December 2008 On a Roll!!

Before the month began good I had already decorated my parents house inside and out, as a surprise for them, while they were away for Thanksgiving! I had all my photo cards made and I even made some myself of Berik being Santa in the tub! I was on a roll !! I even managed to mail out 10 cards and was going to do the rest later. Back at my house, I got my artificial tree out, not wanting to spend the money on a real one, but I didn't have time to decorate it, so meanwhile, the cats climbed and climbed and climbed it for about a week, until it was completely demolished. Berik felt the need to hang a couple of coat hangers on it but other than that it was never decorated. I hauled the bent branches box and all to the curb and waved bye.
The rest of the month was a blurr!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!
I had one day off Dec. 5th, to take my mother shopping, as my weekends were all booked up with candy making and church Christmas parties, and wouldn't you know that Berik came down with his 3rd EAR INFECTION!!! , on Dec 4th at 1:30am with 103.5 fever poor guy! So to the Dr. we went and we got the referral to the ENT Dr. that we had asked for 2 ear infections ago. Long story short, Berik ended up taking antibiotics all weekend which didn't touch his infection and the Dr. had take a more serious approach with a series of injections, Mon, Tue. and Wed. 2 shots, one in each leg, simultaneously. He was not a happy camper and we felt so bad for him but his ears got better. So he ended up being sick for 10 days. The only day they had available for his tubes was 12-24, Christmas eve, so we scheduled it and waited hoping that he wouldn't get sick again before then. It snowed here by our standards on Dec. 11 and everyone was excited including Berik. He liked the sound of it crunching beneath his feet the best! One day we will take him to see "real" snow.
Meanwhile, Berik and I had fun making candy and cookies and all 3 of us went to our local Christmas parade. He loves parades and gets excited if he sees a string of cars, flags or people anywhere. Outside of the prison where I work, he saw a bunch of offenders that were being released on parole and exclaimed, " a parade, a parade!!" Jaimie and I laughed!
We celebrated our 3RD GOTCHA DAY on Dec. 23 and let Berik have his favorite meal of fried chicken and chocolate milk ! Mom and I never got to go shopping and I didn't get a tree until about 3 days before hand. I never mailed anymore cards and Jaimie and I barely managed to shop for Berik.All in all from Dec 4th-Dec. 24th it was a blurr!
He got his tubes on Christmas eve morning and was good to go to church in the evening. We put out cookies and milk for Santa and he seemed to get into that this year! He is at a really fun age!! Santa brought him a tricycle, which he pronounces bi sis sul.

and he got lacing boards, a memory game, pounding blocks, and a train. We kept it really minimal but he had a blast! Since we originally had planned to go to Alabama, my parents had made arrangements to spend the holidays out of town, so it was quiet here with just the 3 of us.
The weekend after Christmas we had my parents and my brother and his family over and had a whole other round of opening gifts. Berik loved helping everyone open their gifts! New Years slid by and that was it. Happy New Year!

November

The first part of the month took us to Alabama for a visit with Jaimie's mother and his daughter, Jessi. We hadn't seen Jessi since June of this year and his mother hadn't seen Berik since January 2007. She was really happy to see him again. He loves his sister and insists on laying on top of her whenever possible, especially to watch TV. Jessi is very sweet and tolerate which we love!
When we first started talking about going to Alabama, a 10 hour car ride, I was leary but once I saw the price of airline tickets I decided we could do it. Let me be the first to brag on Berik. He and I sat in the back and he was a SAINT!!!!!!! all the way there and all the way back. Jaimie and I jokingly asked each other who's kid we had with us. Furthermore, he was soooooooo good the entire time we were visiting. He didn't break anything, tear anything up, cry, whine or fuss . We were so so so proud of his behavior. Normally he acts like a typical 2 yr and gets into everything. He is 100% BOY !
We took him to Gulf Shores beach, which was his first trip ever to the beach. Although it was slightly cool he loved it. He could not understand that is was too cold and just had to get in the water. He was one wet sandy boy we he got finished. We hope to visit again during the summer.
Berik is growing up so and each day brings changes here and there but one constant is the cuteness of a sleeping Berik. He can sleep almost anywhere and as you can see in any position, and with any assortment of pillow, blankets and or animals. This months artwork isn't all that fancy but I am sure he is having fun doing it. Jaimie had to work Thanksgiving day so Berik and I went to a good friend of ours to feast. Jaimie did catch up with us as we were starting dessert. Good time to get in on things in my opinion!
Berik had fun playing with this scooter! He had never seen nor riden one and he did very well. I think a scooter may be in his future, ooohhh Santa!!!! The older kids were nice and played roll the ball with him and of course he had lots of fun at that too. All in all a good month and a Happy Thanksgiving!

October- What's for breakfast?

Since Sept.'s blog decided to give me the blues while posting I finally just gave up and ended up leaving off a couple of things I wanted to journal about. One was this really cute bathtub picture I took. To me Berik looks older and it is almost like a sneak peek at what he may look like as a teen. I am probably nuts but that is what it reminds me of.
Secondly, Berik had been pulling his shoes off at daycare alot recently and the staff had been letting me know and had been tying the shoestrings around his ankle in an effort to keep him from taking his shoes off. POOR GUY....his shoes were a little too small. I got him some new ones right away and he is now a size 10W. He finally wears a wide instead of xw width. I felt like a bad mommy but really he had only had the shoes he was wearing for a short time. His feet are going to be huge!

October was just a mixed bag of low key events. We did some more "cat fishing" in the house. Some "redneck" kite flying in the front yard, was a huge hit with Berik ! We live on a small hill where it is really windy but I just couldn't get the kite up high enough and so Jaimie hooked the kite to the end of a fishing rod and stuck it way up in the air and away it went. It was also a lot easier to control to reel it in and out.





















We played outside in the dirt. Jaimie was filing in a hole, left from a tree that he had cut down in our yard.Berik loved all of it from riding atop of the soil in the wagon , to sitting directly in the dirt to throwing it, to raking it. All in all a simple way to entertain the B man. He is pretty much easy to entertain but when he is hungry he wants food right then and there. One Sat. morning Jaimie and I were up and getting breakfast ready when we discovered that Berik had pretty much already helped himself to what I am sure he thought was a fantastic breakfast. See for yourself and count em... five, yep five lollipops, chewed up and consumed in a flash! He left us all the evidence we needed strung out between the kitchen and stopping just before the TV in the living room. We usually don't keep bulk candy around but it being the Halloween season we had some. Plus since his ear tubes fell out in Aug. we are back to having ear infections, which = Dr. which ='s lollipop and sticker after the visit. Sometimes they are out so we have our own supply! We are hoping the ear infections will stop or hoping for tubes again. The Dr. says we need to wait a bit longer. This is infection # 2 so we will see.
Berik is always up to something and currently he is fascinated by putting on my hosies and carrying my purse. He brings not just sticks in the house but more like branches. He continues to be my "monster in training" and looked pretty cute in the shirt I found at the re-sale shop for $1.25. Gotta love a bargain. He and I had a blast at the park and we played a round of secret blog pal. Our blog pal sent B these PJ's and some bath tub flutes etc.. He had fun opening up the package. When he is not busy he is OUT of it, sleeping away in these funny positions and with his pretend food, in the first pic he has a banana. If you look carefully at pic #2 daddy is asleep face down and B is using daddy's behind as a pillow.
One weekend we took Berik to 7 Acre woods, a outdoor play area for kids with a petting zoo. He had a really good time climbing, running and driving! He looks very determined to get going! We manged to get a couple of pics but none of him and the animals because he still won't really have anything to do with them. Jaimie talked or gobbled with a turkey there until the turkey started talking back which was about the highlight of the petting zoo part. For Halloween I thought of a bunch of cute ideas but none that would work for Berik. Since he won't wear a mask, hat a lot of things I thought of like, a scarecrow, a pirate or a train conducter were pretty much out of the question. We ended up with him being a baseball player. I went to the resale shop and got cleats, and a baseball jersey from a former Houston Astro player and got pants from a friend. I also ordered an Oshkosh jersey online. We used one jersey for the daycare trick or treating event and the other jersey for the evening trick or treating.
At the daycare all classes and volunteer parents set out for a mid morning trick or treating outing around the town square. The daycare which is in a church, sits on the corner of town square and they do this each year, visiting the local retailers. The first stop was the church office were Berik got a lollipop and proceeded to eat it just outside the church. As you can see the other kids in his class followed suit. He wasn't really supposed to be into the candy at that point but that's Berik for ya! At the courthouse we got to see the ladies that helped me with his dossier paperwork. The ladies were excited to see him again !
At every shop around the square, that we got candy from, Berik would scope out the bowl for a lollipop, and would then say "lollipop" and then pick it out. He didn't touch any other candy and didn't take anything but lollipops. Some of the people would dump in extra candy and Berik would look at kind of wierd as if he did not want it in his bag. I would have expected him to grab it up by the handfuls but he didn't and I was pleased with his behavior.
After work we took him to a Mimi and Papaws house and then on to a friends house. We didn't end up going anywhere else because Berik was having so much fun answering the door for the other trick or treaters so we just stayed and visited. One tween girl that was in the house even slipped out the back door and pretended to be a new trick or treater, ringing the bell. Berik ran to the door, opened it and then was like, wait a minute? Aren't you in the living room? He pretty much figured it out. He is pretty clever. Here he is showing off his loot and looking pretty happy about it all !! All and all a great halloween!! Until Nov. take care. Gena

September (posting in December) Still trying to catch up!

Well the teacher hasn't gotten any better, in fact worse!

She is overbearing, loud and a know it all.As the days passed by it began to surface that,she put several kids in time out for long periods of time, making them miss outdoor time. She kept my B in TO for 40 mins one day. She told me herself, like she was proud of it. All because he wouldn't say sorry for throwing toys and he and 2 others stayed in and missed outdoor time. What? 40 min? uh.. can you say 1 min for every age of the child?

Come to find out as well she was deliberately staying inside during playtime because she didn't want to go out because it was too hot. She is waking up, one kid in particular, during his nap to go potty. What? In the middle of nap time? What kind of person is this? My child came home with little or no artwork and she was too lazy to decorate the bulletin board and said out loud that she didn't see the big deal in making a bulletin board. This is the piece of work he came home with when they "studied" the family unit.. None of the parents seemed to be able to figure out what our kids were learning.
LONG STORY SHORT, this went on for about 2-3 weeks and it went on for not only my child but plenty of others. Berik had stopped wanting to use the potty and was telling me, no school mommy, no school. Crying as I had to try to get him to go in. Stories and complaints begin to pour in to the director, until they finally moved her.THANK GOD, as it was either us.. or her. She was moved, disciplined and explained the rules and now she only has contact with younger kids from noon-five and since the sleep until 2:30 she only has them for 2.5 hours.

She feels this connection with me because she adopted a Child Protective services kid after supposedly fostering 28 children first. Her story, don't fully believe all of it. She does have a kid though. She takes pictures of Berik and others on the playground, just because and then tells me she did and will give me the pics. No thanks I have enough and stop taking them of my kid. She singles him out to say bye to at the end of the day and doesn't bother the other kids of parents.

She said something fly to Jaimie about him not teaching Berik manners and he called her on it. Jaimie and her had it out and now she doesn't speak to us anymore. I bet that was good, sorry I missed it. So besides the fact the we still have to see her she pretty much stears clear of us.

He loves!!!!! his new teacher, Ms. Erikka and the class is going well now and artwork is picking up, see for yourself. I think this must be the unit on weather with the clouds and lightning and an apple. I bet he had fun shredding up the paper to make it! We took a trip to see my brother and his family and they live about 4 hours from here. As we were riding along on the freeway this maniac came barreling on the freeway and I thought he was going to hit us so I said, Sh?t, and then so did Berik! Great his very first curse word and it came after me, not daddy. Huge surprise. Jaimie didn't let me live it down the whole weekend, which wasn't a surprise. Also while in the car we were listening to childrens songs, specifically , The Wheels on the Bus. When it got to the wipers on the bus go swish, swish, swish, Jaimie decided to turn on the wipers with the water to enhance the song. Instead, Berik stopped mid sentence and said, "it's raining"! We thought that was really funny!! The kinds of money we could make if we only had a video camera going 24/7.

Check him out, pretending to look through a lego type piece. He says they are his binoculars and he tells me what he sees. It's pretty neat to see what he comes up with. It usually revolves around Dora and Diego.

And he is most proficient about drinking all the milk out of the bowl after his cereal. He is really growing up in a hurry!

About the only other thing that we did this month was go to the duck pond/park. Berik didn't want to have anything to do with the ducks at all! I even brought bread and still not a thing! He played with every stick and dirt that was there and ran and ran to his hearts content! I guess he had enough when he stuck his hand up to me and said, "Momma, no camera!"

I guess he is sick to death of pics but I still took some although he posed for none and managed to get some good ones. See for yourself..Well for now that's all and furthermore the computer has decided to do this silly underlining thing and I can't get it to stop. Some blogger malfunction I suppose. Until Oct's post, take care. Gena