Man...he likes to clean

Bryson likes to eat things like pretzels, dry cereal, goldfish crackers....you know...the little things they can munch on while watching TV. He is always dragging things out of the cabinets and asking me to put it in a bowl. So I do...just a little so he doesn't ruin his next meal. Then the next thing out of my mouth is, "Be careful. Don't spill it in the floor." He always tells me, "Tay", and within what seems to be only moments later I hear, "OOHH MMAANNN!"

This is when I always walk in to find he has knocked off his bowl and it is all over the floor in from of the TV. He has always seemed very distraught over having made a mess. Then he tries to pick up what is left, eating some as he goes. Yes my kid eats off the floor sometimes. Then of course, he tries to be a helper and gets out his handy dandy little red dirt devil to vacuum up what is left.

Well....the other day he had gotten out an almost full package of goldfish. I had just gotten the boys from school and had unloaded everybody. Everyone was obviously grabbing their own snacks by this point. I went and hung up my coat in the hall closet to turn around and see what he has been doing this whole time! He had the goldfish bad upside down shaking vigorously, making sure to get out every crumb! I stood in awe and watched to see what he would do next. This is how it went.

Smiled.

"OH MAN!"

Picked up a little.

Told me we needed to clean and then proceeded to run over it and smoosh it into little bitty pieces as he ran over it with his dirt devil.

He has been doing this on purpose so I would get out the real vacuum and vacuum with him. What can I say.....I am a slow learner. I hope he finds vacuuming this exciting as he gets older.

Sara

Clever Little Boy

Bryson woke up in the middle of the night a few weeks ago and I ended up putting him in bed with us. Which I don't normally do...I don't like little ones in my bed. I am always afraid of starting a bad habit and we all know how hard bad habits are to break.

Anyway....the next night when I told Bryson it was time to go to bed, he grabbed his blanket and tissue and took of running down the hall. He has gotten bad about hiding from me in my closet so I assumed that is where he was headed. I followed in hot pursuit only to see him quickly climbing into my bed. I explained nicely that was not the bed I was talking about. He pretended to be asleep. I asked him whose bed he was in.

"Bryson's!"

He patted the pillow as he said his name again as if to convince me that the middle pillow in our bed was just for him. (We sleep with three pillows so we don't have to fight over the pillow crack...we each have our own!)

I explained again nicely that he was wrong. Then I offered to put a pillow in his bed with a neat baseball pillowcase on it. He liked that idea so I went and found and extra pillow, put the fun baseball pillow case on it and took it in to show him. Of course, I am using my very fake "I'm excited" voice hoping to rub off on him some of the excitement about having his very own pillow.

"OOHHHH!", was his response. I'm thinking to myself now, "Man, I'm good."

He then takes his dad's pillow and throws it in the floor and pats the bed on daddy's side...right where he wants his new pillow with a cool baseball pillow case.

Clever little boy.

The Seat Belt

It was a cold, dark, December day back in 2004 and Blaine had just turned 4 in September. I think. Anyway....we were on our way home from church on this Wednesday night. I had just pulled out of the parking lot and was going through the light at the closest intersection to our church building. Not in a very good part of town in the dark, I might add. Blaine informs me that his finger is stuck in the seat belt.

"What do you mean your finger is stuck in the seat belt?"

"It's stuck in the hole. I can't get it out!"

I told him to try to get it out while I drove home because we were in a spot that I couldn't stop and help him. My first thought was we would put some lotion or dish washing soap on his finger and it would come off. Problem solved. We got home and I started pulling and he started screaming. Blaine the exaggerator was not exaggerating. It was stuck!

We tried everything we could possibly think of to get his finger unstuck. We tried lotion, dish washing detergent, WD 40 (which he said was cool because he smelled like a car mechanic?), cooking oil and more. We messed with his finger so much it started turning blue and starting to swell even more. We cut the seat belt so we could take him in the house since it was cold out. We filled the sink with ice water and took off his shirt. I gave Blaine a few measuring cups and some bowls and let him play in the water, hoping the swelling would go down from the cold water. We called a friend from church who is a paramedic and told him our situation hoping he could tell me what to do next. Should we call the fire department or take him to the hospital? His response was, "I'll be over in a few minutes."

Did I mention this is the finger that he sucked? That didn't go over well. All he kept crying was, "How am I supposed to suck my finger with this thing on?"

When Derek and Lisa (his wife) got to our house we tried even more to get that seat belt off his poor little finger. By this time it was past 10pm and he was getting sleepy. In fact, I have pictures somewhere of him sitting in my lap in the kitchen floor asleep with the seat belt dangling from his hand. Derek said that another friend of ours, Lonnie, had some bolt cutters that he thought might work. Stephen and Derek hopped in some one's vehicle and headed over to his house and borrowed them. Keep in mind, everyone that we have called has been asleep and woken up by our drama.

Derek tried the bolt cutters but apparently seat belts are made out of titanium and you can't cut that with bolt cutters. Every time he would try to close the bolt cutters they would slip off to the side like when you use a dull pair of scissors. He was afraid he would hurt him worse so he made a call to the E.R. to see who was on duty. He told us the Dr. that was on duty had been there for around 25 years and knew what he was doing. So he told them we were on our way. By this point Blaine was shirtless and freezing from his water being in ice water. We tried to put his shirt on him but he cried because the pressure from trying to get the shirt over the seat belt hurt too bad. So Stephen started the car, minus a seat belt, warmed it up for Blaine and then we bundled him up in a blanket the best we could and headed to the E.R. By this time it is close to midnight.

Of course the first thing we thought when we walked in was we would be sitting in the waiting room for hours. But they called us back as soon as we got there and we showed them our dilemma. Every person that we saw would say something like this, "Hey little man....heard you hurt your finger. Can I take a look? Oh wow! You have hurt your finger!" Duh. They gave us more ice and had him elevate his hand above his heart. Past midnight now and that didn't go over well either. Several more people came in one at a time to see.

By this time I felt like we should join the circus.

The Dr. tried some trick where he wrapped his finger in string and then stuck a big,, thick curved needle under the string. Somehow when he unwrapped the string it would pull the seat belt off. Didn't work. Blaine was screaming in pain and wasn't sitting very still. I can't blame him though...it did look painful. Then the maintenance man walked in and asked him if he could see so they could see what kind of tool he needed to find for the Dr. to use.

What?!?

The Dr. was going to use the maintenance man's tools? A nurse came in and said the Dr. wanted to do a digit block. That is a nice way of saying, "Hey kid. We are gonna put a shot in your finger." This was supposed to numb the finger so he doesn't feel the dremel sawing off the seat belt.

What?!?

Now we are really feeling like a freak show! The shot thing didn't go over well either. Neither did the dremel thing since when they started sawing, sparks started flying. You know...metal on metal. Blaine screams even more. Apparently the digit block only numbed the one finger and the sparks were burning the other fingers. And did I mention that me, Blaine, the Dr, and the nurse all have on the cool glasses that they wear on HGTV? Yeah...it was awesome. And I am holding my fighting, screaming kid down. Since it was burning him he obviously wasn't sitting still enough and the Dr. was afraid he might cut his finger off so he stopped. Good call. He explained to me that they need to start an IV and give him something called Ketamine (spelling?). Anyway, he explained that Blaine would appear to be awake, eyes open, could hear us, but wouldn't care.

Now it is about 3am and they are getting him prepped. They made me leave the room to do the IV, which he wasn't excited about, but they told me I could come in and stay with him while they removed the seat belt. By this time my husband has gone back to the waiting room and sent Grandma in cause he can't handle it. Sissy boy. I went back in with Blaine and he was lying on the bed with his eyes open wide and staring at the ceiling. The nurse told me he did fine and told me to put my lovely HGTV goggles back on. They needed me to help watch and make sure the dr. stopped sawing when he got close to his finger. No pressure. They had two other nurses in there with us...one to watch his vitals and the other watched, like me, from another angle. It took less than five minutes to get the thing off.

Now remember....it is early in the morning and this had been on his finger since around 9pm. Needless to say, I had not gone to the bathroom since before church services. I wish they had told me how humorous this was going to be after they doped him up because I think that was the closest I have come in a long time to peeing my pants. He would lift his arm up like he was reaching for something. I would push it back down. Then his leg would go up. Someone would push it down. Then the arm, then a leg....we did this for about twenty minutes.

"Mmooommm......I loooove youuuu sooooo muchhhh. You're the besstttt mmmoooommmy in the wooorrrllllddd." This is what he did as the medicine was wearing off. Over and over and over. By this point I am afraid me and my mom are gonna wet our pants. The nurse tells me that I shouldn't let him try to walk and he would probably be awake the rest of the day. That was great seeing how I had been awake for 24 hours by this point. They had me carry him out of the room and he got to choose a stuffed animal to take home. He picked this crazy looking bee with a Winnie the Pooh looking head. I tried to steer him to a cuter one but that was the one he wanted.

We said our goodbyes to all the people that helped us, knowing we would be talked about for days to come. When we got home, I made a pallet in the living room floor so he would watch TV and I could possibly sleep. But Blaine had other ideas. He seemed to be amused by trying to run through the house and not be able to. He would take off across the room with his slurred speech...then fall on his face. Then he would laugh hysterically. It was funny the first few times but being one to not function well without sleep, it got old real quick. I would get him to lay down and watch TV and then I would fall asleep. Then he would jump up, run, fall down. And of course that would wake me up. Then that would repeat itself again. And again.

The heat from the sawing (remember metal conducts heat) left a burn on his finger. It blistered all the way around his finger where the seat belt was touching and he had small burns on his other fingers. He decided that afternoon that he wanted to put his hospital bracelet back on and when he slid it over his had it burst the blister. So then we had to keep it bandaged to keep away infection. He still couldn't suck it so he started sucking the finger on the other hand. But he didn't like it. Then when the blistered finger healed all the way he said the scar felt funny and he stopped sucking his finger.

He asked me one day a few months later when the scar would go away. I told him it would get lighter but it would always be there. He cried and cried. He thought that when it healed it would go away completely. Poor boy. A year or two later I was tucking him into bed and the freaky bee was in his bed. He chucked it from his top bunk and told me he hated the ugly thing. I asked him why picked it if he didn't like it. He told me he didn't care....all he wanted to do was pop those bubbles floating in the air! That is why his arms and legs kept going up. I started asking him what he remembered and he said it hurt bad but he didn't care because of those cool bubbles.

When he went to the dentist the next month he was telling the dentist about his finger. The dentist looked at me and said, "If this ever happens again, not that it probably would, but if it does, I can cut that off with one if my tools and it won't burn him. We have a tool like that but because of the water it keeps it from getting hot."

So...moral of the story? Don't stick your finger in a seat belt and if you do? Call your dentist!

Sara

Tile Floors

This weekend we have been working on tile floors in our bathrooms. We have been living with the horrid linoleum that came with the house and have planned on tiling for awhile but other projects have come up. The tile kept getting pushed back but we got one bathroom down. It is drying now and will be ready to grout on Monday. Now if a family of five can survive with one potty.....

It is so cold out here in the South. Even to a Yankee like me. I thought it was a good weekend for tiling considering it was an inside project. But I sure didn't know my poor hubby would have his hands in water cutting the tile. He ended up moving the saw into the garage when the sun went down because the blade kept icing over. He did tell me it would have been easier if it wasn't laid on the diagonal and there would have been less cutting. But it does look good and the room looks bigger. Then when we have that potty back in we can do the master bath. We had to rent the saw so we went ahead and cut the tile for both rooms so we didn't have to pay for two rental days. So I have tile laid out in my bathroom floor over the linoleum until it is ready to go down.

I haven't had much time to work on my quilt the last week. Last night was the first night that we had been home before bed since the Friday night before. Brayden had his last game Thursday night so that should give us a much needed break for a few weeks. That is, until baseball starts. The weather being cold outside makes me want to work on my quilt! But what doesn't, right? Maybe I will be able to work on it some after supper. Speaking of supper, I need to go get started on it. I have chicken in the crock pot for chicken casserole. I think I might also make apple crisp for later this evening. Something about the cold weather makes we want to eat apple crisp and I love to smell it baking! It makes the house smell so good! And considering we are all feeling a little high from smelling the thin set that was used to lay the tile, apple crisp would be a nice change!

I hope everyone has a great weekend!

Comments

After reading my comments to my last post, I commented and tried to answer all the questions. Then I decided it was too long and that it should just be a post. So I will try to answer them all.

How do I get so much done in the morning? I get up early because my husband has to leave early and I know if I don't get up and get showered and ready for work then, I won't get to. The morning is about the only time I can do anything....not that I get as much done as I would like. Blaine has been difficult this year when he comes home from school about getting his homework done, so I try to focus on him as much as I can. That is....with an almost 2 year old whining for me after being gone. Thankfully Brayden is good enough to get to the table and get his done without much harping.

Why did I have a baby in December? Let me tell you....I had it ALL planned out when I wanted to get pregnant. I planned around when I would be showing and having to buy maternity clothes, the weather and whether I would be a beached whale in the middle of the summer. So we were gonna try to get pregnant starting AFTER Christmas. I guess God was reminding me that you can't plan everything. When I went to the Dr. they told me my due date was Christmas day! Are you kidding me? And as far as birthday parties in December...I strictly remember telling everyone DO NOT mix his birthday with his Christmas. Until he is older and wants something expensive and he agrees to it ahead of time. I requested that his birthday presents be wrapped in birthday paper and his Christmas presents be wrapped in Christmas paper.


For his first birthday, my then mother-in-law wrapped his birthday paper in Hanukkah paper. When did we become Jewish anyway? I don't know if she did it to get under my skin (she never did care much for me) or if she just really had no idea that the blue paper with the Star of David plastered all over it was not birthday paper.

Does Brayden really notice what other mothers are wearing in the car rider line? I very seriously doubt it. He has never mentioned anything. The only thing he asked for at Christmas was cologne that one of our friends wear. He is a little more into himself right now instead of the mothers. And in case you are wondering what cologne...Very Sexy from Victoria's Secret. What is even funnier than that? He had no idea that is what it was called or that is where it was from. I think if he knew that he wouldn't have asked for it. But it hasn't stopped him from wearing it! I used to take the boys to school in my pj's and then come back home and get ready for work...before Bryson. And I would pray I didn't get hit by one of the morons that can't figure out who should go next at the stop sign and have to get out in my pajamas with everyone watching.

Blaine was telling me about the quilt thing at school. He asked me if he could take some pictures of my quilts to school tomorrow. I told him I would see what I could come up with. I was always crafty as a little one and it turned artsy fartsy in school. I took every art class available at school and couldn't get enough. I wish I was able to do more now but there is not enough time nor space to leave it out and lock out the kids. I even was offered art scholarships but I was dumb and got married instead. We all know where that ended up!

Blaine getting his finger stuck in the seat belt is a pretty lengthy story so I will start working on it for another post. I'm sure you will all get a kick out of it...as most do with anything Blaine does, it seems. He has a knack for that, you know.

I hope everyone has a great day tomorrow....at least we can sleep a little later with schools being delayed.

Sara

Their Back!!

They went back to school this morning! Very reluctantly...but they went. It didn't help that was pouring down rain either. It is amazing how much more I get done in the mornings when we have a schedule to stick to. I have gotten a lot done already! Supper is in the crock pot and starting smell good already. Mom sent home the left over ham after Christmas and the broth after she cooked the bone. Homemade broths and stocks are always better than store bought. I threw in the ham and some broth, a can of tomatoes (store bought because the canned ones from the garden are already getting low), a can of green beans, a couple of potatoes, a sliced carrot, and a good sprinkle of garlic powder. I usually put corn in my ham soup but I guess when I used the last can I didn't add it to my grocery list. I got it all together and thought it did look weird without the corn so I did something I have never done before. Yes....I picked corn out of the frozen vegetables! Bryson always ate mixed veggies well but lately hasn't so I was prepared to throw them away last time, but thought maybe I could find something to do with them. I am glad I kept them! Although it would be better if there were more, but it was better than nothing.

Bryson is getting a lot of work done also. He has been vacuuming this whole time. Then I heard a strange noise like when a real vacuum sucks up a bunch of crumbs. i just went to see what he was doing and he had gotten pretzels out of the cabinet and dumped them in the floor so he could vacuum those. Then as I was looking at this mess he starts hollering, "I'm stuck! I'm stuck!" I looked over and he had crawled under his basketball goal that is shorter than him and stood up. He had the rim around his neck and I had flash backs of Blaine having to go to the hospital to get the seat belt cut off his finger. Thankfully the rim is covered with foam so I removed it quickly and all is well.

I have one more strip on my quilt until I will have to go to the fabric store to buy more muslin. I plan on finishing the last one hopefully tonight and I can pack up all my stuff and have my kitchen back for a few days for Brayden's birthday party that we had to postpone thanks to the stomach bug. Of course, Saturday will probably end up being the coldest day of the winter so far, and I will have all these kids stuck in my house without being able to outside. i guess we will manage.

On to deliver the little one to Paw Paw's house. He is crying for him already this morning. Grandma is chopped liver in his book until it is lunch time! Then on to a rainy, gloomy kind of Monday, but Tuesday, day of work!

Sara

"I Ride da Choo Choo!"

This morning in church, the girls that sit behind us were getting their money out and ready for the church contribution. Bryson has learned what money is, or should I say some things he can get with it. He knows at Dairy Queen he can put it in the St. Jude thing and watch it go "roun' n roun' n roun' ". He knows when we go to the mall he can put money in and ride the "coo bus".

This morning in church when he saw the others getting their money ready, he said, "OOOHHHH! Money! I ride da choo choo!" I asked him if he would like some money to put in the contribution plate. Of course, he had no idea what I was talking about so he said, "Yeah!" I gave him a quarter and gave some to his brothers. I whispered in his ear that he couldn't keep it and to put it in the plate when it came. I told Brayden and Blaine to put their money in where Bryson could see what to do, in fear that he would scream to keep it. The contribution plate came to our pew, Blaine put in his, Bryson put in his, and then Brayden. Wow. I was surprised. He did it with no problem. The plate even came back down the row in front of him and he just watched.

Then he looks at me and says, "Where's da choo choo?"

Lazy Days

We have really been enjoying our time off with the boys. We have been off almost the whole time they have been out of school. It is going to be hard to go back on Monday. I have done some more sewing, cleaned out drawers and toy boxes and finally got the Christmas stuff packed up and into the attic. Not to mention all the other normal things: laundry cooking and cleaning up after the cooking, and picking up hundreds of toys!

I am excited about my next project! One of my New Year's Resolutions is to try to use up a lot of the fabric that I already have. I am really bad about saving it but then buying new fabric to start another project. I have tubs of fabric everywhere. Tubs in the garage, in Bryson's closet (which has never been his closet because of the fabric!), and tubs under my bed. I have fabric of my own, some that belonged to both of my Grandma's and fabric that people give me after loved ones pass away and they know I would like to have it. I have had a tub of fabric that is a combination of both my Grandmas. It is full of little bitty scraps that were left over from making necessary things. I can remember asking my mom why in the world someone would keep such small pieces! Then she told me that my Grandparents came from a time when you had nothing and when you actually did have something you didn't waste it. To have to make things out of old clothes that had been outgrown by literally everyone in the family. As I sit here and think about how I quilt for fun, it is hard to imagine having to do this out of necessity. Having to make sure they had enough covers for the cold snowy winters. I am sure it would take some of the fun out if it, for sure. I pulled it out and started looking through it all and I could see where clothes were made from them. Shirts, aprons or maybe even the house dresses my Grandmas used to where. I could see where the notches to match the seams were cut. A few are in the shape of sleeves. Some I could see seams where maybe something was too long and it was shortened. Some have ink lines where my Grandma would cut quilt blocks for her own quilts. I think of my Grandparents often but going through all this fabric has made me really think about them. It also makes me wonder if my parents or their siblings would recognize a fabric that maybe they had worn in a shirt or dress as a young child.
What I have decided to do is make a quilt for our bed. Queen size! I have never made one bigger than a twin. All of the scraps are gaudy and crazy looking. I have always referred to it as my "ugly fabric". This is fabric that you would never buy these days if you went to the store and saw it. Most of it looks like it is from the 50's and 60's. Maybe even older. There really isn't anything that I can think of as far as a pattern goes to use this box of "ugly fabric". So what I have decided to do with it is called a strip pieced quilt. Back when quilts were made out of necessity, people made these kind of quilts with scraps that were too small for anything else, but you didn't dare throw something away! Women would use old newspaper and sew these little scraps to the paper, and then back it with a solid piece. Maybe an old bed sheet or if they were lucky, a piece of new fabric. Sometimes the backs were pieced together too. The newspaper stayed sandwiched in the middle as an extra layer of warmth. Of course, I won't be using newspaper. I will be using muslin, which an inexpensive plain fabric that usually runs around $1.00 a yard. Very cheap! Than I plan to use an old sheet that is still good but doesn't match my room since I repainted two years ago. All of this will make this a very special "ugly quilt" and when finished will lay on my bed for years. I hope that my boys and their wives one day will appreciate things that we had when they were younger too! But it does make me wonder if they will when I have to go through toy boxes after Christmas to make room for their new things.

The box on the left is a photo of what I have to work with. The photo on the right is a few of the strips that I have finished. When I get the strips done then I will sew all of them together to make my quilt top. It actually doesn't look as gaudy on these photos as it does in real life! And if anyone has wondered what Bryson has been up to while I am sewing, I am including a few photos of that too!





This is his new pint sized Dirt Devil that Santa brought! You go Santa! We have thought about renting him out at a small fee to compensate for all the diapers! Stephen even had to empty the container today because it actually picks up a little!

Sara