The Crazy Chaos Hour

Every day at our house 5pm rolls around and chaos begins. The phone starts ringing off the hook, I am trying to get dinner together, and the kids get crazy bursts of energy and run around like caged monkeys. This crazy hour of chaos is just that, it is just an hour and at 6pm things magically seem to right themselves again. Before I became a stay-at-home mom I treasured that 5pm-6pm hour. The process of winding down the work day, heading home to see Mike or pick up Olivia from daycare. It was a relaxing time. Now it's a bizarre sprint, 60 minutes when everything seems to flip upside down. I don't hate this time, I love to see the kids happy and playing with each other. I love that Olivia hovers in the kitchen to sneak bites of whatever I'm trying to cook. I love that I look over and see this.....



Pants on the ground. I don't know how they get them off so fast. Getting undressed has been (and continues to be) one of Olivia's occupational therapy goals. During therapy she refuses to have anything to do with taking off her pants but at 5 pm every day at home she strips down.



Olivia you have a phone call.....



Apparently they don't need to speak face-to-face, they'll talk to the bum.

Leiva Lagniappe

Just in case you're not familiar with the term "lagniappe" here's the official definition courtesy of dictionary.com: (noun) 1. Chiefly Southern Louisiana and Southeast Texas . a small gift given with a purchase to a customer, by way of compliment or for good measure; bonus. 2. a gratuity or tip. 3. an unexpected or indirect benefit. This is what happens when I don't blog regularly, my mind fills up with little tidbits that I want to share but I just don't have the time or interest to blog in detail about any of these little things. So here you are....Leiva Lagniappe.....

• I've been on what feels like a bit of a shopping spree of sorts lately. I'm on a mission to use some of the various groupon's and restaurant.com gift certificates before they expire. The best part about it is that I'm not actually spending any money doing it because I purchased the gift certificates months ago. This week I've gotten a mani/pedi and an awesome new cookbook from Barnes and Nobel and we've eaten out a couple of times.


• Signs of spring are showing up everywhere and we're loving it--the sunshine, the flowers, the weather.


• Mike has a torn meniscus and will need to have surgery at some point. It happened weeks and weeks ago on a jump but he put off going to the doctor and continued working out and jumping and most likely continued to injure it. He's not happy about having to have surgery and I feel bad that I didn't encourage him to see the doctor sooner.


• Olivia is continuing to do really well in school. We all love her 1:1 Ms. Tina. She and Olivia have a very special bond. Olivia is slowly becoming more independent in the classroom but still needs a lot of assistance. We have an IEP meeting next week to begin the transition process to Kindergarten.


• Peter is still loving his big boy bed. His vocabulary is growing on a daily basis. This week he pointed out the castle on the movie at Olivia's therapy appointment. I never taught him that word. He surprises us daily. I am holding off on the potty training for now but it's on the horizon.


• I have a brand new niece! Sophie Jaye Leiva will be 2 weeks old this Saturday! I can't wait to meet you in May!


• Speaking of May, I'm going to New Orleans for a girls weekend and I absolutely cannot wait!


• Mike has his senior wings. I wasn't sure what that really means other than he jumps out of airplanes a lot but thanks to google we can all learn more about it: "SENIOR Parachutist: Participated in a minimum of 30 jumps to include 15 jumps with combat equipment; two night jumps, one of which is as jumpmaster of a stick; two mass tactical jumps which culminate in an airborne assault problem; graduated from the Jumpmaster Course; and served on jump status with an airborne unit or other organization authorized parachutists for a total of at least 24 months." This also means that he came home with a ruied shirt because I can't get the huge blood stain out of his shirt from when he was awarded the wings. I think Mike is also at well over 30 jumps but I guess it takes some time for the paperwork to go through.


• Speaking of Mike's work. There are some potentially big changes on the horizon for our family as Mike completes this phase of his career. I am purposefully being vague as I don't want to get my hopes up to much about any one option but please keep our family in your prayers as we weigh different options and try and decide what will be best for our family moving forward.

Olivia's April Fool's Day Dental Adventure

Olivia typically wakes up sometime between 6:45 and 7:00am. She will get out of her bed and play with books or toys in her room until I get her every morning at 7:15 to start her meds before school. This morning I walked in to find Olivia sitting on her bed with a few books (this is not unusual at all as she often gets out of bed and picks a toy or book to bring back in bed and play with until I get her). I noticed immediately there was a large spot of blood on her pillowcase. I immediately began checking Olivia head-to-toe for the source of her injury. She had some blood on her face and in her eyebrow but I couldn't find the source. I carefully checked the rest of her body, her hands were completely clean, no trace of blood. I decided that it must have been a minor nosebleed as she has had a runny nose for a few days. I got her ready for school and did her morning meds and breathing treatment. We went into the bathroom to brush her teeth and I found a mouthful of blood.

I tried to find the source but there was so much blood! I called the dentist and thankfully someone answered even though they weren't open yet. They told me to come right in, the pediatric dentist was out of town but they would pull her record and the general dentist would see us as soon as we got there.

I threw some clothes on Peter and we rushed over to the dentist. Have I mentioned how much I love our dentist! They greeted me at the door and took us straight into a room. The dentist came right over to check Olivia out, he confirmed that Olivia didn't have any loose teeth but that she had suffered some sort of "blunt-force damage to the soft tissue area of her mouth". They did an xray to compare to the xrays they took a few months ago. Here teeth haven't moved and there isn't any damage to the teeth. Olivia basically gave herself a partial frenectomy. The frenum is the tissue that runs in the middle of the upper lip connecting the lip to the gums. The tear was a clean one and the bleeding had almost stopped by the time we'd reached the dentist. The dentist did not recommend stitches and said that in 3 days we shouldn't even be able to tell that anything had happened.

I kept Olivia home from school. She enjoyed watching Sesame Street.



I tore Olivia's room apart looking for what she cut herself on but I can't find anything! She has some board books and a few toys but I can't find anything that she could have possibly cut herself on. I can't find any other blood other than what was on her pillowcase.

The dentist told us to try and keep the area moist so Olivia has had a lot of juice to drink. Here you can see that her upper lip is a bit swollen.



I called Mike on the way home from the dentist, I'd called him in a panic as we were on the way to the dentist. He was on the way out to breakfast, I guess he thought the whole thing was an April Fools Joke.

To end on a cheerful note I have to share that Olivia thought the dentist was hilarious. He walked in and said "Hi pretty lady" and she shouted "HI" right back! As soon as he put his dental glasses on she started giggling at him and she was very polite about letting him look around in her mouth.

A Big Boy Bed

Peter has outgrown his crib.



I found the bed at a consignment sale, it was very reasonably priced and I knew my little guy would LOVE it. We had talked about transitioning his crib into a toddler bed a couple of weekends ago but decided to hold off for a little bit longer. I'm so glad we waited! Peter has transitioned into his new big boy bed beautifully!

Here he is after his first night in his big boy bed. The flash was a little bright.



And here he is waking up after nap.



Peter loves his new bed and can't wait to get in it when its time to rest. I wonder how long that will last......