Meeting Thomas!

Our little boy has an obsession with any kind of vehicle. He loves to sing "The Wheels on the Bus" and enjoys lining up all of his cars and trucks. The obsession is all encompassing and of course it includes Thomas the Train. Before I had a child of my own I was aware of this PBS show, but I did not understand how such a simple little show was so loved by so many children. Being a  parent hasn't provided me with any extra insight, but I know that my son LOVES Thomas. Whenever he sees Thomas come on the television he says "Toot Toot!"

Since he is so entranced by the show we thought this year it might be appropriate to take him to see Thomas the Train at the Oklahoma Railway Museum this year. They had the same event last year, but it seemed a little silly to bring a barely one year old boy.


 The main event was getting to ride Thomas the Train.

Blake loved getting to see Thomas the Train, but actually riding the train was not his favorite part.

 

 He spent a good amount of time playing at one of the train tables they had set up.

They also had other free activities live entertainment, free tattoos, a moon bounce, a line to meet Sir Topham Hat, and a playground area. For next year we now know that we won't have to buy everybody a train ticket. We will probably just buy one for Blake and one for a parent to go with him. We really don't bother too much with taking Blake on an outing that we are not sure he is going to like, fortunately this was a fun experience for him and we will probably go again in the future.

We have a two year old now

I am trying to fight the slow painful death of my blog. All of my good intentions seem to amount into nothing, but oh well. We are busy living life with a now two year old boy!

What do two year old boys like to do? Well, all I can say is what our two year old boy likes to do.

He likes to line up his vehicles and count them. 

He likes to build with blocks and read his birthday card.

He loves to climb, play, and slide at the playground.

 He likes to line up his ducks and sing "I'm a little duck and God made me."

For his birthday party, I thought I was keeping it low key by serving dinner and dessert and having a pool party for the kids in the backyard. We just had local family over except Bob's parents came from Fort Worth so it made for a packed house. It was fun and we enjoyed everyone coming over to celebrate, but I am really not sure how to downscale from this.

All of the babies at the party were intrigued by the Sesame Street wrapping paper, so we had to open that present first!

Blake had a fun time in the pool with his cousins. He never seemed to enjoy the pool as much after having them over to play in it with him. So there's hope that he'll appreciate having a little sister to play with for next summer!

big blog hiatus

If anyone has noticed, my blog has been neglected for the past 2-3 months. Life has been happening and we have been busy.

The beginning of May I was finishing my spring semester of grad school on May 7th and I had plans to take two summer intercession courses which were from May 12th-June 30th.

For some reason I had a grand idea that we should sneak in a quick family get-away/vacation between my spring and summer classes. Yes, a whole four days off did not give us much time to work with. We booked a trip to Denver, CO to visit one of Bob's cousins and explore the city of Denver. Once we had the trip planned and booked I realized that it fell on Mother's Day weekend, OOPS! We took care of our moms beforehand and I believe all was forgiven.

This was our second plane trip with our little man, and once again we were fortunate to not have any traumatic episodes or meltdowns. We even had a major delay leaving OKC and he did amazing.

During our time in Denver it happened to snow 3-5 inches, which even for Denver that is quite out of the norm for the beginning of May. Luckily, the snow we experienced in Denver was nothing like I've ever seen in Oklahoma City. Their snow was soft and fluffy and came right off the car in one big swoop. The only snow I've experienced in Oklahoma is the kind with a ton of ice on top or underneath it and it is incredibly difficult to scrape off the car or drive on the roads safely. This was so not the case fortunately. This is a picture of when the snow first started to accumulate outside our hotel.

 One of the major highlights of the trip for us was going to the Children's Museum in Denver. It was a toddler's dream come true. This place is very much deservedly on the Forbes top ten list of children's museums. Our little guy had  a blast and wore him self completely out.

 We also went to a place called tiny town that was near the more mountainous area of Denver and they had a little town, park, and a train to ride. My only regrets are that he was just so incredibly tired from the time zone change and most of the places we went to opened late in the morning, which meant we were usually there close to his nap time.

Here we are on the train

 

 And here's little man going down the slide.

 

Unfortunately, nap time was usually spent at the hotel for three hours during the day. He was one tired boy during the trip.

We had fun getting away for a little bit and now I've been finished with my summer course for a little over a week now. No school for me for the month of July so I will try to continue bringing the blog up to speed on our busy lives.

Crunchy or not?

Three years ago if I were asked what makes you a crunchy mom I would have been baffled. I had heard the term before, but that was about it. That terminology was not in my vocabulary and understanding yet. Now, I know oh so much more about it. Although I do a couple of things which are considered "crunchy" it is not because I am trying to be a "crunchy mom". Those things just happen to be convenient and fit my lifestyle. I know I have friends/acquaintances (because they've shared their thoughts on social media about it) who cannot fathom why somebody would bother messing with cloth diapers. I'm fairly certain they are not familiar with the new technology of cloth diapers and they are thinking about the old school kind. Even with new advancements in the cloth diaper world I can also understand why someone would not want to choose that option because it might not fit their lifestyle.

Anyway, I feel most crunchy practices boil down to preferences. Some people may not care for it or it's not their cup of tea while others become fluent in the crunchy mom world. No matter how you swing this video is good for a few laughs.

Your two cents?

I try to avoid debates and drama on Facebook, but this time the subject matter has sucked me in and I can't find my way out. So now I must turn to my mostly reasonable and sensible half dozen readers on here :)

The topic is on storm shelters in schools. I am highly interested because I am a former teacher and have had some instances where severe weather was indeed a threat.

Kelly Ogle from the local news channel 9 does a feature called My Two Cents. This time it is in response to a Moore Senator's plan to adjust the school calendar so that school is not in session during prime tornado season.

Here he is responding to the Senator's plan.
Here is the original story.

If you read those links you should be up to speed now.

What is my take on this? I am fully aware that storm shelters in schools is going to be very expensive and take time to construct, but I feel they are still very necessary. I think the Senator's plan is a wonderful temporary plan which can be utilized until our schools are equipped with tornado shelters or safe rooms, even if it takes several years to achieve this.

After reading several of the comments from the Facebook users it is very clear that everyone is not in agreement.

1. People don't want to spend money (increase taxes).
2. There are some who are of the opinion that "good" parents can  pull their children out of school when severe weather is a threat.
3. Schools are not babysitters.

There are many more thoughts out there, but I can only bear to read so many of them.

I think the plan is a fine temporary plan, but I can just see them changing the school calendar and then we turn around and a huge F5 tornado will make its way through in April. Number two really bothered me. These people must not understand nor are familiar with jobs that fall under the category of public servants. Police officers, EM T's, nurses, doctors, teachers and several other occupations require them to report to work and do their job so that other people benefit.

It's really sad because the teachers seem like the biggest losers in this situation. Most teachers do not have the luxury to go and retrieve their own children when severe weather becomes an issue and school is in session. No, they have to stay at school with other people's children and do their best to keep them safe in a building which most likely does not have a storm shelter. Plus several educators are married to each other which makes it even more difficult for them to go get their child. Which is why #2 bothers me so much. Yes, lots of people are very fortunate to be able to leave their job quickly in an emergency situation, they probably work in an office type setting though. If I were still teaching and my child were in school I would probably arrange for my dad to go pick him up and take him to our house where we have a storm shelter. Again, not everyone has these options. I've also stayed at school during severe weather while other teachers were allowed to leave while I took on their students. It wasn't a big deal and usually there were only about 10 or fewer students left in class by then because parents did come and pick them up (which I am not against, parents should be allowed this option and not be penalized). Anyway, teachers have to give and take in those situations, unfortunately.

Number three: schools are not babysitters. Technically no, they are not, but our children do spend nine months out of the year in school and most of the day time hours. A storm shelter can be necessary during other months of the year because tornadoes do occur during other times of the year.

I'm also of the opinion that neighborhood residents should not rely on use of the school's storm shelter. If it is not school hours then the building should not be opened up specifically for people to come take shelter. Sounds harsh or even wasteful huh? Allowing public access causes  an array of issues. How many people can you let in? Can you turn people away? When do you shut the door to cut off access? Even traveling to come up and open the building could be a safety issue if there is little time to take shelter. People should continue to stick with or implement a severe weather plan if they do not already have one.

By having the storm shelters the schools can have an easier time protecting children (no it is not fool proof) and hopefully we will not have tragic situations where students do not survive a tornado while in school.

Now that I have ranted, rambled a bit, and probably left some stuff out, what do you think? Do you have any other thoughts I did not address or have a better plan? I would like to hear from you.

Birthdays and weird weather

Bob and I have birthdays within a week of each other which is nice and convenient at times. It's interesting because even though it is winter our Oklahoma weather has a hard time making up its mind. Here is Blake on daddy's birthday playing outside.

Then the day after my birthday this is going down.

Although my birthday usually comes along with a little bit of snowy weather. Remember this?

This doesn't have anything to do with the title of my post, but this week we also got to go on our first trip to Children's hospital. Everything is fine now, but yesterday morning was a little too eventful to say the least.

Blake fell down and hit his head.  
His symptoms afterwards resembled a concussion to me so I decided it was best to take him in and get him checked out. I knew this was going to happen one day with my spirited child and it probably won't be our last trip to the ER either.

I'm not sure if this is how things go down in a children's ER, but they were really happy and kept saying, "oh, he's going to be fine." The doctor came in to check him one last time and said, "oh he's eating? He's fine." I guess they are used to dealing with parents who are not being very calm, but it just came across as if they were not very concerned. I'm sure they took good care of him and it is just the daily of occurrences in the ER that probably numbs them a bit.

This is where Blake hit his head :( Poor baby!

 Here he is afterwards eating some snacks I brought along. I'm glad I had those otherwise he would not have sat in the examination room while we waited.

After being cooped up inside due to all the snow, this was not my ideal choice of an outing. Oh well, life happens and Mr. Blake has already bounced back from this.

New Year Challenge

My very brave cousin started a blog to share her weight loss goals and journey for 2014. In her latest post she ended it with this challenge for herself and her readers: Name 5 positive things about yourself and name 3 things you like about your body. Here it goes, I think I might struggle completing this perhaps due to a lack of self esteem and also partly to not come across as delusional. I think it can be easier to list these things about other people rather than for yourself.

Name 5 positive things about yourself: *****

1. I am punctual and complete things in a timely manner.
2. I can cook and bake food that is quite tasty.
3. I am honest. Here's an interesting article I came across this week. Bob and I must be incredibly trustworthy ;)
   
4. I am dependable.
5. I like to try new things.

Name 3 things you love like about your body: *****

1. I can get a tan in moderate sunlight exposure while wearing sunscreen.
2. My dimples (on my face ;)
3. My arms, I like that they are a good length for reaching things, but right now they could probably benefit from some lifting and toning exercises.  

Well, that was a fun little self evaluation exercise. I kept realizing that some of my positive attributes tend to come across in the extreme and sometimes don't seem very positive. I guess that is something I can work on this year. Happy new year folks. I'll leave you with a cute picture of me and the kitty from this morning.