An Early Turkey Dinner

This year we will be heading to my parent's house in GA for Thanksgiving Day.  We do this every other year when my Aunt Debbie and Uncle Rob fly up to GA.  Since we won't be home to have turkey with Jonathan's family, we did an early dinner tonight. 

I am a little bummed I forgot to take pictures of everyone at the table, but I did snap some of the kids when we were still getting dinner on the table.

A New Toy!

As sad as I am to admit this, it was time to get rid of our baby swing and move on to bigger and better toys so for the first time today we tried out the exersaucer.  I think the big kids were a little more excited than Ryan was, but he is enjoying himself in his new toy!

Fire Station Field Trip

Today we went with Katelynn's class to the fire station.  Both Katelynn and Justin loved getting to walk in the fire truck and learn about fire safety.   We have been talking about fires and the stop, drop, and roll technique nonstop since our visit! 

You will notice that Justin was biting his shirt the entire time though.  I think this might have been a nervous habit?  I'm not sure.  He doesn't do that all the time by any means.  He was, however, nervous about going at first.  I think it had to do with his seizure and the firemen coming to the house because when I first mentioned going, he did not want to go.  After I told him that we were going just to visit and check out the cool truck and that he didn't have to get checked out or anything, he was excited and wanted to go.  Hopefully going and nothing bad happening will make him less afraid in the future!

(Oh and Katelynn did her own hair this morning.  It was one of those days that I just didn't have to the heart to fix it when it wasn't perfect.  She was proud of how well she had done so we just left it and went with it.... even if she was missing a strand in the back.  :)  )

Rolling... Rolling.. Rolling

The rolling milestone is getting more and more fun at our house!  Now, not only is Ryan rolling over but he is rolling over and over and over across the floor!  He won't do it when I'm in the room and close to him, but if I leave him laying down and walk out of the room, I catch him doing it. 

Today I placed a blanket on the floor, stuck him on it with some toys, and I carried in groceries.  When I got all the groceries loaded in and came back to check on Ryan, he had rolled across the living room and was wrapped in the blanket I had laid him on.  Silly Boy!  This is so fun and exciting to me though because we have never had a roller like this before in our house!

My Heart Breaks for my Sad Little Boy

So, we have some seperation anxiety issues around our house lately that have really been tearing at my heart.  Any of you that have known me forever probably know that my outlet for stress and being upset is to write.  I have journals and journals full of writing from whenever I was upset/hurt/stressed during my middle school and high school days.  (And trust me, there are a lot of books during that phase of my life!  Ha,ha)  Thankfully I am living my dream (happy marriage, raising children... I know so cliche but totally what I have always wanted) so I don't need an outlet to vent very often anymore.  Last night, however, I needed an outlet so I ran to our blog.  Normally my blogging is strictly to share the joys of our children, but sometimes I need to let out the stressful and heartbreaking points of parenting from my view so here goes....

So I love to blog about all the exciting, fun times we have here at the Miller House, but as with any family, not every day is all fun and games around here.  Today has been one of those days... or rather tonight... that was not so fun.  This has been going on a while now, but I just recently have come to the realization that there isn't any other reasoning for it other than that Justin misses his daddy, and it is breaking my heart into a million pieces tonight.  I can't tell you how hard it was for me not to pick up the phone tonight and call Jonathan and tell him to just quit his stupid job and get home NOW!  Of course, in a world where everything costs a pretty penny and being a stay-at-home mom who is not supporting my family financially at all, I can't do that.  I still wish I could though.  Instead I am venting to a blog about how fustrating it was to watch my little man so distraught over his Daddy being too far away to give him a hug tonight, and thankfully my husband is not a frequent visitor to this blog because I am not going to tell him how awful tonight was until he is home.  There is no sense making it harder on him tonight than it already is being away from his family.


Early in September Justin started waking up on occassion throwing tantrums.  They are unlike anything I have ever seen before.  Nothing I do can calm him down (and trust me I have tried everything at this point!).  Almost always, he gets to a point where he is swinging his hand at me hitting if I am close enough.  He just sits there and cries and doesn't really even understand himself why he is doing it.  Sometimes it lasts ten minutes; sometimes an hour.  I try to give him space, hug him, talk about his favorite things- any distraction I can think of, but there is nothing specific that ever works to stop them.  At first I thought they were night terrors and then I thought they were associated to him being overtired (he no longer naps for the most part), but it didn't seem to matter what I did to try to prevent them or get to the bottom of them, I have not been able to stop them from occuring.  There is only one common denominator in that they always occur either the night before Jonathan leaves to go out of town (after we have told Justin and explained to him) or while Jonathan is away.  This week has really confirmed to me that they are 100% associated with missing Daddy.  It started the morning Jonathan left when Justin woke up and knew he had left, and tonight was the second one (less than 36 hours from when Daddy left).  Most of the time when I try to talk to Justin after they are over, he says he doesn't know why he acted like that.  Both Monday morning and tonight when I asked him why he was so upset, he said, "Because I don't want you to go away,  Mommy."  He said the exact same sentence both times.  When he said it on Monday, I thought he was referring to the fact that I had left his room for a little bit, trying to give him space (sometimes I will leave him alone to see if it helps since trying to touch him or do anything for him upsets him and sometimes I just stay there the entire time continuing to offer my support until he is over the tantrum.  I don't really know the right answer for how to deal with them so I just do what I can and remain calm.)  Tonight though I never left his side and he still said the same words. 


We had talked about Daddy a lot tonight, and Justin fell asleep talking about how much Daddy likes him to make good choices, not bad choices.  I can't be sure, but I am guessing that he kept thinking about Daddy and dreaming about him and maybe he has a fear that everyone will leave him?  I don't know.  All I keep saying when he says that is, "Mommy will never go away and leave you Justin and Daddy only goes to work to make money.  He always comes back home.  He loves us and misses us just like we love and miss him."  It just breaks my heart that he doesn't fully understand the entire situation or how to handle it.  I want to help make it better for him, but I just can't seem to find anything to fix it for him.  Daddy not traveling is just not an option.  Oh how I wish it was.  It's hard not having Jonathan home every night and this added to it makes it so rough.  If only we could live in a perfect world.....

And that is where I stopped.  I think because Ryan was waking.  It was a long, tiresome night and of course now that it's over and my little boy is playing and smiling today, it doesn't seem quite as bad as it did when I was enduring it last night.  Please pray for us though.  Traveling doesn't seem like it is going to let up anytime soon, and I don't know how much more of watching Justin go through this I can take.

And just so I can end this vent on a happy note, here is that smiling, little man from a picture I took today!

Ms. Katelynn's 5-year checkup and update

Katelynn went to her 5-year check-up today at the doctor's.  She was 42 pounds and 46 1/4 inches tall.  She is in the 97th percentile for height for her age group.   While her weight is above the 50th percentile for her age, when you compare her BMI she is actually lower than average, but our pediatrician was not concerned because she does eat a balanced diet including fruits and veggies.  My poor, brave girl has been dreading this appointment.  She knew she had to get shots when she turned five, and she was not looking forward to it (nor was I..).  It was rough, but it could have been much worse.  Her tears were dried before we even left the exam room.  She was one brave girl who enjoyed a nice big ice cream following the appointment.

What is our big five-year old up to these days?  She is learning like crazy at school, that's for sure.  She can do very basic addition and subtraction and very close to reading.  She knows pretty much all her letter sounds and her sight words.  Each week she brings home a new sheet of spelling words that we study all week and then she takes a test each Thursday.  She can now rattle off the spelling and read several 3-4 letter common words (cat, bat, rat, ball, fall, etc).  It's just amazing how quickly she is soaking all this up!  Even after spending four half-days a week in school, she will come home and color and write letters and words for hours.  Books and coloring/writing have almost taken a step up from imaginary play these days.  She still loves Barbies and dollhouses, but I have noticed her doing a lot more with school-related activities in the past few weeks. 

Katelynn is also still in dance class and is really wanting to start playing soccer.  We may let her give it a go shortly here. 

Want to hear a super funny story about this hilarious picture below?  I have been told by Katelynn's teacher at school that she has flirting down to a "T".  Apparently she has a bit of a crush on a little boy named Brody in her class.  Right before I took this picture, I said, "So, Katelynn, show me how you would smile if Brody just walked in."  And this is what she did.....

It says it all to me.. this look.  It has a touch of her shyness in it, but there's more to it.  It's so funny to me to hear different stories about how my child acts when not in my presence. From what they say, she is friends with everyone in her class, loves to be the class clown and act silly and laugh. Her teacher says she does her schoolwork quiet as a mouse, but when it's not in front of her, she is causing all kinds of commotion no matter who she is sitting next to.  I never see that complete side of her.  She loves school, refuses to miss even a minute of it, but when I take her into school each morning she is shy.  She won't even respond to another parent who says hi or that her outfit is pretty or what-have-you.  She just does this shy face and kind of pulls her head back to her shoulder.  I almost push her into the classroom each day as she is completely shy about walking in the door.  Yet, I know she loves it and from what I hear there isn't an ounce of shyness once she is around her classmates.  Oh how I would love to be a fly on the wall and watch her interact at school for the day!  I'm quite interested in how she carries out this flirting thing too... I could tell as soon as I asked her to smile like she would for Brody and I got this face that she does have a crush.. however much of a crush a 5-year old can have anyway.

Who wants to guess how early I start graying over my little girl and her boy trouble?  I don't even want to think about how quickly it will come........

Baby Ryan is FOUR months old!

Happy 4 months to my littlest guy!  Why how time flies!  Ryan went to the doctor today for his 4-month birthday.  He is in the 70th/80th percentiles still for height and weight and still maintains his 25th percentile little head.  Haha.  He weighed in at 15 pounds, 5.4 ounces and was 26 inches long.  I am currently searching the location of big brother and sister's baby books to compare, but I think he still is holding strong as my biggest baby!  He has reached all his milestone requirements, and our ped was actually shocked at his ambition to stand.  Not only did Ryan demand to stand when the ped was checking his strength, but he was balancing on one foot.  It was the funniest thing ever.  He has never done that at home before, but he was determined to be on just one foot and lifted the other one up.  Dr. Ficenec said that makes a first for him too as he has never seen a 4-month old do that!  We were both laughing hysterically during the visit at Ryan's balancing act.

So I have been trying to get it on video, but the rolling over has continued for Ryan.  He is our first baby to actually love to roll over.  He now has it mastered and is rolling almost immediately after being put down now.  And he rolls without a struggle.  It's a quick movement!  Of course whenever I break out a camera, he just laughs at me and never rolls though!  Hopefully I will get a great shot on video soon. 

In addition to rolling, Ryan has discovered his feet and enjoys grabbing and playing with them.  We have also entered the grabbing and chewing stage.  He now is trying to grab my plate while I am eating (if he is on my lap) and constantly has his fist and fingers in his mouth chewing away.  I haven't seen any teeth yet, but they must be coming in the next few months!

And of course there's the laughter and smiles we now get repeatedly from Ryan that just melt your heart.  In the last week or two, he is now even enjoying his siblings who before mainly made him cry.  What a fun four months this has been!  I am sure we will start hitting some fun milestones with sitting and crawling before we know it!