Spencer is eight months old. Eight months! Can you believe it? I can’t. Mostly because this means I’ve gone eight entire months waking up one, two, three, four, ten, twelve, twenty times at night.
The past week we decided sleep training was in order.
Spencer had made very little progress until last night. Ladies and gentlemen, Spencer slept from about 9PM to 6:00AM. I think he would have slept longer, but that’s when Dallas gets up and I think Dallas’s alarm woke him.
I’m hoping this wasn’t just a fluke because the thought of sleeping for longer than four hours at a time two nights in a row makes me giddy.
In other developmental news, he’s getting three teeth all on the top. Plus, he learned how to say ma ma which is really cute. He loves splashing in the bath and giving Dallas hugs when he comes home from work.
Being a teacher really got me in the Halloween spirit. Having family-themed costumes did as well.
This year I wasn’t teaching, and we didn’t do a family theme. We were given costumes for the kids, and I was won over with the easiness of simply putting their costumes on instead of dreaming up ideas, figuring out how to make them, sewing them together, running to the store twenty times because I forgot something, and then wearing bulky costumes all night. Yes, it was easier, but it was definitely not as fun asyearspast.
Now that I’ve thoroughly set you up to be disappointed in our costumes, here we are!
Me: A ladybug. Brooke: A butterfly. Caroline: A kangaroo. Spencer: A pumpkin. Dallas: A zoologist…though my family thought he looked more like Indiana Jones and his family thought he was a migrant worker. We got a good laugh out of that one. Maybe next year.
Ward Trunk or Treat:
After Brooke had visited every car, she plopped down on the grass and exclaimed, “Let’s have a picnic!”
We are having a little problem over here. No, not the fruit fly problem. I’m crossing my fingers that that issue is nearly behind us though our latest problem rhymes with fruit fly: Dallas’s eye.
Dallas is having an issue with his eye(s). Randomly throughout the day his eye will swell, turn blood red, and get really itchy, especially his caruncle. (Don’t know what a caruncle is? It’s that little red ball on the inside of your eye.)
Then, to make matters worse, occasionally his sclera will also get puffy and watery. (Don’t know what a sclera is? It’s the white part of your eye. Look at us! We’re learning so much!)
He’s also started swelling all around his nose and cheek and under his eye.
I can’t remember when this first started. Maybe about two months ago. Dallas’s eyes seemed to flare up in the morning and in the afternoon. I had switched fabric softeners, so I stopped using the new softener thinking he was having an allergic reaction to it.
We thought things were getting better, but now he’s still having flare-ups and I think they may be getting worse. He’s tried taking Claritin thinking perhaps he was experiencing allergies. He’s tried taking Benedryl also in case it was an allergic reaction. It doesn’t seem like either medication did anything.
He went to a general doctor yesterday, but of course, his eye wasn’t cooperating for the doctor…or should I say it was cooperating? In any case, his eye was fine at the time so the doctor couldn’t see what was going on. She prescribed an antibiotic in case he has an infection.
Of course, when he came home from the doctor, his eye went back to its old antics and we decided to make a video to memorialize the grossness. Grab some popcorn! Pull up a chair! Click on the link and see a bit of what I’m talking about. Then please come back here and comment if you have any idea what could be going on.
I haven’t always had such strong emotions about the little insects. At most, I thought they were merely an annoyance. That was until the Golden Fruit Fly Infestation of 2011.
We were given a bag of cherry tomatoes. The tomatoes were so good, and we were heartily enjoying them. However, when we made it to the bottom of the bag, we found a squished tomato. Disturbing that tomato caused a cloud of fruit flies to scatter all throughout our kitchen. At the time, neither Dallas nor I knew the misery that was in store.
The fruit flies annoyed us for a few days, but we weren’t too worried. They only have a life span of a few days, and we’ve had fruit flies here and there before. They just die out and we move on with our lives. However, after a few days, I realized the fruit flies were not going away; in fact, I was pretty sure they were multiplying. Thus began our crusade to rid our house of those irritating things.
We researched how to get rid of fruit flies online and made three traps.
Trap #1: Yogurt and soap bubbles
We filled a container with yogurt and put soap bubbles on top. The soap bubbles were supposed to trap the fruit flies. Most flies were too smart for this trap. They waited until the bubbles had popped and then went after the yogurt. We only caught a few.
Trap #2: Tape trap
I was sure this would work. I had talked to my brother who told me he had a fruit fly infestation a while ago and they got rid of the flies with fly tape. I decided to concoct my own tape trap.
Yep, there it is in all its glory. Scotch tape sticky side up with a glob of yogurt in the middle to entice the flies. This trap caught exactly one fruit fly.
Trap #3: Funnel
This was by far the most effective trap. You simply make a funnel with paper and put something inside the cup that the flies want. They go down the funnel to get the goods, but can’t find their way back out. I was skeptical of this method, but it’s been the only thing that has worked.
I finally broke down and bought real fly tape on my brother’s glowing recommendation. The real fly tape was just about as effective for us as my Scotch tape trap was. I had such high hopes that I would wake up to find hundreds of dead flies on the tape. No such luck.
We’ve put more funnel traps out and I think I’m finally noticing a decrease in the flies. At least for today. Does anyone out there have any other tricks we should try? I can feel my sanity slowly slipping with each new batch of flies that I spot.
On Wednesday Brooke showed me how she makes “snowballs” by wadding up toilet paper into a ball. Knowing the temptation that would surely follow this bout of creativity, I cautioned her to never put a snowball down the toilet because that would surely clog it.
On Thursday I heard shrieks coming from the bathroom. Brooke came running to me yelling, “Something’s happening to our toilet!”
I’m sure you can guess what was happening. A snowball. And the toilet. And water spewing forth from the ensuing clog.
I gathered every towel in the house and mopped up the mess. A very contrite Brooke sprinkled “I’m very sorry,” onto the mess here and there.
I washed the towels. I mopped the bathroom floor. Then I worked to unclog the toilet. That attempt proved unsuccessful and resulted in another explosion involving once again using all the towels in the house (that fortunately had just finished drying…but unfortunately now had to be washed and dried again).
I washed the towels again. I mopped the bathroom floor again. I refrained from wringing necks. Barely.
Moral of the story: Beware of snowballs in September for they may lead to monsoons which no weatherman can predict and no mom wants to clean up after.
And small children are lucky to make it out alive.
