More

Tonight Lucy signed "more" for the first time.

I think she's been signing "milk" for a while, but this is definitely the first time she's asked for (and received) "more".

The shy, happy smile she got on her face when we realized she was asking for more and we gave it to her (in the form of more pasta for dinner) was awesome.

More is signed by touching the fingertips of your hands together in front of your chest. Like this. Lucy does it by rubbing her index fingers across each other. Emily did it by slapping the back of her left hand with her right one. And the more insistent she was about wanting something, the harder she hit her hand.

And wow! Lucy can EAT! Tonight she had about 1/3 cup of pasta and sauce, a couple pieces of asparagus, an entire piece of bread, a small banana and then another 1/4 cup or so of pasta.

Emily is also been doing her best to eat us out of house and home. She had THIRDS of pasta tonight, which is unheard of. Typically Emily will eat 3 or 4 bites of something and then announce that she's all done. I gave her a whole (made from two pieces of bread) pb&j sandwich today and she ate it, crusts and all! I am going to milk this one for all it's worth. If she's in the mood to eat, I'll hook her up with good stuff.

It would seem that flowers aren't the only things that grow in the spring. My kids are definitely doing some hard core growing.

Lucy is also trying very hard to walk. She's got pulling up on every available surface down and she's started working on lowering herself back down to the ground. Just tonight, Mike was able to get her to stand on her own for several seconds at a time.

New Camera Pictures

From 285, down to 10.

Contemplating the great outdoors

I love this picture.

I don't care what you say, Grandpa, you can't have my veggie cheese.

Emily loves Oscar.

Outside "helping" Daddy

Watching The Wiggles and eating the crusts from my PopTart.

A present from Daddy and Emily

Daddy got her all wet.

Emily is helping Lucy get a drink.

Mom! Why did you put me down here?! Waaa!

I'm in the money!

Lookit what I got in the mail today!!!

A check from BlogHer with advertising revenue!! And it only took me 7 months to earn it! I have not very much traffic, so it takes a loooooong time to get to the $25 minimum required for the lovely folks at BlogHer to cut me a check.

This picture was taken with my lovely new camera. I spent some of my last paychecks on a new, faster camera (I got the Canon PowerShot S5 IS - LOVE). I just downloaded the card to my computer and have 285 pictures to sift through. 285 pictures since Wednesday afternoon. That seems like a lot of pictures to me. And it is, when you think that with my old camera, I had a 4 or so second lag between each shot. And that is why I have a new camera. Yay.

Once I get the pictures sorted, I'll come back and do a post of my favorites.

Weeping Cherry

This is the weeping cherry tree outside our front window. I love it this time of year. It is literally BUZZING with bees.

And the flowers are so pretty. It's one of my favorite springtime things.
Mike likes the tree, but thinks it shouldn't be on our front walk, because we are forever trimming its branches back so people can get to our front door. I won't let him take this tree out. It is too pretty.

What? What you say?

When Emily was a baby, I had the hardest time getting her to stay asleep, especially for naps. It seemed if I did anything (talk on the phone, clean up the kitchen, watch TV) that was louder than a whisper, Emily would wake up and NOT GO BACK to sleep. It was very frustrating.

When she was 6 or so months old, I put a box fan in her room and turned it on when she was sleeping. We upgraded that to an actual white noise machine (this one) that we've been using ever since. I love it because I can get stuff done while Em is sleeping and not worry about waking her up. She calls it her music and I like to think she likes it because she's well rested. She probably likes it because she's had it for as long as she can remember, but whatever.

In addition to being easily awakened, she has also always been sensitive to loud noises. Things like the vacuum, Domino barking, my parent's parrots squawking, Lucy crying, power tools, household appliances (blender, mixer, food processor)... all have caused Emily to clap her hands over her ears and cry.

After doing some research about noise sensitivity (and fuh-reaking out because apparently noise sensitivity is a hallmark of autism) I have come to believe that Emily's hearing is just very acute and so she hears things more intensely. I try to be sensitive to this, while at the same time trying to give her coping mechanisms that won't get her beat up when she's in school. I encourage her to put her hands over her ears if something is noisy, to walk away, or put earmuffs on.

In the aftermath of RSV-Fest 2008 (and please God, let it NOT be an annual event!), Emily has had 2 ear infections. One in her left ear that caused her eardrum to rupture and a secondary one that developed in her right ear. All of this goo in her ears and the decreased sensitivity of her left eardrum has caused her to be slightly deaf.

This is strange new territory for us. She .... just doesn't hear us. I call to her from the kitchen and she doesn't answer. I call again, still no response. Or I'll be speaking to her while doing something else and she'll say "What? What you say? I no can hear you."

I am sure that the deafness is temporary, and if it doesn't clear in another week or so, I will mention it to the fabulous Dr.Sara, but until then, if you hear some yelling, it's just me, calling Emily to the table for dinner.

What goes down must come up

It would seem to be a fairly simple lesson, but Mike and I clearly haven't quite gotten it yet.

You shouldn't feed your baby exotic things like curry in large quantities, unless you like to be awakened at 2:30 by a vomiting child.

I made Chris' Chicken Curry with Sweet Potatoes last night for dinner. It was REALLY good.

Not really thinking about the impact 3 tsp of curry powder might have on a 9-month-old digestive system, I chopped some up and fed it to Lucy. She LOVED it. Couldn't get enough. And then, after she ate easily 1/2 a cup of chicken and sweet potatoes, I gave her some noodles and veggies that I top with marinara (my homemade version of the Gerber Graduate finger food meals). She gobbled that all down and then topped it all of with some rice and strawberries.

We put her to bed last night at 8-ish and I didn't hear a peep from her until she started crying at 2:30. When I went in to get her, the room REEKED of curry (which, when regurgitated, REALLY doesn't smell good).

I got her crib cleaned up and decided to nurse her since I figured she'd be hungry after horking her entire dinner into her crib. She was just finishing when she looked at me strangely and then threw up all of the milk she'd just drank, plus whatever dregs of dinner was still left in her tummy.

Niiiice.

Mike was sweet enough to come in and change her jammies for me while I mopped myself off and changed MY jammies.

She threw up again at 3:30 and then woke me up again at 4:30, hungry.

I'm hopeful that the night of interrupted sleep and the fun chore (not) of scraping my child's regurgitated dinner off her crib sheet this afternoon will teach me not to feed her such enormous quantities of new and spicy food.

We'll see. I'm a slow learner.

The good, the bad and the REALLY CHEESY

I have been fortunate enough to be the recipient of some really wonderful presents in my day.

The one below is a recent one.
Now, I am not saying that every woman would like a miniature food processor for her next gift-giving occasion. I am simply saying that though I didn't think I would like it when I received it (and in fact, it sat on my shelf for nearly a year before I used it), now I am wholeheartedly in love with this little lovely. I use it every day, mostly to chop up whatever we're having for dinner so that she-who-no-longer-eats-baby-food *cough*Lucy*cough* won't choke. It is covered in water droplets in this picture because I had to dig it out of the dishwasher so I could take a picture of the entire processor, not just the naked base.

I think my favorite part about this present is that I didn't really know how much I needed it. That's very much like the camera I use to take all of these pictures. My parents got it for me for my birthday to replace our slightly ancient digital camera that was only a little better than a box, some foil with a hole, and unexposed film on a sunny day.

I have also been on the recieving end of some not-so-good presents. My step-mother tends to factor pretty heavily in the NSG end of gift giving.

After I moved into my first apartment, I received a box of random things I'm pretty sure she picked up at the dollar store.

It included a bunch of these:
Um, thanks.

I think.

And, for the REALLY CHEESY part of this post, of course, the greatest gifts I've ever received are my two beautiful daughters. They challenge me (daily, sometimes hourly), they make me laugh, they inspire me to be a better person...

I also like to think that Emily and Lucy are the best gifts we as parents have given to the girls, in that as siblings, they will always be there for each other.

All of this talk of gift-giving is for the most recent Blog Blast by the Parent Bloggers Network. They are collaborating with GetInHerHead.com, a free service for couples who want to get it right every time. Most men want to be better at giving, but they’re just not wired to listen as closely and remember details as well as your girlfriends do.

Things that annoy me

Katie did a post today of things that p*ss her off. I wound up leaving a sizable rant in her comments, which led me to believe that a post of things that annoy me might not be such a bad idea.

So.... here ya go! (PS: These first few are stolen from my comment to Katie's post)

<> My daughter whose fever won't friggin' BREAK ALREADY! It's been 6 days!

<> The fact that, though I quit my job, I did the "right" thing and gave 2 weeks notice, so I am STILL stuck with the suckiness, even though I am SO outta there. Ugh.

<> My garbage men for picking up my recycling bin and tossing its contents into the GARBAGE TRUCK with the GARBAGE. I'm certainly not the greenest person around, but if I wanted to throw those things away, I would have, you know, JUST THROWN THEM IN THE GARBAGE. AGH.

<> My youngest daughter for deciding that 4 AM was a good time to be awake and then screaming at the top of her lungs on the one night I convinced her big sister to shut up, she doesn't need a hug at 2:30 in the morning. God.

<> Spring. It's great to have nice warm weather and all, but my husband's stress level is increasing with every millimeter the grass in the backyard grows and oh, by the way, I have 18 LARGE projects planned for him and grass mowing season is nearly upon us.

<> The Christian Children's programming on one of the radio stations here. I have no idea why, but it really annoys the heck out of me. I cannot STAND when it comes on. And tonight, it started while I was getting the girls ready for bed and I couldn't turn it off, so I heard the annoyingness for a good 10 minutes. Ugh.

<> HGTV. I love their House Hunters series, but it would be lovely if they would highlight someone's house search that isn't on a budget of $500K or more.

<> My brain. All evening, I was thinking of things that annoy me to put in this post. I sit down to write it? Pfft. All ideas gone.

More whining about the Really Sucky Virus

I totally think RSV shouldn't stand for Respiratory Syncytial Virus. It should be changed to Really Sucky Virus. Because it TOTALLY sucks.

I took both girls to the doctor yesterday and ponied up $60. I am actually quite glad I did. It turns out Emily has an outer ear infection (swimmer's ear), which is why she was in so much pain. Her middle ear infection (the standard otitis media) seems to be getting better.

The fabulous Dr.Sara gave me some drops to give to Emily for the swimmer's ear, which require me to pretty much SIT on the child to administer them, but I did so twice last night and she got up this morning (at 9:10!!) and announced that her ears felt much better and TOOK OFF HER HAT!! I couldn't believe it.

I am incredibly relieved that I listened to my gut when Emily woke up from her nap at 1:45 SCREAMING that her ear hurt and took the kid to the doctor again. I wasn't going to, based on the conversation I'd had with the nurse earlier in the day. She didn't seem concerned at all that Emily was still complaining of ear pain and was still running a fever after 4 doses of Omnicef, but as soon as I said all of that to Dr.S, she agreed that something seemed suspicious there.

Lucy has her first ear infection and the dire prediction that if she isn't fever-free by tomorrow, she can't have her vaccinations at her somewhat-sick-certainly-not-well-baby visit. And she also got to have her SECOND chest x-ray. During the first one, I got to hide out in the bathroom (behind leaded walls) and I was able to dash out between shots to give her the pacifier and calm the screaming. This time, I had to sit in the waiting room with Emily and listen to Lucy LOUDLY voicing her displeasure. I am sure that it didn't take an extraordinary amount of time, but it sure felt like Lucy was crying FOREVER before she was brought back to me.

The good news from the x-ray is that she DOESN'T have pneumonia, just the ear infection.

I also got bad news yesterday from my friend Courtney. Sweet baby Janna has ANOTHER ear infection and a likely case of RSV. 3 guesses where the RSV came from. And the first 2 don't count. Yeah, feeling pretty guilty about that one.

The wall came tumbling down

This is our living room, before:
Going....

Going....
Gone!
This is the beginning of a long-awaited project in a year of LOTS of long-awaited projects. We have moved the stove (shown above in the first picture) downstairs and, once the carpet where the hearth used to be is patched, will be moving the entertainment center to this wall. Yay. No more sun glare off the TV from the west-facing window directly across the room from it. AND I get to rearrange my furniture! And maybe someday*, the piano will be gone.

*Let someday, in this case, equal "when pigs fly" as that is when it is most likely that Mike's sister will have somewhere to put said piano.

And this is me, cuddling Miss Pitiful Girl. Emily has a monster ear infection. It is hurting her terribly, but it seems to feel slightly better when the hat is on, keeping the air off it. Poor thing fell asleep on my lap at 1130 am.
Friday night was AWFUL - Emily was up all stinkin' night, crying that her ear hurt. And we won't even TALK about the puke in the car in the parking lot of the doctor's office. Because it is just too horrible to even think about. Do me a favor. Go get some ratty clothes that fit your child and put them in a baggie in your car. Go. Now. Because 2T pants on my able-to-wear-size 4 girl? Are capris. And I had NO SHIRT. Emily was about to exercise her New York given right to go topless when the nurses saved me with a hospital gown.

Emily's baby Oscar was crying about something, but I forget what. She cracks me up in that hat. Poor little noodle.
And now I am off to go do the dishes in case my mother-in-law needs to come over to Emily sit while I take Lucy BACK to the doctor. She was supposed to be fever free on Saturday. Yeah, still running a fever. Ugh. Adding insult to injury (and copay) is the fact that Lucy has a well-baby (HA!) check up on Wednesday. So there's another $20 out the window... /whining

Viral

We are totally that family that every playgroup member hates.

I had 3 moms and their 7 children over to my house on Monday morning for a MOMS Club function.

Lucy was mildy stuffy and coughy, but I didn't think too much of it. She's been fighting a cold for a while and I thought it was just the tail end of it.

Monday afternoon she had a fever and she continued to run a fever and be a ginormous crank all stinkin' week.

I took her to the doctor yesterday and WonderPediatrician said that she has the same slightly gunky lungs that Emily had last week. She didn't want to call it pneumonia, but wasn't comfortable sending me home without a prescription for Zithromax.

For Lucy, she also took a quick nasal swab (WOW - Lucy was MAD about that one!).

The nurse called me today and Lucy's results came back.

Wanna take a guess as to what they said?

No? Yeah, I wouldn't want to, either.

Lucy has RSV. Yeah, THAT RSV. The one that puts kids in the HOSPITAL. And I had 7 kids in my house this week! AAAAH!

So now I am going to go email all the ladies and tell them my really good news.

This is not what I planned to write about

But I need to record this NOW.

This:
is what I look like before I fall face first into

this:
Because if these are half as fattening as they taste, I certainly won't look like that for much longer.

Oh my goodness - those are some seriously delicious chocolate covered pretzels. Chocolate covered pretzels are another thing that I have been craving for ... pretty much the entire time I was in the dairy-free zone. Mom and I went to a fancy chocolate store in a hip(per) area of town and got these beauties, along with some other chocolate-coated delicacies (in the white bag you see in the picture).

If you need me, I'll be over here, munching on chocolate pretzels. You'll have to excuse the chocolate mustache...

Santa's Newest Helper

Presenting .....Rudolph the Snot Nosed Baby!

Can I just tell you how grossed out I am by snot? And drool?

Yeah, my kid is COVERED in BOTH. She rubs her nose, smearing her ENTIRE face with .... Oh, it's too horrible to talk about.

I had been wondering if Lucy was going to be afflicted with the seasonal allergies that torment the rest of our household.

I am wondering no more. She is DEFINITELY having some allergy issues. Poor kiddo.

Splash

Emily fell in the creek this afternoon.

She and Mike were down at the creek, throwing things in the water, splashing in the water with sticks and generally having a good time. It's all fun and games until someone overbalances and falls in.

Then it's just REALLY funny.

I was up at the house with Lucy and suddenly I heard A LOT of crying. I looked outside and I saw Mike walking back to the house with Emily. Her hair was all stringy and wet and the setting sun reflected off her jeans. Jeans that did not have ANY EMBELLISHMENT on them that would sparkle. Except for water, that is. Poor kiddo. She looked like a drowned rat. And she was VERY UPSET that she had fallen in.

Fabulous Friday Fun!

On conference call with
with India, don't say "cash
cow". Hard to avoid.

Foot in mouth disease
makes avoiding phrases hard.
"Cash cow" just wants out.

An hour on the phone,
didn't say "cash cow". NOT ONCE.
Feeling very proud.

Job changing again.
Not sure changes fit me, but
giving it some time.

I don't want to quit,
work at home jobs hard to find.
Most are scammy scams.

***
Very exciting -
grown up date tonight. NO kids.
Dinner and movie?

After our date night,
even more exciting is
BSG premiere.

Yes, we are BIG NERDS.
Looking forward to watching
Season 4 tonight.

***
Tomorrow I have
a chick date with Courtney. YAY!
We're going shopping.

***
New Kids on the Block
reuniting. They must need
retirement money.

May be marketing
ploy, but I am still getting
the reunion mag.

***
Lucy now mobile.
Crawling all over the house.
Getting into things.

Little crawler so
much fun to watch. She's so proud
as she crawls around.

Sweet Cheesy Goodness

I went to the grocery store today.

Something jumped into the cart and followed me home.


I introduced Emily to the wonders that are Cheetos and she will never be the same.

But, will someone please tell me how to get her to eat something healthy as easily as I got her to try Cheetos? I put a small handful on her plate at lunch, told her to try them and that was it. If I give her a small helping of something like chicken, you would think I am serving her rat in arsenic sauce the way she carries on.

Who Needs Sleep?

Last night looked like this for me:

10:15 pm: go to bed.
11 pm: Emily wakes up crying about "pee pee comin'!" We haven't yet taught her that she can get up and take care of that on her own. (Note to self: teach her that she can get out of bed to pee.)
2 am: Lucy wakes up to eat.
4 am: Lucy wakes up again to eat.
4:15 am: back to bed. Lay in bed half-awake, stewing about feeding Lucy when she probably wasn't hungry.
4:55 am: Lucy starts crying again. Go and give her the pacifier, head back to bed.
5 am: Mike's alarm goes off.

Yep, it really was THAT good. That's the second or third night like that for me, so I am pretty zombified. Emily fell out of bed at 1 a couple of nights ago and then decided at 1:30 that she needed to go potty. I am not sure what is up with Lucy's multiple-night wakings right now. She had been down to one time per night, between 1 and 2 and suddenly that is gone again. It is sorely missed.