Pink Eye!

It has returned. Maggie is a pink eye magnet! She seems to get it every year. Yesterday she was coughing quite a bit, and today after school, she complained about her eye hurting and there was the nasty green goo in her eye duct. Of course, by the time we figure this out it is 5 pm and the doctor's office is closed. So, Glen is staying home from school tomorrow and taking Maggie to the doctor. I'll be taking Sean to daycare like normal in order to minimize the chance he will get it. Maggie has been really good about washing her hands a lot and not touching Sean today, although it is very hard for her. She is really being quite a trooper actually. I can't even remember the last time she was sick. But she spent the afternoon laying on the couch with a cool rag over her eyes and sucking on a cough drop. Poor thing! I gave her a teaspoon of honey to help with the cough. I read that somewhere honey worked better for a cough than cough syrup. We never used cough syrup anyway, but now that its not considered safe for kids we definately stay away. She didn;t like all that honey at once. But it almost immediately helped and she was able to fall asleep.

Sean is doing well. He was just happily giggling to himself and kicking his legs into the air this evening. I figure he was watching some invisible fairies flitting around. He is loving his baby food too. Scarfs it down at daycare. And almost always eats when offered here at home. I find myself holding back so he won't be too full to nurse.

Oh...and I drew the lottery number for Maggie's application at Villa Montessori (our first choice school). I didn't think I could do worse than last year, but I drew number 47. Looks like we won't be there next year.

Scallions...

Just another day at the Hestenes House.

Hestenes Family Update

What is going on in the Hestenes world?

Adrienne and Glen: Both of us need to update our certification for teaching in Arizona. And of course, as everyone knows, beaurocracy is never fun. We've done our 180+ hours of professional development (Actually, we were both closer to 400+ hours), we've taken the 4 credits of utterally pointless SEI classes (Structured English Immersion), we've updated our fingerprint cards, we've gotten the superintendent to sign off (no easy task as the office is downtown Phoenix in the midst of construction and only open during school hours...why does that make sense???), and now, the least step, is to go to the Arizona Department of Education tommorrow and pay around $200 each to get recertified for another 6 years. Bleh. Tomorrow is the day to do it because Maggie has early release which means Nancy will pick her up so I will have time to do this without having to rush home to pick her up from Kindergarten.

Glen: He found a new frisbee golf course today right next door to Villa Montessori while picking up the application for Maggie. He says that is good luck, so maybe we will get in this year. :) Its only a 9 hole course, but fun. He tried it out.

Maggie: Grandma Nancy picked her up at noon today. They had an adventure in Chandler which included bringing home quail eggs, papaya, coconut, and brown rice candy. Maggie said she saw squid so I am guessing they went to a Chinese Market. Cooked up the quail eggs for Maggie's dinner. She ate 4 of them. They were really tiny.

Sean: Ate his carrots puree and applesauce at daycare today, but no breastmilk. He was doing so well last week too. Downing a bottle everyday. He is back to his old tricks of refusing the bottle again. Guess the growth spurt is over. Sean has moved into a Large diaper (eek!). I've been posting on Diaperswappers to sell off some of his smaller mediums. I really don't want to sell the giraffe one. It is soooooo cute. Why can't he stay small for a while longer....

Glen: Just came running in to announce that the Suns have acquired Shaq (Shaquille ONeal)! He is totally jazzed.

Adrienne: Off to acquire me some icecream. :)

Its a small world!

Sean and I took Maggie to her first art class at Herberger College for Kids. This is a 90 minute long art class on Saturday morning at ASU for 6 weeks. Glen had planned to come as well so we could take a walk around the campus and hang out while Maggie was in her class, but one thing led to another, and when it was time to leave, he wasn't ready. So maybe next week. Turns out I had company anyway! I met Theresa and Larry there, parents of Grayson, who used to be in Maggie's preschool class. 5 years ago, Theresa and I would nurse our babes together during the lunch hour and they even came over for a playdate or two. But they moved Grayson to another preschool at age 2 and we hadn't seen them since. I cannot believe how much he has grown! I remember him as a cute little toddler dressing up in capes with Maggie. Now he is a handsome little boy! Time flies! Anyway, Theresa, Larry and I (and Sean) ended up going over the the MU to grab coffee (them) and orange juice (me). As some of you know, the MU caught fire last semester and has only partially reopened, so I thought it quite ironic that while we were there the fire alarm went off. We took our drinks outside and had a nice time catching up. Turns out Grayson is going to Villa Montessori, one the schools on our list for Maggie. So maybe we will be seeing more of them beyond this art class.

We got home around 11 am, and I went into the bedroom to put Sean down for a nap. Maggie said she was tired so I casually told her to lay down in her room and rest. Usually Maggie will go entertain herself for a little while and then I go give her my attention after Sean is asleep. NEVER in my wildest dreams did I expect Maggie to actually do what I suggested. 10 minutes later I go looking for her and she is curled up in her bed fast asleep. She slept for an hour and a half! Amazing! I guess this last week wore her out. ....all that homework (grumble). ;)

Sean is eating!! And Maggie has too much homework.

As we all know, Sean has never really took a bottle of EBM (expressed breast milk) very well. Every day I pump, bring the bottle to daycare, only to dump it out at the end of the day after Sean, maybe takes 1/2 an ounce. A few times in October he drank an entire bottle and promptly grew a bunch. Well, it looks like we are hitting a growth spurt again. Sean actually drank 4 oz Monday and Tuesday, and 6 oz today. Woo hoo! He also ate an entire jar of baby food each day. Yay Sean! Oh... and Maggie fed him half a jar of baby food at dinner tonight also. I think Sean would have eaten more, but I wanted him to nurse later so I wouldn't let him have the whole jar. He is happily sleeping now with a nice full belly. :)

Maggie had early release from Kindergarten today. Nancy picked her up from school and took her to the Southwest Museum in Mesa. I have never been, but it has dinosaurs, fossils, native american artifacts, and panning for "real gold", as Maggie puts it. She came home with all sorts of new facts about how a dinosaurs brain is smaller than her brain and why the native american made baskets. I think she really had a great time. I'm glad because the past couple of days have been hard for her. Finally, a good day.

Sooooo...math homework has started in Kindergarten for Maggie. Every day she comes home with a worksheet, adding 1 + 2, and such. Its much too abstract for her, and I don't see how she is supposed to do it alone. I've been helping her use nuts to represent the problems so she can count them up. This takes us anywhere between 15 and 30 minutes. Plus she has 10 minutes of reading homework also. Argh!!! I HATE HOMEWORK!!! So far, Maggie is ok with it. But I feel it is too much and have said so to the teacher. She said homework is mandated by the district. Guess I need to put my complaint in there. Maggie is in full day Kindergarten. Not half-day like most places. Can't she do this at school? WHat the heck!?

As you can tell, I am completely against homework for young kids. Homework has been shown to make NO difference in a childs success in school up to grade 5. If Maggie doesn't do her homework, she will miss recess. And as research, and common sense, clearly shows, a student NEEDS physical activity in order to focus. At Maggie's school, PE is already only once a week, and they have only one recess, 45 minutes long. So a kid who misses recess is basically going to turn into a sloth. I could go on for days...but probably no one is reading this now...

Frisbees, Rain, and Emergency Parking Brakes

Glen has been busy at a frisbee golf tournament this weekend. He played 2 rounds yesterday (8-4pm) and is working on another 2 today. The tournament is in Fountain Hills, about 40 minutes away. I packed up the kids and drove out to the Fountain Hills disc golf park yesterday to meet Glen for lunch. It was a nice day, a bit windy. Maggie had fun playing with some girls age 4 and 7 whose dad was also in the tournament, and I chatted with the mom. We remembered to bring some duck bread and Maggie had Cormarants literally eating out of her hands. Had a nice picnic with Glen on his hour break around noon. We finally left the park around 2:30 pm. Maggie was "sweaty hot" from running around the playground so we stopped at a McDonalds to grab a milkshake before getting on the freeway to go home. I put the emergency parking break on because we were parked on an incredibly steep incline. After McDonalds, I packed the kids in the car, Sean fell immediately asleep and I started up the car. And couldn't get the emergency break to release. I remembered this had happened to Glen once and he kid of reached down there and did something to get it to release. I couldn't figure it out though. So I called Glen, hoping I wasn't interrupting anyones putt. But he had turned his cell phone off!! So I called AAA. They said they would send a tow truck, but couldn;t service the car, so they were no help. At this point I tried calling Glen again, but my cell phone battery had died. (Why can't I ever remember to charge that thing??) So I took the kids over to a nearby Circle K to find a payphone, which they don't have. So We trek back to McDonalds and I let Maggie play on the playground there some more while I was thinking what to do. We weren't that far from the frisbee golf park, but too far to walk with 2 kids. I was thinking maybe I could find someone in McDonalds to call a taxi cab for me. THen we could wait for Glen at the park and he could come and fix the car. THat would put as at the park for another 2 hours probably 3 would pass before we'd get home, and Sean was on his last diaper. :( I finally decided just to ask someone at McDonalds to help me so picked out a guy wearing a John Deer cap and he came out and tried to release the parking break. He flagged down another guy and that guy couldn;t figure it out either. Now its a matter of pride for them to fix this thing because they didn't want to leave me in the parking lot with a sleeping baby on my shoulder and a broken car. (Maggie is still having fun on the McDonalds playground. Its and outside one and our car was next to it so she could come over to the fence and check on the progress every once in awhile). Finally, a guy in a jeep was able to fix it. He reattached something or other and had it working in about 30 seconds. Yay!! So we made it home around 4 pm, about 45 minutes before Glen got home. Glen felt bad about my car problems because he said he should have fixed it when it had done that to him a few weeks ago. And also he felt bad about turning off his cell. (He promised he wouldn't do that again)

So today is Sunday, and Glen is back out in Fountain Hills finishing up the tournament. Its been raining nonstop, so I decided not to take the kids out there again. Plus, my throat hurts and I think I'm getting sick. Nancy called this morning and asked if she could take Maggie until dinner time because Tesla was over at her house and needed something to do. (I think she took pity on me with Glen being occupoed this weekend) I happily obliged so now its just Sean and me napping the morning away. Oh...and we did get groceries, and didn't use the parking break. ;)

Wildlife World Zoo

We spent the afternoon exploring a new zoo. Well, new to us anyway. Its way out in Litchfield Park (45-60 minute drive) and much smaller than the Phoenix zoo. However, they had rides, much to Maggie's delight. Here is a picture of Glen and Maggie viewing the animals from the Sky Cab. She is yelling to me that she saw kangaroos. (i'm zoomed in quite a bit...they are up high and a ways away.)

We also saw some animals that Phoenix Zoo doesn't have, like this albino alligator.

Sean and Glen hanging out while Maggie is on the playground,

Me and Sean watching a wildlife encounter.

Sean rode in the stroller a bit today. He had fun, but still prefers the carrier for naps. We had fun but probably wont go more than once a year. Its pretty far away and not too shady. Phoenix zoo makes this operation look kinda rinky-dink. Lots of chain-link fence for animal enclosures. But the sky cab, train, and boat ride makes it worth it from Maggie's perspective. :)