This has been a week brimming with excitement and preparation. Thursday night Zak finally made it home after his plane was delayed by about three hours. So, Koa and I dragged ourselves to the airport at about 11:30 to bring him home. Once we got home, Koa was so excited that he didn't want to go to sleep. He was running around giving Daddy the run down on everything in the house. It went something like this, "Yeah. Yeah! Yeah, yeah. Yeah!!" Once Zak felt amply informed we put Koa in his bed and he was fast asleep.
Unfortunately when Zak came home he had a bit of a cold and his voice was pretty hoarse. That has only gotten worse since he got home. He had almost no voice at all by Friday night.
In the midst of the week while Zak was gone I discovered that Koa has an allergy to tea tree oil. I have been washing his diapers using that as a natural anti-bacterial in the wash and it gave him a very severe diaper rash. It was so bad it woke him up in the middle of the night and he couldn't go back to sleep. I couldn't figure out what was bothering him. When I figured it out in the morning I felt like an awful, awful mother!
There is a good side to the story, I suppose. That day he had some extra naked time to give his little bottom time to air out and he actually took a naked nap. So, when he got up from his nap I decided to put him straight on the "big boy potty" to see if he would shee shee--he did and he has now used his big boy potty 4 times successfully. I don't really intend to actively try to potty train him just yet, but I figure if he gets the idea that it is an option maybe potty training will be easier when the time comes. Right now I just set him on it when I am changing his diaper after a nap or snack. If he manages to go shee shee I make a big deal about it and then show him how we pour it in the big potty and flush it away. I'm sure it's not really necessary to foster a little boy's fascination with bodily functions!
On more sophisticated topics, Friday night found us out to dinner celebrating our friend Jessica's birthday. We went to a restaurant on the North Shore called 21 Degrees North. It's a fancy restaurant with less than fancy service. We were all there until about 11:30 and it wasn't because we were just having such a good time that we couldn't pull ourselves away! The service was just that bad. However, we enjoyed spending time with Jessi and celebrating her special day. Happy birthday, Jessi!
When we got home that night I still had a birthday cake to decorate for the following day. I had planned on just buying Koa's cake at Costco, but when I went by and looked at them and read the list of ingredients I couldn't bring myself to order it. So, I went home and called my mom for her chocolate cake recipe. At that point I realized I have only made a cake one other time in my life and that was about a month and a half ago--an angel food cake--and it wasn't very good. Fortunately cake baking is not rocket science (as my mother informed me) and my experiment was fairly successful (not as good as mom's but who's surprised by that?). I made them before we went to dinner with Jessi and let them cool until we got home. We were up until almost three in the morning preparing games, cakes and decorations for the coming party.....
