Mysterious Bruise

The other morning I woke up and immediately discovered that my right arm was very sore. To extend, it hurt a lot. I could feel very distinct pain from my elbow pit to my arm pit. It kind of felt like a sore muscle, after working it harder than usual, but different. As if, perhaps, I had torn a muscle or something. Something felt bruised inside. I complained of it to Aaron, but since he had just done a major workout on his upper body, and ALL of his muscles were sore, he felt little sympathy for me.
The pain has relaxed since then, but today I noticed something else. A huge and ugly bruise! I don't know if you can see it in the picture very well. But it goes from my armpit to my elbow pit, following exactly the line of pain.

So...weird. I did have to do a blood draw the other day, and in this arm. I think it must be related, thought nothing like this has ever happened. I bet it follows the vein.
Impressive, no?

First day of school!

Tuesday was Morgan's first day of preschool! Some ladies in our ward and I started a co-op preschool for our kids. There are five kids, and five moms. We'll have preschool on Tuesday's and Thursdays and rotate teachers each week. Morgan is definitely the youngest. Two of the kids will start kindergarten this fall, two will start next fall, and Morgan will start the year after that. But, seeing as how Morgan already knows most of the letters and their sounds, I didn't think preschool would be too hard for him.

So, after we did some school shopping and sufficiently hyped up preschool to Morgan, the first day of school came. I had to get the pictures of him ready to go. He hammed it up, like usual.


I decided that I would stay with him the first day. I wanted to make sure he was good, and I wanted to get ideas for when I teach. I got ideas. The teacher was great. But Morgan...not so much. The other four kids were fantastic. They listened, they participated, they obeyed. Morgan was kind of a brat.
Time to color: "I don't want to color!"
Let's all go sit on the rug for songs. "I want to sit on the couch!"
Everyone stand up for this song. "NO! I'm sitting down."
Morgan sneezed, can everyone say bless you? "Bless you". Can Morgan say thank-you now? "No." Let's wait for Morgan to say thank-you. *grunt*

Oy, he was horrible! It was embarrassing. I wondered if my presence made him worse, so I probably won't ever be staying again. But then, if he would have just been naughty anyway, maybe I should stay to help keep him in line. Or maybe he's a year too early for preschool.

But I think he'll learn a lot if he stays. Not only how to interact better with other kids and adults, but he'll learn the pledge of allegiance, he'll master the alphabet and numbers, and he'll learn how to write his name. He knows how to spell it, but he lacks in the fine motor skills for writing it.

So, right now Morgan is at preschool. We had several talks after Tuesday about proper behavior, and I think he should be better. And...now I have two hours to myself! I can't figure out what would be best to do while he's gone. Should I take this time to clean? But that's boring, and I can do that when he's here. I could exercise, but, once again, I exercise with the wii fit, and Morgan likes to play that with me. I could certainly use this quiet time to write my book. So many things I could and should do, but I'd really rather just curl up on the couch and read.

I sure hope he's being good.

Reading with Daddy

Daddy put Morgan to bed last night. I looked in Morgan's room and found them reading together like so. Awwww.


Note the book. Chika Chika Boom Boom. I found it at the library and checked it out. Several years ago when I worked in a Kindergarten class, the teacher read this book to the kids often, and they loved it! Soon they all had it memorized and would recite as she read. So I thought I'd try it with Morgan and he loves it too. I don't know what it is about this book that is so successful. It's a cute story and the rhythm and rhyming are great, but there are other books with those attributes that aren't as universally loved. Oh well.

Don't mind the mess by Morgan's bed. When I put him down for a nap he reads all of his books instead. He takes them out of the book shelf and throws them in a big pile on the floor when he's done. He has lots of books, so the pile gets big.

And now, we feast!

Remember this? Lovely.
But that has to come to an end. And indeed it has. After Christmas we started pillaging our gingerbread house of it's color and decorations. But after taking down the Christmas decorations, there was still a lot of the gingerbread house left. The only Christmas thing left up. Plus it was taking up a lot of space on the piano. So, to speed along the process I put it on the piano bench, in easy reach of a candy loving three year old.
Not so pretty anymore. You can tell which candies Morgan isn't in to. Not a fan of red hots or the peppermint candy canes. And since all the good candy was gone, well, Morgan decided it was time to feast on the icing itself. He'd take a stick of it and just chomp down.
Whatever floats your boat. He even ate half of the gingerbread door.
And just so we're clear, Morgan didn't single handedly eat the candy from the gingerbread house. His mother helped him a great deal. Too much. His daddy didn't help enough.

Top (bottom) ten of 2009

Last year I chronicled the top most memorable things of the ending year, and this year I will do the same. But this year is a doozy.
In chronological order.

1. The year started out without much drama. So it wasn't until April that things of more importance happened. And it all seemed to happen at once. In April we moved from Saratoga Springs to Dugway, where Aaron worked. No more three hours in the car a day for Aaron. No more huge gasoline expenses. We've really liked living out here, so it was a good move.

2. Also in April we finally found some tenants for our empty house in Caldwell. We'd pretty much been paying the full mortgage since we moved, so this promised a great financial boon.

3. In April, (or maybe late March) after almost a year of trying, we got that positive pregnancy test.

4. May brought my second consecutive miscarriage. It started on my birthday. Both of my miscarried babies were supposed to come in December. But each time December comes, when I should have a brand new baby, or even a one year old, my arms are empty.

5. The worst news of the year was yet to come. In July my husband confessed his drastic change in religious views. To me, this was devastating and my hardest trial to date, one that will continue for life.

6. Remember those tenants that promised so much financial boon? Well, they pretty much never paid rent. They were finally evicted in August, leaving the house and yard a mess and in need of repair.

7. Early October my Grandpa Turley died. He was only 78 and seemed like he should have had many more years in him. We went to his funeral in Missouri. He is missed.

8. Also in October my book was published. Finally some good news! It's been great fun seeing my work in print and hearing the overwhelmingly positive feedback from those who read it.

9. In November we got some maddening news. Our empty house in Caldwell had been vandalized on the inside. Just mindless destruction. What a headache. Fortunately our insurance will pay for the repairs, (with a $1000 deductible) so it's not ALL on us. We're still waiting for that to all be fixed so we can FINALLY rent it out again.

10. In November we took a family vacation to Southern California. We saw family, went to amusement parks and the ocean, and even Vegas, and had a great time!

So there you go. My top ten. But mostly bottom ten. I count three positive things. Moving, getting published, and the family vactation. Can we just say I am ready to leave 2009 behind me forever? I sure hope there are more positive things this year.