We hada rough night last night with Bradey. He was running a fever most of the day (around 100°-101°). We’re not sure from what/where, but we know Logan was also running a fever Sunday night after leaving here.

Anyhow, Bradey just didn’t want to go down. He was crying and had no interest in laying his head down. We finally gothim calmed down a little after 12:15am & I had to get up with Taven about 1:00am because he was having bad dreams (undoubtedly due to the hours of screaming earlier in the night).

Now on to the strange title…

I rarely remember dreams. I specifically recall many years in a row where I could not remember a single dream. Anyhow, I woke up this morning remembering the strangest dream. In all kinds of detail (even more unusual since I usually just remember fragments).

I was leaving a doctor’s office with Melisa and 2 old friends from high school (I haven’t seen these friends since high school in real life). We got in a large car (LOTS of room inside), and I shared the news… I’ve got a ham infection in one of my lungs and that lung was going to have to be removed. I even had some sort of pamphlet that I handed them (maybe this was a common infection?). Apparently I inhaled a piece of ham while eating a ham sandwich and it got lodged in my lung.

I remember we were out of town, or at least some where unfamiliar, and for some reason we sought help at a near-by church. Some how we had heard of a bible study there and thought we’d find some kinds of answer there. It turned out to be a huge Catholic church with the bible study meeting right in the lobby area outside the doors to the sanctuary (where people are all walking around at this time too…???). So we meet the priest leading the study and I try to tell him why we are there, but he hushes me & shows me to a seat (in a small group of about 10 or 12 including the 4 of us).

We start off by a couple of people telling their sad stories, and I remember thinking, “Those aren’t so bad! What do you mean your relationship with your sister could be better? I’m dieing here!”… I think it was probably about 30 minutes of this & we were praying over each person (not having reached me yet), and I look up to see my friends gone, then I see Melisa get up & sneak away. Before she got to the doors, she motioned for me to sneak out too. I did & remember thinking “this was the biggest waste of time!”.

That’s the last thing I remember.

I’m not sure I believe all dreams have some hidden cryptic meaning , but if this one does, I’m a little creeped out by the delivery method (the contents of the dream).

Taven is finally starting to go to bed a little easier. Ever since we upgraded him from a crib to a twin bed (originally because he would crawl out of his crib anyway) he would stay up, turn on the lights, and play with anything he could get his hands on (including the bedroom door!). Well, it’s been about a month and he has been staying in bed the last few nights after we lay him down. YEAH!

However, last night, he started SCREAMING about 90 minutes after we laid him down. Melisa & I thought “maybe he fell out of bed”, so we ran to his room to find him still in bed & screaming his little head off.

Night Terrors…

Poor kid. He’s had maybe 5 or 6 night terrors before. He sounds like he’s mad, yelling & screaming mostly non-sense words & frustrated sounds. He whips around so much that I have to hold him some just to keep him from falling to the floor or beating himself against the wall. He gets even madder (is that even a word?) if I try to hold him tight, so I have to just lightly hold him ,but that means I’m getting beat up in the process. Ug… Anyhow, he usually seems aware enough to know we’re there & when one of us leaves (like if Melisa walks away). He can even say “NO” to just about any question we throw his way (ie “Do you want some water?”, “Do you have a boo boo?”, “Do you want up with Daddy?”, “Do you want to go night-night?”, etc…)

From time to time he would say “Want some water”, but then throw a fit if we actually offered it to him… He’s not fully aware of what’s going on or even what he’s saying… He’ll eventually end up just crying & saying more non-sense things & he’ll finally start winding down. By this time he’s usually having a hard time breathing because he’s so tired from the screaming, so I’ll just lie there holding him in his bed until he stops crying and he’s able to breath more evenly & then sneak him back onto his pillow for the rest of the night.

Last night it was about 45 minutes from the first scream to finally laying him back down (9:30 to about 10:15)…

You feel so helpless & there really is nothing you can do for him but sit there mildly restraining him until he finally wears out & goes back to sleep. Melisa definitely takes it harder than me… She wants to do anything he says (even though he doesn’t realize what he’s saying) and she wants desperately to just hold him tight & stroke his hair (niether of which gets a possitive reaction out of Taven in the middle of all of this).

Sadly, all we can do is keep him from getting hurt & wait it out. Ijust thank God than Bradey was able to sleep through all the noise. It gets that much harder when both boys are going…

25 Random Things About Me

1.) I’m anal about some things (like the formatting of text documents)

2.) I could care less about other things (like whether or not I “disinfect” when I “clean”)

3.) My nickname, “Mas”, originated because I didn’t want to go by “Tom”, but still wanted an abreviation of my name “thoMAS”

4.) I like multi-tasking, but only if most of the tasks are related to things I like doing… (like techie things, go figure)

5.) I’ve worn size 10.5 shoes since 9th grade

6.) I’ve been around 6′-2″ since 9th grade

7.) I gained 45 pounds in High School (I went from tall & skinny to tall & not quite so skinny)

8.) I played the Bari-Sax in marching band in High School

9.) I’m allergic to cats & dogs… (But I grew up with 2 of each…???)

10.) I have a deep rooted desire to start my own business

11.) I don’t have the guts to start my own business

12.) When I pass an empty business suite (building, strip mall space, etc…), I think about how I would set up my own business in that space… (I told you it’s deep-rooted)

13.) I’ve been in at least 6 car accidents (that I can remember). 3 were my fault.

14.) I consider myself a hacker. (See definition here: http://catb.org/jargon/html/H/hacker.html)

15.) Favorite quote by yours truely: “I may be crazy, but I’m not insane!”

16.) I love free stuff… I even signed up for about 20 different “samples” one day when I found a consolidated list of sites offering free samples.

17.) I was diagnosed with ADD (attention deficit disorder) when I was in elementary school

18.) I made it to the State-level tournaments in High School wrestling my senior year

19.) It’s taken me 2 days to get this far on this list…

20.) I’m a pack-rat… My poor shed in the back yard is starting to swim in “projects” that I’ll get around to some day

21.) I greatly dislike my current job… Maybe that’s why I’m writing this list instead of working right now…

22.) I use ellipses too much… … … I use them as a sort of writen “pause” or to add suspense. At least that’s how I justify them.

23.) My past jobs include: Neighborhood Lawn Service, Arcade attendant, Office Depot stocker, Applebee’s waiter, CAD Drafter, CAD Manager, IT Guy

24.) I did runway modeling for about a year

25.) I procrastinate so bad, some times I don’t even get around to finish thi

Well, it was a busy weekend…

I painted the backsplash in our kitchen. This was my first go at doing a faux-finish, so it took a little longer than I had hoped, but it turned out OK.

Oh, then Taven fell out the window.

We had the front window open to help vent some of the paint fumes & Taven was running around after his nap. Melisa was playing with him & I was feeding Bradey in the kitchen… The next thing I know Taven was running toward the front window (which he’s used to leaning on to look out) & I see his legs flip over as I run & dive out the window after him while Melisa is freaking out  can’t get the front door unlocked to get out there to him.

We were all freaked out a bit, but he was OK. Just a little scrape on his chest where he hit the window frame before flipping down to the ground. Of course, as soon as he calmed down enough to run around again, the first thing he does is go over to touch the screen… Stubborn kid…

We’re still trying to recover from Melisa being gone last weekend.

Yesterday was no fun… Taven stayed the night at Granny & Bakkaw’s with Winter & apparently he woke up half a dozen times that night… Then he was mad at us when we got there, so it took a while for him to warm back up to us. He didn’t want to take a nap that afternoon either… I figured that was because he thought we wouldn’t be there when he woke up. So he ended up throwing all kinds of tantrums because he was mad at us, but he really wanted us around. oy…

Then we went to the Hodge house & since Taven hadn’t had a nap he was a all over the place… Poor child didn’t know what to do with himself. Bradey also didn’t want to go down for a nap. Then we ended up eating dinner an hour after we expected, so Melisa was having a hard time with that, and I was just sneezing my head off (dog allergies) so I was miserable.

Of course no trip to the Hodge house is complete without some sort of confrontation, so Melisa decided to try & get some things off her chest with her parents when we were getting things ready to go… That didn’t go over so well…

Last night, I was in the kitchen at about 9:30PM and all of a sudden I hear one of the boys’ bedroom doors close… Bradey went to bed at 7:20-ish and Taven was put down about 9:15. I flip on the hall light & open up Taven’s door to see him flipping over the crib rail into his crib. That little stinker! He’s done this at nap time before, but this was the first time he’s done this at bed time.

Welp, we put together his Big-Boy-Bed today (no point in a crib if he won’t stay in it). He was all excited & didn’t take a nap. No amount of threatenings or spankings would keep him in that bed. At bed time it was the same story for almost an hour. We tried the above mentioned approach, then the silently tucking him back in (over & over), then went back to the spankings because the silently getting him back to bed became a game for him (how fast can I jump back in bed before they get to me).

Finally we decided that if we can’t hear him or see him from the living room, we’d leave him alone. That was about the time he was getting really tired, because we only heard his door shut one more time after that & I told him to go to bed (from the kitchen) & I think he finally passed out after that. I did check on him before going to bed & he was wrapped up in the sheets passed out cold (thank God!)

What a way to start the new year.