Thursday, August 22, 2013

Did He Just Say...?

One day while drawing, Eli was frantically scribbling nonsense all over his paper. Then he looked up to talk to Jeff. While he wasn't looking, his marker touched the paper and made a teensy tiny little mark. Upon noticing the mark he unintentionally made, he leaned in close to inspect it and then dramatically yelled, "Oh no!!" Like his whole masterpiece was now ruined, and like all the previous scribbles were so intentionally and meticulously drawn.
While driving in the car:
Eli: Mom. That thing looked shark.
Me: I think you mean shar-P (accentuating the "P" sound).
Eli: Sharkep?
Me: No. Shar-PPP.
Eli: Oh. Shark Puff.
We just moved Carson into Eli's room (post to come on that later), so this happened at 3:00 in the morning on the second night of their transition into sharing a room. I woke up to:

Giggle, giggle, giggle.
Eli: Carson! I'm trying to sleep. I'm really tired.
Carson: Gaaaa. Ya. Ya. Ba Ba.
Eli: Carson. You can't have a ba ba. We have to sleep.
Carson: Ba ba.
Carson starts crying. I go in to give Carson a binky.
Me: Okay Eli, Carson is going to need your help. Can you be a good brother and help him stay happy?
Eli: Okay.
I leave the room. Carson starts crying again.
Eli: Hmmm. Let's see....PEE PEE PEE POO POO! BAHAHAHAHA

Carson wasn't amused. The attempted consolations through potty talk continued until we removed Carson from the room to sleep in his pack-n-play for the rest of the night.
Eli has made a new friend in our ward. After watching his new friend stomp out of the middle of Sacrament Meeting because he was having a little bit of a rough day, Eli whispered to Jeff:

Eli: What's he doing?
Jeff: He had to go outside because he was being a little bit noisy.
Eli: Oh! I see it now. He's stomping like a rhino.
We have started this new thing while reading the scriptures where we have magic words. So we will tell Eli to listen for a certain word, and when he hears that word, he is supposed to say, "Scripture Power!" One day the magic word was "Jesus." Eli was running around like a crazy person all through our reading time and I was sure he wasn't listening to anything we were saying. We got to 3 Nephi 28:30 and I read:

Me: And if they shall pray unto the Father in the name of Jesus... 
I paused to let Eli realize he heard the word Jesus and he was supposed to shout "Scripture Power!" He surprised me by instead saying:
Eli: Christ amen.
Before going to Wal-Mart, while putting on his shoes:
Eli: Are these my running shoes?
Me: Yeah, I guess they are.

At Wal-Mart, running away from me:
Me: Eli! Get back here!
Eli, not slowing down at all: But these are my running shoes!

Strictly flip-flops at the grocery store from now on.

Sunday, August 18, 2013

It's What Fun Is

We had a super fun day at Lagoon a couple weeks ago. Here are a bunch of pictures for you to create your own captions to! How fun for you!





















Friday, August 16, 2013

When Sharks Attack

Carson was attacked by a shark.
It took a bite out of his hand, but he managed to escape to tell the tale. And until he can tell the tale for himself, I'll tell it for him.
Eli was wandering around the house getting into trouble because he was bored. "Eli! Let's vacuum the house!" I said, hoping a little house cleaning would cure his boredom-induced mischievousness.

I got both kids hyped about vacuuming. I even had them picking up toys and clothes off the ground, convincing them the vacuum would suck their things up forever if they weren't safely put away.

Then we got the hose going to clean the air conditioning intakes. I patted myself on the back for seizing the opportunity to get this neglected chore off my to-do list. Vacuuming was done, but Eli was still so entertained by the hose -- giving himself hickeys, and finding goldfish underneath the couch for the vacuum to slurp down, so I left him to continue cleaning crumbs from under the couch.

I heard the vacuum fall over, but no one cried, so I assumed no harm was done.

A few minutes later, I heard Carson scream. I looked at him and saw his little face looking so helpless staring back at me. I couldn't figure out what was wrong with him until I got closer and saw his hand jammed in the bottom, spinning brush part of the vacuum.

I yanked his hand out. The blood drained from my body each time I dared to inspect the damage. His hand wasn't bleeding very much, but after braving up for one good look at his thumb, I saw the inside palm part of it was white.

"Is that his BONE?!?" I screamed with panic and terror.

I paced the house. Taking little peeks at the injury with two kids now screaming and crowding my thoughts. I walked outside? I don't know why I did. But I did. Maybe it felt too loud in my house? Maybe I was trying to escape the buzzing of the vacuum that I never had time to turn off? Maybe I was hoping a neighbor would hear my dilemma and come attend to my child because I do not do well in emergency situations?

I was in the backyard, still pacing, when I called Jeff. I told him the story and then went into my dramatizations, "Jeff. I think I see bone. It's all white on his thumb. I'm taking him to the hospital. I think I need to go. It's really bad. I think he got burned really bad."

I was understandably worried. Jeff's sister's little boy had a somewhat similar thing happen to him. He got his hand stuck in a treadmill with the belt rubbing against him. He was sent to the hospital, and he had to get surgery, treatments and physical therapy. I saw visions of Carson's injury turning into the same thing.

So I panicked.

Luckily Jeff came home to inspect the damage for himself before I carted us off to the hospital. Jeff diagnosed his hand as bad, but not severe, and assured me the white part was not bone, but was probably white because he had a friction burn from the brush part of the vacuum.

After some pained screaming from all four members of our family, we were able to get Neosporin and a wrap on Carson's hand, and he immediately cheered up.
I already had Eli and Carson's well-child doctor visits scheduled for a couple days later, so we home-treated the wound until we were able to see the doctor.

After the doctor removed Carson's bandages and inspected his hand, I hesitantly asked, "Is it bad?"
Silence.
"Should we have taken him to the hospital?" The nervous questions started rolling off my tongue.
Raised eyebrows.
"Is it a burn?" I continued firing.
"Yeah. It looks like it is a friction burn. I'm going to have you go see someone at Primary Children's Hospital. That sounds scary, but I'm just worried he could lose mobility in his thumb if it doesn't heal correctly."

Oh. Crud. I became the silent one. He left the room to get bandages to re-wrap Carson's hand.

He came back with handfuls of gauze, tape, doctor popsicle sticks and cream. With Carson pinned down and screaming like I've never heard him scream before, the doctor began cleaning up the wound.

"Oh. Okay." He said after a minute, "You know what? This actually isn't as bad as I thought. I thought it went all the way down into the crease of his thumb, but it stops right before. I think he will be okay to just come back and see me in a week to make sure it's healing up alright."
"So we don't have to take him to Primary Children's?" I rephrased, just to make sure we were on the same page.
"Yeah. I think he will be alright. It's healing up nicely, and it's really clean, so I think he'll be just fine."

Then 15 minutes of tortured screaming happened while we made several unsuccessful attempts to rewrap Carson's Shark bite. It was miserable.

And then he had to get two shots to top it all off. It took him three hours to fully recover from that doctor's visit. Poor guy.
But the good news -- all is well (unless the doctor says otherwise this Wednesday at Carson's checkup), Carson is happy, and his hurt hand has not interfered with giving me hugs and kisses.
Plus, now he can tell everyone he's been attacked by a shark, which is just about the coolest thing ever.

Wednesday, August 07, 2013

Breath of Fresh Air

It seems like last winter was really cold. And snowy. And miserable. Am I right?
I haven't forgotten my hate for winter. Which makes me appreciate the warmth of summer. And that appreciation takes me on hikes with my brother Benj.
And on hikes it's normal to pose like this with ginormous dandelions.
And then dreamily (attempt to) blow said dandelion in a picturesque manner.
I've been on a hiking kick ever since we did a hike for a mutual activity at the beginning of summer. It's such a great workout, and I love forests, and it's a good way to get a little bit of an escape from the rush of everyday life.
So I forced my brother to accompany me on a hiking adventure to Elephant Rock in Bountiful. Or should I say Beautiful?
It was so pretty! I tried to get us to turn around a couple times before finally arriving to this beautiful view, but Ben had us push on and I'm glad he did. It was so pretty and rewarding to make it to the lookout point. Nevermind that the actual rock landmark thing wasn't much to look at, the rest of it was pretty spectacular.
And then Ben 'bout gave me a heart attack when he decided to venture down to the landmark for a photo opportunity.
Who knew I was a hiker? Other than being terrified of the lurking cougars, bears, skunks and snakes that I'm always convinced are rustling in the bushes, I think this could be a good new hobby for me.

A few days after my strenuous hike with Ben, Jeff and I took the boys on a flat-landed hike (fine it was a walk) to the pond to feed the ducks.
This thing happened where we bought a ton of hot dog buns a long time ago for some unknown reason and upon realizing we never use hot dog buns, we have now repurposed them into duck food. And Eli food?

I'm pretty sure Carson's favorite animal is a duck. If you ask him, every animal says, "Quack, quack." And let's just say that The Bachelorette showed a picture of a pond during a really dramatic part of the finale and I was watching with my kids and I couldn't hear anything because Carson was quacking at the pond in giddy excitement. The kid adores ducks.

More outside enjoyment. I love to ride around with Carson on the old PlasmaCar. He probably prefers it to himself, but he'll share with me sometimes.
My favorite thing to do on Sunday evenings is just to be in our backyard together playing. This was such an occasion.
Frisbee Golf and picnic dinner at the park.



Eli has become good friends with a boy in our ward. One night I told him he was going to go over to this boy's house to play the next day and he was so excited. The next morning I was woken up to Eli jumping up and down in my room saying, "Mom! Get up! We have to hurry! I'm going to be late to play with my best friend!"

After that playdate, when I was trying to pry him away from his best friend's house to walk home with me, this meltdown happened. There was no getting him to budge. We go through the grieving process after every playdate.
We go to the park a lot. Carson's favorite thing to do at the park is to push the gigantic double stroller around. It always cracks me up to see such a little person pushing such a big stroller.
And this is one of my absolute favorite things. Whenever I walk past a fence on our walks, both boys stick their hands out like this. It's so cute and makes me smile every time.
Happy summer!