January 2006

 

January 1, 2006

 

Well, lookie here! A whole month has flown by with only one entry. Between the cooties, the holidays and visitors, this month has been hectic. Let’s see if I can recap.

 

I did a lot of online shopping so that was done early on. I still had to wrap and ship some things though. Katherine and I baked 7 hummingbird cakes for our local friends.  Katherine started becoming a bit more aggressive towards her sister. I suspect the lack of one on one time with dad and I may have something to do with that. We went to the zoo and Lauren really liked the monkeys. We took walks to the playground almost every day. Both girls love to swing and play. Katherine received a purple dragon costume from a friend of mine. After I scared her with it by putting it in her room while she was sleeping only to have her wake up screaming (bad mommy!) she put it on and wore it everywhere for three days. Target, the playground, walks, pizza place…where ever. She also roared at people. I realized on the day before Christmas eve that the kids had so many gifts that they’d be overwhelmed on Christmas morning. So, Woody and I made the decision to let them open all of the gifts that night from friends and family. Both girls received lots of clothes and some groovy toys. Myrna and Carl came down on Christmas Eve for a week long holiday visit. We all got dressed up and went to the candlelight Christmas eve service. Came home, had hot cocoa, opened our new pajamas, set out cookies, milk and carrots and went to bed.

 

The next morning, K woke up to find that Santa had left a puppy named Scamps under the tree. Scamps is a voice activated puppy and she loves him. Lauren received a busy box from Santa and that was a winner too. The stockings were filled with treats and once again, there were so many gifts that Katherine got bored with opening them. We really had to coax her to open the last 4.  I will seriously try to remember that next year.

 

Lauren weighed in on the 30^th at 18 lbs 7 oz. I had to take her in for another suspected ear infection but alas, it was actually just teething. Her top tooth is almost in and it’s causing her some pain.

Well, the pictures will show what we’ve been up to better than my trying to recap it all so enjoy!

 

 

 January 11, 2006

OK, Lauren’s letter is a bit late. Here goes.

 

Dear Lauren,

 

1 year (and 10 days) ago, the doctor placed you on my belly after an exciting labor. You were a perfect newborn. The rush of love that I felt at that moment was overwhelming and it has grown every day since. Even though I was not sure how you’d fit into this family before you arrived, I now see that we wouldn’t be “us” without “u”. Oh geez…that sounds like something your grandma Susan would write. I was really worried about how I’d be as a mom to two little girls. I think I’ve done a pretty good job so far.

You have been a mellow baby and such a good girl. I just love staring into those big brown eyes and running my fingers through your curls. Now that you’ve started walking, you are on the move most of the time, but you fall right asleep when you need too.

Good eater, good sleeper, cuddle-kins, all the milestones met? You are perfect on all counts.

I love you so much and I can’t wait to see what this new year brings. By your next birthday, you will be talking more, running, chasing and harassing your big sister and hopefully, if I get my wish, still my darling little cuddle-kin.

 

Love you bunches Cha-Cha,

Mom

 

We bought an annual pass to Busch Gardens as our Family Christmas gift. Been both weekends this month so far. The first weekend we did a walk through to see where everything was. The place is huge and I realized that night, while looking at the map, that we totally missed two entire areas! We saw the baby gorilla who was cuddled in his mom's arms. Both of them sleeping near the glass so you could really see them. Mom had her nose on the baby’s head and it was just too sweet. We took the train ride around the park which was pretty neat but Lauren was not so enthused…she fell asleep. They have kids rides scattered throughout the park and Katherine wanted to ride on the motorcycle ride. I thought she was going to freak out when the thing took off, around and around. She was concentrating very hard and it didn’t look like she was having much fun. When she got off though, she said she had fun and she held on “vewy tightwy”.  

 

The second time we went with the intention of only going to the “kids” area, Dragonland. From the time we walked into Dragonland, until we left 3 hours later, Katherine was way too excited. She literally bounced the entire time from sheer excitement. They had a stage show with Dumphry the dragon. Katherine went to hug the dragon when the show was over and she reported back that “there is a man in that dragon coat”. Gosh, I sure hope she isn’t one of those kids who ruins Santa Claus for all the others. Just a bit too big for her britches I’d say. Dragonland is Busch Gardens’ kid mecca. 52” is the height restriction and if you are over that height, “you must be accompanied by a child”.

 

Katherine rode every single ride, some alone, some with dad and one with a little boy. She was going to have to wait for the next run of the cars and she was looking a bit disappointed. The mom said she could ride with her son, who looked to be about 3 also. K got in the car and the boy promptly put his arm around the back of her seat. K took over and was “driving” the car the whole time. She’s such a character. I was so worried about her being shy and small and I was very concerned about her being bullied but now I see that this kid can take care of herself. I need to give her credit for being so willing to try new things & not let the big kids run over her. For a wee tot, she sure is brave.

 

Lauren is a runner. She loves to run away from me. Inside, outside, whatever, she doesn’t care. She just wants to be chased. K stuck with me pretty well at this age, but Lauren is a wanderer. We were out front blowing bubbles a few days ago and she just kept taking off and heading for the street. Earlier today she was putting some bit of garbage (a piece of wood this time I think) into her mouth. She stayed just out of reach of where I was sitting and was taunting me with the drool drenched wood. Putting it in and out of her mouth and watching me the entire time. When I got up to take it from her, she ran away squealing.  Good gracious, this child is going to give me a heart attack.

 

Lauren is also talking more. She says “Shoe” “yes” and “na” and she’s learning the animals & some sounds. She gets very excited when she shows you her book and she says things that sound like words…but they aren’t really. She’s also grasped up and down. Her favorite thing right now is chasing sister all over the place and being chased. She also really enjoys peek a boo and playing “where’s Lauren”. Tip: She’s probably in the tunnel or the tent. She’s eating better but that stupid top tooth still hasn’t broken though. Can they retract? I honestly think it did…no lie. Oh, she is also saying “no, no, no, no, no” and she sounds just like me. Oy!

 

Katherine’s most recent joy is stuffed animals. She is not, however, ok with playing alone with her stuffed animals. I hear “mommy, do you want to play with me” about 50 times per day. When you do play with her (I’m usually the moose…hrumph) the animals are doing something mind numbingly boring like; getting ready for naps, or swimming. After you’ve finally gotten comfy on the floor with your stuffed moose, she runs off and plays the other room but she gets so upset if you get up. Wierdo.

 

She had an eye appointment today. I was a bit worried about something I’d seen on some pictures so I made the appointment last month. I really botched this morning up though because I not only had the wrong directions, I wrote the wrong number down from the phone boo. So when I was lost, I called the number…it was an eye clinic and they gave me directions…but when I got there, we realized it was the wrong one. They finally helped me figure out where we were going and we were only about 10 minutes late. Anyway, they dilated K’s eyes which was a rough experience for her. She screamed and cried a lot but it was mostly because we were holding her down. Then they checked her eyes (which she was very brave for). No big problems but she does have a slight cross (which must be very slight since I’ve never noticed it) and he wants to see her again in 4 months. I feel better knowing that there are no big problems. Illness, even the possibility, in your kids is just one of those things I’d really rather avoid. It really affects me badly.

 

January 12, 2006

Lauren’s top front tooth finally broke through today.

 

January 13, 2006

Lauren had her first haircut today. Not much, just the bangs and a bit of clean up. She was great and didn’t fuss at all.

 

January 17, 2006

Boy that husband of mine is a special fella.  I'm in the office trying to knock some work out. I can hear him playing techno music and dancing with the girls in the living room. I just heard him tell Katherine "let me show you a dance move...it's called stir the pudding". Then he taught her "the lawn mower". Next he'll be teaching them the smurf. 

 

The man can't dance a lick but boy he sure is a good daddy.

 

Lauren does shake her booty but she mainly watches Katherine, twirls around, screams and trys to stay out of K’s way. She loves it when big sis dances.

 

January 22, 2006

Lauren had her one year checkup. Here are her stats.

 

Weight: 18 lbs 9 oz (10-25%)

Height: 29 ¾ inches (75%)

Head circ: 45 cm (50%)

So, she’s long and lean, like big sister. She’s meeting all of her milestones and everything is A-OK!

 

January 26, 2006

K burned her hand tonight on the stove burner. We took her to the ped and she has first & second-degree burns, only the thumb was spared any spots. Her index finger took the brunt of it. Poor baby cried and cried. L  Practically broke my heart. I’m sure it hurt a lot but the pediatrician put some salve on it, bandaged her up and gave her Tylenol with codeine so she’s now sleeping hard.

Besides that, we had a fun day.  I got some interior painting done & then we went to Busch gardens. Katherine rode her first big girl ride (the log flume, rather tame by their standards but one big drop) and she loved it. She went 4 times in a row. Once with me and the other three times with daddy.

December 2005

 

December 7, 2005

Ugh. Katherine caught a cold last week. Runny nose and such but she was ok. Then Lauren got it. She didn’t sleep well for four nights (3 am wake ups every day) and she started smacking herself on the side of the head so I took her to the pediatrician on Tuesday. Double ear infection and her two top teeth are about to come though. Poor kid. He gave us a stronger antibiotic, which causes thrush and diarrhea, if not taken with yogurt, and some numbing drops for her ears. For being that sick, you’d think she’d be a monster but she’s not really. She’s awake at 3am but she seems to want to play. Not unhappy, just not able to get comfy. The right ear is worse than the left too. I think I will make an appointment with  the chiropractor for her tomorrow. Apparently they can manipulate babies who are prone to ear infections and it reduces the lymph fluid that collects. I’ve heard it works for some and not for others. I’m willing to make a $15 co-pay to find out.

 

Of course with all of the close contact with the girls and the lack of sleep, I caught the cold too. My cold was different than theirs though. Mine was more of a sleeping sickness. I started feeling poorly yesterday and by last night I was full on coughing, congested, achy etc. Lauren and I were up from 2am till 5:30 am and when Woody woke up, he said he’d stay home. He is so awesome. I think I may have literally died if I had to face the care of two sick kids while I felt like I did. So I basically slept all day. Up for an hour here & there but Woody took on both girls like a champ. Katherine was testing him today and I think I butted in where I wasn’t wanted. She was being a turkey and I’ve found that if you let her see that you are getting angry, she acts even worse. If you focus on the positive with her, she does much better. I think Woody had lost his patience way before I came out an tried to give that little tidbit of advise though. He did a great job with them and I am totally grateful for the break. I feel a lot better now & hopefully, after a good night’s rest, I’ll be up for a full day with the monkeys tomorrow.

 

Laruen’s numbing drops tickle her ears I guess. After her bath, I was nursing her on the bed and she was diaper less to let the rash air out a bit (see above evil antibiotic that causes diarrhea and rashes on the bum). I put the ear drops in and while she was nursing, she was digging in her ear with her toe. It was very primate of her. J

 

She is also walking all over the place now. Yes, she still looks like a drunk sailor as she staggers all around but she’s pretty good at it. She is also saying woof woof and really pointing out things while trying to say what they are. When Katherine leaves the room, Lauren starts in with a loud “Dat Duh!”…she misses big sis.

 

 

November 7, 2005

 

Oh boy, I see another crazy month looming in my future.

 

Yesterday, we went to the Green Meadows petting farm in Kissimmee. We met a friend that I know from my message board, Amy and her husband Shawn & two girls, Sophia (2 days younger than Katherine) and Nora (6months old). We had a really great time.

 

At first I was a bit scared since the name of the farm evoked a vision of either a cemetery or an institution for “special” people. That and the fact that it’s kind of hit or miss in the touristy area of Kissimmee. Some of those attractions are really cheesy. However, Green Meadows was actually pretty cool aside from the country music that assaulted us at the entrance gate.

 

We all got to chase & catch geese, chickens & ducks. Hold baby ducklings and chicks. Pet pigs, goats, sheep and various other creatures. We took a hayride and played on the playground and the crowing glories for Katherine, riding a pony and milking a cow. As nursing moms, Amy and I had lots of comments about the cow milking. Amy said “I wish I milked as easy as a cow”. As do I Amy, As do I. LOL

 

Anyway the girls were all great and K enjoyed playing with Sophia at the playground after the animals were all gawked at properly.

 

After we got home, we all relaxed and played a bit. Lauren was cruising around the coffee table and she turned around and took a step to get to me. Yes, she took a step. I suppose it could be worse since Katherine was a sturdy walker at this age but honestly, I’m really not ready for my baby to grow up yet. I would really be ok if that tiny tooth just receded back into her gum line revealing that sweet toothless grin one more time. And, crawling…yeah, I’d be happy to have her stay where I put her. And the talking. Wow! I was on the phone with Carol Ann today and I know that it had to sound like I’d landed smack dab in the middle of an episode of Land of the Lost. You know the one where the pterodactyls are attacking and screeching like mad. It was insane. The not so insane but incredibly cute talking is when she is in the bathtub and she catches a glimpse of herself in the overflow cover thingy. She scoots over, points to it and says “be-beh” She’s got such a sweet little throaty voice when she’s using it for good…unlike the shrieks that she seems to favor right now.

 

Today was the first day that I had both girls on my own at home. Katherine started part time at Mrs. Candace’s and she will be going there on Thursdays and Fridays.  That’s good but I realized today that we need to work on a few things. Most importantly, listening. She is so willful and just refuses to listen. For example, today she said she needed to go potty. She was doing this silly dance and running around saying she wanted me to come with her. I told her to stop acting silly and go potty alone like she does at Mrs. Candace’s. 5 minutes later, she’s still dancing. She finally went alone but she didn’t quite make the potty and instead peed all over the bathroom floor.

 

Another, before we left for the park, I asked if she needed to go potty. No was her reply. Off we go, walking through the neighborhood. We get to the park and climb up the ropey thing-a-ma-bob and she starts the potty dance. She needed to go but she didn’t want to leave. Knowing that we had a longish walk home, I made her leave with promises of another park trip after naptime. This leads to my last story about today. Naptime didn’t go as planned at all. She just would not fall asleep. So no park.

 

After hearing all of this, you probably think I’m not so happy. You’d be wrong. All in all we had a good day and we had fun. I got a few things accomplished and I took notes of things we need to work on. She also ate really well, and that always puts a smile on my face.

 

She’s also been donning her princess shoes (plastic heeled things that are sparkly but way too big) and tap dancing. This involves slapping said silly shoes on the linoleum while making spastic movements with her legs and arms. The louder the “taps” the better. I got this on film. I smell a really great wedding montage. Bwahahahhahaha. Sweet revenge.

 

November 8, 2005

 

No sleep. Poor Lauren is not happy at 3am and I don’t know why. This is the second night in a row of this awful nighttime torture. Every hour she wakes up. Not crying but just trying to get comfy. I am miserable and at 3:30 am, after about 2 hours of broken up sleep, I get in the car and drive her around for about half an hour. She’s just as wide awake when we get home as she was when we got in the stupid car. Her big, wide awake eyes, inquiring “uh, mom? We got in the car but we didn’t ever get out. What’s the deal crazy PJ clad lady with the boobs?”

 

Today was much better than yesterday. K went right down for a nap and Lauren went down too, at the same time!  I had about an hour to eat lunch, work a bit and tidy up from the morning. When K gets her naps, she’s like a different kid. She was truly fun to be around today. We had fun playing pirates. She ate well. We read stories & watched a little TV. I made the girls a fort, we went to the park and we went to the pediatrician.

 

Ok, a pediatrician visit is usually not something fun but even with the news that Lauren has an ear infection, K’s constant banter kept the mood light.

 

K “my daddy works all day”

Dr: “do you work all day”

K: after some thought. “nope”

 

Then I asked him to talk to her about that whole gross booger eating thing.

 

Dr: “Boogers have germs and they can make you sick. Did you know that?”

K: (Looking very concerned) “Oh?”

Dr: “Yes, we should never put our fingers in our noses and never ever eat boogers”

K: “Fine! I’ll just eat my dinner instead of my boogers”

She said this in such a “well, I’ll show you” tone of voice that Doc and I just looked at each other and tried our best not to laugh. I finally sputtered out something like “oh, Katherine, that sounds like a very good choice!”

I found out that a mild-moderate ear infection is most likely the cause of Lauren’s fussiness at night. Apparently lying down can cause ear infections to feel worse. Well, I’m glad that there is an explanation for her odd nocturnal behavior. Hopefully we can get it under control and I’ll get my good little sleeper back. I’m happy I took her in. I just had a hunch that it may be something besides the tooth & the gas & the learning new skills. I have no experience with ear infections and I certainly hope this is the only one we have to deal with. She showed none of the classic symptoms though. Weird.

 

Oh, we also found out that Lauren has gained no weight since her last appointment. Still holding steady at 17 lbs 4 oz. I guess all that speed crawling and trying to walk is starting to burn off the calories. Oh Joy!

 

November 30, 2005

 

I know, I’ve not written much this month. The holiday’s are upon us and I was determined to get ahead of the game so that I could spend time with the girls doing fun stuff like baking cookies and making crafts. I did ok. Our Christmas cards are here and awaiting a few more addresses. Newsletter is done. Most of the gift shopping is complete and wrapping has commenced.

 

We spent thanksgiving at Susan and Brads in Tallahassee. We had an enjoyable visit. Preschoolers are pretty funny in a really embarrassing sort of way. During thanksgiving dinner, with the whole family gathered, Katherine pipes up with “poop starts with P! puh puh poop!”. Niiiiiiiiice dear. Lauren’s second tooth also popped though on the 24^th.

 

Woody took three days following Thanksgiving off but his feet were bothering him so he watched the girls while I worked around the house doing those projects that you can’t really do with kids. Things like, washing the cars, pressure washing the sidewalks, laundry etc. I’ve been a busy bee.

 

Here is an excerpt of an email that I wrote to a friend of mine last week: Katherine has been pure joy to be around lately. While I'm enjoying it immensely, the pessimist in me is just waiting for the whiney, petulant preschooler to return. That will be a bummer when it happens since I've gotten really used to having such a charming, helpful kid around.

 

Well, she’s back to her old tricks again but she really only acts up when she’s tired. The feeding is becoming an issue again and she will barely eat anything unless it is candy or fluid. When she does eat real food, it’s generally 3 baby carrots or some apple. Well, that is sure not going to put the weight on. If I could only switch diets with her for one week. I’m positive I’d hit my goal weight and she’d be a plump little munchkin.

 

Lauren started toddling around last night. She’s been taking steps when she’s distracted by something but last night we spent about an hour with her on the floor. She’d toddle to me, then dad, then me again. She’s so proud of herself. The delighted squeals are way too sweet. She’s also talking more. She will nod her head for yes (while making a guttural “Dah” sound) and shake her head no. She also says baby, cat, mama, num nums and daddy. She does say Katherine but it sounds a lot like daddy too…more of a dat-duh, but she knows what she means & I usually do too.

 

Finally, we took the girls to the mall yesterday to meet Santa. I got them dressed up in their Christmas finery (Katherine wore the dress that Gigi made for her) and off we went. On the way we discussed what Katherine would tell Santa & Mrs. Claus. Finding out the exact type of carrot that the reindeer liked seemed to be the burning question. Well, we got to the mall and there was no-one in line, perfect. As we got closer, Katherine got more freaked out. She would not sit on Santa’s lap. Mrs. Claus was complimenting K’s dress and sweet talking her but no go. We finally gave up and just got a picture of Lauren with Santa. Maybe next year will go more smoothly. I wonder if it’s the beard? Hmmmmm

October 2005

 

October 3, 2005

Lauren had her 9 month checkup. She’s looking good and is meeting all of her milestones. Her head is a bit on the small side but the ped isn’t concerned at all yet. We will see how the curve looks at her one year checkup and if she’s still a small head kid, he may look into it further. Of course I have a little head & so does K so she may have just gotten the tiny head gene.

 

Here are her stats as of today:

Height: 28 ¾ inches (75-90 %)

Weight: 17 lbs 4oz (25%)

Head circ: 42 ¾ (10-25%)

 

She’s still battling that virus thing that’s causing her to poop every 2-3 hours and now she has a runny nose so we held off on her shots until next week. Katherine also caught the virus and it’s been a fun, poop filled weekend. I’ve kept her home from Candace’s today but if she doesn’t run a fever she can go back tomorrow.

 

We took the kids to Target to get some groceries this evening. We were in the deli aisle and K was running around like some sort of jacked up maniac. A lady and her son were parked perpendicular to the deli case & I was waiting for them to move so I could get to the hot dogs. Well, K just stopped in the middle of the aisle and she was about to get hit by an oncoming cart. I said "Hey! Don’t stop in the middle of the aisle" in my very best, firm, mom voice. The lady who was blocking the case looked at me like I was some sort of jacked up maniac & said "oh, sorry". She hurried off as I stuttered..."oh, no no! Not you, my daughter" poor woman was already halfway down the aisle & didn't hear me. She thought I said that to her!

 

October 6, 2005

I rejoined weight watchers and have been doing it for one week. I weighed in today and lost 2.4 lbs. It would have been more if the girls hadn’t been sick off and on all week. I can’t take them to the daycare at the gym if they are sick so I’ve not worked out at all this week. Boooo!

 

Lauren waved bye bye to daddy this morning. Cute cute cute! I can’t stand how cute she is.

 

October 18, 2005

Myrna has arrived to help out with the girls so I can catch up on my out of control work. She will be here for a week and hopefully I’ll be able to get a ton of stuff done and not be so stressed out about everything. Thank goodness Myrna was able to come down because Woody got called to go to the Buffalo and Ft Erie Canada offices for two days. He left this afternoon.

 

A little recap of how this month has gone so far. First the good news, I lost another 3 lbs so I’m down 5. That’s good. Lauren has been a whiney, clingy little monster. That’s bad. Katherine woke up yesterday barfing and feverish. That’s really bad. The barf monster stayed around until after I’d made the evening hours pediatrician’s appointment. The ped actually said “you again?” when he saw me. Guess I can’t blame the guy since we’ve seen him 7 times in the last month. Katherine was mildly dehydrated but ok as long as there were no more puking episodes, and there weren’t. She’s back to her old tricks today & she gets to go to Candace’s tomorrow.

 

Lauren’s irritation was caused by a tiny little sliver of a tooth that poked it’s way out of her gum today. It’s finally here. Her first tooth! Maybe she will be able to relax a bit now. She’s really been giving me a hard time this past month. Here’s to hoping this was the worst of it because if she deals with all of her incoming teeth like this…well, let’s just say that it may be the final buckle on my straightjacket.

 

Ok, I’m feeling pretty negative right now so I’ll quit whining and bringing you all down. J

 

October 31, 2005

 

Well, happy Halloween. This month has flown by in a blur and I’ve barely written anything. Let’s see….what’s been going on here?

 

Myrna’s visit went pretty well. Lauren was good and cranky for her but she started acting really sweet by Myrna’s last day here. Go figure.

 

My work is nuts. Totally nuts. That’s all I have to say about that.

 

I’d been feeling like I never get to see Katherine and that we are becoming disconnected so I decided to put her in daycare part time. Unfortunately, Candace doesn’t do part time daycare so we decided to pull her from daycare all together and just let me be a stay at home mom full time & I’d work in the evenings and on the weekends. I was pretty happy with that decision until I told Candace that I would be pulling K out in two weeks. Following that call, I had a lingering case of nausea for two days. Luckily for me, Candace decided that she’d miss Katherine (and so would her daughter Megan) so she would be willing to let K come part time. So starting next week, Katherine will go to Mrs. Candace’s on Monday’s and Tuesdays and stay home with Lauren and I the rest of the week.

 

Even though work is important and it’s very busy, I know that K’s childhood is even more important. I’m pretty excited about taking her to story times at the library and just spending time with her. Of course, you may want to ask me how happy I am about it in two weeks when she hasn’t stopped talking since 6am and she’s fighting her nap at noon but we will cross that bridge when we come to it.

 

Woody’s gout is acting up again. His doc took him off of his meds due to possible liver problems and he said to stay off of them until his next appointment. Poor Woody’s been hobbling around and grouchy.

 

My mom and Brad came down this last weekend and I think Brad got a big dose of our daily craziness. I suspect that dose will last him for a good long while. I’m not so sure that we will see him down in our neck of the woods for another year or so. We took the girls to the zoo and Katherine rode a camel with grandma. K held on “verwy tightwy”. She really enjoyed showing Poppy around the zoo & riding the carousel with him. She was so excited that poppy came down to see her. She and Lauren acted just like they normally do during lunch at Chili’s…no special behavior for the grandparents…oh no, not a chance. It was pretty crazy. Poor Brad. I actually considered changing our doorbell chime to the Guns & Roses song “welcome to the Jungle” just to clue people into what they are about to experience upon entering our home. No one should have to deal with this lunacy without being properly warned beforehand.

 

We had a fun Halloween. Yesterday we went to the pumpkin patch for a fall festival. Katherine got all dressed up in her kitty cat costume and we ran by target on the way to the party. I swear, she’s going to be a character actress this girl. She got her cookie from the Target lady, took one bite and said “Here mom, here’s my cookie” I asked why she didn’t want it and she said “kitty cats don’t like cookies”. Even my “it’s a tuna cookie. Kitty cat’s love tuna cookies” didn’t work. Now seriously, what kind of three year old won’t eat a cookie? A three year old who is entirely in character I guess.

September 2005

 

September 2, 2005

Today is the day Katherine is 3. I simply can not fathom how quickly this has happened. Today she had a small birthday celebration at Ms. Candice’s and they had cupcakes. This morning, I’d put her hair in buns and she thought that was pretty funny since she calls her butt, buns too. It did cause some confusion though. When I picked her up she said “mom, my butts are coming loose”. I had to laugh at that one.

 

We went to our favorite pizza place and all of the waitress & the owner sang happy birthday to her. They love her there and they don’t usually sing to people. She really enjoyed that. We came home and let her open the presents from the family. She got a vacuum, a cleaning set with a broom and mop, a musini (a motion activated toy that plays music when you dance around it), a doll house, a little people van and a Dora Candy land game. The vacuum and the doll house were the big hits of the day. She also received a few gifts in the mail that we let her open a few days ago. She got a ton of play do accessories from an online friend of mine and a write on board for practicing her writing skills. She also got a cute doll that she’s been toting around constantly.

 

Grandma and uncle mike are coming in tonight. Tomorrow is the birthday party. Should be fun.

 

September 3, 2005

We had Katherine’s birthday party today. Here are a few things I learned about children’s birthday parties.

 

1. Eating contests go over like a lead balloon when children are encouraged to keep neat and clean most of the time. NOT one kid would put their face into the whipped cream pie...not even to get to the pudding at the bottom. K stuck her chin in but that was it. The decorating of the pies went over ok though.
   
   
2. Children do not come out of the womb knowing how to hop in a pillow case. The "potato sack race" was won by Katherine because she is a natural hopper.

3. Announcing "present time" and having all of the gift bags in one spot on the floor is not a good idea. I swear you'd have thought we had a bunch of football players lined up to go ransack her gifts. That was out of control! I would recommend tying all non birthday children to chairs before announcing the gift opening.

4. Pin the tail on the donkey is a good idea...even if some of the kids cheat. Kids this age cheating is just plain funny. They are so obvious about it.

5. Put all breakable toys away. Katherine received a toy vacuum cleaner from us the night before. All of the kids loved it and more than once I saw parts being ripped from it. Luckily it's a pretty sturdy piece of equipment so it's not actually broken but I feared for its life.

The party went off pretty well otherwise. K had a blast with her friends and she enjoyed being the star for the day. Jenn and Bailey came down for the day and they spent the night at our house. They had so much fun playing together but the next morning; both girls woke up in awful moods so Jenn and Bailey scooted out of here pretty early. K kept asking when her friend was coming back. 

 

 

September 8, 2005

 

Ever have one of those days where you know you shouldn’t get out of bed but you do anyway? I had one of those days today. My cold is hanging on but I felt a bit better than I did yesterday. K was being a bugger last night so she went to bed at 8 which means an early morning wake up at 6am. I believe that I’ve made my “morning ritual being upset and how it affects me” clear in previous journal postings so I’ll leave that alone.

So I get up early and luckily K is in a pretty good mood. Minimal whining & Lauren sleeps in a bit. K and I get on the bed and hug on Lauren for awhile and I take Katherine to Miss Candice’s. I come home and at 10am I begin the nap time ritual for Lauren. I’ve decided that I’d like her to stop napping in her car seat (which she’s great at) and have her nap in the crib instead. Two hours later, no nap, one angry baby and one exhausted mommy later we both crash hard on the bed together. So, I’ll try again tomorrow.

Then I leave the house at 2:30 to pick K up and take her to her swim class which starts at 3:15. I got behind every stinking slow car in town. Apparently today was “go at least 10 mph below the speed limit” day. Someone forgot to fill me in. We get to swim class late but the teacher agrees to take K into the pool for the 6 minutes that are left in her lesson. Cool! Then I get a whiff of Lauren. The child has made what I’ve come to refer to as a “clothes trasher”. The kind of giant poop that explodes out of the diaper and up the front, back and sides. It was literally up to her chin. I think she must have pooped out half of her body weight. It was pretty impressive. But I’m prepared. I take the 6 minutes that K is in her swim class and I use about 60 wipes to give Lauren a good wipe down and I throw away her outfit. But, since we’ve not had a “clothes trasher” in the last few month’s I no longer keep an extra outfit in the car. Not as prepared as I thought. DOH! So we have a nakee baby. Luckily the rest of the afternoon has gone more smoothly.

K has her 3 year checkup at the peds tomorrow. I have a lot of questions to ask him like. Why won’t my child eat? Why won’t she sleep? Why is she so flipping cute? Is she really mine all mine? Geez, I’m going to sound like her. Woody has started calling her “cause why” since that’s about all she says now. Oh the joy of Three!!!

 

September 10, 2005

 

Katherine’s doctor appointment went well yesterday. She’s 25 lbs and has jumped from the 3^rd percentile at 2 years old to the 5^th percentile. The pediatrician was pleased with her growth. She’s also 36 inches tall which puts her in the 25^th percentile for height. Other than that, she’s doing great. He was a bit worried that she will be board to tears in Kindergarten since she missed the cutoff by 2 days. She will not be able to enter school until two days before her 6^th birthday. I am going to look into what grade you can test them up and possibly just home school her until then. I believe that would entail home schooling for K, and first grade since I believe that 2^nd grade is when you can test up. Then again, socially, with her shyness, I’m thinking that perhaps starting later may benefit her. As you can see, I’ve made no decision yet. I need to research some things. Do I just put her into kindergarten at 6 years old knowing that she’s probably more equipped socially to deal and just let her be board academically? Bah! I just don’t know.

 

Lauren is the sweetest sleeper ever. I’ve been working on getting her used to sleeping in the crib at nap time so that when she goes to Candice’s in Dec, she will be prepared and not give Candice too many fits. I do love nursing her to sleep though. She is so different than K was. When I used to nurse K to sleep, it was a battle. She’d stay attached and as soon as I tried to pull her off she’d wake up and scream. Lauren on the other hand, will pet my arm while nursing then pull off a few times and roll over to go to sleep only to wake herself up a bit after a few seconds, and roll back over to nurse for another minute. This goes on until she starts playing with her hair. That’s the sign…I know she’s almost asleep. She lets go and passes out. Precious.

 

September 13, 2005

I think I jinxed myself with the “Lauren is a great sleeper” talk. She is now a teething demon. Someone has taken my sweet baby and left a screaming, slobbering monster in her place. The cold I've had for two weeks is not getting any better and that's most likely due to the fact that I've had 6 hours total of sleep over the last 3 days. I had been feeling better before the "baby switch".

Lauren is usually such a great baby. She plays alone long enough for me to get my work done, she eats great, and she sleeps great. Now, none of that is true. She's woken up every night since Saturday, screaming and won't nurse or settle back to sleep for more than 15 minutes at a time. She won't nurse much or eat many solids and lord help me if I try to put her down at all. The kicker? She won't nap for more than 15 minutes at a time either unless I'm holding her. That's the worst since I do work at home and I can nap when she does if we get a poor nights sleep. But not recently. It's like she's dangling the nap in front of my desperate eyes and I want to believe it so much. Then I do, and I lie down with her but I'm rudely awakened pretty quickly by the screaming & crying.

I normally don't mind holding her as much as she will let me but unfortunately my work is being audited and it's requiring some pretty intense brain work (really hard when you are sleep deprived) and time. I worked one handed all day yesterday from 9am until 11pm and I would say I actually got about 3 hours worth of work completed between double checking myself for errors due to lack of brain capacity, and holding Lauren.

Teething tabs, check. Advil, check. Ice pops, check. Sleep?? Not so much.
I don't see any bumps on her gums but the mild fever she's had and her attitude all point to teething. I hope they hurry up and pop through. K never really had a problem with cutting teeth...or maybe she did and I blocked it out...sort of a post-teething-stress-disorder?

I can't nap today even if Miss fussy-butt does since the maid is coming soon, I have a hair appointment that I will be charged for if I don't go, K has swimming lessons and I have to go to the grocery store or we will be having pasta with nothing on it for dinner. Ok, I know that sounds bad. “Oh, man, the maid is coming. Woe is me”. I can laugh at myself even when I’m wallowing in self pity.

 

September 15, 2005

Ok, things are better. She’s slept better for the last two nights. Whew! I was getting scared there for a bit. Lauren ate almost 2 full jars of baby food last night. Maybe she’s starving? That’s a lot more than usual. Weird. Still no tooth but I’m sure it’s coming.

 

She has started to repeat things you say and she can now say Ma-ma, na-na (nursing), da-da, dat (cat) and uh-oh. Super cute! Love it. She also has a sign for “I’m hungry, feed me now” and that would be the lip smacking when she’s looking at you. Funny stuff.

 

September 16, 2005

Oh man are kids ever funny. Yesterday was “favorite animal” day at Katherine’s daycare. Apparently, all of the kids picked sheep as their favorite animal. When Woody asked K why a sheep was her favorite, she replied “because they have meatballs all over them”. Too funny!

 

So this morning I asked Candice where Katherine may have gotten the idea that sheep are covered in meatballs. Candice laughed and said that when they were doing their craft for animal day, that she was going to let the kids make sheep by gluing cotton balls on the paper but she didn’t have enough so instead they made lions with brown pom poms…I guess that in Katherine’s brain, all round brown things are meatballs.

 

September 17, 2005

Due to football season, your schedule will be temporarily revised.

 

So Woody wants to be able to watch football. With two young kids in the house, that’s pretty much impossible. So, we’ve worked out a fair solution. He watches the girls for 4 hours on Saturday and I get them on Sunday for 4 hours. That way we each get some free time to do what we want. Today, I will sleep. Last weekend I worked and it really didn’t feel much like a break at all. I just worked and wished I was playing with the girls instead.

 

This morning we all went for a swim and Katherine showed woody some of her new swim class skills.  She can now float on her back all by herself and swim a short distance from the wall to a waiting person. She’s really doing great.

 

Now for my rant. Stupid Nickelodeon. They are wrong. What are they thinking? Honestly, getting kids addicted to ‘Go Diego Go’ and then not having it on at all over the weekend?!!? Grrrrrr. All I've heard today is "can we watch go Diego go mom? I've been a good girl". How do I explain to her that out of 1000 channels go Diego isn't on a single one of them for 48 hours?

I did let her play on the website and she had fun with the Go Diego games and videos but it's not enough. It's like giving a virgin daiquiri to an alcoholic.

It's gonna be a long weekend

 

September 25, 2005

 

Quirky. That’s what these girls are. Quirky. For example, Katherine’s obsession with the drum that sits in the hallway. Every time she passes it, she must hit it. If she’s running to the bathroom, it’s usually a quick loud bang! If she’s coming to the living room after waking up in the morning, she will walk up to it slowly, place her babies and blanket on the floor, give it a sleepy tap, pick up the babies and blanket and continue on her way. She can not, not hit the drum in passing.

 

And Lauren is already exhibiting similar actions. I was playing one of the Baby Einstein videos in the car for her on the way to drop off Katherine and go to the gym. Lauren would start fussing every day. She’s never fussed in the car before so I was wondering what was up. Then I noticed that it was the scene where there is a yellow spinning top and a sun dancing. She hates them. Flat out can’t stand them. They make her cry. So now, I know the music cue to forward to the next section…which begins with Robots. Lauren does not have a robot phobia.

 

Speaking of Lady Lauren. That dang tooth still hasn’t popped through. Is she going to be one of those kids who teethes for months and is miserable then like 6 teeth come in at once. Well, I for one sure hope that’s the case because seriously, if only one little stinkin tooth pops through after the last two months of “signs” and pain, I’m going to be a bit more than miffed.  Poor kid. I’m convinced that it’s right around the corner. She’s had “drool stool” all weekend and she’s started to chomp me occasionally. Biting worse than pinching? Hmmmm. I dunno…which do I dislike more? Oh, both really about equally.

 

Katherine is still playing soccer but she’s not really playing. She gets all hyped up on the way to the game and she will kick the ball into the goal during practice but when the game actually starts, she distances herself from the ball as much as possible. Most of the other kids will get into the pile and kick each other & knock one another down but not my K. She’s hanging out in the corner of the field watching the madness and looking oh so cute in her soccer uniform. She’s also really great about cheering on her team from the sidelines. That’s my girl!

 

Just a side note for any of you who are anxiously awaiting news of any other Wright offspring. There will be none. We made sure of it Friday. Woody had the operation and is healing up nicely after taking only one day off of helping with the girls.  If we decide that we really must impose our parenting on another kid, we will just have to adopt some unsuspecting boy-child and call him ours. J  However that would but Woody and I at a distinct disadvantage as far as being outnumbered by shorties so I’m thinking it will probably not happen. Thus I’m trying to enjoy Lauren’s disappearing babiness as much as possible.

 

This coming week we have swim classes on Tuesday and Thursday and a Soccer game on Friday night. Next Monday is Lauren’s 9 month checkup.

 

August 2005

 

Tuesday, August 02, 2005

It just goes to show that no matter how much you discourage a behavior, a kid will figure it out with or without your help.

Lauren is crawling and she is bound and determined to brain herself on our entertainment center. She's already pulled down all of the magazines and she ate a corner off of one of them before I could stop her.

No, really, this is good. I'm as pleased as punch that she figured out "the crawl" right before our 10 day trek across the country. I couldn't be happier that she will now be crawling around on all of the hotel floors between here and central Illinois. Mmmmmmmm Can you bathe a baby in sanitizer? I may give it a go

I also suspect a tooth may be the cause to the constant nursing and the 4 am wake up that I got today.  Not fun. She chattered the whole time I was getting my hair cut today. I finally gave up trying to chat with the stylist & let Lauren blabber & drool all over me instead.

 

We are leaving tomorrow for the Wright Family Vacation. I’ll be sure to update the journal when we get back. Should be fun!

 

August 3, 2005

We went to Tallahassee today and got to meet Baby Bridget Shoemaker. She is a beauty!

 

August 4, 2005

We drove to Newnan GA from Tallahassee. We checked into the hotel and went to the Boston’s new house. They have quite a project with the renovation of such a large old place (1930’s house) but I’m sure it will be beautiful when they are done. The city of Newnan has a charming downtown area that is within walking distance from the Boston’s house. I put Lauren in the sling and Katherine and Taitum rode in the double stroller while Bella rode in the sling on Cyndi. We had a nice dinner at the Irish pub but since there were 4 girls and only 3 of us, each of the adults took turns taking the girls outside. Katherine and Taitum were playing “red light green light” and got all tangled up. Katherine ended up with a skinned knee but after a few tears, she was fine. So far, the only downside of this trip is my brilliant packing plan. I was under the impression that all Hampton Inns had laundry’s. Not sure where I got that idea but it was sure in my head when I packed 3 outfits per person in our family. OK, not really, Lauren has 6 outfits but honestly that’s just smart. What is not smart is my not double checking on the laundry facilities. I ended up hand washing our outfits in the tub at the hotel so that we would have something clean to wear the next day. Let’s just say it was a damp day. Sigh

 

Katherine’s mispronunciations are so funny sometimes. I got some silly putty for her to play with in the car and she’s had a good time making pretend mud with it, for her animals to play in. She calls it her “pitty pat” though which just kills me.

 

Her sense of humor is in full force now too. She messes up the words to pat a cake and thinks it’s the funniest thing ever. Her version is “pat a cake pat a cake bakers man. Bake me a potato as fast as you can. Roll it and pat it and mark it with a K. Put it in the bathroom for Katherine and mommy!”. Silly girl! I’d chosen a bedtime story for her before our trip called “are we there yet?”. It’s about two brothers who are on a long car trip and they are basically nuts most of the way until dad has had enough and pulls over to nap. K loves that story and thinks it’s hysterical and almost every day of our trip we had at least one round of

K: “mom, are we there yet?”

Me: “No Harry!”

K: “Hey! I’m not Harry, I’m Daffrin”

Everyone in the car: “Ahahahaha”

 

 

August 5, 2005

Today we drove from Newnan Georgia, through the mountains to Nashville. We visited with Donny & his two children, Mitchell and Taylor, on our way out of Atlanta. K loved their new puppy and she had a really difficult time deciding between the stairs or the puppy as an appropriate play thing. She settled on dividing her time between the two. Then we went to rock city. The fairy tale stuff was weird but the rest of it was pretty cool. The swingy bridge was pretty scary since I had Lauren in the sling & some ding-a-ling behind us thought that bouncing the bridge was a good idea. My sense of mortality and my children’s safety were on high alert way up there spanning a rocky chasm on a bouncy bridge.

K wanted to be carried in the sling for much of the way though due to an on coming cold so I was pretty beat after we were done. After rock city we went to the playground on Lookout Mountain for a bit. It appears that K has a thing for dogs and she made another doggy pal at the park. We then headed to Nashville where we had pizza at Uncle Paul’s house and after dinner we walked around his neighborhood where the lightning bugs were out in full force. K caught her first lightning bug! We then checked into the hotel and since K took such a late nap, she and dad went swimming while L and I took care of the laundry…yes, at the hotel. I got smart and found a booklet at the Newnan Hampton listing all of the facilities and their amenities. I found that the Hampton that we were to stay in tonight did not have laundry facilities but that the one closest to Paul’s house did…SOLD!

 

 

August 6, 2005

We woke up early and drove to Carbondale IL for Woody’s aunt Bonna’s surprise graduation party. I had the opportunity to meet many of Woody’s family members whom I’d only heard about. There were a lot of kids there and Katherine had fun playing in the tree house with Noah and watching the boys climb trees. She also got to hear banjo & fiddle music being played live. She really  enjoyed petting the friendly dog. How long do you think I can get away with not owning a dog?

 

August 7, 2005

We made it to Myrna & Carl’s house out on the farm. Katherine rode on the tractor with Carl to get the mail, she got to pet the horses (while I stood in the background having heart attacks about the electric fence), she fed the horses, she got to ride on chocolate the Donkey’s back (ßHIGHLIGHT OF THE ENTIRE VACATION AS FAR AS SHE’S CONCEREND), and chase lightning bugs. We also looked at the soybeans growing in the field behind nana & papa’s house. In between all of that she also chased down the cat numerous times and played with the dog for a bit. She had a blast!  When asked what she rode her reply, “a camel”. After we told her that it was a donkey she agreed but still called it a camel later. Goofy girl.

 

August 8, 2005

We went to a neighbor’s farm and picked some corn & other veggies. We also got to see how broccoli looks in its natural form. Katherine helped pick some veggies but she was much more interested in the neighbor’s cat. She also thought the swallows that were flying in & out of the barn were pretty cool.

After that, papa Carl had a big surprise for her. We showed up at his work and she got to see what he does. She got to sit in a giant tractor and she went for a ride on the smaller one. He also took her for a spin in the semi.

We got back to the house & shucked some corn for dinner. It was delish!

Both girls got a bath in the wash room sink and then off to bed. I have to say that for being off of their schedules so much, both girls are doing pretty well! Hooray!

 

August 9, 2005

We drove into Bloomington to see Grandpa Henry and Grandma Jane. We all went to a new sprinkler park that they’d just opened and we played in the water for awhile. It was really hot though and I was fine with going back to Jane’s when K was done playing. Katherine did stick to her cautiousness today. There were a TON of kids at the sprinkler park and she just avoided them and went to play on the toys that everyone else was avoiding. We had dinner at Jane’s then headed back to the farm.

 

August 10, 2005

Drove from the farm to Cincinnati today. On the way we stopped at the Indianapolis children’s museum and met up with Colin and Colleen.  It was great seeing Colleen after so many years and Colin was fun as usual. Katherine however was a beast! She had not taken a nap and so we left the museum after only about an hour. I wanted to stay and see more but she just had a total meltdown and Woody carried her crying and screaming out of the building. That was a bummer. We made it to the Laupp’s house by dinnertime and they cooked us up a yummy meal. Katherine played with their cats and Anthony’s dog for awhile and both girls played with the pile of toys that  Brian and Becky have on hand to entertain the youth who stop in at their place. We had a wonderful visit with all of the Laupps.

 

August 11, 2005

Left the Laupps in Cinci after breaking a vase (whoops! Bad husband!) and drove to Nashville….well sorta. This is the kind of day that the words “flexible vacation plans” were made for.  To put it shortly, our GPS failed us. The plan was to drive from Cinci to Knoxville. I had the bright idea that we should stop in Kingston and get a picture of K with her great grandfather’s stacks in the background. We put “Kingston” into the GPS and headed off mindlessly following the GPS, with no questions asked.

 

The girls started to get grumpy and Woody saw a sign for Horse cave in Kentucky so we pulled off. If we knew what was good for us we would have just nursed the baby, changed diapers and kept on going but nope, we went for Horse cave like the adventurous, flexible, family of suckers that we are.

 

I should have known something was up when we pulled up to “horse cave”. The “cave museum” was a storefront in a run down looking downtown area. We went in and bought tickets. Ok, well, we weren’t’ the only suckers. There were 3 other women waiting for the tour. The tour guide shows up and we start down into the cave, stopping every few yards to get lectured on ground water pollution and what we can do to save caves. Then on our way into the cave itself, the guide tells us that this particular cave used to be the towns sewer system. Uh, excuse me? You didn’t just tell me that did you? You are taking us down a million wet wooden stairs into an old sewer? Between Lauren babbling the whole time and K trying to run away down into the mouth of the sewer,,,uh..cave I was pretty sure that that is exactly what I heard. We kept going for a bit but finally Woody asked if I wanted to turn back. Yesirre Bob I Sure Do! SO up a billion stairs with Lauren in the sling I go. Note to self…work out more. I was dying at the end. So how much did we spend on that little trip? I don’t know and frankly, I don’t really want to know either.

 

So we hop back into the car, sweaty and still out of breath, and we continue to Knoxville…or so we think.

 

We start to see signs for Nashville and I start thinking…this just doesn’t seem right. However, being the geography whiz that I am, I didn’t really know. So we get just outside of Nashville and I call my mom to get an idea of what interstate Knoxville is off of. After speaking with my mom I’m positive that we missed a turn somewhere but Ginger (our gps lady) is leading us to our destination…even though it’s still the wrong destination.

 

Woody gets on the phone with Hampton reservations and the decision is made to stay in Nashville for the night. Paul is working overtime so we miss him. We walk around the Green Hills mall and eat dinner then we go to bed.

 

August 12, 2005

We drove from Nashville to Atlanta & met with Bella, Taitum and Cyndi again at the Atlanta zoo. We enjoyed spending time with Bella on her 2^nd birthday. Cyndi made some cute little gift bags for both girls and the toys she put in them kept the girls occupied in the car for most of the ride home.

Katherine was such a good girl that she really really reaped the benefits. She not only got to go to the zoo, which she would have forfeited if she’d been a monster like the previous day, but she also got to get ice cream and go swimming.

 

August 13, 2005

 

We are home after our whirlwind tour of the country. We had a great time and the girls could not have been better behaved for the most part. We had a few meltdowns but all in all, for the amount of time they were confined to their car seats, they were awesome. So awesome in fact that we may actually take another road trip next year.

 

 

August 26, 2005

Took Katherine to her first Soccer practice this evening. She looks totally cute in her too big soccer gear. I wasn’t able to find cleats for her though. Not for lack of trying however. I drove over an hour today to go to the sports stores, Wal Mart and Target. I am beginning to think that they don’t make toddler sized cleats.

 

She is playing for the Cheetahs or as Megan, her teammate called them, “the Cheetos!”. Kids are so funny. They didn’t actually get to practice since we had a soaking rain from hurricane Katrina but we got all of the paper work filled out and got to scope out the competition. J

 

August 29, 2005

Lauren has started to pull herself up and stand while holding onto furniture. She can go ahead and slow down on the growing up thing. It’s just happening too quickly.

Speaking of slowing down. What’s up with Katherine being almost three?!? That’s just crazy! Just yesterday I was cuddling up with her, hugging and kissing her and she was too little to resist. Now I have to wait until she’s sick or totally exhausted to get that kind of a response.

 

August 30, 2005

Katherine had her second swimming lesson today and then we had our first Soccer practice. K’s team has 6 little kids between 3 and 4 years old on it. Woody is coaching and it was a good time. They all did drills and exercises and ran around. It was really hot outside but it was fun.