Sleep

So, anyone who knows me and my family, knows that my son can't sleep.  He's never been able to.  When he was a baby and people told not to worry, that he would start sleeping through the night between 3 and 6 months, I had hope.  Then when 9 months rolled around, and then a year, I cursed those people and called them liars in the middle of the night when I was still up with my son.

So 4 1/2 years later my body has adjusted to never sleeping a whole night, but my Dr. has decided that not sleeping a whole night is abnormal for a child of 4 1/2.  (Seriously it took them THIS long to figure this out?) So last night the boy participated in a sleep study.  Here's how it went. I'm going to do the short version because I'm really tired, so here it is.

First we get there and they show us to our room.  Leave us for a bit, then come back and and begin putting little nodes (?) all over him.  And I mean everywhere.  He had two on each calf, two on his chest, one on his neck, a bazillion on his face and head. Yes I said a bazillion, I counted. This is what he looked like.

Looks comfy right?

Then, thinking he was finally done, after and hour of this, they bring the big guns.  Two nose sensors.  Have you ever tried to sleep with things stuck up your nose? Neither have I, but Lex did not like it.  Here's the nose thingys.

All those cords in the back, yup they are attached to him somewhere

So then they are like, OK, have a nice night, sleep tight.  Seriously? So an exhausted Lex finally falls asleep, the nice lady runs in and inserts the nose thingys back into Lex's nose (he wasn't having any of it when he was awake and pulled them out) and leaves.  Thus begins a very annoying pattern.  Lex wakes up, pulls the nose things out, and goes back to sleep. Nice lady sneaks in, puts them back in and leaves.  Repeat. Needless to say no one slept that good.  Then they come in at 5:30 and wake us up telling us it's morning and the study is over. Good times.

Seriously though, I hope in 10 days to 2 weeks they come back telling us something that would be helpful to helping the boy (and me) sleep through the night. I think we deserve that much.

Walking Tour of the Farm

Most nights in the Spring and Fall, we take the kids and dogs on a walk across the corn field beside our house, to Ty's grandparent's house to visit. We decided to do this last night, and I thought, what a great opportunity to show you the farm where I live. The kids are always really excited and fight over who gets to hold Mackenzie's (the pug) leash.  So here we are ready to go

And we're off

Lilly and Tank take off towards the barn and down the lane that will take them across the cornfield and up to the Grandparent's house. MacKenzie on the other and does this.

It usually takes MacKenzie twice as long as Tank to get up the lane because she rolls on the grass ever 15 feet.  It is very annoying, but the kids love it. On to the tour. After you walk toward the lane you have to go past the pig barns. 

See those round things sticking out the sides? Those are fans. We walk right past all of them as they are blowing out hot fetid pig air.  It's awful, I hold my breath the whole time. Then we get to the true gem of the farm.  I'll let you guess what this lovely thing is.

If you haven't guess it already, that is the poop pit.  That's right, it's a giant round pit in the ground filled with liquefied pig poop.  I always tell Ty that he is not allowed to drown in the pit, because I refuse to be the widow who'a husband drowned in a vat of poop.  How embarrassing. Wouldn't it be awful to drown in that? Buh, I can't even think about it anymore. On with the tour. Up the lane are some more of our grain bins, and the grandparent's house.

So there you have it, besides the endless field of corn and soybean, and all of my husbands relations within a 1/4 mile radius, that is the view from where I sit.

New Creations

I've been working at night on some new monster hat variations, and this is what I've come up with.  The first is Miles the many-eyed monster. I thought I'd give him some wonky teeth to go with his eyes.  On the whole I am very pleased with how he turned out.

I just finished Matilde last night.  My opinion is still up in the air about her. I wanted a very girly feel for this monster, and somehow it turned into a kind of opera singing Dutch girl, so I'd like to know what you guys think. Would you or your little girl like to wear this?

Isn't my husband awesome for wearing this hat for me?

Are there any types of features you would like to see on one of these hats? I'm always looking for suggestions, so let me know what you think.

Daydreams VS Reality

In my daydreams I always pictured raising chickens in this beautiful chicken coop, with pretty little window box flowers, painted red with white trim, and filled with lovely egg laying hens. I envisioned looking out my window and seeing fat, little chickens wondering around my yard pecking at the ground, and collecting eggs every morning. Little gifts from my happy chickens.

In reality my husband decided he didn't have time to build a coop, even though I found the perfect building plans, I am not allowed to keep chickens at my house (a long story that will make you head implode from the sheer ridiculousness and injustice....I live on a freaking farm!), and I only have 3 hens left, so that doesn't really leave me with  a large amount of egg laying hens.  But I've decided to embrace this reality and make it the best it can be.

On Sunday the chicks moved to my brother's house with a nice homemade run Ty made for them.  They spend all day in it and then I put them back in their brooder for the night. They really like being outside all day, pillaging the ground and looking for bugs. Then yesterday their new home came in the mail.  Yes, I ordered and Eglu.  I have been in love with these for quite sometime.  They are cute, modern, and on sale! If you don't know about these adorable little coops then check out their website. Adorable!  We bought and Eglu Go, because it was on sale, but I like the Eglu cube the best.  Seriously check out their website, you will fall in love.

So here is my lovely husband, who just got back from work when I begged him to put it together.  So Ty and the kids built my Eglu while I giddily jumped around the yard.

Here's all the pieces spread out in the driveway

Everyone helping put in the screws

Tank wanted to check it out to make sure everything was up to snuff.

Everyone is happy with their hard work, and now I have an adorable chicken coop!

This chicks have only spent a couple of nights in their new home, but I think they will come to love it.  I'm coming to enjoy my reality as well.  Even though I miss having the chicks at my house, and I would love to be able to look out my window and see them.  Keeping them at my brother's house is better than not having any at all.

Ode to Caffeine

I want to take a little time today to thank the maker of caffeine (ok, so that's probably God) and just let caffeine know how much I appreciate and rely upon it.

Dear Caffeine.

I want to thank you every time I wake up at 2 am hearing someone vomit in the next room.  I want to thank you and 5 am when my son wakes up and decides he can't go back to sleep and wants to eat some eggs. I want to thank you every morning when i brew my tea, because I know you are going to be their bolstering my up, and  keeping me going. I want to thank you during the tantrums, sicknesses, meetings, late night sheet changings, and early morning workouts.  I want to thank you at 4 pm when I can barely keep my eyes open to drive home, but you get me there safely.  I want to thank you when I'm at my in-laws, because not only do you keep me awake and moving, but somehow able to restrain my rage and keep from killing people.  I want to thank you at bed time because as I ready myself to be awoken 3 or 4 times, I know you are going to be there for me in the morning so I can do everything all over again.  So here's to caffeine.  A main staple of my diet, for good or bad.  It keeps me running, and able to do the things that need to be done.

Your Biggest Fan,

Summer

Goings On

Here's the rundown of what has been going on at the Moser house:

Lex has been learning to read with this AWESOME, easy to use book called, The Ordinary Parents Guide to Teaching Reading.  We love it, and it's really working. I am amazed at how well he is doing and the way he can sound out words and read small sentences! 

 The weather has been somewhat nice...if not warm and sunny, at least tolerable, so we've been jumping on our trampoline.  I must tell you that I think my husband might enjoy it even more than the kids.  We love going out after dinner and all jumping together as a family. Lots of good fun!

Yes, this is a picture of Ty in his skivvies.  I have no idea why he is not wearing pants and I'm sorry.  This is the only picture of the trampoline I have right now.

At night the kids and I have started reading their first big chapter book.  I don't know if 2 1/2 and 4 is to young, but they really look forward to it every night.  We are reading, Mr. Popper's Penguins by Richard and Florence Atwater.  I think this is going to  become a fun tradition, hopefully for the rest of their lives. We've always read picture books at night, and we still do, but we also do one chapter a night of this new chapter book.  Gosh darn it, my kids are going to be well read if it kills me! :)

So that's what's going on in the Moser house.  Pretty boring, but it's a good life.  At least most days.