Postcards: the best souvenirs

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Growing up we went on family vacations every year. Over the years I know there were many souvenirs purchased: t-shirts, hats, stuffed animals, mugs, and others I’m sure. But, regardless of whatever else we bought, every place we went my mom had each of us kids pick a postcard. At the end of the day (or the trip) she would ask us what our favorite part was. Best memory, favorite place we went, most fun activity, whatever. And whatever we told her got written down on the postcard. She kept scrapbooks for each of us (yes, all five kids have scrapbooks of our growing up years) and these postcards are all included. I love going back and reading the memories from them

So I’ve decided to keep up this tradition with my kids. For one thing, postcards are EVERYWHERE, they’re inexpensive, and they don’t end up as dust collecting trinkets when you get home (snow globe, anyone?) But also, it’s already so awesome to hear what the kids favorite part was. For instance, I bought postcards at Arches and wrote on them when we got home. Kalena’s favorite parts included “the nice walk” and “the pretty flowers” and Will loved the “real lizards” and declared it “the best desert in the world.” (I do them when the kids are babies too, and just include a quick summary of the day.)

As a bonus, it’s fun to look back over the years and see how many times I picked the same postcard from Disneyland, years apart. What can I say? I liked that postcard.

Arches

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Moab is only 90 miles from here, so I’ve been wanting to take the kids down to Arches at some point and hike to Delicate Arch. I had figured we’d go this summer, but then we decided it’d be better to do it before the heat got insane, so we went today! First pictures, then some tips.

At the visitor’s center. Have to make sure we know where we went, right?! (This was after the hike.)

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Our “ready to go” picture (a kind stranger offered to take one so we could all be in it.) The kids wore those sunglasses for about 4 minutes each. Fortunately Daniel left his hat on the whole time. I really didn’t want to worry about sunscreening his head.

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We made it! It was questionable there for a bit.

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Brian and I left the kids with my parents to walk around under the arch and another kind stranger offered to take our picture together underneath. Here’s the far away one to show the scale. (See us tiny, right underneath the arch?)

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It’s definitely not an easy hike but it is SO worth it. Just gorgeous!

And now some tips if you want to make the Delicate Arch hike.

This first one is sort of a cheater tip: follow the tips from any of the hiking websites. Wear sunscreen/sunglasses/hats. Bring plenty of water with you on the hike. Wear good hiking shoes.

The earlier in the day the better. The parking lot gets full by about 9:30 am, and things stay busy for the rest of the day. Earlier is also better for heat too.

Specifically if you’re taking young kids:

Do this hike first thing. Before you see the visitor’s center, before you walk around anywhere else, before you do any of the driving tours. Not just for the heat and crowds, but for the kids energy levels. This hike wore our kids OUT. If they had been running around other places first I’m not sure we would have made it.

I wouldn’t expect any child under 5 to make the hike without being carried at least part of the way. Kalena managed it just barely (with a couple short bits riding on grandpa’s shoulders) and she’ll be 5 this month. Bring a carrier if there’s ANY chance you’ll need one. Will (3 1/2) rode in a carrier for basically the whole way up, but walked the whole way down. The hike back is lots easier.

Plan on at least 2 hours for the hike (I think most websites say 2-4 hours.) It’s only 3 miles round trip, but it’s no stroll. It took us about 2 hours, and we didn’t get started until about 10, so the kids were VERY ready for lunch by the time we got back. (On that note, maybe pack some snacks. We did not.)

Plan on this being the only hike you do for the day. Our kids have very high energy levels but they were spent after this. We walked around a little (at the visitors center and in town) but there’s no way they would have done another hike.

If you’re not above bribery, promising our kids a toy at the end of the hike if they were good hikers worked superbly. In fact, the first time my dad offered Kalena a ride on his shoulders she asked, “Will I still be a good hiker?” She wanted that toy!

Any questions?

Cavities

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In March Brian took the kids to the dentist for cleanings. They both did fine, and everything looked good. Then, a few weeks ago Kalena accidentally loosened one of her teeth (by pulling on a blanket she was biting.) We wouldn’t have worried about it, but it started turning dark so we set up an appointment to take her back to the dentist. (This time we were seeing the actual dentist, not just a hygienist.) He took a look, assured us that it’ll be fine, and that she’s old enough for it to come out, but then mentions that she definitely has some cavities. (He was NOT happy when I told him we’d been there just a month ago.) After x-rays and discussion on whether we want to fill them all at once (yes) and if we want to take out the loose tooth if it hasn’t come out yet (yes) he tells us it’ll take them about 2 1/2 hours to get everything done. Because of the amount of time they recommended we do sedation. She’s really good at the dentist, but 2 1/2 hours is a LONG time for a 4 year old to sit still so we said okay.

Anyway, fast forward to that morning. She had to fast before the appointment, which she did fine with. Her appointment was at 10, so we had to take her in at 9 for the valium (or equivalent whatever.) We just told her she had to have an empty tummy for her appointment and that she’d get a treat after and she understood that. Because the appointment was going to be 3 1/2 hours in all I asked a friend of mine to watch the boys. (That would later prove to be an excellent choice.)  Kalena got the meds crushed up in a bite of chocolate pudding (her choice- it was that or applesauce) and we were sent us back to the waiting room to wait for it to kick in. I was told she would get sleepy and maybe a little loopy. WELL. About 40 minutes later she got up from her chair and just about fell flat on her face. She couldn’t walk without help. She fell down trying to pull her pants up after going to the bathroom. They hadn’t checked on us yet (they told me they’d check at about 45 minutes to see if it had kicked in) so I finally carried her up to the front and told the receptionist she was ready to go. (I can’t imagine what I would have done if I’d had Will and Daniel too. She could NOT walk, but I can barely carry her, let alone her AND Daniel.) But there wasn’t a room ready. At that point I set her down on a couch and told her she wasn’t allowed to get up. She was a little belligerent when I wouldn’t let her sit backward (she wanted to see the alphabet on the wall behind us) and then got pretty sleepy.

FINALLY they called us back at like 10:20 (remember Kalena had been drunkenly stumbling around since like 9:40) so I got her situated and then left the room. (I can’t watch/listen to that kind of stuff. I get all nauseated and faint-y. (Weirdly, doesn’t bother me to have things done to my teeth.)) Anyway, I read my book in the waiting room and just checked on her periodically. By the time they were actually working on her teeth she just laid there. No trouble at all. She was still out of it enough when they finished that I had to carry her to the car, and after we got home she napped for like 2 1/2 hours. Then she got her ice cream (soft foods only for the rest of the day since they pulled the tooth) and she was very pleased.

And as a reward for making it through all that rambling, here’s a picture of her minus one tooth!

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Some good things lately

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Just some random good things from around here recently.

Daniel now signs “more” and “eat” and he claps for himself. I have a hard time distinguishing when he’s actually wanting more and when he’s just clapping, but it’s all so stinking cute that I don’t really care.

Kalena and Will call their art easel a “weasel” so that’s awesome. Obviously I’m not correcting them.

I bought some summer clothes! I got out the summer clothes I had and realized my selection was pretty pathetic, so I went shopping and got some new things. Likely my selection is pathetic because for the last SIX YEARS I have been pregnant or nursing during at least part of the summer. But not this year! (Please don’t let this jinx me.)

Daniel had his 1 year pictures done and they turned out super. This shot of him doing “so big” is probably my favorite.

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Makes me smile every time I see it. (Sadly, the girl who has taken all his pictures so far is moving. :( Hopefully whoever is there next time can manage to get something reasonably cute. I don’t know that we’ll ever top this one.)

Will says, “Boom. Roasted” at appropriate times and Kalena says, “Whaaat?!” in her best fake-surprised voice, also used appropriately. So obviously we’re doing something right in the sense of humor department.

I finally beat level 213 on Candy Crush! (What? That totally belongs on this list.) I wasn’t sure I was ever going to make it past that one.

What good things are happening at your house?

Children’s museum

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What else did we do in Denver? (I know you are all wondering this.) We went to the Children’s museum! Despite having been to Denver with the kids at least a dozen times when Kirsta lived there, we never too the kids to the Children’s museum. (Our kids. Kirsta took her kids all the time. Not while we were there. ANYWAY.) But Sunday we met up with 3 of Brian’s siblings and headed over. It was INSANELY busy because a) weekend and b) awful weather, but the kids had a blast. Also, Nicki Kendall & I took Daniel and Wyatt (Nicki’s son) down to the baby area which was MUCH quieter and more enjoyable.

I took a whole bunch of pictures of the kids, but they are all terrible because they were too involved in everything to look at me. Okay, I do have this one cute one of Daniel and Wyatt in a tiny boat.

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Sie Center visit

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Did I mention that we went out of town a couple weeks ago? Well we did. We headed over to Denver to take Daniel to the Sie Center and visit some of Brian’s family. So even though the Sie Center was the last thing we did on our trip (because we drove over on Saturday and his appointment was Monday morning) it’s the first thing I’m going to write about.

Short version: The visit was awesome. The Sie Center is awesome. The people who work there are awesome.

Longer version: Daniel isn’t having any health issues, the Sie Center just likes to see their kids on a semi-regular basis to check up on them. (Also, everyone there totally refers to all the patients as “our kids.” I love it.) It started like a normal pediatrician visit. They measured height, weight, and head circumference. Daniel is big on the Down syndrome charts: 85% across the board. They also checked his blood pressure and the nurse said was good, but I have no idea what the number actually was. The doctor answered some general health questions for us: what to use on his eczema (Eucerin or Aquaphor) whether they want us to switch him to whole or 2% milk (they still recommend whole. We switched the other kids to 2%) and we discussed the results of his specialist visits (eyes, ears, blood tests, etc.) He had blood drawn at his 1 year visit here and the numbers came back weird (like, lab screw-up weird) so they sent us to get his blood re-drawn after we were done. Those showed that his TSH number is high, so they’re recommending we put him on thyroid medication. (We’ll be doing that through his ped here in town.) Thyroid issues are common with Down syndrome, so that wasn’t totally unexpected.

Next we spoke with a speech therapist who had several recommendations for us, the first of which was: more therapy. I assumed we’d switch to more often when he turned a year, she recommended he see a speech therapist at least 3 times a month. So I’ll be discussing that with his therapist next time she’s here. I’d actually like to go straight to weekly, because that’s WAY easier for me to remember than 3 visits a month would be. Early Intervention been really good about going with Sie Center recommendations/what I’d like to do, so it shouldn’t be an issue. We also spoke quite a bit about switching Daniel from a bottle to a cup. Right now he really doesn’t drink out of a cup and her recommendation was just to try a bunch and use whatever works for him. There’s some discussion about how various cups affect speech development, but she said that with Down syndrome there’s SO much that affects speech development that I shouldn’t worry about what kind of cup he’s using. The speech therapist also gave my number to their feeding expert (all she deals with are feeding issues!) who called me and said basically the same thing. We also talked about how he’s doing with eating, with signing, with gesturing, and all those speech/communication related things.

After that we saw the physical therapist who was very pleased with his progress. She answered all the questions his regular therapist and I had discussed (mostly questions about particular therapy props) and had some recommendations for what we should work on next. It’s pretty fascinating to watch her work, because she just has to see him for a minute or two and then she knows right where to go with the therapy. I mean, she’s seen Daniel twice, ever, but she was as natural with him as his regular therapist.

Next we talked briefly with someone who is working on a team putting together a database of medical information for people with Down syndrome. No identifying info, obviously, just medical stuff. The idea is that the database could be used to calculate statistics on the likelihood of a child with Down syndrome having various medical conditions. Statistics like that exist for the general population, but not so much for the Down syndrome population. Pediatricians generally only have a couple patients with Down syndrome (mine has 2, including Daniel) so that kind of information would be especially useful to them. We said yes basically before she was done telling us about it, because OH MAN I have looked so hard for info like that! I would love for it to exist! I love data. She told us it was the fastest “yes” she’d been given.

And last we spoke with the social worker. She told us about the National Down Syndrome Congress Convention which is being held in Denver this summer! (Actually she was the 3rd person to tell us. Everyone is very excited about it.) They change location every year, so to have it somewhere so close to us is great. I’d really love to go, so hopefully we can work that out.

And that’s that.

How we do Easter

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At our house growing up the Easter bunny hid our baskets. We got candy and some sort of small gift in them. The Easter bunny did not hide eggs. We always dyed hard-boiled eggs ahead of time, and then my parents hid them while we waited. I really didn’t realize until this year that the reason most people don’t hide real eggs is that they have to hide them ahead of time. (Obviously I’m VERY observant.) We’re keeping up this tradition with our kids, except we didn’t hide the baskets this year for a whole bunch of reasons. We also (as I’ve mentioned before) just do candy and a book for each kid, no other toys.

Here’s the thing I didn’t realize before this year: hiding REAL eggs makes it WAY easier to keep the candy and gifts to a minimum. There’s no worrying about how much candy they’re getting from eggs, or what to fill the eggs with if you don’t want to do so much candy. It’s just eggs! The kids are very patient while we hide them, and they don’t care that the Easter bunny didn’t bring them.

Kalena with her basket. I forgot to take photos of all the baskets done up, so this is all you get.

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So now some questions for you: Growing up, did the Easter bunny hide baskets, or eggs, or both? Did you hide real eggs or plastic eggs? If you hid plastic eggs, what was in them? And what are you doing with your kids?

Easter photos

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I looked and looked for matching suits for the boys but apparently nobody makes a suit smaller than a 4T. (We bought one for Will for Easter a couple years ago, but have not seen them since.) Anyway, I went with sweater vests instead.

Normally I don’t like matchy-matchy stuff, but look how cute!

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Kalena has started having opinions about her clothes (sad day for me.) Her only request for her Easter dress was that it be pink.

 

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The whole family. With everybody smiling! Even if not everybody is looking at the camera!

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Happy kids.

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Suspicious baby is suspicious of his brother.

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I’m embarrassed to admit that I did not notice until RIGHT NOW when I was putting these pictures up that those sweater vests aren’t exactly the same. I mean, obviously they match, but I thought they both had the argyle pattern horizontally across the front. GOOD THING I PAY ATTENTION.

Cake time

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Well, Daniel’s birthday was the 11th, but we waited to celebrate, knowing we’d have family in town this week. Brian’s mom is here as well as my sister Kari, with her husband and 3 kids. So today was the day! If you’ve been reading here for very long you know that when it comes to birthdays, cake is my Thing. I don’t do fancy decorations or big parties or exciting gifts. I like to making fun cakes though.

Here’s Daniel’s:

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It’s another one I found on pinterest (where else?!) I’m considering it a success since 1) the blog I pinned it from had no tutorial, just a picture and 2) the other blogger made it using fondant which I refuse to use because it’s gross so I knew mine wouldn’t look as smooth and pretty.

Daniel decided to go with the hands free method. (Same as Kalena when she turned one.)

 

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He thoroughly enjoyed it.

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