Bob's visit with Santa

We went to see Santa today. Bob was excited the whole time we were on line. He kept on talking about what he was going to ask Santa for. When it was our turn, it was like a scene from A Christmas Story. Bob stood there with his jaw dropped in awe. The only thing he could say was "You're Santa?!!" We had to cue him to tell Santa what he wanted for Christmas. Then we asked Santa if he could come a couple of days early so he could celebrate Christmas with Mommy and Daddy here if Phoenix before he and Daddy left for New York. Santa said that he could arrange that.

We are going to do what would have been a mortal sin ten years ago. We are going to celebrate Christmas on my birthday. But, I am going to have a birthday cake, and it is not going to have poinsettias on it.

Bob announced that Santa should get Q a new collar for Christmas. Needless to say, I am going to have to shop around for a new collar for Q from Santa. The one he is wearing is a couple of years old now. It was reflective at one point in time. So far, the only pet store I have gone to was the one in the mall where Bob saw Santa. The only collars they had there all have rhinestones in them. Needless to say, I am not going to put a rhinestone collar on my dog.

I hope everyone is in good health and having a happy holiday!!

Bob's cold - shared

Bob did share his cold with us. Jim and I went to a walk-in/ urgent care center together. It was a romantic date. We each received prescriptions for Augmentin. Needless to say, we have his and her bottles of Augmentin. Romantic huh? I have been sick for a week and a half and Jim has been sick for two weeks. We better start getting better in the next day or two.

Bob announced that he wanted to go to school today. And I would have sent him to school if he had school. He is feeling much better. He will go back to school on Monday.

I am very sad, but I will be unable to go to NY for Christmas. Jim and Bob will have a Merry Christmas without me. I will probably work on Christmas day to keep my mind off of the fact that it is Christmas.

Bob's cold

I finally took Bob to the doctor. He said his ears hurt and he needed to go to the doctor so he could look at them. He had not really been running a fever. Although the other night after I gave him Motrin for an earache, he woke up an hour later covered in sweat. Needless to say the pediatrician said Bob has sinusitis - something I hoped he would be spared - mommy's sinuses. He started on an antibiotic. Hopefully he will be feeling better in a couple of days.

I am going to try and get to sleep early. Bob did share his illness with me. And I haven't been sleeping because I hear his coughing on the baby monitor and it wakes me up.
I will keep all of you updated.

cute Bob stuff

I am running out of titles for blog's, so forgive the unoriginal title. But even though Bob has not been feeling good, he has been coming out with lots of cute phrases.
Jim went to the dentist for part 2 of his root canal. Before we left, I explained to Bob that the dentist had to finish fixing daddy's teeth. When we got to the dentist's office, Bob told everyone that walked into the office that the dentist did not do a good job fixing daddy's teeth so we had to come back.

We also watched The Polar Express. I thought Bob would LOVE that movie because it is all about a choo choo train. There is one scene that the little boy looses the little girl's ticket and you see the ticket blowing away. Bob was in full blown tears because he lost the ticket. The ticket finds itself back on the train, but Bob was VERY upset by that point and required rocking and cuddling. I am glad we didn't spend $50 at the IMAX theater to see that movie. I am sure we would of wound up leaving the theater at that point with a waste of $50. When it was over, Bob said that we had to bring the movie back to Costco because it was too scary. Maybe Bob will like that movie next year.

When we were at Costco, I was talking to some woman - small talk about the weather, etc... Bob then asks that woman if she had a grandma Mazie. It was really adorable. Grandma Mazie had sent Bob a Christmas card with stickers, which was a wonderful thing, so he had to tell everyone about Grandma Mazie.

Bob did, however, share his cold with all of us. We kept him home from school on Thursday. He woke up and did not feel good. He crawled into bed next to me right at about nine AM - right when I fell asleep. Every time I dozed off, he kicked me awake. I was thankful when he decided he wanted to wake up, go by daddy, and watch Clifford. I had to work Thursday night.

Tomorrow I will thankfully start on my regular schedule. I will be 11 AM to 11 PM - an "off-shifter". I come in at the same time as two more providers arrive (MD, PA, or NP), so they can open more beds. What is nice is we do "team nursing". A nurse is not assigned specific rooms, rather a group of nurses are assigned a group of rooms and everyone takes care of the patients in those rooms. This way if a nurse is busy with one critical patient, the other nurses will take care of the other patients. I know that when I did clinical for paramedic class, if a nurse was busy with one patient, her other patients were neglected because no one would take care of a patient if it wasn't their patient. With that system, it takes longer for pain to be relieved, orders to be carried out, and patients to be discharged. You turn patients around a lot faster if everyone works together. It is pretty nice.

Bob and Q are currently lying on the floor next to me, next to each other. Bob even put a blanket over Q. I should get going so I can rescue Q.
Merry Christmas everyone.

Developmental Pediatrician

I hope everyone is doing well and having a happy holiday season.

Bob saw the developmental pediatrician yesterday. Actually, he saw the pediatric nurse practitioner for part one of his evaluation. He will see her one more time for another evaluation before he sees the developmental pediatrician. (She broke her foot and needed surgery, which is why Bob's appointment was postponed) Part one of the evaluation took about two hours. They gave me a packet of information to fill out at home, as well as a packet of information for his teacher to fill out. I have to return those two completed packets before I can make the next appointment. She said the wait is only a week or two for those appointments - and she needs at least a week to "grade" the paperwork we give her.
There are many surveys. One of the things they are ruling out is autism - which I am 99.9999% sure that Bob does not have. One of the surveys asks "What makes you think this child has autism?" I had to answer "nothing". The whole page dealt with the answer to that question, so I had to answer "n/a" on every question.
She said she noticed that Bob does some things that are common with autistic children during the evaluation. He tends not to give eye contact - but that is with strangers, he has eye contact with people he knows. He also does "hand flailing" when he is excited. He also likes to line up his cars and he gets upset/throws a tantrum if someone disturbs his lineup. But just because he does some things that are characteristic of children with autism, that does not mean he is autistic. They tend to overdiagnose autism. Besides, Bob is one of the most sociable children I know. He goes up to strangers in the store (or calls out to them when he is sitting in the shopping cart) and says hi and strikes up a conversation with them. He tells them that "this is our stuff" and "We have a Q dog at home" and things like that. Some people ignore him, but most people respond to him. If they ignore him, he says "Excuse me, I am talking to you!" and "Please speak to me!" I joke that he did not start talking until he was almost three years old, so now he is making up for lost time. He does not shut up. But, I have yet to get tired of hearing the word "mommy" from him. I am so thankful that he can talk, that my heart still skips a beat every time he says "mommy".

We did buy the Polar Express, but Bob was too tired to watch it last night, as were we. I am unfortunately working the next three nights, so we won't be able to watch it until Friday. I want to watch it as a family. It is playing at the IMAX theater, and I had the idea that we could go there to see it, but it would be about $50 just for the tickets (and we have to buy popcorn at the theater). It was $9.99 for the DVD at Costco, and we can microwave some popcorn. Not quite the same thing, but Bob will love it none the less. Bob has two versions of the book already - one of them came with a poster of the train that is hanging in his room. The other one you can shine a flashlight through the pages so the images appear on the wall in front of you. Bob really likes that one. Bob likes to see the trains on the wall in front of him. Thank you 99 cent only store.

I will keep everyone updated on Bob's progress.
Talk soon!
Elizabeth

Latest stuff

Bob seems to get bigger every time I turn around. He is doing well now. Part of the reason I have not posted recently is because he has been sick. Thanksgiving week he was home sick on Monday and Tuesday. I sent him back to school on Wednesday as he was feeling better. By Friday, he was sick and running a fever again (He was well on Wednesday and Thanksgiving day only). He was out of school all of last week. He was actually feeling better on Wednesday and Thursday, but he still had a cough and a runny nose, so I could not send him to school - he would get the other kids sick.

We started decorating the house for Christmas, but have not gotten to the tree yet. We have lights in the windows and around the front door. Bob says he wants it to be Christmas already.

My new job is going well. I am still on orientation. The hospital I am at, however, is a level 2 trauma center - I misunderstood them. Their sister hospital which is about nine miles south is a level 1 trauma center. They just opened a third hospital last month which is eight miles to the north which is not a trauma center yet.

The hospital will pay for all of the certification exams they require and that they would like me to get, and they will reward me with a $2/hr raise once I pass the certifications.

Jim is doing well despite a root canal he got a couple of weeks ago. The dentist office messed up his appointment to get rid of the temporary filling and place the permanent filling. He told them the dates I was available. They gave him an appointment for one of those dates, but they recorded it for the wrong date. As a result he will have had his temporary filling for almost a month when it is replaced on Friday.

Q dog is sitting next to me acting really neglected. He is sleeping on his pillow with Jim's old pillow that Jim was getting ready to throw out until Bob gave it to Q. Q then adopted it. His left back leg is arthritic. He limps on it occasionally, and that joint is bigger than the one on his right leg. I think I am going to start slipping some aspirin with his supper again. We stopped a few months ago because he wasn't limping anymore and we wanted to see how he was without the aspirin. He did fine. But the last few days he has been limping. Then again it has been raining, so that probably has something to do with it. His nose still looks funny. It looks better when I remember to rinse it with saline daily - something that Q hates. He sees the bottle of saline and runs the other way. I think the weather here is generally too dry for his nose.

I had to learn how to use the windshield wipers on my new car for the first time. I even have a rear windshield wiper that works. It has been raining for the last couple of days. I found the Weatherpulse alerts (from the national weather service) amusing. The forecasts were calling for one-half to one inch of rain so flood warnings/alerts were going off every couple of hours for a day or two before it started to rain up until it stopped this afternoon. We then had a wind advisory until this evening. In Binghamton it would rain one half to one inch in an hour. Raining that much in a twelve hour period was enough to fill most of the washes, and flood many roads. Water just doesn't soak into the ground here. It just runs right off.

I am going to attempt to post a picture of Bob from Thanksgiving below. I will see how it comes out:

Scorpion

Last week after I got home from work, I had my shoes off as I was on the couch. I asked Jim if he had checked Bob's backpack from school for any notes from the teacher. He had not. I went to check Bob's backpack and I felt something crawl across my foot. I looked down and I saw that a small scorpion had crawled across my foot. I was near the front door, so I used my shoe to guide it outside where Jim was able to euthanize it. Jim has since sprayed a one foot barrier of pesticide on the ground around the house. Indoors it states it lasts six months. Since the last time it rained here was July, it will probably last close to six months outside as well.

I start on Monday at Scottsdale Shea hospital. I am going to work in the emergency room. It is a level 1 trauma center (Wilson is a level 2 trauma center). I am looking forward to it. Money is good with registry nursing, but I am at a different facility every day, and something as simple as finding a 2x2 gauze can be a twenty minute project at some facilities. It was challenging when I was sent to the "detention ward" at the county hospital - the one where sick prisoners go, but at least the patients were all respectful, and I did not have to deal with overbearing families (patients are not allowed visitors, but they may talk to them via videophone with the family outside of the detention area for a limited time period each day).

Bob is doing well. We have a developmental pediatrician appointment on the 20th. This pediatrician is not a participating provider with the new health insurance I will have through Scottsdale Shea hospital, but I am still covered through Cobra with my old insurance (almost 1,300 for a month of insurance). I am going to find out if I can get future visits covered with that insurance as the ONLY developmental pediatrician that is covered under the new insurance is in Tucson - which is well over 100 miles away. It would be ridiculous for them to expect us to drive that far to see a doctor when there are plenty of developmental pediatricians in the Phoenix area.

Bob had his school pictures taken on Wednesday. I can't wait to see them. It is the first time he has had his picture taken without us. It will be a couple of weeks before we get them.

Jim had a root canal the other day. Of course they called the insurance company and they hadn't finished the paperwork on their end for the Cobra forms. The dentist was nice though and only billed us for what the insurance would not pay for once the Cobra goes through. The dentist we went to in NY always billed us for everything up front and had the insurance company reimburse us. That was part of the reason why we hardly went to the dentist. We had to have the money up front (and there were only two participating dentists and they both had the same policy). Of course I have a severe phobia of dentists and that metal thing they scrape on your teeth. This is enough - I have to change the subject.

Bob says I should write about how he loves school and riding the school bus. His favorite thing to do at school is to play with the train table there, and play at the playground there. He also likes to play with the marbles. He puts them in a hole on the top and they come out the bottom. The marbles are blue and orange and red and white. Bob wants to write something: bbbbbbbbbbbbbbbbbbbdddddddxxxsssszzzzzzzzzjjjj

I have to get going. Bob has his annual physical at his doctor's office.

Latest News

Bob has recovered from whatever bit him. The steroids made him hyperactive - even more so than he normally is. I put a note in Bob's folder for school letting them know what had happened so they would know why he was acting the way he was. I received a note from the teacher thanking me for telling her about it because he was easily frustrated and cried a lot in school - which is not his norm. Getting him to go to sleep was a challenge. He just could not wind down to get to sleep. I wound up sleeping with him on the floor in his room with one of my arms on top of him. It was the only way I could calm him down and help him relax. We were both exhausted.

After nine years, I had to say goodbye to the Explorer. It needed a lot of work - about $3000 in work total - so I took that $3000 and put it towards a downpayment on a Nissan Xterra S. It was a 2007 that had been on the lot for almost a year, so there were a lot of rebates and dealer incentives to get rid of it. It was only about 3-4 thousand dollars more than the program cars that were on the lot, and I was able to get a maintenance package that pays for all the routine maintenance until the car reaches 100,000 - it includes tire rotations, oil changes, air filter changes, windshield wipers, transmission fluid flushes, antifreeze flushes - the only things that are not included are tires, brakes, light bulbs, and batteries. I just take it to any Nissan dealer. It was a pretty good deal. Just the cost of oil changes for the 100,000 miles at today's prices more than covers the cost of the maintenance package. And the 2007 Xterra won several awards for lowest price of ownership and lowest cost of maintenance for vehicles in it's class. It seems to get good gas mileage. I have had it for almost two weeks and I still haven't filled it up yet. I won't know exact numbers until I actually fill the fuel tank - something I will probably do today or tomorrow as I am down to almost a quarter of a tank. The Explorer I pretty much filled up weekly.
The only extras the car has is curtain airbags and automatic transmission. Power windows and doorlocks are standard on the Xterra S.

I had my driver's license switched over to Arizona's license - so I am officially an Arizonan now. But my license does not expire until my birthday in 2038 (as in 31 years from now) - a good $25 investment. Jim also has an Arizona non-driver ID card. They suggested that we get Bob an Arizona ID - for a child the ID is only $12 and it only costs $3 to have the picture updated - something we could do every couple of years. It would make plane rides much easier - we wouldn't have to carry around a copy of his birth certificate. And if we drove to Mexico (which we don't plan on doing in the near future), we would have picture ID for Bob to get back in the country. And if we happen to still be in Arizona when it is time for Bob to get his driver's license, it would be a lot easier for him to get his license - he would already have ID.

As many of you know, my mother-in-law was evacuated from her San Diego home. She is now back home and her house and her neighborhood are safe. She was very fortunate. I have not found out how the firefighter that was injured is doing. I will ask her the next time I talk to her. What is frustrating was the person she was trying to rescue was told to evacuate and he didn't which cost him his life, and made the firefighters take risks they normally would not have made and probably will cost this firefighter her life.


Bob is having fun playing with airplanes, and hammering wooden golf tees into a piece of styrofoam with a wooden hammer. He keeps on bringing an airplane out to me, showing it to me, telling me that "this airplane is an aircraft" then hammering a golf tee into the styrofoam before bringing me another aircraft. Needless to say, he is a typical boy - into every thing that has wheels or flies.

I hope everyone is doing well. I will keep in touch.

???? Bite

Bob got bitten by something on Friday evening. He was playing on the patio. I don't know what bit him and neither did he. He had five or six bites on his left leg. I put hydrocortisone on it and put him to bed.
Saturday afternoon, his leg was huge. I had no Benadryl in the house, so I gave him some Claritin and it did not help. We wound up going to urgent care (what they call walk-ins on the west coast) as it was in the afternoon and his pediatrician only has office hours until noon on Saturday. His right leg (the good one) measured 21 cm in circumference. His left leg measured 24 cm in circumference. His left leg was also hot and red, and he had a low-grade temperature (99.7) He started on steroids and antibiotics - steroids in case it was just a venom reaction and antibiotics in case it was cellulitis.
The swelling is now down significantly - he is down to 22.5 cm, but every single one of the bites has turned into a bruise. I am going to call the pediatricians office in the AM because I want to spray the patio. I will ask them if they have any idea what could have caused such a bite. I don't think it was a flying insect as the bites are only on one leg. I think it was something that crawls and it crawled up his leg.
Potty training is on hold for the time being. Despite the fact that I have been giving Bob acidophilus supplements, he has a bad case of diarrhea from the antibiotics. We started using Desitin prophylactically.

Bob does not seem to be in much pain. I showed him the FACES pain scale and he picked out the FACE for 4/10 pain. He then ran away and started jumping on his trampoline. If his leg really hurt him, I don't think he would jump on the trampoline like that.

My fear is that it may have been a small scorpion. The effects of a scorpion bite can last a couple of weeks. But scorpion bites are supposively very painful, and I think Bob would have known he was being bit repeatedly by a small painful creature. He has a high pain tolerance, but not that high of a pain tolerance.

I will keep everyone updated.

Mid-October update

I hope this post finds everyone doing well and in good health.

We have had an exciting week. It was my last week working nights. I will miss my friends at St. Joseph's, but it is time to move on. Everyone wanted me to stay and become a staff nurse there, but I miss emergency medicine and I want to go to the emergency room.
I was given an unofficial offer at Scottsdale healthcare - Shea campus. The nurse manager has to complete the paperwork for the official offer, so I should start the week after next. In the mean time, I will work with a Registry nursing firm doing per diem/temp work. I may just stay with them for a while because I will only be able to get 36 hours a week while I am on orientation. Plus, it is a good way to keep up my med-surge nursing skills up. And the pay is really good. The hourly rate there is just about the time and a half rate anywhere I would work as a staff nurse. And I would not have to sign up ahead of time - I would tell them which days I want to work, and I could refuse any assignment they offer me if I don't like a particular hospital or floor.

Bob's IEP was today. He qualifies to remain in the preschool. He has come a long way since this time last year. He is talking in complete sentences, although they are short sentences. He is using verb+ing words. He does not, however, ask questions -except for "Where my blankie go?" when he is looking for his blanket. He still is not always age appropriate with his social interactions. His pincer grasp also is still not properly developed - which is needed to hold a pen/pencil/crayon properly. (Much to Bob's dismay, at the OT's suggestion, all of Bob's crayons are now broken - broken (small) crayons are difficult to hold with a fisted grasp and must be held properly) He can draw vertical and horizontal lines, but he does not even come close to approximating a circle or square. Markers are out of the question as they are long and Bob holds them with a fisted grip. He winds up just crushing the tip.

I discussed the option of the pre-kindergarten program for him next year. The pre-kindergarten program is tuition based (I would have to pay for it). There is one instructor for 13 children - so no one would be available for one-on-one time with Bob. The teacher is not certified (usually has an associate's degree). The pre-kindergarten program is run by a community education program - not the school district. And Bob would only get thirty minutes of OT and thirty minutes of speech therapy a week instead of the 600 minutes combined he gets now. Needless to say, Bob will be in Preschool for about three years total. I am not going to pay for Bob to get less services than he has now (unless he miraculously does not need services next year - then I would gladly pay for the pre-K program). Of course the fact that they love Bob and want him to stay with them had nothing to do with them convincing me that Bob needed to stay with them.

After watching an episode of Star Trek, Jim asked Bob if when he got bigger, if he wanted to go up in the sky and go to other planets like on Star Trek. Bob's reply was "No - there are no trains on other planets". He still plays with his train table every day. Usually he plays with it for a few minutes before school and when he comes home from school. There is a train table at the school which Bob plays with every day. They were not surprised when I told them his first sign when we were teaching him sign language (before he could talk) was train. He is going to be Thomas for Halloween. I have the costume hanging up in the package where he can see it so he can get used to the idea of wearing it. About a week before Halloween I will take it out of the package and hang it up so he can get used to the way it feels, smells (air out that plastic bag smell), and looks. We did not do that last year with Tow Mater and Bob took some time to warm up to his Halloween costume. Although now he is pretty excited over the fact that he is going to be Thomas for Halloween.

We went to K-mart and Bob was on Jim's shoulders when we were leaving. At the exit, they had a Halloween figure that looked scary and said "Boo" and then something funny. The figure then picked his head off of his body. Poor Bob was terrified. He was not hearing what the thing said. The thing was just scary. He turned Jim's head and said "No like it here, we have to leave" and started crying. Jim did not even see the creature. All he knew was that his head was turned to the exit and he was instructed to leave. It was a topic of conversation all evening. We explained to Bob that it was a make-believe statue and that real things cannot take their heads off of their bodies like that make believe statue. He told us how he did not like it and it made him scared and he cried.

Q's nose still looks okay as long as I squirt saline into it at least daily. It is not "normal" and I don't think it will be "normal" ever again, but I think it looks a lot better. He is not a young dog anymore.

Jim is nearly completely back to his previous insane workout schedule. Depending on the day of the week, Jim is at the gym from one to two hours. It does help him deal with Bob though. He needs to work out to keep up with Bob. He still carries Bob on his shoulders to and from the schoolbus. It is about a 2/10 of a mile walk to where the school bus picks up Bob, so that in and of itself is a workout.

That is all I have to blog on for now. I hope everyone is doing well.

Vacation

Sorry I have not written an update on this site recently. We were on vacation for about a week and a half.

We had a blast on vacation. We first went to Williams, AZ where we rode the Grand Canyon Railway ( www.thetrain.com ). Bob, Mr.Train, loved every second of it. He even went potty on the train (with his potty chair topper). I had only seen the Grand Canyon from an airplane in the past. The airplane view was misleading. The size of the Grand Canyon is immense - "Grand" is not a proper adjective. Enormous or Gigantic or some other word maybe. You feel so small and insignificant when you stand there looking at the layers of rock that were deposited millions, if not billions of years ago. Compared to geologic time, we are here for just a few seconds. The views were breathtaking. Jim posted the pictures on Shutterfly and finally put them in a file that is shared if you want to look at them. www.thebobpics.shutterfly.com

We then spent the night in Vegas at the Hilton - home of Star Trek the experience. (Since you have to go around the Grand Canyon to get to Utah - Vegas was on the way. If they built a bridge through the Grand Canyon, it would have to be something like 150 to 200 miles long) Bob initially said he wanted to see a Borg. When we arrived and went there, we did see a Borg. Bob got scared and cried. We told him we were not going to let him get assimilated and that he was safe with mommy and daddy. He was still scared. He stayed upstairs in the hotel room with grandma Beverly and played cars with her and read books with her until he fell asleep.
The next day we went to St. George Utah where my in-laws rented a three bedroom condo. Everyone had fun. We went to Zion national park, Bryce canyon, and a smaller local canyon called Snow Canyon. Red Canyon was on the way to Zion national park, so we stopped there as well (to use the bathrooms). Jim took pictures there as well. Those canyons also make you feel small and insignificant, but nothing like the Grand Canyon. There were playgrounds and pools at the condo. There was even a two foot deep children's pool, so Bob did not have to wear his swim vest in that one. He had a blast. We had a birthday party for him at the Condo. It was tractor themed. We had cupcakes baked in ice cream cones as well as ice cream cones filled with ice cream. Bob got really messy, but it was fun.

My shoulder is now finally better. Vacation was good for it. I did not have to do any lifting using my shoulder (except to carry Bob) for a week and a half. It needed a rest. Hopefully it stays healthy.

As for Q, I bought saline nose spray. I started spraying it in his nose once a day. His nose is looking a lot better. I think the desert air is just too dry for him. I wish I had thought of that earlier before I spent almost $300 on him. But, he was almost due for his thyroid levels again, so I guess I could say I "only" spent about $175 on him.


Bob has started to go poop on the big potty. He did not like to poop on the little potty, but with the potty topper, he goes poop on the big toilet. It is a really good topper - it is by Baby Bjorn. It adjusts to fit ANY toilet - even elongated ones. I bought some travel sized Clorox anti-bacterial wipes so that I can clean it after he uses a public restroom before putting it back in the bag. He does well as long as we put him on the potty every hour or so. If we forget to put him on the potty, he will go in his pull-up. And if he wants to go back to play, he will just pee and then poop in his pull-up. I keep on telling myself - baby steps. I am not having another child until Bob is potty training. We are slowly getting there.

I have to go. Q needs a walk. I will try and update this next week.

It has been a busy week. Q's test pretty much showed nothing. His Cortisol levels were normal, but he has a small amount of albumin in his urine (very early kidney failure - common for a dog Q's age) and his liver enzymes were elevated slightly - again, Q is an old dog so it is not surprising. We are just going to have him tested again in six months. As for his nose, the vet has no idea what is wrong with it. I really think he got something stuck in his nose from sticking his nose into everything outside, but she does not think so. Oh well, we will just keep an eye on it.

I messed up my shoulder again. A few weeks ago, I went to retrieve a ball that had rolled under a pricker bush. I retrieved the ball, but the position I contorted myself into to retrieve the ball caused a muscle spasm in my shoulder. The muscle spasm caused some tingling in my arm that lasted a few hours then went away. I decided to swim some laps last Friday. I swam for probably a half an hour. On Sunday night/Monday morning my left shoulder started bothering me. By Monday morning, I had some intermittent numbness and tingling. Same for Monday night. After only being able to sleep for a few hours on Tuesday, I decided it was time to see the doctor. Of course my doctor didn't have any openings for two weeks, so I wound up going to a walk-in. They did shoulder x-rays there - which he said looked good. They don't do spine x-rays, so I had to go to an x-ray clinic to get x-rays. I am still waiting for results. They give you a phone number and an ID Number. You call, enter the ID number, and if there are any results then you have a message you listen to. That was Tuesday and it is now Saturday and there is still no results posted. They checked the box for a stat read and had results faxed to their fax number, so I am sure they have results. If I have no results by Monday, I will call them and make sure I have the right ID number. More than likely, muscle spasms are putting pressure on my brachial plexus which is causing the numbness/tingling - especially since it is not constant. The discomfort has been improving steadily. I am taking high dose ibuprofen and Flexaril. They gave me Vicodin as well, but it makes me way too sleepy. I would rather deal with the pain and be awake than take the Vicodin and be really uncomfortable.
- I just got a phone call from the computer saying a message was left for me. It says my X-ray was "negative for significant bony changes"- whatever that means. It probably means that I have some minor arthritic changes or something like that. No acute abnormalities.

Bob is getting really excited because in two weeks we are going for a ride on the Grand Canyon Railway ( www.thetrain.com ). I stopped at AAA to get a TripTik for the trip, and they had a brochure for the train ride. Bob has been carrying it around and he wants to "Keep it forever". It has only been two days, and we have already scotch taped it several times. I am going to have to stop by and pick up a couple of more copies of the brochure because this one is not going to last very long.

Bob gets very excited whenever I stay home from work. He asks me "You stay here lots and lots mommy?!!" I feel bad when I have to go to work, especially when he asks me to "stay here with me mommy". I explain to him that I will see him when he wakes up in the morning. He is usually okay with that. I use the direct-connect feature on my phone and I talk to him before I go to work - as I am walking from my car to work. It is really cute to hear his voice on the phone. He always says "Love you mommy, see you when I wake up in the morning".

Bob still loves his baths. Now he takes a shower when he is done with his bath to wash his hair.
Bob also wants to go potty on the big potty chair. The top of his potty comes off his potty to sit on the toilet, but it scares him because it is not steady - if he moves it rocks and he is afraid he will fall in the toilet. So, he won't use it. Needless to say, I went online and researched toilet toppers and read multiple reviews on toilet toppers. There a few that were inexpensive and highly rated for girls, but the splash guard for boys was poorly designed resulting in a mess to clean up every time a boy went pee pee on the potty. Baby Bjorn makes a toilet trainer that sits on top of the "big boy toilet" that comes highly rated by parents of boys. It is a lot more expensive than the other brands, ($30 compared to $10) but it has a good splash guard that actually works, and you tighten it to fit any toilet - even elongated toilets - so it doesn't wobble and Bob feels secure on it. Most of the reviewers said they balked at the price, bought other toppers, and wound up throwing them out and buying this one anyway. It just came in the mail today and Bob used it immediately. He is excited to go on the big potty like a big boy. He flushed his pee pee and was all excited. He is now trying to go make poo poo on the big potty. I think we are just going to leave that on that potty for now so it is always ready for Bob to use. Jim and I will use our bathroom to "go".

We also ordered some Hansman's pancake mix. Buck hill farms bought Hansman's recipe. If I don't work tonight (tonight is an extra night and the census is usually low on Saturdays), I think we will have Pancakes for breakfast in the AM. We are bringing a package with us to Utah with our in laws when we go in a couple of weeks. I told them they will have to supply the maple syrup.

I have to get going. I hope to "talk" to you soon.

Bob's new home

It has been a while since I have posted anything, and for that I apologize. Things have been a bit crazy. We moved out of the two bedroom apartment my travel nurse company was paying for. We now moved into a three bedroom apartment. I get a housing allowance which I use to pay the rent - at least until I become a staff nurse.

For the first week or two, Bob wanted to go back to the old house. It is another apartment in the same complex. Jim and Bob even walked over to the old house a couple of times. As of last week, the apartment was still empty. There is a waiting list for the one bedroom apartments in this complex, but usually there are a few two or three bedroom apartments open at any given time.

We still have boxes everywhere. I am working four days a week, so generally, I don't have time to unpack the boxes. And since Bob is such a spirited child, Jim has not had much time to unpack the boxes. But, we will get unpacked eventually.

We thought we would have a lot of room in this three bedroom apartment, but you would be surprised at how fast things fill up. We had ten boxes of Bob's old clothes. We had no room for all those old clothes. I tearfully went through the old clothes and culled through the ones we were keeping versus the ones we were giving away. We kept four larger boxes full of clothes. We are giving away five smaller boxes of clothes. We were going to give them to Goodwill, but they just turn around and sell them - like the Salvation Army does. A friend at work has a friend who is pregnant and has a minimum wage job. Her boyfriend is an "illegal" - an undocumented resident or whatever you want to call him. He cannot financially contribute to the child, and she has nothing for the child and she is due in a month. She is having a boy. I have been bringing the clothes in to work two boxes at a time. I am sure Bob's old clothes will go to good use. I am also going to give her Bob's old toddler mattress (it is a crib mattress). Bob also has a ton of books. We bought him a new set of bookshelves, and they are filled up as well. I have started to go through them and get the books that Bob doesn't read anymore. But, we usually read five or six books every night so Bob gets through most of them (even though Bob easily has over one hundred books). At least Bob loves books.

We also have a couple of boxes of things we are going to give to Goodwill. We have way too much stuff.

A couple of weeks ago Bob said something that was priceless. He told me "No go to work mommy!" I explained to him that I had to go to work to buy him clothes and food and toys. His reply was "No need clothes, no need toys, no need food - you stay here with me mommy!" It broke my heart to go to work that night, but I had to.

Bob is back in school. He loves school and riding on the school bus. We already have a collection of new Bob artwork on the walls. We have a couple of choo choo trains, and a rainbow.

We often spend our evenings sitting out on the golf course looking at the stars. Bob likes to play in the dirt - the sand pits. Most of you would think I was nuts, but at night when it gets down to about 95 degrees, it is actually pretty cool. But when it is 110+ degrees during the day, 95 and breezy is cool at night.

Last night I was supposed to work. I got there and I was not on the schedule so I turned around and went back home. The three of us along with Q went out on the golf course. Bob tired Q out. He ran circles around Q and Q tried to run circles around Bob. Q is getting up there in years. He is far from a puppy. Today Q is hurting. His back legs are sore and he is not eating. But, I am not sure if it is entirely related to his legs hurting him. His nose has what I jokingly call "necrotizing noseitis". I finally took him to the vet for his nose today. Half of his nose is dried out and white and it has been that way for over a month and a half. I thought maybe he had a cactus needle or something in it that was causing it to look like that - he is always sniffing into things outside. The veterinarian thinks that is not the case. She thinks it is probably something endocrine related. He already has thyroid problems. She was thinking Cushings or something like that, or that his thyroid levels are off. I have to collect an AM urine sample on him. I taped a bowl I was going to give to Goodwill to the end of a stick. In the morning Jim is going to walk Q and I am going to follow with this bowl on a stick to hopefully collect a sample so they can do a cortisol level on his urine. (Then I will put it in the trash - not in the Goodwill box) Another thing she said it could be is something leftover if he had distemper as a puppy - remember he was a year and a half or two years old when we got him. She also mentioned the possibility of a biopsy if everything else came back negative. I don't think I will put Q through a biopsy. That would be too expensive, and if he has dog nose cancer, I am not putting him through chemotherapy or anything like that. I am certainly not going to let her cut off his nose. Not to mention the veterinarian bills if we did any of that. I will do bloodwork and urine tests. I draw the line at that. Although if the nose problem is due to a latent distemper virus, a biopsy would confirm that. But, the treatment for distemper is supportive anyway. I doubt it is a latent distemper virus though. He has had this for a month and a half. And usually the pads of the feet are affected too. His feet are fine.

I will try and be good and update this blog once a week again. Hopefully you will be hearing from me in a week or so.

fireworks

I am working on the fourth of July, so we went to see fireworks on Friday. We then found out that we didn't have to, as we had a great view of a fireworks display Sunday night from the parking lot here. We were pretty close on Friday, and Bob was scared of all the noise, so we had to stay in the car. The fireworks on Sunday were pretty far away, so Bob wasn't scared of the noise so we didn't have to go in the car.
Bob is a fish in the water. When people see him swimming, they guess his age wrong because he swims so well. We went swimming Sunday night and we had a blast.

We went to a monthly kids club thing at the mall today (Monday). They have singing, dancing, and storytelling at the indoor play area at the mall. Bob just enjoyed going down the slide over and over again. We may frequent there this month on my days off as it is air conditioned and we cannot go to the playground when it is 110++ degrees outside.

I started writing this blog on Monday and did not finish it. I am just getting to it now. I worked last night, but I am off tonight. Jim and Bob went out on the grass in the golf course and watched some fireworks up in the sky. They were set off a couple of miles away again, so Bob was not scared.

Bob is currently wearing Big Boy pants tonight. He decided he wanted to wear them earlier this evening. It was right after a wet pull-up. He has not yet peed in them or on the potty. He just got off the potty from trying to go without success. He insisted that he did not have any pee pee to make. Less than two minutes later I hear him say "I want new pants." He was standing in the dining room with a tell-tale dripping of water down his leg. He still has not pooped on the potty since that last time back in April, but I am sure he will be potty trained before kindergarten. In a way, I am glad he has not been going poop on the potty. One of the Thomas trains with one of the DVD's he has for reward for going poop was recalled - made in China with lead based paint. Our next trip to Costco we will return it to the store - they are accepting them back.

As for the sale of our house, we hit a minor roadblock. It seems when we bought the house, a copy of the death certificate of Mrs. Mariani was not included with the deed. Al (the previous owner) had his niece do the closing for him. She was not a real estate lawyer. She probably did not know to include a copy of the death certificate. I am angry with the lawyers I had for my closing when I bought the house as they did not realize that there was no copy of the death certificate. The house was deeded to Al and his wife and she died. He signed the property over to me. Without a copy of the death certificate on the deed, I would need her signature as well to legally take ownership of the property. So, technically, the house still belongs to her.
My current lawyer tried to contact Al's lawyer (his niece) and she has since died. Al moved someplace down south, and he was close to eighty years old at the time. I am sure he is no longer among the living. My current lawyer contacted all the municipalities in the area to try and track down the death certificate without success. The death certificate is filed in the town where someone dies, not where they lived. She did not die locally. My lawyer found some Mariani's in the the phone book, but they were not related (The prunes I bought a few weeks ago were Mariani brand - it is a common name).
My lawyer wound up going to the library and looking at microfilm of old newspapers during the time period when she died (she died in 1988). The paralegal found a one line death notice in an old issue of the Press and Sun Bulletin. She died somewhere in Virginia. They now have to acquire a copy from that municipality. I don't want to know how much this search is going to cost me. Probably at least one thousand dollars. All because Al's lawyer (his niece) did not know what she was doing, and the lawyer I had at the time made a mistake and did not get a copy before the closing. The closing was supposed to be on the 9th, but I don't think it is going to be then because we don't have a copy of the death certificate yet. I did not like the idea of the closing being on July 9th anyway - 15 years after my dad's death.
I have not heard anything back about the blood tests I had. It takes a week for my doctor's office to get the results from the lab - it is a highly sensitive test that is performed in a special laboratory. My doctor won't get the results until Friday the earliest, and it may not be until Monday. It usually takes a couple of days for her to call me.
One of my co-workers was jealous that I got in to see my endocrinologist. She is diabetic, and my doctor is no longer accepting new diabetic patients at this time, so she could not get in to see her. That increased my confidence in her. After seeing Dr. Raminujin who is great with diabetics and takes weeks to get back to thyroid patients, it is a relief to have a good doctor. Ramanujin should just stop seeing thyroid patients. When he ordered the metastatic scan and ablation, he did not even realize they could do them together. He told me I would be on isolation in the hospital for the ablation, and I was not because he though I was going for the scan first and then the ablation after he had the results of the scan. Then when I told him the nuclear med doctor said I could start Synthroid, he told me I could not. It was another week later before he called back and said that I had the ablation already (which I had told him already) and asked where he could call in the prescription. This was after several phone calls from him begging him to start me on the Synthroid because my mental health was in the toilet. I had to start Ativan to deal with anxiety. He also told me I would need an annual scan where I would go off the thyroid medication for several weeks before the scan. Thyrogen has been around for a few years, and if he was keeping up to date on all aspects of endocrinology including thyroid issues, he would have known that. But, diabetes is his forte, so he does not keep up to date with thyroid issues.
When my mom calls him, he calls right back. When my sister called him several times over several weeks, it took several weeks to call her back. He needs to stop seeing thyroid patients.

It is getting late and I have to get Bob to bed. I will keep everyone updated about the house sale and my test results.

Back from NY

We had a good time in NY. We found a buyer for the house, and we will be relieved after the closing. Bob had a fabulous time at his grandma's house and at his cousins' houses. He enjoyed playing with them. It saddens me to be leaving NY, but it is time to move on. I miss all my family and friends, but we hope to return for a visit in the end of the year.
All of our belongings are packed in a POD which will be delivered in the beginning of August. I am going to stay with my travel nurse company until October so I can get another 20% of my 401K, and then I will go staff somewhere. I should be eligible for both a relocation and a sign-on bonus.

We are going to go on the Grand Canyon Railway for Bob's Birthday with my in-laws. They have a video on their website, as well as some pictures. ( http://www.thetrain.com/ ) Jim made one of the pictures the wallpaper on the computer. Bob loves it. It is a picture of a train on a bridge going over land. He will sit on the computer and tell us how the train goes on the tracks, it has lights and wheels and a bell and it makes smoke and it is black and people go in the train and the conductor sits here and it goes choo choo and the wheels go round and round, and it goes on the bridge over the dirt...... He will go on for about twenty minutes. I asked Jim if the train goes along the rim of the Grand Canyon (it does). Bob told me "the train goes on the train tracks mommy." He is absolutely correct.

It is hot here in Phoenix. And, according to what I have read, tomato pollen dies above sustained 90 degree temperatures. Needless to say, the tomatoes on the tomato plants are all the tomatoes we are going to get this season. We now know to plant seedlings in the end of August so we can have tomatoes in the fall months. Most of the people in Phoenix have fall/winter gardens.
I thought the heat would bother me more than it does. It does not. 85 in NY bothers me. 85 here is cool.

I had my thyroid scan today. I had a small "hot spot" in the area where my thyroid was. There is no way to tell if it is cancer or a little bit of residual thyroid with that scan. I had bloodwork done to check my thyroglobulin level. If that level is high, then I will need a thyroid ultrasound. After that we will decide if I need radiation again. I really don't want to go through that again. I don't want to be off of thyroid hormone for six weeks, but if I have to, then I have to. There are worse things in life that could happen. I don't know what we will do with Bob for the three days if I have to go on isolation, but I will figure it out if it comes to that point.

I will keep everyone updated with the latest news.

Missing Bob

...and Jim too.
Bob and Jim arrived safely in NY on Sunday. I am still in Phoenix working. I fly out on the 7th. I miss my super Bob kid. He tells me he misses me when I call him. Every day he has asked me "You come here tomorrow?" I keep on saying "not tomorrow, but in a few days". My heart just melts to putty. I have his picture from school on the refrigerator - the one that was next to his coat hook. I wish I could stretch my arms through the phone lines and give him a hug. But, hearing his voice and looking at his picture will have to be enough.
Bob is at my mother-in-law's house right now. He tells me about the geese over by the pool, how papa Chuck is in the house upstairs, and what he has to eat. He had a blast by Devin and Nikki's house since they have a swing set and a slide he could slide down. Not to mention "baby"
He goes to Annmarie's house on Saturday. He will have a blast - I know he will. In addition to the swing set that is there, one of her goats had two kids on Memorial day. I know he will think that is great. And if her horse lets him pet her, I am pretty sure he will be really excited. He was pretty happy petting a horse that was at the school for the school dinner through a gate. And we cannot forget his cousins. They are going to be really fun to play with.

I am falling asleep while writing this. I hope it makes sense. I will try and post again when I am more awake.

Almost to NY

Today was Bob's last day of school. He told me he had chocolate cupcakes and chocolate milk. He was very excited when he came home. I don't think he understands it was the last day of school. He brought home a scrapbook from school. It had some pictures of him with his friends at school - Kirstin, Brian, and Cameron, as well as pictures he drew. He likes to sit down and show them to us. He really likes the pictures - his "book". He tells us that he misses us when he is at school. Of course I tell him that I miss him when I am at work, so I think that is where he gets that from.

When we were swimming the other day, there was a golf ball on the bottom of the pool. Jim off-handedly commented that it was a really bad golfer for the ball to go in the pool. On the way back from the bus, the sidewalk goes by a tee-off for one of the holes. Yesterday, Bob stopped and said in a very loud voice - "bad golfers get golf ball in pool. You practice, get better!!"

Jim and Bob are leaving for NY on Sunday. I am going to have ten days of withdrawal from my baby Bob. Of course if you ask Bob, he will tell you that he is not a baby - "I'm big! - I'm not a baby". His sentences are getting much better. I tell him that he will always be my baby. I don't know how I am going to do - 10 days without my Bob kid. That is the longest period of time I will have been separated from him. I'm already going through withdrawal, and he is still here.

I am working tonight, so I don't have time to post more, but it had been a while since I last updated this blog. I hope to post again in a couple of days. Bob has been a handful this last week or so.

We have had a busy, fun-filled week this week. The temperature broke 100 degrees yesterday (Thursday) so we used the air conditioner for the first time. We are on the first floor of a three story building, so it took a while for our apartment to heat up. We did not need the AC until after the sun went down and we were trying to go to sleep. We put the AC on at bedtime for a couple of hours and that is all we really needed. Tonight, we put the AC on when we went swimming - about an hour or so, and that is probably all we will need. We just have to cool off the house so it can gradually heat up during the day. I fear when the temperature goes up into the one-teens. That might be a bit challenging. At least our bedroom stays cooler than the rest of the house. It only has one outside wall, and I know both our neighbors on either side keep their AC cranked 24/7. Needless When I sleep during the day, it generally does not get very hot. Jim also installed a ceiling fan in our bedroom which has been a godsend. We already have one in our living room that came with the apartment.

Some juvenile delinquents tried to jump off an oversized flowerpot filled with dirt to jump into the big pool near the front office here. In doing so, he/she knocked the pot into the pool and broke it. They had to pump all the water out of the pool (there was no cleaning it), and now they have to refill it. They have, of course, closed off the area. Of course this is the area that the gym ("fitness center") is located. Needless to say, we cannot go to the gym. When they were re-surfacing the pool back in February, they still let us go to the gym. There was no water in the pool then. Now they won't let us go to the gym because the pool is empty. They do not make any sense. At least the pool closest to our apartment is still open. We went swimming today and we had a blast. Bob swims very well with his life vest on. He kicks his feet and paddles with his hands. He does a good job swimming laps. He is pretty fast for a three year old.

I am working on Sunday, so we celebrated Mother's day today. We went out to eat to Uno's for a late lunch/early supper. Bob kept on looking at the patio and seeing the misters he kept on getting worried saying "smoke". We have taught Bob that he should stay away from smoke, because where there is smoke, there is fire, and fire is hot and can burn you which would hurt. We had to go outside and show him the misters - that it was just water, not smoke. He thought it was neat, especially since you walked under the mist, it was wet, but you stayed dry (the water evaporates almost as soon as it hits you).
Bob was a bottomless pit at Uno's. He had about three (small - Uno's sized) pieces of pizza, as well as the tomato and some croûtons from my salad. We then went to Costco and they were giving out samples as usual. Bob devoured the samples and was acting like he didn't just eat three pieces of pizza. Then, we came home and he had to have some milk and yogurt because he was starving to death. He also had a huge bowl of cereal, cereal in a cup, and toast with jam for breakfast. He had a fruit cup, trail mix and some cheese for lunch before we left the house to run errands as well. I think he is having a growth spurt. Jim and I had a doctor's appointment the other day and Bob had to get on the scale to get weighed and get his height measured as well. He was up to 32 pounds (2.5 pounds more than he weighed at the end of his stomach bug last week). He is now 40 inches tall (in the beginning of April, at the doctor's office, he was still 38 inches tall). Even though he gained 2.5 pounds in a week, he is still way too thin. His ribs and his sternum stick out way too much. He resembles a CPR manikin. I refuse to give him junk food to make him gain weight though. He looks like we never feed him. The child really does not stop eating. He also does not stop running around the house or the golf course. Energy is wasted on the young.

We keep on telling Bob that he is going to NY to see his grandmas and papa's. He keeps on packing bags of toys to bring to grandma and grandpa's house. Of course he winds up unpacking these bags because he wants to play with those toys again, but it is really cute.

When we were at Costo, Bob informed me that my car has dirty tires. He pointed at a pile of tires that were $200 each and told me that I needed to get those new clean tires. I asked him if I could just go to the carwash and clean the tires that were on the car. He told me no.

I hope everyone is doing well, and I look forward to coming to NY to visit in a couple of weeks.

We had a poop!!

Bob went poop on his potty tonight before going to bed!!!! We sang. We danced. We laughed. We cried. Bob got a movie with a choo choo train. Bob got a tootsie roll. Bob got thrown up - up - in the air. Bob got lots of hugs and kisses. We told Bob how proud we were of him. Now, if we can get him to go in the potty more....

A yucky day

Sorry I haven't posted in a while. Things have been crazy and I have been working a lot.
The title of this post is a yucky day. Actually, it was a yucky weekend. There has been a stomach bug going around in school, and Bob was a lucky winner of the stomach virus. It started at three in the morning and ended late Sunday morning. I did take him to the pediatrician's emergency office hours on Sunday morning because Bob started running a low grade temperature. The pediatrician gave us some more tips, and if he lost more weight by Monday morning, then he would need IV fluids. Bob weighed 33.5 pounds last week. He was down to 29.5 pounds on Monday morning, but he was holding down fluids by then, so I decided that I did not want to put him through the trauma of getting an IV. The damage Bob did to the rugs from throwing up was worse than Q. We are going to rent the Rug Doctor again tomorrow. At least we have leftover shampoo.

I do have to say that Bob is so skinny now. He looks like the pictures of Ethiopian children that you saw on TV in the eighties. He doesn't have the distended belly, but his ribcage and his sternum sticks out. I tried to get him to drink Pediasure, but he won't drink it. I now mix it half pediasure and half (chocolate) ovaltine milk, and he drinks it. There is underweight, and there is anorexic. Bob looks anorexic. 29.5 pounds is too tiny for a 38 inch body. He is three and a half and is still wearing 2T clothes. Most of his pants are too short because 2 year olds are a lot shorter than Bob. 3T fits him height wise, but then he has to pull up his pants up every other step. At least shorts fit him.

I have to get going. Bob wants to play. I will try to post again a lot sooner that I did this last time.

The reenactment

In the last post I mentioned about the mess that Q made. On Wednesday morning, Q started throwing up again (we missed one pinecone). Q started gagging and Jim pulled Q into the kitchen (where the products would be easier to clean up). Q only had one episode as he had not eaten breakfast yet. Jim woke me up. I walked out into the living room. Bob told me everything that happened - complete with his reenactment of the noises Q made while he was puking.

Q acted like he didn't feel good for the rest of the day on Wednesday. When we did finally feed him, he did not eat all of his food in one sitting like he normally does. On Thursday, he was back to himself.

The Treadmill

Every night, we continue to go outside with Bob to tire him out to make bedtime easier. Plus, all the literature I read says that a child Bob's age needs at least one hour of physical activity a day. We usually exceed that by a lot. Bob likes to play "fetch" with the giant styrofoam airplanes we have. We also bought some foam planes that came with a launcher. Bob likes to launch the planes, then he runs after them to retrieve them. One of us has to re-load the launcher. I don't predict the launcher will last long, but it is fun for now. Grandma Mazie sent a huge frisbee-type thing with a picture of a pepperoni pizza on it. It is like a piece of cloth over a round wire. It is rarely flat, so when you throw it, it does all sorts on neat loop-tee-loops. Bob thinks it is great. He plays "fetch" with that as well, giggling the whole time. Today, however, he chose a styrofoam airplane to play with outside. That went well, until he broke the tail. Then it did not fly well. It did, however, crash well.

Our nightly walks take us by the fitness center. Bob enjoys the treadmill. We put it on its lowest setting - 1.5 miles per hour, and stand right next to Bob to catch him in case he falls (he hasn't - yet). We set it for five minutes (which is six minutes with the one minute cool down) and Bob goes to town. Today he wanted to go on it twice - 12 minutes total. There is a TV in the fitness center so we watched something on the learning channel while Bob was walking. He had a blast. Then, of course, when we left, he went right back to running around. Energy is wasted on the youth.

Last night, Bob stayed dry all night. He woke up with a dry pull-up. He used the potty right away and peed lots. He has gone on the potty five times today - a regained interest after over a week with him only using the potty only once a day. He has not pooped on the potty again since last Friday. Of course his renewed interest in the potty might have something to do with the tootsie rolls we bought. He goes on the potty, he gets a tootsie roll. (He makes poop, he gets another one of those train/DVD combos) Bob evidently loves tootsie rolls. I still have a collection of small cars on top of the fridge for prizes as well, but he can have a tootsie roll or a car. He chooses a tootsie roll every time.

And then there is Q. He got into Bob's pine cone collection on Monday night/Tuesday morning. He chewed up a pinecone. And that, in and of itself is not a bad thing. The fact that he ingested some of those pinecone pieces is a bad thing. I came home from work on Tuesday morning, and Q had puked everywhere. Saying that he puked everywhere is not much of an exaggeration. Three piles by the front door. Three piles by the dining room table. A pile by the couch. A pile on and around Jim's sneaker in the bedroom (right next to the bed - Jim apparently slept through Q puking). He did not puke in Bob's room or his bathroom because the gate is up at night so Bob cannot wander the house. He did not puke in the kitchen because that has a linoleum floor and that would be easy to clean up. He did not puke in the other bathroom because he is deathly afraid of water and there is water in the bathroom (His food bowl is in Bob's bathroom. When I feed him, I wash my hands after I put the bowl down for him - he will not enter the bathroom to eat until after I am done washing my hands). Q pretty much puked everywhere there was carpet. I wound up renting a Rug Doctor to clean it up. The Rug Doctor shampoo we bought with it was not strong enough for the stain. Jim added OxyClean to the mixture. Even with the OxyClean added, Jim had to make many passes with the machine. Anyone in the market for an annoying dog?

Correction

I can't figure out how to edit a blog, but I wrote the wrong dates for returning to NY. Jim and Bob are leaving May 27th, not the 30th. I am leaving June 7th.

Bob and the goose bumps

Bob continues to be his cute self. He loves his bath, and he will stay in the bathtub for hours if we let him. Last night, he was in the bathtub for almost an hour. The water was cold. Bob was cold. He had goose bumps. I told him it was time to come out of the bathtub. He said no - more bath. I told him he had to come out of the bathtub because he was covered with goose bumps. I then pointed to the goose bumps all over his legs. He saw the bumps and he started to cry. He did not know what they were. He was scared. He thought something was wrong. I explained to him that they were temporary, and that once he got warm they would go away. He calmed down. When he was warm and dry I showed him that the goose bumps were gone. He was happy again.

Bob started to come home with toys in his backpack. I asked his schoolteacher about them. She said they did not belong to the classroom. I kept on asking Bob where they came from, but with his speech being unclear at times, even Jim and I had a hard time figuring out what he was saying. He kept on coming home with the toys. We finally figured out they belong to the bus driver. She buys toys to keep on the bus to keep the young children occupied. I was happy to return them. Most of them were noisy.

We have small tomatoes on our tomato plants. They are still green, but they are growing. We are going to have more tomatoes this year than we had last year when we attempted the same thing in California (we had smaller pots then - we only got one tomato).

Jim and Bob are leaving for NY on May 30th. I am leaving on the 7th. We are hoping to get to my Aunt Gige and Uncle Joe's 50th wedding anniversary party on the 10th.

Bob went poop on the potty on Friday. We were all excited. We danced and sang. Bob got one of the Thomas DVD's that come with a toy train my in-laws bought for him. We told Bob that he could get one every time he went poop on the potty. He has only gone once so far. They gave us a total of six of the DVD - train sets.

We went to the park yesterday and tried to fly a kite - it was a huge Dragon kite we got at Costco. It is really pretty. When Jim was putting it together, a group of kids gravitated towards him to get a peek at the kite. It has a 72 inch wingspan. But it was not windy enough. The longest period of time Jim got it to fly was about a minute. According to Weatherpulse, it is windier today than yesterday. Maybe we will try and fly it again today. When we got home, Bob just could not stop talking about the kite. He also remembers the airplane kite we had in California that broke. He wanted us to "wake up in the morning get new airplane kite." We told him we would think about it. For now though, I think one kite is enough. We also have a Nemo fish kite somewhere in the closet that we got in the 99 cent store. We had another one of those in California as well, but while at the beach, I let Bob hold the string for a couple of minutes, and he walked next to a palm tree. The kite got tangled in the top of the tree. At least that one was also a 99 cent store purchase. It did not come with a tail (probably why it was in the 99 cent store) and it did not fly well, so I made a tail out of a plastic shopping bag and cut it out with nail clippers (It was all I had in the car at the time). It did not look the prettiest, but it worked and Bob was delirious. I will make a tail for this one before we attempt to fly it. I think the dragon would be a little too heavy for Bob to fly. I fear he may end up like Curious George in the story "Curious George flies a kite" and go up up in the sky.

Happy Easter

Happy Easter to everyone!!!
This last week, we taught Bob how to say "Happy Easter" and he has been saying "Happy Easter" to practically everyone he meets - in stores, and people who walk by our apartment.

It has been a chaotic week. Bob has been sick. He had a "boo boo" in his ear. He had an ear infection. His fever topped 103.5 and was difficult to control, but it finally came down. He, unfortunately needed antibiotics. I did not want him on the same antibiotics he was on in December as it gave him diarrhea and he is allergic to several different antibiotics. He wound up with another cephalosporin - the same class he had in December - that does not cause the stomach upset. Unfortunately, it tastes awful, and we have to bribe Bob into taking it each time. The last time I squirted it in his mouth, and he spat it right back out at me. I had to bribe him with a strawberry. Of course I have not been able to get Bob to eat yogurt or drink yogurt drink (he is strong willed). I wound up buying a children's acidopholus supplement. It is orange flavored and has a picture of a bear on it. I told Bob it was Tangerine Bear, and he has taken two doses so far without a problem (Tangerine Bear has been his favorite movie as of late. We got the VHS tape of it at the 99 cent store and he has just about worn it out). Bob has only one episode of diarrhea, and that was Friday before I bought the acidopholus supplement. It seems to be working. I have also been pushing the yogurt drinks on him - I bought the Dannon three ounce size so he can have more than one a day - if I can get him to drink them.

Jim and I were talking about (eventually) having another child. We asked Bob if he would like to have a baby brother or a baby sister. His response was "No like it baby brother, no like it baby sister, get baby chocolate."

Bob had a blast coloring Easter eggs Saturday afternoon. The kit came with the coloring and stickers to put on the eggs. It was fun. Jim took pictures. He will post them as soon as he gets the chance (on www.thebobpics.shutterfly.com )

I have to get going. The Easter Bunny is here and I have to give him a hand with these Easter Eggs and and Easter basket and help get them ready for Bob. I hope you all have a happy and blessed day!!

Update

I have run out of ideas for naming my posts. This weeks title is less than exciting, but I don't know what else to call it.
Bob is back to school this week thankfully. He loves riding the school bus and going to school, and he is usually more well behaved after school because they do a variety of activities with him. Lately we (or usually just Jim when I am at work) have been taking Bob onto the golf course to run around every night so he can get out some of his energy. I have some big foam airplanes that Jim will throw and Bob will run after them. They fly a good fifty feet each time Jim throws them. So, basically, Jim plays fetch with Bob. But Bob loves every second of it. Bob also discovered the rakes in the sand traps at the golf course. Bob likes to rake the sand. When Bob is done, we re-rake the sand trap. But it does tire him out. He has been going to bed a lot easier lately.
Q has completely recovered from his ordeal with the cactus last week without any long term ill effects.

Chuck had a delivery to Phoenix last week, so Jim and Bob got to see him briefly. I had a doctor's appointment that I could not re-schedule, so I missed him. Bob was excited to see Papa Chuck's big blue truck. Papa Chuck brought Jim's favorite Jelly Beans - Just Born. Just about every store in Phoenix sells Peeps this time of year, but no one carries the jelly beans they make. Oh well. We were lucky to have Papa Chuck bring them to us.

As for my doctor's appointment, I found out that I don't have to go off my thyroid medicine to have my annual scan. There is a new drug that came out about a year ago that raises your TSH (thyroid stimulating hormone) levels. I get a shot on Monday, one on Tuesday, have labwork on Thursday, and a scan on Friday. I was not looking forward to the scan because I did not want to go off my thyroid hormone. Now, I don't have to be off the hormone at all. I do, however, have to go on a low iodine diet for a week or two prior to the scan. I perused the diet, it is not going to be fun. Just about everything that I like has iodine in it. But it is better than stopping the thyroid pill for a couple of weeks.

Jim's Dad and step-mother visited on Saturday. They were in town for a day. We went to a children's museum in Tempe - just outside of Phoenix. Bob had a blast. It was nice.

We had an encounter with the biggest bee I have ever seen in my life yesterday. It weighed at least two ounces. In case any of you are not aware of this, Jim is severely allergic to bees, as are many of his relatives. I don't know if Bob is, but I don't want to find out. Bob left the screen door open. I think the bee was on the patio enjoying the flowers on our tomato plants. He flew in. Jim came and got me. I whisked Jim and Bob into the bedroom and shut the door. It was then just me and the bee......and Q the dumb dog. Q started to go after the bee. I diverted him from that activity. I had enough fun with the adventures in veterinary medicine last week from the cactus incident. I didn't want to nurse Q back to health if this thing stung him. I grabbed a big basin and I whacked the thing outside through the patio door. It made a sizable "thud" sound when I hit it, but it wasn't enough to kill it. I watched it fly away. Then again, the thing had to be pretty huge since Jim did not have any trouble seeing the thing. I have never seen a queen bee before. I wonder if it was a queen bee. Or maybe there is a strain of deadly bees here in Arizona. Or maybe it is the water.

The latest

Bob is off from school this week - Spring Break. The end of March is beautiful in Arizona. The desert flowers are blooming. We also have a couple of small tomatoes on our tomato plants on the patio.

We had some adventures in veterinary medicine yesterday. Q (our dog) decided to lunge after a rabbit while Jim was walking him. He lunged onto a cactus. It was a cactus that had small balls of spines like the "itchy balls" that stick to your clothes from birdox. These spines have small barbs to make sure they stick into you. Q got them on one paw, tried to get them off with his other paw - so they stuck in that paw. Then he tried to scrape them off with his snout - they stuck in his chin. Then he licked his chin - they stuck in his tongue. Then he rubbed his chin on his chest - so some stuck in his chest. Jim wears gloves when he walks Q (so he doesn't have to put on sunscreen just to walk the dog). He tried to get them off Q, but they went through his gloves and stuck him too. Q couldn't walk anywhere, and Jim couldn't carry him because of all the spines. Luckily Jim had his cellphone with him. Bob was, of course, wearing nothing but a pull-up. I grabbed some pliers and carried Bob wearing nothing but a pull-up. I pulled out the biggest ones in his paws. At one point, when I pulled one out of one paw, Q nailed me with another paw. a couple of the balls of spines stuck into my hand. I screamed "ouch" and Bob got upset and started crying saying "broken". (Bob was on my lap at the time) He was upset mommy had a boo-boo. I pulled them out of my hand and pulled a few more of them out of Q. Then Q had enough out of him to walk home. We spent over forty-five minutes pulling them out of Q with the pliers. I was almost late for work. He gave Q a bath afterwards as he had blood everywhere on him, and soap and water would help prevent infection. Q is like a cat in the bathtub. He hates water. Jim pulled out more spines in the bathtub. I pulled a couple more out this morning as well. I think they are finally all out of him. He is walking with a little bit of a limp still - but there are no spines that I can see in the paw he is limping on. But, that is one of his paws that had a lot of spines in it and it did bleed a lot. I am sure it is sore. One of my co-workers said to put mecuricom on it because it works out any spines left behind. I stopped and got some on the way home from work and painted all of Q's paws with it.
Another day, another adventure.

Potty success story

Okay, maybe it is a little early to call our potty story here a success story, but it is getting there. Twice today Bob called for "Help! Help! Help Bob!". (His use of pronouns is not mastered yet) The first time he was too late...he had gone in his pull-up already. But, the second time, we made it to the potty in time for him to make pee-pee (and get another car). He still doesn't have the "poo poo" connection. He points to the big potty and says "poo poo go there" but he generally won't go in his potty. When he goes in his pull-up, we put it in the big potty to show him where the poo poo goes, then flush it away. He did go poo in the potty once last week - he asked if he could get three cars if he went poo. We told him yes. He went in the potty. The only problem is he can't count yet. I tried to give him three cars as promised, but he only took one car and called it "three cars" and squealed. I guess that is an advantage of having a child that can't count yet.

Today we went to the "trail mix store" - Sprouts - the farmer's market store. There was another boy there about Bob's age who was also sitting in a shopping cart. Bob said hi, then I said hi. I asked him what his name was. Bob said "me Bob." I think the other boy thought Bob said "me big" (it is still difficult for other people to understand Bob). The little boy replied "me bigger". Bob's reply was "hi bigger". It gave everyone in earshot a good laugh.

I try to get to the preschool at least once every two weeks to talk to the preschool teacher. I went to talk to her yesterday. She still had her hands full with other preschoolers so I didn't get to say much. I did find out that they made mud pies....or as Bob says, mud birthday cakes at the sensory table at school yesterday. They played with potting soil as the "dirt" areas around the school is all sand.

The floor I am currently working on is having budget issues. The nurse manager wants to extend my contract, but she is not sure she can get approval. The census has been low, and the seasonal surge in patients they have in the winter time is going to decrease. I do want to go back to days, so perhaps that is a good thing. I can try and get a daytime contract elsewhere. The pay is the same for both days and nights as a traveler.

This week with Bob

Bob wound up being sick for most of the week. It figures, I had six days off from work in a row and we were stuck in the house with a sick Bob kid. For much of the time, Bob was mommy glue. When he wasn't feeling too well all he wanted to do was sit on my lap with his thumb and blanket - one of the best parts of being a mommy. (we won't mention the fact that he got me sick too) With the help of Motrin, Tylenol, and Sudafed, he became well enough to play in the house. I did not send him to school at all because he still had a runny nose and I was afraid he would get the other kids sick. Of course, towards the end of the week when Bob was feeling better, he turned into a terror because he was bored being in the house. Of course that was when I had to go back to work, so Jim had fun dealing with Bob on his own.

Bob is starting to use the potty more regularly, but I fear that is because he wants to matchbox-type cars he gets when he goes on the potty (okay, I bribe him). Stickers and candy do not work. Cars are working right now. I get the cheap cars and he loves them. In another couple of days I am going to start taking away the cars that he hasn't played with in a few days and "recycle" them into the "potty prize" pile. He has a whole collection of cars right now as it is. I don't think he will realize that some of them are being used twice - at least I don't think he will.

The dentist appointment went remarkably well. The dentist did a good job of explaining everything to Bob before he did anything to him. He even had the hygienist take a picture of him with Bob since it was his first time to the dentist. Bob's pediatrician recommended this dentist, and I see why. There was a play area in the waiting room with a slide and a fish tank. Bob went down the slide multiple times. He had a blast before his appointment. For the older kids they have computers with games, and movies - Finding Nemo was playing when we were there. Bob got a "goody bag" with stickers, his picture with the dentist, and things to color. They also gave him a token for the bubble-gum type machines they had. Bob picked the machine with the balls. He got a green ball. They had other "prizes" like tiny toy dinosaurs, jewelry, and other little knick-knacks. Bob was very happy with his green ball. He wanted to "wake up in the morning MORE dentist." I think the fact that he was able to play and go down the slide multiple times before the appointment made him more amicable for the appointment. He was able to get his energy out.

Bob saw us watering the tomato plants. Now he likes to get cups and pour water into the tomato plants. We did not realize this right away. He is sneaky about going into the bathroom, filling a cup up with water, and going out on the patio and watering the tomatoes. All of a sudden the plates below both plants were overflowing with water and Bob was heading towards them with a cup of water....hmmm!!!!!. He has a sand table on the patio that he sometimes likes to put water in to make the sand wet. So we weren't alerted to the fact he was drowning the tomatoes right away. He won't take the water from his water table and put it in his sand table or in the tomato plants thankfully. It must be because that is not what the water in the water table is for.

Bob and Jim went swimming on Saturday in the pool. The pool next to our building is not heated, but it has been unseasonably warm all week - in the nineties in the daytime and only getting down into the high sixties at night. The pool is only 4.5 feet deep at the deep end. The water, needless to say, was pretty warm. The big pool by the front office is heated, but that is a long walk away. We may go in the pool again tomorrow after Bob comes home from school. But, we have to watch out for golf balls from bad golfers when we are in the pool. There is even a sign in the pool area "not responsible for errant golf balls." If they reach us in the pool, those golfers are pretty bad. We have seen golf balls in the pool before, and there were four or five golf balls in the bushes in the pool area when we got there, so there are some pretty bad golfers out there. (We live next to a golf course, if you haven't figured it out). If a golf ball goes into the pool area, the golfer cannot get them as you need a key to get into the pool area. Generally speaking, the golf balls that are in the pool area are pretty much brand new because bad golfers tend to lose their balls before they are worn in. Bob loves walking around the trails in our apartment complex to look for lost golf balls. Jim is probably going to start selling recycled golf balls on e-bay. We have quite the collection right now.

I am hoping to get back to New York in June. We shall see what happens.
I hope everyone is doing well.
- until next time....
-Be Safe,
Elizabeth

Miscellaneous stuff

Tonight we had leftover birthday cake. Bob was really upset when Jim started cutting into it. We finally figured out what he was upset about. We re-lit the candles and sang Happy Birthday to daddy again. Then he was happy. But, we couldn't cut his piece of cake with the same knife we used to cut our piece of cake because the knife was dirty. We had to get a clean knife to cut Bob's piece of cake. He does that a lot. If you put his spoon in his bowl, he takes it out of the bowl, looks at it, calls it "dirty" and we have to get him a new one. He has to be the one to put the spoon in the bowl first or else it is dirty. It is really annoying sometimes.

Bob still has a runny nose, and his fever topped out at 102.3 last night, but it has been low grade today. Bob decided that he wanted one of the cars we bought him for when he goes on the potty. So he used the potty to get the car - once. The other prizes, cars, stickers, candy, movies, etc... we have I guess are not good enough for him.

We Just got an appointment for Bob to see a developmental pediatrician. She is the best one in the state. Unfortunately the appointment won't be until November 20th. That was the next available appointment.

Bob has his first appointment with a dentist on Tuesday. I will see how he is doing tomorrow. I may cancel. Up until about four or five months ago when I bought Bob an electric (Cars) toothbrush, it took both Jim and I together to hold Bob down and brush his teeth - with Bob screaming like we were killing him the whole time. He does not like it when other people touch his mouth. I worry about him and the dentist. If he is sick, he is going to be able to handle the situation that much less - which means he will probably scream that much more.
We are going to try and grow tomatoes on the patio. We bought extra large pots and plants that are designed for growing in containers. We also bought the soil that has the crystals that retain water in it (we couldn't find the crystals by themselves). I figure that would work better with the dry, hot heat we have here. Our patio only gets sunlight in the morning. In the afternoon, when the heat is really bad, it will be shaded. But, the heat will dry out the pot quickly. That is why I thought it would be a good idea to get the crystals. I hope we get tomatoes. Bob does not eat tomatoes here like he did in California because we cannot get fresh ones like we did at the farmer's markets. When we bought the tomatoes at the farmer's markets, we usually had to hide them from Bob because he would want to eat them right away - something we don't want him to do until they are washed. Even when Bob was still a baby in New York, we would walk through the garden and he would insist on eating the tomatoes off of the vine. He would get angry if you did not give him a tomato.
Have a good night all!!!

Hello, Welcome to Bob's Blog

Since so many of our friends and family live so far away, I thought I would start a blog about life with Bob. That way I can keep all of you up to date about us and life with Bob. If you have a personalized goggle homepage, you can add a gadget to it that will update you on all the posts I make. Click on the link to subscribe for more information.

As most of you know, Bob has been talking more and more. He started preschool which has helped his vocabulary. His pronunciation has been making gradual improvements as well. He has also started to use pronouns finally - which has been a big accomplishment, although he still has not used "he" or "she" yet. He is using "I" and "me" and "you" - albeit inconsistently, but that is a start.

We had a birthday cake for Jim last night. Bob tried to sing "Happy Birthday" with me. He mumbled most of it, but the melody was right. He helped daddy blow out the candles afterwards. We will probably all be sick since Bob has had a runny nose and I'm sure he spit all over the cake in the process.

We were planning on going to the renaissance festival today for Jim's birthday, but that is not going to happen now. Bob woke up twice last night crying. The second time he felt warm so I checked his temperature - 101.0. I gave him some Motrin and he went back to sleep, but we are not going anywhere today - not with that fever and that snotty nose. Of course he would not go back to sleep without mommy. We have an air mattress that is too small for me, but it was more comfortable than the floor. It is Bob's air mattress, it has a sleeping bag attached to it. I slept on the floor next to Bob. I woke up and tried to go to sleep in my bed shortly after sunrise this AM, but Bob woke up upset shortly thereafter. I wound up lying down on the floor next to him again. Now I am unable to fall back to sleep.

Potty training has been a disaster. Stickers, candy, more stickers, toy cars, more candy, star charts, etc... Nothing has worked so far. He just says "no like it potty" or "wake up in the morning potty" and that is the end of it. We gave up on "big boy" underwear a long time ago. He does not mind being wet or poopy and it was just disgusting and made for lots of laundry. Pull-ups are a lot easier. I started giving Bob the option of wearing a diaper at bedtime if he wants to. I still have a half a Costco sized case of diapers, and he is using the Pull-ups as diapers anyway. I cannot donate them anywhere because it is an open case. Once the diapers are gone, I will only give him the option of wearing pull-ups at bedtime again.

Bob's artwork from both home and at preschool adorns just about every wall here. Just about every piece of artwork is labeled "choo choo train" on the front or the back. There is one that is a sailboat though. I am glad the school teachers label his artwork to tell us what it is. Bob gets so excited when I look at it and say "Oh, look at the choo choo train."

I think this is a good start to a blog. I will try and update it at least weekly, if not more often.