Minivan Moments

Today, the children and I went to a small family farm. The family is a homeschooling family like us, and they are in the early stages of building their farm. So far, they only have chickens, but in time they will have eggs, beef, and fruit. The family invited us to visit their farm to see them process chickens - so we could see how chickens go from "wing" to food. I knew this would be touchy for the kids, but it was a great learning experience, so we went. Plus, my kids already have a deeper understanding of what we eat than the average American child in the twenty-first century . So we went. The hardest part for the kids was watching the chickens bleed out, so we distracted them during that part. The next difficult moment came when the guts were removed from the chicken's belly cavity. But the whole operation was done by the family in a humane manner that preserved the dignity of each of God's creatures. I can certainly see how many people exposed to this type...

We took Her Highness, the brand-new 2-year-old, to McDonald's to play at the PlayPlace (courtesy of Granna and Papa). We walked into McD's to order, then she turned around and spied the PlayPlace... "Yay! Climb!" She gushed with excitement. Still, though, she sat sedately like the big girl she is on a hard bench in the PlayPlace area and ate her "buwbuw" and "fies" and her solitary "kickin" nugget from her Sissy (burger, fries, chicken). When she finished with her lunch, she asked if she could go "cyime!" I instructed her to take her shoes off first, so she plopped her diapered tush onto the floor in front of the shoe cubby and removed her new sneakers, then added them to the cubby and ran off to play. It was a really good time for us all. Sissy and Quin helped her get up to some of the harder spots, and Dania refrained from eating the petrified french fries in and around the play equipment (although it wasn't as bad ...

So, it is October, it is Autumn, it is chilly!! We are preparing for the little one's second birthday this week. She will turn two on Monday, and we will have family and friends over to celebrate with us on Sunday evening. She is so social, I didn't figure we could get away with not having her favorite people gathered together in a party. Plus, she requires all birthdays be accompanied by cake.... already a Mommy's girl! Yesterday, we saw the Pediatric Endocrinologist. Usually, that is a fairly routine visit... she looks good, let's get some blood, no change, same meds, good to go. However, yesterday I mentioned that we had done the sleep study since we saw her last and she has sleep apnea.... I mentioned the snoring that had started me thinking she was suffering from sleep apnea way back when, and she informed me that in rare cases of children with Dania's type of hypothyroidism, the thyroid is actually in the wrong spot in the neck and blocks the breathing w...