Waiting waiting...

So if you haven't noticed, my blog has been rather sparse for quite a while.  I have many excuses I suppose, but I won't bore you with them now; after all, what's the use?
As for trying to catch up, I doubt that's going to get this post posted, because of course there's too much to cover...(we've been over this before) but the real reason is that I haven't been very good at picture taking lately, or even of doing anything noteworthy at all.  We've been pretty boring around here.
To be honest, if I were to catalog what we've been up to for the last two months, I'd have to say it was about 25% sleeping, 15% eating unhealthy foods, 10% being sick and visiting doctors (seriously, one broken arm, three cases of strep, one case hand foot and mouth, one tonsillectomy, and one case of rotovirus, plus all the follow up visits as well as my many OB appointments, I think I averaged 2-3 visits to the Dr. per week over the last two months), let's see where were we? ... oh yes, 5% holiday stuff, and 45% TV and Video/Computer games.  You don't need pictures of that.  Just imagine all of us as zombies, and you'll have a pretty good idea of what it's been like.  Just imagine me as a really big pregnant zombie.  If I get around to downloading them, I may post a picture or two that I let my husband take one rare day when I was actually dressed and not in my bathrobe, but no promises.

As far as this baby goes, we're counting down the days.  Actually, I was hoping to be induced a few days ago on the 6th, just a week before the due date, but this baby won't be pushed around.  The other times I was induced, it was for medical reasons --hypertension, and a kidney stone, but this time was going to be purely for convenience --my husband has until next week off and I'd like him to be around to help.  So far, the powers that be don't think that's a good enough reason so my body has remained un-induceable with a floating baby and a not-even-close-to-effaced cervix, but maybe that's a little TMI.
Either way, this baby is coming on his own terms, not mine. It's probably foreshadowing his stubborn personality, but I'll try not to cast aspersions this early in our relationship.

In reality, I'm just a big complainer.  I  really do believe that things will all turn out for the best. In fact, I've already had one confirmation this week that my plans were not what God had in mind for me (a post for another day), so I'll just trust Him to keep ignoring my petty wants and impatient pleas and let Him do His thing. It always turns out better that way.

DIY pom-pom sorter

So back in February, my 18 month old went in for surgery.  I'm sure he'd love me later for blogging about this, so I won't say exactly what it was for, but it was a pretty simple procedure and we were in-and-out within a few hours. He's doing great. The night before, I was frantic though, worried about how he would deal with everything (especially about the part where I abandon him to strangers), and what I could do to keep him happy and distracted during the wait before and the recovery after.  I needed something new.

I knew he liked filling things and dumping them out, and I remembered seeing something like this on pinterest somewhere, so I stayed up late and made one myself.

 

It's a pom-pom color sorter!

Now, to be real, my 18 month old does not do the color thing, but he really gets a kick out of pushing those little puff balls through the holes over and over again.

I made mine out of an empty cashew can, covered it with fun paper, melted the holes in the lid with my wood burner and painted the colors around the holes on the underside of the lid. (note: although that is what's pictured, acrylic paint does not stay on the plastic for long, I ended up having to use sharpies to redo it a few days later --the red one in the picture is sharpie because I didn't have any red paint).

It was the perfect waiting room toy, since he was already a little antsy when the nurses came near.  This totally distracted him.  It was also really funny how when they gave him some kind of medicine to prep him for the surgery he was so loopy and thought everything was super hilarious, especially disappearing pom-poms. 
After the procedure though, he was mad.  Upon waking, they wanted to calm him down a little before they brought me in, but they decided it would be best to just go get me because he was totally inconsolable. However, even my attempts to console him were futile.  But then, I brought out the pom-pom sorter and just like I turned off a switch he was suddenly calm and happy.  I immediately felt that staying up so late to get that finished the night before was totally worth it.  In fact, I think the whole thing was inspired.

It's a fun and easy toy to make. True, you'll end up finding pom-poms everywhere, and before long they learn that it's much more fun throwing them and poking them down heater vents.  Still, every once in a while we pull it out and he sits there and pushes them all in.  I also hope that as he learns his colors it'll give him lots of great practice.

Buhmadoes

You know how we're supposed to teach our kids how to speak our language?  It seems like I'm learning their language instead.  Not only am I the one person in the universe who understands what they are saying sometimes, but I'm afraid that it is rubbing off on me. For example, my oldest will say, "I don't like buhmadoes," and I will find myself saying something like, "Well, give your buhmadoes to your brother."
Does this happen to anyone else?

Speaking of vegetables... we took the kids to a doctors appointment yesterday for a routine checkup.  As the doctor quizzed my oldest on his numbers and colors and such I felt like I was on trial.  After all, those questions are really to see how much you have taught them right?  Anyway, when the question came up, "What's your favorite food?" my four year old responded, "Carrots! But my brother, he likes buhmadoes."   

Ha ha, score for me!  I promise I didn't teach him to say that.