Random Pics from 2009

Here are a bunch of random additional pictures from 2009, courtesy of David and Helen!

Christmas

We had a fabulous Christmas in our home with all the grandparents on Christmas Eve and Christmas day, and then we continued the celebration up in Maryland with Austin's sister and her husband. Some of the highlights included a singing Christmas tree hat, a playhut shaped like a bus, and lots of great time with family and friends!

'monia

Tucker enjoyed running around last week and shouting that he had "'monia" (pneumonia). I thought his enthusiasm (and utter lack of understanding of what he was saying) was cute.

More snow pics

I finally got out into the snow last week to take a few more pictures. It was an impressive snowfall--we got 27 inches at our house. By the time we left for Annapolis on the 26th, a week after the snow stopped, there was still patches of thick snow on some of the secondary roads near our house. That NEVER happens in Vermont!

Neither Tucker nor Ben enjoyed the snow all that much. Tucker preferred to play inside with his hat on (his new favorite game in the picture is transferring water between cups), even though we inflated his snow tube and wanted to drag him around on it. We also introduced him to sugar on snow for dessert one day, and he liked it except he wanted it warmed up. Hmmmm.

Prednisone

...makes Tucker crazy.

For a sick kiddo who was supposed to be taking it easy and resting, Tucker has been a hyper maniac. Two year-olds aren't generally known for their attention spans, but Tucker's the past couple was just about non-existent. He couldn't even sit still to watch his favorite bus video. I tried to take a video of the craziness, but it was hard to capture.

The biggest problem with all this is that he is a tired hyper maniac. His little body needs the rest (he has been asking to take his nap at 11 am the past few days!) and yet he just can't take the long naps he needs, and he can't lay low to make it through the rest of the afternoon till bedtime.

Thankfully, his breathing is great so we stopped the prednisone today and I think there's already been a big difference.

I also want to mention that Tucker now uses his favorite CD "The Wheels on the Bus" like a security object. He wants to take the CD everywhere with him, not necessarily to listen to it, but to hold it. He likes listening to it too, but holding it is even more special. We even took it with us in the ambulance because it calmed him down and he showed it the nurse and doctor at the hospital.

Frightening snowstorm adventures

I hoped that our snowstorm misadventures were finished after abandoning my car by the side of the road and barely making it home on Friday night. Unfortunately, that was just the beginning.

Yesterday morning Tucker's fever had climbed to 103 but he was active and the doctor on call said that as long as we filled the prescriptions (antibiotic and prednisone to help his lungs) in the next day or so, we'd be okay. She did warn to watch his breathing, and that is what to be most concerned about. We hemmed and hawed about whether the roads were passable until the early afternoon when the snow lightened considerably. Austin packed emergency supplies in case he got stranded in his truck, and hit the road.

Our actual driveway and lane were plowed by our neighbor in his tractor, but the secondary road it feeds into was completely unplowed, 24 hours (and 25 inches!) into the storm.

Austin did make it through, following some tire tracks until he hit the main road. Barely. But, while Austin was getting to CVS, Tucker decided to get sick. REALLY sick, and fast.

One minute he was playing upstairs with me and his trucks and the next he was hot (103.6) and listless. His breathing started to get labored, and he proceeded to throw up all over both of us. I cleaned him up and gave him his inhaler and Tylenol. Unfortunately, even with his inhaler, his breathing got even worse still. He asked me to give him the inhaler again, but another dose was four hours away. He threw up two more times, his breathing degenerated further and then I found his temperature had spiked to 105.3! One-oh-FIVE.

That was when I called the ambulance.

It took the ambulance 25 minutes to get to our house (usually a five minute trip) because of the roads. By the time they arrived, things were already getting better. I had gotten his fever down some by sponging him with water, and his breathing was getting better as he was calming down. Tucker got a nebulizer and oxygen in the ambulance and the fever meds kicked in. By the time we got to the ER (an hour ride--usually 20 minutes), he had good color and was playful and happy. What an amazing relief.

Tucker does have pneumonia--a chest xray at the hospital confirmed that, but since he was doing so well was able to go home. I am SO thankful.

But that wasn't the end of our adventures. The second twist on the day was that our neighbors called us while we were getting ready to leave the ER, to tell us that they had lost power. We debated about whether we thought we'd be even able to get up the hill to our house, and how to manage no electricity and a toddler with pneumonia.

Things were a bit grim, but not as terrible as we expected. The unplowed road near our house had been improved significantly by a good samaritan who plowed a layer off the road. We made it home slowly but safely.

I find it ironic that our longest power outage ever (20 hours) happened the night we had a sick child with pneumonia. Austin got our wood stoves going and we managed to stay as warm upstairs as we usually do. We didn't need to worry about our food spoiling because our porch was our refrigerator, and our wood stove was our cooktop. It was not too bad, but Tucker was distraught that the bus video wasn't working and he couldn't play with the water from the faucet (our well pump is electric).

Busy days

Here are some pictures of Tucker's favorite activities the past couple weeks. The first is Tucker sitting on the loveseat listening quietly to the Wheels on the Bus CD. Sometimes he'll get through the whole CD, just sitting on the couch. He also rarely willingly takes off his hat and jacket--if it was up to him he'd wear them all the time. (I know our house is cold, but it's really not THAT cold.)

Tucker has learned to bring Ben one of Ben's toys, when Ben picks up one of Tucker's toys so that he'll drop Tucker's toy. This has turned into an obsession with bringing Ben ALL of Ben's toys, as you can see illustrated here.

Lots of big boxes from the holidays have arrived, and Tucker is enjoying the packing material immensely. I try to slip the big boxes outside at night, but he frequently asks for them in the morning.

Tucker found some race car slippers at the thrift store last week, and he's in love. He tries to wear them outside instead of his shoes, and wears them to bed at night too. True love.

Worst Winter Driving Ever...

It took me three and a half hours to drive home from town yesterday evening (about 15 miles). Tucker had a doctor's appointment at 4 pm, squeezed in before the snow was supposed to start at 8 or so. I stupidly took my Civic instead of Austin's truck, not even considering that it could be a problem.

Oh, how wrong I was.

When we left the doctor's at 4:50 pm with prescriptions for amoxycilin and oral prednisone, I was surprised that my car was already covered with snow and that it was falling fast. I called the pharmacy where we live to make sure it was going to stay open for two more hours, and hit the roads. The main road to the Western part of the county was impassable. All the roads around here are hilly, there are about 40 plows for the whole county, no one knows how to drive in the snow, no one has snow tires, and there are few 4WD vehicles.

It was horrible. The guy in front of me for awhile was in a cute little rear wheel drive sports car that needed to be pushed up each hill, and fishtailed down each hill until he finally did a 180 into the other lane and I passed him. The accidents were so bad that it took me two hours to go 0.3 of a mile.

Keep in mind I had a sick toddler in the back who kept asking to go night night and to wake ducky. For about an hour all he said was "Tucker hold Mama," just pleading with me to hold him. Sad. The best I could do was hold his hand from the front seat.

Unfortunately, the only alternative route was not an alternative because it was full of accidents, and I didn't know if my car could make it on the back road to it, anyway. My Civic doesn't drive great in the snow without snow tires, especially doing the start-and-stop driving that I was doing last night. Going up hills is much harder when you don't have any momentum.

So we just sat, and sat, and sat, completely stranded. There was an accident up ahead, so Austin couldn't get to us. Finally they were able to clear one lane, and a plow came. Phew. Home free, right?

Unfortunately, by this time there was already about 7 inches on the ground, and they hadn't plowed the secondary road to our house at all. Could my Civic do 3.5 unplowed miles of 7"+ deep snow?

Answer: no.

I got stuck half-way up a hill, about 3 miles from home. Austin came to get us in his truck, and we tried to tow my car up the hill. Unfortunately, the whole plastic bumper/front end got ripped away by the tow chain during our first try. Our second try it flat out didn't work. We backed the car to the side of the road, and abandoned it until the storm is over. Poor car.

We walked in the door at 8:20 last night, no prescriptions in hand and no way to get them. This morning the situation isn't any better. We have gotten 23inches so far, and it's still falling at 1-2 inches an hour! On the news, the head of the roads department said they are only plowing about four main roads in the county. That means we'd have to navigate 3.5 miles of 23" deep snow to get out. No four-wheel drive is THAT good!

According to the news, they opened emergency shelters for stranded drivers in our county and the next one over, and hundreds of drivers were stranded overnight on various roads last night. I believe it!!!!

The picture of Austin's truck is all the snow that accumulated after we got in last night. I'm also putting up one of the picnic table, and of Tucker's Cozy Coupe car (whose top we're using to measure our snow total--we measure and then wipe it off every few hours!)

Dear Tucker

I appreciate your love of reading but want to clarify one thing. "What Do People Do All Day" by Richard Scary is not intended to be read cover to cover before naptime and bedtime, every day. Think of it like a series: each story in it is its own separate book and counts separately towards your four book before-bed reading limit.

FYI.

love, Mama

Bus #2

Tucker is the proud owner of a second bus. What boy needs a second bus, you ask? Well, mine certainly does not. But he is very much a fan of the new situation.

We went to the thrift store today to drop off a nice winter jacket and assorted other goodies so that someone could pick them up before Christmas, and of course Tucker thinks of the thrift store like the toy store so we needed to go in. (I told him, "If we go in, we can't go to the park. Do you want to go to the thrift store or the park?" Without hesitation he picked the thrift store and practically jumped out of his carseat.)

I knew I was a goner when I walked into the kids section and saw that someone had unloaded all their Fisher Price trucks. Two fire trucks, a bus, a farm truck and trailer, along with the usual assortment of random smaller cars and trucks.

Tucker turned to me and said "pick one." It was almost a question, but more of a statement. I do usually let him pick one--I figure we have set up a nice toy-recycling program with the thrift store. Usually I hope for smaller ones, not huge duplicate buses. I thought maybe I'd be able to wait him out and use my mad parenting skill to steer him towards a nice little matchbox car. Yeah right.

At least he didn't pick the fire truck. We already have three of those at home.

Fantasy Football

I lost my bid for the playoffs in my fantasy football league due to the underwhelming performances of Randy Moss (0 points) and Kurt Warner (1 point) this week. Argh! It came down to the wire, but at least I did get the fourth most points in the league, out of 10 teams. I also beat Austin this season, so that makes the season not a complete wash out, and I think I probably should earn the Most Improved award after a pretty horrible introductory season last year.

My husband, on the other hand, is suffering from a severe case of I'm-the-best-fantasy-player-ever syndrome. It's true, he finished the regular season at the top of the league, with 200+ more points than any other team.

This is how he put it in his most recent email to the whole league:
"run and shoot [a's team] is in first place, most points scored, most blowouts, longest winning streak, eventual champion, and humble."

Yep, definitely humble. That's what I was going to say. :)

Thought of the day

"O God, be all my love, all my hope,
all my striving; let my thoughts and words
flow from you, my daily life be in you,
and every breath I take be for you."

-Cassian (c. 360-435), one of the "Desert Fathers," brought monasticism into the West.
He taught that meditation should consist in the repetition of a verse from Scripture,
'folding the recollection of God into the little space of meditation on on one verse.'

[courtesy of David!]

Christmas Tree Hunting

Here are the pics of us searching for the perfect Christmas tree. It just so happens we found it two minutes after starting the search!

Wake Ducky

Tucker's beloved duck and pacifier live in his crib. Tucker carefully arranges them on his pillow after his nap, and tucks them into his blankets. It (mostly) doesn't occur to him to try to take them with him when he's not sleeping.

But he loves them a lot, and I realized in the past month that they are powerful incentive to go to bed. I've started asking him if he wants to wake Ducky up when I think it's naptime or bedtime. He LOVES this. He usually says yes and practically runs upstairs. If he needs a little more motivation, I'll pretend to be Ducky calling Tucker's name down the stairs.

The past week or so this has gone to an entirely new level: he has started coming up to ME at bedtime and naptime and asking to go wake ducky up. What two year-old asks to go to bed? Mine! I guess he is related to us--we tend to take our sleeping pretty seriously too. :)

Tucker-isms

Tucker continues to be a very amusing kiddo these days. He has lots of opinions, and sometimes you can't quite guess what they will be. This is a point in case: Helen gave Tucker an airplane fork last week, and he decided he did NOT like it. He said "Tucker, no fork!" and got down from the table and put it back into the silverware drawer. Why would Tucker not like an airplane fork? It's a mystery, and so is Tucker sometimes!

Tucker is starting to use verbs sometimes, which is a nice new development. Instead of, "Tucker cookie" it is now "Tucker get cookie." Or instead of "Tucker dog" it is "Tucker have Ben." Very sophisticated.

My two favorite expressions of his right now are "Tucker hold Mama!" which he yells and comes running to me to pick him up. Yes, it does melt my heart. :)

He also says "Oh!" instead of "yes" a bunch of the time. Like if I asked "do you want dessert?" he will light up and say "Oh!" It's really cute.

Tucker's first flower

Helen is a great watercolor artist, specializing in flowers. For her birthday this weekend, Tucker painted a picture, and it sure looks like he painted his first flower for her! I am impressed.

Usually when he finger paints, the end result is sheer chaos.

Note, the top picture is his! The bottom picture is not one that Helen did.

Is it really the middle of December??

Whenever I go a week between blog entries, I tend to get a phone call from my mom wondering if we are all right. Yes, we are great but time seems to be in fast forward.

I have been busy finishing up a project for work. Usually I work a handful of hours a week, about two naptimes or evenings worth of work. But this project that I thought would be done by the end of the summer totally expanded, and by November was just embarrassing to me because it was still unfinished. Especially because I had my organization's GIS hard drive at my house, I simply had to finish and return it. So I have been furiously working for the past six weeks or so, putting in about triple the amount of hours as usual, and am ecstatic to announce that it is finally DONE.

It really feels like finishing exams for school: now Christmas can come!

To celebrate, I am fighting a little cold and Tucker has a 101 fever. We did get our Christmas tree today, though. It was a long drive to the place, and was a funny Christmas-tree cutting operation, because ALL the trees looked so good, it took us about 2 minutes to pick a tree. For two hours of driving we were only at the place for about 20 minutes since Tucker had no interest in running around.

It is a handsome tree and when we tackle putting it up will be worth a few pics. I wonder what Tucker will think of all the ornaments. So far he seems to have no grasp on what happens at Christmas, who is Santa, etc. I think I will take him to the mall to see Santa this week, though I am pretty sure that outing will involve us watching the other kids talk to Santa (waaay too scary to talk to Santa himself!)

I have an impressive list of things I want to do for Christmas that has accumulated during this work craziness. So far, not much of it seems to be happening today, but at least there is a football game on!

Wheels on Bus video

This is not the most active video because you can't see that Tucker is watching the Wheels on the Bus DVD, but I think it's pretty cute how enthralled he is and how he copies the hand motions.

Gluten Free Bread

Gluten free bread is a bit tricky because gluten is really the key ingredient to making yeast bread so bread-y. It is what makes it stretchy and elastic rather than like a batter when you mix it together. I can make a mean wheat loaf, and I can make gluten-free cornbread, waffles and muffins without even knowing the difference... but when you make gluten-free sandwich bread, it is basically impossible to truly replicate real bread.

Thankfully I skipped lots of horrible loaves of nasty bread by googling "best gluten-free bread." The first entry on the google results is for a gluten-free millet-oatmeal bread that I have now tried twice, with good results both times. I picked it because it had the least esoteric combination of flours, or at least an esoteric combination of flours that I could handle (rice, oat and millet I already had on hand).
(http://glutenfreemommy.com/baking-gluten-free-bread-millet-oatmeal-bread/).

The process is definitely more time-intensive than making regular bread. I mean, what regular recipe calls for 16 ingredients? It only takes four ingredients to make a great loaf of yeast bread. I think a big reason for this is that it's pretty important to mix up a bunch of different flours to try to mimic wheat flour as closely as possible. Another complication: who has loads of millet flour or brown rice flour on hand? I'm sure you could find them at Whole Foods, but I have little interest in paying big money for boutique flours. Thankfully, Austin gave me a flour mill a couple years ago for my birthday and so I can just begin the bread making process by grinding millet and brown rice into flour. It is not hard, but does make the undertaking a little bit longer, messier and noisier.

Today I tripled the recipe and came out with 80+ slices of good sandwich bread. Not quite as fun as making real bread, but it was satisfying. If you do check out that recipe, I didn't quite do it as written. I cut the salt by a third, and I thought the bread was still too salty. I upped the xantham gum by 50% (this is the key gluten replacement) after my first attempt, and it definitely helped the texture of my second batch. And I have no idea what sweet rice flour is so I substituted buckwheat flour instead.

I also bought a couple loaves of gluten free bread at Trader Joe's a couple weeks ago for comparison purposes to see what is possible in a commercial kitchen(at $4 each they were a deal compared to $5+ for a loaf at Whole Foods). The loaves I tried were fine, but definitely not great. They suffered from the same problems as the bread I made: really dense. When you pick them up it is shocking how heavy they are, but thankfully the taste is pleasant and the texture isn't bad once you get over the fact that it is so dense.