Critter’s Krib

Yesterday while running a few errands, I turned around to look at Phoenix and he his fingers in his ears (like when you don’t want to hear something). At first I thought something was wrong, but he just sat there with a smile on his face. Then he would take one finger out of his ear and sit there for a second… almost as if he was listening to the difference it made. I scrambled to grab my phone to snap a picture, but by the time I had grabbed it, he was down to one ear. The picture is still cute, though.

This one just made me laugh (even more so after I saw the picture). His “shorts” look like full length trousers on him. This picture looks like he’s taking a leak.

Talon’s appearance is around 2:46

Nicely done, buddy!

More later (am too bloody tired right now)

It’s a shark. I caughtz it.

It was midnight. we celebrated.

Quick photo upload.. will post and write more later..

We came home from a small get together at my mother’s house the other night, and Talon complained of a headache and couldn’t seem to get warm.

Enter Fever.

Yesterday morning Talon laid down a lovely coat of vomit in the living room, the hallway, and the bathroom. Poor kid. He did better off and on throughout the day yesterday (we had a lazy day in).

Last night I crashed out around 1:30 am, only to be awakened by Talon’s dry heaving into a bucket around 2:00 am.

It has been a long night. His little brother, Kyne (on Katie’s side) is ill too.

Damn you, you stomach churning virus! Damn you!

That is all.

So I haven’t really posted much, but I am still around and kicking. I know you were all worried. Don’t be, I am fine and dandy!

So, anyway, back to the title of the post. Little Phoenix, not so little anymore.  It’s hard to believe a year has past already. Time, in some aspects, has totally flown by. I was just pulling some video off of the camera the other day when I noticed I still had some off the older pictures.

I had forgotten to bring my cable to pull the pictures off the camera, but I had a cable for the video camera, which has the ability to take still pictures. So I took pictures of the back of the camera with the video camera. Aren’t I clever?

I still remember when he was first born. This little alien head just sat there staring at me not making a sound. I can so totally see it in my head. It was very surreal. I remember, after they rushed him off, watching the door to see if anyone seemed to be running any faster than normal. After all he hadn’t made a sound. Nothing at all. I was allowed in to see him after they had him properly wrapped in plastic. It was tough. It was a really hard thing to look at. I could see his intestines through the plastic. He still did not make a sound. They took him off shortly after that, stopping by Jenene for a few moments so she could see him.

I won’t get into the full details of his hospital stay or how long it went, but needless to say, he is doing absolutely fine. One year later, and he shows no signs of any side effects from the gastroschisis and the corrective surgery. The doctors were even able to tie his suture into his belly button. You wouldn’t even know he had a problem…

So that’s it. One year later. He’s doing great, and growing like a weed (except lengthwise, he’s still kind of short) :).

Today is Phoenix’s birthday. He is one year old. The year has really flown by (well some parts of it anyway).

Talon and I woke him up by singing Happy Birthday. I don’t think he was all that impressed. Maybe next year…

Here is a picture of Talon’s turkey project from school. While it was a family project, I wanted Talon to come up with the design and do most of the work. I, obviously, helped him put things together, and helped steer him in the right direction on a couple of things. I also had him re-write his summary several times until it was some of his better work. He worked hard on his handwriting, it was his spacing that was off.

The turkey is mounted on a second piece of cardboard and covered with macaroni. We then glued feathers over those, and glued a few leaves onto the board. We then pasted the turkey and his summary to the board. Talon titled it, and then we were good to go!

I drove Talon to school on Friday so that his board wouldn’t be damaged on the bus. It was interesting to see some of the other projects, and quite evident which ones had a little too much (IMO) assistance from their parents

Talon has a project for school. It’s due tomorrow. We should have it finished up this evening. We have to paste a turkey to a piece of cardboard and decorate it, using macaroni, feathers, etc..

We are gluing it to a separate piece of cardboard, and then we are going to doll it up and stick that onto a larger piece of cardboard. It has to have a title on it, so I guess we will decorate that up as well.

Once all of that is done, Talon has to do a small write up on what steps we took to design and put together our display.

This morning, Talon, Phoenix and I went to the International Festival held at the fair grounds. To be honest, I would have known nothing about it, had it not been for one of Talon’s friends from school participating in it.

We walked around the booths from different countries. It was interesting to see what types of items were there as a representation of the different cultures. Some of them offered food from their countries, but Talon was not interested in experimenting with his food, so he settled on a slice of pizza

Alp’s group (Talon’s friend) was the 8th group to go up for their dance. I did my best to keep Phoenix happy while we waited. He was in the backpack carrier, so I just bounced around as much as possible. I am sure I looked like an idiot, but it did the trick.

While watching the dancers from the different countries, it occurred to me. What if this festival was held in another country. What would the Americans do to demonstrate their culture?

It might sound like a stupid question, but what would be considered ‘our culture’ ? The dances performed at the festival had meaning, they told a story? What dance would be ours? What tells the story of America?

If the Macarena popped into your head, shame on you!