1. Christmas cards! I've already posted my call, but I'm going to repeat it because I know some people fall behind on checking LJ, overlook a post, etc. If you're interested in being on my Christmas card list, go to this post and sign up. I love this season. I'd like to be able to include you in my cheer!

2. Alicia is feeling better, but now Alex is sick. They're off school tomorrow because of Veteran's Day, and Craig is working from home, too, so I'm going to have a full house.

3. Pepper and I are trying something new in our collaborative process that is terrifying both of us, lol. I'm hoping the end result turns out great to make all this nail-biting worth it.

4. I'm in a bit of pain today. Last night, I realized after I'd gone to bed that I'd forgotten my phone downstairs. So I went down, without turning on any lights and very tired, and promptly missed the bottom two stairs. I fell down and landed on the hard tile at the bottom on my left shoulder, jamming my left wrist and twisting my right ankle. Oh, and skinning both of my knees and my left elbow. Fun, huh?

I should probably post an update about what's been going on with me...

1. ( American Idol results )

2. It's been a week of medical stuff. Craig had an outpatient procedure done on Tuesday that thankfully showed he's healthy, so that's a plus. On the not so plus side...( Stuff about my mom )

3. Speaking of medical stuff, Alex's cough is back. :(

4. We've gone ahead and purchased the kids' flights for the UK. They'll be gone for 5 weeks. I also might be taking an interim trip with them out to visit my mom before that.

5. My 10th wedding anniversary is next week. Craig and I don't have real plans, because, guess what, we're hosting the Girl Scouts end of the year sleepover at our house the same night, lol. We've decided to do something after the kids leave for the UK to celebrate both our anniversary and my birthday in July. Right now, we're going back and forth between NYC and Hawaii. I think I'd have more fun in NYC, but we've never been to Hawaii.

6. The new house is underway. Craig has thrown up a website for us to share pictures and videos of the process. It's easier than wasting bandwidth to show family, so I'm sharing the site with you, in case anyone's interested. :) The interior pictures of the model home are just for reference. For instance, one picture of the kitchen has the layout, while the other has the cabinets/countertops I picked out. Ditto for the pictures on the floors. We wanted reference of the carpet and tile we picked out (the lighter ones), rather than just the dark tile in the model home.

Alex has been sick since Wednesday with a fever that just wouldn't go away. ( Cut for medical drama )

He seems better this morning, and actually wanted to eat a little bit of something, which is a good sign since he's had zero appetite since Wednesday. And at least it's spring break so he's not missing any school. He and I are missing the A's game we had tickets to tonight, but we'll just have a quiet night in, just the two of us instead.

We had to spend a couple hours at the doctor's office this morning. Alex has had a cold and persistent cough for almost a month now, and this morning, he wandered into our bedroom complaining he couldn't breathe. So we took him in. He was *so* wheezy, they had to put him on oxygen for 15 minutes just to clear his lungs enough to get a good listen.

Turns out his cold and coughing have messed with his lungs to the point where they're all constricting. So he's now got an inhaler to use until it clears. It about broke my heart the first time he used it after we got home. He got his two blasts, took a breath, and then beamed up at me and exclaimed how wonderful it was to be able to breathe.

Craig had mild asthma as a kid. I had a chronic bronchial cough. Poor Alex never had a chance, lol.

Alex has his very first loose tooth.

My baby's growing up.

I feel soooooooooo old.

This is probably the last comment I'll end up responding to, if only because I've got all these other posts pushing that post down, lol.

teragramm asked, Childbirth, was it hard for you?

I have a confession to make.

I have absolutely no idea what a labor pain really feels like.

( Cut because this got long )

Conversation overheard tonight when Alicia was trying to teach Alex a swing dance she learned at school:

ALEX: You want to tickle me!
ALICIA: No, I just want to show you the dance. Come on. It's fun!
ALEX: It's not. You're tickling me! (lots of giggles)
ALICIA: It's not tickling. It's dancing.
ALEX: (breathless giggling) Okay, okay, wait a minute!
ALICIA: What?
ALEX: Okay. I'll let you tickle me. For $10.


I think Alex and I need to have a talk about letting people do stuff to him for money, lol.

So, curious to see Craig's car?

( Craig's car )

What's so funny is that the picture he took from the driver's side of the car makes it look the car is perfectly fine. I'm glad he didn't make me look at it any sooner, lol.

Oh, and I learned something new about Alex yesterday when he was getting dressed. Apparently, my son insists on matching his underwear to his clothes. He will select his clothes specifically based on the color of his underwear, or vice versa. I have absolutely no idea where he gets this from, lol.

Well, I managed to sleep in until 4:45 this morning. And came out to see Alex wide awake. It'll be an interesting day, lol.

My little guy is home from school today. He was up half the night vomiting.

My big guy is home from work today. He got up with me when Alex started in last night, but having his sleep disrupted messed up with the body clock he was trying to restart. He ended up wide awake and staying up with Alex.

So I'm Nurse Mom today.

Alicia's at a sleepover tonight, so it's just me and my little man. Alex was very disappointed he didn't get to do anything special tonight, so I let him pick out dinner. McDonald's unsurprisingly. And he begged to sleep in my room tonight, so I indulged that, too. He would have just come down in the middle of the night anyway.

But I'm trying to keep busy, so I spent a good part of today coding on the Jamie Craig site. We have a new section, wallpapers made from our book covers. pepperlandgirl4 made them with permission from the original artists. We're planning on keeping this regularly updated, with those covers that we love, so expect to see more.

First day of school. Up at 6:30 because they've changed the start time to 15 minutes earlier.

Alicia was up at 5. Needless to say, she's a tad excited. Oh, and Tonio, her best friend from kindergarten who got separated from her last year, is in her class again. Thank god.

Alex was asking to leave at 7:15. A half hour earlier than we had to go.

I'm guessing they're happy about school. :)

Winners are posted for the current round of LLGA. Congratulations to all the winners! Many thanks go to all my hard-working judges, and to the wonderful gals who make the plaques - i_digress_uk, vampkiss, and hollydb.

Thank you so much to everybody for their hugs and well wishes. You have no idea how much they mean to me. My grandmother's funeral is Monday morning. I called Craig to let him know, he called his boss, who promptly told him to turn around and come home. Family comes first. So tomorrow evening, we're on a plane to Michigan. I'll get to see my family Sunday, we'll go to the funeral on Monday, then early Tuesday morning, we'll fly home. I'm glad for this. It's going to be tiring, but the closure I'm going to get is going to make it worth it.

I still had to go and sit through Alex's pre-k graduation tonight. It was a welcome distraction. I got my aw moment, too. All the kids were asked what they wanted to be when the grew up, and amidst all the fairies and cowboys and soccer players, my little boy announces that he wants to be an animal doctor because he doesn't like to see animals hurting. Of course, the best answer was one boy who wanted to be a mommy doctor. Because he loved his mommy and all mommies should have somebody to take care of them.

In a time when all I can think about is how the woman who helped raise me is now gone, it was good to be reminded of why life goes on.

My little guy's fever is back, and now he's complaining about his brain hurting. He seemed so much better today; I hate these flash fevers.

So I'm going to leave him home from pre-k tomorrow and cancel my guitar lesson so that I can keep him in bed all day to fully fight whatever it is his little body is trying to get rid of. Another week of practicing will do me good. And hopefully a day of being pampered will be what Alex needs.

Alex is doing better today, though he's still snuggled up on the couch. I think he's just worn down from poor sleeping. He hasn't been sleeping well since Craig left, and keeps crawling into bed with me. And for some reason, he's always been susceptible to these flash fevers with no other symptoms ever since he was a baby. It used to really freak me out, but they never last and the docs told me to stop worrying about it, so I did. It's just his body's way of forcing him to slow down, we think. Because god knows, he doesn't unless he's forced.

Even with my spike on the scale Saturday, I still managed to count another pound down for the week. That's 11 total. Go me. :) I'm starting to notice a small difference in my clothes. Like the fact that my pants are comfortable as soon as I put them on instead of six hours later when they've had a chance to stretch out. ;)

Figured out last night I only have 6 chapters left on my book. So my goal is to have it done by this time next week. That will give me a couple days to edit, and I'll have it sent off to Liquid Silver by the time Craig gets home, which was my original goal. Then I can start working on Tomas' story. He's the main character in my short story that's coming out with Phaze in December, and he's been screaming at me for a longer adventure for 2 months now. I'm really looking forward to it. There's vampire cowboys, an egomaniacal bad guy with a penchant for Vegas showgirls and Barry Manilow, the return of my thief-for-hire Jett, and a heroine who attracts bad luck like cats to cream. And Tomas. Darling, darling Tomas, stuck in the middle of it all. Of course, I still need to find its damn title...

Alex is unwell today, running a low-grade fever and generally not his usual perky self. He's not congested or anything, but he doesn't have an appetite, so I've turned this afternoon into a lazy TV afternoon, and he and Alicia are parked on the couches, wrapped in blankets, watching Avatar.

It gives me something to focus on other than my own maudlin needs. And I did manage to read another book before going to bed last night and writing another 500 words on the next chapter of my book, so that helped, too.

Oh, and having Christmas music playing helps, too. Yes, I'm one of those. It came out the day after Halloween. :D

You know how some kids have security blankets? Alex seems to have gained a security...ball of clay.

Yep. You read that right. Alicia got a tiny packet of modeling clay at a birthday party a couple weeks ago. Alex got part of the clay a couple days ago, and ever since, he's refused to put it down. He's even named it. He calls it Greenie. He carries it everywhere, he threw a fit last night when Craig took it away at bedtime and then this morning on the door out for nursery, he threw a fit because he didn't have it. So we went upstairs to get it only to discover that Alex had snitched it off the dresser where Craig had put it and slept with it after all.

Every time I catch him chatting to it, I giggle hysterically.

( Cut for icky TMI about my children's health )

So, it's been a long day. Hopefully tomorrow will be better.

I think I have a long night ahead of me. Alex has been vomiting for the past four hours. Poor little guy can't even keep down water. The plus side is that he doesn't have a fever or any other symptoms (other than being tired from the vomiting), so hopefully this is just a 24-hour thing. I just have to keep an eye on him.

My son is such a drama queen.

We had to go to Safeway, and he's just gotten too big to put into the seat on the trolley, so on the promise that he would be good, I told him he could walk around. He was very helpful, like he always is, putting stuff into the cart and holding bags for me. He was also incredibly excited and inquisitive today, pointing to things that captured his eye and asking me questions about them. He even made a beeline for the meat counter because they always have whole crabs and he loves seeing them.

By the time we got to the opposite end of the store, there were three women who were behind us watching his every movement. They could have passed me at any point, but Alex was being far too entertaining, I guess, for them to bother. As soon as Alex realized he had an audience, he began doing everything backwards so that he could watch their reactions.

That was when he ran into the Cheerios display. Backwards. At full tilt.

The display didn't survive. And Alex had four nurses leaping to his aid and drag him out before he was crushed by the avalanche. I don't think he's been fawned over that much since he had to get his stitches last year.

*sigh*

He's only just shy of 4. I'm in so much trouble as he gets older.