I Love Living In A Small Town

I don't know what is wrong with Savino tonight, but I think it is a combination of issues. His poor stuffy nose is still in full effect. I don't think there is such a thing as baby Benedryl, but the poor kid, I think this is allergies that are defeating him. I think he might have a sore throat or stuffed up ears as well because when I lay him down on his back he just gets so uncomfortable. I caved tonight and gave him some Tylenol after almost an hour of him screaming and crying and tugging at his ears and alternately clinging to me and then arching his back and thrusting away from me. I don't know, poor guy. This is the first time he's ever been in any discomfort for any extended period of time (beyond that wicked intestinal thing he had for like a week). That's why I don't think that it is just a spring cold, every time he's ever had a touch of the cold, it clears up almost instantly (thank you breastmilk! Woo!). I just hope that he starts to dry up soon. It doesn't help that there are like three trees surrounding our house that are just shedding pollen like nobody's business. Our cars have a lovely coat of yellow pollen dust on them. Much as I hate to say it, I hope it rains tomorrow to beat the pollen down off the trees and off of everything.

Needless to say, Savino hasn't been sleeping so well tonight. He screamed at bedtime and I ended up alternately cuddling him and then when he got frustrated with that, I laid him down in his crib and hung over the side and rubbed his belly and he quieted and stared at me until he dropped off to sleep. That was a first for him, usually I have to hold him until he falls asleep but he just drifted off laying there watching me. Tim came home (he got called into work at 8pm, niiiice) and Savino started crying again, he went upstairs to deal with him and Tim said that as soon as he picked him up, the boy laid his head down on his shoulder and went right back to sleep. Awww.

Some pictures... (Savino got a new hat, and it was too cute not to take a picture of!)




Also, I got new glasses awhile back, I am still trying to decide if I like them or feel weird in them. They are comfortable though.


It was a relatively productive weekend. Tim cut the grass on Saturday and tore apart part of our backyard fence that had fallen over. I am so defeated by our yard and the landscaping. All of the fencing has to come down. It is so so jacked up. Whatever. Anyway. He tore it up into peices and laid it next to the pool so that when the bottom is broken up, he can start throwing wood and whatnot into it to start filling it up. We have to completely rip up the decking that goes around the pool, it is all jacked up too. The yard around the pool has a bunch of dirt that came out of where they dug up the yard to put in the pool, and we have to dig it back down to remove part of the fencing, and all of that dirt will go into the pool as well. Back from whence you came!

Today we went to the garden center and bought 5 bags of cypress mulch and a bunch of perennials to try and replant up the front flowerbeds and make them look better. We need more mulch. The 5 bags were enough to cover the smaller circular flowerbed in the middle of the yard. The flowerbed against the house is still mulch-less. I moved and transplanted a bunch of strawberry plants all into one long row in front of part of the flowerbed. Last year they were spread all over, but this year I am trying to contain them to make it easier to pick and to look nicers. Hopefully my transplants will live, I was a little sloppy about getting them into the ground. Savino was playing outside with us in his exersaucer and so I had to get a move on before he got bored. We dug up three large peony bushes from the side flowerbed where all the vegetables were last year and planted them in the middle of the circular bed with the tulips all around the outer edges. In the front flowerbed I planted a pretty good sized foxglove plant, some salvia (a purplish butterfly bush looking plant), some geraniums (the only annuals I've planted so far), an asiatic lily, three white azaleas behind the strawberries that will hopefully get nice and tall, and I planted bleeding hearts in a pot for the porch. Tim's grandma loved bleeding hearts and he was getting all nostalgic looking at them so I said "Get it!". On the back deck I put in a jalepeno and banana pepper plant in the large tomato planters, hopefully they will live and not be eaten by groundhogs. I will KILL.

It sounds like a lot of plants, but somehow it still looks too sparse in the front. I guess I will suck it up and buy a flat of petunias or some other disposable annual to fill it in. I am at a loss. Gardening really is not my thing and though I've read and read, I still don't really understand what to plant with what. I pretty much just walk along and say "Oh, that looks pretty!" and the extent of my gardening planning is looking at the plant tag to see whether it's a sun or shade plant. Oh well. Tim is going to borrow his dad's woodchipper this weekend and chip all the wild grape vines he cut off the back fence and all the branches from the trees we cut down of the fence line last year and use the remaining chips for mulch. I still think we will end up buying a few bags of mulch, but that's fine.

So yeah. Yard and lawn talk. Good stuff. Aren't you envious? Hey, I am still drama free though, and that is a VERY good thing! I celebrate!

I have to get serious about cleaning my house tomorrow. For rlz. There are Gerber puffs EVERYWHERE. How are they migrating around the house from the dining room? I suspect the cats are playing with them and batting them around. That must be it. Either that or the Puff Fairy is coming and scattering them around. Savino probably throws four or five puffs overboard at every meal when I give him a few to distract him so I can make food or get his food ready, and by the end of the day if I haven't swept twice they are everywhere. Good thing I don't get paid to clean huh?

I did finally tackle the laundry situation, and of course that means that on my way to bed I need to transfer laundry from the washer to the dryer, but at least I am somewhat on top of it. I went through all of Savino's clothes and discarded things that were too small or seasonally inappropriate. What is sad is that I ended up taking things out of his drawers that HE NEVER WORE. How is that possible? Mostly pants that he never wore, that I bought because at some point I ridiculously thought, "Oh, he really needs more pants!" and bought him ten pairs. Oh well. I just took a HUGE bag of clothes over to Eleni's house on Tuesday and already I have a knee high stack of clothes all ready to take over again. This will be the third lot of clothes I have pushed on her. I told Tim today, if I wasn't passing them back to Eleni I could make a serious killing on eBay with all these clothes. In fact, I think I will let her know that when she is done with them, she can just pass them right on back around and I will dispose of them for her. Hehehe.

So anyway, I am going through Savino's summer clothes that have been sitting in the bottom drawers and the other dresser which is full of clothes for NEXT winter. I have been stressing that he didn't have enough summer clothes and in fact, just yesterday bought a lot of onesies and rompers on eBay (Well, it was .99c and even with 7$ shipping, you still can't beat that!). Um, yeah, he has plenty of summer clothes. In fact, I almost couldn't close one of his drawers which was stuffed with shirts and shorts and rompers and outfits. He has probably fifteen pairs of NICE pants, not just sweatpants or lightweight pants but nice cords and khackis and jeans. He will be fine on onesies once this lot I just bought arrived, and the only thing that he really needs is summer weight sleepers. I have to keep my eye out for some 24m sleepers for next winter, he only has a handful of sleepers that will fit next winter and now is the time when all of that will be on sale. I have to find him some summer sleepers though, the ones that he has now are TOO SHORT. His poor little legs are jammed in there and while he can still manage for another week or so, that's it. He has about 1/4 of an inch in there before they really will not fit, for real. And of course, those stupid things are so expensive! I hate hate hate paying like $9 for ONE sleeper when he will just outgrow it in a month or two anyway. Maybe I can find some super secret sale somewhere and score some. There is a big garage sale at the Knights of Columbus coming up next weekend, perhaps I can get lucky there. I would love to just let him sleep in a onesie or whatever, but the temp drops just enough at night to make that too uncomfortable for him because he doesn't sleep with any blankets yet and his blanket sleepers are too heavy and too hot.

Yes, these are the things that consume me. I love it. I am relishing the minutia. Boring is GOOD! I do not take this for granted!

Oh, haha, this is funny. Well, sort of I guess. *I* thought it was funny. So Chantal sends Tim a text last night that he didn't get until this morning that the cops were looking for someone who was on our street. Apparently they pulled someone over last night and the guy fled on foot and ran down OUR STREET and the cops never did find him. They were cruising the neighborhood still this morning. Tim was so paranoid that he took his big Maglite flashlight and went out to the garage to check and make sure there were no criminals hiding in the garage or the basement. I laughed the whole time. Though, thinking about it, it's probably not that funny having someone hiding out from the cops in your backyard, but still, I was amused. I was also amused that this was BIG DRAMA, having lived in big cities where cops chasing a criminal down the street is just another Friday night. It still never fails to make me smile just how little and sheltered and out of touch with urban life our little town is. That is also a good thing! I am glad to be raising my kids in a town where someone fleeing from the cops when being pulled over is the biggest deal on the news.

Criminals beware. Don't hide in my garage. My husband has a large flashlight and a wife who is not afraid of you! Hehe.

On that note, it's late, I must sleep.