28 Years, 48 Roses, 4 eyes - and a Trip to the ER (AGAIN)

It was my birthday yesterday. We all celebrated it a day early because, as you may know, whenever we celebrate on my birthday with Kenneth, Lesley, and their kids we end up in the ER with one of the kids (Brandon) and a broken arm. This year we were taking no chances so we celebrated a day early. Turns out it's not the day, it's the actual celebrating... But I'll get to that...

Chris bought me 2 dozen roses. But it gets better! He found 23 ladies at work to deliver them to me, one at a time throughout the day. Then he brought in the final rose. On each stem was a note tied with a ribbon of a reason he loves me. Sweet and thoughtful! So all of the ladies at work know he's a great, romantic husband and I have 24 roses at work which are gorgeous!

Lesley bought me 2 dozen beautiful roses without even talking to Chris about it. You can never have too many roses. Her's are beautiful and they smell so great. So I have 24 roses at home. 48 roses... I am spoiled.

Lesley, Kenneth, and kids also treated us to a South African pancake dinner. Not like American pancakes, this is a cross between our pancakes and a taco/fajita thing. Delicious. And then there was cake.

So we made the kids stay in the house thinking if no one went outside there would be no falling off the jungle gym or out of a tree. Just as we were wrapping the evening up Chris said we needed to go to the ER. He's been getting headaches for about two months now and this one just kept getting worse and worse to the point he was slurring some speech and having muscle problems. And so, we spent the night at the ER. Lesley is my angel - she sat in the waiting room with Wilson the whole evening.

Chris is fine, the CAT scans were normal and they recommended seeing a specialist. Then they gave us our ER bill. I stayed home with Chris and Wilson yesterday and spent my birthday catching up on the sleep we all had missed the night before. As I'm taking care of "the boys", I think to myself - he's been staring at computers and PDAs and all manner of electronics for 10 - 12 hours a day. So I asked him if he needed to see an eye doctor. He says he has 20/15 vision. I think over the last 6 years and realize I can't remember him getting an eye exam. I asked when the last eye exam was administered. He said when he was 19. Well, darling, that was 10 years ago. I called my eye doctor and we got him right in this afternoon. Seems his distance vision is fine but he needs to wear glasses to see his computer screens and to read. We went out and bought him his very first pair of glasses! How exciting! The thing is that he's not thrilled about it. I'm not sympathetic. I got my first pair when I was 7 years old and those weren't just for working on the computer - those were so I didn't walk out in front of a car, fall into a hole, or run into a tree.

This is the last birthday we will celebrate with Kenneth, Lesley, and the kids. Next May they return to Johannesburg - which means we will probably have ER free birthdays every September from here on out...

Dallas World Aquarium

If you haven't been it's really a neat place to go. Mom, Dad, Chris, Wilson, and I decided since Rita was on the way and since the Ft. Worth Air Show was cancelled because of Rita, we would spend our day over in the aquarium. It was a lot of fun.

Wilson loves fish, penguins, big cats, birds, and souvenirs so this was ideal for him. Again, Chris is in none of these pictures because he refuses to hand over the camera so it's not like we didn't bring him or want to include him on the blog. He's just like having your own personal paparazzi.

He doesn't like lizards, no matter how much glass they are behind.

Mom likes Sting Rays - she says they are happy because their little mouths look like smiles.

Wilson was telling this fish all about everything. Really.

It's also the root of all evil...

"What turtles?"

Wilson

This tank had the cast from Finding Nemo in it...

Gil...

Nemo with Marlin

When we told Wilson these are what shrimp look like before they are battered and fried he just kept asking when dinner was.

Poppy - these fish are all so pretty and they all look so delicious!

Hard to walk and look for sharks at the same time.

There are sharks swimming just above him here.

We have two cats and Wilson just couldn't understand why he couldn't "Let the kitty out to play" with him. Wilson loves cats.

"Look penguin, I bought a souvenir!"

Remnants of Rita - which was a huge let down for me and my yard since I didn't even get a solitary DROP of water.

Holding on so he doesn't "blow away."

My Kingdom for a ...

small fortune. Look, the thing is that I couldn't really say what I wanted for my birthday. I wanted to do something fun with my parents, my husband, and my kid - plus with all the money we would have spent on that high school reunion I ditched, this seemed like a fun thing to do that everyone would have an entertaining time at.

So I bought the family a night (or knight - but that's a really really bad pun only Chris would think up) at the Medieval Times in Dallas. Wilson loves the movies A Knight's Tale, Robin Hood (Disney animated version), and swordfighting is sort of like using a light-saber. One day I'll share with Wilson the semester I spent in a Medieval Studies class in college where we learned the way to make a book - pressing the rag together to make paper, making our own quill pens and ink, sewing a binding for the book but right now the only thing that interests him from the Medieval period are knights. Can't say I blame him, the bookmaking was sort of an academic sleeping pill. Also, I've scored cool points with Will because in college I was on a fencing team so "Mommy can sword fight." I'll take all the cool points I can now because I know a teenager is lurking in that preschooler waiting to go off like a time bomb and then no more cool points will be awarded (until his freshman English class and then I will be his best friend...)

It was a fun experience that you really only do once. The food was good, the cast was entertaining, watching Wilson enter the castle and seeing him experience this was really neat. I couldn't have asked for a better present. :)

#1 - I don't like dress up but I would have been the ONLY one in the room not wearing my Burger King crown (the color signifies your knight to cheer for). #2 - I wasn't going to be a party pooper and ruin all of the excitement. #3 - No one sees this blog anyway, so who cares if I'm wearing a cardboard box on my head? #4 - The ridiculous hat draws attention up, away from my rear - at least I'm sure that's what my sister-in-law Christy would say. :)

Poppy decided THIS is the way he wants to retire. No, not working at Medieval Times, just the throne, the servants, the robe... Good luck with that.

Sir Wilson of Preschool

Everyone else had one, so we got him one. It lights up - most helpful in a dark theater when you're trying to see things like your food, your napkin, your menu, your wallet... Well worth the $5.

That drink was HOW much?!...

...You're kidding, right?

Waiting for our "serving wench".

The cast all comes in and you get a pretty good idea what the plot line is. Wilson was WAY too into this to get excited about his meal.

We had the red knight who sort of looked like Leonardo DiCaprio. Mom and I were interested in his conditioner because his hair looked to be in better shape than the other knights.

Jousting - just before our knight was "killed".

So now Will thinks you actually CAN grow up and be a knight. Do you go to college for this or do you just show up with the hair, the smile, and the tights?

I Love Lucy

Wilson came home and announced he was getting married soon. This was news to me. I knew/understood/prayed one day he would move out and get married, I just had no idea it was going to be so soon. Chris nodded, yes, Wilson had decided to get married and Chris was aware of the "romance" for some time now.

Chris normally drops Wilson off at school in the morning so he knew that little Lucy waits for Wilson every morning to begin their day. Wilson has decided he and Lucy are getting married. I asked why, though I have to tell you Lucy is a doll, her parents are extremely nice, and they threw a heck of a third birthday party at "The Cheese" earlier this summer (Chuck E. that is). Wilson's response was that "Lucy fights with us and she kisses me on the big playground". In other words, Lucy can put up with the boys. Lucy's been around forever but there were girls older and more outgoing than Lucy for the last few years - first there was Jordan, then Sarah-Joy, then Maria (who never paid a bit of attention to Wilson even though he did his best to impress her at swimming lessons - Maria's older and she probably wants a "man" of at least 4 or 5) - now it's "I love Lucy". That will make his Honey happy - she loves that TV show.

So I asked Wilson how he was going to support his Lucy. Things like where will they live, how's he going to support her, and other questions we asked just to see what the responses were. Here's what we were told:

• They will live at school. (Smart kid, they have a dietician for the kids so no one will need to cook and the janitorial staff will probably clean up for them.)
• Wilson has plenty of money in his blue piggy bank. Probably $6.
• Their wedding reception? At "The Cheese" of course, but Lucy doesn't really like the mouse.
• He will still come over and water my yard, but I will probably have to start paying him.
• He's going to go to college and he will let Lucy go too.

After dinner we had the news on. Hurricane Rita is heading to Texas. Wilson is concerned about this because he's been praying at night for our friends in New Orleans who lost their house last month. We reassured him that we are in north Texas and Daddy would take care of us even if we were in danger, which we are not. Wilson later told me he can't get married to Lucy now because of Rita. I guess that means the wedding will have to be postponed until after hurricane season.

We had planned to spend this very weekend in Galveston as our last family hooray for the year and for my birthday. We were going to get on the beach, go to NASA, and see some friends in Houston. Luckily, for us, Mom and Dad said they would like to fly to Ft. Worth for my birthday. This was our only free weekend so we told them to fly on down. That's what Mom's are for - coming to visit you on your birthday so you don't end up getting your Galveston vacation ruined. My mother versus Mother Nature.

In other news, I would like to mention our dear friends Tommy, Karen, and little Maria are now in the strange position of being Hurricane Rita refugees. They finally took that Caribbean cruise. They are docked in Jamaica as refugees on a cruise ship and get an extended vacation due to Rita. What a hard, hard life it must be: Jamaica, 24 hour buffets, live entertainment, games, swimming pools...

And the Baby is a...

...boy or a girl. It's definitely one or the other.

So we don't know the gender of the baby - this one had his/her legs crossed and wasn't budging or cooperating. Figures. Four years ago Wilson used his umbilical cord to block any view. The doctor says they can be stubborn - yes, they can. And they can stay that way well into preschool. We weren't disappointed. We knew what our firstborn did and since these two share the same genetic pool, well, we knew what to expect today. Chris says it's no wonder - he says with my dad and my grandpa he didn't expect anything less. Ha Ha.

Well, since we can't tell you what the baby is, we will tell you who the baby is. The first name is Reagan. It will work either way. We learned our lesson last time when our finalist names were Wilson and Anna Catherine. We had to refer to Wilson as "it" until he was born. Now we can refer to Reagan as "Reagan", and not as "it". Of course, Peanut still works, but Reagan doesn't really look much like a peanut anymore.

Reagan was a name we both loved four years ago, but in the end we decided to do family names for our first born. I have a dear friend named Regan - we added the "a" so both kids are presidents - one democrat and one republican so we are fair and balanced here. If anyone had ever paid attention to our XBOX games - the NCAA football game where Chris created a super athlete quarterback named Wilson Crouch for the Baylor team was replaced upon his graduation by quarterback Reagan Crouch. But then, our Reagan could be a boy or a girl...

Soon Chris will put more pictures and try to put some of the video on the blog sometime this weekend. Reagan looks healthy and we are still on target for our due date in February. The due date is the one day the baby absolutely will NOT arrive on. Our's is February 11, 2006 for Reagan to not arrive on. :)

Ponderosa, Part II

Picking up my mail out of our mailbox I notice a noise, a noise like running water. I think, "No one is home and the pets don't have thumbs - necessary if you're planning to turn on a faucet..." I look down at the freshly dug hole next to the house. "Funny," I thought, "I don't remember purchasing a decorative fountain...and if I did purchase one, what an odd place to put it!" The new pipe where it attaches to the house had become a mini version of Old Faithful. Wilson and I run inside and call Chris to tell him to get home as fast as he can. He tells me where the "thingy" is that turns the water off at the meter. I grab it, Wilson and I run out to the meter. We have two fountains - one at the house and one at the meter. Chris pulls up, jumps out of the car and turns the water off. He has our realtor on speed dial.

No telling how long the break has been going. And, of course, it hasn't rained in Fort Worth in days and days - until this afternoon, so our neighbor who saved us the other day wouldn't have noticed a wet sidewalk today. And it rained pretty good, so the puddle at the house could have been from the rain and the pipe could have broken just as I got the mail - but we all know better now, don't we?

Hallelujah Chorus...

...Or Handel's Water Music - I'm not sure which is more appropriate when you have running water after 24 hours without it. Either way, we're back in plumbing business. Wilson couldn't be happier in his bubble bath.

I have to admit, I was a little concerned this afternoon when the van pulled up to the house. On the side of the van was "Air Conditioning/Heating/Small Appliances/Electric/Plumbing". I told Chris at least they also didn't dabble in taxidermy and wedding planning. Chris said it probably wouldn't fit on the side of the van. At any rate they dug up the yard, replaced the old broken pipe that looked like it was partially made from Swiss Cheese, and got the water going again. They even patched the yard back up and said they were sorry about my flower bed. I didn't care - I have indoor plumbing and I can always plant more bulbs.

The men working on the house told me to give their best to "the man of the house". Chris stopped by late this afternoon before heading over to Dallas. He got the guys big cups, ice, and bottled water since he noticed it was over 100 degrees and there wasn't a water cooler in sight. He's thoughtful that way. They all appreciated him a lot they said as Will and I arrived home after work. Chris is a great guy, if I do say so myself.

Tomorrow is G-day, the day we "might" find out Peanut's gender. We'll see. Tonight our primary concern is getting some sleep since it was hard to come by after the events of last night. Here's hoping.

Ponderosa to the Extreme

Some of you know my family. Some of you even know our term for when things just go from bad to worse, we Davidsons call it "Ponderosa". Today was Ponderosa at it's worse:

I'm sick with some sort of cold that won't go away. Chris agreed to take care of dinner tonight, but he has a big test in the morning and got out if the office late (Ponderosa 1), so he thought it would increase his study time if we went out to eat dinner and then he could come home and study. All went well until we arrived home and Chris went to turn on the water faucet. No water (Ponderosa 2). Now, I have to say in our neighborhood this is not an uncommon occurrence. The water company is always around somewhere on our street fixing broken pipes. Our neighbor came over to tell us the news - right after lunch today he went out and saw a water break in our front yard, exactly 5 minutes after Chris and I had left the house on our way back to work (Ponderosa 3). Being the wonderful neighbor he is, he turned off our water at the meter so we wouldn't have to pay for a water leak. Well, Chris gets on the phone with the city water company. She asks where the break is and when Chris tells her, she seems all too excited to tell us "The City is responsible for the pipes from the street to the meter. From the meter to the house is the homeowner's responsibility." Then she bade us a good evening.... Right. (Ponderosa 4.)

By this time it is nearly 8 pm. By the time we call our landlord and give him the good news and call our realtor and give her the good news it is nearly 9 pm. Chris hasn't studied yet. We have the world's best landlord (and I'm not just saying that because they know about the blog - they truly are a huge blessing to our family and have been ever since we arrived in Fort Worth 5 years ago), and we have the world's best realtor (and she doesn't have the blog address, she is really the best) - but there isn't a plumber that will come out and dig up your yard at 9 pm and try to fix your water problem (Ponderosa 5). So, our landlord offered us their spare rooms, but we as a family decided this would be a fun adventure - like camping, only we have electricity, cable TV, and a wireless network. Besides, by the time we got settled somewhere else, Chris would have lost more study time. So we settle in at our house.

If this were a horror movie, this would be the part where the audience in the theater started saying "Don't stay in the house! Get out of the house!" Unfortunately our lives don't have a live studio audience and we couldn't see that Ponderosa was going to get worse.

The first thing is that, although there are five different varieties of cold beverages in the refrigerator, suddenly everyone HAD to have ice water (Ponderosa 6). I told Chris several times we just bought a pack of bottled water two nights ago for my office that I hadn't taken in to work yet - it was still in the trunk. A few minutes later I see Chris in the kitchen, defrosting ice cubes in the microwave. I must have told him about the bottled water in some language other than English, perhaps French... So he tells me I never said anything about the bottled water and sends me out to the Expedition to get water. I take Wilson along for help. I'm barefoot and pregnant, he's a three year old who is mad that I have called him outside while he is watching his favorite cartoon. He runs off and leaves me - I shout after him to tell his father to come help. Apparently I am still speaking French. Help never comes.

The driveway is sloped from the garage down to the street. I am 5'4". The Expedition no longer has that handy little strap that hangs down from the hatch to help short people shut it once it is open, thanks to Callie who chewed it off back in July (Ponderosa 7). I get stuck somewhere between the hatch and the ground, barefoot, pregnant, and in my dress from work, a short dress so now I just know my rear is visible to anyone who should pass on the street (Ponderosa 8). Just when I think I'm going to be stranded between an Expedition hatch and the earth forever, Chris comes out to see what in the world is taking me so long with that water.

We get inside. The dogs are fighting over a bone, even though we purchased plenty of bones for each dog - they just want to fight over that one. Callie has gone into heat, one month before she is scheduled to be spayed (Ponderosa 9). Wilson decides he can't possibly go to bed without a bubble bath though most nights he couldn't care less, Chris still hasn't started studying, and I'm thinking we will never, ever be able to go camping because we will kill each other in a tent. Then, we realize Wilson is missing - he is in the bathroom, "going". I get sick and need to vomit, but there's not a trash can handy, the one toilet in the house is occupied, and Chris is threatening to carry me outside if I "don't get a handle on the nausea" (Ponderosa 10).

Finally we decide the only thing we can do is break down and laugh about this. After all, this was just one night without water - you should see us when our electricity goes out for 30 minutes...

Chef W

Chris has been working a lot lately and some of his work is being done in his home office. My job, while he's doing his, is to keep Wilson from interrupting business phone calls. Just from personal experience, this is important - last Spring I was working from home with Wilson. I had to make 150 business calls, but the first man I was speaking to started laughing so hard I could hear him crying. Apparently he could hear Wilson screaming "Mommy, the dog pooped on the floor!" I had to wait and get all calls in during an hour and a half nap time.

The easiest way to get Wilson occupied is to employ him as a "Big Helper". The kid loves to be a helper, which is great. So we cleaned, did the laundry, and I had to find something else to keep Wilson from getting involved in business calls. I decided Wilson was big enough to bake a cake. All I did was open, measure things, turn on the oven, and crack the eggs. Wilson did the stirring and the pouring and his cake turned out pretty good. Until you looked at it. The chef decided to poke his finger in the cake as it cooled and then helped himself to the icing (taste testing perhaps) while it was on the cake. These are things I found out after the icing had already set. Wilson took another look at his cake and the "creative touches" he added. He said "It's not pretty." So I imparted the only cooking advice I could to my son - there are only two things you should never be without in the kitchen, cajun seasoning and powdered sugar. Powdered sugar - the remedy for ugly cakes everywhere. (Cajun seasoning is what you use if you accidently burn something. You throw cajun spice on the burned meal and tell everyone it is "blackened".) So he sprinkled powdered sugar on his cake, hiding his earlier alterations and no one could tell the difference.

After the cake Wilson played in the kitchen with his playdough activity center. This activity center was purchased as a gift for Wilson by his Uncle Nate and his Aunt Christy who had no children at the time of the exchange. In a year I will repay the favor and get Adison a playdough center - and they can experience the joy of picking dried playdough out of their carpets and off of their walls. I put the playdough center in the kitchen where I assumed it would be safe on the tiled floor. I went to put up the laundry and a few minutes later I was joined by our two dogs, both had green stuff around their mouths and, as I discovered on further examination, in their teeth. In the kitchen Wilson had decided that since he made a cake he should go ahead and make a green playdough spaghetti dinner. He fed it to the dogs. Apparently it was delicious. So I did some mad scrambling and discovered playdough isn't toxic for dogs, although I can tell you now from experience that playdough is an excellent remedy for canine constipation, if you ever have to find a way to get your dog to "go".

Toddler Traffic Cop

We were on our way home this afternoon when I made a right turn at a red light. Wilson started yelling at me "It's red! It's red!" I asked what he was talking about and he said "You broke the law! That light was red!" So there I am in the car telling my son it's ok to make a right on red - it's legal unless there is a no-right-on-red sign. Then I realized this was a pointless argument - he is only 3, he doesn't know the difference between right and left yet. So I decided to divert his criticism from my driving to his dad's. I told him he might want to pay attention to Daddy's driving because you should always use a blinker to signal you are turning, but Daddy doesn't use them. Ever. Wilson said he'd have to check that out. I'm convinced Wilson is my mom: either I'm told my car radio is too loud or I get traffic rules rattled off verbatim from the passenger in the backseat. My question is where did Wilson learn traffic laws? Do they have the Texas Driver's Manual in an illustrated version for children? He's a backseat driver in a car seat!

We're just so tired of the heat here! There's a cold front coming this weekend, so it should only be 95 every day. The sad part is we are looking forward to the cool weather! We sent Wilson out to revive the flowers and the grass with the water hose. He thinks it's a big treat, so, of course Chris was out there with the camera again...

He offered to water my flowers, but he was hot and decided he was going to cool off.

The best technique, according to the watering boy, is to take the hose and run like crazy around the yard - works great since Callie decided to make her own chew toys out of our sprinkler heads one day.

We don't know what he's doing...But he had a blast.

High pressured drink? He thinks this is the greatest.

We just figured this would count for the bath tonight.

Our cat, "Meow", cooling off on the sidewalk, watching closely so Wilson doesn't come after her with the hose.

We Have a Heartbeat - Finally

Peanut decided to cooperate today - sort of. We were running late (like always) for our doctor appointment this morning, so instead of dropping Wilson off at school we took him along with to the doctor's office. I promised Chris they wouldn't try to hear the heartbeat on the Doppler again because it's been so unsuccessful the last several visits, so I told him he wouldn't miss anything by sitting out in the waiting room with Wilson. While I was getting weighed (my least favorite part of the visit as the pregnancy progresses, FYI) the nurse said she would run out and bring Chris and Wilson in before the heartbeat, so both the boys could hear Peanut. Good deal, right?

Wrong. The thing I love about my doctor is that he's efficient - no lagging around if there's nothing important I need to know. I'm a "bullet-point" person and I just want the bottom line and then I want to get on with my day. This worked against me today. He was in the room, did the heartbeat, gave us the ok, and was giving me my instructions for my next visit before the nurse got back to the room to see if he was going to hear the heartbeat. So the boys missed out - and the father of Peanut was mad. Rightfully so. He's a great dad and loves being a part of Peanut's prenatal life so I really cut him out on this milestone. On the other hand, we were late and I needed him to parent the child we already have this morning. Besides, our next visit is in two weeks and it's the sonogram visit. Whoo Hoo!

So it's not me that Peanut wouldn't cooperate for - he/she was more than ready with the heartbeat this morning since Daddy was no where nearby. It must be him. :) The heart rate is 154. Again, to those of you who look at the heart rate and say it's a great predictor of male/female gender of the baby, Wilson's was 161 and he's all boy. Also we're not overly optimistic about finding the gender of the baby in two weeks. Past experience has shown that even at 20 weeks the child has a mind of his/her own - Wilson's gender was a mystery until 3 weeks before he was born - although based on the heart rate I'd heard so many great things about I was certain he was a girl. So we'll do our best to figure out if we should keep the blue or buy up some pink, but we know there's a good chance Peanut won't help us out. Not that we mind so much, Peanut is either a boy or a girl. With only two options it's not really a big deal.