swan chasing.

Today was a day of wild animals. We saw tons of deer this morning at the park and then all sorts of great birds at the Botanical gardens. Daysa and I tried to to touch one (the swan) but couldn't ever get close enough. The gardens were really beautiful and the weather is still absolutely heavenly. We also made it to the malls during the day as well and to Pasta Fina for dinner. I LOVE that restaurant. It is Toledo's hidden gem.

Kent is continuing to have great experiences in Nicaragua. Today he saw the elders walking down the street. He was riding in the back of a pick-up truck to another clinic location and just had time to shout as they drove by.
He said that they did a lot of dental work today and worked mostly on little children. He couldn't believe their teeth and gums were in such poor condition. He would just touch some of their gums and they'd bleed. It sounds like they are pretty busy with patients all day. I would love to be there with him!!

they're here!

welcome to Toledo, Oswalds.

It's been a long hard kentless day! He did e-mail to tell me he'd made it safely to Nicaragua. They spent much of the day at a hospital in dismal conditions. He said that the ladies in the OB unit were sharing BEDS!! He's already eaten lots of good food and says the humidity would kill me but that I'd love everything else.

Today my family called and said they were showing up early! tonight in about twenty minutes I shouldn't be so lonely!! hooray.

In other news- I think Zeb's rash is getting worse. It was all over his face today. I'm sure people thought we should have stayed home from church- but he is NOT contagious and it doesn't seem to bother him.

remember how Zeb had roseola?

apparently it didn't go away yet. I think it's just the curse associated with Kent leaving. Today, as soon as Kent was on the plane to Nicaragua, Zeb developed his second wave of rashes.
I thought it may have been chickenpox for a minute- but thank heavens it isn't.

adios, esposo!

In five hours I will again be husbandless. This time it kinda feels like a joke considering his last excursion away was so long. I'm mostly nervous about church without Kent. I am teaching two lessons this Sunday and it may be a bit tricky!

Luckily the whole fam-dam arrives on Monday! Drive safely please- I can't wait to see you all.

Oh, and everyone please keep kent in your prayers- I hope he doesn't get caught in any earthquakes, landslides, or hurricanes (wikipedia lists those as the most common natural disasters in Nicaragua) while he's away. I don't think that his life insurance policy is nearly as valuable until he's active duty as a resident!

bad bad news

NORTHWOOD, Ohio (WTOL) -

"Sadly, the one-of-a-kind cat from Wood County, died Wednesday evening.

The kitten was born last week to a shop cat at Woodville Auto Finance in Northwood.

It had four eyes and two noses, but only one mouth.

The mother cat didn't seem to mind the abnormality, nursing and caring for it like any other kitten.

No word on what may have caused its death".

The two-faced cat did, unfortunately, kick the bucket yesterday. In better news, Zeb got to play with a normal faced cat at playgroup today and was obsessed. Here he is with "Naughty kitty". He LOVES furry little animals- too bad he'll never have one.

day o' fun!

We woke up this morning and decided to do some more exploring of Toledo's surroundings. I can't believe that we hadn't ventured up to Ann Arbor to check out the city before today! It did help that our good friends, the Webers, moved up not too long ago and gave us yet another reason to make the roadtrip.
Our first stop was the children's "Hands On Science Museum". Thank heavens for our amazing pass. It continues to work ubiquitously! We got in at no cost.
The best part of the museum was surely the pre-schooler's area. Zeb was in complete euphoria. He would have played for hours if we'd let him. There was a great water area, fake houses, zillions of puzzles and cool gadgets, and a giant firetruck. You'll have to zoom in on the pic to see the cute little hat on his round little head.

The rest of the museum was neato as well- although more geared to bigger kids (as is obvious by Kent's antics on this pole). All of the little kids kept asking Kent how he got to the top.

For lunch we meandered around downtown watching all the eclectic people while trying to locate a decent yet inexpensive restaurant. The choices were endless! There are so many delicious looking places in Ann Arbor (we were insanely hungry). We finally decided on BD's Mongolian BBQ. I am not the craziest meat fan, but the veggies looked scrumptious and Zeb was free! They let him get his own bowl of food at no cost! Little did they know that this kid is one heck of a steak eater. He ended up chowing down so much steak and sausage I thought he'd burst! This place is one of those "jam-as-much-food-as-you-possibly- can-in-one-bowl-for-one-great-price" restaurants and I wish we'd taken pictures of our meat and veggies pre-cooking. I was MORTIFIED by how much food I got. Really though. I was so embarrassed that I forced Kent to claim my plate at the end of the meal when we asked for doggie bags. I did it for him anyway- I know how much he loves leftovers.
After lunch we made a stop by Trader Joe's. I'd never been and heard lots about it. We got some scrumptious cookies and Zeb enjoyed his mini-cart. It was a cool store but VERY overpriced and a little too organic for my tastes.

We also made a final stop at the Webers! Of course, it's the one place I forgot to take pictures. It was great to see them and I'm still irritated they left Toledo after only a year!

We'll definitely be making more trips up in the future. It was a blast and there's so much more to see and do.

my, oh my.

I wanted to post a great picture of my cute wonderful baby today but he seems to have gone on strike. No cute wonderful baby here. The closest thing to cute came when he fell over in a heap of exhaustion this evening. If I find out that he still doesn't feel well I will retract this blog entry in its entirety- but until then (since he can't read), it sticks.

From wake-up this morning to bedtime this evening his behavior has been RIDICULOUS. Really and truly there has to be something physically not right with the kid. He just keeps SCREAMING. He'll stand at our feet and just freak or shake his toys at us while shrieking. He keeps rubbing his belly (sign for please) and just yelling at us like a little wild orangutan. We've offered and tried almost everything. At one point he brought us his tylenol and rubbed his belly (he knows exactly what it is). We can only administer so much tylenol and motrin in a twenty-four hour period and we want to be somewhat cautious considering we don't know what's the matter!!

Perhaps he's hit the terrible twos a year early. Maybe he's getting his two year molars since ALL of his other teeth are already here. Maybe he's just gone bad.

I still love him the kid but today has been one of those days. Thank HEAVENS that Kent is here so that we can relieve each other from Zeb duty. I hope he's back to normal by this weekend for when Kent leaves and my family arrives!!!

P.S. I am going to try my hardest tomorrow to get one of his freak outs on video for you all to watch! My true hope is that there won't be any to record- but if there are some I want you all to see (they are kind of funny at first).

P.P.S. besides the two faces the kitty is fine and still very alive.

some positivity and today's happenings.

I've decided I've got to be positive and vocal about the weather here the past while. This summer has been almost divine! It has been so great since we got back from Utah (minus the very first week of our return). There have been some hot days but nothing over 90ish and we've had relatively decent humidity levels. I can still go running in the mornings at eight or nine and not die! We can turn the air off at night and put the fans in the window and I get chilly! I really am so happy about it. I tend to complain a lot about the heat and humidity so I thought I should give some credit where credit was due. Thank-you weather.

We've got less than a week until Kent leaves and our last summer break EVER comes to a true end. Really, I just love having Kent home. He is so good at cleaning :) and even cooks lunches/dinner for us. I've been completely pampered the past while. It's going to take some adjusting for me once he goes back to school full time!

As for today, we are just enjoying time together. We went to a new toy store at the outdoor mall nearby and let Zeb play with the train sets. He LOVES them. We also went to "The Anderson's". Zeb loves this place too. There are SO many samples and the kid goes wild. He'll eat things there that he'd never touch at home. It was his dinner tonight! Really, that's how many samples they have and that's how much he ate- completely enough to fill him up.

Oh, and as soon as pictures post, we've got a great one of the two-faced kitty born in the area recently. Here it is.

He's got an infectious disease!!!

Zeb finally let go of the fevers (after three and a half rotten days) and woke up this morning with a wonderful rash. The pictures just don't do it justice. I did some research on his symptoms and came up with an exact match. The kid has Roseola (aka baby measles). I couldn't believe how closely his symptoms and behaviors matched the description of Roseola. One of the ER docs in the ward agreed that was most likely the diagnosis. As creepy as the picture of that cartoon baby looks- it is a very accurate portrayal of Zeb right now! Luckily the rash doesn't cause any pain or discomfort and it means he's almost finished with the virus.

"A child with roseola typically develops a mild upper respiratory illness, followed by a high fever (often over 103° Fahrenheit, or 39.5° Celsius) for up to a week. During this time, the child may appear fussy or irritable and may have a decreased appetite and swollen lymph nodes (glands) in the neck. The high fever often ends abruptly, and at about the same time a pinkish-red flat or raised rash appears on the child's trunk and spreads over the body."

To the average person Roseola manifests itself as a cold. Unfortunately for us, the rugrat is anything but average. Thank heavens he didn't have any seizures. They accompany 15% of the kids that get Roseola at his age! I would have freaked.

Zoom in on this pic to get a good look at the poor rashy rugrat and swollen little eyes. He's such a goofball. Oh, and apparently he wasn't contagious while he exhibited the symptoms- just beforehand.

Kent was in the Blade today!

This picture was in the local paper today! They did a story on the medical mission to Nicaragua that's happening this next week! Kent has been busy every night this week packing medications and working on fundraisers. Tonight he even had to go hang out at "Trotter's tavern and bar" to set up a cornhole (midwest game that people here LOVE. It looks an awful lot like the bean bag toss to me) tournament. Thank heavens it's just a block away from us and he didn't have to stay for the whole night!
I'm not excited for him to leave again but I'm really glad he's getting this opportunity. He's really excited to work with the people and get some great experiences. I really wish that I could tag along! Definitely someday.

Zeb must take after me. He has to make everything extreme and make sure everything is the MOST exciting or the MOST intense. This week has been no different. He decided to get the most sick he could without causing any major damage. After his immunizations he made his way steadily up to a temperature of 105. Nice going rugrat. We had a bad bad night last night to say the least. It's moments like those that I wonder why in heaven's name I am trusted to be a mother. What do I know about a baby with a temp of 105 in the middle of the night?!?! It was miserable and I was so worried I couldn't sleep a wink.
We made it through the entire Blue's Clues dvd twice (it's at least two hours in length). His temp peaked and finally dropped this morning at seven-thirty- just in time for us not to be able to go back to sleep. He's been cool and crabby all day today. I'll take the irritability over the fever anyday.
Here's the goofy kid in his new two dollar spiderman pajamas. I LOVE babies in new pajamas.