Connor's House

Lately Connor has been building a “house” with a blanket strung across the couch and ottoman. He fills it with pillows, stuffed animals, or toys. Sometimes it is a dog house and others it is just a house for him. He gets very upset when I take it apart to clean. Sometimes he will even cry because someone broke his house. At first I thought it was very cute and imaginative of him to make his house, but as he has continued to remake his house every time I tear it down I have become a little tired this game. However tonight he added another aspect to his house. He added a pillow and told me it was his bed. We discussed it (I talked and he cried) and I gave in to his request. I explained how this is for one night only. He was very excited and crawled into his house. I guess we will find out tomorrow if he really did enjoy sleeping on the floor or if he finds his way back to the soft mattress of his real bed.

Update: Connor did sleep all night on the floor. I guess when you are young the floor is just a comfy as the bed.

Brothers

It seems like Zander and Connor are often quarrelling with each other over very trivial things. I hear things like…
“He took the piece of cake I wanted.”
“He took my toys without asking.”
“He hit me for no reason.” (I really don’t believe this very often.)
“He won’t let me sit in that chair.” (They have favorite seats for the dinner table.)

So imagine my surprise when I find them curled up next to each other while we are watching a movie as a family. It is nice to know that even though they argue with each other, they still do love each other too.

Ouch!!

I have been through many things with my boys, but today I had another first. The first time a tooth got knocked loose. Zander and Connor were riding their bikes out front when Connor crashed. He did a nose dive off of his bike. He started screaming as he lay in the street. This was not just a scraped knee cry, this was something much worse. I ran over to him and started to pick him up when I saw the blood. Now I see a lot of blood with little boys, so I was not panicked at this point. I got him across the street and had Zander take care of the bike. I grabbed a rag, got it wet and started to clean up the mess. That is when I saw it… he was bleeding from his teeth too. Panic… I am now in uncharted territory. I take him in the house for a better clean up job and a phone call to the dentist. Panic… the dentist is closed as it is now 5:15pm. I leave a message on the emergency call back line and try to figure out exactly how many teeth are involved and how bad the damage is to his mouth. His upper left front tooth is loose, but not out of socket. The tooth to the left is bleeding, but not loose. The inside of his upper lip is split pretty bad. I give him some Children’s Ibuprofen and make sure that nothing else is wrong… fingers, hands, elbows, knees all check out fine. When I get a call back from the dentist he tells me that as long as the tooth is still in the socket and does not come out things should be fine as this is a baby tooth and one of the first teeth that are lost when the adult teeth start to come. Then next week bring Connor in to the dentist for a quick look to make sure things are healing well and in the mean time Ibuprofen as needed. The poor thing has a huge fat lip! He is such a tough little boy though, he ate his dinner 2 ½ hours later without any complaint. Lucky for him he was wearing his helmet or things could have been a lot worse.

Valentine's Bouquet

I have had a lot of fun preparing for Valentine’s Day. I wanted to get Lee something that was inexpensive yet still something that showed how much I love him. I thought about it for almost a week before I ran across someone’s blog and saw a picture of a birthday gift. Inspiration hit! I modified the gift a little and made a Valentine’s Day gift for not only Lee, but for my boys as well. The result is a bouquet of chocolate. I know it is hard to see in the picture, but there are a dozen chocolate bars and 6 Hershey kiss roses (2 per rose) do bring us to a 2 dozen piece chocolate bouquet. Lee has always had a sweet tooth and he has passed that along to his boys, so it only made sense to give them something they would all LOVE. I have kept it a secret for the last couple of days and now as they are all sleeping I have placed it on the kitchen table so that the first thing they see in the morning is my gift to them. I love them all very much!

Valentine's Box

I am not really sure why I never got to make a Valentine’s box for Zander, maybe because he never went to preschool or because he always made something in class for school. But I never knew what I was missing.
Connor needed to make a box for preschool and I helped him. I cut out the hearts and he glued them on the box. Then we found some glitter glue and I started to help Connor, but he said he would mess it up so he did not want to do it anymore. Instead he would tell me what he wanted and I would draw it on the box. Now I know it sounds like I did the box, but I promise Connor was next to me the whole time. I had so much fun. It was like being a kid all over again.

Champ

Champ is a rabbit that has lived with us for 10 years now. In bunny years that is very very old. Once upon a time before Lee & I had our boys, I worked in a veterinary clinic as a receptionist. One day someone came in with a bunny with an injured back leg that they found in a bush. The clinic I worked for did not treat exotic animals (only dogs & cats). So, I told the man that I would personally take the bunny if his leg was not broken. (Rabbit legs can not be set like other animals.) I took the bunny and had x-rays done on the leg. We found that the leg had a small fracture, but it was not completely broken. I took the bunny home, and for 6 weeks gave him a very small cage with a flat bottom so that he could not and would not move around very much. His leg healed very well, but he did not hop like a normal bunny, so I started some bunny physical therapy… I put him on our stairs on a middle step and left him. He either had to hop with his back leg to go up or use his back leg for support as he went down. This therapy worked so well, that the stairs became a game to him. If it was time to return to the cage, he would dart up or down stairs just to avoid going back to his cage. When Zander was born, I wondered what the rabbit would think of this little boy that crawled after him. It soon became apparent that Champ loved the attention. He even would hop to Zander’s room to hide when it was time to return to his cage. As time went on, Connor was born and Champ once again loved the attention of a little boy. However, Connor had loved Champ more than Zander. Connor insists that Champ is his pet. He loves Champ. Connor insists that he feeds Champ, gives him his snacks, and water. It took Champ most of his life, but he has truly found a best friend.