Wednesday, April 30, 2008

37 is a prime number

It's also the number of Tony years today!

Add your comments to wish "Happy Birthday" to our beloved husband-father-friend-brother-son-grandson-son-in-law-brother-in-law!

We love Tony! Hip Hip Hooray!

Feiste Watch

Our beloved pediatrician will be performing at the American Cancer Society Relay for Life at Pendleton High School on Friday night. The Pennas are very sad that we won't be able to attend. (We are going to spend the night in Greenville since our Dallas flight leaves at 6:45am on Saturday.)

Although most of my dear readers are not in the immediate area, if you have the chance to go, you should!

Tuesday, April 29, 2008

Croup

John was coughing the "bark like a seal" cough this morning, so we took him in to Carolina Kids, and sure enough, he has viral croup. He had a fever starting last night, a regular cough, and runny nose, and then he started the croup coughing this morning when he got upset.

Susan, CPNP, looked in his ears, mouth, nose, and listened to chest. The mucus has also crusted a little in his ears too, surprise, surprise. So we came home with scrips for antibiotic, oral steroid (to ease the throat inflammation), ear drops, and samples of vazobid (for congestion) and infants' tylenol for fever.

Susan cleared us for traveling on Saturday, though, unless things get really bad. He'll probably be home from school tomorrow, and since we are doing a 3-day per week at the Growing Place in May.

He has been feeling really bad this morning, but perked up a little after the tylenol kicked in.

We'll be spending the day watching "Bob on TV!"

Tuesday, April 22, 2008

At the request of Adjunct Grandma Theresa

Here's the "Bob the Builder" song video.



John always asks "See?" every time I take a picture or video now. I guess he has reached that metacinema development phase...

Sunday, April 20, 2008

Just a picture



(He's singing the "Bob the Builder" Song.)

Friday, April 18, 2008

John takes the next evolutionary step

He can conquer the world as soon as he masters the opposable thumb!

Wednesday, April 16, 2008

Videos

Sorry everyone!
I was trying the privacy options on YouTube. The videos should now be viewable again!

Monday, April 14, 2008

Welcome, Tutu!

I always LOVE-LOVE-LOVE to find out who reads my blog, and it's extra special when it's a grandma or grandpa type person!

So I want to give a special shout out (pardon the kidspeak) to John's GREAT-grandma (Tony's Mom's Mom) Tutu!

We miss you and are looking forward to seeing you in August if not sooner!
I hope that I can keep you updated on John!

(I apologize for the choppy shooting at the end)

Saturday, April 12, 2008

Car shopping

[I apologize for the non-John post! I debated whether to include it or not...]

So yesterday Tony and I started the interactive part of car shopping. I had narrowed our top choices down to the Toyota RAV4, Toyota Matrix and Pontiac Vibe (which are the same car: a Toyota Corolla with a wagon body), or the Honda CR-V. In my brain, I've been leaning toward the Matrix-Vibe, because it gives us what we (I) need: enough room for John, Keats, and I to make our twice-daily runs to daycare, with some occasional grocery shopping thrown in. The Civic actually meets this need quite nicely, but it would be great not to have to climb in and out of the back seat to buckle John in. Plus, if we do have kid #2, we would like to have a little more room...

However, in my heart, I've been yearning for the CR-V. But, in these belt-tightening times, I can't discount higher insurance costs, higher costs for tires and service, and of course higher fuel costs.

Yesterday, our task was to look and drive each of our top choices, deciding whether the Matrix-Vibe would be big enough. Tony has been leaning toward the RAV4, but I liked the new CR-V better because it has a lift gate rather than a swing gate.

We went to the Honda dealer in Easley, and had a fabulous saleman, "Bud." To me he kind of looked like a sort of softer Frank Langella. We each drove a 2004 and 2007 Honda CR-V. The latest redesign was in 2007. The later model has more room in the front and back seats, as well as the lift gate and side air bags.

Then we went to the Toyota dealer, also in Easley. Bad saleman, in the sense that he was the stereotypical car salesman. Sigh. There we examined the Matrix and decided it was too small. Just a little larger than the Civic, but it did have 4 doors. Then we test drove a 2007 RAV4. We both liked it. We had actually gone to the wrong part of the dealership and the salesman had driven us to where the SUVs and trucks were, so we were at his mercy to get back to where are car was. That was our big mistake. He brought us into the sales office, I sat down, Tony didn't. He filled out the "4 square sheet" with names and address. Then he went into his manager's office to "get his card" (yeah, right). He was in there about 5 minutes. We had already told him we were ready to buy, this was our first day looking, we were on a 3-month schedule of finding a new car, we were not in a hurry to buy, and we were not ready to talk price, that we didn't know how much we wanted to spend, and that we didn't know what the budget was going to be for this car.
He came out of the office and said "Sit down," and we were both standing by that point. We didn't and we both started to say that we had to go. He said "I just want to show you these numbers." We say no, and we leave, and wait for him outside. Tony walks back over to the car we came over in and I wait near the door. The salesman comes out (his name is John, ugh) and says, "I'm sorry, I don't want you to think I'm pushy, my manager made me do that, blah, blah, blah." It was so CLICHE!

(Update on April 30: We have put the car search on hold until we get back from Dallas!)

Thursday, April 10, 2008

John's Number 1!





WARNING: TMI post (too much information)

We broke out the potties last weekend. Our friend Andrew gave us a couple left over from his son's training. (His son is 4 now I think). At first, I thought, "Ewww, hand-me-down toilets." But now as I see all the training toilet options for sale out there, I realize this is one of those baby-kid things you can end up spending a fortune on just trying to find "the right one."

So we re-re-washed them and set them out. We aren't really pushing anything right now. He learns so well by watching, that I'm not worried about him "getting it."

Last week, he sat on the potty right before his bath and had his first on-toilet pee. Of course most of it went on the floor...

He hasn't been too interested in the potties lately, and I'm not ready anyway. Sometimes he asks for it, sometimes he doesn't, so we're taking it slow.

Count to ten



John can just about count to ten, or at least say all the words, he's probably not even counting.

He can say six-seven-eight-nine-ten, and does all the time.
He also says one-two-three but usually misses out four and five.

One of his other new favorites is "Mark. Set. Gooooo!"
He's been in the two's room a school a lot this week, so I think he's repeating a lot of what he must hear in there.

It's very cute. Whenever I come to pick him up, all the two-year-olds say "John, your mom is here!" Then they help him find his cup, giraffe, and blanket. etc.

Wednesday, April 9, 2008

Preview

I've got a couple of posts swirling around in my head, but I haven't made the time to post them (download pics, upload video, etc.), so I'll give a brief preview here.

John's first, real (sort of) pee on the potty.
John counts to ten and other rapidly increasing communication and vocabulary feats.
John on the exercise ball with mommy [video].
John's fun time with his friend James and cousin Naomi.

I'll try to get at least one up tomorrow (Thursday).

Monday, April 7, 2008

10 years of reality TV just became totally worth it...

"I don't like the way emotions make me feel."

-Jon of "Jon & Kate Plus 8" on TLC.

Feiste for President



His campaign slogan is "I'm not any worse than anyone else who's running."

We had a doctor visit at Carolina Kids today. Although we were with Dawn, we talked to Feiste afterwards. He picked up John, who of course cried "Mommy, mommy." The whole time we were there, John kept saying "Go home." Then when we were on our way home, he kept saying "Doctor. Ears."

Today was the follow-up for the ear infection two weeks ago. He got a good ear report from Dawn, and the visit was one of the quickest ever. I think that's because I was prepared for a long wait. I brought work for me, snacks (bagels, apples, goldfish) for John, some of his train tracks and trains, two books, and his doctor kit, as well as the essentials: water-juice cup, giraffe, and Bee. Oh, well, better safe than sorry with an active toddler!

Dr. Feiste, here is the anticipated/promised blog entry. The Pennas will definitely vote for you. If you still want to come for dinner, send an email to pennajunkmail@yahoo.com. I thought I had your email address but I don't. We'll keep the food hot and the beer cold for you!

Sunday, April 6, 2008

Tuesday, April 1, 2008