Author: Shannon

The Indigo Girls could come out with a new album every month and I still wouldn’t be satiated.

Liam had his first splinter tonight.  Unfortunately, it wasn’t just one, there were many.  Also unfortunately, Matt discovered them while he was bathing Liam at around 7:45, on pace to be in bed for his latest bedtime of 8 o’clock (we shoot for between 7:30 & 8 depending on how the day and evening have gone) and this scheduling setback resulted in a much later than usual bedtime.  After his bath I spent 30 minutes probing splinters out of his feet with a sterilized needle while Matt spent 30 minutes holding him down and trying to convince him that an ER retrospective is interesting for all ages.  We talked through the two days since he had his last bath on Tuesday night trying to figure out where he could have gotten feet full of splinters and we think they probably came from the moving blanket we were using as a “magic sliding blanket” after dinner.  Our best guess is that it has splinters in it from years of dragging it across all kinds of wood and debris.  Be forewarned: if you’re thinking about turning a moving blanket into a magic sliding blanket you might want to wear shoes.

So, just to be clear (and because a lot of you people who I thought wouldn’t be at all phased by Matt’s post yesterday seem to have been quite phased, indeed):

1.  Our appraisal went fantastically well.  The house actually appraised higher than what we paid for it in May 2007, so things for the refinance are looking good at this point (knock wood).  There will be no pulling money out of any retirement funds until we’re actually retiring (again, with the knocking on the wood).

2.  To my knowledge no one at Matt’s work has been laid off in the last couple of days.  Matt’s friends there are still employed.

3.  Liam still sleeps around 12-13 hours nightly (and on a good day 3:30 for a nap in addition to that) and is not watching any Sportscenter (yet).

Seriously, people.  Anyone who has known Matt for any period of time at all should really be aware of the date before you trust anything that he says (or writes).  For that matter, you should really be wary of the things that come of out his mouth on any day — it’s just that on 4/1 you should always expect it.

So this morning I decided that I had to begin the process of paring down the paci.  Liam is becoming/has become entirely too dependent on it in recent weeks–wanting to have it in his mouth for many more hours daily than he used to (he was generally only using it at naptime and bedtime, which is still okay with me) and throwing all out fits when he points to the spot where we keep it and says “pa” and I respond with “I’m sorry, you may not have that right now.”  Liam has now been throwing and all out fit complete with screaming, wringing of hands, and even stomping for about 35 minutes.  He’s absolutely exhausted himself (which hopefully will translate into a fantastic nap, because at this point we’re both at the edge).  I’m really hoping that the introduction of lunch will interrupt this, because otherwise it will feel like pure torture for no good reason when I have to put him down and I give him the paci which will only stand to reinforce the current fit…seriously, why has no one written a complete handbook for this whole parenting thing yet…?

Liam had his 15 month well-check today.  Here are the stats:

Weight: 23 lbs. 8 oz. = just below 50th percentile

Height: 31.75 inches = 75th percentile

Head circumference: 19 in. = 75th percentile

The only major hiccup (or highlight depending on how you look at it) is the fact that we’ve been referred to a speech therapist to deal with his feeding issues.  Our doctor said that he’s seen issues like this in the past that have progressed and gotten worse and he feels it’s much better to intervene early and get things back on track before there are any major issues.  We have an appointment on the morning of April 21st so we’ll keep the information about that updated here.  Our doctor also suggested several books on the subject and I’m going to see if the Amazon rebate I found when cleaning out the office the other day is still good and if so, go ahead and get copies.

So we just got a call from our appraiser at 7:40 pm tonight asking to come appraise our house at 2 pm tomorrow afternoon.  He originally wanted to open Liam’s door to look at his room while he’s napping.  I think we finally nixed that idea — I mean, I really want this to happen asap because the suspense is making me crazy and we have all our other projects on hold until we find out if a refinance is possible — but I’ve just spent three days getting Liam back to normal after his refusal to nap during our visit to Athens on Sunday and that’s just not worth it.  I am now freaking out for different reasons because, HELLO, someone is coming to judge my house tomorrow and it’s not exactly in judging shape at the moment…I mean, forget the fact that there still isn’t a baseboard on the wall in the living room that used to be covered in mirrors, and that the entire sliding glass door to the abysmal deck is now exposed because the window treatment fell out of the wall (and we can’t put another one up until we replace the doors which is on hold until we know how much the refinance will cost if we are able to go through with it), and the fact that I’ve been painting the windows in the family room for about two weeks now and I finally scraped one of them this afternoon, but the other one is still a mess so I need to scrape it tonight and somehow vacuum up the mess afterwards without waking Liam, also that our bathroom is a mess, the laundry is all over the house, the office is a total disaster, and there are still centipedes (albeit dead ones) all over the exercise/craft room, additionally that there are logs covering our backyard where the tree fell on our neighbor’s house a year ago, and the fact that the kitchen’s a mess and the bonus room has little bits of stuff all over it and the garage (which was completely emptied and organized a week ago) now has a huge window treatment lying on the floor covering the only space to walk…forget all of that…wait, I can’t…I definitely need chocolate cake and a mug of coffee.  STAT.

ETA:  The guy ended up coming at around 12:20 (after Matt had only been at the office for 45 minutes because he had to wait to vacuum the paint scrapings from the windows downstairs until Liam woke up and Liam decided that this would be a perfect morning to sleep until 10:30) so now it’s all just a waiting game.  Fingers crossed!

My son, who won’t swallow carrots, pea casings, apples, or animal protein of any kind just ate half my bowl of whole wheat penne with pesto, goat cheese, and parmesan.  Of course he did.

I made some lentil soup earlier in the week and we’re just now getting around to eating it.  Matt had a bowl for lunch and the result was the following conversation:

Shannon:  How’s the soup?

Matt:  It’s alright.

Shannon:  Well that’s a glowing compliment…What is it that you don’t really like about it?

Matt:  The taste.