Mouth Sores + Toddler = Rough Week

So we have had a rough week around here. My parents came to visit last weekend, and we had a great time. Pictures will come soon - promise!!! Peter was completely healthy and entertained them the whole weekend. :)

Then came Monday night. He didn't sleep much at all. In fact, I pretty much held him the entire night.

We originally thought teething. It's a little early for 2-year molars, but maybe he's just an early teether. He was drooling so much that we had to change his shirt multiple times. He wasn't really eating.

Finally, we saw a sore in his mouth (front inside the gum) and on his tongue. Two little sores that have turned out world upside down the past week.

Peter LOVES to jump in his bed. He waits for us to come get him after a nap. Then he hands us all of his stuffed animals (he sleeps with A LOT of them!) and jumps in the empty bed. We're pretty sure he bit his tongue and inside of his mouth last weekend when he banged up against the side of the crib.

He seems to be on the mend now, so I'm hoping for an uneventful night. No sleep Monday and Tuesday nights, a few hours on Wednesday night, and most of last night. I think tonight should be a full night's sleep!!

Happy 30th Birthday Mommy!!

We celebrated by having dinner at Cheddars - it was a nice dinner full of wonderful food. Peter has learned to say "cheese" when he sees a camera. He wanted down very badly, but I convinced him to stay on my lap while I counted to three. I told him he could get down once I counted to three, and he was content with that.

He also took a 3 hour nap today - that meant a 2 1/2 hour nap for me!!!

Two other birthday surprises --

1. Andrew bought me a gift certificate to Portrait Innovations, one of my favorite portrait studios. He originally was going to do a portrait of him and Peter, but he wasn't sure how to get Peter out of the house without me figuring out what was going on. The gift certificate was a wonderful surprise. Now we can do a family portrait along with photos of both of us separate with Peter and Peter alone. Coming from a husband who dreads any type of pictures, this was a WONDERFUL gift.

2. My dear friend Rebecca had a baby boy today - Welcome to the world!! You have a great birthday. :)

Mother's Day

Mother's Day was filled with roses and a balloon, a good nap, and dinner at Macaroni Grill (fettuccine alfredo - YUM!)...a wonderful and relaxing day.

By the way - Peter is singing "The Wheels on the Bus" in the last picture. It's his very favorite song these days. He's on the part that says, "all through the town".

Odd Day (5-7-09)

A friend e-mailed me this morning to let me know that today is Odd Day (thanks Michelle!). When I was talking to my dad on the phone tonight, he also mentioned that it is Odd Day. Does anyone find it a bit odd that people tell me about these odd holidays? :)



You know I couldn't let the day go by without doing something odd...but this one had me stuck. You see, most of what a toddler does is odd to us. Not odd in a bad way...just odd as in different than what we would do in the same situation.



Thankfully, my sweet husband left Peter a little surprise that helped us celebrate Odd Day! Andrew didn't even mean to help, but I wanted to give him credit. :)



Peter loves playing with Andrew's gym bag when he leaves it on the floor next to the kitchen cabinets. He loves to pull out protein powder packets and other little things he finds. Andrew decided to leave a stuffed Cookie Monster in his gym bag for Peter to "discover" when he played with the gym bag next. Well, Cookie Monster being in the gym bag is definitely odd!



Peter was quite surprised to find Cookie Monster in the bag when he went looking for the mp3 player. What an odd location for his toy to be in!
After pulling Cookie Monster out of the bag, Peter jammed to some of Daddy's tunes - some tunes that I often consider a bit odd. :)

Later, while I was making dinner, Peter hid the mp3 player and his juice cup in an odd location - at the bottom of the laundry basket! I looked around the house for almost an hour before I finally found them!!

So thanks to Michelle and Dad for the heads-up!

Next Odd Day will be 7-9-11. See you there! :)

Cinco de Mayo Celebration

In honor of our neighbors to the south, Peter and I celebrated Cinco de Mayo on Tuesday. We have covered math (Square Root Day, Pi Day, and the soon to be posted Odd Day) and science (Earth Day). Cinco de Mayo covers social studies, so now I just need a holiday that relates to language arts. Any ideas??? After coloring a picture of traditional Mexican dancers, Peter got to make his first craft. I let him glue red and green pieces of paper using a glue stick, and he had a blast!

Then we made maracas using pinto beans (left over from Earth Day) and blue cups. Peter had a great time dancing around the living room.

Another successfully celebrated holiday!

Earth Day Celebration

Peter and I enjoyed celebrating Earth Day last month. We spent a lot of time outside. We played...and played...and played some more! We even ate our snack outside.



We talked about how living things need water to grow. Homer demonstrated this for us.


I tried to talk about how scientists believe global warming is affecting glaciers, but I'm not sure Peter got it. ;) Peter got a water table recently, and he LOVES to play in it. It's the Arctic Splash Water Table from Step 2, and it has a plastic glacier mountain. When you pour water in the top, it comes down the slide like it's melting. My teacher brain thinks, "Ooh, teachable moment..." However, seeing as my "student" was a toddler instead of an 13-year-old, it was a bit over his head. However, one day, when Peter becomes a scientist who studies things like this, I can say that gave him his first taste of earth science. :)


The part that Peter enjoyed the most was playing with the beans. We soaked pinto beans in water to prep them for germination. Then we put them in a baggie and put them by the window. The roots started to appear within a couple of days! Andrew helped Peter plant them, and now we are growing bean plants on our back porch.

We ended the day by coloring a picture of the earth and watching Sesame Street video about taking care of the earth.

It's fun to celebrate holidays. I know that Peter won't remember doing any of this. He'll see the pictures someday, though, and it will be fun to reminisce about all the fun times I had with him growing up.

Next up - Cinco de Mayo!!