The Rest of the Weekend...

Den and I had BIG plans this weekend. We were going to build a 2 foot retaining wall to ensure the new addition and deck didn't fall off the hilllside. Den even came home early from work on Friday. As we stood there in the backyard debating to angle the wall or not, how to anchor, how to get the needed materials to the house, I decided to call the landscape architect we'd been working with on the overall design of the yard, but had decided to put off implemting and asked how soon she could squeeze us in.

With that off our plates, I could go shopping for veggies that I decided to wait to plant until I felt better (and until it wasn't 90+ degrees), and Den and G'pa could cut down two menacing and prickly hollies that we had been toying with cutting down (I think they are still picking out holly spurs and while these are smiles of happiness it is more that they are nearing completion).

I hate cutting down/killing perfectly healthy plants, each one is a big deal for me, but in the end, I decided that we'd put in plants that wouldn't branch into the path and serve as an obstacle course for the kids as they headed to the bottom terrace.

On Sunday, it was time for a good ole' fashioned sprinkler romp. Josie pronounced it too 'hot', which of course she meant as too cold. Eddie had a blast.

Today, the g'parents toured DC and this afternoon, as I told Eddie and Josie they absolutely must play outside, and that the porch would be fine, Eddie decided to haul all of his trains to the back porch. He told Josie she had to help and she gamely grabbed half the box.

The kids had a blast with G'parents, each day Eddie asked how many more nights they would be here and Josie would call out with her little inflection to either G'ma or G'pa. Josie also surprised with a couple accomplishments: singing the first stanza of Amazing Grace (Eddie knows the second verse), counting to 10 (Eddie can go to 100). Josie has gone from speaking 1 and 2 word phrases to complete sentences. Eddie's accomplishments are much more nuianced, more in recognition of how the world works and not as apparent. He defintiely grasps the concept of time in weeks, days, etc., but doesn't likely fully appreciate how it all fits together. They are a lot of fun right now and have a good time playing together.

Sunday church with G'parents Wisc.

G'Parents Wisc. came out for a Thursday to Tuesday visit this spring, expecting springlike weather. What greated them instead was a slam of late June our-area-style heat. Poor G'ma melts in anything over 75, so 90 was quite oppressive for them. It was a shock for us, having gone from 60 to 80 in about 24 hours and then another 10 degrees the next day. We have 3 days in a row of 90 degree weather--we can go entire months of June and never hit 90, so April was a little odd.

Add to this that g'parents Ohio are due in later this week and they'll have weather in the low 70s, I'd say they got their weekends mixed up.

And, it wouldn't be a g'parent visit if Den and I weren't sick. Den fortuantely recovered quickly, but I languished on (today is the first day I've felt better), waking the whole house with my coughing--no I don't have the "new" flu. So....Den's parents being the go-to-church-every-Sunday crowd went with Den and the kids to church while I stayed home and slept. Thing is, they took the kids to a church that isn't even their own religion, it happens to be mine.

We tend to dress nicely for church (although I've been interested to note lately the Priest wearing CROCS during the service), albeit black ones. I've never been picky with Ed on his shoe selection for church--some days it's penny loafers, other days its crocs.

These first two photos are taken with g'parents camera. Some setting is off because almost none of the 10 pictures they took in the nearly 6 days they were here turned out quite right.

They are sitting on 2 of the 7 chairs we purchased for our new-to-us dining room table. We got two of these Queen Anne style and 5 Duncan Phyfe style (photo to come later). Now we can have people over and not have them sit on $5 white plastic chairs that Den has had longer than I've known him or put their kids on folding chairs.

From Eddie's Camera...

Been a while since I downloaded from Eddie's camera, I guess.
This picture was taken on J's birthday. I thought it was so cute, they both climbed up into this chair and she sat there while Eddie read--Green Eggs and Ham. To this day, I STILL remember my kindergarden teacher making green eggs and ham for the class and what a big deal it was that she was actually cooking food in the class.
















Eddie's love for lining up his toys hasn't changed much. Here he's making a freeway. He's even got the merge lane as he counted the lanes of traffic.




















Cookie is great about getting the kids out and about. On a recent reasonably nice day, she had the kids downtown. They had a blast. We've got her taking Eddie's camera with her now and it's fun to see what they do during the day.

This would be a garden that has seen no love for 2 years. We couldn't plant a garden last year because the addition we had neither access to water, no access to the backyard for most of the project. It's all weeded now and ready for the manure and whatever else Den puts in there before we plant everything--hopefully starting the end of the week.

My Favorite Things...

It is a beautiful spring day here. The first real nice day we've had this year after a long winter and lots of teases about nice days. Last year, when the addition was finished, it was the end of September before we got all of our things out of storage, so we are basically just now getting to experience the double door/screened porch feature of the addition.

I LOVE IT! With the doors open, the dining room feels like an extension of the screened porch. The opening is 6 feet wide. Yay!

After several nights of not the greatest sleep (the kids and Den had a rough week of sleep), I was ready for a nap on the porch. Eddie needed one too...now that he's got pink eye. Ugh. I thought, really thought that we had escaped.
I do wish our porch were about 6 feet longer, but at nearly 12x12, it works well.


When Eddie was still taking regular naps, he almost always slept with his butt in the air at some point. He looks so much bigger now, but I find it just as adorable.

Now for my thought of the day: The age of the child (so far for us) is inversely propotional to the amount of personal time a parent gets during daylight hours.

The Doctor and Josie, take 4

Not sure where to start...J went in on Sunday March 29th (2 weeks ago) for pink eye. Don't ask me how no one else in the family or visiting g'parents came down with it. Wednesday, April 1, she had a raging ear infection. Since she's allergic to penicillian, she's been taking omnicef for her anit-biotic needs (ear-infection).



Last Wednesday, the 8th, J had her 2 year well visit. She received the Hep A and Hep B vaccinations. I should keep better track of all this, but we basically get whatever it is they tell us to give them (not sure what I'll do about some of the newer, more optional ones down the road).

Ear infection looked better and in all, a clean bill of health and middle of the road in stats (50th percentile range across the board). She's got a 19 1/3 head circumfrence; weighs 26.7 pounds and is 34 inches long. Doctor was impressed with her abilities (knowing her colors in Spanish and English), consistently saying 2 and even some 3 word phrases. There is a little checklist the parent fills out and I checked that we could do everything it listed. Sometimes I think it's a routine for him--act impressed, so the parents will be impressed, but then on earlier visits when she wasn't talking much, he was pretty mellow, low-key.

We seem to have to wait a long time to see this doctor and it really gets me bent out of shape. After waiting an hour for Ed's apt. last month, we actually left when we were told it would be at least another 30 minutes before we'd been seen. I understand doctors are in a pickle at the moment and all that, and I like that they spend time with me when I need it, but if you are going to keep me waiting 1.5 hours, don't ask me to arrive before my stated apointment time. Or better yet, call me/email/text or something to tell me to arrive a little later. My hairdresser and dentist seem to have that down, now I'd like my pediatrician to be on that page. They are opening a 3rd office so we're going to use the opportunity to switch to a different provider in the same practice.

Fast forward to this weekend. A couple posts ago I mentioned the welts. By Sunday morning some of the bruises had morphed into giant purple/blue bruises. She had them on her feet, the backs of her legs, around her diaper area, and a couple other places. Meanwhile, the welts kept coming and we kept giving her benadryl. This morning when I called in, they said to bring her in, which brings me to the 4th apointment. We were there for TWO hours today. Actually happy it was a late afternoon apointment because other than getting hungry, it didn't completely hose the day.

The nurse practionier used some complicated term to describe the viral reaction some kids get, but said she'd never seen them bruise. Meanwhile her ear looked like it was becoming infected and her throat meant Josie would be getting a strep culture (turned out negative). So we had to wait for a consult with a doctor, which never came because the nurse finally cornered a doctor who said bruises were a natural progression for the welts. She NP also thought it was an allergic reaction to the omnicef. That knocks out another family of drugs she can take. I think I need to get her a medic alert bracelet if this keeps up.

Genetically Josie is getting to be more and more like her Aunt in terms of drug allergies and such. Will have to phone for a consult. We'll round out the week with a follow up to check on the hives and bruising and check the ear to see how the infection is doing (they don't want to give her any meds until the welts go away--which at 3-4 days, should be tomorrow night).

And then next week, it's take 2 of Eddie's 4 year apointment...

Happy Easter

We had a good, laid-back Easter. Went over to the parents of good friends for an outdoor egg hunt and afternoon luncheon. We had to do a little prompting to get them to start looking for eggs, but they sure figured it out fast. Eddie made my heart melt both at home at the outdoor hunt when he would give Josie eggs he had found (even before looking to see what was inside).

Taking a little break to take stock. Not sure how many plastic eggs were hidden--maybe 20 and then 18 real eggs.
Eddie, as expected was more engaged than J (who lost interest after a while).

J's Birthday Party...

Den and I learned some important lessons when we threw the party for J's 2nd birthday. It was to be a low key casual deal with some of the pals she sees most often. Unless it is just one other family, don't try and do this without g'parents!

The theme of the party was "The Best Nest" by Eastman. It's on J's top 5 favorite books list. It is joined by Make Way for Ducklings, 1-2-3- (where you trace the numbers and it has lots o pictures), Mike Mulligan and the Steamshovel, and The Button Book.

For the party, Den made a cake to match Mrs. Bird--despite my micro-managing of the assembly process, it looks pretty good. Come Thurs. night we decided to think about what to do at the party. Friday night I found actual birdhouses that looked just like ones in the book, so we had a reading of The Best Nest while everyone ate lunch, then the kids colored the houses and stuffed them with nest contents (down to the straws in the book). The Easter egg dying of 60+ eggs went off without a stain to the oriental rug under the dining room table (that we know of). We had such a good time watching that we think we'd like to have an egg dying party next year...I hate to see all those dyes go to waste for just a dozen eggs.

Then, as we prepared to bring out the cake...we discovered welts on J's stomach and armpits (see first picture at bath time). Of course it was an hour after the doctor's office closed for the day (Saturday hours), so we called the after hours line to find out if we should break in that new epi-pen the doctor gave us (that visit will be another post).
Long story short is that she is now on a round the clock dose of benadryl until 12-hours after the welts disappear (supposed to be in 3-4 days). Nurse said that sometimes kids can get welts like this after fighting something viral (like pink eye/ear infection). She just finished the meds on Friday night for that combo.

Poor kid. Everyone graciously stuck around until our little medical-drama was addressed and we could cut the cake. Josie decided she didn't want to blow out the candles, so one of the older kids suggested that Eddie take on that task. Happy to oblige, he (and a couple helpers) blew out the candles. I really think she wasn't feeling well--that or the benedryl had kicked in that we'd given her some time ago.


These are the houses, filled with nests and eggs. Eddie even wrote his name ont he back.

Two Years and Then Some

Here are a couple more photos of the actual birthday of the birthday girl--Friday, April 3.

Don't worry, she's getting a full - fledged birthday cake and some pals to come over, but we had to do something to comemorate her birthday. I was going to buy her cupcakes with lots of pink frosting (the color de jour), but she and Eddie didn't want to leave the house. I realize I could have actually baked cupcakes, but I kept holding out hope that they'd want to go and buy them. Afterall, the Harris Teeter cupcakes we bought 2 years ago turned Eddie's poop neon blue. I looked forward to a nice pink.

Had to settle for snickerdoodles and candles. She totally knew what to do!
Josie is also really into dresses. And this is one of her favs.

So this picture is from Monday. It was a rainy day and we decided to make tent cities. The kids had a blast! It brought back memories of my brother making elaborate tents for us. Somehow, I'm not sure I followed the blueprints he used, but Eddie and Josie enjoyed themselves. And yes, that is Eddie in a pink tutu. It was pretend play!

Happy Birthday Josie

Say it isn't so! Josie turned 2 on Friday. And being the good mama that I am, I left town for the first time ever of leaving Eddie, Josie and Den. The guilt almost was too much, but as most folks said, she doesn't know what day her birthday is--as Eddie says, she's not 2 until she eats the cake!
Here they are obscuring the awesome kitchen g'parents Ohio just bought. Normally I fail to appreciate things like small footprints, yet this kitchen is great because it's so tiny and it seems well made. The kids LOVE playing with it.
Eddie was proud of himself (rightly so) for how well he stayed in the lines. I will admit, not knowing the capabilities of a four year old, I was likewise a bit impressed.


























Here she is: Ms. 2-year old, almost to the minute. Josie generally loves smiling for the camera. Her 2 year old visit is tomorrow, so we'll find out the stats and also get a check up on her ear infection and pink eye.

She has figured out how to open our pantry door, even though she can't open the handle. She slides open the drawer next to the pantry which allows her to get her fingers in for a grasp of the door. Once inside she either finds what she wants or asks to be picked up to find her craving. I'd love to know who showed her that trick.

Her words are quite clear, "right here" as she points to where she wants something. She is learning her numbers and letters (!). Her hands down favorite book is "The Best Nest", by PD Eastman. She also likes Make Way for Ducklings and Mike Mulligan and the Steam Shovel. Lately she's been requesting the 123 Numbers book, which cracks me up.

She is almost in 2T, still wearing some 18-24 month clothes, but I only buy 2T. It comforted me to talk to a mother of 3 who said it took until her youngest was 5 before she got rid of the baby clothes...

Josie and Eddie are the best of friends and I hope that continues into adulthood. She gets exactly 1 more year with the pacifier and then when she turns 3, it will go away. I know not how yet, but away it will go.