9 weeks at last!

The first stretch was finally over and after 9 long weeks, Ryan was able to come home for three days!  He surprised us all by coming home early Thursday morning instead of really late Thursday night.  When Matthew first saw him, he just said "Hi Daddy" like it was any other day.  Then it sunk in and about 5 seconds later he turned around and yelled "DADDY!!".  The hugs and kisses didn't stop all weekend!  Drew was in amazement and had the best look on his face.  He was a bit shy at first with Ryan and wouldn't Ryan hold him.  It only took him about 10 minutes to warm up to him and then Drew was handing our hugs and kisses all weekend long too.  It was so nice for Ryan to actually see Drew's walking and running skills in person and listen to him say "Mama", "Dada", and "Ball".   

It was nice for Ryan to have a break in the nasty weather they have been having down there.  On Wednesday night his work was evacuated because of tornadoes.  When he and Gary left work they actually drove through part of one.  The wind was so powerful that it pushed Gary's truck (a 7,200 pound Dodge beast) horizontally across the street.  Ryan said there was wind and debris flying all over the place.  On the way home they had to move 2 trees that had fallen in the road.  Overall, they have gotten over 6 inches last week alone.  On Friday, St. Louis got hit pretty hard with 12 tornadoes!  We were very happy that Ryan drove this trip and didn't fly, because it would have been uncertain if he would have been able to fly in to St. Louis today.  So all in all coming home to 50 degree weather was a nice, chilly break from his 85 degree severe thunderstorms.

I took a half day on Friday so Ryan and I could get some errands and odds and ends done.  We bought Matthew's birthday present, because Ryan wanted to be a part of it and his next trip home will be for Matthew's birthday.  We spent most of the weekend as a family, just the way we needed it to be.  We did have some time that Ryan and I went out just the two of us and we also celebrated our birthdays with Ryan's family.  The four of us started a movie night on Saturday, but Drew fell asleep during his breathing treatment and Matthew passed out about 30 minutes into Toy Story.  We had a very casual and spur of the moment Easter with my parents.  The boys got to have an egg hunt in their yard and after our lunch we came home to get Ryan ready for his trek home.

Before leaving, Ryan took Matthew and Drew on their first JD tractor rides of the year.  A perfect way to end the weekend in those boys' eyes!  Of course once Ryan drove away, Matthew started asking for Daddy.  The next five weeks will hopefully fly by and Ryan will be home again with us for the weekend. 

Check out some more photos at our picture site.  We can't wait for Memorial Day Weekend.  Love you Daddy!

Ryan's New Job

Ryan finally got put onto Gary's work site and will start on Monday!!  What does this mean for him???  Well, the site he has been at for the past five weeks was 90 minutes away and the new site is only about 20 minutes away.  The old site he was working alone with nobody he knew and doing all the driving by himself.  The new site is with a few friends and he can carpool with Gary on a daily basis.  The old site was five days a week for 10 hours and the new site is six days a week for 10-12 hours, with many more opportunities for overtime.  The old site was outside, so if it rained they were sent home.  He has not worked a full 50 hour week since arriving there five weeks ago.  The new site is inside so weather is not a factor. 

An added bonus...the new site has "family weekends" since they have so many travelers.  On a Family Weekend, they shut the plant down for the entire weekend so guys don't miss out on more work to be with their families.  They don't have them every month, I think it is around every two months.  The next Family weekend is Easter(only four weeks away!), which is when Ryan was going to come home anyway.  The only downfall of the new site is that Ryan will be working nights now and not days.  We will have to figure out a schedule to Skype (most likely on the weekends until I am out of work).  He might have to call during the day and leave a "goodnight" message to the boys to hear before going to bed.  That is one minor thing we can work out.

My Spring Break starts on Friday.  I don't have many plans except spending a lot of time with the boys, a few doctor's appointments and a trip to the outlet mall with my mom to get the boy's their new spring and summer clothes.  My students really need the break from school and illness.  I luckily have managed to dodge all the germs and illness that has hit our school.  Not sure how seeing as my whole class has had it...maybe I'm immune?!  

There is a lot of other things going on at work now that have been stressful.  Our Superintendent and our Board of Education had a horrible relationship and they forced her out with a hefty buyout one year before her contract was up.  Now they want to spend even more money with an interim Superintendent and then hire a new one.  They want us to become a "Super tier" district, yet none of the board members can even define what that is.  What Superintendent in their right mind would want to come work for this board?  The two most controversial board members are up for re-election (the president and vice-president) and hopefully the community will not re-elect them!  I wish I could vote for this, but I can't.  With all the cuts our crappy, new governor is making to public education, the choice of spending more money (which they don't have) was an outrage to the community.  It has created an uproar in Portage and many unhappy staff members.  On top of that, with all the new cuts, we somehow have to cut another $3-8 million from out budget (the number varies depending on an upcoming county mileage renewal).  We (the teachers) helped to cut millions last year by choosing to pay more for insurance (20%), take a pay cut to prevent the layoff of 45 teachers midyear, add minutes to the school day so the district could dismiss one-two weeks before the rest of the area to save even more money on the part time workers.  Now the district is proposing cutting all the early intervention reading specialists (Reading Recovery and reading parapros), outsource our Secretaries and the rest of custodial, and the big whopper...class sizes of 30 in elementary and last I heard over 35 for middle and high school!  I think we all need a break from that. 

In happier news, Matthew's speech teacher has started his one year evaluation.  They only got through one area and Matthew is now slightly above his age level for comprehension!  Hopefully next week Ken will be able to get to Matthew's expressive language screen.  He has grown so much this past year and we couldn't be happier.  Matthew goes back to the ENT on April 18th for an exam and new hearing test to make sure everything is alright.  Drew is practically running now and is into EVERYTHING!  He loves to follow Matthew around and they just laugh all the time now!  Matthew loves being able to play with him and teach him new things. 

Matthew has done a lot of growing up these past five weeks.  He has been such a great help.  He continues to help empty the dishwasher and knows where everything goes.  He loves, loves, loves to do the laundry and will gather it all for me and help switch it all over.  He also loves going to the grocery store (odd, I know).  As long as he can see the fish and the lobsters he will help in any way I need.  His favorite, by far though, is running the vacuum so we do that often too.  He loves to talk and see Ryan on Skype and once he gets his bedtime chat with Ryan he will go to bed on his own.  He gets his jammieswatch a movie.  This is by far his favorite activity and mine too!  Showing tonight at the Chenery cinema is A Bug's Life, can't wait :)

Two weeks down

It has been two weeks since Ryan moved away and things here are finally settling into a routine.  The first week that Ryan was gone we had a major winter ice storm.  Luckily we only lost power at our house for about 5 hours, but other parts of Portage were out for 4 days, including our daycare!  School was canceled for the first two days and then when the power was finally restored a power surge fried the motherboard and almost all the individual heating units for each classroom (about 30 of them).  So, my school was canceled for another day.  The district was planning on opening for Thursday, but without all the parts needed we still didn't have heat.  It was a good thing, because Thursday morning there was a bad car accident outside of school and the two cars involved split the power pole in half, again knocking power out to school and this time frying the remaining heating units that didn't go in the first surge!  They are still trying to fix all the problems a week later from this mess.  So, our school had the entire week off.  It was a very long week for us, but Matthew and I were able to go to Jungle Joes on Saturday with some friends to blow off some stream.

Due to the week off of school we had to reschedule conferences for this past week.  Monday and Wednesday were conferences and I was booked both nights until 9:00.  On top of conferences and getting Matthew to speech in the middle of it, Drew got sick again.  His last ear infection never went away with the first round of antibiotics and now turned into a double ear infection.  On top of that his wheezing flared up and he was officially diagnosed with asthma (something we have suspected since October).  Drew is taking after his mommy!  He now gets nebulizer treatments four times a day until this flair up subsides, then it is twice a day until spring for preventative measures.  He is handling the face mask okay, some days and treatments are better than others.  It works really good when he is asleep and doesn't fight me :)

We were able to purchase a new laptop and get it down there to Ryan so he can now Skype with us!  Matthew is so excited to see daddy on the computer and talk to him on the phone.  Drew is mesmerized by the fact that Daddy is on the computer too.  Ryan got to see Drew walking all over the house in person too and not just on a video.  Walking is his main mode of transportation now and he is a pretty confident walker!  Drew is now climbing onto everything, including the couch...super!  He talks and babbles a lot and imitates sounds all the time.  He calls me 'mom' and Ryan 'dada'. 

Matthew has his good days and his not so good days when it comes to missing Ryan, but every night when the phone rings, Matthew is the first to answer it.  Once he talks to Ryan he gets in his bed on his own and goes to sleep.  It is now part of his nightly routine.  He loves his friends at daycare and loves having school time there too.  Now that Drew is more mobile, Matthew has really turned around with him.  He loves playing with him and his jealousy issues have subsided.  He will hold Drew's hand and walk him to other toys or books.  They wrestle together and play on the bed laughing all the time.  Peek-a-boo is still a favorite and Matthew loves playing it with Drew under the covers.  The joy of hearing those laughs is amazing.   

We have had enormous support and help from family in town and many, many friends.  I couldn't have gotten through the last two weeks without all the support.  Thank you for the emails, phone calls, texts, watching my boys and the hugs.  I can't wait for the next 6 weeks to fly by so we all can see Ryan in person.  We have already started planning a few trips this summer, including a weekend in Chicago (about 4 hours away for Ryan).  Ryan will come home in the fall for a few football games, but not the whole season.  We are also looking forward to a family weekend at Great Wolf Lodge (also in the fall) with both boys this year.  I plan on flying down there this summer too for a weekend visit.  I'm not sure if I will take the kids for the 8 hour car trip, but who knows, knowing me I probably will (I don't have much else to do this summer).  From what I have heard, St. Louis is an amazing city with lots to do.  I would like to explore it with just Ryan and again with the kids, visiting museums, zoos and the arch!  One museum I would like to see is called City Museum (Matthew's speech teacher told me all about it).  It is amazing with all levels of exploration, caves, tunnels, etc.
Plus, Ryan is living with Gary, Blair and their son Henry (who is three months younger than Matthew), so a trip down there would be fun for all the kids involved!

Not a morning person

I finally found the software to upload our videos to my computer and forgot about all the videos I had taken over the past few years.  We have film on Matthew crawling for the first time, his first steps as well as Drew crawling and the boys goofing off together.  I'm so happy that we took it when we did, because half of the footage I completely forgot about.  I came across this one and wanted to share how our mornings are at home sometimes.  I know I have felt like this before and Matthew is like this all the time.  He is definitely not a morning person.  Anyway, this is from Christmas 2009 (about 3 weeks before Drew was born) and Matthew was just waking up for Christmas morning.  Enjoy :)

Drew walking

Here is some video of Drew walking just for you, Daddy.  He has been taking some steps here and there, but once Ryan left he really started taking off.  I will be posting more and more video for Ryan to see the boys.  Enjoy

And we're off...

This has been a whirlwind of a week and I will be glad when it's over.  Ryan found out on Tuesday morning that he was going to be going back to work...in Southern Illinois!  He starts on Monday and had to move today.  We are relieved that he is back to work (he's been off since the end of September and has been off for more than two years of the past three), but it's going to be very, very hard not having him here.  Ryan and I have been together for 16 years and we have never been apart for longer than a week.  We both know that this is what is best for our family at this point and this time away will be for the best in the future.  We are guessing he will be there for about a year unless something miraculous happens in Michigan and the economy picks up again.  I don't see that happening.  So for now he will live in Belleville, IL and work in Wood River, IL, just outside of St. Louis. 

His first trip home will most likely be in April for our birthdays and then again at the end of May for his annual fishing trip and Matthew's birthday.  We plan on meeting a few times this summer in Chicago and possibly Indianapolis with the kids for an extended weekend.  I'd love to visit St. Louis and I might take a trip down there with the kids too, but don't know how they will do on the 7 hour car ride...maybe a night drive is in store?

Matthew doesn't quite understand; he just knows that Daddy is at work and he can talk and see him on the computer and talk to him on the phone.  Drew will also notice his absence, but won't really know it.  Luckily he is staying with our friend Gary and we can Skype until we can get Ryan his own laptop.  It's going to be hard, but I know that we can do it.  We have a wonderful family and a great circle of friends that will help us out, I just need to know when to ask for help.

I know my job will consume a lot of my time and keep my mind focused on other things.  Hopefully the next two months will fly by so we can see Ryan again.  Thank you to everyone who is helping and supporting us in this journey. 

Drew

Drew recently went to the doctor for his one year checkup.  He is doing great and staying on is growth curve.  Here are his stats:

             Weight: 23.8 pounds

              Height: 29 inches 

He got four shots this time around and handled them like a champ.  I think he is used to getting beat up by Matthew that a little poke in the leg is really nothing for him.  We also had his follow-up at the eye doctor and everything looks good from his probing.  We don't have to go back until he is six years old unless we notice the build up again.  We will see some of the discharge and watery eyes when he has a cold because his nasal passages on that side are much narrower that the other side.  In an odd way it is kind of nice because it happens before the actual cold surfaces, so we have a little bit of a heads-up.

Drew is well on his way to walking and at this point will walk when he wants to walk.  The most he has taken is about 10-15 steps across the room.  The more attention we draw to it, the quicker he will go down and prefer to crawl, which he is incredibly fast at.  So, we try to "ignore" him when he does let go and walks on his own.  He transitioned to whole milk in mid-December and is doing great without a bottle.  His sleep patterns at night have gotten much better.  A few months back, the day we came back from Great Wolf Lodge to be exact, he started having troubles sleeping through the night.  He would wake up two to three times in a night just screaming and nothing could get him calmed down.  Then all of the sudden, on the night of his 1st birthday party, he snapped out of it and has been sleeping 12 hours a night without getting up.  My mom bought him the "twilight turtle" and that seems to help him calm down.  It worked so great that Matthew wanted one and now asks to go to bed to see his turtle.  I love that invention :)

Matthew continues to grow and is getting bigger by the day.  He recently had a growth spurt and is about the same height or taller than most of his friends.  He loves to get himself ready for Deah's or bedtime.  We have to allow for extra time to let him do it himself.  He can completely get undressed and dressed on his own, including his underwear, socks, shoes, jacket and hat.  He needs help with the initial zipper on his jacket, but he needs to finish it all on his own.  He normally "picks" out his clothes, those that he can reach in his dresser and then tells me what shirt to get from the closet.  

Speech continues to go great and he will have his one year evaluation in a few weeks.  It's amazing how far he has come in one year.  We go back to the ENT in early April for a recheck on his ears and another hearing test.