Friday, February 23, 2007

Birthday Parties

This part of the post was originally started on Jan 14th at 7PM

So we're working on planning Yoni's 3rd birthday party. We've been to several lately including: a dance party, a clown, sports theme, fire museum, inflatables

I've talked him out of Elmo (for now anyway) since it seems babyish.
I was thinking Spiderman or Hot Wheels type racing cars.We also have the Thomas the Train or Bob the builder options too, Any ideas?

With Spiderman I was thinking tossing a ball of yarn around between the kids to make a web, or pin the spider on the web. With hot wheels, they could paint their own cars to take home. I really need independent things they can do together in a group.


So now it's official. We are doing this theme:
Things That Go!


We have an interactive book with that title that is all pictures that move and Yoni LOVES it. Since we have had so many health problems, we opted for an arts and crafts party where they can be stationary for at least some of the time...see the cute invite here.

I am missing many email addresses for friends we want to invite to come. Please send (or post) any friends and family that you might think of -
Brian, Norma, Ellen, Marla, Micah, etc...

We are family



I just had to post this picture...


Not only is MY Aunt Carol holding Ms. Priss, (Yael's great Aunt or Aunt once removed - I never have figured all that stuff out)
the Princess is dressed in a chick outfit that HER Aunt Carlye and Uncle Sam got for her.

Isn't family grand :)

Tuesday, February 13, 2007

Daktur

Am I psychic or what?

I took half a day off this morning to take Yoni to the doctor and half expected to be admitted to the hospital AGAIN since that's what happened last time we went for a follow up visit at this clinic with this doctor after our hospital stay (in May). We were even in the same room that we were in the last time. I could tell by the amount of time it took her to get in the room that something was not good, and then she took a long time scrunching up her face while reading the X-rays before telling us that she wasn't happy with the films. Then I went and peeked over her shoulder (from across the room) and unfortunately I understand enough about these chest x-rays to see the white areas she was concerned about.

Instead of admitting us on the spot, she just ordered a bunch of tests since Jonathan's lungs are still not clear and now it seems there is some irritation on both sides (we were only concerned about the right side before) Then she admitted that she would consult on this case with one of her colleagues who happens to know Jonathan as he was the one who visited us in the prior visit in the hospital.
Of course the fact that we had a barking cough for the past two weeks and that Yoni turned blue for no apparent reason except being excited should have been the first clue that we still have problems.

So now we are waiting to do a barium swallow study and then possibly a pH test of his stomach by way of a probe down his esophagus to see if maybe he is not aspirating food into his airways when he swallows or if he has more than normal acid reflux. We'll also decide whether to do a CT scan of his lungs to get an even better idea of what is going on - should be outpatient length of time she suggested.

I told you he doesn't have asthma, my mother's instinct still believes that, but it can't hurt to give him some Albuterol to make him stop coughing and breathe easier in any case.

At least the good news is that I am not crazy, he still has lung irritation which makes it hard to breathe and probably accounts for his waking up every night as well as his snoring, and of course the fact that he is not laying in the hospital right now and we will get to go back to do the tests.

Once we finished at the clinic, which was the first time Eran had been there - I've been there 3 times, we grabbed a quick bite and Yoni fell asleep in the car. So I took Eran to work and then took Yoni back to school for nap time. That was nice cause I got to pop in and see Yaeli being fed her noon time bottle and the ladies were so sweet. So I got extra time with her this morning and got to lay her down on the toys and then I got to give her kisses when I saw her in the middle of the day. And when I finally picked her up this evening she quieted down when I picked her up -no offense Grandpa, she just missed her Mommy that's all.

So the Jonathan 3rd birthday party ball is finally rolling - we set a date and an activity to do with a room full of 2 and 3 year old preschoolers - that was another thing I did this afternoon before going in to work where I did the only thing I HAD to do today - put together 2 books and have them overnighted to the drilling rigs - It was actually quite nice, I was greeted at my desk by 2 bouquets of Valentines flowers from an older gentleman co-worker (who graced a few of us with them last year too) and the departmental muckety mucks - too bad it was overshadowed by my shocking news from earlier in the day and the fact that I was too stressed about getting those books made to enjoy them, but they will be there all week and I will enjoy them then.

More on that birthday thing in later posts too....Now on to the pics...

A Golden Oldie from December of my precious Yael





3 Month old Yaeli after the rest of us came back from seeing Sesame Street and Elmo











Here's Big Brother Yoni "reading" to Yaeli about his most favorite "Things That GO" - trains









Isn't she a magnificently sweet way to keep your mind off the not so happy news about that other cutie?
These pics just don't do her (or me) justice...I have some really cute pics to post tomorrow, so stay tuned!

Monday, February 12, 2007

Presenting

The promised posting of some of the pics from Sesame Street Live

You must be at least THIS tall and love Elmo THIS much to be admitted


Happy Hands


Yoni and Abba Eran show us "its a GO to start the show"


Blowing kisses to our many fans


Being the Mommy is definitely something to look up to - at least in the bright eyes of an excited 3 yr old


Yoni somehow got it into his head that this was HIS party from uncle Sam. I'm not quite sure he gets the concept of presents and parties because we can look at the Nemo calendar where I marked last months parties and he'll still "read" the calendar to me.

Stay tuned for more pics of the Namer kids - Yaeli will be the star of the next round. And then you'll get to see the 2 of them together - how sweet. It's in the works.

Sunday, February 11, 2007

Bingo

Oh the things we do for our kiddos...

We live across the street from the clubhouse at our apt complex, where they hold Bingo games several times a month. So this afternoon, Yoni saw all the people congregating outside the door waiting for the event to begin and he wanted to check it out. So we went over there and stood just inside the door as they were signing in (rent coupons are sometimes prizes).
Of course they made a huge fuss over him and I said that maybe we would come play sometime. Of course it would help if Yoni knew his numbers better in order to actually play Bingo.Then we went home to take a nap - yeah, right!

Also, later in the evening I was singing the BINGO song to Yael and hit upon this simple variation:

There was a mommy who had a girl
And Yaeli was her name-o
Y-A-E-L-I
Y-A-E-L-I
Y-A-E-L-I
And Yaeli was her name-o


You get the picture, I'm an idiot

Saturday, February 10, 2007

Elmo Makes Music


Thanks Uncle Sam and Aunt Carlye for helping Yoni have a very special birthday. We went to see Elmo and his Sesame Street friends (click here) and spared no expense on the chachkies.

He got a spinning Sesame Street lightup wand with Elmo on top - his new favorite toy, which he nearly ran the batteries down on already, an Elmo T-shirt, an Elmo doll and the show CD. Then at intermission he got a $10 mylar Elmo face balloon-see above pic.


It was a cute show, but we were exhausted after the first half and since I am fighting the ghastly chest congestion and cough (which I haven't dealt with until now since I had my adenoids taken out), it seemed that the 2nd half after intermission was a little too much, but of course they saved the Sesame Street classics like "Sing" for the 2nd half and as a finale. It just seemed a little anti-climactic since it was nap time for most of the kiddos and the meltdown factor could be seen everywhere.

Kudos to the Yonster though - he actually made it to the potty at intermission (disgusting public men's' room I can only imagine, Eran got this one - the women's line was around the corner) and actually did his business rather than needing a new pull-up mid show. We're so proud!

He was so excited he called Sam at least 10 times this afternoon instead of napping. He was also about seven different shades of grey and blue in his face and lips today as lately he has been coughing also. Next week he goes back to the respiratory doctor (pulmonologist) who is monitoring him after the surgery and his asthma. We'll see what she has to allow and how badly we've done and whether we have to alter his care at this point. My guess is we'll probably end up on oxygen or something of that nature since he is barking like a seal when he coughs and then coughing something up that he doesn't actually spit out (or vomit - thank goodness)

However, another tidbit of work-related news, I got a phone call on my cell phone on the weekend at 8:30 AM (which is relatively late for a field man) from the oil-field in Louisiana. I forgot that I have my cell number on my card and in the office directory and didn't answer the first call...Anyway, I got the relief field supervisor set up with the necessary username and password and mapped to the right forms in the database in about fifteen minutes, right as we were getting ready to walk out the door. If he had called twenty minutes later, I would have been dropping Yaeli off at the grandparents. Ah the wonders of technology, and extra responsibilities since "Ms Thing" is gone. Good thing he caught me or he would have been calling someone else (my boss) to get it done. Yippee for me and for feeling extra special important enough to merit a phone call on the weekend, good thing it wasn't 4:30 in the morning, although I probably would have been up.

Friday, February 09, 2007

Reap what you sow

So after doing my job and the one who left’s job and fixing the one who is about to leave’s mistakes, I am officially “under the weather” - cough, cough, sniffle, sniffle. I had a serious sinus attack earlier this week after throwing my back out somehow over the weekend.

Yoni has a barking cough where he sounds like a baby seal, but he hasn't thrown up from it so far and he doesn't seem to be particularly lethargic or running a fever. Now Yael is a little congested as well and therefore never completely finishes a feeding - she kept me up nursing for hours last night!!!

Also, I am completely convinced that the whole attitude of the former employee should be construed as “Tom Sawyer Syndrome”.
After finally receiving all the materials she had been getting all along, it turns out that the whole thing is just finding the correct information and plugging in the right info in the right spot – pure data entry.
And she compiled books for distribution around to the different higher-ups and drilling folks out on the rigs. Well in that case it is purely a case of Administrative duties – any monkey can print out documents and make a bunch of copies and punch holes and print dividers. The real work in compiling all the information contained in those books and set-up materials is done by a more highly paid engineer.
So now, fielding the phone calls and emails from the field and our partners, and directly dealing with the software folks is the main challenge of that part of “her” former job.

The other girl is doing the job I was doing before I left, well she can’t seem to get any part of it perfectly down.
I am constantly checking her and finding all kinds of mistakes – leaving things out, putting things in the wrong place, etc. I really think I can do a great job in this as far as you have to keep track of lots of different details and that is the biggest challenge. The most difficult part is more time consuming – it is the printing and filing things away.

So really, all along being responsible for the daily report seems to be the challenging part of this position and it is one I was handling quite well all along (except for the filing papers part – the electronic filing was no biggie as it kept me straight as to what I was doing and where I was.

Thursday, February 01, 2007

Just when you thought it was safe...

Some of the initial shell shock has passed (finally) and we are all moving on.

Today, the lady they hired to do my job while I was out submitted her resignation.
I'm thinking she has to be aware that she was not doing a great job, and was causing problems for others. Plus she just never really ever got it to work smoothly.

Apparently, she found some other job that is doing more along the lines of what she was doing before and much more in her comfort zone as well as getting the chance to go to the deep water rigs (which I could never or would never do because of the time constraints and my small children)

My boss had asked me to step into a meeting to make sure I am trained on our ever changing software database. A few minutes later he busted in with her letter in hand which he flashed and then quipped "You're not planning on going anywhere are you? cause you're the drilling reports girl now."

And earlier in the day my favorite one of the management eschelon, the one I finally went to with all this mess originally, casually asked how I was hanging in there and then cautioned, "you gotta be careful what you wish for"

Again, I have to wonder about the mysterious turn of events and the way things pan out. When I was working at Kenes in Tel Aviv, right before I moved to Jerusalem and left the position, they were working on building a new database software. I really enojyed that troubleshooting and input and that I was able to help make it a better system. I even considered that as a possible career route, but didn't know how to get into that area. And now, I am basically doing the same sort of end-user bug fixing and trouble shooting.

And I have also picked up the AFEs that I have been complaining about not receiving all along in order to get the big picture about the projects. When I came in this morning, there were a few on my chair waiting for me. Luckily, I already have some experience with the tools used in tracking these things otherwise I would totally be lost. And the few AFEs I have seen DO have all the information I would have needed to be totally independent of this crazy woman all along.

So now is my chance to shine - I just hope I can step up to the challenge of learning all these new aspects of my "new" job and hold it all together with my family life.

The next few months should be an interesting roller-coaster ride. We have the all-important 3rd birthday where Yoni will get his first haircut and since we have been to all these other parties lately, I want to throw a bash for my kid and reap all the fun (and presents) to be had. But that takes planning and finding the time to make it all happen. Plus, my brother is hitting a milestone birthday in March so I need to do something special for him too. And of course Eran's birthday and Valentines Day (its still fun to give presents even if we don't really celebrate the holiday - I already got mine, a beautiful heart shaped white gold and diamond pendant necklace from Eran)

And the biggest of excitement of all ... we are finally moving to a larger apartment with a second bathroom and a wet bar which basically affords us another two sinks and vanity mirrors. Again, in my life I never manage to do anything half-assed. Whenerver there are major changes, the changes are usually to all aspects.

Stay tuned for more on the continuing saga of "As Brenda's World Turns"