New Teeth

So Mason has lots of new teeth coming in. Two top molars have broke through, one on each side. On his bottom right you can feel one, it's right there it just hasn't broke through yet. His gums are so swollen. We are trying to remember to brush his teeth at least once a day. By starting now hopefully when he gets older he won't be resistant to daily brushings.

Notice the bump on his head. We don't know what happened. Ben went to get him up from his nap the other day and it had appeared. So from the time he laid down to the time he got up that happened. But we never heard him scream or cry out, which in my mind a bump like that would have warranted. Another time Ben got him up from his nap, Mason had his arm stuck through the slats in his crib. Needless to say we are talking about in the next couple of months going for the big move. Crib to toddler bed.

Tots & Tonics

I think that I saw the most absurd segment on the Today Show this morning. It was all about moms getting together and having play dates with their kids and drinking. Do playdates and happy hour mix? Honestly I was amazed at these women that think it's ok to get together with their kids and pour a glass of wine or mix up a cosmo just so they could "relax" a little. Why can't you relax with your favorite coke or Starbucks in your hand, not a gobblet full of wine?

Meredith did an interview with a doctor and a mom who does have alcohol at her playdates. This mom was saying how it's just a way to socialize and get that connection with other moms. She said that it is also a way to weed out other moms who might not like the way she parents in other ways too. She went on the say "some people might not like that I roll my eyes at my kid when he/she crys sometimes, or that sometimes I do think about what eBay auction I could list my son on." I couldn't believe it. Yeah, Ben and I both roll our eyes at Mason sometimes when he gets upset, cause we know it's for nothing. But neither one of us would ever even have a thought about selling him on eBay. I hope that lady knows what an idiot she looked like (in my eyes).

Meredith went on to ask if it would be ok for your babysitter to have wine while watching your kids? Of course the lady said no, "I'm paying her for a job, my husband wouldn't drink at his job." To which Meredith said, "well isn't this your job, being a parent." Lady replies, "well I know my limits." I didn't hear a lot of what the doctor had to say (I was in the middle of making pancakes, while drinking my spiked latte), but she did say she didn't agree with it.

Where is the sense of sacrfice in these moms' lives? Parenting is all about sacrifice, and most people, I don't think realize that. Can't these moms sacrifice their glass of wine and that "relaxed" feeling for the sake of their kids? Who cares if you have a glass of wine, but if you need one to socialize with your girlfriends and make it through the day cause it's so rough raising your kids, something is wrong. Maybe people should be leaning more on the Lord to help them get through the day instead of leaning on their bottle of chardonnay.

Check out the link to the article above, from there I think you can also get the interview that Meredith did on the Today Show.

Ice Storm

Joplin and the surrounding area got hit with an ice storm this weekend. On the news last night they said that around 70,000 people were without power. Ben's sister Cara goes to Ozark, she stayed the night because Ozark's power was out. We also had our friends Jackie and Sergio and their little boy, Josiah, stay the night cause their power was also out. Needless to say, I kind of have cabin fever. I haven't been out of the house since Friday afternoon when I took a trip to Wal-Mart to get essentials and stuff for bulk cooking (more on this later).
WM is normally a pretty crazy place anyways, but that day was SUPER crazy. The aisles were packed with people doing last minute shopping before the storm. I overheard one lady say, "I wonder if this (the storm) was all a ploy by Wal-Mart to get us to shop." I'm sorry lady, WM can do a lot of things, but I'm pretty sure that they can't shift the weather pattern. The lines were so long, they were pre-scanning some people like they do at Sam's. I do have to say it was a miracle though, I think they actually had a check out person at every available register.
After braving WM, Mason and I headed home and we have been locked up ever since. I doubt we'll even get out tomorrow. Maybe Wednesday we'll get out and take a trip to the mall just to walk around and get some much needed activity.
I'm going to try and get a picture that we took of Ben with a huge ice chunk. He cleaned off Cara's car for her this morning. From that he took off this ice chunk that had to be 4ft long and 18in wide, and super thick. Good thing her roof didn't cave in.

Our first trip to the hospital

So Mason is sick. I called our doctor's answering service Sunday morning to see what OTC drug she suggested that we give him. He had been coughing, gross running nose and a fever. She says take him to the Urgent Care to get an antibotic. We take him there, the Dr. says she is concerned with his breathing cause he was retracing alot, so he got a breathing treatment there, but she said that we needed to go to the ER to get an x-ray of his lungs. We go the ER they say the same thing, he is retracted quite a bit. He gets an x-ray, they tell us it's pneumonia and he is going to have to be admitted. He gets an IV, fun times:). We wait another 2 hours to finally get a room. We go to our room and prepare for the night before us. They check on Mason several times through the night, he gets more breathing treatments. They wake him up at 6.30 am to draw blood. Our Dr. comes to see Mason between 8 and 9 that morning, the first thing out of her mouth was, "so why did they keep you?" We told her they said that he had pneumonia and about his breathing. She said they didn't need to keep him and that if she admitted all the kids she saw everyday with his symptoms it would be 4-5 a day. To this I responded, "Are they going to pay for our bill?" She checked him out and said that he just has bronchilitis and a bad ear infection. She wrote some rx for us and told us we need to get a neubulizer for him so that we can give him breathing treatments, and released us to go home. We got released four hours later after waiting for one more round of medicine to go through his IV and for paper work to be done. What a long couple days!! The funny thing is, Mason acted like absolutely nothing was wrong last night after his nap. He was his same crazy, active self. Today he is a little bit more on the cranky side of things. That concludes the long story of our trip to the hospital, but believe me this is definetly the short version.

first post

This is the first post, I'm sure there will be more to come. Most will probably talk about days at home with Mason and something funny he did that day and talk of life with Ben and of course Noel. Here's a picture of, as Ben is referring to him now, the "manimal" trying to get bananas off of the top of the fridge.