The Joys of Parenthood!

The last couple of days have been pretty relaxed. Jackson woke up yesterday morning with a slight fever and claiming, with tears in his eyes, that he "lost his yawn". Which, translated means that his throat was sore.

We stayed inside all day yesterday, so today I thought it would be fun to carve our pumpkin outside on the porch. I got him changed out of his PJ's, and found us a pattern online that I thought wouldn't be too difficult to carve. The carving kit I bought consisted of a small saw, and a scoop. He claimed the scoop, and told me that I would use the saw. As soon as I cut the top off of the pumpkin, he was out. He didn't want anything to do with mess inside. He wouldn't even come close to it, so he decided that he was going to go to the backyard and play.

Not two minutes after hearing the backdoor shut, I hear him screaming. I, still on the front porch, run through the house and out the door to find him under the trampoline with a can of bug spray (strong stuff, with a lot of deet), covering his eyes. He wouldn't come out, and I couldn't reach him without crawling under the trampoline. Usually that wouldn't be a problem, but right now that's not a very easy task. We run to the bathtub, and I start trying to rinse off his face, and his eyes with a washcloth and water. He's still crying. Then I found one of the medicine syringes that you use for babies. I put some water in it to try to drop it into his eyes.

Now, Jackson is not very trusting when it comes to any medical intervention. He doesn't like it when I try to clean his boo boos, he is scared of neosporine, peroxide, band aids, most anything like that. He doesn't mind taking medicine and vitamins though, because they make them taste so good he thinks it's candy.

With that, I knew it wasn't going to be easy to put drops in his eyes. I ended up having to pin him down in my bed to do it. He was crying the whole time, (which made it even more difficult because his tears made his eyes harder to hold open) and saying that he wanted to go "love his babies"(his many stuffed animals). I know this makes me sound like the worst mom, and I'm sure it was quite traumatizing for him, but I was really worried he was going to go blind or something, and I had no idea how much spray actually got in his eyes to begin with.

It's is so frustrating when you are trying to do something for your child to help them and all they do it fight you on it, and I am well aware that this is a conflict that all parents have with all of their children until they're not children anymore. It's just under different circumstances throughout the different stages of the child's development. Still annoying!

So, after all of the drama, I left him in the house and told him not to go back outside until I finished with the pumpkin (yes I still wanted to finish my Jack-o-lantern). When I came back in, I found him asleep in his bed with all of his babies. So, I think I'm done for the day. Just think, all I wanted was a fun pumpkin carving activity for me and Jackson to do.

I am really starting to worry about the thought of two boys. Don't get me wrong, I can't wait for Colin to be here and for Jackson to meet his little brother. Jackson has just been really good lately at stressing me out and I know how multiple boys together can be. Granted, I know the joys that come from being a parent, and I know they will be two fold with two babies. I also know that there is no greater learning experience in life than raising a child, and no greater trial. I know that there is no greater blessing in life than to be a parent of one of God's children. However, will I be able to remember that when I'm trying to clean bug spray out of two, fighting boys eye's? Let's hope so!

Grapevine Pulling

Today was the Zufelt's annual Grapevine Pulling Party. It's not really a big deal, this is only the second year in a row that we've done it. But it's pretty fun! This year was a little bit more difficult for me than last year, but I still worked hard. So, we get a group of sister's together and go out to this specific super thorny tree somewhere on their, I don't know, 30 something acres and pull grapevine out of it for Tony to decorate her horse pins for The Fall Fest. This year the lucky bunch was Tony, Jenni, Linda, and myself. Jackson had fun running around, dragging vines for us, and playing with all of the animals.

So, I probably did more standing around than anything, but still I was exhausted! After we finished pulling, Jackson got a tour of the farm animals. He got to see the horses, the chickens, the rabbits, the kitten, and, of course, Skip the dog. Skip would chase anything, and Jackson was highly amused. Jackson could through a clump of dirt and Skip would run and pick it up and on occasion eat it. However, I think his favorite was the kitten. He could pick him up and carry him around and the poor thing didn't seem to mind. He had a lot of fun, and ended up worn out, yea!

Thank you Tony for such a fun time! We're definitely looking forward to Fall Fest!

Bug's Life

I just wanted to do a quick post about this cool catterpiller that we found outside. I found one last year too. I don't think this one is as big as the last one, but it's equally impressive. I think it's called a Luna Moth Catterpiller. It's not the best picture, but you get the idea.

Ahh, the Fall!

I am so excited that's finally starting to feel like fall here. Jared left this morning wearing a sweater. I love sweaters! It made me a little happy. I decided yesterday to update the blog with something to celebrate Fall. Then I got a call from Grandma Abraham saying that there was a pumpkin patch up at her school, and to bring Jackson. It worked out perfectly. I gave Jackson a haircut, and got him looking all cute and told him we were going to go take a lot of pictures with all the pumpkins. We don't get too many opportunities to get really cute pictures, so I had to take advantage of it while I could. I hope you all enjoy the pictures!

Jackson picking out his pumpkins.

The sun was a little too bright for Jackson, or the pumpkin was too heavy.

Jackson and Me in the pumpkins. Jackson and Grandma trying to decide.

Superman trying to pick up the big pumpkins.

After experiencing the Pumpkin Patch, we decided to have Jared meet up with us after he got off work and go to the park. The park has a couple of reeally nice walking trails, and Jackson loves going for walks.

Jackson riding his race car, and 3 yr old Jackson doing the monkey bars with just a little help from Grandma.

Jackson was trying to show us how your supposed to workout on that piece of equipment.

We had a really fun evening, and Jackson passed out in the car before we could get home(Yea!)

We are excited for the cooler weather and the chance to get outside more without overheating. On top of that, I've been telling myself this entire pregnancy that when it starts getting cold and we start seeing all of the holiday stuff on all the shelves at the store, it would almost be time for Colin to be here, so bring on the Holidays!

Oh, Jared!

Okay, so, I think everyone is aware of Jared's knee surgery by now. If not you can refer back a couple of blogs. His knee is looking great! He's having some trouble getting it to straighten out completely, so he's sort of getting in trouble from his physical therapist.
Well, this is the new situation. When Jared got home from work on Wednesday, he was changing out of his work clothes, he started to take off his knee brace that he wears everyday, and I noticed a red spot (kind of like a whelp) on his leg about five inches above his knee and a little to the right. He hadn't felt anything and it didn't seem like a big deal. We thought maybe it was just from his brace. The next morning when I looked at it, it had doubled in size and had a bluish color in center of it, and he said he was feeling lightheaded and anxious. Now I was getting worried! 8:30, I called the doctors office. I was told that they would pull his chart and give us a call when the assistant (Bonnie) got there. Our first thought was blood clot, probably superficial, but still. He went to work, and I spent the whole day trying to get in touch with his surgeon. Well, Thursdays are the doctor's surgery days, so he and his assistant were out all day. At some point I called back and was able to set an appointment for 3:30 the next day, and I was told later that I probably wouldn't hear anything from the Dr. until after 4:00 because that's when he usually finishes with the surgeries. Finally, I get a call back from the nurse in the office saying that Bonnie thought it was just swelling from the surgery and that she would see us tomorrow. We'll I knew that wasn't right, but I thought "Fine, they are just going to be surprised when they see his leg tomorrow." So, Jared comes home that night, his leg looking about the same (he had worn his brace all day). I drew some lines around it so that we could tell if the redness was spreading, and we went to bed. The next morning, Friday, he took a bath and it looked as though it had spread about a quarter of an inch around. I called the Dr's office and moved his appointment up to 1:15, and he took off work for the morning. We get there, they call us back, and we wait. Bonnie comes in first to access the situation, and was completely caught off guard by what she saw. She said "I have no idea, I have never seen anything like that". She said she was going to get Dr. Bothwell to come and look at it. She leaves and a couple minutes later we hear a knock on the door. Three nurses were curious and wanted to come in and look at this strange spot on Jared's leg. A few minutes later Dr. Bothwell comes in. He's a really nice guy. He's a tall guy with a fun personality, kind of like a big kid. So, the first thing he says is " What the heck is that!" We all laugh, but with a concerned look, he starts to look over Jared's leg. He's not sure what it is, but does determine that it's not from the surgery. He advises us to go to the Emergency Room to have it looked at so we can start treating it. So, we're off! Just down the street to the Harris Emergency Room. We pick up lunch on the way, and then we go get admitted. And might I add, that Emergency Room's gross me out! I was totally paranoid the whole time think that Jackson was going to contract some strange illness. Thank Goodness for those hand sanitizer pumps that they place on all the walls in there. So after being there for a couple of hour's, getting a room, and Jared changing into one of those lovely gowns, we finally see a doctor. He comes in with his two interns, and diagnosis Jared with none other than a Brown Recluse bite. Only one of the worst kinds of spider bites you can get. And I will also add that I didn't really like that doctor. Anyway, so he writes Jared a prescription for a couple different antibiotics, and about another hour later, we get to leave.
What an adventure! The next day Jared worked on my car and then went to help is friend work on putting siding on a shed. So, by the end of Saturday, that nice blue spot was black. He took it easy all day Sunday, so it hasn't changed much more, but it still looks pretty gross. He got online and looked up other cases of Brown Recluse bites, and got a little freaked out. They can get really bad, but I think that his will heal okay. I bet there will be a scar though, and it will probably be worse than any of the one's he got from surgery! These picts were taken on the same day, but you can tell how much more black it turned within a couple of hours. Yikes!

Well, we hope not......

I found this website that will let you upload pictures of yourself and your partner, and it supposed to determine what your baby will look like. Apparently we're having and multi racial baby who's gender is a little ambiguous! Anyways, thought it was super funny and thought I should pass it along. Nicole & Nathan, we would love to see what your little one will look like.

Getting Ready for Colin!

I don't think that I am the best about finding fun things for Jackson to do to keep him occupied, but yesterday while we were at Hobby Lobby getting a few things for YW I decided to buy Colin's wall letters. I had a really cool idea how to incorporate Jackson's letters and Colin's letters together, but I couldn't find the same kinds of letters. So that idea wasn't going to work. Instead I decided to let them have their own different letters. Today, I started a project for Jackson to help me with. We started painting Colin's name to hang on the wall above his crib. Jackson's letters are blue, so I let him decide what color to paint Colin's letters. You'll have to excuse him in his underwear, that's usually what he wears around the house. He had a real fun time painting, and even said "I love to paint!" I guess I'll have to find some more painting projects for him.









I just thought I would include a picture of some homemade snickerdoodles I made for Jared to help make his knee feel better ;) He said that they were "Perfect!" I guess I'll have to make them again.