I took little Elyo to the mall on Thursday, I was thinking it was maybe (hopefully maybe) time for some Crocs that will last through the spring and summer. We had a great time, except that I forgot the stroller so I had to coax my two and a half year old from one end of the mall to the other, no small feat. He picked out a pair of ruby colored crocs for this year "Murray colored" for all you Wiggles fans out there and this very exciting firefighter hat. He was so excited! We came home and Grump came over and helped him get this baseball stuff from the very packed basement. Since this day my days have been filled with tantrums about wanting to play baseball. It seems in my boys head he is already in the major leagues, but his body just won't cooperate. It must be hard being two. He can't get his glove on by himself, he wants to pitch, bat and field all at the same time, he doesn't understand why his damn glove won't stay open.... We actually got out the video camera to record the meltdown at 7:45 this morning about baseball and its inadequacies. I figure he'll get a kick out of it when he really is in the major leagues.

On another note, Si had his first gymnastics class this morning. He was a little nervy about the parallel bars, but loved the trampoline and the ball pit. He also loved his coach Paul, who was also Mommy's coach years ago, we've really come full circle. Sounds like he had a blast and is looking forward to going back next week. In blogland, a shout out to Uterusx2, partner and big brother on the arrival of their two new additions.

Easter Bunny comin'...

Simon has been so excited about Easter. For the past two weeks he has been waking up every morning saying, "KNOW WHAT? EASTAH BUNNY COMIN' IN TWO WEEKS!" He doesn't quite understand that with the passage of time it's not two weeks for ever. His daycare really pumps up the Easter bunny thing, I thought that talking about it three weeks before the day was a little far in advance for a little guy. Last night I picked him up from daycare and he was listing all the family member he's going to see very soon, of note this year, Uncle Donut (apparently Simon does understand that Donut it not actually his uncles's name, he told daycare that he's Uncle Scott, "BUT I CALL HIM UNCLE DONUT!"), Windy, Megan, Taryn, Someone (poor Shaelyn) and Sean. "I SO SITED TO SEE MY COUSINS!" See you soon Donovans!

Maple Sugar Weekend

This is one of our favorite weekends of the year. For me it's always signified the beginning of Spring. Not this year, of course it was still one of my favorite things to do but there was something lost this year. Instead of clumping around the farm in out rain boots to keep out the mud, jackets open and eating maple sugar candy outside, we were all bundled up because it was only 25 degrees outside in snowsuits, freezings our butts off as we tried to take Simon to see the cows in the barn.

We go to Harris Farm every year on Maple Sugar Weekend, they do a delicious pancake breakfast and open their sugar house for everyone to see them boil down the sap they collect from the trees on the farm and everything is so yummy and smells delicious. This year was still really fun, just also really cold. Simon was scared of the cows, we couldn't get him within 30 feet of a live cow, so we just watched from a distance. He loved the sugar house and the steamy smell of maple syrup. We came home with full bellies and a very tired kiddo, but what a fun morning. I don't know that spring is right around the corner in our neck of the woods, but winter holds some pretty fun things too!

Pancake Breakfast! YUMMY!

Checking out the maple trees with Mom.

And one picture from last weekend's hockey game. My boy takes his sports VERY seriously.

Our New House

I finally feel okay talking about the house we have under contract since it looks like it actually might go through. We are so excited! We have had such a hard time getting financing with my astronomical student loans and very pathetic salary for next year. We finally were able to go through a loan program with the National Association of Doctors and Wells Fargo which *theoretically* was allowing them to overlook my student loan debt. Four committment letters later, my student loans are finally off the committment letter and we are mostly clear to close. My goodness this process took forever, and of course the most intense time (yesterday) I was home with the flu. I got a call from the loan man and he said "the underwriter has decided that we have to count your student loan debt", goodbye house we love. He told me that he was going to his supervisor and would call me back. No call back, but an approved committment letter at 5:00 PM. It was a long afternoon.

So here's a pic of our new house. We close May 2nd. We're probably going to keep this house too and rent it out, the market is really slow right now, so this seems like a good plan for now. Our new house is lovely, big backyard, tons of character, bright and sunny, no carpetting, lots or storage and in amazing shape. We just can't wait. We're pretty packed and ready to go!

And in health news, I'm back to (almost) normal. I have lysoled the bedroom, working on washing all the bedding, vacuumed the floors...hopefully to ward of influenza B from ever returning.

Positive...

for Influenza B. Crap, that means I'm out of work for another week. How come this didn't happen when I still in school and paying to be at the hospital rather than now when I get paid for going to work every day and have no paid time off? Still feeling totally junky, but starting to miss being around people and food looks a little better, these are good signs I hope.

The flu found us...

At this point on lovely home could very well be referred to as biohazard and placed in a big red bin. I had a great overnight shift on the hotline Thursday night and work up Friday morning feeling kind of crummy. I drove home and spent the morning with my boy, my wife, and our friend Jess who came for a visit. Kim took Simon to school and I took a nap after my overnight shift, during which I really got plenty of sleep, I think I only had 2 phone calls. I woke up feeling crummier and have since plumetted from there. Yuck. Fever, chills, hacking cough, achy, just overall horrible. Simon started coughing this afternoon and had a fever of 102.6. We laid in bed together and watched Barney, I was too sick to care that it was Barney and he loved every minute of it. It's nice to get to snuggle with my little guy even if we're both feeling yucky.

Tagged!

I've never been tagged before, thanks Ente. Sometimes blogwork feels like a big popularity contest, not sure if I'm popular yet. I'm supposed to tag other people, but really, I don't know many other bloggers who read my blog, so here's your chance to de-lurk, and maybe make my list longer if I'm ever tagged again...my assignment was to turn the book I'm reading currently to page 123 and record the first five sentances. I hope that this turns into just a list of goodbooks to read now that I'm done with school. I'm reading Veil of Roses by Laura Fitzgerald, which was recommended to me by my friend Kate. True to Kate's word, it's a very light and fun yet culturally interesting read.

page 123, "Screw finding a husband!" I laugh. Eva wears a short skirt and thigh-high boots and clops along with a sexual confidence I know I can never match. Nor would I want to. Nor do I want to swear like her, but I love it when she does.
What is everyone else reading these days? Those of you that have time to read that is...
Med School Mama, you're tagged, you reading these days? And littlestpea...you too. The rest of you, de-lurk and start blogging so I can tag you.

Mama Atkinson, if you're reading, you're probably busy with the new little guy! A big congrats to my friend Kelly, husband Mark and big sis Kayla, on the birth of their new addition Ian Carter, born on Leap Year day in the evening after a drug-free labor and delivery. Check him out, he's really cute.

Things in El-Yo's world are great, except for the two nights of interrupted sleep in a row which consist of Simon coming into bed with us and then trying to carry on conversations in the middle of the night. He tosses, he turns, he never sleeps, I bring him back to his room, he cries, "I want to sleep in Mommy-Mama's bed!" I go back to sleep in my own bed, Simon in his own bed, repeat three hours later. Poor little guy, he's been battling a cold for the last few days, not bad enough for him to stay home, although we did yesterday, but bad enough to keep him up at night coughing. He sounds pretty tight, but his lungs are clear and he doesn't have a fever. Damn winter. But in spite of that he's cute, really cute, and so fun right now. He spent yesterday with his friend Alexa and her brother and sister, "Baby Jake and Yiz (Liz)". He had tons of fun, the kids ran around like crazy and it made from a nice icy Wednesday. I just love being home with him more now that I'm done with school. I'm sure it would be more fun if he were healthy, but it's so much more fun that going to work anyway. I've been working quite a bit in the evenings at a crisis hotline here in Portland. Very interesting and a nice low key job. I wonder what's wrong with me that I think crisis work is low key? But really, I only take a few calls in a shift and if I'm lucky get some face to face time, and the rest of the time I get to read or watch TV on the computer, not a bad job at all!