small pills and big appetites

The small stuff:

Stoney is now able to swallow a small pill in seconds. Only thing us that he think it is only possible for him to do this when swallowing it with O.J. But hey, well take it. The first time he had to take this pill it took him an hour and an half!

The background story on the pills: Stoney has been complaining about tummy aches for months and I finally took him to the doctor last month. She thinks he has irritable bowel syndrome. I always thought irritable bowel had to do with the foods you eat, but she said that he just seems to swallow to much air. It backs up in his bowels and that causes pain. Why does he swallow to much air? No idea. The doctor said that it can be caused by any number of things. But in any case, she prescribed this medication that should help within a couple of weeks. I told her that Stoney is not good with swallowing pills, so she prescribed a syrup. Turns out, the syrup is taken off the market. The pharmacist was kind enough to make a syrup out of the pills (crushing them up and adding the flavor of choice.) The pharmacist then –for good measure- tasted the syrup herself and found out it was DISGUSTING. She said that the powder is so bitter that no amount of flavoring is going to make it taste well (which was probably why the syrup was taken off the market in the first place).

So we were stuck with the pills, and after ten days of many tears and endless encouraging words he suddenly got the hang of it and now is swalling the pills without problem.

So far, he has not gotten rid of the tummy aches completely. i think there is some improvement though. And as for the tummy aches he still gets sometimes, like Leland says: “If I had eaten four plates of pasta when I was seven my tummy would hurt too.” And I guess there is some truth to that…


And on a completely different note; here is another one of Monty’s mind blowing comments:
“Mommy, when I was in your tummy, there were still dinosaurs on earth, right?”
I am not that old, thank you




random picture: can you believe this kid's lowest grade is in P.E.?

Staying at Oma's and Opa's

The boys have their 'carnaval' vacation and stayed at Oma' and Opa's a couple of days. They sure had a blast, got spoiled rotten and all that jive. Meanwhile, oma got the short end of the stick, because Monty pooped in his pants three times in one day and then Stoney got car sick the next day and pucked all over the car... (we later found puke in his eyebrow) Poor Oma.
Oma and uncle Marijn took the boys to a natural history musuem and they had a great time.


The hats on the boys are supposed to make them look like wildebeests - i forget the details.

















Monty is not singing a hit song... The microphone was there for kids to try and make a noise just as loud as an elephant. That must have been a royal noise!















Not sure what happened with this picture. Stoney caught the the whole of the flash in his face i suppose. Anyway, he is standing by a mammoth. (is that spelled right?)



















Monty and uncle Marijn















For some reason only known to him, Monty was utterly fascinated with a short movie about a snake eating a mouse. He had to see if four times and then later wanted to go back for a fifth time. As usual: i have no idea what is really going on in the mind of that little boy.

Carnaval

It's that time of the year again: it's Carnaval.
Not that we really celebrate it in our family, but tradition calls for the kids to get dressed up for school the day before carnaval. Monty dressed up again as a pirate, like last year, but Stoney went for the cowboy outfit. For some reason the pictures all turned out a little blurry.



Leland painted some pirate scars and stuff on Monty's face. Again, kind of blurry... But oh well, the reality was lots of fun for the boys!

Week in numbers (aka week in weird)

• Number of hours spend trying to get Monty to poop: 7
• Number of hours spend trying to get Stoney to swallow one small pill: 1,5
• Number of poopie pants this week: 2
• Number of clogged toilets due to Monty's mega sized poops: 1
• Number of times we have to change the sheets because a little boy peed in his bed: 4
• Number of cavities found in Stoney's teeth by dentist: 1
• Number of funerals attended: 1
• Number of fingers on the new born baby in the ward: 12
• Number of headaches, sore throats and other ailments between the four of us: 14
• Number of times the words spoken: "will you please stop whining!": too many to count

And here is another typicial Monty coversation for you. He came home with a mark on his arm and said that his 'frenenemy' form school had bitten him.
I asked him if he had bitten Felix (his friend) as well.
Monty: "No, i didn't bite him... Well, maybe... but not very hard..."

Conversations with Monty...

Converstaion No 1
"Mommy i can feel my brain..."
"??? - How do you feel your brain?"
"It's right here." Points to his jaw.
"No honey, that's your jaw, not your brain."
"But i can feel it with my tongue."
"??? - You feel it with your tongue? I think you feel your teeth."
"It's not my teeth, it's my brain!!"


Conversation No 2
(Leland scolding Monty after some bathtime behavior involving a lot of water on the floor)
"Are you going to listen to me now?"
"No"
"Not the right answer Mont!"
"Are you going to be nice?"
"No"
"Still not the right answer! Are you going to be nice?"
"Maybe."
"Maybe?"
"Maybe i be a little nice."

Converstation No 3
(concerning this still continuing issue of him refusing to poop - called kaka by Monty.)
"Come on Monty, everyone has to do kaka!"
"No. My friend Felix doesn't go kaka."
"I am sure he does. And mommy, does, Daddy does, Stoney does, Opa and Oma do..."
"But i don't want to!!"
"But Monty, your kaka needs to come out. It wants to come out, that is why your tummy starts huring, because you are not letting it out."
"My kaka can not come out! I have locked the door and thrown away the key!"
Deep, deep sigh...
About the pooping issue: It's been over a year now of a continous fight with him about it. He is permanetly on laxatives... I am not very optimistic. It has taken him four years to learn to sleep through the night and stay in his own bed. I wonder if it will take him four years to learn how to poop!


This is Stoney and Monty with their cousin Thijmen- son of my brother and sister-in-law

And then there was light....

It never ceases to amaze me how quickly the days shorten and in this case lengthen. You know in the depth of winter, it stays dark until nine and the sun sets again at 4.30 in the afternoon. On the flip side, it gets light a 4 am during the height of summer and stays light till 10 pm.
But anyway, we are barely into February and we can already see it being light so much longer then a month ago. Imagine, it doesn't get dark till six pm! Its really strange. How can it be six? It just getting dark...
But needless to say, we enjoy all the daylight we can get. Especially sine we all have a little of winter fatigue here. Monty was out sick with a stomach thing /cold last week, i called in sick on Friday because everything in my head hurt (sinuses, ears, nose, teeth... and no amount of tylenol made a difference) and both the boys are very, VERY, tired. They cry over everything and just seem to tired to behave their age. Yesterday (Saturday) we took the boys to a little park Leland discovered earlier this week that is not to far from our house. Even though it was a little cold, the sun was out so we took the boys to that park for a little while to get them out of the house.
Stoney had a great time riding his bike over all the bike trails that are in that park, but Monty could not be motivated to do anything. Stoney was tired too, but he can usually work up enough enthosiasm for something and just keeps going untill he feels how tired he is and then turns into an absolute basket case. Monty on the other hand.... For the entire hour and a half we were there he complained and whined that he wanted to go home and watch TV (little tv addict)
Anyway, here are some pictures of Stoney riding in his bike in the park.


Stoney got a new bike for his birthday and he is a real Speedy Gonzalez on it!



Monty's pictures did not turn out so great. ;-) He just did not want to be happy yesterday. I sure hope we will get some more daylight and warmer weather and this whole winter fatigue thing will pass...