Preschool Orientation, New Toy for Mom, and Words.

I went to Isabel's preschool orientation tonight at the CDC. It was surprisingly reassuring and pleasant. After reading the policy binder that was full of 'never,' 'always,' 'you must,' 'you may never,' and 'we will kick your ass out,' I was a little worried. Izzy's lead teacher was out of town, so we go to meet the assistant teacher and see the classroom. After a welcome and brief operations update from the director we went to the classroom. Of course the 'peanut-free zone' thing came up and people were asking if it was all nuts of just peanuts that were off limits. The assistant teacher said she didn't know, so I was forced to out myself and say it's all nuts. I love how I've become 'that mom.' I got some very thoughtful and genuine comments and questions from other parents and it really made me feel more at ease. Everyone was told to treat it as if it was their child with the life threatening allergy. High five CDC! They're hard core. Isabel even has a music and Spanish class, but the main focus is still play play play. I want to go!

I was the only parent without my partner. I also am the proud owner of a 7 day holter monitor. Between no husband with me, not wearing a wedding ring, having my leads peek out of my shirt, and being the 'peanut mom,' I'm sure I won a lot of hearts tonight. I picked up the volunteer form to try and make up for it.

This older (much much much older) gentleman, who is the dad of one of the kiddos in class, came right up to me and goes 'what's this you've got going on?' as he points to my chest. Wow. I told him it was a holter monitor that checks for arrhythmia's and he proceeds to tell me about his 2001 heart attack. That's a lot of sharing for someone I met just 2 seconds prior.

Here's the new toy I'll be wearing for the next 7 days. An awesome pager-like monitor and a cell phone that communicates with it. I have to have the cell phone within 10 feet of the monitor. Please note that I did not wear this shirt to orientation. I would have worn a turtleneck had it not been 102 degrees when I left. And yes, it is a maternity shirt. It's comfortable, so shut it.


Logan grabbed the 'communicator' and called the tech center 3 seconds after this picture was taken. Fantastic!


I'm pretty sure this is over-kill by my cardiologist, but since I've been running my butt off I think he wants to try and make sure I don't keel over in the middle of a race or something. I'm sure this will cost my insurance company approximately 80 billion dollars.

This week Logan has said: egg, goodbye (while waving), hi, mama, dada, and uh-oh. That makes his word knowledge about 6. Yay Logan! He's ridiculously cute.

Isabel is super cute as well, but has been having some issues bossing Logan around. She has to sleep with her 'Thomas the Train' train every night. I have no idea how she latched on to him. Those suckers are expensive and I'm feeling like we need to get at least one more. Sigh. She says the funniest things. She told Logan 'shh brother, use your inside voice please' today. She also is saying 'your welcome' a lot which is cute because I haven't been pushing that one as much as the 'please' and 'thank yous.'

My face is melting off

Why does it have to be so freaking hot? The 10 day forecast is: 105, 104, 103, 102, 102, 103, 103, 103, 103 with 0% chance of rain. Are you freaking kidding me? I'm sorry, but last time I checked I didn't live in West Africa or some other crazy place. Guh-ross.

We went to the pool yesterday and Isabel and Logan had a great time until Isabel pinched Logan's cheeks and the bit him. I gave her a warning after the cheek biting that we were leaving if she couldn't be nice, but her little 2 year old no impulse control got the best of her. Poor Logan was having a good time and didn't want to leave. Actually, we all were having a good time and I didn't really want to leave either, but we had to follow through. The 45 minutes we were at the pool was fun and Isabel once again just kept going down the water slide. I wish that thing wasn't just for the under 6 set. We were the only people in the wading pool for almost the entire time. There weren't that many people at the pool at all. I guess 105 will scare people off, but it wasn't too bad in the water and there's lots of shade under the huge umbrellas.

I took Isabel on a girls only outing before the pool and she HAD to have a Hello Kitty lunch box. It's so ugly. I tried talking her into at least the Elmo one, but she wouldn't have it. She can open and close it herself and that's a requirement for the new preschool. Brian just wanted to know what kind of people would make a lunch box with no thermos.

Whatcha Doin' Boy?

Just had to share Isabel's newest phrase. She likes to ask us what we're doing and has started calling 'brother' 'boy.' It's pretty funny and she reminds me of a 90's hip hop artist. She's really started repeating everything we say and catches conversations we think are private. She'll repeat something that we've said while we didn't think she was paying attention. I guess no more dropping the F bomb while she's around. Damn. I mean darn it.

We're Baaack

What a trip! A month long RV/Montana vacation with the kiddos and dog. It was super fun and we didn't kill each other! Logan didn't sleep much (or at all) in his car seat in the RV. Typical Logan. Isabel didn't sleep too much on the road either, but she would at least pass out for an hour or so while watching her DVD's. We kept them mostly in the car seats while we were moving, but took them out for diaper changes, to eat and Isabel was pretty much over her car seat the last 2 days of travel. Grandpa did the majority of the driving, but Allyson and Mom did some too. For some reason Brian never got behind the giant wheel. That's probably a good thing with his track record.

On the way up we stayed in Wichita Falls, TX at a pretty nice RV park. Unfortunately it was so effing hot that they may have had some brown outs that flipped the breakers on the AC units in the RV. We headed to Amarillo with no AC. HOT as HELL. It got up to 111 in Amarillo while we were there. After frantically trying to find someone to help fix the RV on a Sunday we got hotel rooms because it was just too hot with no AC. Luckily someone walked Grandpa through getting the breakers back to normal. It was a quick fix. We saw Brian's Grandma in Amarillo for a little while. The kids were absolutely crazy at her house and got into everything. There were rubber bands, pens, pencils, scissors, and about 10000 pins laying out. I'm pretty sure my blood pressure is just now getting back to normal. It was nice to see her and I'm sure she enjoyed meeting Isabel and Logan.

After Amarillo we stayed in Fort Collins, CO and Buffalo, WY. Both were really nice parks. We then headed to Chico Hot Springs and stayed at a beautiful RV park called Yellowstone's Edge right on the Yellowstone River. We soaked at Chico for about 4 hours straight one day and then had a really nice dinner. Brian, GGB, Cathy and I went to Yellowstone for the day and then met the rest of the crew in Great Falls. Brian got the quick tour of Yellowstone, but we still saw lots of fun stuff.

Jenn, Joanne, Lucas, and Rich all arrived a day late. Jenn was stuck in Montreal for a night and the others spent an unexpected night in San Francisco. I think GGB was pretty surprised when Jenn showed up in her Togo wear. Tom and Stephanie got married at the courthouse and then had a reception/dinner at a Mexican place. We celebrated Brian's birthday the same night with some cake and ice cream. We all headed up to the cabins over the 4th of July weekend and had a great time. Trees were trimmed, bikes were ridden and mountains were climbed. Ok, not really, no mountain climbing this trip. I took a trip in to Helena and saw a movie with Joanne and Jenn. Brian and I headed into Missoula for some beer tasting and sight seeing.

On the way back to Texas we stayed in Buffalo, WY and Fort Collins, CO again and then headed further East and came down through Kansas and Oklahoma staying in Oakley, KS and Oklahoma City, OK before ending up in Houston. We unloaded with lightning speed and then I headed to Austin by myself to unload stuff and make my doctor's appointment the following morning. I picked Brian up from work that afternoon and we headed back to Houston.

While we were on the trip Lila was born! We got to meet her and then headed back to Austin to unload everything else and try to get settled in.

Isabel and Logan did really well on the trip and have settled back into their old routines nicely. I was worried that Logan was giving up his am nap and Isabel was giving up naps all together, but they've been sleeping pretty well, so I'm thankful for that. Getting the house cleaned and put together has been a big challenge. It's much easier when you have less space to clean up.