I took Emily back to see the Orthopaedic doctor today and he says things look good! She had the splint removed and just has her fingers taped together now (which I've only had to rewrap five times since we've been home tonight!) We'll go back to see him one more time in 2 weeks but I think everything seems really routine. Her stitches still look pretty ugly and it bothers her to see them. She kept holding up her hand to my face to kiss it while we were in the doctor's office. I am a little nervous about her pulling them out because she does tend to pick at it.

I always think of these funny little things that happen in my daily life that I want to post about and if I were on facebook or twitter then I probably would. But here is one of them. Down our street where I walk the dog there is a home that looks like an elderly person lives in it. It used to have two of those stone goose statues on either side of the sidewalk entryway, usually with some red, white, and blue plastic flowers wrapped around their necks. They have recently been replaced with two buddha statues. Whaaat???

CHRIST IS RISEN!

ER! (Subtitled: Mom of the Year)

It's almost hard to believe, this little story about our Wednesday evening. I was picking Elijah up from football practice at Jeff High School. I had brought the dog with me because it was just a quick trip. So we were leaving football practice and loading up into our van--Carter, Elijah and Mary in first. I was holding Emily in my arms as I got the others put in and then I pulled the door shut. Except that Emily's little hand was in the way of the door. I looked down and noticed that her fingers were closed in the door, so I immediately opened it. She still had not reacted, so I thought for a moment that maybe I hadn't actually gotten her. But by the time we got around to the other side of the van and I started to put her in her car seat, she was wailing and there was a lot of blood running down her hand. So now Mary is wailing too because it was a little frightening to see your baby sister with blood all over her and screaming. I also noticed that her fingers were not looking like quite the right angle so I made the quick decision to head to the ER. While en route I called Laura, my sister-in-law, who was at my house doing her taxes when I left. She met me at the hospital and drove the kids and dog back to my house and then to church where Brian was attending a service (we were supposed to be meeting him there after football) while I took Emily into the ER. Emmaroo very shortly thereafter got a local anesthetic because she was obviously in some pain. After a grueling two hours of x-rays, and holding a 25 lb. inconsolable toddler, we were ready to go home. She had two broken fingers and a bit of her hand. She also got several stitches (don't ask me how many, I couldn't watch!!) She was content by the time we left because she got some juice. She couldn't have anything the whole time we were there because there was a chance she was going to need anesthetic. She went to the hand surgeon on Thursday who told me that she is going to heal just fine without any major steps. She'll wear this splint for a week and then we go back to have it replaced for another week. Then I guess her little bones will be healed.

Everyone's doing it

It my new layout! Now that I know it is super easy to change, I can change it often!!

Sad thing: I am looking for a new pediatrician. We love our doctor, just not the process it takes to get in to see her. It is hard for me to justify waiting for an hour every time I get to actually see her and most of the time I just end up seeing a different doctor. I don't like that. It makes me upset that Mary has had strep throat 4 times this winter and probably needs to have her tonsils out but her doctor never would've known it because of those four times guess how many times she saw her pediatrician? 0. Not once. Emily went back today-- after we waited for an hour she got a new antibiotic that hopefully will get her out of her funk. On my list for tomorrow is to call a few smaller practices and see if they are better about managing their caseload. I switched myself to a smaller practice a few years ago and have been much happier than with corporate medicine.


Happy thing: We got to have dinner with my grandparents tonight! They are traveling from Alabama, where they winter, back to Michigan, where they live. They brought some delicious shrimp that we cooked several different ways.

So far I am checking things off my spring break to do list. That always feels good. Am I weird that I put fun things on my list? I think I am a micromanager that way. I blame my dad and his crazy list making genes. I took the kids on a spur of the moment trip downtown on Monday. We picked Elijah up from school and went to McCords to get a real soda fountain coke and some candy. We ended up walking down to the pedestrian bridge and watching the trains go by. The kids had so much fun!!

Before I can even start this post I have to share this picture. Maybe it is getting old watching Emily do ridiculous things and kind of, um, laughing. You be the judge. She fell down at the state park on Saturday morning. Totally biffed out on the sidewalk. Yes, she cried. It was painful to be sure. I held her and wiped her tears and that part wasn't funny at all. But the next morning when she woke up and looked like Rudolph I just couldn't help but snicker.

Over the last two weeks we've had various people on Spring Break. This week it is my turn. We had exactly half of one school day of overlap so we decided to take advantage of it. Brian kept Elijah home from school and Friday afternoon I grabbed the girls from daycare and we all took off for the Indianapolis Zoo. We've only been with Elijah once and the girls have never been. We all had a blast! I think our favorite exhibits were the shark petting, the walruses, and then maybe the giraffes or tiger. We crashed at home on Friday night and I literally went to bed at 8:00, barely after the kids. But it was good because when I woke up Saturday morning my sore throat was gone and I didn't need to take ibuprofen to get through my day. We packed the van and grabbed the dog first thing. We got coffee at k dees and drove out to Prophetstown state park to walk the trails, play on the equipment and see the farm animals. Carter did really well with the other dogs there. It was pretty chilly here on Saturday morning. I was glad we wore our winter coats and we commented that having a dog is helping us to acheive goals that we have for our family every day. There is no way we would've journeyed out just for us if it were that chilly. However we had the.best.time.! When we got home it was only noon so we got to relax for the rest of the day. On the downside, Emily is sick again. I am taking her in tomorrow (I called too late to get an appointment today) because she is still full of snot and coughing again. Last weekend I took her to the pediatric clinic on Saturday with hives. The dr. told us to discontinue her anitbiotic that she got the weekend before and he didn't want her to take something different. I am not convinced that this isn't the same infection that didn't get cleared up because she didn't finish her medicine. Oh joy. At least I am home on Spring Break. And it might not be freezing today.

When you give your 4 year old the camera, here is the shot you get of a tiger.

A before school post

She saw me spinning my composter and wanted to give it a try too!


I don't normally post in the early morning hours, but I just had to share these pictures of Emily that I took yesterday as we enjoyed the beautiful spring day. She has never really been out in the yard walking around before. Last summer she was barely crawling and mostly just hung out on a blanket while we were outside. Plus I just bought her her first pair of hard soled shoes so she is tremendously enjoying toddling around doing the frankenstein walk.

I haven't been taking many pictures lately. I feel bad about it. I guess just not bad enough to take more pictures. Elijah had his final game of basketball on Saturday. I brought the camera, but then left it in the car. It seemed like too much work to climb down out of the bleachers and walk all the way out of the building and down the street to get it. So, we were the lame parents not taking pictures of their kid getting his trophy. I did, however, take pictures of my newly cleaned and organized book shelves. We have our living room blocked off with the entertainment center so that Carter can only go in the kitchen and dining room for another week, so I've been spending a lot of time in there. In fact, I really haven't even been in the living room in a week.

We finally went to the doctor this weekend. Brian was about on his death bed. He's been sick for 3 weeks now. The doctor gave him a z-pack and some medicine with codeine, so we haven't seen a whole lot of him this weekend. Mary and Emily are on antibiotics too. I started playing in my garden yesterday. At least getting some of the existing space dirt turned over. We're planning to expand some, but I was too tired to dig up grass. It's a lot harder than dirt.

I'm sure that this is way more than you wanted to know about me, but I'm telling anyway. I was about out of deoderant. So when I was at Target last night I bought some Tom's of Maine all natural deo without antipersperant (you know the stuff that keeps you dry). I've heard a lot of the negative press about the aluminim in antipersperant and I just thought, hey, I'll give it a try. It got me thinking though about smells. I am certainly one of those people who has what I call a "sensitive sniffer". I can smell things a mile away good or bad. But, back to the body odor issue. At what point in history did people decide that it was socially unacceptable to have a natural body scent? Why do we cover up what our bodies naturally smell like? In fact, if you think about all the different products we buy to cover scent, it's probably a little excessive. For instance, I have a scent tree in my car, a glade plug in in my kitchen, Yankee candles in just about every room in the house. We use scented soap, shampoo, perfume, laundry soap, dryer sheets, etc.
I noticed as I was reading the back of my old deoderant bottle that was "unscented" that it actually had a masking fragrance listed in the ingredients. That just seems strange to me.

Brian has been going dog crazy. He discovered the Monks of New Skete. Orthodox monks who train dogs. They even have a show on Animal Planet. WOW! He is already planning our trip to visit this summer. Which brings me to summer. It seems like we have an awful lot to accomplish. Trip out west, siding on the house, trip out east, walks to the farmers market, work in our garden, relaxing around the house, working in our classrooms...

Lazy Saturday

I never thought that a "lazy" Saturday would be getting up at 7:00. I actually woke up at 6:30--which sadly is about an hour and a half later than our usual wake up time these days, but Brian and I laid in bed and talked until the kids came in at 7:00. This is the first Saturday in a long time when I didn't take a shower as soon as I got up because I wouldn't have time otherwise. I made coffee, fed the girls, leisurely put away dishes and then...PLAYED WITH MY CHILDREN! Holy cow. It's been a while. Mary and I made block towers and Emily toddled around us and I read her books when she would plop down in my lap. It was so warm even this morning that Mary and I took a magazine out to the front porch and read for a while. Brian and Elijah took Carter on a long walk, so when they returned I took my shower. I am looking forward to going to the Seeger basketball sectional game tonight--without kids! We hired a sitter. We need to get out a bit. I even packed up all three kids and took them to hear The SmallTown Heroes play at a coffee shop last night. I think we've had so much going on that I've been under more stress than I thought. It felt good to be out of the house and not doing a task. So tonight should be great!

We were walking the dog yesterday around 4:30. Elijah says to me, "That way's west. Where the sun is setting. You know mom, when we go out west this summer, I bet we'll see the best sunsets." I then asked him if he was going to be a cowboy when we go out west. His reply: "We're gonna find some horses and daddy's gonna teach me how to ride." (I love how he thinks his daddy knows how to ride a horse!) I think they've been watching The Man From Snowy River too much.

Well, I guess that seals the deal. We're going out west.

Here are a couple pictures of Carter for those of you (and you know who you are!) who have been nagging me about seeing him :) We've had a pretty eventful weekend with him. I'll spare you the details, but it entails bowel movements. We've been walking him like crazy. He is such a good dog! We just love him already.

As I am sitting here working (I'll use that term lightly) at the computer I can hear snoring coming from the dog crate in the kitchen as well as the bedroom. Brian has been home from work for 3 days now with the flu. I didn't get a flu shot this year so I am really praying that I don't get it next. He has been REALLY sick.

So. Here's a question. Since the dog is asleep currently, do I get him up to take him outside one last time before my bedtime? I have no idea how many times a day a dog goes to the bathroom. Hmm. I guess it's not like a baby where he is going to start crying if I get him up, but to be honest his snoring is really sweet and I don't want to get him up. He has been so good tonight. Brian took him for a long walk around the neighborhood when he got home and he has been in his crate (to protect him from the 6 hands that want to keep touching him) for the rest of the evening. We really haven't heard a peep out of him. Emily can't wait to get her little hands on him. I will tell you who is not excited about the new face--Mac. He is a scrappy little cat, so my guess is that he will be the instigator (if there is one), but he was all Halloween cat today with the arched back and hair standing on end and everything. He took off to the basement around 5:30. I carried him up and past the crate in the kitchen at 8:00 and he took off for our bedroom. I guess this might be a good diet plan for him since to get to his food he must walk right past the dog.

The dog days of February

I am not going to post about this evening when I was quietly washing dishes in the kitchen for 20 minutes all by myself and then I remembered as the baby toddled in without a diaper and the nasal saline in her mouth, oops...the baby isn't wearing a diaper. I also then had the thought, hmm...if she has the saline then she was probably in the bathroom. I won't think about how she has been bee-lining for the toilet these days when the bathroom door is left open. It was awfully quiet and peaceful though for 20 whole minutes. No, this post is not about children. It is about our newest family addition. We are getting a dog! I know some of you family and friends are thinking that we are certifiable. And we probably are. But, nonetheless. Instead of new years resolutions we sat down at the beginning of the year and thought about some of our long term goals for our family and what steps we could take to make them happen. Allowing more interaction with animals was one of the things we could do now. We have found a dog that we think is a good fit for our family. We were supposed to bring him home yesterday, but Brian had to go and get really sick so we haven't gotten him yet. I think it will be Thursday afternoon. He is a 4 year old lab- border collie mix. We think we are going to name him Carter. As in June. Brian really liked the name Cash, but I felt a little strange about that name, so Carter seemed to be a good compromise.

Elijah has had this tooth on top that has been hanging by a thread for weeks. I think he was just trying to torture me with it. Finally yesterday he let Brian pull it out. As soon as it was out Brian started freaking out, "put it back, put it back!!!" Elijah looks SO OLD. I guess he is 6 1/2 now, but still. He's gonna have one of those big old giant top teeth that looks all gangly and weird. The permanent tooth is already through, so I suppose it won't be long. Emily on the other hand is still waiting for her top teeth to poke through. She is the slowest teeth cutter I've ever known. She still only has 4 teeth at 15 months. Oh, and she is officially a walker now. She decided this week that crawling no longer gets her there faster. It was like overnight.

I haven't been posting much because our life seems to be spinning out from under me. We had a really full--too full-- weekend last weekend and we paid for it all week. Today is the first day since last weekend that I've even really sat down at the computer much. Last weekend looked like this:

Friday at 3:30: leave school, buy a birthday gift, pick up three kids at three places. Come home and let Elijah change clothes, send him out the door with Brian for basketball practice. Feed the girls a quick snack, wrap present, meet Brian and Elijah at practice.

5:30 p.m. Discover a rash all over Mary's body. Tell her she cant go to the birthday party at 6:00. Comfort her cries for the rest of basketball practice. Take Mary and Emily to my parents house and Elijah to birthday party.

6:30 p.m. One hour for dinner with Brian at Christos

7:30 Brian leaves for band rehearsal

8:00 pick up Elijah from party, take all three kids home and put them to bed

The rest of the weekend wasn't much better. It was fun, don't get me wrong. I mean, there was Chuck E. Cheese on Sunday. But it was literally one thing to the next. So today we are making a real effort to relax and take it easy. Well, after basketball and gymnastics, anyway : )

I think we might go get our dog tomorrow. I've had my eye on this one dog for about a month and he is still at the shelter. Maybe tomorrow we'll go take him for another walk and spend some time with him to see if he is a good fit for us.

So, you know, just another Saturday at the Greene household. Making egg masterpieces. All in a day's work. This has had us cracking up all day. You have to listen carefully at the end, but Mary is the most funny of all. She did not seem to have the same opinion about the new egg.

Because the reason we bought our kids digital cameras was to see life from their point of view, and because their point of view is often funny, and because I can't stand a blog without pictures and I haven't taken many lately...

Y5K

I think this might be our year. The biggest year yet. Today Brian and I did our first 5K as we prepare for the Indianapolis Mini Marathon in May. Granted we walked almost all of it, but it was a breakthrough for our family. Our pace was fast enough to outwalk the slow bus (if you don't know like I didn't--for the mini marathon the roads have to reopened after a certain amount of time, so you have to maintain a pace or a bus comes and picks you up). In 3 weeks we'll be doing the 10K. This will be significantly harder for us. Today wasn't a stroll in the park, but it was definitely in our ability range.

We've been himhawin' around as of late whether we are staying in this house, moving to Warren County, where Elijah is going to school next year, all the usual decisions to be made. Well, this weekend we were reading a remodeling magazine and we found what we think is going to answer some questions for us. We are seriously thinking about cutting a hole in our ceiling and making a large loft area out of our attic. It seems like it would be the perfect solution for our house. We haven't done much with the attic yet because it would be such a big project. I suppose this project would be big too, but it just seems more do-able. It would make that room feel like part of our existing home, it wouldn't necessarily require this special kind of window to meet building code for bedrooms, it wouldn't mean getting a whole other heating and cooling system, and the list goes on. So, who knows if we will actually do it--our summer is getting pretty booked with dreams of two weeks of travel out west, putting siding on the outside of our house, motorcycle trips, a week on the beach in Michigan...: ) Too bad our pocketbook isn't as big as our wish list!

And I made snickerdoodles tonight.

No babies were injured in the making of this video

Emily has been intrigued with chairs lately. She has discovered with great delight how to climb up into Mary's camp chair. She usually sits and swings her legs back and forth and generally just has a great time. I thought, "oh what a cute thing. I should videotape it so everyone can enjoy the cuteness." Don't worry--she didn't cry or even act upset.

because today is a new day

everyone is still sick, but on the mend.