Road Trip to Rockford

On Saturday, I drove to Rockford to see my mom for her birthday. I arrived around lunch time and we had sandwiches and then went to work winterizing her yard. I raked 3 bags of leaves and pulled old plants out of the garden. Then I crawled under some spruce trees through pokey dead branches, pine cones and raccoon poop to cut some invasive bushes out from under the trees. I fixed a heated bird bath, relocated a stone one and then took Mom out to dinner.

She wanted to try Pho so we went to Pho Square a new carry out/dine in place on E. Riverside by the 50's Beef-a-Roo. It was pretty good. I had the chicken Pho for $6.85 a bowl, and we shared an order of spring rolls.

Last night I could hardly keep my eyes open. I went to bed at 9 p.m. and woke up at 8 a.m. It's the longest and best night of sleep I've had for a while. Riley wasn't curled up giving me lower back cramps. X-man wasn't kicking me all night or slapping me in the head as he rolled around. MacTroll wasn't snoring. I could shut the door and drift off to bed. It was lovely.

This morning I ate my cereal and took off for home. The new car drove wonderfully. I filled my gas tank for the first time. I found a gas station that sells the Kashi TLC bars (which I love). And I arrived home to a very happy X-man. He's currently watching Charlie Brown and eating popcorn and drinking diet A&W root beer.

At 4 p.m. we're going over to Special K. X-man will play with the Wonder Twins while K and I do a run. It's too beautiful not to spend part of today outdoors!

An Everything Kind of Day

We spent the night at Dad and Barbara's last night in Rockford for Father's Day. This morning, my sister and I did at 50-minute walk while the two Dads (mine and MacTroll) got to play with X-man in the yard. They apparently did Hide and Seek; Duck, Duck Goose and then threw the tennis ball lots for Zippy. We continued playing in the house when it started to rain and then had some lunch before packing up the car and coming home. 

We had 2 potty stops for X-man on the way down. One because he pooped in his pull up and the other because he had to go pee pee. When we got home, he was asleep. He put him on the couch and let him continue to nap until 5:30 p.m.

When he woke up, he ran into the bathroom, lifted the toilet seat, peed, put the toilet seat down and washed his hands. MacTroll was euphoric. :-) 

Then we gave MacTroll his father's day gifts. X-man made him a garden stepping stone with glow in the dark stars. I got him a hammock. Then he ordered pizza. So, he's a happy Dad.

We did finally do one thing we'd been putting off. We sprinkled Loosey's ashes into X-man's gardens in the front yard. MacTroll and I both teared up. X-man kept asking, "Is Looseyfur in the house?" 

But she's got a place, and it's newly mulched and has a great little stepping stone. 

Working things out

So here's the deal about having big blow ups in relationships -- you get a firm idea of where you stand. And friends, I'm here to report, that MacTroll and I are in pretty good standing with each other since he returned from his trip to WWDC. I like when relationships are this way. When you can get things off your chest, tell your whole truth, listen to the other's whole truth, take some time to think and then join hands on the same path.

I do realize that this is not always possible. But most of the time, I'm one of those "fight the good fight" kind of people. Plus, it takes an insane amount of trust to be able to be vulnerable and fragile enough to peer at the truth. I know a lot of people can't do this. They'd much rather sit in their lovely estate in the Land of Denial hiding in the luxury of their own imaginary worlds.

If you're waiting for photos of our trip to Rockford. I'm going to send you to X-man's web site. There's a lot of good shots there. Speaking of the X-man, he's currently covered in markers from coloring thank you that are a little late (Sorry, Rita!). 

Okay, I'm off to get the kid dressed and get ready to walk to the gym. 

Greetings From Rockford

We've been here 24 hours, and X-man has shown his Nana what a big boy he is and how impossible he can be. I think she's completely tuckered out by this afternoon. And if it wasn't for an impending thunderstorm, I think she'd be napping.

I'll blog about the exact places when I get home and can upload some photos.

But today after lunch, X-man refused to nap in the big boy bed at Nana's house. So he and I sat looking at some old photo albums. Most of them were strangely photos of flowers, and he kept asking for people. I put one down and picked another one up, and in that moment he decided to stand up, reach behind us and put his index finger and his middle finger on a HOT lightbulb in a desklamp on the dresser. Burns.

There was a lot of hysterical screaming (From X) and a lot of sighing by me as I tried to get him to run his hand under cold water. He kept holding it up to my lips wanting me to kiss it. And unfortunately, this was the first time my kisses weren't able to make the pain go away.

I called our nurse hotline in Chambana. She said I had done the right thing. The pads of his fingers started blistering up, so she pronounced him with second degree burns and gave us a treatment plan at home. Poor Nana kept trying to comfort X-man, but he would have none of it. And she was trying to get him to put his hand in some cold water or on a cold towel, but nope -- none of that either. He was in crazy, pain, no-nap toddler world.

Nana ran off to get some Children's Motrin for the pain. And X-man calmed down once I filled up a juice cup with ice and orange juice. Since he wouldn't hold the wet, cold towel, but was thirsty from all the fuss, I figured he was holding something wet and cold in his hand. That seemed to help. He refused the bandaids with neosporin profusely.

So, four episodes into Curious George he passes out in the big blue chair in the family room. I carefully put some neosporin on two different band-aids and wrapped his fingers up.

Poor nipper. He's gonna have a sore left paw for a while.