"Grandpa Won't Help Grandma"

I don't have a picture to post with this yet, but I did want to document some pretty funny phrases that Tyson shared in observation of a few things. First, I watched my neighbor's boy, Tate, this morning until 2:30 this afternoon and spent most of that time at the Flat as I had arranged with my mother-in-law to help her clean out and defrost her deep freezer on the deck. She needed to do it, but needed some support and push to do it and after she was so kind to pretty much end up bottling a bunch of peaches for me two days ago while I had my phone strapped to my ear all day and wasn't much help, I felt like putting a good part of the day aside devoted to very worthy cause. She unplugged the freezer last night so it would thaw out and everything worked out great except for........the blasted cows! Be glad I don't use my father-in-law's words to describe them :) Anyways Phyllis (MIL) said she needed to go help Wynn get the cows in and so I continued to work to put the somewhat frozen items back neatly in the freezer when Tyson came up to me and said, "Mom, grandma's trying to get the cows and grandpa's not helping her. We need to go help her." I assured him that grandpa was probably getting something or finishing something up before going to get the cows. I yelled out to Phyllis to see if I needed to locate a 4 wheeler to help round them up as it didn't look from the deckside view that it was going very well. There was one 4 wheeler that was a possibility but I could not find the key so I headed out to see what I could do to help. We were running around and trying to circle them together and as Phyllis and I had a majority of them cornered, Wynn was tromping off into the field cussing away at the stray cow. I thought that cow better hope that Wynn doesn't catch him or he'll have wished he had stayed on the other side of the fence. Wynn got that cow back over by us by way of chucking rocks and dirt clods at them. We closed in on them and managed to get all but one in. The same dumb cow that Wynn had cussed out headed would not go in and managed to get by our cornering and took off across the road into the watermelon patch. Phyllis was saying to leave him, that he's not worth it, but I volunteered to run out into the patch through the high weeds and steer him around towards the fence line. I chucked a few dirt clods at him as well and we managed to get him in and head back to our reloading of the freezer task. As the last cow went in Tyson said, "Good Job!" I looked back and with his beat red face, and hands loaded with dirt clods he had a look of satisfaction and 'We showed those cows who's boss' expression on his face. At one point in the confusion of gathering the cows up Tyson was standing with a cow on either side of him as he had focused at yelling at the one in front of him and not paying attention to what was behind him and an instant look of fright and terror came over him as he noticed the position he was in. Grandma Phyllis yelled for him and after registering in his mind that he could run to her, he quickly did. He's growing up so fast and quite the helper to grandpa on the farm. He wandered down to the shop to help grandpa with the bailer without telling me where he had gone and he just always wants to be helping grandpa out with whatever farm tasks and chores he has to do, no matter how hot it is outside. After Tate went home I told Tyson I needed to go to the restroom and after getting sidetracked on a few things and then heading to my bathroom I found him at my toilet. I told him that I needed to use the toilet and he needed to go to his bathroom to go potty. He quickly informed me that, "Daddy said I could use this bathroom and that you need to share." I said that is fine, but right now I will use my bathroom and if he wanted to wait he could use it after me, otherwise go to his bathroom down the hall. It was a little bit of a shock to have him pull the sharing bit on me with my toilet, which I don't like to share.

Mid-February Recap

It hasn't been as exciting of a weekend as originally hoped for as Tyson has come down with something causing him to have high fever spells and then of course setting off his asthma again, so today we are on day 4 and if he wakes up tomorrow not showing any signs of our happy little boy then I’ll probably take him to his pediatrician. We sure do feel bad for him as he looks so unhappy and miserable. Yesterday was Adam’s cousin Bryce’s farewell, so we did attend that meeting and spent the rest of the day at Adam’s parents’ house. Even though Tyson had awakened that morning acting like his normal self, he ran another high fever this afternoon and spent the rest of the day in our arms. We enjoyed visiting everyone that was visiting for the weekend, but do wish that Tyson had been feeling better to enjoy it as well. Last week the only thing we did out of the ordinary was Adam and I actually going on a date for Valentine’s Day. Adam’s brother Stuart and his wife Heidi got a group of 23 people together to attend the Leahy concert. They are a family of 11 children from Canada that perform Irish music and dancing and Stuart just loves hearing their music and watching the lead brother perform a very fast playing on the violin. My cousin Caleb and his wife Stephanie were so kind to watch Tyson for us as he enjoys playing with their little girl Tyler (aka Tippy), ready for bed and sharing toys in the picture. We watched Tippy the night before while they went out to dinner, so it was a good trade off. We have enjoyed having them here from their recent move for Caleb to start his job at Diamond Valley Ranch. They have been over to our house every night of the week watching basketball games and visiting, which we have enjoyed their company. One of these pictures is from this last week when I took Tyson out to visit Gpa & Gma Stout for a bit, just to get out of the house. We loaded up our pig food bucket that we keep out in the garage and Tyson delivered it to Gma. He helped her pour it into their buckets and then after a little while decided that it was time for Gpa to go feed the piggies, so just as Wynn was finishing his late lunch and early dinner, as he had been pruning trees all morning, Tyson went over and began tugging at his pant leg and trying to push him out of his chair. Gpa would try to stall by telling Tyson that he needed to help Gma put some greens in the pig bucket and then some milk. After doing each of those he was right back at Gpa pestering him to go and so they did. I followed Tyson down which was good since he tried to get in the pen with the piggies and had found himself face planted from not picking his feet up over rocks. He handed Gpa bags of bread that he tore open for the pigs and cows and went with Gpa to collect the eggs, only cracking a couple of them. After returning back to the house he helped Gma transfer the eggs from the bucket to the carton and had tried to hide one behind his back only to find it had cracked. He’s definitely meant for the farm. This last Thursday morning I had my glucose test. I originally had it at the first of the week but rescheduled since I had some sweets on Sunday and new I would fail the test and have to take it again as that is what had happened with Tyson. I past the test which was great and even had another ultrasound done as my doctor wanted to check something out that he had seen on my first ultrasound. Everything was fine, but I’m glad he doesn’t just blow stuff off. He did inform me that if I was dialated a week before the due date that I did have the option to be induced. This all came before I even had a chance to ask him if a baby’s head grows a significant amount from the second to the last week to the last week, at which he said yes and told me that this baby already looks to have a big head, to which I said “Great!” That early inducement option was sounding good at that point. I asked Adam if he wanted to have a little boy on his birthday and he said, “sure, why not, then we’ll have a reason to celebrate.” We’ll see what we decide as it gets closer, but it is less than 2 months away.

Cloth Diapers and McDonalds

This post will mostly be about Tyson as that is what everyday of the week has consisted of. Two Saturdays ago he woke up throwing up, spent the day through Thursday with diarrhea and occasional throw up sessions and after advice from a very knowledgable and experienced aunt was able to have most of a normal day Friday and Saturday. Basically I pulled out the cloth diapers that I had used for burping him and such when he was a baby and turned them into actual cloth diapers. This all came about as I found myself not only being sick of what I was constantly changing (I'll spare everyone of pictures of that), but watching diaper after diaper being thrown away and thinking of the expense this was going to be, so when you banish yourself to your house all week then the cloth diapers can be managable, but not my choice of preference. Just when I thought it was getting better and switched back to normal, convenient diapers, I found myself going back to the dreadful cloth diapers as Tyson was not improving. I really can say that it was quite miserable, probably more for him than me. I was advised over the phone by those at his pediatrician's office to only give him pedialyte, which only caused him to have that come out as diarrhea and to be starving for food, so when I called Aunt Beth on Friday morning to get a second opinion she said, "That boy needs food. Take him to McDonalds and get him some greasy french fries." Of course that would be after we eased him back into eating with slices of banana and pieces of buttered toast. Tyson was so excited for those that his hands just shook with delight when Susie brought him his plate of food and of course when he scarfed it down (as I tried to have him eat it slowly), he took off to find Susie and give her his plate and signal for more food. It was a sad but funny site. Sad, because he was starving so bad. After going to bed that night and waking up around 11:30 p.m. he threw everything up again that he had just eaten that day, but we did have great progress in the frequency of changing diapers and with much joy went back to the normal diapers. Saturday morning I consulted with Aunt Beth again and then tried the same routine of easing him back into eating and letting his stomach adjust to eating again. It was quite successful and I have great hope that he will be back to normal soon. He spent Saturday evening dancing with g-ma Stout, eating her food, and enjoying her touch of rubbing his belly. When she would stop he would lift his shirt back up, grab her hand, and put it back on his belly. Pretty entertaining.

We switched to 9 a.m. for church this new year and are really enjoying it. We came home from church, put dinner in the oven and while everyone else is napping, I'm catching up on posting. Adam was funny after church as I found him bringing me all sorts of bottles of natural herbs that he could find in the cupboard along with a peeled orange, ordering me to take them. He had a "healthy" conversation with his sister Monterray and later on with Lolly about nutrition and although we both know that I do need to eat better and probably purchase some other vitamins and herbs to try to replace what I am lacking, his quick Sunday solution was pretty funny. But now that I am seriously thinking about it, it is not so funny that it is close to 3 p.m. and I have had half of a Nature Valley granola bar and that orange that Adam comically forced on me today to eat. Signs that I really do need to eat better or actually eat. So after a a quick snack, short nap, and then a yummy Oregon potato dinner (Thanks to the Petersons), we'll probably head out to the flat to make sure that Wynn hasn't gone inactive after having to switch to the 1 p.m. church meeting time.