Good reminder

This is the week that most of the kids nearby started school. This week has meant very little to me for the last couple of years, and probably won't for at least another year, or until the Little Man starts preschool.

I've thought a lot about what this week USED to mean to me. Not as far back as my own school years, but for the four and a half years I spent working with kids for the state. This was a hectic time of year (although, it was ALL pretty hectic to be honest). As caseworkers, we had an entire caseload of kids to get registered and signed up for school. The younger ones were usually easy, especially if they were returning to the same schools and classrooms, and the older ones always required a bit more effort.

I had quite a few kids that I carried on my caseload almost the entire time I worked there. I think about them, and a few others, quite a bit. There was a small group that I worked with that all turned 18 this year, which was a pretty big deal when you were in foster care. All of these kids had special needs, and will have services for the rest of their lives. Most of them are probably living with the same wonderful, caring, and devoted families that made them apart of their family years ago.

Today I saw a post on a blog that I recently added to my ever increasing list of blogs I read. I won't put the picture and the sentiment here, because I didn't ask permission, but please take 60 seconds and click on the link for yourself. It will be well worth one minute of your time.

I love where I am right now. Even though I've been a 'single mom' for the 2nd week this month, I've had more than my fair share of moments lately where I wouldn't want to be anywhere else. I love being at home with the Little Man. He is so fun and full of life right now that I feel like I could do this forever. Before I quit working I wasn't sure if I'd like being a stay at home mom. I know that I won't do this forever, I'll go back to work at some point after the kids are in school, but for now, I wouldn't want to be doing anything else.

Rough month

The Little Man has had a rough month. 24 hours at Primary Children's (just got the bill on that one -thank goodness for insurance), followed by a slow recovery from a stomach bug, and now a little fall while at Girls camp with mom and he ended up with 4 staples in the back of his head.

I swear I watch my kid... he must just be having a bit of bad luck.

Proof that we've had a few fun days this month.

Unique

I really just wanted to post (or even think) about something that is not related to the Little Man's health (or lack there-of).

I was reading a friend's blog and she mentioned that she found a website that was a name generator according to sibling names. Click here for the site. So... you put in your child's name, and it generates boy and girl names that match, or go with, or something like that.

The Little Man's name is a family name, and not very common. In fact, outside of Utah or 'mormon culture' the kid will have to spell out his name to people he talks to. Sorry, but we loved the name and the man he's named after. I guess this site expects us to be as unique or creative with baby number two. (Funny thing is, the names we've discussed couldn't be more traditional).

Here are a few of the suggested sibling names:

Girls:

Zillah
Mattye
Joella
Byrd
Vinna
Chanie
Maie
Caro
Ziplah
Merta
Levina

Boys:

Addie
Orrin
Soloman
Josephus
Atticus
Jhon
Lem
Ebbie
Lott

Wow... what a list to choose from. Any favorites?

An air mattress, spare bed and a hospital couch.

Here's how our weekend went...

2 days camping. One night with one other family, the second night with our ward. We had a fun time, it wasn't too cold, and the Little Man loved running around, playing with kids and getting dirty.

Rush home Saturday morning, get cleaned up, and attend my brother Matt and Jenny's wedding.

It was a lovely afternoon, despite the sprinkling rain showers, and melting heat (yay for outdoor canyon weddings). The bride and groom looked great and happy, and once again the Little Man ran around non-stop for hours. Lucky for me I have great cousins that chased him around so I could get a small break.

(Family shots are stolen from my cousin's camera. I really need to work on taking pictures of anything or anyone other than the Little Man).

The Little Man and I spent the night at my parents and went to (part of) church with them. He started acting really tired and felt a little warm, so I took him home early. He took an almost 4 hour nap (unheard of) and woke up with a fever. After some Motrin it looked like he was feeling much better... until about 5 minutes before we almost put him in the car.

The poor little man started throwing up and didn't stop. (I'm leaving out some of the gory details). We called the on call doctor about 2 hours later, and before I knew it we were heading to Primary Children's Medical Center. We got there around 10:30 pm, and released around 5:00 pm today after some IV fluids (4 attempts to get the IV in), some anti-nausea medicine some coaxing to actually eat some yogurt.

My house is still a mess, my laundry is still unfinished, but I can't tell you how excited I am to finally sleep in my own bed tonight!

Another camping post

I'm starting to think that all of July will be one camping post after another.

I've been meaning to get this up for 2 weeks, and now we're waiting to go on our 3rd camping trip for the month. I had better get pictures up from the 2nd.

We went up Huntington Canyon for the Brown Family Reunion. (Justin's step-mom's family).

I'm pretty sure the Little Man's favorite part was playing in the water.

'

We're CAMPING!

I had to come into Huntington to respond to some emails and wanted to let the family see how cute it is to wake up to the little man in the morning:

Bad habits we WON'T need to break

I'm sure that we've developed more than a few bad habits with the Little Man in the last year and a half.

Buddy, is definitely on the list. He loves buddy, and I'm glad that he has him (or them), but the nose -it's pretty gross. We'll have to break him of that sooner or later.

We live on a dead-end road with little traffic besides construction workers and a few neighbors, and the Little Man likes to run down the street when we're outside, and we usually let him. There's less chance to fall that way. Not a great habit.

And, at the moment, he's into hitting. We didn't TEACH or even allow that, but he's all boy, and gets pretty aggressive, which sometimes comes out as hitting. We're working on it.

One habit we won't have to break? Sleeping in mom and dad's bed. We've never done it before last night. And I don't think we're in a hurry to do it again anytime soon.

We went camping last night with Justin's mom and step dad and the Little Man woke up when Justin and I went into the tent. He normally doesn't wake up, and when he did, he was crying and a bit panicked. It was pretty cold and would only get colder, so we decided to see what would happen if he slept with us.

The Little Man stayed WARM, and that was the end of the positive outcomes. I didn't sleep for the first few hours, while the Little Man tossed and turned. He was sort of sleeping, but not very well. Justin finally got him closer to him and I think we all fell asleep for a couple of hours. Then the tossing and turning started -for me and the Little Man. It was cold, and uncomfortable. The Little Man woke up at 5 am, and wasn't going back to bed.

We spent the next 2 or 3 hours in the car, turning the heat on, and even driving around the campground until the sun came up and we could go outside.

We had a fun time, the Little Man LOVES being outside, and enjoyed his time with Mimi and Papa -and Sam. Although, everytime night rolls around and we're freezing, he's freezing and no one is sleeping I wonder why we like and go camping so much.

Any suggestions?