Bad Grandma

Hayden has a tendency to blame someone else when he is doing something he shouldn't be doing. For example, if I want him to get out of the car through Kolton's door, and he wants to get out the drivers door, he will simply tell me that Daddy told him to get out that door, especially when Daddy isn't with us. So, last night, when we were trying to put the boys to bed, Hayden started jumping off of the ladder onto the bean bag. This is how the conversation went:

Mom: Hayden don't you dare!!!

Hayden: But Grandma told me to

Mom: Grandma told you to do what?

Hayden: Jump off the ladder

Mom: Grandma who?

Hayden: Grandmaaaaaa....Koren

ohhhh BUSTED!!!

Toilet Humor

I am not sure what our family's fascination with gross things is, but here is another gross story to be added to the archives.

We all know Hayden is one apple that fell way, way, way away from the tree. I am assuming that, for the most part, all human beings are similar. Hayden is probably the reason that you have to say "for the most part." This afternoon he was playing, and being Hayden, when, all of a sudden, he started freaking out and ran to the bathroom; he ran to the half bath in the entry. Paulette and I just laughed because it's Hayden and went on with whatever we were doing. A few minutes later, we hear Hayden freaking out because of something to do with "poop." Apparently, he had finished his business in the entry bath and had moved on to the toilet in our bathroom. When I arrived, Hayden told me, in a very distraught tone, there was poop on his underwear. Of course I'm looking around to find the underwear so I don't get entangled in it myself, but can not find it. Finally, I ask him where his underwear was and he told me it was in the toilet. Through some miracle, there wasn't actually anything on the underwear because, while it was very wet, the company that had joined it in the toilet was high and dry. Without asking any more questions I went bowl fishing and went on my way. This is when I began to develop the mental video of how everything happened. I figure that he finished in the entry bath, and then realized that the kids hadn't been dropped off at the pool yet so, to mix things up, ran to the other bathroom. (All of my kids only think there are two bathrooms in this house, unless it's the middle of the night, then there's only one bathroom and it's mine.) It was there that he must have begun his Michael Jackson Thriller routine. Put your imagination to work and picture a three year old doing the dance because they just can't hold it any longer, and then, with one swift Thriller kick, launches his underwear straight into the toilet. When he finally told me that he was finished, I went back in and inquired as to why the bathroom smelled so BAD. I believe this is how the conversation went:

Me: Why does this bathroom smell so bad, what in the world have you been eating?
Hayden: I eat breakfast hot pockets.
Me: Really, breakfast hot pockets make you smell this bad.
Hayden: I no eat poop!

I'm sure you had to be there for it to be as funny as it was for me, but I couldn't stay any longer (for two reasons, I was laughing, and the smell.)

That's Disgusting!!

A week or so ago Paulette noticed a bump near her right underarm and assumed it was an ingrown hair. She tried popping it and she even had me try popping it. I know that sounds pretty disgusting but keep reading it gets worse. Get your mental camera's ready and picture me with a small mag light in my mouth, tweezers in my right hand, and my left pointer finger and thumb intently playing with this lump under Paulette's raised right arm. Pretty picture right? She insisted that there had to be an ingrown hair in there somewhere and I insisted that there was not

Everyday she kept complaining that the pain was becoming worse and worse. By Monday she could barely use her right arm because it hurt so badly. Tuesday she was crying and could barely sleep because of the pain but still did not want to see a doctor because "it costs money." I think the intense pain and my insistence finally convinced her to see a doctor on Wednesday. She called her mom to see if one of the doctors at her office would look at it and he said he didn't dare mess with it due to its proximity to the breast and the sensitive womanly stuff associated with it. Kolton had his 9 month visit that day so Paulette asked Kolton's doctor to at least look at it and he confirmed that she definitely needed to go see someone soon. Paulette found a doctor that could see her after lunch that same day and rather than leaving with relief, all she left with was a prescription for antibiotics. Frustrated, she talked to her mom who said the doctor at her office would look at it for her and as soon as he saw it he got on the phone and called a surgeon that he knew and they were able to squeeze Paulette in yesterday afternoon. I started working from home yesterday afternoon because we are having some remodeling done at the office (you can't convince me this was just chance) and I got home just in time to run over near the hospital, on the other side of town that Dylan and Hayden were both born at, and pick up Kolton and Hayden. I got back to the house in just enough time to get Dylan off the bus. Sometime around 6:00 she finally saw the surgeon who looked at it and immediately sent her to the hospital to get prepped for surgery. By 8:00 she was already out of the operating room and her mom got her home by 10:30pm. Her mom stayed the night since I couldn't get out of going to work this morning because my boss is out of town and the remodeling started this morning. Fortunately I am working from home for the next couple of weeks until the office is remodeled and that should be just enough time for her to recover. We have never been told exactly what is was, but from the little bit that Paulette has overheard from the second doctor and the surgeon we think it was either an infected node or infected gland. What caused it, why it spread all the way to her elbow, we may never know

Here are the gruesome details. Basically she has a giant hole in her right armpit. Literally, a GIANT hole! She has gauze jammed in the hole which has to be changed daily by a nurse. The hospital could not find any home nursing companies that worked for them that serviced our side of town so since we have a friend who is a nurse the hospital told us that she could come over and change the gauze. Here are some pictures so you can see what I am talking about.



This is the hole right after she got out of the shower prior to having it repacked with gauze. Gross right? I know what some of you are thinking, get your minds out of the gutter. This is a picture of her armpit not a different part of her anatomy. Sickos! Also in this picture you can see how red the underside of her arm is. The redness (infection) goes all the way down below her elbow.




This is the 1/2" wide gauze that Paulette pulled out of the hole while she was in the shower. I laid it on toilet paper on the tile in the kitchen to put its length in perspective. Each tile is 16"x16" so it is about 55" long. I think that is taller than Emily. Only about 3' of fresh gauze went back in the hole but she said she would rather give birth than go through that again. Unfortunately for her she has to go through it everyday until the wound is healed, at which time it may be stitched closed. She is a very pain tolerant person but this seems to be more than she can tolerate and I don't blame her.

Spicy Hot Cheetos

Our favorite conversation of the weekend went like this:

Dylan: "Did you know that spicy hot Cheetos are good for you?"
Dustin: "Really, how's that?"
Dylan: "Because there are jalapenos in them."
Dustin: "So, because there are jalapenos in them that makes them good for you?"
Dylan: "Yep, we have jalapenos in the clubhouse and they're in the vegetable bin."

First of all I guess anything spicy must have jalapenos in it, or at least according to Dylan. And secondly, just for you all who don't know what the clubhouse is, it is the little room Danny and Dustin built under the stairs for the kids. They have a little kitchen set in the "clubhouse".

Yep, there they are, so it must be true.

This is going to be good to show to his girlfriend when he is 16!

Apparently he likes to sing when he is doing his business.

Catching Up

I know, we're hipocrites. We keep harrassing people to update their blogs and yet we fail to keep our own updated. Paulette is a "blog stalker" and checks everyone's blogs several times a day. Even when we are not home she will check them on her phone since she has a fancy phone with the internet. So...

The day after we got home from our Christmas vacation, Dylan remembered that he had rollerblades waiting for him and he couldn't wait to try them out.

As most of you are aware, my kids seem to pick things up rather quickly, especially if it doesn't involve books or vegetables. After just a couple days of practice and a couple of bruises on his rear, Dylan has mastered (as well as a 6 year old can master) the art of the rollerblade. For a 3 year old, Hayden is no slouch either. We acquired some kids rollerblades from our neighbors garage sale that are adjustable. When we got them they were setup like a tricycle, one wheel in the front and two in the back. Hayden skated like that for several months until he was just playing around one day and put on Dylans which are true rollerblades and it almost seemed like he was skating better by having the wheels inline so we adjusted his skates and he is doing pretty well at keeping up with Dylan.

Not long after we got home, Paulette finally took the plunge and joined the family up at the YMCA. She has been working out almost every morning. She drops Hayden and Kolton off in the kid watch area and then goes and does her thing. She started by just going into the women's center and doing miscellaneous cardio and strength excercises. Recently she has discovered the classes and looks forward to attending her step, kickboxing, abs and all other sort of classes. She keeps trying to get us to go as a family in the evenings because I have yet to go but something keeps coming up preventing us from going. Part of it is me dragging my feet because it is something I have never done before and never pictured myself doing. I am sure that once I go one time I will probably keep going, especially since it is on the way to work and I could just work out and shower there before going to the office. Anyways, now that we have joined the YMCA, Hayden has been taking swimming lessons and Dylan has recently started soccer. Both of them love their activities, plus it keeps them active. Dylan doesn't have too much of a problem with that since Wednesday is our crazy day. I have to be home from work "on time" so Paulette can make it to the school in time to pick up Dylan only to rush him to gymnastics which is 20 minutes away and starts 20 minutes after he gets out of school. She has to get him out of gymnastics 5 minutes early so she can rush him to the YMCA so that he won't be too late for soccer practice. During this time I am fortunate enough to be at home with the other two boys while I try to double up on my school work so I can be more edjumacated.

We celebrated Grandpa Carroll's birthday at our house and had a lot of fun. It was the big 65 that he had been looking forward to for some time because it means that he can finally retire, except I think that he forgot to actually retire because he still gets up every morning to head to work.

Somewhere along the way, Kolton discovered that he can have more fun if he learns to move around. He hasn't mastered crawling yet but he is really good at his version of the army crawl. Leave him alone, so what if he is behind when his brothers learned to do things.

Grandpa Danny and Grandma Koren came to visit just for the heck of it and we had a great time. After they arrived we were discussing some things that we could do during their trip and somehow Galveston came up and at first we kind of laughed it off because it is not as close as some people may think and because it hasn't quite finished recovering from Hurrican Ike. That second reason not to go soon became the primary reason to go. It was quite interesting to see how much work there is still left to do down there. My sisters will remember going down and going into the shops that are on stilts over the water and looking at all of the nic-nacs that people are selling. GONE!! Many of the nice homes along the beach. GONE!!

We had a lot of fun though, the kids got to play in the sand a little and pick up seashells.

Paulette was paranoid about the kids falling in the water.

From Galveston there is a ferry you can take to get over to the Bolivar Penninsula that we always enjoyed riding on as kids. Paulette had never been on one before so it was a new experience for her and the kids. She did mention though that if this were the ferry that we would have had to ride she would have stayed on dry land.

Even Kolton got to have fun at the beach.

Do you like our new boat? We found this boat in someone's front yard in the town of Crystal Beach. Something tells me this is not where it was supposed to be. For more pictures of our Galveston trip go to my mom's blog at http://klinelife.blogspot.com/2009/02/our-warm-getaway.html

Our soccer star!

He is quite the agressive fielder and a great goalie too. Today he scored a goal (sorry no video of that) and blocked two shots on goal.

As much fun as soccer is, there is no better time that the treats when it is over.

Bodie (Lesley Zentz' (Haines)) son had a birthday party at the place they keep their horses.

The boys both had fun and Kolton waited patiently for his turn on the horse, but for some reason was never allowed to ride.

Alas, we come to Valentine's Day. Our Valentine's festivities started yesterday at Dylan's school when they had their Valentine's party. As usual, the kids bring little things to pass out to the rest of the kids in the class so Paulette stayed up all night Thursday preparing the treat (a small candy and a crazy straw) for Dylan to give to his friends. Here is a picture of him with his teacher Mrs. Harl.

While Paulette was at the school she was suprised to find out that Dylan is quite the little artist. His teacher told her that the art teacher chose some sort of fan Dylan made to put in the fine arts festival. (I think he was the only one from his class) Mrs. Harl showed it to Paulette and she was very impressed. I guess we will have to post some pictures of that when it comes back from the fesitval.

We started off our Valentine's Day today bright and early with an 8:15 soccer game. That's me standing next to the goal. I don't know if I am actually supposed to do that but everyone else stood next to the goal when their child tended so; monkey see monkey do.

What Valentine's would be complete without Paulette taking pictures of us matching.

The remainder of our Valentine's has consisted of Papasito's lunch, car repairs, hair cuts and Wii. We bought the Wii Fit a couple of weeks ago and today I got "Skate It" from Paulette so we got to skate board in the house for a while and then Dylan, Hayden and I played Spiderman. Hayden just uses the "classic controller" that is not hooked up to anything and is certain that he is playing along with us.

Speaking of the Wii Fit, I think that may have been one of the highlights of my parents visit. We played several times during their visit and had fun checking our Wii Fit Age. I won't spoil it for anyone so I will let mom and dad tell you their age. I wish we had a picture of my parents doing yoga, running in place and, most of all, ski jumping. You know in the Olympics when the people go down the really steep, really long hill and then see how far they can jump? That was everyone's favorite game and you don't know what they are doing then they look pretty silly doing it. First you squat down kind of like you are visiting the porcelain palace, then you stand up really quickly, lean forward, stick your chest out and "fly" with your arms behind you.

Sorry we don't have any interesting news, like a potential volcano, but at least now you are caught up on our lives since Christmas.

THE END!

Holiday in Pictures

If a picture is worth 1000 words then here is a long novel.

This last one is because Damon may never update his blog.

Turkey Day

Hopefully everyone had as enjoyable a Thanksgiving Holiday as we did. We spent the day in Livingston (not quite a 2 hour drive to the north and east of our house) in the "country" at Paulette's parents house. They have about 10 acres out nearly in the middle of nowhere so it is nice to go up, hang out and be away from the hustle and bustle. Right behind the house they have a small pond that they claim to have fish in but that we have never been able to substantiate, until Dylan caught a fish after only three or four attempts.

If you talk to him about it, the most important part about him catching a fish was that he was the first one to do it since I managed to catch one (a bigger one) a while later.

Much to Dylan's dismay we had a traditional Thanksgiving feast because Paulette told him that if we caught any fish we would get to eat them. We practice catch and release in this house though since none of us are huge fish fanatics (maybe it's just that we wouldn't know what to do with a flapping fish to prepare it to eat).

Hayden was there too but didn't make it in to the big action story because he is not allowed to fish with an actual hook on the end of his line. He is quite proficient at casting though so someday he may prove to be a real angler.

Paulette went Black Friday shopping with her mom again this year. It seems as though they have made this their new tradition. When she left I was never able to go back to sleep since Kolton wanted to eat plus I was skipping my monthly audit at work so I had that on my mind. After both of us having been up since the whee hours of the morning Hayden decided to spill his guts out all over his bed late that night right after Paulette and I both fell asleep. I tried to clean up as much as possible to Paulette wouldn't have to get up, but apparantly I didn't do good enough because she got up after I went back to bed and cleaned up some more. To add fuel to the fire, Hayden has decided that he is afraid of the dark so it has been a fight nearly every night to get him to bed. We have done really well about not letting him sleep in our room at all but every time he woke up that night we had to fight with him to go back to bed. I am sure everyone knows what it is like to fight with a scared, sick, tired 3 year old.

Kolton is still alive too and he is growing up extremely quick. We just finished teaching him to walk so naturally bike riding is the next step. Kidding of course, he is starting to really laugh rather than just squeel and we are having a lot of fun trying to make him laugh.