Some Pictures... Finally

So, I had to copy pictures from our home computer onto a CD and load them onto Jes's work computer. Sigh... What a pain.















Caleb being silly at the doctor's office in the chair waiting to see his ENT.




















Another at the doctor's office. It's amazing what you will do just to occupy them so they don't destroy a patient room. Incidentally, why don't they make those rooms more childproof/friendly knowing full well that you will be sitting in there for at least half an hour? I guess that's a question for the ages.















I took Caleb to a play date at our church. One of the major benefits of our rather large church are these play dates that are planned about once every few months. This time, it was a petting zoo. We couldn't pass it up! At first Caleb was a little nervous, but he saw his friends and all the fun animals and ran right in. Here's the duck he got to pet.














He loves guinea pigs. He watched these guys run around this water tank for a little bit.















There were goats wandering around and Caleb got to feed one here. They were a little rough and Caleb nearly lost his food, but he hung on to it and won out over that brute of a goat.















This baby goat was wandering around with the other goats and Caleb so wanted him to eat some of his food, but I think this little guy was just too full. He would put his nose in the cup and walk away and Caleb would chase him down and cram his nose into the cup again. I had to pull Caleb away from this little guy!















There were also these cute little baby chicks that Caleb just adored. I held one and he pet it and probably would have run off with one if he could have. I suppose it runs in the family as my mom has a secret love of chickens and even had one as a pet as a child. Caleb's MawMaw would be proud!















One of the best things about this particular petting zoo is that they always bring ponies for the kiddos to ride. These guys were at our Fall Festival this past year and Caleb rode a pony then, but Jes had to hold him the whole time and Caleb just wasn't too sure about it all. This time around, he wanted to ride the pony and stayed on, for the most part, the whole time.















In the process of riding the pony. His Daddy is so proud. I had to hold him here as Caleb hasn't spent enough time atop a pony to adequately deal with the taking off and stopping.















In our church, there is this huge fish tank right smack dab in the middle of the lobby of the children's building. Everyday that Caleb came to Mother's Day Out, he HAD to see the fish. Today he was in luck as the fish tank cleaner man was here and he stood on this stool for a good half hour watching the fish and the fish tank man do their thing. Talk about cheap entertainment!




















Later on that day, I took Caleb to our community pool to get a little sun and have fun in the water. Caleb shows much promise in that he seems to know what to do when he ends up on his tummy or back. He will be taking swim lessons with myself assisting in August, but I wanted him to be ok with the water before we started. Notice his Elmo swim trunks. He loves these and looked so grown up in them.















Caleb as Bob the Builder in the car. When he has the hat on, he will only respond to Bob. The obsession, while waning a bit, continues!

Computer, Anyone???

So the computer that resides on the desk in our home has become the bane of my existence. The dumb thing won't do anything!!! I have tried talking to it, pleading with it, threatening it and I even kicked it a time or two, but I still can't get it to do anything with the picture program or internet, the two programs that I use the most. So, as I sit here with 3 full memory cards I am promising that I will soon figure this situation out and will have massive amounts of pictures to upload and show you from the past few weeks of my life. If I can't, you might just pass by our house and spy me throwing the thing out the window!

He Knows...

Today was a surprising day all around. It all started last night when Jes took Caleb and I to Saltgrass for dinner. It was a nice dinner, even if I couldn't taste any of my meal. Yes folks, it is now over a week since I have been able to smell/taste. It's slowly coming back, but it's a real drag when we have dinner out. Anyway, at dinner I had iced tea, a rare treat for me as I try to limit caffeine to nothing. The tea kept me up until nearly 12 am, this morning.
At 2:47 Caleb showed up at my side of the bed wanting to get in (yes my post jinxed us) so I pull him in, too tired to deal. Surprise.
He was awake until 5am. Surprise
There was a point in those hours where I was on the edge. I nearly had to leave just to preserve the life of my precious baby. A 4 am play session with the toes, singing the Wheels on the Bus, jumping on the bed on his knees, and Jes snoring through the whole thing nearly sent me into oblivion.
I drug myself out of bed this morning at 8, which doesn't seem too early, but if you take into account the fact that I had only really slept for 5 hours or so (a freak thunderstorm rolled in around 4:30), I was NOT happy. Not really a surprise.
So, today was the day to go to the ENT to get a date for tubes. Evidently, Caleb is too healthy to qualify, so says our insurance company. Since he has had no infection, only 4 months of fluid, no speech delay, etc, insurance in general will not pay. The ENT's office is being very diligent about trying to get this changed, but we left with an appointment for a month and no surgery date. Surprise.
We headed to the mall to get out a little and make an appointment for pictures and I saw a former parent from the private school I taught at when I was pregnant with Caleb. Not the most comfortable situation because, without going into too much detail about the circumstances, I did not leave there on a positive note. I never heard from any of the students I taught so I have never known what, if anything, anyone knew about the ways things went down. We talked and she had her daughter, my former student, come in from the car and things were all around cordial. However, as I was leaving daughter told me that the year I had her was the only year she loved science and that she still knows chemistry. Mom told me that she always appreciated me and that she missed me. It made me feel appreciated and validated for the whole ordeal. Surprise.
It's a good thing that He knows what is going on because today just proved to me again that I'm not in control and that even when I don't get it, He does. Thank goodness someone does.

Happy Father's Day

Jes,
Who knew 3 years ago that we would be where we are now. We were just considering having a baby, but we were blessed just a few weeks later to get pregnant with our little Caleb. Admittingly, things haven't been perfect since then, but we have managed to walk through some of the toughest and most rewarding times of our marriage and lives. We call our life together one big adventure because even the most mundane task seems to take on a life of it's own when we try to accomplish it. I look forward to more adventures with you and can't wait to see where life takes us! Thank you for being the calm spot when life got crazy, the laugh when I couldn't smile, my song when I couldn't sing anymore. Thank you for being Caleb's Daddy, the one he talks about all day long and runs to when he hears a key in the door. I love you and can't wait to see what comes!
Shannon

Happy Father's Day to all you dads out there. The Mathis family hopes it was a happy and fun day for you and your family.

Everyone Knock on Wood

We are on the mend in the Mathis household. Even though we are all still coughing and hacking, things have been improving. Caleb still has a low grade fever, but he hasn't had to take any Motrin or Tylenol since Friday. I always worry about what all that medication does to his body.

Jes has been laughing at me lately, more than normal, because when anyone gets sick in our house, you will find me with a can of Lysol in one hand and a bottle of some sort of Clorox product in the other disinfecting every tiny thing in the house. At this point, every light switch, door knob, toy, countertop, sheet, pillow, pillowcase, and I'm sure other things I can't remember are as germ free as this mama can get them. All those years of studying bacteria and viruses and other nasty things and what they can do to you have turned me into somewhat of a germaphobe at times.

One of the best things to happed lately with Caleb involves his ever changing sleep situation. For 2 years things have been in constant flux as to where, how well and how long he sleeps. For the past couple of weeks he has been in his bed all night long. Not just until 3 or 4, but we're talking 6 or 7am here. Who knew that at 2 years of age we would finally be experiencing what it was like to have a kid sleep through the night. Hopefully I didn't just jinx myself!

Middle of the Night Surprise

We successfully made it through yesterday with all of us Mathis people living and not succumbing to whatever this horrible virus is. However, around 12 this morning Caleb (in our bed) woke up screaming. I touched him and instantly knew his fever was high again. So, I did what every frantic mother would do and grabbed a wet washcloth, screamed at my husband to get the thermometer, gave him some Motrin, and called the doctor. It was not my shining hour to say the least. Nearly an hour later the nurse called me back, but not after I spent most of the hour trying to find out exactly how hight is too high for a 2 year old. I was told 105 was the cut off and the point at which you take them to the ER. Caleb was at 104.5 at the highest and was normal by the time we had our conversation. Whew. What a night.

Here a Cough, There a Cough, Everywhere a Cough Cough

Everyone is our house is under the weather right now, except the cat. If only we had the immune system of our beloved Gus...
On Monday I went to the doctor and was diagnosed with some sort of viral thingy (don't you love the techincal term, but hey it's PrimaCare we're talking about) and got some fun drugs. Jes has been hacking and coughing, but is on the downhill slide from it. Caleb spiked a fever today over 103 and has been totally pitiful all day. We have watched hours of Dora the Explorer, Veggie Tales, Go Diego Go, Backyardigans and Blue's Clues. I haven't been able to get him to eat anything, except the applesauce I spoon fed him, but he's drunk his weight in Pedialite, Juice, Water and Capri Sun today. He seemed to be a little better when I left, except for the fact that all the tv has turned both of our brains to mush. Maybe we will be more cerebral tomorrow!
On a positive note, I just received word that I was able to get a class at the college that I have wanted for oh so long! It meets from 11:30 to 12:45 on Tuesday and Thursday when Caleb is at Mother's Day Out. The down side to this is that I will not be able to teach my gymnasts anymore. If you didn't know, shortly after Caleb was born I got a job holding school for a group of elite gymnasts in Frisco. They have been such a part of Caleb's and my life for 2 years now and I'll miss them greatly, but not the drive. Now I have to figure out how to break the news to them.
Our computer is in some land where computers go to die, so we'll have to play it by ear on uploading pictures. We are currently trying to download all our important documents, pictures and such onto CDs and Jes is going to wipe everything out and reload the important stuff. We'll see how that goes!

Game Day Central, Where Heroes are Made!

This past week Caleb and I had been participating in our church's annual Vacation Bible School. Our theme this year was Game Day Central and frankly, I can't get the song out of my head. It's about to drive me batty, but we had a great time and we'll do it again next year! Even thought Caleb is only 2, they still used the curriculum with them and he got the stories and we brought home a craft everyday. It was exciting for him to experience his first of many weeks spent at the church for VBS. I taught 4 year olds with a friend of mine, Kim Kiser. There was really only one time the whole week when we looked at each other with the "what have we done" look and that didn't come until late on Thursday when all the kiddos were out of control. All in all, we had a great time!

Caleb has changed a little more this week and has mastered some deductive reasoning skills. He has a Leap Frog number toy that asks what number comes before, after and between other numbers and he gets it right every time! The first time he did it, I thought it was just a fluke, but he's been doing it ever since. As his dad puts it, he's too smart for his own good. Also, as usual my fears of a speech delay were unfounded. Just about a month ago I was a little concerned about Caleb not stringing together many words and that there might be a problem. In all actuality, he was just biding his time and now only speaks in phrases. His favorites include but are not limited to: upside down, Jesus book, I did it, Hi Mama, Hi Daddy, Let's go, I don't know, etc. No problems here!

On Wednesday I take Caleb back to the ENT. I don't anticipate good news from this visit as I feel like he still has fluid in his ears. However, I did recently see an article in a medical journal (yes I am a dork who still puruses these when I really don't have to anymore...) pertaining to kids who have fluid behind their eardrums but have not had a significant infection. The study found that putting in tubes was not necessarily necessary. I'm going to bring it up and see what she says, but if tubes are our best option I'll go along. Just pray that if the fluid hasn't cleared up that we will have a clear plan of action for Caleb.

I have been a little remiss at taking pictures lately, but I'll try to upload what I have this week on our dinosaur of a computer. Stay tuned...