Wednesday, December 13, 2006

elbow pain

Last night, I was running up the stairs, and I tagged the corner of my elbow on the the molding half-way up the stairs (as I turned the corner on the landing). Man, it hurt a lot. I haven't felt pain like that since The Great Kidney Stone of 2004. This morning I have a visible bruise, but most of the pain has moved into my shoulder. I don't know why. This pain seems worse than my elbow pain last night. It feels like I have a deep and intense bruise in the lower section of my deltoid. This makes it difficult to hold Ben and still get things done. I'm doing much better after 400mg of Advil that expired 5 years ago.

On another note, today Denise will mail off Christmas presents, marking the end of our holiday shopping and shipping season. Hooray for that.

Tuesday, December 12, 2006

The black eye

Last night, Joseph tripped on the downstairs bath mat and caught the sharp corner of the bathroom counter-top just below his eye. The skin was not broken, but we called the doctor's office to see if there was anything we could do. We already had ice on his eye, and they recommended that we give him ibuprofin, which we did. He looks much better this morning, although he does have a moderate black eye.

It was the perfect end to a long day for Denise, who traveled all the way to Albany just to have pictures developed. You see, our local Fred Meyer store here in Corvallis had a photo machine whose Matte finish wasn't working. We prefer the Matte finish to the glossy for photos we are going to hang on the wall (or give to others). So Denise went to Albany - only for them to do all the photos in Glossy. Denise had already done all of her Albany shopping (while the 1-hour photos were being done), so she waited in the parking lot while they did them again.

There really wasn't any other choice, but of course the three boys didn't take it patiently, as they had already been having bad days at Target (and Fred Meyer and hour earlier).

After the obligatory half-hour, Denise picked up the Matte-finish photos (with a 10% discount), and came home. When she got to the car, she took a peek at the photos, and there seemed to be about twice as many as we ordered, and most of them were wrong!! There was not going to be a fourth trip into Fred Meyer, so she continued home. I can't believe they messed up as badly as they did - twice - and in two different ways. Most of the pictures they picked instead of the ones we chose are actually pretty nice poses, so it's not a total loss.

I tried to hang some of the pictures this morning, but we couldn't find any nails for hanging. Maybe they have some at Fred Meyer.

Monday, December 11, 2006

Sam and potty-training

This weekend was our first honest effort at potty-training Sam. He does pretty well. On Saturday, he had two accidents compared to 4 successful trips to the toilet. On Sunday, we backed off a bit and put him in diapers for church time. After church, we put him back in the briefs. He had an accident all over the kitchen floor, but overall, he's doing a great job.

When he sits on the toilet, he looks up at us and exclaims "I do good job!" This is his standard remark whenever he does something we praise him for. On the flip side, he also knows what we tell him when he's in trouble.

Take this morning for example. He likes to follow Charley out to the bus in the mornings and makes every attempt to get on the bus without me noticing. This morning he got all the way to the steps of the bus and he really threw a fit when I picked him up and carried him home. After I put him down inside our apartment, he looked at me and pointed to the stairs and screamed "No, Dad. On the stairs! You go your room!!" You see, we sit him in time-out on the stairs and send him to his room when he's in trouble.

Tuesday, December 05, 2006

Last project done

Today I officially handed in the very last class project I will ever do in my school career ... so long as you don't count my dissertation. My next hurdle happens on Thursday when I take my last final for my last class that I'll ever take in my life. I sometimes joke with Denise that I can still always go to medical school. She doesn't think that's a funny joke.

We are now in the midst of making our Christmas plans. We'll head down to California for a few weeks and enjoy time with my family as well as Denise's. It will be a great trip, and a much needed vacation for all of us.