The Cost of a Piece of Bread

We have a great little park about a mile or two from our house. It has a playground, swings, a covered pavillion with picnic tables, and a large pond with a fountain in the middle. There are always an abundance of ducks and geese at the pond because they know they can depend on their daily bread from the little children that come every day with loaves of bread to feed them. We love this park and with it being so close to our house we end up going to it a couple of times a month.

We stopped by the park today with some of our friends. Nicholas and his buddy shared some bread to feed to the ducks.





The ducks ate it up and were quite grateful. But I wonder why they haven't figured out that they might as well be making a pact with the devil for those pieces of bread. For as soon as the little boys were empty handed of bread they both shouted out, "Chase the ducks!" and off they went.





Good luck little duckies!

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Family Resemblances

When Nicholas was born, everyone said he looked just like Stuart. And he really, really did. I think only one person ever said that he looked like me (and I'm sure she was just saying it to be nice). Take a look at these two pictures...

STUART, Age 3



NICHOLAS, Age 3



Don't they look similar? Same hair, same eyes, same nose, same chin. Both so cute!

When Rachel was born, no one said a thing about her looking like Stuart, or me for that matter. Everyone, and I really mean EVERYONE, says she looks just like Nicholas. I can see the resemblance at times. Sometimes at a certain angle when she is making a particular expression I can totally see Nicholas again at her age. But for the most part, I see more differences than similiarities.

So I started going back through some of my old baby pictures to see if I could find a resemblance. Look what I found...

KIM



RACHEL



KIM



RACHEL



Is it just me or do you see a resemblance?

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Baby Bottle Boot Camp

I feel like we need to have a graduation ceremony for Rachel. She has successfully completed Mommy's Baby Bottle Boot Camp. Yes, our four month old baby has FINALLY drank from a bottle. Woo hoo! Let the balloons and streamers fall from the ceiling!

I started trying to get her to drink from a bottle about a month or so ago when Stuart and I were hoping for a date night for dinner and a movie. We put my milk in the bottle instead of formula because that it what she is used to. But she didn't care. She just screamed her little head off and wouldn't have anything to do with a bottle. We know some of the milk was dripping into her mouth so she could taste what it was but again, she didn't care. The crying really got to me but I kept trying. We tried and tried and she just cried and cried. She went 6 hours one time before I gave in and nursed her. She's a stubborn little one.

So I thought maybe I'd try some different bottles. Maybe it's just the particular style of the bottle I was using. So I went to Babies R Us and bought a few bottles, including two specialty bottles that are specifically designed to be similar to breastfeeding. Nope, those didn't work. Then a friend of mine heard of my predicament and asked, "But have you tried the $13 bottle?" I told her no but I was intrigued. She let me have two of her bottles. I was so excited. Surely my baby will take this bottle. It's a $13 bottle. It's got to work!

Nope!

More crying ensued (oh, and Rachel was crying too!). I decided that it was time for Baby Bottle Boot Camp. I worked up a supply of my milk to keep in the fridge and every day I would offer her a bottle. I would give it to her when it was close to time for her to eat but before she was getting antsy for food so she was calm but a little hungry. She would often start out happy and would gnaw on the nipple a little as if it was a teething toy. It seemed to actually interest her. But eventually she would get aggravated by it and her growing hunger and then the crying would start. I would change to a different bottle then try some more and change to another bottle and try again. I did this every day for about 2 weeks. It was a rough boot camp but she eventually started wrapping her lips around the nipple but not really drinking it. Then one day it just clicked and she figured it out. Now she'll take a bottle although she likes to grumble a little in the begining just to let me knows that she is not a big fan of this method of delivery. At least I can rest easy knowing I can leave her with Stuart for more than 3 hours and not have to rush back home to feed her myself. What freedom!

The Musical Adventures of Flat Stanley

We had a great day with our buddies today. We went to a musical, had lunch at an awesome playground, and visited Dairy Queen for the first time.

We started the day with the musical at the Irving Arts Center. We went there last February to see a performance of Winnie the Pooh then afterwards we walked around outside admiring the statues and the water features. I did not mention anything to Nicholas about where the play was today. But as soon as we pulled into the parking lot, he said, "Oh I love this place! I remember playing in the water behind that wall!"



How can this child remember a basic parking lot and vine covered wall from over a year ago yet when I ask him what he did at school that day he says, "I can't remember"? I'm not sure why the memory of this particular wall stuck with him for over a year but I'm just amazed by his recall at times.

The play we saw was The Musical Adventures of Flat Stanley based on the book Flat Stanley written by Jeff Brown. The story is about a boy named Stanley Lambchop. During the night his bulletin board falls off the wall and squashes Stanley flat. He feels fine when he wakes up but he is completely flat like a pancake. He enjoys being able to slide under locked doors and being flown in the air like a kite. Stanley wants to go visit a friend in California but instead of flying there on a plane, his parents just put him in an envelope and mail him there. It was a great performance.





After the show, we walked around the gallery where they were displaying hundreds of children's art projects. It was fun going around looking at the works and getting ideas for new art projects of our own.



Next we were off to lunch at Kids Country in Coppell, one of Nicholas' favorite playgrounds.



Nicholas was hot from running around at the park so we wanted to stop and get something cool to drink. But as we talked about where to go, Mommy had an even better idea. How about Dairy Queen for ice cream? Nicholas hasn't been to a Dairy Queen before and was a little overwhelmed about all of the ice cream choices. After changing his mind a few times, he finally decided on an ice cream sandwich. Messy but oh so good!



Even though he had just finished playing at one of the coolest playgrounds in our area, he still had to play on the little playground at DQ. The playground was kind of small for him and it really hit me that he is almost 5 years old. He's getting to be such a big boy! Where had those 5 years gone???





What a jam-packed, fun-filled day! And what a tired little boy we have!

Update on Nicholas

Thank you for all of your prayers and well wishes for Nicholas. The little trooper is doing fabulous. We took extra care to clean the wound before bedtime and I gave him some children's Motrin to help with pain and swelling. I was worried that it might hurt if he rolled over on that side of his head during the night. But I checked on him before I went to bed and he had rolled to that side of his head and was sound asleep. He woke up at 5 am with a bad dream but never mentioned anything about his wound hurting. He quickly went back to sleep after a little cuddling from Mommy.

This morning he came out of his room with an oversized white shirt on his head as he was pretending to be a ghost. I cringed a little as if I was feeling the pain of the shirt rubbing against the wound but it didn't seem to bother the little guy at all. I cleaned the wound again and slathered more Neosporin on it. He went the whole day without any pain and he even ventured to touch one of the staples but I think it freaked him out a little to feel on them. Shoot, it still freaks me out to think about the whole thing. This is my little baby boy who had a huge gash in his head and now has 7 staples holding the wound together. It just makes me sick to my stomach that he has had to go through this. But again, he is fine. We spent much of the day at a friend's house who just had a new baby. When we came home we played with Star Wars action figures and ships. We were pirates hunting for treasure. We sang songs and played a guessing game. Just looking at him you wouldn't know how bad he was injured the day before.