Yet another trip to the hospital

On Monday night, the kids and I were having dinner with the usual goofing around and unwillingness to cooperate. (Meal times right now are the bane of my existence). Once again, Linus stood up on his booster seat after I told him to keep his bottom in the chair, and he fell forward hitting the edge of the table.

Where there was a fork.

He immediately stood back up screaming with a bloody lip. I thought it was the usual bumps and bruises that seem to happen in this house on a regular basis.

That was until I noticed how deep the cut on the inside of his lip was.

And that it went completely through to the other side.

Linus said it was from the fork he hit. It could have been from biting his lip. Who knows? All I know is that it was a big hole and it was bleeding.

I tried calling Brian but he was in the middle of interviewing someone for his lab so I couldn't get through. I then called our new pediatrician who we just saw the week before to see if we needed to take him in or not. She thought it would be a good idea to go to Children's Hopsital in case he needed stitches or even the expertise of a plastic surgeon. After a lot of phone tag using a phone that refuses to work inside our house, I got in touch with Brian, told him to stay put because we were on our way since he works fairly close to the hospital.

All I have to say is that I hope we never need to go to Children's in an emergency. The traffic here is the worst. It took almost an hour to go about 10 miles - I think I should have towed the stroller behind my bike so we could get there faster. But, we did finally make it and there were surprisingly few people in the ER so we got in pretty quickly. (This is a huge contrast to San Diego where it's usually standing room only).

Better yet, they were playing the Cars movie on tv.

That's all you need for Linus to be the most cooperative patient you've ever seen. After a thorough cleaning and the opinion of 3 different doctors that stitches weren't necessary, we were on our way back home.

Linus was so wiped out from the ordeal that he couldn't even manage his usual bed time defiance that is becoming normal routine around here.

Poor guy. But like other people and dogs in this house, he hasn't learned from his mistakes. The next morning I was again telling him to put his bottom in the chair. I have no idea where he gets that from.

Playing catch-up

Even though I love our house, I don't love the fact that it's a technological black hole. My cell phone doesn't work unless I am outside. (Seeing as the forecast on Sunday calls for flurries, this is not conducive to talking on the phone). Our internet works sporadically at best, and I haven't been able to upload videos or pictures for awhile - thus, no recent posts.

However, last weekend we decided to pull all new cable through the house in an attempt to solve our internet problem.

In case you missed the significance of the last sentence...

Brian and I, the least handy people ever, managed to replace the existing cable AND install new cable from the basement to the 2nd floor.

We might actually be handy after all...just ignore the shelf we put up in the laundry room that turned out to be 8 inches higher than what we measured...

Anyways, bottom line, I think we might have solved the problem. Yeah! So here is a bunch of random videos and pictures that I've wanted to post for your viewing pleasure...

The kids enjoying their birthday cake while my family was in town in September:


Sadie and Linus love being tickled lately and they always ask for it:


Linus, the big helper:


Enjoying Fall:


(I'll post about our big drama tomorrow. Stay tuned...)

Block party 2008

Even though we've been here for over a month, we have only met (or even seen) a couple of our neighbors. I'm not sure what people do all day...work?...but they aren't around whenever we're outside. So, when we found out that the annual block party for our street was this weekend, I was excited to finally meet these mysterious neighbors.

First let me say that I have never been to a block party before, so I didn't know what to expect. I can definitively say that I didn't expect an entire day full of planned activities - I'm talking 11 hours of hanging outside with 30 or so families. All Sadie and Linus cared about was that the street was closed for the day which means riding their bikes up and down the street as fast and as much as they want...

...and the biggest jumpy any of us have ever seen. Right in front of our house!

The kids were a little shy at first even though there were probably 5 or 6 other kids their age to play with, but before I knew it Linus had disappeared. Where did he go?

Why, to play football with the older boys of course.

It was so cute. These kids were so nice to let Linus tag along, and Linus was literally playing ball with them off and on for the entire day. He was in Little Boy Heaven.

We also discovered that just a few houses down on either side of the street are a set of 3 yr old twins (boy/girl) and a set of 4 yr old twins (identical boys). We also met a set of 13 yr old twins (identical girls) who are the resident babysitters on the street who live diagonally from us - very convenient if Brian and I ever suck it up and leave the house together. Despite all of the twins, there are also a bunch of kids in the 2-5 yr range - who knew this was such a kid-friendly street? I feel like we hit the jackpot!

In between all of the bike riding, jumpy jumping, and football throwing, there was breakfast, lunch, wine and cheese, and dinner. With all of this good food and entertainment we didn't notice the mosquitos.

Poor Linus got the brunt of their attack. (His neck was the only part of his body not covered the entire day).

After all of that exercise and stimulation, you'd think that they would be wiped out for the rest of the weekend. But today they were as rowdy as ever.

Ask them if they had a good weekend, and they were literally jumping for joy.

(And yes, Linus is wearing Sadie's pajamas. Just wait until you see what he picked out for Halloween...)

Some pictures...

I don't have any funny stories to share, but I thought I'd post some pictures from the last week:

Here we are at the local farmers market where they make fresh cinnamon and powdered sugar donuts every morning. Mmmmm...What could be better? It turns out the kids have my sweet tooth.

We also bought a bunch of corn and spent the afternoon shucking it on the deck.

This past weekend there was a children's concert at the library.

The performers were our hippie neighbors who live next door.

After only a few songs, the kids started getting into it and all jumped up to dance. Well...most of them did. (Notice who are the only kids still sitting in their chairs?)

We also spent Sunday morning at the zoo downtown. It wasn't nearly as big as the San Diego Zoo, but it was beautiful. The animals were so close you could reach out and touch some of them. Actually, we did reach out to the cows.

It's hard to believe that surrounding the zoo are all of the high rises from the city.
I think the kids liked it too, but they insisted that next time we go to the "old zoo" in San Diego even though they know it will take a long, long time to drive there.

We are only now starting to explore, but for the most part the kids are happy just staying at home.

(By the way, after hearing/reading about the hot San Diego weather I'm feeling a little homesick. We had to pull out the electric blanket last night because it got down into the 30s at night. And I went to REI this weekend to get some winter clothes - thanks twin mommies! - a pair of uggs, a heavy fleece, and a winter coat that's warm enough to climb Mt Everest. Hopefully that will enable me to survive the winter.)