Almost forgot, storytime!

I took Samuel to his first toddler storytime at the library last week. They have two storytimes, one for the tiny kids, and one for preschoolers. So all the kids were around Samuel's age. What fun to watch. There were at least 15 or so parents, and more than that for kids, since a few parents had more than one kid. We all sat in a big circle on the floor and the lady read a book, plus we sang songs. The songs we sang were ones that you do hand movements, or we would clap or something. So at first all the kids were sitting in front of their parents, all but two that is. Of course Samuel was one of the two who decided not to sit. He went right to the middle of the circle and stood there. He had his hands at his side, his chin down and he lips puckered funny and his eyebrows crinkled and slowly turned in a circle staring at everyone. Then he got a funny little smile on his face. I think he was trying to figure out why everyone was sitting on the floor all around him. Since it was all toddlers, nobody seemed to mind him being up. About 5 minutes into the storytime more kids started getting up. They all walked aimlessly around the circle but couldn't escape cause all the parents were sitting around them. I kept trying not to laugh. Towards the end it was mostly just parents on the floor doing the songs and the kids were all moving about. I can't wait to go next week and see what happens! It only lasts about 1/2 hour, which is good, cause they obviously can't sit still very long.

He's sick again!!!

So much for bringing Samuel to playgroups. We went the first 16 months or so of his life with only one illness, and in the 2 months I've been taking Samuel to playgroups he's been sick 3 times. This time it is a bad cold. It started with a fever and runny nose. Now the fever is gone and he has a cough, and lots of dried up stuff in his nose that is not so easy to get out! Try picking a toddler's nose... not so easy. I'm so tired. Last night was the first night he slept through the night in more than a week. My sweet little man has been a sweet little grump. At bed/naptime I try to read some books to him and after a while he picks them up and starts throwing them at me. I can tell when he is about to throw something. He gets this funny expression on his face, very serious, and whammy... a book gets thrown, then a binkie, then mommy takes all the books away and he is not too happy. Oh well, it took me 37 years to get to say this, but I took the books away cause "I'm the mommy and that's what mommy's get to do!!!"

Sick, grumpy mess

Poor Samuel, poor mommy. Samuel is just getting over some icky, yicky tummy thing. Lots of yucky diapers and a high fever. It started Saturday with him just being a bear. Nothing made him happy and he just would not nap. Then Saturday afternoon he conked out at 4pm and slept all the way through until 6am! I just thought he was tired, until I changed his first messy diaper. About 6 messy diapers and 12 hours later I was exhausted, and fortunately, so was he. It was an early night for us both. Monday arrived and he did a bit better, the fever was down and so were the messy diapers. My mom and stepdad have been visiting, staying in the driveway in their RV, so it's been nice to have a bit of extra help keeping the little guy happy. G'night!

My first blog...

I've arrived! Well, at blogspot that is. I thought I'd start a place where I can write about my day to day life as a mommy. Mostly I'll be writing about my son, Samuel, who is 16 1/2 months. He's the love of my life! I thank God every day that he is here with us. We spent years trying to have a baby, had several miscarriages and also lost our twin son and daughter, Christopher and Noelle, when I gave birth to them at 23 weeks on December 20, 2005. We call Samuel our miracle baby... though I guess we should start referring to him as our miracle toddler!

Today was pretty much like any other for us. Though I did find a farm stand that had a small petting zoo. I was so excited to take Samuel to it. They had two cows, two goats and a rabbit. Samuel LOVES it when we pass the cows in the pasture on our way to the store, so I figured he'd get a kick out of the animals. All but the rabbit were together in a fenced in area. Samuel smiled and laughed the second he saw the animals. The goats went nuts when they saw us and got up on their hind legs, with their heads stretched as far forward as they could stretch them. They knew that visitors meant food! There was a little food dispenser there that you put a quarter into. I fed them a few times and Samuel kept smiling and laughing away. I decided to push his stroller closer to he could touch them, but the goats decided to touch Samuel first. They put their heads down and licked his toes. That didn't sit well with Samuel, who promptly burst into tears! Ugh, time to go.

Later that day we stopped at Marshall's. I just felt like browsing around. Samuel usually loves to go shopping and will laugh and wave and chatter away. We almost always get comments from other shoppers at how happy Samuel is. Well, lately he has decided that screaming is more fun than laughing. It's not that he is unhappy, he just seems to think that the scream he makes is a great sound I guess. I'm sure others don't feel the same way. As soon as we got to the check out he started screamed at the top of his lungs- aaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaah, aaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaah. How do you get a 16 month old to stop screaming? You can't! I can't threaten to take away a toy, to not give him dessert, to tell him he will go to bed early... cause he doesn't quite understand those things yet. So I just ignore him, while others stare and act like I must be the meanest mommy in the world to have a child scream so loudly. Double ugh!!!! Now the little prince is asleep and all is right with the world.