And Then a Bunch of Stuff Happened....

Um, yeah, like three years worth of stuff. 


Let's see... 

• I had that baby. It turned out to be a girl, Eliza. She's pretty much full of awesome. Kyle went to kindergarten, then to first grade, and now he's getting ready to start second grade. He's pretty much full of awesome too. 
• We went to Disneyworld a few times, and Vegas, and once to Omaha, Nebraska. 
• I lost my job, but it ended up being a blessing because I've been able to stay home with Eliza. 
• My mom got cancer. But she's doing mostly ok right now. You can read more about that here: Being Kathy Dorn or I'm so vain I probably think this blog is about me or here: Caring Bridge - Kathleen Dorn

Those are some of the major things. I know I'm forgetting something big, but there's really now way I'm going to be able to recap three years in one blog. So you'll just have to jump in with me where we are.

So what am I suddenly doing here after three years of absence? Well, Mr. Kyle, now 7 years old, has become a very good reader. And last night, he stumbled upon this little old blog. We sat together and read just about every entry, especially the ones about him. And he loved it. He insists that I write more. He was so adamant that he tried to physically block me from going to bed tonight before adding a blog entry. I went to bed anyway, but luckily for him I'm experiencing some insomnia, so I figured what the heck, I'll go type something up. 

And I'll be back. I plan to share pictures (Kyle wants me to do the photo-a-day thing, so we'll see how that goes), ramblings, funny stories, rants, and whatever else I feel like sharing. I hope you'll come along for the ride. 

Toots in a line

Yesterday morning as I was getting Kyle dressed, he farted. "Did you just toot?" I asked him. "Yeah," he giggled. "My toots are all waiting in line."

I also had an OB appointment yesterday. Everything looks good! This time he found the heartbeat right away with the doppler. We heard that beautiful sound beating away at 160 beats per minute. No ultrasound at this appointment, unfortunately. Dr. said my weight and blood pressure looked great. We scheduled my big ultrasound for August 10. That means I have about three weeks to decide whether I want to find out the gender. I'm torn. We didn't find out with Kyle, but I'm leaning toward finding out this time. Troy doesn't want to find out, but he said since I'm the one carrying the baby, I get 51% of the vote. Hmmm....

the cat's pajamas

• Kyle just came inside to yell at me. "Mo-om," he whined. "Why you put me in pajamas today?" Then he did his little grunt thing he does when he's frustrated. Yes, I dressed Kyle this morning. But no, I did not dress him in pajamas. The shirt he is wearing is most definitely a regular shirt. I bought it at Wal-Mart. I thought it was rather cute, but who am I to judge pre-school fashion? No matter what I have told him, Kyle remains convinced that he is wearing a pajama shirt. The irony of it all is that Troy has dressed him in pajama shirts beforeBut I digress.) And Kyle has gone an entire day without protesting his pajama outfits. But this shirt has him quite upset. I guess we won't be wearing it again for awhile.

• We've started mentioning to Kyle, very casually, that he's going to be getting a baby brother or sister. He believes he is going to have a baby brother, or baby bruddah, as he says. And baby bruddah will be named Tyler. That's because his friend Blake's baby bruddah is named Tyler. But the other day, he conceded that the baby could be named Parker (another baby at day care) or Carter (his friend Isaac's little bruddah). And this morning, he said his baby bruddah will be named Willie Parker. There's a player in the NFL, a running back I believe but I could be wrong, by that name, and Kyle heard it once on ESPN radio and decided it was the funniest name in the whole wide world. He cracks up whenever we say it. Willie Parker. And now he wants his baby bruddah to be Willie Parker. Then, a few moments later, he announced that Baby Herman would be a very good name, too.

Another Random Friday... kind of late

• One thing I learned this week: Dr. Seuss used only 50 words to write Green Eggs and Ham: a, am, and, anywhere, are, be, boat, box, car, could, dark, do, eat, eggs, fox, goat, good, green, ham, here, house, I, if, in, let, like, may, me, mouse, not, on, or, rain, Sam, say, see, so, thank, that, the, them, there, they, train, tree, try, will, with, would, you

• I have discovered coffee flavored milk. And there shall be much rejoicing.
• I finally put up the Christmas tree Thursday night. It is still light-less and ornament-less, but it's a start.
  
• Kyle has been obsessed with playing our pinball machine lately, and suddenly he's gotten very good at it, for a 4-year-old. Pretty soon he's going to be better than I. Not that that's very hard. I'm going to get a video of it one of these days.
  
• This headline cracked me up:
• Other great stories this week:
  

Edgar the Cat's face reattached after accident
Chipmunk takes over woman's car

It wasn't the State Fair, but . . .

I love the State Fair. I worked there for a few years during college, and since then it has held a special place in my heart. I like seeing the animals (for a little while at least, before the smell starts getting to me). I love seeing oceans of people all around me in every direction (for a little while at least, before the smell starts getting to me). But most of all, I love the food. There are the standards: my annual indulgence of cheese curds (I only need them once a year to remember why I only need them once a year), pork chops on a stick, corn on the cob, Sweet Martha's Cookie Jar (heaven in a bucket), and fresh french fries. Excuse me while I wipe the drool off my computer. I love to see each year what new deep-fried food on a stick they've come up with--the possibilities seem endless. I don't need to try them. I just need to see them.

But this year, we decided not to go. We just didn't feel up to following Kyle around ride after ride in the Kiddie Park, not getting to see any of the stuff we wanted to see, putting up with meltdowns every time we tried to leave and go somewhere else. Plus, it's really, really expensive.

Instead, we drove to New Ulm. Yeah, New Ulm. It's about 45 minutes away from here.

What's in New Ulm? Well, our first stop was to see Hermann the German. We thought Kyle might enjoy seeing it. But Kyle is weird about statuary. He loves the buffalo statue here in town. But he freaked out when we tried to show him the spoon and the cherry in Minneapolis. He has also freaked out about the neighbor's ceramic garden frog. And so, he freaked out about our buddy Hermann. Did NOT want to go anywhere near him. Luckily, there was a park nearby, and he had fun playing there for awhile. Before we left, we gave him a chance to see Hermann, but he declined. Troy did go check him out--climbed all the way to the top. But I don't do so well with heights, so I stayed with Kyle on ground level.

After Hermann, we went to Happy Joe's for pizza. Kyle was so impressed. "Wow," he said breathlessly. "That's so cool!"

Hundred-foot statue, meh. Cheap arcade games, now that's amazing.

At one point, Kyle was inspecting one of the games with another little boy. "I saw Hermann the German today!" he told the little boy. I'm sure the other little boy was so impressed.

After Happy Joe's, we went to K-mart. Yes. K-mart. One of my sleazy little pleasures. We don't have one in town anymore, and I miss it. So I go to K-mart whenever I can. In fact, I probably wouldn't have agreed to go to New Ulm instead of the State Fair if there hadn't been a K-mart in New Ulm. Kyle and Troy were bored out of their skulls by the time I finished there, but I found tons of really cute shirts for Kyle for really cheap.

By this time, Kyle was talking big about seeing Hermann. He wanted to drive past him. So we did, but when we asked if he wanted to get out of the car, he freaked again. It's obviously a love affair from afar.

We went to Flandrau State Park next. Troy and Kyle went swimming for a little while, then we spent some time at the play area. Kyle made a new friend--a little girl named Chloe who is starting kindergarten in two days. They were having a blast filling her shoes with pebbles and dumping them onto the metal slide. It made a pretty cool noise. Kyle was sad to leave, but he wanted to drive past Hermann again. Not get out, just drive past. This time I got out and snapped a few pictures.

After that, we stopped for some ice cream at a little shop that sells home-made ice cream. Now, last time we offered ice cream to Kyle, he refused. (I swear, he can't be my child.) So we didn't buy any for him. But after a taste of Daddy's strawberry ice cream, he wanted his own pink ice cream cone. We got him a kiddie size, which we let him eat in the car. Holy mess, batman! He had rivers of ice cream streaming down his arms, even down his legs. He even managed to get ice cream on the front of his hat, which would periodically drip down onto his face.

As soon as we got home, he got a much needed bath.

So, it wasn't the State Fair, but it was still a pretty good day. Kyle had fun, and that was our goal.