Halloween: heartbreak no more.

Last year's Halloween was draped in disappointment for me.  Neither child wanted to dress up or go trick-or-treating. They were content staying at home and handing out candy.  This year both kids let me know way in advance we were repeating the same thing again; no dressing up and no trick or treating.  Ugh.  I'm still not happy about it, but I've gotten used to it. No matter how many times I've asked them through the month of October if they've changed their minds, they told me time and time again "Nope, it's not going to happen."

4:00pm on Friday, October 31st, Ian asks me the following, "If I were to dress up, what could I go as?"  WHAT!!!?!?!?!  Are you serious?  I'm planner, an OVER-PLANNER if there is such a thing.  You can't pull this on me this late in the game!  Apparently Ian was changing his mind.  And because Ian was changing his mind, Sam was changing her mind too.  She will do whatever her big brother does.

With only a few hours to go, we went to the CVS across the street to see what Halloween costumes we could put together.  Believe it or not, we found a witch costume for Sam and a skeleton costume for Ian.  And get this, because we were buying the costumes in the 11th hour, we got it for 50% off.  Bonus! 

I took the kids trick or treating from 6:30pm to 8:00pm.  We went around our neighborhood and kept it low key going from house to house on our own.  They were enjoying it very much.  Ian started talking about next year's trick or treating and which friends he'd want to go with. 

I believe we've brought Halloween back to the Toppall house.  Yay!

Flu Shot Extravaganza 2014!

Our annual date to make getting the flu shot an event had a few things going against it.  The main thing was the dates our pediatrician chose to offer their flu shot clinic.  The 3 dates they offered didn't work for Beth or me.  So we quickly adapted to a new plan and picked the local Target pharmacy to get the kids the Flu Mist.  We intentionally picked a Target in a busy strip shopping center that would offer many restaurant choices for dinner.

The other thing going against us was Sam getting sick the same week we had picked to do our outing.  Jeff was able to watch Sam at home and I continued with our plans with Ian.  It was strange being with one less kid for something that BOTH kids always comes to.  But that's the way the cookie crumbles.  Sam will just have to get her flu shot without all the added hoopla.

After the three kids got the Flu Mist, we headed to Olive Garden for dinner.  It was a great choice as Ian said he was "in the mood for really good Italian food."  Ah, the poor kid has not really lived if he thinks Olive Garden is the epitome of 'really good Italian food.'  However, it worked for our group and we each enjoyed our dinner very much.  Instead of going for ice cream afterwards (in the original Flu Shot Extravaganza, ice cream after dinner is a MUST!), the kids ordered dessert at the restaurant.  Ian was thrilled with his chocolate mousse cake. 

All in all, Flu Shot Extravaganza lives on.  It may not be exactly as it had been in the past, but mission accomplished.  The kids have been vaccinated.  Let me rephrase that, Ian has.  I still need to take Sam.   Which hopefully by the time you read this, the flu won't stand a chance trying to invade her body.  :)

 

Fever for four days

I know some people who think I can't go with the flow.  However, let me tell you, I went with the flow.  For 4 days! Almost 2 months to the day, Samantha picked up another virus and along with it, came a fever of 101.  I got the call from her school at 11:00am on Tuesday morning that I needed to collect her.  Samantha never made it back to school that week.

Her teacher said she was the 3rd one at her table to get sick.   Knowing Sam the way I do, I can picture her seeing the kids at her table dropping like flies, getting a vacation from school and licking their seats and table space to catch this bug too.  Well if that's what she did, it worked.  Sam couldn't kick this fever of varying temps of 100 to 101 for all 4 days.  We were stuck at home.  It was not fun.  It made for a long week.  A very long week.

By Friday,  I was going stir crazy. I had a whole day of appointments and errands I needed to do and couldn't handle staying indoors another day.  My ability to go with the flow had an expiration date.  I gave Sam her morning does of Tylenol and off we went.  From 9:00am to 2:30pm, we must've stopped at 8 different places (drs appts, target, dry cleaner, lunch, etc.).  Samantha was a trooper the whole day.  We had a really nice day together.  By the time we got back home, any medicine I had given her had worn off and she no longer had a fever.  Yay!  Three cheers for her fever finally breaking. 

It was a crazy week. I am glad it is over. And now back to our regular scheduled programming.

   

It's the 70's all over again

Samantha has a ton of night lights.  Many more than the average person.  It's not that she needs multiple night lights plugged in, she only needs one to the do the job; it's just that she seems to collect them.  Even with all the night lights available for her to use, she asked Jeff to get her another one.  It must've been when I was away somewhere because I know the purchase of another night light was not necessary. 

So this night light enters our house and gets plugged into Sam's outlet.  It's like nothing you've ever seen before.  Sure, it lights up and gives a glow to the room.  It also changes to all the colors of the rainbow. You can pick one of the colors to be stationary and illuminate only that color or you can have it on the setting to run through all the colors. And these colors are BRIGHT!!  Very, very bright.  Bright red, bright green, bright blue, bright yellow, bright orange, bright purple, etc.  It is by far the most obnoxious night light you've ever experienced. 

 

 

Two of the many colors in the spectrum.

These pictures don't do it justice.  This night light lights up Samantha's entire bedroom.  It is as bright as day.  Of course she wants the setting where the light changes colors.  From the outside of her room (either the light coming through the bottom of the door) or from the outside of her window, it looks like she is having one heckuva party in her bedroom.  ALL NIGHT LONG!  Seriously, it is like a disco ball twirling around from her ceiling giving off all the colorful lights.

In addition to the night light, Sam falls asleep to music.  Usually it is set on a timer of 60 minutes and will shut off automatically.  At least once a week or so, the timer button does not get set and the music plays all night light long. And the music is on the loud side because she has turned up the volume after we've said good-night.  Between the music and the night light show, it is a wonder Sam is getting any sleep at all.  For a girl that has (in my opinion) many sensory issues, it is so bizarre that anyone can sleep, let alone Sam, during this display of light and music.

Samantha does a great job of keeping it interesting and fresh around here.

Sam, snug as a bug in a rug.
This is how she arranged herself and slept, surrounded by pillows.
The Halloween hat in the background is a nice touch.

Heard and Observed #50

Ian and Sam have Chinese as a mandatory language in their school. 

One recent Sunday evening:

Ian:  Ugh. I don't want Chinese tomorrow.

Sam:  Me either.

Ian:  Sam, you have Chinese too on Mondays?

Sam:  I don't know.  Just ask me each day and I will let you know if I had Chinese that day.

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Observing a national holiday.

I read somewhere that October 15th was National Eat Ice Cream For Dinner Day.  When I told Jeff this and my crazy idea to let the kids have only ice cream for dinner, he was quick to jump onboard.  We did discuss adding French fries to accompany the ice cream.  Why not go all out and really have some fun with dinner?  Believe me, I put a well-rounded, pretty healthy dinner on the table almost every night for the family.  Having only ice cream and French fries for dinner is very much out of our norm.  But with all Sam has been through with her doctors appointments and Ian's overwhelming amount of homework, I figured we could use a little fun.

   
The day before I went back online and looked for more information on this awesome sounding holiday.  However, it turns out that October 15th is really National Chicken Cacciatore Day.  WHAT?!?!?  Who knew that Chicken Cacciatore even needed their own day.  After some more digging, I finally found where I read that it was Eat Ice Cream For Dinner Day. It turns out that 10 years ago a woman decided to honor her deceased father by starting a movement to make every October 15th, eat ice cream for dinner day. Apparently her dad would've really liked this.  I think this is great and I was still all for it. When I told Jeff how it came about, he said, "So this woman made it up?"  Um, aren't all these crazy sounding days made up?  I mean, really, chicken cacciatore day is not made up?

We kept our dinner plans a surprise.  When Jeff got home from work, we sat both kids down and told them what we were doing.  Their eyes could not have been bigger. I think Sam's mouth even dropped open.  It was pretty neat.  They both thought we were kidding.  It was awesome.  The look on their faces was priceless.

It all went down at Friendly's.  We told the waitress we only wanted plates of French fries and lots of ice cream.  However, one by one we each ordered something else to go with our "main entrees".   Sam ordered a bowl of chicken noodle soup.  Ian ordered the kid's mozzarella sticks dinner.  Jeff got salad and soup. And I got a salad. And there was plenty of French fries and ice cream to go around.

I guess no one in the family could handle only having French fries and ice cream for dinner.  How funny.  Sam was the last holdout and then finally decided she wanted something else too.  I am sure the waitress thought we were bonkers as every time she stopped to check in on us, we ordered yet something else to eat. 

Normally our Friendly's has the worst service ever!  But we got lucky and the service was quick and efficient.  We were actually out of there within an hour.  Good thing too with how much we were making our waitress work. 

What was left of the kids' Caramel Fudge Brownie Sundae.

Fall Festival Fun!

I LOVE Cox Farms!  I love it when we go and there is a slight chill in the air.  I love it when we get there right before they open and beat the inevitable big crowds.  I love it when there are no lines on all our favorite things to do.  I love that the kids are old enough to go on everything, either with or without Jeff/me joining them.  I love that we have a plan on what we want to do as soon we get in. I love how we love to eat kettle corn.  I LOVE Cox Farms!

It is a wonderful way spend the day together as a family.  And this year we coordinated going with another family.  The kids had friends to hang out with, and Jeff and I each had another mom/dad to chat with.  It was a picture perfect day.