Ringing in my 30's

My 30th birthday began like most.  I putzed around with Brady, did a Body Pump class at the gym, ate lunch at home followed by a nap for Brady, and I thought we'd round out the excitement with a walk to the park.  As I was putting on Brady's shoes, there was a knock on my door. Perhaps someone sent me a package?  Indeed, a package had arrived...in the form of my friend Erin, who flew in from Dallas!  She and my sneaky husband had conspired to surprise me, which they certainly did.  Eric is usually not the greatest at keeping secrets, so I was impressed with his sneakiness.  And he sent us to a couples massage at the Umstead Spa, so extra points for him.

We had a great visit, although visiting someone with kids, especially someone with a sick, might not be the dream vacation.  Brady had a 102 fever on Friday coupled with a hacking cough.  The fever passed pretty quickly but he was very congested so he (nor I) slept very well.  On Friday around 11pm he woke up (again) and I went up to rock him and give him some medicine so he'd sleep better.   I have him the cherry medicine out of a hard syringe (ok, I think syringes have needles attached to them, which this didn't have, but I don't know what else to call it and it works better for my story).  Anyway, he sucked down the 3.75 ml of PediCare and even after it was sucked dry, he would not give up the syringe (tube?).  It gave my sick baby comfort, so I let him hang on to it.  As I rocked him and he started dozing, the syringe took the place of his thumb as the standard pacifier.  Whenever I would try to take it away, he would flip out.  He started breathing heavily, the syringe slipped out of his mouth, both indicating sleep, but when I tried to pry the syringe out of his hands, he snapped out of his peaceful state.  So I let the druggie have it back.

I was afraid we  might be in need of a very early intervention.

I didn't manage to pry the drugs away prior to putting Brady back in the crib and we're going to put some extra strong locks on our medicine cabinet.

And speaking of real needles, Brady had a tough Monday to even out his tough Friday.  Among other unfortunate procedures, he had to get his blood drawn at the allergist.  It was confirmed that we have "that" kid, the one with the peanut allergy.  And an egg allergy on top of that.  So egg and peanut butter sandwiches are out.  We are crossing our fingers that he will grow out of both.

A rough week for Brady, and fitting, I suppose, since his mom did turn 30!

 

We drug Brady to the Pumpkin Farm Friday morning.  Like any bad mom, it was a while before I realized he was sick.

 

His shirt was smiling.  That was about it.



Thumb in mouth, finger twirling his hair.  This was a good indication that it was time to go.

Thanks for visiting, Erin!  Brady was fired up too.  You'll have to take my word on that.

 

Why my windows are never clean

What I learned tonight

My husband has never seen an episode of Saturday Night Live.

Hans and Frans, The Church lady, Spartans cheerleaders, Wayne and Garth....he knows nothing of these classic Americans. And this is from the guy who likes TV so much, our 50 inch isn't quite big enough for him. He watches Storage Wars.  But I guess growing up, he was too busy reading books on Saturday night.

He also told me I needed to write on the blog more, so you're welcome, Eric.

Iowa life, part 2

Good news!  I'm DONE flying with a one-year-old alone for a long while.  Let's take a moment to celebrate that.





We took another trip Iowa last weekend.  I'm all about enjoying the journey and not just focusing on the destination....unless we're talking about flying with a toddler.  People actually travel across seas with these creatures, which is something I can't fathom.  Actually, I can fathom it, which is why I choose not to.

Perhaps I was spoiled in Brady's early days.  People congratulated me for flying with such a small baby by myself, not realizing that flying with a toddler is a way braver feat.

Eric flew out at a different time and I forgot to bring along my personal assistant, so it was Brady and I and navigating the skies ourselves.  For the most part, Brady did really well on the flights.  But the short time that he was less than perfect is brutal.  Imagine wrangling a huge wet fish who was just pulled in and is flopping all over the boat while you try take the hook out of his mouth. And the fish bites.  But it's a cute fish.

The best part of the trip was getting the whole and ever-expanding family together.  We found out (via a cupcake filled with pink frosting) that we will be having another neice in January.  Emma is having a sister!

Grandpa and Grandma wranging the grandkids 

 

Thankful that we dont' have one of these in our house

Brady at the high school football game, warming up on the sidelines.

 

 

Naked play-doh date. Except only one kid followed the rules.

Leo and Brady bonding over cars

 

This at the Tiger exhibit at the zoo.  The Jeep was much cooler.

Feeding the goat

 

Cute little Joey 

And in case you haven't gotten enough pictures, here's a video of the chaos.  I think my mom went into a coma for a few days after we all left.



Why you shouldn't pick your nose when looking at houses

So some people live this way always?  Living in a house that is clean and that stays clean is a new thing for us at the Hoots household.  We've done the clean thing before but never the stay clean thing.  I've wanted to try the stay clean house thing, but its never worked out for me.  Like most life changes, this one comes from necessity.  Maybe if we could pretend our house is on the market for the rest of our lives, we could actually maintain this sense of order.

So even though our house is much cleaner than it usually is, I still have a destroyer living here and I'll admit, every time we leave our house, its not exactly ready for the next potential buyers to walk through the door.  The second day our house was on the market, I was turning my car into the pool when my realtor called.  It was 3:05 and someone wanted to see our house at 3.  Yes, they literally wanted to see it 5 minutes ago.  I pulled a U-turn and rushed back home.

Oh, the temptation to leave Brady in the car was attractive (cmon, I'd leave the AC on!).  But instead, I ran into the house with a toddler in tow and literally sprinted around my house like a crazy woman.  With all our clothes folded nicely on our bed, I debated between the extra minute it would take to put it all away vs. throwing it all in a laundry basket.  I was lighting candles, opening blinds, throwing things in closets, and throwing food at Brady hoping to appease him for a short time.  I cursed Eric for a few unfinished chores and cursed myself for lollygagging during Brady's naptime.  I cursed Brady for his room, which seems to always smell like poop and cursed the Febreeze for not being somewhere where I could easily find it.  And of course, I cursed whoever decided to set this showing up last minute.  Unless of course, they choose to buy our house, in which case, come let me kiss your feet.  I actually did very little cursing, either verbally or internally, but I thought it gave the story the dramatic flair it needed.

Our second showing was on Saturday and we had a little more lead time.  Which means we had time to rig up secret cameras and take pictures of unsuspecting buyers.

Yes, those are actual people walking through our house with no idea that they're on film.  Cheese!

To lesson the creep factor, I'll tell you that we actually have a new security system that takes a picture of our house every day when it detects the first motion after 10am those images are sent to Eric's phone.  I stopped my practice of mooning the camera each morning when I decided the security company was probably lying about nobody having access to those pictures.

Eric and I got these pictures while we were at the football game and analyzed the buyability of these intruders.  Apparently it was quite low as we got this feedback later that night.

"Buyers decided only to purchase single family homes only today. Sorry."

I'm only sorry that I cleaned the whole house for only them.

Just kidding, I'm totally not bitter.  Everyone come see our house!  And be sure to smile for the camera!

On the market

Our house is for sale....

 

The toddler is negotiable

Game Day in Chapel Hill

"Game day?  Balls are involved?  I'm in!"



Hearty pre-game meal

Correct ball

Incorrect goal

Pacing the sidelines pre-game



"Mom, dad, you're ruining my street cred here."

Waking up from a first half nap....who scheduled this game anyway?

 
62 points scored by the Heels.  Which is probably less than the number of people who needed to be taken out on stretchers due to the brutal heat.  0 points scored by Elon which is about how many minutes of the game Brady saw.  Thank goodness for the Blue Zone and AC at a football game!