mom.  I thought you should start dinner." 

There was a huge puddle of blood in the fridge (where the beef was originally in a bowl), and a trail of beef blood all through the kitchen, down the hallway, and through my bedroom, which is carpeted.  Not to mention the enormous blood stain on my comforter.  My king size comforter which does not fit in my enormous washing machine or dryer.

~~~~~~~

I'm not going to lie, two of these four events made me flip my lid.  They occured after a several hour long spurt of constantly interfering and refereeing his activities, saying no about 2347 times, and giving several time outs.  I wonder if you can guess which two.

He is awfully cute, though.





Playing in the Rain

Noah playing in the rain on Sunday with his cousin Mia:



Summer Updates

I haven't posted in a whole week, and I have several things to write about, so this will be a catch-all post.

Swimming

In the past week Noah has spent a lot of time in pools, and boy has he had fun!  4 out of 7 days he was in a big pool, and at 16 months he has gotten to the point that he is jumping off the side of the pool into my arms... or not even into my arms (!!!! kind of alarming). 

I need to get him some sort of floaty device.  I tried putting a life jacket on him, but he hated that.  It was too big and bulky.  I'm thinking one of those bathing-suit type things that has the removable floaty pieces? 

Since the pool scare last Friday, Noah has ended up underwater many times.  While he doesn't like it, he gets over in it about 4 seconds.  He hates floating on his back though.  I think he hates getting water in his ears (he also hates if I try to lay him back in the bath tub).  Who knows.

Napping

Unfortunately, this week we also hit a yucky nap regression.  Today was day 5 in that saga, and I am really hoping it will be over soon.  It started out the first two days with him only napping 45 minutes (as opposed to his usual hour).  The third day it was 35 minutes.  The past two days he has been waking up before the thirty minute mark.  Today he woke up 15 minutes after I left his room.  I have left him to cry it out but I don't think he really falls back asleep.  He'll be quiet for 5-10 minutes, and then start screaming again.  This goes off and on for an hour.  It's stressful for me.

At first I thought he was napping less because he had a few nights of sleeping 12 to 12.5 hours at night, and 12 to 12.5 hours is all the sleep he usually needs in a 24 hour period.  But then that was over and he was back to his normal 11 to 11.5 hours at night, and his napping got even worse.  So now I don't know what to think.

Without getting into too much detail, I have noticed in the past couple of months that Noah definitely sleeps like crap when he is overtired.  He was not overtired at the beginning of this craptastic napping spurt, but I think he is on his way in that direction now.  Luckily his night time sleep has not been affected as of yet... knock on wood ...

Playing

I am still making an concentrated effort to get out of the house with Noah on an almost daily basis.  He didn't used to need this, but as he gets older it becomes apparent that he is much happier when he gets to participate in activities outside of his regular routine.  Hence the swimming at various people's houses.  And playdates.  And going to the park.  Actually, about a week and a half ago Noah decided he didn't need his Mommy's help at the park anymore.  Suddenly he was going down big slides all on his own, not holding on to anyone's hands.  And climbing up 6 foot tall rock walls to the top of the playground.  All. On. His. Own. 

No, these are not things we urged him to do.  The slide - well, he just climbed up to the top of the playground and suddenly went down the slide before I could get around to hold his hands.  He just wanted to do it.  He would grin and go, "Ahh, ahh ahh" in a tiny, high, excited voice, and then go down the slide.  His grin would be replaced by a look of panic, accompanied by splayed elbows, as he was sliding, and then a joyful smile at the bottom.  "More!!!"  Back up, rinse, repeat.

The rock wall - I showed him how to climb it by doing it myself, and then I was sitting at the top of the playground and he just climbed up to me.  Saying "Mama.  Mama.  Mama.  Mama."  the whole time.  Justin was there by then, and was standing behind him to make sure he didn't plunge to his death (or a broken leg).  But he didn't even need to touch him.  I still can't believe Noah figured out that rock wall all on his own.  He climbed up it about 8 times.

And last Saturday, July 30, Noah's Dad, Gramper, and Papa built him his own playground!!!  I haven't taken an actual picture of ours yet, but it is this model:

Noah is a big fan.  Unfortunately, the slide is actually really tall, really steep, and really fast (it doesn't look like it in the picture, but it is).  So Noah can't go down it independently this summer.  Next summer I'll let him, but not this summer.

And he doesn't like the swings.  He's never been a huge fan of swings.  But he likes to climb up the rock wall/ladder and play in the fort.

******

So, that's what's been going on in our neck of the woods.  Tomorrow we head out of town for a family reunion.  I'm hoping we'll actually get to socialize, and not just chase after our adventurous 16 month old the whole time:)

Beware the Pool

We had such a fun afternoon today!   We went over to my friend Jenn's house right after Noah woke up at 3pm. Noah had such a fun time with her 4 year old daughter Ava. She was sooo good with him. When Noah was younger Ava was not very interested in him, but she was just doting on him and taking him all over the house, bringing him new toys to play with... it was adorable.

We swam in the pool for awhile. Noah ended up having a LOT of fun. He has never liked being in a pool before, unless he's on the steps splashing or in a kiddie pool.  However, I want my kid to like swimming, so I always bring him in anyway. This pool was the perfect height, because in the middle of the pool it was only up to my shoulders. So it was really the perfect height to walk around comfortably and still be immersed in the water. Once Noah got used to the temperature of water, he was so happy, splashing and kicking and wriggling his body with excitement, while laughing the whole time.  I wish I could have gotten a video.

After we were basically done swimming Jenn was sitting by the side of the pool holding sleeping Ethan (10 months old), and Ava and Noah were sitting on the side of the pool splashing their feet in the water. I was standing in the pool next to Noah, but talking to Jenn.   Suddenly she said "OH NO!!! GET NOAH!! HE'S IN THE POOL!!!" I looked to my left and Noah was floating about a foot under the water. He had literally just slipped in.  He was right next to me, but I didn't even notice because they were doing all that splashing!   Luckily Jenn was actually looking at the kids and told me as soon as it happened.   Noah was underwater for a maximum of 4 or 5 seconds.  Not too long, but still freaky

When he came up he was upset, but he didn't really even cry. He more complained, and seemed a little bit scared.   He asked to nurse right away (a comfort thing), so we did, and then he was totally fine.   I took him right back in the pool because I didn't want him to be terrified of the pool, and he was completely unaffected by it all.

I should mention that Noah HATES putting his face in water or when he gets water running down his face at all. So I really thought he would scream!  Crazy.


You know that surge of adrenaline you get when your kid is in danger, and your heart falls into your stomach??

I didn't get that. I was like "Holy shit!" (in my head, not out loud), and just picked him up and checked him out to make sure he was okay and started breathing again (he had kind of a hard time starting up breathing again for a couple seconds, but he didn't even cough or choke or anything, so he must have held his breath the whole time). My heart was pounding harder, but I didn't have that intense feeling that I usually get when Noah is in danger.

I was talking to my mom about how I didn't get that feeling and how I thought that was kind of weird.  But she kind of clarified it for me.  I grew up around a lot of water.  I was always around pools and on docks, and I saw little kids falling into the water off the docks fairly frequently (I also hear the stories fairly frequently).  And my parents/aunts/uncles would just reach in and pull the kid out. So it is just an idea that I am used to, I guess.  Sometimes kids fall into water when their parents are there, and you just pull them out again.  No big deal.

Plus I knew that Jenn told me that it happened right when it happened. If I had randomly looked and seen Noah floating under the water I would have had a friggin heart attack, because it would have been unknown. Like, was he dead? How long had he been down there??? But because Jenn told me right when it happened, I knew Noah had just slipped under, and it wasn't really a "near drowning" experience. So I didn't have that panic feeling. I just knew he was okay, because he was only under for seconds.
Anyway, that was our excitement for the day!  You can bet that I will be keeping an even closer eye on Noah when we're around pools from now on.  It's not like I was ever negligent, but now that I have actually had the experience of being right next to my kid and not even realizing he had slipped into the water, it makes me much more aware of how accidental drownings can happen, even when there are tons of adults around.