Dean is 3 months!

Dean turns 3 months!  Here are some pictures we had taken to celebrate the occasion!

Nov 16 2014

It was my turn to go out for breakfast with Vincent.  He chose McDonald’s, not my first choice, but I didn’t get to decide.  We had fun sitting down together and talking while we ate breakfast just the two of us.  Then that afternoon I went to the grocery store and to run some errands with just Cecilia.  It was a nice break from the house.  We didn’t get out very much after Joel’s surgery.

Cecilia's Hair

On November 15^th I decided to cut the boys hair.  They need it every few weeks.  Then I saw Cecilia’s hair and decided to cut it.  It was her first hair cut!  I started out just trimming it and it wasn’t going that well, sitting still was not on her agenda that night.  Later in the evening when she was eating ice cream at the counter a little while later I tried to even it up a little bit, but it just got shorter.  The next night I fixed it some more and she ended up with a bob.  It was cute but not quite professional.  Luckily on Thursday my friend, who is actually a hairdresser, fixed the back a little bit for me and gave me some pointers.  Crew cuts on the boys are a lot easier!  She looks so much older and her hair is much better behaved now!

Vincent's Parent Teacher Conference

Vincent’s parent teacher conference was fun to go to.  I didn’t know what to expect to be honest.  There is a lot less communication between his teacher and myself than last year.  Plus he rides the bus to and from school so I don’t get to see or talk to the teacher ever.  It turns out they love Vincent, he talks about his family all the time, and that he tells them he is going to be a farmer and work with his Daddy.  That last part surprised me because he never mentions that at home, he must assume we know that.  A few things that didn’t surprise me were that he has a little trouble sitting still and keep his desk organized.  In his defense his desk top doesn’t lift up and it is just like this black hole you can shove things into.  Hopefully by the end of the year we figure out a better system.  I am very proud of how hard he is working!

Tonsils and MRIs

Joel had his tonsils out today and we woke up to head to the surgery center.   The few days leading up to his surgery I was making all his favorite foods because I knew it would be two weeks before he got to eat them again.  The procedure went faster than I expected and the amount of time it took for him to recover from anesthesia took longer than I expected.  They wanted him to wake up and instantly drink something so he could leave.  I felt like they were rushing us a bit, but who knows what is normal. 

Joel had a rough first 5-6 days after his surgery with the pain.  After day 5 he refused to take any more pain medicine and started acting more himself.  The problem was the doctor wanted him on a modified diet and exercise for two weeks total!  The first week was a struggle because Joel just felt terrible and the second week was rough because he felt good and wanted to eat but he couldn’t eat what he wanted to eat.  He preferred pizza, hotdogs, chicken nuggets, cinnamon rolls and he could only have noodles, mac n’cheese, popsicles and ice cream.  There were other foods he could have; he just doesn’t like any of them.  Ten days after his surgery he grabbed me by the shirt and told me “I want good food!”  He said it very slowly and methodically so I would understand.  I felt so bad denying him, but having something not heal 100% wasn’t going to be fun either.  Joel is such a good boy and didn’t even steal food from his brother and sister when I wasn’t looking.  Although he did enjoy getting ice cream whenever he wanted…including for breakfast and late night snacks.  That may be the only thing he misses about all of this!  Well, that and the lack of a limit on chocolate milk and screen time.  We will have some adjusting to do when his restrictions end.

While Joel was recovering from his tonsillectomy Brad and Vincent were off getting an MRI at a different location.  Vincent had to be sedated for his procedure as well.  We stayed in contact by sending pictures and texts to each other.  Everything turned out ok with Vincent’s MRI and a couple days later we saw a pediatric ophthalmologist and found a reason for his eyes hurting!  After months of diagnostics, doctor visits and people starting to think Vincent and I were making this up we found an answer.  Allergies!  Since everything else was negative the doctor was able to say that it was really just allergies.  4 days of allergy drops in his eyes and he was good to go! 

Multitasking!

On the way home from Joel’s parent teacher conference Brad was telling me they were short-handed for harvest help that afternoon.  He asked me if I was able to help.  I told him I could but only for a couple hours because I had to be home to get the big boys off the bus.  I went and picked up Cecilia and Dean from the babysitters and we headed to the field.  We had exactly no snacks, drinks or forms of entertainment (my phone only had 20% battery life and I wasn’t going to let Cecilia play with it).  The plan was Cecilia would ride in the semi with Brad and Dean would ride in the tractor with me.  Of course Cecilia decided that she wanted to ride with me.

Dean sat in his car seat on the floor, Cecilia sat in the buddy seat and I jumped in the driver’s seat and we quickly made our way across the field.  You see we were going to be doing something I had never done before.  We had to catch grain from two different combines in the same field.  There were two grain carts, two combines and the goal is to keep the combines moving as much as possible so they aren’t sitting still.  The field had long rows so one grain cart was always waiting for or loading a truck and one was getting loaded in the field.  You don’t have any extra time, a bathroom break is even out of the question. Brad was kind enough to figure out people to get the boys off the bus and Joel ended up in a semi with Brad, but that meant more time for Cecilia, Dean and I in a grain cart.  We ended up driving for 3.5-4 hours.  It was fun and Cecilia and I were having a grand time.  I kept one foot under Dean’s car seat so he didn’t rock too much.  Then Cecilia would go between sitting on my lap (when I wasn’t under the combine) and on the buddy seat.  She would also “help” me load the semis when she wasn’t busy playing peek-a-boo with the semi drivers. 

After a couple hours Dean woke up and then he got hungry.  Then he started getting mad because he wasn’t getting fed.  After I loaded a semi I started nursing him and headed out to the field to get more corn.  Before I started driving I send Bob and Craig a text message that basically said “Dean got hungry.  I can multitask if you go slow.”  I couldn’t get on the CB and say something because Bob had a passenger and I didn’t feel like that was appropriate.  The beauty of GPS is that I could multitask.   I just had to get close to the combine, and press the button and it would steer for me and I only needed 1 hand to adjust the speed and I could multitask.  When I got to the field both combines were full and close to each other so I just had to pull between them and stop and they could both fill up my grain cart.  By the time we needed to be on the move again Dean was done eating and got to sit on my lap, until I had to load a semi again.  After Grandma Diane got Vincent off the bus she drove to the field and took my spot for a while and I headed home with the kids.  Later that night I got a text from Bob that said I won the farm wife of the month award, with no disrespect to his wife.  Bob doesn’t hand out compliments very often so it made me smile!

I was so proud of Cecilia for being so good in the tractor for so long.  We had a lot of fun spending time together and being substitute grain cart drivers!