Back to work

This week marks my first week back at work. I've gone back to work "Part time" I'm working Monday, Tues and Thursdays from 7:30 until 6. So far, so good. The days are a little long, but not bad...of course since I'm just getting back my schedule isn't really full either.
I'm really enjoying being back amongst the adults and the people I work with are tons of fun, so that's nice. I think I even somewhat remember how to be a Physical Therapist. It has been a slight change to remember how to stretch someone's shoulder without the huge belly out in front of me!
Meyer is staying with a gal named Annie who watches several children in her home about 5 blocks from our house. I'm very pleased with her...and Meyer hasn't voiced any complaints! She has been either a nanny or doing childcare for about 19 years. Parker is still at "school" at Hillcrest Christian Child Development Center which we still just love for her. Meyer will likely go there someday as well. The plan is to have both of them home with me on Wednesdays and Fridays, but there are some days I'm sure Park will go school - like tomorrow they are planting a tree, so she doesn't want to miss that, so I think mostly we'll play it by ear - much like the rest of our lives!
This weekend I'm going to the Ozarks with a group of girls for our friend Lauren's bachelorette weekend. It will be my first time away from Meyer, but I must say I'm excited for a little girl time/no responsibilities! woo hoo!

Herd Ball

Parker started soccer this last weekend. She is super excited about it. We had to get shin guards and all that jazz. Park is at a decided disadvantage since neither her father nor mother know a single thing about soccer---I was very concerned over the order of donning socks and shin guards...we finally settled on socks and then guards with the super long socks rolled down over the top of the guards...I think it was a good solution :-)
While the weather was not fabulous...a little cold - imagine that on a spring day in Kansas and super windy, but we were not deterred. Parker is playing in a league called Happy Feet put on through the Johnson County Parks and Rec and I couldn't be more pleased with it, it's way laid back and very age appropriate. Yay!
I'm not sure we have the next Mia Hamm on our hands or anything but she sure did have fun. We were most proud that she was one of the few kids that never came off the field crying...of course she never got knocked down either, but that was mostly due to her clever strategy of staying mostly on the edge of the herd. All in all it was a fun afternoon!

Note the Hannah Montana ball

Meyer in his green cap out in support of the Kangaroos

Of course looking good is the most important part

Little Mommy

The other night Meyer was having an atypical fussy moment...or as Park calls it -being fuzzy. I had done all the mommy things and he was still crying some. So Park comes to the rescue and our conversation goes pretty much like this
Parker: Why's Meyer crying?
Me: I don't know, he's just a little fussy
P: why's he fuzzy?
M: I don't know
P: Did you feed him?
M: yes
P: Did you change his diaper?
M: yes
P: Maybe he wants his binky
M: he just spit it out
P: Did you give him some gas drops?
M: _________________
My little 4 year old just wanted to make sure that her baby was taken care of and had all the bases covered and she even knows about the joy of gas drops!!! (and yes, I had given him some gas drops)
Park walked off to get her jammies saying I don't know, I guess he's just fuzzy.

I'm also including some of Parker's latest photography work. Pictured here is her self portrait, a close up abstract of "Florida Monkey", Mommy and Meyer, and just Mommy - on a day that a shower and hair fixing actually occured - wow!

quick update

just wanted to give a quick update on Park's condition. She's getting better every day, and as Neanie said, Good thing we weren't planning on getting cute Easter pics taken!
I'm pretty sure this was Thursday evening

these were taken tonight (Monday 4/13)

Birthday Bonk

so is it really any surpise she has two black eyes right now? This was from her birthday fun, I think she did this same thing for about 15 minutes. She would even fall down if the pylon missed her...what a ham!

My little prize fighter

oh, it just breaks my heart every time I look at Parker. My poor sweet beautiful baby girl with her face worthy of a great knock out - just not the right kind of "knock out". Her face is looking a little better--maybe. In the scheme of it healing, it definitely is, the swelling is better, but she is definitely getting black eyes now. My poor baby! I'm so amazed at how resilient kiddos are though. If it was me, I wouldn't leave the house for a month, but Park doesn't care. She was full on ready to go to Costco last night and by golly we better call Patrick and Baby Kate to see if they want to go to Cafe' Costco too! So we had a great evening of Costco hot dogs, pizza and the returned hand dipped ice cream bar - yummy! Sorry for the dairy intake Meyer! I promise I only had a few bites! It's the middle of the night currently - I woke up since I was sleeping with Parker in her bed - I agreed to sleep with her when she looked at me with her poor pitiful swollen face and said but I hurt my head momma, I don't want to sleep in my own bed. Now I'm heading back to my own bed, but my Zen (my MP3 player that I listen to audio books on) was totally dead and so I'm doing a little quick charging to get me through the 5 minutes I'm sure it will take me to fall back asleep. Wow, I'm a total Zen addict. But anyway, I will take some more pics in the morning to document the healing process. My poor baby!

Good times in Kansas City, Kansas

This weekend was spent having tons of fun. My aunts and their kids were in town from Boston, so my parents and brother made their way here as well. The east coasters stayed out at the Great Wolf Lodge (the giant indoor waterpark/hotel combo), so we partook of the festivities out there, but slept in our own comfy beds at night. Brandon wins dad of the year award for playing with Parker all day Sunday in the various water attractions. We did manage to get our very cautious daughter to finally try out one of the big girl slides at the top of the huge climbing structure. While she proclaimed it was fun, she also stated she did not want to do it again....maybe it had something to do with coming out of the slide upside down/sideways. oops.

Monday my auntie Candice treated me to a morning at the spa for a belated, non-pregnant 30th birthday celebration. It was wonderful! My peaceful calm probably would've lasted longer had I not spent a couple of hours afterward in the water at the GWL. :-) oh well! Later that night my parents treated us to a fabulous meal at the Yard House where I thought my pastor dad was going to open a can of whoop-ass on the guy in the booth next to us who apparently didn't realize he was dropping f-bombs every 1.3 seconds while my 4 year old was right there. Fortunately the waiter and manager mentioned that his choice of words in his loud booming voice might not be super appropriate and the guy apologized and left.

However the real fun came yesterday. After everyone but my brother had departed KC - and I realized I left my wallet in my mom's purse - fortunately she had some e-bay business to take care of at a friends house in Tonganoxie - so I picked up said wallet there, the kids and my brother and I joined the Ater's at Brett's baseball game. Allen County CC was playing KCKCC at the T-bones stadium. I had given Parker the choice of returning to the GWL to do some Magiquesting with her magic wand or to go to the baseball game. Much to my relief, she chose the game - in hindsight perhaps the GWL would have been the better choice. At some point between games of the double header Parker's seat "bucked her" and it appears her forehead made direct contact with the roof of the dugout. We're not sure exactly what happened as we were not standing right by her at the time. She was crying about her nose hurting, but as a brushed her bangs aside in a "my poor baby" gesture I saw the area that was probably really hurting her...the gi-normo goose egg on her forehead. We finally got her calmed down...asked lots of concussion questions, got some ice for her head - Uncle Buzz ran to to close by Target to get some kiddy pain reliever --then Park noticed the scrapes on her finger and screamed bloody murder---thank goodness she hadn't seen her forehead! Fortunately we were able to catch Buzz before he left Target and he picked up some Dora Bandaids as well. Whew! Fortunately she is doing fine now, we are staying home from school today and taking it easy. I'm including Parker's head shots for her audition for Star-Trek the next, next generation. My poor baby girl!note the extra bridge on her nose

day two - she is looking a bit like a prize fighterand here are some pics Parker took durning her "sick day" at home

Now that's worth $350!

As you know, I decided my dogs' lives were worth $350. Well, we've decided that them having to hang out in their cone collars is more than worth the price we paid....thought I'd share the pics w/ you all. I should add that while Brandon and I think they are hilarious, Parker hates the cone collars, so she has banned the dogs for the duration of this treatment - about 2 weeks. At first we had to help them eat and drink because they couldn't figure out how to get to the bowls. They constantly run the cones into door ways, tables, us etc. The best was this morning watching Bailey try to chew on her bone...didn't work out so well for her. You might feel sorry for them, but you must remember...they did this to themselves!