An ER trip

So today has been a very interesting day. We were scheduled to spend the day with my best friend and her son at the zoo. It started out that way. We went to the Original Pancake House for breakfast and then all loaded up in Jess' truck and headed to the zoo. As we were loading up the truck, I heard Jack say "uh-oh" and I looked and he had gotten sick. I just thought that he had gotten himself worked up in the restaurant and he was tired. I told him it was okay and put him in the truck and away we went. He eventually fell asleep. By the time we got to the zoo things had gotten worse. Jack was not himself. He didn't act like Jack. We were there about 45 minutes and decided that it was time to call the doctor and head to the emergency room. I carried him in and we were back to a room in about 15 minutes. He was dehydrated and had a temperature of 102.4. They came in and put an IV in his hand and gave him fluids. Here is a picture of him (in a much better mood once he got some fluids in him).



So we are both exhausted after those 3 hours in the Wolfson's ER. He is sleeping and I am on my way to bed.

A Boy and His Bananas

This was Jack yesterday after a quick trip into Publix. I got a Publix sub for me for dinner and he saw the containers of fruit and wanted some. Then he saw the banana balloon and wanted those instead. So I got him 3 bananas and he held them in his arms like that through the entire store. The lady that was bagging put them in a bag for him and he kept them there until we got into the car. After I took this picture I had to peel one of them for him and he ate the whole thing before we even got home.

This boy makes me laugh everyday.

TV is back!!!!!

So there are only a few things that I watch during the summer - Army Wives, Drop Dead Diva and Pysch. I am so excited that the fall season has begun!!!! Tonight was the first night of some of the shows that I watch.


So You Think You Can Dance is now on in the fall. I absolutely love this show. I became hooked on it during the first season and haven't stopped watching it since.


This is my new favorite show. I missed it back in the fall when the pilot aired but watched it 2 weeks ago and fell in love with it. It is so funny.

Next week my FAVORITE show returns!!!!

I loved David Boreanaz in Buffy and Angel and he is hilarious in Bones. I am so ready for it to come back.

Lastly, my other favorite show returns from a very suspenseful ending. Plus, I want to see if McGee and Abby get back together.



I love when 8 o'clock rolls around because Jack is usually in bed and I get a chance to sit on the couch by myself and watch TV.

A Much Needed Vacation

So my best friend in the world had the most wonderful idea yesterday. We are going on a cruise. It is my Christmas present from Jon (via long distance). Jess' husband is a police officer and he is on the SWAT team so he is working all the time. She tells me it is just like he is deployed with Jon. They have a 1 year old son that has just as much energy as Jack. We are planning a 3 day cruise to the Bahamas in a little over a month and I can't wait to get on that boat and into the open seas. It is definitely a much needed vacation for the 2 of us. If it were up to me, we could just go and float in the Atlantic ocan for all I care.

On a completely unrelated note, a friend of mine is having her baby tomorrow. I grew up playing baseball with her brother and hanging out at their house all of the time. She is having a little girl and I know that everyone is excited. It is also getting really close to the time that some of my other friends have their babies.

That is all for now on this Labor Day. I talked to Jon today and their Iraqi interpreters had a cookout for the soldiers today. Jon said that the food was really good.

That's all for now.

A Trip Back to College and a Hair Cut

Last Saturday, I spent most of the morning in St. Augustine helping the new freshman move into Flagler College. I remember the Saturday 8 years ago that I moved my stuff into the dorms at Flagler. For those of you who don’t know about Flagler College, the next time you are in St. Augustine I highly recommend taking the tour of the college. It was opened in 1888 as a magnificent hotel.

Henry Flagler began building it in 1885 and it opened in 1888 as the Hotel Ponce de Leon. What a great building it is. It was the first building to be made completely out of poured (or cast-in-place) concrete. It was the first building in St. Augustine to have electricity - thanks to Edison. It has two bell towers that were not used to house bells but it housed the water that the hotel and its guests used. Louis Comfort Tiffany was commissioned to do the interior design work in the hotel - which included putting his famous stained glass windows throughout the dining room. There are still 27 ORIGINAL Tiffany stained-glass in the building. Also in the hotel, there are 2 beautiful murals on the ceiling. It has the most beautiful hand carved wood-work in the rotunda as well as magnificent floors. The tiles in the floors were all hand laid. The beauty is not one that can be explained in words but one that must be seen in person.

Flagler College was established in 1968 and the hotel was gifted to the school. Ponce, as the hotel is known, now houses female residents and the dining room. The school was originally started as an all-girls college but started to allow boys in 1971 and got its accreditation in 1973. It is a small school but the education is one of the best in the nation. I thoroughly enjoyed my time while I was there and learned more than I ever thought I would. I learned to like things that I never thought I would. I got my degree in history and double-minored in sociology and Latin American studies. One subject that I got really good at and thankfully so was English. I loved the fact that all of my professors knew my name and if they saw me on campus they knew who I was. There were never any more than 30 students in any of my classes, even the freshmen classes.

Back to last Saturday, I helped parents carry stuff up to dorm rooms and answered any questions that they might have had concerning the school. I had so much fun and it brought back many memories of my time spent at Flagler. I really think that I am going to do it again next year. Here are a few pictures of my old room:






Last night, I took Jack to get a haircut and he was none to happy about it. His hair had gotten long and unruly. He hates having his hair washed so it was definitely time to get a hair cut. So my sister and I went to get it cut. Once he realized what was going on he absolutely refused to sit down and let the lady cut his hair. I had to sit in the chair with him so she could cut it. I told her to just shave it as short as she could. Now he basically has no hair. It looks good and I like it. He keeps saying “hair, all gone.” It is funny to watch him rub his hand on his head and then just go do something else. Now he really looks like his dad.


Before hair cut


Post hair cut


On a completely unrelated note, I am getting my sofa at the beginning of next month. I am so excited. Jon is not because he doesn’t like the couch. Oh well too bad. I am buying it.

The Laugh of a Child

Well, this week has been a long and stressful one. Between the car decided to needing to be fixed on Wednesday instead of next week to going to pick up Jack yesterday to find out that he has begun to hit the other kids in his class at daycare. Yesterday was the day that I got to a completely overwhelmed point. I cried quite a few times between Wednesday morning and yesterday afternoon.

Being a parent is the most rewarding and stressful job in the world but it has one of the best perks in the world. Jack has got to be the most happiest child I have ever met. He loves to laugh - all the time. I love to hear him laugh. His laugh can make the worst day 10 million times better. It can make my lonliness and sadness disappear.

Here is a video of his laugh. Hopefully if you are having a bad day it will help you to have a better one.

When It Rains It Pours - UPDATE

Well got a call from the mechanic - the day got better. The guy with the shop said that it was something we already knew needed to be fixed. It just so happened that it didn't want to wait until next week when I was going to take it in. The even better part is that the mechanic is just going to add it to the bill for the work being done next week. Oh Happy Day!!!!

When It Rains It Pours

I feel overwhelmed. Sometimes I feel like it is all crashing in on me. Today is one of those days and it is only 10:30 in the morning. When Jack woke up and then woke me up I kept thinking that today was going to be a great day. Jack was in a great mood and very helpful this morning. Things were going great until I got off of the interstate at the exit where Jack's daycare is. I got to the light and had to stop and all of a sudden the car started spitting and sputtering and acting like it was going to turn off. I freaked out because I had just taken it to the shop on Monday to get an estimate on a few things that I KNEW were wrong with it and needed to be fixed - well this wasn't one of those things. I had prepared myself yesterday for the mechanic's bill next week but not for this. I was less than a mile away from the auto shop and Jack's daycare (they are only a few blocks from each other). I had to stop a few more times because of stop lights and each time I would put the car in park and either turn it off or rev the engine. I finally made it to the garage - I had called my mom and asked her to come and pick Jack and I up. I also called my boss at the church - I absolutely love her - to let her know that I was having car trouble and wasn't sure when or if I would be in. My mom arrived, we got Jack to the daycare leaving the car at the shop to fix whatever is wrong with it. After we dropped Jack off, I took my mom to work and then headed to the church to talk to my boss. She is great and listened to me tell her everything that happened this morning. I asked her if I could work on Friday instead of today and she said yes to just go home and try to get everything figured out.

Before today, everday felt like it was raining on me but today it feels like it is pouring.

Because he thought he should tell me

Yesterday while at work Jon called me on my cell. In the midst of our conversation he asked me what the message from me on Skype was about and I told him to just listen to it and call me back. I told him to give me 15 minutes to finish something I was doing at work. Well 15 minutes came and went and then another 15 minutes came and went and then he finally called me back. Do you know what the first thing he said to me was? He said “sorry I lost my connection because there was an explosion so close that it shook the whole building and I could hear it and feel it.” The first thing that came out of my mouth was DO NOT EVER TELL ME OF ANOTHER EXPLOSION WITHIN 100 MILES OF YOU. He was so nonchalant about it and it totally freaked me out. I told him that I didn’t want to talk about it. Ever. Why do men feel the need to share things like that with the women in their lives when they know that we are sitting back here in the states worrying about things like that every waking hour? After he talked about a bomb exploding he just moved into another topic of conversation like it was no big deal. Why is it that men say women are so frustrating and hard to understand?

On a much lighter subject….

On Monday, I put a package in the mail to Jon with a webcam in it. Well last night as I am pouring milk in my Lucky Charms (that I had for dinner - Jack had a lunchable and I have no shame for that dinner either) my skype is ringing. So I answer it as I normally do when Jon calls but when I look back at the screen I notice that a video screen is popping up. Jon borrowed someone’s webcam and called us using that. I wish you all could have heard Jack saying “Hi Daddy” I started crying. He stood and talked to Jon for 10 minutes and then never left the room. I am simply amazed at this 2 year old that is my son. He has taught me so much over the past 3 months and he doesn’t even know it. He is the reason that I get up every morning. He is the reason that I am still the caring and loving person that goes out of my way to take my best friend to the airport even when she lives in St. Augustine and the airport is in north Jacksonville and offers to drive to St. Augustine to take care of her 2 dogs while she is out of town. He shows me love everyday no matter how tired I am, no matter if the laundry is done, if the floor is vacuumed, if I look a mess or actually like I took 5 minutes to get ready. He loves me because I am his mom and for that I am forever grateful. I know that he misses his daddy but he is only 2 and doesn’t really realize that 3 months have passed. I could tell that last night by the way he stood in front of this computer and just talked and talked and then went and got his trains and showed Jon his trains because he knew that he hadn’t seen them and then when I wanted to talk to Jon Jack looked at me and said “no Mommy”. What a great way to end the day. Sorry for getting all emotional.

In Need of a Maid (or Rent-a-husband)

Yesterday was tiring. Everyday is tiring. I really wish my husband was home to help me do these things. I wonder if hiring a maid would help. Probably not - wishful thinking. I woke up at 7 am yesterday morning with a day full of things to do - it was my day off. I wish I could say that I sat around the house and did nothing but that is not the case. Yes, Jack was already up and ready to go. I got him dressed then proceeded to get myself dressed. I had to get his stuff ready for daycare for the week. After I got all of that taken care of, I gathered up everything that was going in Jon’s package. All in all it only took me about 30 minutes to get everyone and everything ready and to the door. Let’s just say I had never been so happy to get into the car than I was that morning. After I dropped Jack off at daycare, I went to the post office. Has anyone noticed that it takes a ridiculous amount of time to get in and out of the post office? I had to mail Jon a webcam and it took me about 35 minutes to get it mailed out. My grandmother was giving me her bedroom furniture and her and my uncle were brought it over yesterday. They got there by 9:30 and we had to take down my bed, take my clothes out of my old dresser and mover my bookshelf - which by the way is full of books and I wasn’t taking them out. We had everything set up and all of the extra furniture taken out of the house and into the bed of my uncle’s truck by 11 am. After my uncle and grandmother left, I proceeded to do laundry, wash dishes, change the cat litter and vacuum - well try to. My vacuum died - I have a 90 pound black lab. With black hair. That is everywhere. I went non-stop all day yesterday. I wonder if I should invent a rent a husband business - that would be awesome. Only 9 more months.

If I just keep telling myself that - only 9 more months.