America Shall Not Perish

[We] here highly resolve that these dead shall not have died in vain - that this nation, under God, shall have a new birth of freedom - and that government of the people, by the people, and for the people, shall not perish from the earth." ~ Abraham Lincoln, 1863

"That 'we here highly resolve...' in the midst of a bitter civil war, they came to listen: nearly twenty0-thousand people crowded onto a field in Gettysburg, Pennsylvania. It was November 1863. Only a few months earlier seven thousand Americans had lost their lives on this ground.

"With his Gettysburg Address, Lincoln transformed a field of sorrow and ashes into a place of hope. He understood how precious it was for a nation to rededicate itself, in a war-torn world, to the twin ideals of liberty and equality. Today, those ideals still stand as our twin towers: beacons to guide us as we strive to fashion a world in which all people may freely live their dreams." - James West Davidson, co-author, The American Nation

mega update

No, this will not be long like the title might suggest. I just have some mega news to report on.

#1) I went back to work this week. Well, technically I went back to school last week to start getting my classroom in order. And it was quite the ordeal as I left my room rather messy and told my substitute that she was NOT in any way expected to organize beyond what she needed to function. So when they took down my room for the summer clean-up; yeah, they hid my mess in all my little tiny cupboards. Oh well. I also have some big changes that I'm making to my teaching methods and I had to pick up a class of 8th grade US History due to the massive size of the class of 2016. They gave me the most challenging class; I've never had an aide in my room everyday but there are enough students that require push-in support that I get one. Frankly, I accommodate for all of my students. But I also got some low readers and some pretty lazy kids who could do a lot better if they just did their assignments. These will be my little loves. I missed them all a lot when I left for maternity leave, but they're mine again [cue megalomaniacal laughter here].

#2) Liam's daycare/preschool will be remaining open! Laura is moving to the Redding area, but she decided that her original plan of having a manager oversee the school in her absence would work after all. So this allows the daycare to stay open AND the gals to retain their jobs as teachers. I'm very happy all around. We won't be putting Colin in or having them go full-time until Jon gets a regular job however. For now, Yamster will continue to go in the mornings only.

#3) Colin finally (seriously we thought he was gonna be walking before he did this) rolled over on the 17th. This makes him just 10 days shy of being 5 months old. He's been scooting around and getting into all kinds of crazy positions when he's on the floor or in his crib, but he just hadn't quite managed that roll. And he did the more difficult one first. While I was on the floor watching him in the baby gym, he rolled from back to belly so quickly and got his arm out from under him in so short a time you would have thought he'd been doing it for months. Hooray! He's not done it many more times since then, but it's awesome knowing he can now. Just a side note on the rolling around in the crib thing ... well, several times now we've found him completely turned around from the direction we put him in and he's been managing to get those skinny little legs of his stuck out of the crib slats. It doesn't really bother him though. Have I mentioned before what an awesomely happy and chill baby I have? Well, I do; he is.

That's all for now. You wouldn't believe what a mess the house has become after 2 weeks of being back at work and the Hubster still needs to finish the craft project for the ladies room in the office at work.

First ever time at the cinema

No not for me, but yeah for me in a sense. I've been to the movies a grand total of 1x since Liam was born; Hubster and I were lucky enough to go see the first part of Harry Potter 7 last Fall while I was pregnant (Mannam came to babysit - and she frickin' cleaned the living room and kitchen while we were gone SCORE!!!). But yesterday was Liam's first trip to the cinema to see a movie properly - ergo our first time taking a child to the movies.

We got my colleague Luanne to watch Colin so it could be a "focus on the birthday boy" kind of experience. Unfortu-nately we had to drive all the way to Rocklin to see Winne the Pooh and it was totally a Murphy's Law kind of drive down. Traffic, mega-mobbed gas station, farm equipment chugging down the road, more traffic, and a detour through Lincoln all served to get us to the theater approximately 4 minutes after the posted showing. They weren't selling tickets to that showing anymore but that's fine because I wanted Liam to have the whole, find a seat, lights go dim, kind of experience for his first trip. So we had to wait 2 hours for the next show. To placate Hubster, we went to Guitar Center and I let both boys run around and "jam" on as many instruments as they could. We also ran around Joann's Crafts for a bit. Then we went through the drive through at McDonald's and parked in the shade so I could pump breast milk before the movie.

Then we got to the movie. We let Liam give our tickets to the ticket gal. Then we took him to the arcade and let him pretend to drive the race car game. Then I got us popcorn (his favorite!) and some M&Ms to share and we went into the theater. We found a great seat; the theater was only 1/3 full and it was all families with little children (Jon was the only dad in the whole theater - although there were some older brothers but they were like high school age). We noshed on popcorn and delighted in the animated short about Nessie, the Loch Ness Monster.

Liam managed to only get up and want to run around 4x. I had to remind myself that he's just 3 years old and it was his first time at the cinema and he can't even sit through 70 minutes of movie at home. Once I thought I smelled a poopy diaper so Jon took him to the restroom but there was no need. Another time he was starting to get a little loud and antsy so I took him out in the lobby and he ran around, played on the car game again, and we went on a hunt for our theater by looking for the theater number (he's so great at his numbers). Totally forgot about the M&Ms, oops; I'll probably put them on the cake for his party this weekend at my Granny's house.

He was passed out by the time we got home and woke up enough to be cute for Luanne and her daughter (and our usual baby/cat/house sitter) "Towia" but was basically passing out on his feet. Jon changed his diaper and put him to bed in his street clothes. It was a wonderful special day to start our celebrations for Liam's 3rd birthday.

Colin is 4 (months)

The little Coco-butter is now 4 months old and becoming a better human every day. I'm getting a little apprehensive because I can't believe it's almost Back to School time and I'll be leaving my little guy and heading back to work in a couple weeks. Here's the latest on Colin Alexander Rogers: Age 4m.

Likes:

• sleeping in Mommy and Daddy's bed (no we don't co-sleep, but he falls asleep nice and hard after his early morning meal and can sleep a couple hours more if we leave him on the bed)
• his JumperRoo (which he is now a pro at using and gets everyone in the house smiling when he uses it)
• his feet - he hasn't quite gotten them into his mouth yet, but he loves to hold them and usually only talks when he's got his feet in his hands
• LIAM!!! - zOMG his big brother is probably the most awesome thing Colin has ever encountered
• diaper changes - probably the time Daddy and I get the biggest smiles from him is when he's trying to make diaper changing difficult by grabbing feet, diapers, or various articles of clothing
• Lamaze toys - he was obsessing over Mortimer "Bruce" Moose earlier in the month but switched to Jacques Peacock. Then we got him a "knot monster" the other day when we wanted to go to Roseville and he love love loves that.

Development:

• talking/cooing - he's a chatty little guy, but see above note about feet
• rolling over - ummm, still trying hard on that one; Colin gets about halfway over and decided being on his side is better
• no longer needs to be swaddled, but it still calms him down a lot of the time
• can be put down for a nap/sleep without falling asleep in the arms
• has basically outgrown the Puj (his baby tub)
• almost reached out for me in his first moment of "Mommy, you need to come here and pick me up" when he caught eye contact with me after I had been at the grocery store and didn't come get him as soon as I got home. He also cried really loud then.
• sleeping for long long stretches at night and on a good-night schedule that usually has him asleep within 30-45 min of putting Liam to bed each night (8-10hours of straight sleeping baby = bliss for Momma)

Growth/Doctor Stuff:

• Dr. Honeychurch is still not concerned with Colin's poop-schedule. Yup, Colin is still pooping only once every 3-4 days. Because he's not straining and his belly isn't distended and there's no blood in the stool, he's just not a poopy baby. It's just so weird for a mostly breastfed baby to not poop all damn day. Liam pooped at least 3x/day and he was mostly formula fed by this age.
• Jon thinks Colin's hemangioma is getting smaller. I can't see a difference. Doctor said it would actually shrink from the inside (middle) out so I don't think it is shrinking just yet.
• Both Daddy and I were WAY off on our guesses for how big he would be. We had a bit of a cheat in that we weighed him the day we took Liam in to ask about his fever & rash. Colin was 14 1/2 lbs on that day.
• 15 3/4 lbs (55th percentile)
• 27 1/2 inches tall (99th+ percentile)
• 42 1/2 cm head circumference - my babies have such enormous braincases
• Got more shots at the doc's this time. Only, unlike the 2 month visit, he was not so much of a trooper. And boy was he miserably grouchy for the rest of the day.
• Still mostly breastfed; he takes only about one bottle/day anywhere between 4-6oz of formula.
• Had an allergy attack this week. Basically, seasonal/environmental allergies. Luckily his only reaction was red rimmed eyes and lots of congestion (which led us to haul out the dreaded sot snucker)
  

Where we've gone:

• 4th of July celebration at the Stonehouses. Colin did a little better swimming in their pool than he did in Katherine's pool in June.
• Spent a day at Granny's with Granny and Mannam while we were at a food & wine afternoon with friends.
• We went to the doctor for Liam; ergo we went to ice cream at Ben & Jerry's scoop shop
• We went to Roseville to go shopping for a breast pump adapter for the car; ergo we went to Big Spoon for fro-yo.

Happy 4 months my little man. I love you!!!

big bedtime to-do

So today is sort of a milestone day. Colin is 4 months old today. I hope I'll have a post devoted just to him later this evening (if I'm not too lazy). But there's another milestone that I just had to blog about. When I got up this morning (the actual getting up), my whole family was in the bed!!!

So I guess 2 nights ago, around 3-something in the morning, Liam came into our room and quietly climbed into the bed next to Jon. I guess he would have stayed, but he started whinging for Green Ghost and so Jon went in to get it and by that time Liam was amping up with energy. Jon ended up sleeping in Liam's bed for about an hour before he came back to our bed. All during this time, I slept right through it all and had no clue. If I had known, I would not have kicked Jon out of bed to be with Liam when the kid woke up at 5:45a. Sorry!

Well, this morning, around 5:30, just as the dawn was breaking through our windows, Liam stood in the door of his room and whined a bit. I sat up sleepily and said, "hey kiddo." Whimper whimper "momma," whimper. Then I waved him over as my head was dropping stone-like back onto my pillow. The next thing Jon knew, Liam was scrambling over him trying to climb into the bed. He laid down but needed his Green Ghost. Jon grabbed it and wouldn't you know, within seconds Liam was snuggling into the pillow between us. I held his hand so he would know he was safe (he's never slept in our bed before - so um wow!). Boy has some RANK breath! Serious morning breath/stuffy allergy nose stank going on in that kids pie-hole. At one point he sat up and flopped head first toward the foot of the bed, promptly putting his knees in my chin and feet in Jon's face. I just sat up, grabbed him, and re-righted his little bones back onto the pillow.

At 7a, Colin woke up and wanted his breakfast. It's typical for me to take him back into the bed to nurse him in the morning and sometimes I even get to leave him in the bed with Jon because our new mattress has a sleep spell on my infant when his belly's full. Well I wouldn't leave him this morning with the squirmy preschooler in the bed (he's hard enough to wrangle carefully away from Colin when awake). But as Colin was finishing feeding, I realized my sweet, sleepy family was all in the bed in the morning light. It's not so bad when it's summertime and there's nowhere for us to go/be. We even had one of the cats in the bed. So really truly, almost my entire family was in the bed (Lily isn't exactly allowed on the bed as that's Poppy's territory - oh well). It was a sweet and special milestone. I did get up and change Colin's diaper (which he loves btw) and as he and I were leaving the room, I heard a squeak, so high and loud, I would have thought I had stepped on a toy. But it was Colin, looking at his daddy and big brother, making the coolest exclamation of joy I've ever heard. I'm shocked the bigger boys didn't wake up.

:)

Buying a house

We picked up Liam from school last Friday and met our realtor and her daughter at the house in Marysville. We went through the whole thing. I definitely felt strong about it; I felt positive. Jon felt really strong about it. Yeah, there are a couple of things I would change: I wanted to immediately change the paint in most of the rooms (liked to color, just couldn't live with it everywhere) and pull out the carpet in the dining/living room and extend the kitchen flooring through those rooms just so there would be a consistent feel tying the kitchen into the rest of the house (as it is very small and located in the dead center of the house). Diana had a couple other homes she wanted us to see since we could qualify for more money now that Dad said he's help us out. It was basically for comparables, a chance to see what more money could get us or what else was out there for $100k. But she wasn't pushing us to go see them; I was the one who said I wanted to go see the Victorian that she said was not too far and really had that "quirky feel I know you guys are into." Jon was serious about writing an offer on the house and frankly so was I. It was going to be easy in our price range and there would be plenty of space for the boys to run around in the front and back, the neighborhood was quiet and friendly feeling. It's a small house but we can definitely start and grow from there.

When we drove up to the Victorian, it was twice as big as the one we just left. There was an elementary school on the way there. As I go through the intersection, Liam shouts "Mommy go dat way," pointing at the park and the playground equipment. Then as I park in front of the house and across the street from the park, he yells "we're hooooome."

I walked in later than everyone else because I had to change Colin's diaper. By the time I went in the door, my husband, realtor, and her daughter were shouting "oh my god, look at this place!" It was beautifully painted, the rooms were large, the energy was uplifting. It's a 3 bedroom/ 2 bath house. It has a formal dining area, a large kitchen, one bedroom and bath on the main floor, a small basement store room, a laundry/mud room, a fireplace in the living room, and the stairs had cute tile facings on the risers. Upstairs was a large landing with vaulted ceiling and skylight, the second bath, a huge master bedroom with a small balcony, and a long third bedroom that was obviously a girly room because of the lavender walls (with green and orange accent walls). Then upstairs (yes, another upstairs) was a fully finished attic loft!!! I even love the orange paint up there. The backyard was smaller than the one on 17th street and there was no lawn. But there were three pergolas, a dove cage, and a fountain. It may be small but it will be aan imaginative yard for the boys to play in (not forgetting the giant big park across the street). Bella said it best when we were looking at the cement slab in the backyard that had glass beads and positive affirmations written in the cement, "someone incredibly creative lived here!" And I couldn't help thinking, and more creative people are going to live here. The house just feels so positive and uplifting and full of great energy. It has the feel that someone alternative was living there.

Our realtor called the listing agent to say we were interested in an offer. It's a short-sale and Friday was the first day on the market; we were the first people to get to see it. She told the listing agent we were a teacher and artist, both very creative, with two small boys. The seller is apparently a nurse (like my Dad) and we are exactly the type of people she wants in the home! It's more expensive and a stretch for our monthly payments but this is a house you can't pass up. So we offered $135k ($2k less than asking) with 3 1/2% down and seller to contribute 3 1/2% to our closing costs. There's only one loan on the house so a short sale might actually be "short." We wrote up a contract and Dad and Jon signed the papers Saturday night.

On Sunday, the realtor sent me a text to say the listing agent thinks the offer is strong and is putting our offer in the primary position, only accepting backup offers just in case ours isn't approved by the bank. Heaven forbid. Today, I got all of my paperwork together and turned into my lender. Now we're only waiting on Dad's paperwork.

It is quite conceivable that we may be homeowners before the end of the summer. :D

Colin 2 month

Colin turns 2 months old today. Yesterday we kept Liam out of school and took both of them down to Davis to see Dr. Honeychurch. The weather turned to crap pretty quick too. Can you believe it? It's almost Memorial Day and we've only had 1 day all spring that felt like it was getting warmer. It's basically been in the high 60s all spring and yesterday the temps dropped again and we had torrential rains in our area (it was only slightly sprinkling in Davis though). On an aside: I had to call Dad a couple of times yesterday afternoon to try to wake him up (he sleeps days/works nights) because his town was right in the path of a tornado warning!!! He didn't answer but I think it might havebeen hard to hear the phone when it was hailing so hard. Luckily no tornado touched down in Rio Linda, but . . . there were 4 confirmed tornadoes in the area yesterday. FOUR TORNADOES!!!

Okay, Liam still has a nasty little preschool plague. Jon's got it now and so do I. I'm starting to feel a bit better now though. Luckily Colin is only a little congested. Doctor didn't seem too concerned at all either about their lungs; both boys had clear lungs (as clear as you can get with a cold). Liam got a check-up too since he needed one for preschool. He's 39 1/2" tall which I kind of suspected since he's been walking around with a meter stick from my classroom and is pretty much as tall as it is. He also weighed in at 36 lbs. That puts him at 99th percentile for height and 65th percentile for weight. It also explains why he's still wearing 2T size waist but has to have 4T length. My boy is so hard to shop for. Since his eyes were a little crusty from his cold, the doctor decided to give us a prescription for pink eye medication just in case he should develop conjunctivitis. Gawd I'm not looking forward to putting eye drops in his eyes - please pray he doesn't get pink eye from preschool.

Colin was 23 1/2" and just a smidge over 12 lbs. He's pretty much in the 80th percentile for both. I compared their charts and Colin is consistent with a little shorter and a little chubbier at every mark so far. He had to get his next round of vaccinations and that was sad for poor baby. But I took him out and nursed him in the car right after the appointment and he seemed to be comfortable right away. He also did not get a fever or sleepy from his shots; he stayed on his normal schedule all day. Doctor also took a look at his strawberry hemangioma, which has gotten quite a bit bigger since his 2 weeks appointment but seems to have slowed/stopped growing now. Doctor said that it'll probably go away on its own but that it might take up to 2 years. He also told us to keep a good watch on it because they can get bigger and are very vascular so if it should get scratched, it wouldn't be uncommon for it to bleed for an hour or more. Ugh. He also said there's a treatment for it that uses lasers, but he doesn't want to consider it until Colin's growth has slowed in toddlerhood.

Without further ado, here are pictures of my big little boy!

Look at how strong he is and holding up that head of his! Good job!

Obviously Liam was not having a good time trying to take a picture with his brother. He really does love him, honestly.

coo coo cachoo

Just jotting down a quick note to say that Colin gave us his first real, true coos Monday night/yesterday morning. He's quite a chatty little guy in the morning (just like his brother). I was also able to get him to smile for the camera too. So of course, here are pictures.

Mothers Day & school

Yesterday was my 3rd Mothers Day and my first being a mother of TWO!!! It was a pretty low-key affair. We basically stayed indoors all day. Jon made all the meals and got me a card. We watched Toy Story 3 and The Princess & the Frog to help keep Liam placated and entertained. Dinner was steaks, baked potato, and roasted asparagus. I will probably go get a pedicure or a hair cut or something as a mommy gift to myself.

On Saturday, I took Colin all the way down to Roseville very very early in the morning because I had to do my glucose tolerance test to see if my diabetes has gone away. I had to fast for 8-10 hours overnight and I just barely passed the fasting glucose. I still don't know what my 2-hour result is. Colin and I are also participating in a study about gestational diabetes/diabetes. So I had all my measurements taken; height, weight, waist, BMI. And then Colin got measured (basically the same thing). He's only 6 weeks and he's now 11lbs and 22.4". Wow! Then afterward, I took my mom and grandmother out for lunch at Spaghetti Factory. Granny kept sneaking glances at Colin about every 3 minutes. When we went back to Granny's house, I fixed her email and her Facebook page for her. She kept falling asleep in the easy chair and talking in her sleep. It was very funny.

I got some pics uploaded from Liam's milkshake adventure if you want to go back and view them. I have to admit, they are frickin' ADORABLE (and I'm not just saying that because he's my sweet little man).

And now, our big milestone . . . Liam went off to preschool this morning. The school is on the opposite corner of our block. He's as big as the 4y/o kids but of course he's 32m. He'll be going from 7:30-12:30 every weekday and we plan to keep it up over the summer. He didn't want to wake up this morning, but he did eat his breakfast and get dressed with ease. We walked him there and he immediately ran into the preschool room and began playing with the toy cars. He couldn't have cared less if we were there; he only cried when Jon tried to get a hug goodbye because he didn't want to stop playing. I think it's gonna be so great for him. I'm really excited.

a school milestone, a food milestone

We have hit a big milestone around here. Very soon, Liam will start attending daycare/preschool. Little Kids' Country is literally around the block from our place (the opposite corner). I wanted to go see the place myself, although Jon had already given his approval and I had read all the paperwork. So we walked over with the boys right around noon after Liam had some lunch.

It was a really nice place and the director and all the teachers seemed great. We got to see the preschool and infant rooms as well as the school-age room (which wasn't in use obviously because it was a school day). The kids all met Liam with interest and he fell right in to playing with them as they were getting ready to take their naps.

We will probably put him into the part-time program which means he can attend in the mornings from 7-12 everyday. He'll get snack, lunch, and lots of play time plus curriculum time around 10am. I think he'll enjoy it a lot. He's actually already ahead of several of the kids as he knows all his alphabet in capital letters (and many lower-case) and all his colors. I also hope this will really help him with his language development as he gets rather incoherent, mumbly, and unintelligible after lunch.

I also like this idea as it will give him a good starting point to going full days after the summer (hopefully, Jon will have a job by then) even if it's only for a couple days a week. And I will get to focus on Colin a bit more; I'll enjoy the time I have with my little monster all the better when he's home. And hopefully it might give Jon the motivation to clean things since he won't be watching after Liam all the day.

On our way home from my postpartum appointment yesterday, we stopped at Mc Donald's since Colin needed to breastfeed and I was really craving a milkshake. Jon got Liam his own chocolate shake (his very first). It was huge compared to him and heaven help us, he ate the whole thing without getting a brain-freeze or a tummy ache. And honestly, he was very polite and sweet about the whole thing (a wonderful change compared to the previous night when he was a downright turd to me). He even had his bath and went to bed calmly and lovingly. I may have to ply my child with ice cream more often.


Aww how big they get so fast.

a bright side

There was a bright side to today's rough edges...

Colin gave me his first intentional smile today. Awwww.

:)