Six Months Old Already!

Testing out his new winter hat

I just can't quite believe it-where oh where did the time go? We took Tony to his checkup today, and he's now 27.5 inches tall, and 17 lbs 2 oz! I never would have guessed he weighed that much...so he's in the 85th percentile for height, and the 45th for weight.

Practicing sitting up

Funny face

New Fun

Tony has a new favorite activity: coughing. He has discovered how to make this fun noise whenever he wants, so now he does it constantly. It's actually pretty funny, because I picture him making the same phony sounds in a few years when he wants to stay home from school. He tests out different mouth and tongue positions to hear the variations, which results in some pretty humorous faces. The down side to this new pastime is that occasionally he will cough himself into a small barf. If I can ever get a video to upload, I will let you see it. (The coughing, not the barfing!)

Tonsillectomy Update (WARNING:PHOTOS)

Hello all. I thought I'd let you know that my surgery went fine, and I'm recovering pretty well. There is a considerable amount of pain, which I guess should get worse in the next couple days :(

I've been able to eat soup, mashed potatoes, scrambled eggs, pudding and applesauce. Oh, and a Frosty. And today I ate a donut. It was sooooo good, but kinda scratchy. It's probably for the best that the donut hurt and the Frosty made me sick, otherwise my scheme of losing some weight during this ordeal will be foiled.

Now, because some of you may be morbidly curious, I will post some before and after pics of my throat, so if you don't like that sort of thing,

DON'T SCROLL DOWN!

This first photo shows my gigantic tonsil on the left

Here is the view right after the surgery (the black spots are where they cauterized blood vessels)

This is what it looked like yesterday- the whitish/yellow is the scab I guess.

Pretty gross huh?

Highchair!

You Can Do That?

The joy, the excitement! Being unable to wait a minute longer to experience it for yourself... it was a wonderful day when I first heard the news: you can record the radio. I was a lowly fourth grader, riding the same old bus on the same old route, when a wise-to-the-ways-of-the-world fifth grader first told me. Her name was Krissy, and she opened my eyes to the magic of the record button on my Sony tape player. Apparently, if you have the radio on, and a tape is in the cassette drawer, by simultaneously pressing the record and play buttons you can capture the music and have it forever.

Needless to say, that afternoon I scoured the house for blank (and some not so blank) tapes for my stockpile, and then got down to business. I'd listen with my hand poised over the buttons, and as soon as the best songs started I'd press them with glee. The drawback was I kept missing the beginning of the songs. I realized it was better to just let it record straight through, and then I'd fast-forward the commercials and DJ jabber. If I didn't catch any good songs I'd record over it.

I was forever changed; in the past my musical enjoyment was at the mercy of 104.7 Kduk, but now I could have Waterfalls and Gangster's Paradise booming on my Walkman all the time. Thanks Krissy.

Under the Knife

In case you've been thinking, "Hmm, I wonder what Mieka will be doing this weekend?" I'll tell you: I'm having surgery. That sounds all dramatic, but it really isn't anything cool- I'm getting my tonsils taken out. I've had chronic tonsillitis for years, and I finally found a doctor who diagnosed it and will do the -ectomy. I guess they don't like to do them for adults very often, but thankfully I qualify.

The procedure is on Friday, and Don will be taking 2 weeks off work to take care of Tony while I'm on the drugs. Yay for Don being home, but boo for me having only liquid and mush for meals. To make up for the upcoming dinner-deprivation, this week we are having my favorite meals, so I am pretty excited.

If any of you feel like praying, it would be great if you could include something about me losing like 20 pounds during the recovery. Hehe. Thanks :)

Car Wash

One day in the summer of 1998 I was broke. Actually, pretty much every day that summer and all the days before and after it... anyways, I was short on cash but I wanted to go to the mall with a couple of friends. Since neither of them had any money either, it became imperative that we come up with some funds or the whole trip would be a bust. "Hmmm," we thought, "what can three 14 year old girls do for some quick cash?" After wracking our brains for awhile, we struck gold with that ever popular fundraising event almost everyone participates in for one reason or another: Car Wash! Now, being children of goodly parents, we didn't want to lie, but when the inevitable question, "What is this car wash for?" came up, we had to have a worthy cause. We reasoned that since we were all on the same basketball team the previous winter, and we would most likely be on the same team in the upcoming season, it would be an acceptable stretching of the truth if we told customers that the funds were in support of our team.

We called up WalMart and asked if we could use their parking lot. They agreed, and even offered to match the amount of money we received! I knew that would be crossing the line, so I politely declined (which I'm sure was curious to the lady on the phone, but she didn't press the issue). We made posters and collected buckets, soap, and sponges. We were there for a few hours, and it went pretty well. We made 36 dollars, so 12 bucks each. Boo-Yah! Gateway Mall, here we come!

If there were any customers who thought it a bit odd that there were only three kids participating in the event, and not a supervising adult in the vicinity, they didn't mention it.

Bedtime Fun

First a bath with Ferguson

Then a bedtime story

And snuggles with Lamby

Sweet Snuggler

Next Stop: Loony Bin

My anxiety has risen to new heights.

Background Info: This weekend we were driving around looking at houses for sale as a way to pass the time. When we came across a development of homes ranging from 395K-450K we decided to play "Let's Pretend" where Don was an engineer, and I think I was a neurosurgeon. We mosey into the model home --which can I just say, was probably the most beautiful house I've ever set foot in-- and started talking to the guy. He asked us if the price range was about what we were looking for, and Don, cool as a cucumber, says, "Well, it's a little high," haha- a little! Anyhow, we look around a few of the houses (all of them with names from 1990s sitcoms, like, The Banks, The Tanner...) and secretly plan to stop at the nearest gas station to buy some lottery tickets. Anyway... one feature that caught my eye was the staircase and upper landing area. Fancy railing, big windows and so forth. Very nice.

Fast forward to about 1 am: I'm lying awake in bed thinking about how great it would be to live in The Winslow, when I realize that if we lived there, Tony would probably climb over the armchair I'd have in the reading nook at the top of the stairs, lean over the railing, and he'd lose his balance and plummet headfirst onto the hardwood floors below. So then I start thinking about how dangerous staircases can be, and I come to the conclusion that not only will we never live in a house with more than one story, but also that Tony will never even step foot in any place that does.

Crazy, much?

5th Month Pictures

These are the photos from Tony's most recent trip to JC Penny. In the spirit of the season we did most of them in his penguin suit.

With Floyd, his best penguin pal.

Queen

My favorite game to play when I was a kid was Queen. This most enjoyable pastime was the brainchild of a haughty child's brain (mine). I have what some may consider a bossy streak, and there were few things I liked more than lording over my siblings. I found that the best way to do this was to make it a game. I'd get all the pillows and stack them in the recliner, tie a sheet about my shoulders, and ascend my throne. Poor Sarah and Whitney, they were my unwitting prey; I would let them play with me, but their character assignment was always 'Servant'. So I'd sit upon my feather dais and order them to fetch me milk and cookies, or my book, or occasionally I'd trick them into doing my chores ("Time to sweep the kitch- uh, royal stables!").

To enhance the experience I made myself a tinfoil crown, found a very shiny robe in the dress- up box, and I wasn't above having blankets spread out to serve as red carpets. Many a reflector-on-a-stick went missing from the end of the driveway because they made for a much more realistic scepter than the wire whisk I had been using.

After a few years, the girls no longer accepted being my humble slaves, so I promoted them to Princesses. Little did they know that real princesses don't have to get the Queen snacks and rub her feet. Seth played sometimes, but the highest title he received was Captain of the Guard.

Cousins

Dear Pants-Makers,

I write to you today on behalf of women between the ages of 22 & 45. We as a group would like to bring our existence to your attention. We have been wading through the atrocities of fabric that you like to call pants, and we take issue with not only their deplorable condition, but also with the way they fail to accommodate the majority of us.

Are you aware that most people don't look like the cast of Gossip Girl? That some people actually like pants to cover their entire bum, rather than just the one inch above their thighs? That there is no 100% positive correlation that the bigger the waist the taller the person? That perhaps there are some ladies who would like their jeans to come sans stains, holes, fading, ragged edges, glitter, rhinestones, patches, etc?

And to those of you who design the petite section- Is it so hard to believe that women may be short their entire lives, not just at the end? Yet you continue to make pants suitable only for the shuffleboard courts of Florida's finest condos. There is no law that says if you are short you have to like ultra-tapered pants that start mid-ribcage and end just above the ankle. Nor do we only like pastels.

Sincerely,

Just another 10 Short

Ding, Dong The Witch is Dead!

Ok, she isn't actually dead, but she did move away.

As many of you know, our next door neighbor has been a thorn in my chubby side for quite some time now. Mostly because she complains about Roobin, my sweet, but occasionally vocal, puppy. She yells at him all the time, and I suspect she threw a clod of dirt on his precious face. She even went as far as to say that the reason her stupid house hasn't sold for a year is because of his barking. Now, is it just me, or has anyone else noticed any other factors that may have contributed to her having a struggle to sell an old 1000 sq ft house for 230K? Hmmm...

I could go on and on, but I won't, as today is a day for rejoicing: her crackhead boyfriend told Don last night that she has moved away, and that he will be leaving soon as well! I don't know if they ever sold the house or if they're just renting it out, but either way she is gone for good. Yippee!

Who wouldn't want to live by this handsome fellow?

Chunky Monkey

I was looking through some old pictures of Tony, and I was inspired to do a quick comparison shot. I recreated the scene as best I could:

Now, at 5 months

Then, at 7 weeks

Haha- what a little oinkus! It's fun to remember how tiny and scrawny he was back then...

Halloween Fun

Tony was a penguin for Halloween. We visited Don at work during the day,

In the evening we went trick or treating at Grandma and Grandpa V's house.