I’ve spent much of the last week feeling guilty for not writing on top of everything else.  I came down with some ailment yesterday.  Caleb is having a hard day because I know he senses all the stress in me.  We have basically lost our only source of income at the worst possible time of the year, with the holidays around the corner.  And the worst possible time, due to the state of the economy right now.  It isn’t in stone yet, but not far from it.  I honestly kind of think they are trying to make Scott quit.  Which I suppose is the thanks he gets for carrying his boss’s business by himself 2+ years out of the last three.  Cheers.  I’ll drink to that.

I suppose I’m just excusing myself for a couple days trying to get my thoughts in order and get well.  I’m by no means gone, and reachable by email…just need a few days to figure out where Christmas is going to come from….or our rent.

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No I haven’t fallen in [another] hole.  I seem to be getting myself in trouble with that lately.  This morning I went to have a prescription filled.  The drug store did not have the second item I was looking for, so I thought I would drop by my sister inlaw’s to pick up Caleb’s jacket we left last night and then run to Kmart.  I sat down for “just a minute” to do some gossipping and ended up staying over an hour.  Of course the husband started wondering what in the world had happened.  Oops.

I don’t have any story of where I’ve been the last several days, other than just unmotivated to write.  I hate going through spells like that.  We’re still experiencing a lot of uncertainty with Scott’s job and it puts quite the damper on things.  Anyway…

Caleb found this bug outside crawling on the railing and named him the “Halloween Bug.”  He really does look like he has a face on his back.  I never could figure out what he is called.  We did determine that he can fly.  A few seconds after this picture, he sort of raised his head up, wiggled back and forth like he might jump, and then launched into the air.  Being right up in his face looking through a camera lens not knowing he could fly, this came as quite a surprise.

Last night we headed over to the park, conveniently located right next door to my sister & mother inlaw’s.  We met a friend there and ended up ordering pizza and having a picnic at the park, including the next door neighbor’s little girl who happened to be playing, accompanied by her babysitter.

Taylor was at Caleb’s 2nd birthday party.  She sure is a cutie!

Laughing at Daddy kicking the ball way up in the air

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Edit at bottom

Come over here and tell me again in my good ear.  I lost my hearing on my left side.

Yeah, so I took Caleb in for allergy testing this morning.  Actually, let me back up.  On several past occasions, he has had a reaction to eggs.  Now all three times, they were in totally different forms.  Once was just regular scrambled eggs when he was a little over a year I think.  Immediately came back up along with whatever he ate before it.  Once was French toast, and once was whipped egg whites on top of banana pudding.  Red splotchiness around his mouth and it always came right back up.  So at Caleb’s three (and a half, so I’m a little late) year check up, the pediatrician assumed (without even asking) that I wanted the flu shot that we’ve never gotten before.  Not to stick my nose in the air, but it was September 2008 at his appointment, and it was our first time being there since March 2007 (for his 2yr well checkup).  So for the third year running, I planned on declining the flu shot (as I have with several other vax - way different post for another day).  I just let it go, and listened to the pediatrician as she rambled on about going to see an allergist.  Why not, I thought, then we’d know for sure if it was a reaction or his sensitive gag reflex with different textures. Forgot to add, the flu vaccine has trace amounts of egg in it - I guess the two sounded completely unrelated without that knowledge.

So the pediatrician called me a few hours later -in the super loud children’s museum of course- to let me know that she had so graciously called and made us an appointment.  Gee thanks for letting me check my schedule, asking what time of day…  Whatever.  Luckily, there happened to be an allergist not only in our town, but so close that we could have actually walked faster than we drove.  Literally.

We went in this morning, to get tested for egg allergy.  She asked me a bazillion questions totally unrelated to eggs/food.  She then said, he was going to be just as mad about us doing one verses ten, so maybe we could do a few others while we were there.  She rattled off maybe four things.  So, since four plus one is five…this would naturally lead you to assume five or six things, right?

So in the come with THIRTY THREE little prickly tests.  Milk?  You want to test him for milk?  He drinks two gallons a week.  Seriously, I think Scott helps a little, but I would bet Caleb’s intake accounts for 75%+ of that consumption.  She had a counter reason for every one I suggested marking out.  I got fed up and said lets just get it done.  The nurse asked if I had a problem with them holding him down.  I asked to hold him instead.  Like I said, this is when I lost my hearing on the left side.  I closed my eyes and prayed for them to hurry up so I didn’t cry.  Having my child looking at me with tears streaming, screaming “Stop dat hurwts” is not how I planned on spending my morning.  His back now looks like he got in a fight with a cat because it is impossible to hold a child still when you’re doing something like that.  So several of them scraped across his back.  Blah.

He couldn’t even breathe when they were done, and almost deposited his breakfast on me.  It really helped that the nurse absolutely sucked with children.  She asked me if he had some horrible experience with a doctor in the past.  Um hello, kids don’t like people they don’t know touching them.  I don’t think that is unusual.

I, personally, think it was a lot of drama for not so much information.  Out of the 31 they did, they came up with positive ones on a few of the molds and dusts, and so they say, dog.  If you go huff dust, do you sneeze?  Me too.  She was saying he shouldn’t be playing in the grass because that made him stuffy.  “I’m sure you notice that when you come inside, right?”  Um, that’s another no.  And he would live outside if I let him.  They gave him a prescription for Claritin and some nose spray.   Cause kids love nose spray.  It is still, in my non medical mom intuition opinion, overkill.  Oh and they want me to get a dust cover for his pillow and mattress.

So anyway, it sucked.  Yay.

Edited to add: Ah yes, Andrea reminded me, in being so flustered I forgot to add, no egg allergy showed up.  I believe that he had an allergy that was outgrown (egg is a common food allergy for children that is outgrown by 3-5)

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I have this obsession with big comfy hooded sweatshirts.  Shhhh.  Don’t tell Clinton and Stacy.  Actually on second though, maybe you should.  Anyway, I laughed out loud when I saw this shirt, I absolutely love it!

I love it too, where can I get it?
Proceed with caution, I have spent the better part of my day reading all the archived cartoons!  But no worries, because I’ve saved my favorites, and I’ll probably be posting several of them.

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This is a completely unaltered picture (I promise!) of the color of our sky this morning.  It absolutely amazing outside!!  It was 40 when I woke up this morning!!!!!!!!  I am so excited!  I love it.  The leaves are raining down whenever the wind blows.  It is just beautiful.

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Rewind.

Saturday, April 2, 2005 - We are all packed up to leave the hospital.  Three bouquets of flowers, one stuffed dog, one balloon and a partridge and a pear tree.  Oh yeah, and a new baby.  We came as two, we left as three.  It is one of the most surreal moments of your life.  We introduced Caleb to his new carseat, and he expressed, very loudly I might add, that he was not pleased.  My best friend was standing there holding two flower vases and the nurse asked the question.  “Do you want a pacifier?”

Since I knew everything already, because I had read What to Expect When Expecting and the first several chapters of What to Expect the First Year, I declined the paci, citing my reasons straight out of my readings like a preprogrammed response.  “No thanks, I don’t want to cause any confusion with breastfeeding, I’m sure he’ll use his fingers to suck on if he needs something.”

My friend piped up, I can still hear her say it.  “MIGHT I suggest the paci?!  Because you can take it away.”  Whereas a thumb you cannot take away.

“Good point,” I said, and with that, it began.  The nurse handed me this big goofy looking clear, one piece rubbery pacifier.  We plugged it in and our ears thanked us.  Off we went to start our life as parents.

Exhibit A - 4.18.2005 1:09pm
(Note: Gotta say it, chest clip should be at his armpits, as it is a precrash positioning device for the harness straps and is designed to break open in a crash.  In other words, MRS. SPEARS, it will not hold your child in his seat!!!)

Exhibit B - 4.18.05 1:10pm

Fastforward.

Sunday, September 28, 2008 - Caleb’s lips have been extremely chapped the last couple weeks.  I don’t know if it is the weather flip-flopping around.  I thought it was the new toothpaste I had bought, so I bought something else, but it didn’t seem to solve the problem.  I’ve been careful to limit things that might have salt on them (like some crackers or chips that have salty dust on them) because it seems to irritate his lips even more.  The Burt’s Bees chapstick works, but he doesn’t like it anymore because it feels tingly and stings a little bit if you lips are very chapped.  So I’ve been using regular old Chapstick, which I’m not a fan of.  Bad grammar, anyway.  I noticed his paci seemed to escalate the problem also, as some nights I think he hangs on to it all night long.  He has depended on it to go to sleep every night of his life between April 2, 2005 and now.  I asked him if he was ready to be a big boy and throw away his pacis.  He was very adverse to throwing them away.  Want to know why?  Because someone else could use them!  There might be a baby somewhere that didn’t have one, and he wanted to give his old ones to the baby.  (He cited baby Levi several times, the newest July addition to our family that we met last month.)  That is going to be a blessed baby.

So for the first time in three and a half years, we are officially no longer using a paci.  To me, it seems almost more significant that potty training.  It was basically the one last tie to babyhood.  And I didn’t mind it.  He has only used it at naptime and night time for over a year and a half now.  I keep feeling like I’m forgetting something when I go to put him down.  I am proud to say, he has done excellent with the transition, given the history.  Just last week, he had a breakdown one morning because he couldn’t find it in his bed and we weren’t getting there to help fast enough.  I had to fight him down for a nap on Sunday, but he eventually went to sleep after an hour.  Sunday night, I layed in bed with him.  At naptime yesterday, there was no mention of it.  And last night, he only asked one time.  Now he has no excuse left not to talk my ear off though.  At night, even more so than during the day, believe it or not, he turns into what I like to call “Chatty Caleb.”

“Mommy?”

“Huh?”

“Can I tell you just one more thing?”

“You already told me one more thing.”

“Oh.  <pause> Well can I tell you just one more thing?  Again.”

“What is it Caleb?”

<insert completely random out of the blue fact here, usually something related to cars or monster trucks>

“Oookay bud, it is time to lay down and be very still and very quiet and close your eyes okay?”

*thump on pillow* Siiiiiigh.

37 seconds pass…

“Moooom?”

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Today I was looking back at old photos I took when we went to the mountains in October of 2004.  I was about four months pregnant with Caleb.  I’m terribly sorry if I puked in your driveway on that trip.  Now that we have that out of the way…. It was amazing to me how young I looked.  Well rested.  And naive.  I wasn’t worried about things like the price of diapers going up or the condition of the school system going down.  I didn’t think about being unspeakably tired or being spit up on.  Of course I was excited, but for the most part, I was just floating along waiting to get more and more plump until baby came.  Life was infinitely…simple.  If you had even tried to put into words then, the the emotions of overpowering and all encompassing love I would feel, I could have never understood.  Even as I flipped back through the pictures, and I know I have grown as a photographer in those years, but the pictures just looked…empty.  There was no story being told, no emotion being conveyed, they were just snapshots of the trees, the road, the clouds.  Lifeless pictures (I added what I could with a little editing today, something I knew nothing about back then).  It is amazing how much color a child brings to an otherwise black and white world.

If there was one picture out of the hundreds I took on that trip that did tell a story, it would be this one.  It is good to be able to look back and laugh, but that trip got off to a rough start.  We left late one night after Scott got off working the second shift.  Let’s just say, some essential camping provision was left behind by a party who shall remain unnamed.  We had been planning to camp the first night, drive down the Blue Ridge Parkway and stay at a bed and breakfast type inn the second night.  When we awoke that first morning (it rained all night long) we were engulfed in a fog that makes the movie The Fog look like a clear day.  We spent most of the day driving about 15-25mph praying that anyone else venturing out would be taking the same precautions.  I still to this day have never seen anything like that.

This gives you an idea of how far in front of us we could see.

This elevation was obviously in the peak of color change

The next day, we went to Chimney Rock Park, and the weather was absolutely spectacular, we could see for miles.

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Just in case you needed to know, I’ve taken six thousand two hundred and thirteen photos.  Since the beginning of April.  This year.  That’s all.

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Since I have joined the 21st century in using a rss reader recently, I have saved/bookmarked at least forty photography blogs, a mix between wedding and children’s photography.  I’ve found some absolutely incredible photographers, cough, Jessica Claire, Jasmine Star, & Becker, cough cough.  And I just hang around studying and try to soak up a bit of their knowledge.  I haven’t really ever explored backlighting at all, but it was one of the subjects I read about recently, so I thought I’d give it a try.

For some reason, he just looks so tiny here.

I’ve shot about 4GB of pictures in the last 36 hours.  I find myself thinking about that book I read throughout the day, as if to go back over everything in my head, thinking of how I could put this technique to use, or how I could try that.  To make matters worse, I just learned tonight that a new Canon 5D Mark II is being released in November.  Someone get a drool cloth.  I need this camera.  Therefore, I need some serious cash.

Now if I could just win this, I would still be a photographer.  A very well equipped photographer indeed.  That’s 89 cash.  Just in case you’re wondering.  Eighty nine million dollars.

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Do you remember the surprise we told you about?  “Oh no.  No”

Remember we told you the other day that we were working on a surprise?  We have it now! “Oh?  Oh!  Yeah, yeah, yeah!”

*gasp of breath*

It’s a Herbie RC!  Scott painted it!

I think he likes it.

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