What a night!

I must say that I thought I was sort of prepared to be a parent. I'm the second oldest of five, and helped out in the house with the younger ones, so I've seen my share of poop and pee and puke. I also like to baby-sit as a teenager, furthering my experience with each of the "3 P's" listed above.

When E was a baby, she did not spit-up a lot. Hardly at all actually. She did hose me down twice, to the degree that a shower was an emergency side effect. And she also hosed down MommaJo once, with the same side effect. Other than that, nothing really on the puking part of life with E.

Last night, all of that changed.

We have all been suffering a bit from our trip to LA, being tired and in general a little out of sorts. E had a fever one night and one day, with no other indications of illness....weird, I thought, at the time. But ibuprofen and acetaminophen doses later, fever was gone. That was 2 days ago.

Yesterday, she was a bit on the weepy side, and we had gone out pretty early on in the morning to scout out the location of my class (that I will be going to next week) in Frisco. From there we went to the Mall to check on the antique booth and pick up a disc containing photos for the Mall website. Then off to a quick lunch and home for a nap.

The rest of the day was pretty uneventful. The hubby took her to the book store. This is their little weekend tradition. They go to Half-Priced Books, and she gets to pick out 1-2 books. She really enjoys it. And then back home again. Finally, a little dinner, pj's and then off to bed.

One hour later, I hear her. This is odd. Usually, we don't hear a peep out of her for at least 4-5 hours. But there she goes again, kind of coughing and weeping, and then a low crying. I had turned in early this night, basically right after I put her down, I put myself down.

So I hear the hubby go into her room to check on her.....then he yells for Backup! I come hurrying down to hall to discover E has puked all over herself, her sheets, her pillows, her blankets, her Binky's, EVERYTHING! Holy Cow! What the heck is this all about!!! It is so bad that the hubby takes her into our shower to try to get it out of her hair, which leaves me on Cleanup Duty with the bedroom. I'm hurrying around, stripping the bed and pillows, and getting out clean sheets, trying to figure out what the heck caused this. I set up the bed for her to be able to go back to sleep tonight, and then go to our room to see how they are doing. Then off to the laundry room with all of the offending elements.

When I get back to our room the second time, she is out and dressed and laying on a towel in our bed, fighting to keep her eyes open. She is SO tired, and just wants to be unconscious. After a few moments, the hubby takes her to her room and puts some towels across the pillows and bed. When he returns, he wonders if the milk had gone bad, and goes to check it out. Nope, milk is fine.

So then we try to go to bed again. This lasts about 2 1/2 hours, then I hear E coughing again. Then whimpering. I poke the hubby to prod him to consciousness. He goes and checks on her. Yep. You guessed it. Puke.....again. She mostly got it on the towel this time, but still got it on the new set of clean sheets and accessories. He wipes her up, applies new towels to the bedding, and then another towel for her to use as a blanket for the remainder of the night. Good thinking. I would have never thought of that one.

So back to bed. She went about 1-2 hours, and I hear her again. I, once again poke the husband. He politely declines the opportunity to check on her. He's right, it's my turn. Off I go to check. She is okay except for a missing Binky. I retrieve it, and pass it on to her. She immediately goes right back out. No Puke, thank God.

So back to bed, again. From here, she lasted until the morning, but BOY DID SHE SMELL GREAT! :o)

She started calling out to us, to come and release her from her room, which is the normal pattern of the day. However, to her shock and dismay, and under full out protest, the hubby got her out of bed this morning and went straight into the shower with her. NOT to the couch to watch YouTube Videos of Sesame Street. NOT to a bottle of Chocolate Milk. NOT to a warm blanket and good snuggling with Papa. But straight to the shower, where there was water and soap and more water and soap....and conditioner....and more water!

While this was going on, I got up and was ready to receive her from the shower. It works out best if one parent is IN the shower with her, to have the other parent OUT of the shower to take her, so the first parent can also dry off and get dressed.

So out she came. While I was drying her off, the hubby retrieved some clean clothes for her, and I got her dressed for the day. All of this activity before Milk and Singing ABC's is just weird to her.

From here, I brought her out to the hubby who was gearing up the YouTube and had a bottle of juice waiting.....just not ready to test out her ability to contain Milk at this point.

As for me, you guessed it. Laundry Duty. Off to E's room, to once again strip the bed and pillows. Except this time, there are no clean sheets to put on. I only bought 2 sets when we purchased E's bed, so we will just have to wait for the first set to come out of the dryer.

As of this post, she is running around the living room, playing, turning flips and generally being her happy little self! As if last night never happened. Or at least did not happen to her! How great to be able to forget about all of that grossness so quickly. How great to be able to let go of the 'out of sorts' morning, and just get back to the business of being happy!

All in all, I would not trade my position as her MOM for anything...Including the 3 P's!

I love you E!

Easter Weekend 2008

So we headed to E's Great-grandmother's for Easter weekend this year. My Great Uncle was celebrating his 90th birthday and 60th wedding anniversary and the masses were gathering to celebrate, at the request of one of my cousins.

So a lot of us came from far and wide. We came in from Texas. Chantelle's family came in from Mississippi. Tim's family came in from Florida. Marcella's family came in from Kentucky. And Memaw & Paw came in from Arkansas, just from our immediate family.


We also got to see my oldest First Cousin, Sev, and his daughter, Shelby, whom I had never met in person at that time. She is BEAUTIFUL, despite having Sev for a father! HA! Just kidding, 'cuz he looks Great Too! Just ask his girlfriend Tammy! :o)

We also saw another First Cousin, Will, and his entire family, which includes 5 Beautiful, Energetic, Fabulous kids: Justin, Hattie, Nicole, Garrett & Zoe. His wife Dawn has a wonderful spirit, and they are just a great couple. We had never met any of the kids or Dawn in person, but had watched them grow up from pictures Dawn had shared with us over the years. Will is really enjoying his current job in Fort Polk and he and Dawn are wanting more kids. They make beautiful, smart kids, so I'm all for that!

Lucas just -loved- playing with Justin. At one point the kids got hot and Justin took off his shirt, and Lucas HAD to take his shirt off too, just to be like Justin!

The empty lot next door to Aunt Charlene's house had a HUGE pile of dirt that had been delivered to be used to level the lot. However, the kids found it, and, well, a significant amount of that dirt ended up in the lake! And the mound was -definitely- rounded off from all of the 'king of the mountain' playing :o)
The kids also enjoyed swinging on a rope swing from one of the big trees, chasing the ducks, fishing, flying kites, playing ball, and running around and just being kids!

We also saw another First Cousin, Kitzia, and her family. Her two kids, Devon and Thomas are getting so big! We had seen them last year in March, and they are still great kids! David, her husband, seems really happy with his job too.

We also got to visit with Aunt Charlene & Uncle West, Aunt Becky & Uncle Barry, Aunt Marguerite, Aunt Angela, Aunt Jane & Uncle Hugh, and Aunt Gretchen and Uncle Larry.

So it was an awesome time!
We had an Easter Egg Hunt in Nanny yard on Sunday afternoon, and the kiddo's really enjoyed that. Chantelle organized it, and had two areas set up: one for the little kids and one for the bigger ones. The bigger kids also had 1 Gold Egg and 1 Silver Egg....both of which contained MONEY....and Shelby found BOTH!! What luck!

And we also had a crawfish boil on Sunday. Which was also AWESOME! And I don't have any pictures of this, but I'm sure someone does, so if you send it along, I'll add it to this post.....yes, that's a hint! :o)

I will attach some of the pictures that I took, but if any of you are reading this and have other pictures, send them to me and I'll attach them as well.

Love and Easter Bunnies!

Kite Love

So, lately the weather in Dallas has been warmer and windier. This provides for great 'kite flying' opportunities.

The hubby recently went out and bought 2-3 different kites and has been flying them with E, trying to get her excited about new things and experiences. She -loves- the kites. Although, not originally.

The first kite flying experience ended with the kite getting away from them, a trip down the alley behind the across-the-street-neighbor's house, and then the wind gusting at just the right time for the tails to whip around E and scare her half to death.

But since recovering from this initial episode, she has decided that they are cool. Which, in fact, they are!

This morning was beautiful, so the hubby and E went out and at one point had TWO kites up and flying. He had gotten one up flying so sufficiently, that he tied it off and got the second one up.

At this point, with both kites flying, E looked at him and said:

"I love you Papa."

Chopsticks are COOL!!

So tonight (Wednesday) is ASI Gymnastic night. E has a class every Wednesday night, and usually just LOVES it. Not the case tonight. She did not really want to do anything that she was asked to do. She did not want to stay with the group, or in the area that her group was tumbling. But she is two, so this is expected.

She didn't really eat breakfast or lunch today. Again, not so unusual for her. She can be an every-other-day or every-third-day eater. But the hubby and I were hungry after her class so we decided to go to Pei Wei. When the one close to us first opened, we went there once a week for like 2 months. But once E started eating food, there wasn't anything I could order from the menu that she could eat. But we decided to give it another try. She likes rice, so fried rice should be okay.

So it was settled, and off we drove to our destination. When we got to the restaurant, we discovered they had a Kids Menu, but it did not included fried rice. So we just ordered her a 'side' of fried rice. The portion was HUGE!

While the hubby was paying, I grabbed us a table and went to retrieve a high chair for E. When I got back to the table, the hubby was there with 'the chopstick cheaters.' This is a little plastic device you can put on your two chopsticks that hold them together in such a way to make it easier for the less than skillful to eat with chopsticks.....mostly kids......and Memaw :o)

At any rate, he set up E with a pair of chopsticks and tore up the paper casing the chopsticks came in and showed her how to pick up the paper with her sticks. She thought this was the greatest. And she was pretty good at it!!

Then the food arrived. I put the bowl in front of her, and then asked the waiter to bring us a fork. She first started to eat using her hands. Then she saw the hubby and I eating our food with chopsticks. So she picked up her set, and she was off to the races! It was so shocking, and cute! The hubby captured it on his cell phone camera. It is dark, but you can see her digging into the bowl and delivering her rice to her mouth via the chopsticks! And using her left had at that! Once again demonstrating how alike she is to her Papa! He is ambidextrous, and does 'power things' with is right hand and 'detail things' with his left hand.

If you have RealPlayer, you can watch the video. If not, I think it is a free download.

It is a cute video, so you will want to see it!

Indulge Me to Brag a Bit

So, today was E's 2 year check up. Yes, I know her birthday was 2 weeks ago, but there you have it. At any rate, her appointment was today, and the hubby could not come with us due to work conflicts. So off we went to see the Doctor.

We got there, and the waiting room was pretty full. But we had an appointment, so I was not too worried. They are really good about getting to you at your appointment time. I was a little apprehensive of the visit, because I could not remember if shots would be involved or not at this appointment. And it just sucks to be there by yourself when the stabbing occurs. And E just looks at you with tears streaming, and crying, and, well, it just sucks. But we went back at our appointment time, and everything was cool. E walked back there by herself, where as in the past she has insisted on being carried, and clinging to either me or the hubby. Not this time.

So we get into the room, and the Nurse Practitioner is giving the exam today. No biggie. We start out by easing E into the room by asking her to identify the brightly colored animals on the walls. The hubby and I do this each and every time we go as a well tested method of 'distraction.' It worked, as usual. Then the NP pulls out a piece of paper with line sketches of different animals and starts asking E to identify them. My heart skipped a beat. OMG!!! A Pop Quiz!!!! No one said anything about giving a pop quiz! To a 2 year old!!!!

After I regrouped, I realized that E knew all the animals, and identified each of them for the NP. When she came to the drawing of the Man, E said "that's a daddy." It caught me a little off guard, 'cuz she calls the hubby "Papa." God, you gotta love NOGGIN!!!

She was asked to identify animals, which she got mostly correct. She could demonstrate what each animal "said", buts she did not, however, know what each animal "did." For example, identify the bird when asked "which animal flies in the sky?" Gotta work on that one.

She knew that a pig was pink, but other than that, not good with colors. The NP told me that colors are a 3 year old skill, so not to be too concerned.

From there, we moved onto blocks. The NP brought over about 10 little blocks and asked E to stack them up. She immediately stacked 6, and then it fell over. As we were talking about different colors and shapes and animals, E kept stacking and knocking over these little blocks, and eventually stacked all 10!

Then on to the physical stuff. She can jump with both feet leaving the ground, but doesn't know how to kick a ball. Guess we will be buying a soccer ball sometime in the near future! She does, however, know how to throw a ball, and she demonstrated for the balance of the visit. :o) "Get it, mommy!" Awesome! I love playing fetch!

Next came height and weight. She is 34 3/4" tall and 24.12 1/2 pounds, which puts her 75th in Height and 25th in Weight. Which is keeping with her trend since birth. Tall and skinny.

Next came eye check, 'show me your teeth' check, 'can you say AH' check, and a hearing test. She did not object to any of these checks. The NP was just in shock at how calm she remained. I told her that on E's very first appointment with the Doctor, at 2 weeks old, he didn't get a rise out of her until he gagged her with a tongue depressor. He told us then, that she would be a very even tempered child. He was Right! We are very blessed! She obviously gets that from her father. :oP

The NP then told me that we need to start thinking of E as a mini teenager. As in, there will be mood swings, there will be "NO!" There will all kinds of behavior changes, and this is normal, and not to take it personally. The hubby and I have already witnessed some of this. I thought it was because she was getting her 2 year molars. Nope! Just the fact that she is two will suffice. Yay. This will be fun. :o\

The appointment ended with the NP telling me that E, according to the Denver Development Activities, is functioning above her age group in almost all areas. And very high in speech and articulation. I told her that was my fault. I'm a born talker. I talk to E -all- the time. And when I can't understand what she says, we go over the words so she can say them correctly. Because misunderstandings can lead to frustration....and temper tantrums....and screaming....and then "Time Out." Not Fun.

And the bonus: NO SHOTS!!!! Yay!

She gave us a parting gift of 3 stickers, which E promptly placed on her hands and shirt. We also got a sheet explaining some activities we can do to help her develop the next level of skills. Pretty Exciting Times!

But, hey, what do I know? I'm just a first time MOM. :o)