Kadie lost her third tooth this afternoon. She lost her first tooth the day before we all came back west for a visit in September, and her second tooth the Wednesday we were there. They were the bottom front two - the third tooth is the bottom one to her left of those two (the permanent ones still being only about half to two-thirds in). I have put"find a children's orthodontist" on my to-do list as the first two are coming in very crooked (not quite sideways, but nowhere near straight) and...

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Not me this time... Doing our weekly errands at Walmart, we walked past the jewelry section and I asked Kadie if she wanted to get her ears pierced, thinking I'd get the normal wide-eyed,"Nooooo," response. Instead, I got a wholehearted,"Yes!" Surprised, I asked her several times if it was what she wanted to do and she was all for it. We called Daddy to let him know what was happening, picked out a pair of crystal flower earrings (she kept going for the cartilage piercings - single studs and...

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Apparently, there was a glitch where I wasn't seeing about half the posts. Unfortunately, it's the kind of glitch that's hard to know about and report â€" kind of like asking,"all those NOT here, raise your hand." I realized something was off when Jeff started talking about something Lisa had written and I couldn't remember having read it. He fixed whatever it was last night and I had some catching up to do.We are uber busy, as usual. Today starts my third class: Social Psychology. I've read...

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I'm assuming that everyone is as busy as we are, either working or enjoying the summer sun and warmth...either that or the west coast has finally broken off and fallen into the ocean. If that were the case, however, I'm sure we would have heard about that - even if we never watch the news. We haven't been especially busy with anyting out of the norm, just the regular flow of every day life, but that keeps us hopping in and of itself. We went down to Dean and Kathy's on the 4th and spent a nice...

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Kadie has a baby brother on her mind lately (we have clarified this a few times and her preference is definitely for a boy). A few days ago, Kadie asked us, out of the blue, when we were going to bring a baby home. Yesterday, at church, she told someone that she was going to have a baby soon - which, of course, prompted a questioning look my way. When I smiled and shook my head, the lady chuckled and told Kadie,"Good luck with that." I don't know what has prompted this most recent bout of baby...

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Kadie is still running a low-grade fever (99 point something) and coughing, though not as frequently. Her nose is running (clear) and that's causing it to be very sore. Her eyes are very red and bloodshot, which I'm assuming is part of the fever and coughing. She's in pretty good spirits though and has done a beautiful job today of keeping still and resting. Her appetite is, of course, gone, but she's drinking water and has had some toast. I plan to put her in a bath soon with baking soda and...

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Here's my dilemma:Starting in September, I will have to fix Kadie's lunch every day. (Right now, the school feeds her.) 1. I cannot send anything with any form of peanut ingredient.2. I have a thermos container for hot foods, but it's only"rated" to keep food hot for about 4 to 5 hours. From the time we leave the house until Kadie eats lunch, it's about 5 to 6 hours.3. I need a good, healthy source of protein for her...which leaves out a lot of pre-packaged, convenience foods you can get at...

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We got a call from Kadie's school today around one, telling us that she had been acting listless so they had taken her temperature...101 degrees. We picked her up and took her home, but we're hoping that this is just a fluke and not another round with supervirus. When we got home, I took her temperature again and it was normal. An hour later, it was 99.6. I'm going to wait to see what the night brings, and what her temp is in the morning, but, with the last go 'round, she was temperature free...

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We spent a very quick 10 minutes at the doctor's today to find that Kadie was fine, except for that whole virus thing. She's still running a pretty high fever - up to 104.1 this afternoon - and has added diarrhea (where it comes from being that she hasn't eaten since Thursday night...) to her very short list of symptoms. Thankfully, I, at least, know that her ears are fine. Since I still have a stethoscope, I wasn't too worried about pneumonia or bronchitis, but I don't have an otoscope so I...

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We actually got a good helping of snow yesterday. Unfortunately, it was pretty much a 1 for 1 mix of snow and rain, so it was pretty wet and heavy and made the commute home a bear. They're calling for more to come some time on Saturday. I decided, on Wednesday, to stay home today to relax a little (make use of Monday being a holiday - four day weekend and all) and clean the house for the jewelry party I'm supposed to host tomorrow but, when Jeff got Kadie up this morning for me to get her ready...

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Just thought I'd share a proud parental moment. This morning, on our ride into work, Kadie counted (several times) from 1 to 100, without prompting from either of us. She didn't seem to stumble at all, which makes me think she's been able to do this for a while, but this is the first time we've heard her do it. She's been able to count up through the 20's for some time now, and we've occasionally stepped her through some of the bigger numbers, but we haven't focused on them, so I'm assuming...

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Christmas was good. Kadie woke up entirely too early, but she didn't start tearing into packages until we were all downstairs (which still happened faster than I had planned). After ripping into a package, she would inspect the goods and then hand them to me to open while she very tidily picked up all the paper scraps and put them in the garbage … don't know where that came from, but it was nice to not have to declare my living room a disaster zone. After everything was opened, we sat down for...

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We've been busy, busy, busy here. I'm getting over a very nasty cold that, thankfully, did not turn into much else. Also, very thankfully, it hasn't spread to Jeff or Kadie. Both Jeff and I are racing against deadlines at work but I got good news yesterday...my company is allowing us to have the 24th off as a paid holiday! Yea! I'm looking forward to a couple of days off (besides the 24th, 25th and 1st, I'm taking the 31st off as well) and a week or so of quieter days in the office (with most...

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That's what I read somewhere, once, while looking into insomnia...If all else fails, consider the nights a gift of time. That's all well and good on an occasional basis, but I think I've had my fair share of gifts and would really just like to get some sleep. Thankfully, tonight has been the worst in a long while. The last few weeks, I've been losing an hour or two at most but, tonight, I haven't slept more than that. Unfortunately, Tuesdays and Thursdays are our long days (Jeff has to cover...

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Busy time of the year, huh, guys? I hope your production goes well this weekend, Lisa. Even with some longer nights coming up, I guess it's good that the job allows for making up sick time. I'm looking forward to Thanksgiving as I don't have to do any work. We just drive down to Dean's and enjoy a full spread. He doesn't even really allow for donated dishes, so it's completely work-free (unless you count the endless running around I do, keeping track of Kadie and what she's terrorizing within...

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Yesterday, I was able to sit in on Kadie's class for about 50 minutes.When I went upstairs, I waited outside the classroom (which has large windows to both the outside and the hallway where I was) for the teacher to come get me. The children had just come in from outside and were all sitting down around the outside of the large center rug. The teacher was calling attendance (done by her looking at each student and saying,"Good afternoon, Kelly/Chris/Kadie," etc. - an assistant marks the...

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Apparently, I need a more permanent fix for my wrist. Any more juice in that wand? Jeff made a correlation the other day when my wrist started feeling a little sore again...I had also mentioned that my hips were feeling achy that day. Maybe it's my joints that are having some problems. Will have to look into that. I know joints have always been an Enzler issue...thanks, Mom! Anyways, I'm back to wearing the brace at work. It makes typing, shall we say,"interesting"? I'll deal with it though as...

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Kadie came home on Tuesday, telling us about the 7 continents. Of course, it doesn't quite sound like"continents" when she says it, but she's pretty close. Apparently, the class globe/map is in color, so Kadie told us that we lived on the pink one. The white one is, of course,"coooold" and where the penguins live. I couldn't do her pronunciation of Antarctica justice in writing, so I won't try - but it's adorable. I love the fact that my 4-year-old knows about continents. I'm really very...

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Kadie is doing well in her classes. She has made several new friends and, aside from a few mornings when I think she's dealing more with being a little tired than anything else, she very much looks forward to going. None of the"normal" first-year jitters here. She is getting better at elaborating on what she's been doing during the day and has been sharing several of the songs they've taught her (complete with minimal sign language). I'm torn between which type of class might benefit her more...

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Yep. That's what we've been up to the past couple of days. Sunday, Kadie was acting cranky but I put that down to her not sleeping well the night before and my schedule being off (she's amazingly perceptive of our moods). Monday was a holiday for everyone so I took Kadie out with me on errands. As a treat, I took her to the Chick-fil-A (a treat for me as well since it's an opportunity for Kadie to run out some energy in the play room while I eat a leisurely, albeit not entirely healthy, lunch...

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