April Fun

Here's a bit of what we've been up to this month:

Early in the month a sweet friend offered to loan Ryan some new toys to keep him busy while I wasn't feeling well. How did I never think to ask? This train track / conductor hat kept Ryan occupied through pretty much all of General Conference. Great!

About a week ago we had a sunny day and had to take advantage of the chance to get out of the house. Unfortunately the sun was deceiving... It was still only 2 degrees with a "feels like" temperature of -3. Thus we bundled up tightly and wore sunglasses. :) Ryan insisted on taking his dog Rufus for a stroll. It was really quite cute. He led me directly to the Bulk Barn (this kid KNOWS his way around, I'm telling you) to ask for "just a little treat"...

I took Ryan to the Discovery Center for a whole day while Adam was studying. He had a blast and kept mostly to himself playing while I caught up on some reading.

A surprise package from Grandpa Thompson came in the mail on Friday. Boy was Ryan thrilled to put on his new racing jacket! "It's a big, awesome, Formula 1, Ferrari RACE CAR jacket!" (I thought of Phil & Sonja...)

Even though Adam's been stressed out with finals, he PROMISED to make time on Good Friday for us to dye eggs together. We had a fun family time.

Here's Ryan with his "CHEE" face, showing off his Easter loot--a few candies, some little animals, and some squishy dinosaur toys.

As for me, the nasty episode count I referred to previously has only risen to 165. Definitely slowing down. :) One morning this week I even felt NORMAL, not just decent, and I exercised for the first time in months. A very good day.

Adam's still studying like crazy and has 4 more finals to go before he's done with classes for the year. Then he just has clinic for the summer and he gets a few days off here and there. Wahoo!

All About Ryan

(Occasionally Adam feels the need to put gel in Ryan's hair. Ryan thought this was particularly awesome.)

I thought this time around I'd give you a little Ryan cuteness. My parents are always nagging me to write down funny things Ryan says, so I thought I'd mention a few here.

My dear little child has some serious attitude. Any time he hears something he doesn’t want to hear his pointer finger comes out wagging while his eyes furrow in warning and anger, “Don’t SAY about it!”

Two weeks ago we were Skyping with Grandma. Her image froze a few times, and after we were done talking Ryan was very concerned. “Grandma is frozen!” he said. We tried to explain that it was just her picture and that she was alright. Then during Family Night we played “Frozen, Unfrozen”. Ryan loved the game, and set all the terms himself. “Frozen!” he’d yell, and freeze. Then he’d give a big smile and say, “All better,” and go back to moving. He was in the middle of saying the Family Night prayer, and stopped suddenly to say, “I’m frozen. I can’t pray.” When he was headed to bed he said, “I’ll be frozen again sometime next week on Saturday.”

Ryan’s been very interested in all the Easter candy he sees at the store lately and keeps whining for it. I explained to him that later in the month was Easter and a special Easter Bunny would come and leave him treats. He’s been talking about it daily ever since. “When Easter comes he leaves you a special, special treat…” he smiles. Since his only focus has been on treats, I’ve been trying to explain why we really celebrate Easter—that we think about Jesus and how he died for us and was resurrected. Today after his nap he ran to me to say, “Mommy, Jesus tells us to celebrate Easter so I can celebrate Easter that I get treats!”

I was lying on the couch this afternoon (a rather typical position in my still yucky phase…) and Ryan pulled up my shirt to say, “There’s the baby!” Then he started kissing my tummy over and over and over and it tickled so I was laughing. That made my tummy shake and he did NOT like it. “Don’t!” he yelled sharply. “Stop getting all those funny things out!” That made me laugh again, and he tried to keep kissing. He made his angriest face ever and screamed, “Stop! Stop! Stop!” Then I told him he should talk to the baby instead of just kissing it. He leaned over, gave a small kiss, and said, “Hi baby. I’m your big brother Ryan. I sleep on the floor.” Then he ran away. Of all the important things to say to your up and coming sibling…

Later today Adam was talking about the baby and Ryan announced to us it was a SISTER. Adam asked what we should name the sister when she is born. Ryan responded without hesitation, “GaLAXie!” Well that’s a new one… Adam said he probably got it from the Atari game Galaxia that they have played together before.

On our way home from a friend’s house tonight we asked Ryan what the baby’s name should be if it’s a boy. “Ryan Adam Thompson,” he said. We explained several times why his brother couldn’t have the same name as him, but three more times in a row he insisted on the baby being named “Ryan Adam Thompson”. Finally he believed us that the baby needed a different name, so he said we should name him “Soccer Ball”. Nice.

A Bit of News

Well folks, if you haven’t heard the announcement, Thompson Baby #2 is on the way and due October 5^th. We’re excited to welcome a little addition to our home. Well, at least Adam and I are. Ryan’s first comment after the news was, “No baby, just Ryan.” We’ll see how that goes…

I’m definitely not one for self-disclosure, but for some reason today I thought I’d share. You see, I have quite a strange case of self-diagnosed OCD. I love tracking things. I really, really love tracking things. I have spreadsheets and charts of all kinds on my computer. I’m a number nerd. In elementary school I would do math problems at home for fun. My mom had a set of math worksheets that I’d work on—I had a plastic sheet to put over the pages and an erasable marker so I could redo them as much as I liked. In jr high my favorite thing was the afternoon math club I was in. I won my school’s math contest every year in jr high and high school except my Sophomore year when somehow I didn’t hear that it was going on.

Perhaps my love of data is what really led me to do my Masters in Economic Theory. In the end, sadly, it’s not the subject I have passion for as much as the endless number crunching. Somehow having binders and binders full of page after page of my calculations was somewhat fulfilling. Of course I liked my econometrics and statistics classes the best—teasing answers out of data that I didn’t even necessarily care about.

So what do I track? Well, first and foremost, our budget. I’ve divided our spending into multiple categories and I track—to the cent—everything we spend. I force Adam to sit down with me at the end of every year to look over what percentage of our expenditures are in what categories. I get some sort of crazy thrill out of being able to look up exactly how much I spent on, say, medical expenses, on any given month of any year. I haven’t gone as far as graphing the percentage increase in my spending in each category from year to year compared against inflation levels, but this is the sort of questioning that keeps me up at night. I really can’t sleep with endless graphical possibilities racing through my mind.

I tracked our expenses relating to applying for dental school. I tracked our expenses relating to moving to Nova Scotia. I tracked our expenses related to Ryan being born. I track prices on specific items at different grocery stores. I have a spreadsheet tracking my student loan repayments. I can tell you in 3 seconds how much interest I’ve paid on each specific loan or all my loans together by month or by year. I feel strangely happy just looking over this spreadsheet, though it should make me sad. I’ve had to restrain myself several times over the last 3 years from making spreadsheets for Adam’s dental school loans that we won’t start paying off until later. It’s truly so hard to wait.

When I was going through breastfeeding hell with Ryan I started tracking how long he’d nurse, how much supplement he had each day, how many times he peed and pooped, how long I pumped each time, how many quarter ounces I pumped, etc. Months down the line I was asked to speak about my personal experiences at the launch of Nova Scotia’s new Provincial Breastfeeding Campaign. Looking over the details of that sheet was actually very helpful in my writing/healing process of “getting over” the whole nightmare experience.

When Adam discovered he liked playing Scrabble we finally found a game we could play together. Yes, I’ve tracked our scores from game to game. I have a line graph of them. Originally I intended it to be a show of our improvement trend—of course we’d get better and better as we played. Sadly, our scores have remained quite stagnant. Maybe we need to study the game and practice on our own time…

And so it should come as no surprise that I’ve tracked details about my pregnancy. I kept a little pregnancy journal when I was expecting Ryan. I wrote down details about foods I craved, pregnancy symptoms I was experiencing, etc. Well now I’m doing the same. I’ve always regretting not tracking my growth last time. I have no solid charts of weight gain, belly expansion, etc. This time around I thought ahead. At the start of my pregnancy I measured various parts of my body. A little too personal, I know… I’m making a spreadsheet to track their growth. It’s really quite amazing what a body can go through. I’m particularly interested to see the percentage growth in diameter of my ankles after last time. Several weeks before Ryan was born Adam said to me, “You know, I really can’t remember what your feet look like.” NICE. I am NOT excited for that part of pregnancy at all.

And most religiously I have tracked the number of time I’ve thrown up. Don’t worry, I haven’t gone as far this time around as writing down the exact time of day of each occurrence. I’m making a sincere effort to be less detailed. But just let me put it out there to you that as of today I have thrown up 149 times this pregnancy. I know because tonight I looked over the numbers and made a lovely bar graph entitled “Nasty Episodes” of the number of times I’ve thrown up week-by-week this pregnancy. I have NOT been a happy camper. It’s nearly twice as many times as last pregnancy in total! And though for the most part I finally feel like I can function, I do not at all feel well. By this time in my pregnancy with Ryan I had stopped throwing up daily. Is this change a sign that it’s a girl? The doctor already told me I’m only big enough to have one in there… And tell me, how is it that every bit of evidence seems to suggest to me that my body is rejecting what it’s growing, and yet still my stomach is popping out enough that today I saw the form of my belly button in the mirror??? It’s incomprehensible to me.

And now if you’ve made it to the end of this novel that’s all about me and my craziness, it must be because you think I’m a total freak. It’s okay. I can take it. Maybe it will make you feel a bit lucky that your throat isn't burning. Or perhaps you'll feel grateful tonight that you’re not lying awake wishing to look at charts of changes in the USD-CAD exchange rate over the last 10 years. Maybe it’s a sign that you’re normal.

(Totally unrelated side-note. Lately Ryan has been claiming that he’s “normal” several times a day. A few days ago he kept scratching the insides of his legs and he announced to me, “I’m scratching my legs ’cuz…I’m just normal.”)

Perhaps this is inappropriate...

BUT...

It's one of my favorite pictures of Ryan. I've been holding out on posting it for a number of months and today when I was looking over pictures had to give in. :)

MERRY CHRISTMAS!

About time!

So we've been a bit lax on the whole blogging thing, and I'm not about to pretend that I think that it's going to change. But, my brother keeps telling me to update the blog with pictures of his favorite 2-yr-old, so I said I'd do it as his Christmas present.

MERRY CHRISTMAS UNCLE NATHAN!

(And thanks for the Christmas shirt, Aunt Tina!)

Discovering the world of pockets. He loves 'em.

RAT MAN on Halloween

Beach time (in September)! Back massage for Daddy.

Gotta love that Superman ice cream...

KISSES!

Merry Christmas Uncle Nathan--I wish I could get sent to you in this box!

Friendly Visitor

Our landlord just had some stairs built up to our deck so we'd have a second exit from our apartment. A few days later I was on the phone and looked out the window to see this little critter. I screamed. Ryan screamed too when he found out we really weren't going to let him go play with it...