We're well...

We're well, and it takes 7 viewings of 5 movies to make 1 princess well. And that many to make her mommy ill. Yup. Tatum is really good at sharing! Isn't that sweet?

So let me recap quickly the last few weeks for those of you who might be interested....

The Tuesday after Tatum was ill she went back to school and I went back to work. I started feeling poorly that afternoon and decided to call it a day. I took her to school the next day and I stayed home that day as well....and slept virtually all day long! I never ran a fever, but my stomach was upset and I basically didn't eat for a day and a half, save for a few pieces of toast and a hot cup of tea Matt made for me. That Thursday, Matt took Tatum to Conroe since it had been a while since she had visited her MawMaw and PawPaw, and since Kellen was already there attending Bible School, I was able to fully regain my strength.

I went there on Friday after work, as I was planning to attend a baby shower for a friend that Saturday with MawMaw, and Matt was going to take Kellen to a birthday party here in town. Those plans changed somewhat when, on that Saturday morning as Matt called to get directions, we learned that our friend was in the hospital with kidney stones! So, I brought the kids back to town and took them both to the birthday party.

The next day was Kellen's birthday party, and I'll devote another post specifically to that event. Suffice it to say, he had a BLAST! I cannot believe that my baby boy is 6 years old. We gained our friends daughter (the one who was in the hospital) after the party that night for a slumber party.

Kellen's birthday was Monday the 20th, and at breakfast we all sang another round of Happy birthday to him before we headed out for the day.

Later that week we had a pool play date with his kindergarten teacher and her kids, and it was a surprise to Kellen. He was so excited about it and both the kids had a blast at that pool!!

And on that Friday (the 24th) I was supposed to take a group of students to Schlitterbahn, but we ended up having a Seinfeld car rental experience. You know, the "I know you can TAKE a reservation, but do you know what to DO with a reservation?" one? Well, we had THAT experience. We had reserved a van 2 weeks earlier and the day we were supposed to pick it up, they didn't have one for us. So I had to make a 'go no go for launch' decision about the trip...and we had to postpone.

That weekend (last weekend) we had another party to attend at a splashpad hosted by one of Tatum's friends at daycare. They just LOVE the water!

On Sunday, I realized that over the last week, Tatum has cut a molar all the way through and is starting on another one (top left all the way through, bottom left partially).

Tuesday, MawMaw and I attended Chalk Talk again. They adjusted the way they organized it this year, and I'm still processing it...I enjoyed it, but I'm not sure I learned a whole lot. Wednesday, we had dinner with our dinner group from Sunday school at Chick-fil-A and had a great time there as well.

Yesterday was the rescheduled Schlitterbahn trip. Boy oh boy. What a trip that was! We had SO MANY ADVENTURES! I can now recognize how a certain girl in our group looks before she passes out, because she did so. Twice. And I know how the lifeguards and medics react when you HAVE to get them quickly. Because we had to. Twice. And I now know how they clear the rides when there is inclement weather and they have to clear the park. Because they did that just as we were finishing up our third ride of the day. Yup, our third. And we packed it up and made our way out to the van in the torrential downpour that ensued. And got about as wet by the rain as we did in the rides.

Oh, and then there were the Code Maroons that I was dealing with as well. Did I mention that virtually all of Bryan was being evauated because of a chemical fire at this same time, and that they were closing the very routes we were planning to take to get back into town? And that the private dorm where the students were housed had been evacuated? Nice, huh? Especially considering that I was the one in charge of them making all of the decisions.

So we made our way from New Braunfels to Sam Marcus, stopped at Cracker Barrel to get something to eat, and I spent virtually all of the time on the phone with a variety of individuals trying to get the latest and greatest information on road closures, evauation information, etc to make the remainder of our trip plans. Whew! Luckily, we had ZERO time constraints, so by the time we had finished with our relaxing dinner, stopped by Best Buy to get me a car charger (because by this point in time, my phone was rapidly dying) and got back on the road, the route we had originally taken had opened back up, so we headed back the way came. Unfortunately for the students, their dorm was still closed, so we still had to drop them off at Reed Arena, which is where many people who were evacuating were taken. However, they were released a short time later, around 9 PM, to go back to their dorm.

Needless to say, it was QUITE the adventure. And I was quite done today. I went to work in shorts and flip flops and virtually refused to make any decisions beyond what I absolutely had to make.

Then I left early. Matt and I needed to run some vehicle errands, so I left, and Kellen and I played at The Childrens Museum while Matt took care of the errands. Just what I needed after THAT kind of day!

And today is also PawPaw's birthday, so Happy birthday PawPaw!!

Productivity...a different perspective

Today was a different type of productive from what my "normal" work day is like. By 8:30 AM, I had consoled a sick little girl - once at 10:30 PM, and then again at 5 AM (which was fewer times than I actually expected), snuggled and gotten her back to sleep, rejoiced that she wanted water after a day of coaxing her to drink water or 'pink juice' with no luck, eagerly got her the requested water (twice, but just a little both times), only to go from happiness to utterly helpless when less than ten minutes later she was getting down off of the bed telling me, 'My tummy hurts, Mommy' and trying to make it to the toilet to throw up. She barely made it with my assistance.

I then cleaned up (bless her heart, she actually did a great job, so there wasn't much to clean up), and we snuggled some more, made some phone calls to Maw Maw and Daddy, then I tried to figure out WHAT I could give her to appease her....'cause she was STILL begging for water. There is a fine line you must walk between hydration and not giving a child something you know is going to come right back up. So we started watching Yo Gabba Gabba and I distracted her for a while with that, and after some time had passed, got her started on some ice chips and cheerios. By the third Yo Gabba Gabba (thank GOODNESS for DVR's), we were still keeping down ice chips and cheerios, and we had a moderately happy Tater-tot.

And it wasn't even 8 AM yet.

While she was watching one of her episodes, I asked permission (yes, you read that correctly...she's sick and I'm no dummy!) to go and take a shower. At a few minutes after 8, I asked if she wanted to go for a ride, and boy-oh-boy, she was ready! We went to McDonalds, and before you burn me at the stake, we simply paid the deposit for Kellen's birthday party and got me an vanilla iced coffee (oh-so delicious!!!). I then asked her if she wanted to be my helper and go with me to the store or go home - her choice. She wanted to go to the store.

So, we had a very quick trip to the grocery store...her vitamins and more Tylenol were high on the list since with one more dose of Tylenol, we would be out...Let me tell you what, this little girl is a charmer! She charmed the socks off of both the lady checking us out and the lady sacking our groceries. Since we had gotten her medicine and her vitamins, she wanted to hold them, and then she gave them to the lady at the checkout and asked for them back. Bless the lady's heart, she rang them up, sacked them, and immediately gave them back to Tatum to hold! Oh my, Tatum was in heaven! She was telling them ALL ABOUT her medicine and her vitamins and everything else that we had picked up....her crackers and her graham crackers and....well, you get the point.

We got back to the house close to 9 AM, and put in Cinderella to watch. Tatum decided that she wanted to call her Grandpa, so we made a phone call to talk to him. While they were on the phone, he prayed over her to feel better.

Fast forward to lunchtime, and it was obvious that Tatum was beginning to feel better. So I decided to get some video....She has been absolutely precious today.







After lunch and naps, we snuggled for a while. When we finally got up, we played and played...we played in her room and weeded out many of the 'baby' toys. They are now in a bin outside her doorway. She played dress-up, complete with headgear and every purse she owns. We read books. Lots of books. Over and over. We played with her dolls. I dressed her dolls. She undressed her dolls, then brought them to me to dress. Then she undressed them again. Repeat.

And throughout the day, I did manage to get a few loads of laundry done, with a wonderful assistant to 'help' me fold and put away what we had done. And the kitchen has some semblence of clean to it - at least the dishwasher is running and the counters are somewhat clean. But the most productive things I did today were WHATEVER TATUM NEEDED FROM ME, regardless of what that meant for the rest of the world.

And I still haven't figured out how many movies it takes to make my princess well...our total count is up to 7 viewings of 5 moviews (2 viewings each of Kung-Fu Panda and Cinderella; 1 viewing of Bolt, Pinnochio, and Finding Nemo). I'll let you know tomorrow if that's the number.

How many?

How many movies does it take to make one princess feel better? I'm not worried about how many licks it takes to get to the center of a tootsie pop. I want to know what I can do to make my Tater-tot feel better!

She had a rough night, and then wanted to crawl into bed and snuggle with me at 6 am this morning (her normal wake-up time). We snuggled until almost 7:30, then finally crawled out of bed. I took her to the potty, then as I was getting her to wash her hands, she and I got into a little battle of wills over washing her hands.

Totally unlike her! To clarify, the unlike her part was the problem with washing hands, not necessarily the battle of wills part....

As I was 'helping' her wash her hands, she commented that she didn't feel well, and I realized just how warm she really felt. So we called to our resident expert to get the thermometer and 'take my temperature'. Sure enough, she was running a verifiable low grade fever.

And wouldn't you know it, this was our Sunday to work in the nursery during second service. Ug. A phone call later, that was worked out and rescheduled.

So, we tried to get some fluids in her...water didn't work, 'pink juice' didn't work, even though we tried to tell her it was just like kool-aid (she wasn't buying what we were trying to sell), nada. She decided she wanted to watch Kung-fu Panda on mommy and daddy's TV. We obliged. Sometime during the movie, I went in to snuggle with her and there must have been superglue on me somewhere, because I was no longer allowed to leave her side. Even after she fell asleep nestled into me, as I unfortunately found out when I tried to get up after she had been asleep for a while.

Bad move on Mommy's part, in case you were wondering.

For our movie count...we're at two viewings of Kung-fu Panda, one viewing of Bolt (paused due to the urgent but albeit shortlived need to go play in the pool - and yes, we thought the cool water would feel good to her!), and are currently viewing Pinocchio.

Hopefully I'll have an answer to my question soon, but as the movie count rises, so does her temp. *Insert my sad face here*

Family fun day

Today has been quite the family fun day, and it isn't over yet. However, in the spirit of trying to remember the funny events, I'm posting...

As we were playing in the backyard, Matt was spraying water in various directions...up in the air to splash us, straight at us, etc...now, before you think this classifies as some sort of abuse, our sprayer is COOL! It has various types of spray strengths and streams...all the way from a straight on stream to an umbrella looking sprinkle. So it was quite nice in the extreme temperature today to play like this outside, even while we were in the pool.

Well, Kellen was in a little trouble (not going into that, but to give you the backstory) and sitting on the bench while the rest of us were in the pool playing. Matt was splashing Kellen with the hose, and after a short while, Kellen exclaimed, "Make-up!"

[If you need further explanation, Kellen gave Matt a Bugs Bunny DVD for Fathers Day, and they've been watching that together lately]

Kid funnies

I should try and do a better job of writing these types of things down as they happen...but that's mommy guilt that I'm trying not to let myself shoulder...

Here are some that I can recall from recent times...in no certain order...

*Tatum LOVES the story of 'Pocono'. I bought her a short board book of the Disney favorite (there's your big clue) for Easter, I believe (perhaps even last year??) and over the last week or two, it's been a huge hit. We must read about Geppetto, Jiminy cricket, etc. And I will probably cry when she begins to pronounce this word correctly, because she's incredibly verbal and rarely mispronounces things.

*Tatum is a girly girl (as if that hadn't already been established time and time again on this blog) and as of last night, her toenails were plain. She declared to me, as she was eating dinner, that she wanted pretty toes, AND FINGERS. So last night, after dinner, I painted her toenails and fingernails as she sat in her pink princess chair. As a sidenote, she's doing much better with sitting still during this process. I should have gotten a picture of her sitting there, with the wet nails, perfectly still, watching Yo Gabba Gabba as they dried. A little while later, she looked at me and asked, "Are they ready now, Mommy? Can I move?"

This morning, daddy asked to see her pretty fingers, and she showed him, then exclaimed, "And my thumbs, too!"

*Tatum has mastered her vocal range. And she tries to use this to her advantage when throwing a fit. Unfortunately, she hasn't learned quite yet that this works against her in these times.

I'll post more as I think of them...'cause these kiddo's regularly keep me in stitches over here!

Shall we bring back the nickname?

At one point in time, Kellen's nickname was Crash. Given his adventures the last few weeks, I believe it might be time to bring back the nickname.

We've already gone over the incident at the bowling alley that resulted in the split chin the Friday prior to the 4th of July weekend. So we're clear on that one, right?

Well, I received a phone call on Monday from daycamp, and when they use the words, 'front flip cannonball' when describing the incident, you just HAVE to know it isn't a good thing!

Apparently, Kellen decided to do a front flip cannonball off the side of the pool INTO the water. He made it (for those of you adventure freaks wondering), but managed to hit his head in the process. HE says he hit his head on the bottom of the pool, but no one is sure if that is actually what happened (since he was wearing a life vest at the time).

I'm really glad I don't overly freak out when I get these phone calls...Really!

So I got the call, asked if it actually knocked him out, asked how bad the bleeding was, about the head injury, etc, etc. He was, at the time of the call, eating lunch, and the counselors had treated and bandaged it up and were simply calling to let me know. Once I reiterated the facts as I understood them - that he had basically scraped his head on the side of the pool and was, for all intents and purposes, fine, I let them know that I would just look at it when I picked him up after work.

He does; however, have a slight bald spot where the abrasion is...it basically scraped the hair off! Now don't get me wrong, I watched him closely all night and continued to ask if he was dizzy, if he had a headache, etc...

But he was fine, really....and played with Tatum and a friend that we had over for dinner Monday night like nothing had happened.

And speaking of his 'friend'.....oye. I had a friend and her daughter (Kellen's age) over on Monday night. By the end of the night, Kellen was telling her dad that he was her 'boyfriend boyfriend' and she was his 'girlfriend girlfriend'. Did you know that if you only say the word once that it means you're just friends? If you say the word twice, it means that you want to marry the other person.

Um. Hello!! They're 6 years old! (And I'm giving Kellen a few weeks by making that comment here...)

And here I was thinking Kellen still thought that girls were yucky and gross.

4th of July fun

Ok...so it was really the 3rd of July...but it was in CELEBRATION of the 4th....and it was the holiday weekend....so enjoy the photo story with some explanations thrown in for good measure.

Both Tatum and Kellen were amazed at the juggler...Tatum even helped when he 'dropped' his pins. I'm not quite sure that Kellen could figure out how he was that tall....

Then Tatum thoroughly enjoyed the musical entertainment...you may not be able to tell from the picture, but she's dancing to the drum and fife - and did so EVERY time she heard this. She was so sweet to clap for them every time their numbers were over...She has music in her future somewhere.

We were handed flags upon entering, and Tatum had great fun in waving her flag to the beat - either heard or in her own little mind!

Kellen, on the other hand, had woken up from an unplanned nap (in his defense, we HAD just finished with 2-3 hours at the pool) and seemed to have woken up on the wrong side of the nap mat...or carseat...unlike his sister, he took a little while to get warmed up to the festivities.

Here is our Hapes clan during one of the songs.....

Kellen was quite entertained with the fans handed out at entry as well...there is a small see-through area that enthralled him...apparently, when you look through it, the world becomes rainbow-like. No wonder he was entranced!

And well past Tatum-tot's bedtime, she was fighting for all she was worth to stay awake...

In case you're wondering why you're going blind with this next photo, it's actually the canon going off...They used live canons for the 1812 Overture.







And here is Tatum NOT LIKING the canons, and Kellen trying desperately to console his sister. He later turned to where the canons were located and remarked, "I don't like you! You scared my baby sister!"

Tatum still recovering from the canons....


Houston Sympony at The Cynthia Mitchell Woods Pavilion in The Woodlands....

And then they ended the night with a fireworks show....Kellen loved it, and Tatum....well, let's just say that she was really tired and hadn't gotten over being scared of the canons. So fireworks weren't really high on her likable list. But the rest of the gang enjoyed them!

And for the ACTUAL 4th of July, we spent another several hours at the pool, which is pretty much Kellen and Tatum's favorite past time....then had hotdogs and they C-R-A-S-H-E-D after the late night from Friday, and an early morning Saturday morning. Sooooo, that meant no fireworks display on the actual 4th for us...but we had a fabulous weekend, full of family fun, which is really what was important!