How They’re Passing the Time

Christmas-time used to seem like such a busy time of year.  It wasn’t long ago that it meant cramming for college finals, spending nights studying and days testing.  And then rushing home for 2 weeks full of catching up with friends and having family holiday celebrations.  Fast forward … gosh, 8 years??… to now, and time ticks by.  From one question of “Can I watch another Dinosaur Train?” to the next “Can I have a snack? (‘No, you just ate lunch 20 minutes ago’) to the next fight to the next round of antibiotics, the day trickles by.  We watch  the rain and fog fill the vast area that, during the summer months, is these boys’ playground.  I know I should embrace this slow paced life God has blessed us with because as everyone reminds me, someday I’ll look back on them and wonder how time could have gone by so fast. 

But, I sort of live in the now, and right now, life is about surviving minute by minute.  Filling our days with as much guidance, love, and entertainment as possible, to keep us sane. 

After a month of being homebound, due to illnesses, we’re getting cabin fever.  And because I’m determined to keep these boys healthy for Christmas we may just remain homebound until December 26.  So you’ll be seeing lots of photos of what life is like in our home, when there is nothing else to do, but get creative… 

(This boy’s never too far from his brothers, even if it means hiding out under the table while they paint.)

Well, when the fighting and bickering gets to be too much, I don’t object when Cooper wants to spend 45 minutes in the snack cupboard.  Except that after about 5 minutes of him being in there, Gage began pestering him to get out, so he could have HIS turn.  I was temped to clean out my baking cupboard and let him hide-away too… 

Instead, he figured he’d make a purse bag out of an instant oatmeal box.  Gotta love his resourcefulness. 

Undoubtedly, more to come! 

That Was An Interesting Night…

I took Gagers to the doctor yesterday morning because his fever just wouldn’t quit.  I thought Cooper was going to have to be examined, too, because the night before he sounded like a seal, but by the morning his cough had broken up and was considerably better.  The boys are always excited to go to the doctor’s office, particularly to see Pam (who, this time, Cooper repeatedly and totally seriously, called “Ham”) the nurse.  After examination, Dr. Clarke determined that Gage had a double ear infection and a sinus infection.  I had obviously known something wasn’t right with him, but was surprised at this diagnosis because he’d only complained of pain in his ear a few times when he coughed. 

Anyhow, when we got home Gage napped for three hours.  Upon having his first dose of the antibiotic, Cooper threw a fit that he didn’t get any.  He said, as he stomped off angrily “JUST GREAT!  I didn’t get to talk to Dr. Clarke and I don’t get PINK MEDICINE!  JUST GREAT!”  He’s honestly wishing he were sick too! 

Gage sat on the couch all evening watching The Land Before Time movies and Matt left around 6:30pm to go work on a bow.  I took Kaden up to get ready for bed at 7 and around 7:30 Gage kind of crawled into the room and told me he was having a hard time breathing.  He laid down with his head in my lap, and I tried to coax him into relaxing.  As I got more and more concerned I could feel his temperature and heart rate increasing.  He didn’t want to stand and actually started whimpering when I told him I had to get up to put Kaden to bed. 

Fast forward a half-an-hour and I’m trying to keep Gage awake, Myrna (Matt’s mom) is here to stay with Cooper and Kaden, Matt’s on his way home and I’ve talked to two on-call doctors who have both encouraged me to take Gage into either an ER or Urgent Care because of his temperature and breathing with retraction (when they breath and their abdomen tucks up under the rib-cage).

As soon as we stepped outside into the cool air, I could tell his breathing got better, but this was absolutely one of those situations where I could hear “it is better to be safe than sorry” ringing through my ears. 

At the Urgent Care Center, Gage snuggled into a rather lifeless ball on Matt’s lap as we waited an hour to be seen.  Gage lifted his head a few times to acknowledge that he was glad he wasn’t “that kid” who was in the neighboring room SCREAMING about having to have shots.  And he was glad he wasn’t the kid who was getting stitches, too.

When we were finally seen, Gage’s temperature was 102.9, it was clear that each breath exhausted him, and his lips had gone from rosy to purple.  They didn’t hear pneumonia in his lungs. They checked his oxygen and it was very low, so after giving him IB Profen AND Tylenol (did you know you can double those up together??) for his fever and verified that his ears were very infected and his breathing was VERY labored… they did a breathing treatment with a nebulizer and we watched the life come back into him.  They say its like a shot of caffeine for a little kid and I concur! 

They sent us home with a nebulizer, which we’re to use every 3 hours for the next two days, along with the antibiotics and IB Profen/Tylenol regimen.  We were told that when the constriction goes down and starts breaking up in his lungs we may find that there is ‘a little pneumonia in there’.  Hmm.  Whatever that means.  But, we’ll be watching and waiting.

At that point, even though his fever was still 102, Gage was feeling so much better that we went through the drive-through at McDonalds (don’t tell Cooper!) before heading home.

Bed was a welcomed sight to us all, but Kaden had a different idea and woke up about a half-hour after I fell asleep.  And then again at 5. And Cooper crawled into my bed at 6 (because “he missed me”).  And I heard Gage coughing on the couch at 7.  So we’re up for another day and I think Gage is going to get very tired of me hugging him and asking if he’s okay, today.  Because I get a bit nauseated every time I remember his little voice whispering “It’s hard to breathe, Mama…” I’m going to hover, a lot. 

I am so thankful for my husband, my mother-in-law, the doctors who cared for Gagers.

I am eternally grateful for each breath my little boys take.          

FUNFUSION!!

No, I’m not talking about a dance craze from the 80’s… I’m talking about another great, calm activity to do when the kiddlets are under-the-weather, as mine are.  We’re on the brink of letting them sit on the couch and watch movie after movie, just to get them to rest, but every now and again they need a break from that.

And creating with Funfusion perlerbeads is just the ticket.   If you’ve not done these before with your children, I think these photos will pretty much sum up the process…

First you build… you can create your own design or go off of their idea books which I think are awe-some. 

When you’re done with the design, you place the provided piece of waxy paper over the design and iron.

The perlerbeads melt together just enough to fuse together.

And CREATE! Could they look any happier??

WARNING: if you are anything like me, these can actually become quite addicting.  Oh, and use tweezers… much easier! These can be found, I’m assuming, many places that sell arts and crafts stuff, but ours came from Craft Warehouse.  Happy Fusing!

Playing Games with a Five-Year-Old

… is so much fun.  Gage has been sick this week; battling a cough, gooky throat and a fever, so we’ve been taking it easy during ‘school’ time.  Puzzles, stories and games have filled our time rather than thinking hard about the work we normally do.  I know how hard it is to concentrate when not feeling well, so I wasn’t going to push it with this little guy. He happily agreed to this arrangement. Surprise surprise. 

Anyway, we played the Thomas math game… which he won.  And was clearly excited about… And we played Sequence For Kids… the game Sequence brings back great memories for me, of playing it with family and with Brian and Melissa before we had our kiddos. Now, the Kid Version is  my favorite game to play with Gager. For those who don’t know, the object is to get 4 chips in a row.  When we draw a card we have to say the animal, the letter it starts with and emphasize the sound that letter makes.  He, not surprisingly, knows the name that goes with almost every animal… like, “Polly the Penguin” and “Wiley the Whale”. 

This boy used to be SO competitive when playing games, but now he’s showing a softer side.  When he picked the dragon card which allowed him to remove any chip he wanted, he removed one of HIS so that he could help me try to win.  THAT shocked me. 

Then, he only needed “Gloria the Gorilla” to win in THREE directions at once and he got it!

…and he got to flick his fingers in triumph over his win.  This celebratory gesture was started long ago between me and my mom, and now Gage loves to bust it out when he wins, too.  I love it.

And this is how much I love this little guy… sharing the last piece of Mint Brownie with him.  Maybe not the best thing to eat while fighting an illness but… oh well.  

Then I suggested we play this game… I will not disclose whether I may or may not have learned a similar game in college… involving a quarter and a little bitty glass…

… this version was MUCH more fun. 

He won this one, too.  I love game days. 

I’m finishing typing this as I’m listening to Gage coughing miserably in my bed… please pray he gets well, soon!

Prepare Yourself for A Lot of Doot Doo

No, not Doo Doo… Doot Doo.  That is what we’ve called Gage since he was a baby.  And while Matt and I often now call him Doot or Gagers or Deuteronomy, Cooper ONLY calls him Doot Doo.  If he calls him anything else, Gage corrects him.  I can just picture them walking the halls in high school and as they pass by each other Cooper says to his big brother “Hey, Doot Doo, have you seen Tato?” (which is what we call Kaden).  As a biased mama, I’m thinking they can call each other what ever they want and it won’t matter a bit.  :) 

Anyway, I shared the outtakes from this session on Monday and am happy to finally be posting the rest today.  I took these almost a month ago now (where does the time go!)… the day after I took Gage shopping for lots of 6T clothes.  He had been beyond tired of tugging down the sleeves of his shirts and EVERY pair of pants he owned had holes in the left knee.  So, he was actually excited to ‘model’ for me, in thanks for his new digs.  

We traveled around our yard – me practicing with locations, posing, lighting, positioning my reflector…

… and probably most importantly, figuring out what it takes to get a 5-year-old to REALLY smile in a photo. 

For this kid, it took me yelling “Poop Poo” as loud as I possibly could. 

Regardless of the toilet talk I have to resort to using, it warms my heart to see photos of Gage’s REAL smile… because it is my hope that when I look at these images years from now I’ll be able to hear the laughter in them… that is the part of photography that I love and TRULY hope to be able to capture with my camera during sessions. 

Ooh, what to do about sensitive eyes?  Sweet little guy tried so hard as I tried and tried to find the light in his bright blue eyes.  But that’s hard, when he can barely open them!  :) 

Whoa… this one kind of catches you off guard…  haha…

… “Be happy, Doot… we’re almost done…”

Let me just tell you how amazed I was at this little man’s cooperation.  I’m not sure if he thought he was going to get a prize at the end of the session or what, but he powered through with me for a good 2-hours!  Actually, I shouldn’t be surprised.  He has ALWAYS been a Mama’s Boy and constantly aims to please me… plus, he wasn’t dealing with this little brother AND he was getting out of ‘school’. 

Whatever the reason, I appreciated his time and love the results.  :) 

I’m Starting To LOVE Outtakes!

I did this session with Gage awhile back and when I finally got to sorting through the images I was immediately drawn to the goofy outtakes… they show his humor, his personality, and a little bit of his oddness.   I suppose my goal should be finding a middle ground – between silly outtakes and portraits, so the portraits show a glimpse of the personality, without so much of the oddness. 

One of his poor little sensitive eyes! 

What is it they say about that kid with the curl, right in the middle of their forehead??

…goofing around and almost breaking one of my favorite prop chairs… again!

These googly eyes were just for fun.  And to gross his mama out.  It makes my stomach turn to see him do this.  :) 

Walking away, only to turn and say in a little country-boy accent, “We dun, Mama?”

Yes, we’re done… for now…

What My Kids Were For Halloween…

… just plain cute.  And just, themselves.   

No costumes or trick-or-treating for us this year.  We’d known Matt would be returning from his week-long-hunting trip on Halloween evening and that leaving to go trick-or-treating would be about that last thing we’d want to do.  Paired with the gremlins my kids (Kaden excluded) turn into when they know there is candy in the house, we decided to forgo the typical Halloween traditions.

I really enjoyed Halloween as a child, and I really have no intention of depriving mine of the fun that comes with it indefinitely.  They had a great time last year and we totally appreciate the safe, community oriented focus our little town puts on it.  All the “downtown” shops open their doors for the costume clad munchkins and for 3 or more hours the sidewalks crawl with crowds.  You can hear the on-going buzz of “Oohs and Aahs” over the adorable get-ups.  Last year, we even saw a headless horseman – and the boys talked about him for weeks (thankfully with excitement, not fear!)

But this year, we stayed put.  The boys didn’t even KNOW it was Halloween until I took them to the store yesterday and the check-out girl asked what they were going to be for Halloween.  Gage looked at me with eyes that said “WHAT is she talking about, MOM!”  I quickly explained about their dad coming home and she fortunately got the hint.  The boy who took our groceries out wasn’t so quick, though, and kept pressing the issue as to why we weren’t ‘celebrating’. 

Fortunately, the Carmel Apple Spice from Starbucks distracted the boys out of their looming disappointment. 

And it wasn’t brought up again!  

And then dad came home (YEAH!) and this is how we spent our Halloween evening…

… I don’t think they missed out at all.  :)