Cure for the Common Cold?

Check this out. Sunday afternoon I started sneezing. It feels like I sneezed 800 times, probably only 50, but it felt like it was every five minutes. Monday morning I woke up with a sore throat, my chest felt tight and congested, and my nose was stuffy. Tuesday I had all those symptoms along with achy-ness and felt so tired that I thought I was going to fall asleep sitting up. Today, Wednesday, I feel pretty much back to normal. So, either that's the shortest cold ever OR I found a cure!! (Seriously. I am not getting paid to say this:) )



As soon as I could tell that I was getting a cold and sneezing on Sunday I started taking Zicam every three hours (as directed by the bottle). Today my cold is basically gone. Cure.

I had a similar experience last spring when I started getting a cold. I took Zicam and my cold was gone in a matter of days. At the time I thought it might be a fluke and I just got over that cold way fast. However, this time I am sure that this stuff works. You have to try it! The crazy thing is that it seems to "mute" symptoms. Yesterday, when it was getting close to the end of the three hours/time to take another Zicam I would start feeling really crappy. More achy, more sore throat, etc. As soon as I would take the pill I would start feeling better, like it was masking my symptoms.

I feel like a silly infommercial here, but, guys, seriously, this stuff works. I am fully convinced that I would have a massive cold still today if I hadn't started taking Zicam at the onset of my symptoms on Sunday. Just passing on the experience since "the cold" seems to be going around right now :)

Dinner

It's been awhile since my last blog. It's not like I haven't had things to write about or things I wanted to say. I mean, I could have blogged about how the Vikings ripped my heart out and squashed it yesterday, but I didn't feel like it. It's just...well, I think I am feeling a little creatively tired or something. So many days I have thought about blogging and have just felt too darn tired to spend the energy. It's not like I really even have anything big going on to make me extra tired...it might be because I have stayed up really late a lot of nights lately and I am not used to that. Whatever the reason, I am just tired.

However, what brings me back to blogging today is that I need some parental advice. Tryn won't eat dinner. She loves breakfast foods and will always eat a good breakfast, she usually likes lunch foods and will usually eat lunch, but I am starting to hate dinnertime.

I am a parent who refuses to make separate meals for my kids. Unless what I am making is too spicy, it's what my kids will eat too, at least some version of it. Obviously if I make tacos with shells, I give the kids tortillas or make quesadillas because they can't manage shells. If I am making a dish with a lot of flavor I will sometimes take out meat or whatever for them before I put in all the flavors, if I think it will be too much for them. So I often will cater part of what I am making to fit their needs, but I don't make them mac 'n cheese if we are having chicken and rice. Also, I definitely don't believe in giving them a peanut butter and jelly sandwich if they don't want what we are having for dinner, especially since they have that almost everyday for lunch anyway.

The problem is that I have a child that most of the time will just not eat her dinner without some sort of fight. The most frustrating thing is that sometimes she will eat one thing fine one day, and the next time I make it she will treat it like it is filled with poison. She will only eat the most bland or boring things and she will not eat vegetables at all. We have tried bribing, we have tried setting a timer and telling her that she has to eat everything within a certain amount of time (which sometimes works, but not always), we have tried "you only have to take this many more bites", we have tried time outs, we have tried putting her dinner on the counter and only offering her that if she says she is hungry later. It feels like we have tried everything.

The other day she was playing with her water instead of eating and spilled it all over her plate so I took her food and dumped it in the sink and told her she wouldn't get any dinner. After she got over the initial shock, it didn't seem to phase her at all. She didn't even care that she didn't get anything to eat the rest of the night. *Sigh*

This is every single dinnertime. Even sometimes when we make her most favorite things, like mac 'n cheese, she still won't eat them. Today during lunch Berlin was eating and talking to herself and she started to say, in the most stern voice she could manage, "Take a bite!" It was funny coming from her adorable barely passing as stern little voice. But it made me realize how popular that phrase has become around our house. Especially since I made grilled cheese for lunch today instead of pb&j and had the same scene that we do at dinner. Seriously, over grilled cheese. Which she normally loves.

Any tips for us to try?

Rooster

Neither of my girls know that a rooster is called a rooster. He is called a Cockalittledoo. He also doesn't say, "Cockadoodledoo." He says, "Cockalittledoo." It's so cute that I don't have the heart to tell them the right way to say it. Unfortunately, the other day when I was talking to another adult I couldn't remember the right way to say it either. Cockalittledo has become real language in our house.

Resemblance?

I think yes. What do you think?



(Boo from Monsters Inc.)

UPDATE: New Favorite Song

UPDATE:
I found a video that's not so bad. I mean, it's not great, but it's better than the REALLY cheesy one that I found yesterday. So, here's an audio version of our new favorite song:




Tryn has a new favorite song. She calls it "song number 11" because that's what song number it is on the CD. So when we get in the car she says, "Mom, can you turn on song number 11?" I am searching for an audio version that I can put on here...I found a video on YouTube that some random person had put together and it was downright creepy/cheesy. Steve said he would stop reading my blog if I put it on here. If you have iTunes you can take a listen though. It's one of my new favorite songs too. Tryn and I got addicted to this song because of Steve - who also likes it :)

You're Beautiful - by Phil Wickham

I see your face in every sunrise
The colors of the morning are inside your eyes
The world awakens in the light of the day
I look up to the sky and say
You're beautiful

I see your power in the moonlit night
Where planets are in motion and galaxies are bright
We are amazed in the light of the stars
It's all proclaiming who you are
You're beautiful, you're beautiful

I see you there hanging on a tree
You bled and then you died and then you rose again for me
Now you are sitting on your heavenly throne
Soon we will be coming home
You're beautiful, you're beautiful

When we arrive at eternity's shore
Where death is just a memory and tears are no more
We'll enter in as the wedding bells ring
Your bride will come together and we'll sing
You're beautiful (x2)

I see your face,
You're beautiful, you're beautiful, you're beautiful

I see your face,
You're beautiful, you're beautiful, you're beautiful

I see your face,
I see your face

I see your face,
You're beautiful, you're beautiful, you're beautiful

Two Talkers

When kids are Berlin’s age it feels like they are constantly changing. Everyday she is learning new things and growing in visible ways. It’s not the same with Tryn anymore. One of the major changes in Tryn’s life is that she is starting to be able to hear tonal differences and match our pitches and keys when we are singing. I read that this, age 3ish, is when this normally happens for kids. Although this is a huge relief for Steve, who was starting to worry that she would be tone deaf, it is not a huge change in her life or way of play.

Berlin, on the other hand, seems like she is changing daily. It’s hard to keep track of everything and remember to write about it. I can think one day, “Oo! I should write that she just did that because it’s new and cute and exciting!” And the next day will be something equally new and fun. It’s just that time of her life.

I have to write about Berlin talking though, because it is the cutest and greatest thing ever. Berlin started using sentences quite a few months ago, but now she talks in sentences the majority of the time. It’s really funny because when she tries out a new sentence that she has never said before or strings words together to get her point across it is sometimes really slow. For example, a few weeks ago Berlin was crying and I asked her what was wrong and she told me, “Tryn…hit…me.” I couldn’t believe that she had managed to put all those words together correctly to mean what she wanted them to mean! Unfortunately, now that she has also learned how to communicate that she has also told her first lie. Sometimes when the girls are playing together and Berlin gets upset she will use that sentence, even if it’s clear that it is not true. Little stinker.

Her really slow little sentences are just so cute, as well as the sentences that she can say faster. She says, "Thank you," a lot, but it sounds more like, “Cank oo.” One of my favorite things that she learned from Tryn is that when they are really excited about everything they are eating they will thank us for each item. Like if we make eggs, pancakes, give them juice, and some sort of fruit they will thank us for each item on their plate – and maybe even their plate if it has a princess on it. Berlin's sounds like this: “Mom, cank oo dis, and dis, and dis, and dis!” I love it.

Berlin has also started realizing that some words sound different than the way she has been saying them for a long time. She always used to say, “Gree” for drink, but this past week the sound has changed to, “Grink” because she realized that everyone else is saying it differently than her.

They just grow up so darn fast.

Car Conversations

Two blogs in one day!! I just have to write down this hilarious conversation before I forget. One might wonder what it is like to take a 15 minute drive in the car with a 3 1/2 year old and an almost 2 year old...let me tell you. This is what we talked about on the way home from church tonight:

Tryn: Mom, I need a drink.

Me: Babe, I don't have a drink.

Tryn: Mom, I really need a drink.

Me: Tryn, I don't have a drink stop asking.

Tryn: Mom, do you have a drink?

Me: Tryn, stop asking me for a drink. I don't have a drink. You can have a drink when we get home.

Tryn: Mom, let's talk for a minute.

Me: What?

Tryn: Let's talk for a minute, okay? I need to go to work tomorrow and Tuesday and Thursday and then I will be home for 2 seconds and then I have to go back to work, okay?

Me: What do you do at work?

Tryn: I sing songs. I sing Twinkle, Twinkle Little Star and Jingle Bells and Sonshine and Israel (O Come, O Come Emmanuel) and Twinkle, Twinkle Little Star and I sing songs. [Since Steve sings once a week at work Tryn thinks that's what we do when we go to work, we sing songs.]

Me: Really? And do you like work?

Tryn: Yeah, I like work, I like to sing songs...Okay, Berlin, you talk to mom.

Berlin: I work too!

Me: Really? What do you do at work?

Berlin: I'm playing!

Me: Wow, I wish I could play at work.

Tryn: Yeah, mom, I have to go to work and then we need to talk about naughty stuff.

Me: What?! What kind of naughty stuff do we need to talk about?

Tryn: Oh, like whining and stuff. And not listening to our parents and being good girls.

And then we got home and I took Berlin out of the car and ripped a hole in my favorite sweater dress of hers when it got snagged on the carseat. That is my ride home from church. The end.

There Was Christmas Too

I wrote a blog on Christmas Eve, and New Year's Eve too, but in between there was Christmas. On Christmas Day Steve and I woke up fairly early and got the girls up so they could open presents before breakfast. We tried not to get them too many princess things, so they got new baby dolls, baby doll accessories, and Legos - and just a few princess things:)

After presents Steve and I started breakfast for our now yearly tradition of having friends over for breakfast on Christmas morning. Since Steve has to work all day Christmas Eve, as do many of our musician friends, we decided it would be fun to have breakfast with those friends the next day. Last year we had three friends over, this year there were eight.

Then we drove up to my mom and dad's in a snow storm and the rest is history. We opened more presents, ate WAY too much food, went shopping the day after Christmas, and played Catan several times a day, all perfectly traditional. It was great!

Here are a few pics:

Waiting to open presents is a LOT of work...

This is a slightly blurry pic of my adorable nephew Tyvan who decided this Christmas that he actually likes me (finally!). I was excited when we were eating lunch one day that he wanted me to help him with his bites instead of his dad. Yesssss. And he just looks so stinkin' cute in this picture.



Tryn got army men for her cousin Brendyn for Christmas, by the influence of her father...let's just say that these army men got used a lot, but not really by anyone under the age of four. And there aren't any kids older than four...ahem :)