Good To Know

Emily has taken to telling me that I am her favorite mommy in the whole wide world. And the best mommy in the whole wide world.

I love the ego strokes the kid is doling out. She leans over and smooches my arm during dinner and likes to bring me flowers as a surprise when she's outside playing. She'll come inside, with one arm behind her back, saying "Mommy, I have a surprise for you!" It's very sweet. And my house is looking very beautiful, with all the dandelions and daisies and clover flowers we have around here.

Yesterday, I was making dinner, while the girls were outside playing in our wading pool. Emily asked me what was for dinner, and as usual, I answered "Poop and boogies."*

Emily responded, "You are the best mommy in the whole wide world, except when you make poop and boogies for dinner. But I still love you."

Good to know.

*In case you don't want to follow that link (though you totally should), Bill, who writes Poop and Boogies, is from a family of 9 kids. When the kids would ask their mother what was for dinner, Bill's dad would say "Poop and boogies. Shut up and eat it." That story cracks me up and so I started telling my kids that's what we're having. Emily is absolutely repulsed by the idea of eating poop and boogies. She gets all upset with me, not understanding that I am teasing.

Lost and Found

LOST:

I got on the scale this morning and discovered that I have officially lost 17 pounds. I am beyond excited about that. 3 more pounds and I can go shopping for clothes that actually fit*. It's to the point now that I have to roll the waistband of my size 12 khaki shorts (that I just bought last summer - SOB) and they are STILL too loose.

I have been having some difficulty with constipation and so I am going back to a GI doctor tomorrow to see if they have any magic pills they can give me that will help me go more often than every 4 days. It's gotten to the point that I get excited about pooping. And well, that's just wrong. On so many levels.

I don't really want to have to see a doctor about this stuff all the time, since it is terribly expensive and feels like a waste of time, but I think I should talk with someone about the increased fiber I've been eating and the decrease in poo I've been seeing. That ain't right, yo.

*Though I probably won't. My current plan is to limp along in these ill-fitting clothes until the cooler weather approaches and then go buy myself a couple pairs of jeans to get through the winter. I don't want to spend a bunch of money (that we don't have, see below) on shorts that will likely be too big next summer.

FOUND:

This morning, I sat down to pay the bills. This is something that I have been putting off all weekend because the state of our credit card bill and checking account balance are ... not good. At all.

Mike and I use Microsoft Money to maintain and balance our account and we download electronic statements from our banks to update our register. The electronic download puts an "E" in a field to note that the check has cleared. I noticed, as I was going through the updates to the register, that there was an "E" missing from a payment. It was a payment for $268 to the local hospital from Emily's emergency room visit in February. I haven't received additional notices from the hospital, so I know they received my payment. I made a note to myself to contact them and continued paying the bills. And yet, that payment kept bothering me. There wasn't a check number listed with the payment and I typically don't pay those types of bills electronically, so I got up and hunted down the duplicate check. And then discovered that when the check was imported into Money from our bank's website, the recipient was listed as "Local University" instead of "Local Hospital". And a few entries below this strange payment, there was a check for the same amount that had cleared. I deleted the duplicate entry and voila! We had $268 extra in our checking account. Yippee!! I immediately applied that extra $268 towards lowering the stroke-inducing amount of our credit card balance. If I can find another $268 10 more times, we'll have that bad boy paid off. Yeah, like that's going to happen.

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If you and I are friends on Facebook, you likely saw me post about Lucy bashing her face off the ground a couple weeks ago and loosening a couple teeth. We went to the dentist the next morning and he confirmed that she knocked her upper right incisor and her bottom left incisor loose and chipped her upper left incisor and her upper left canine (girlfriend does a GOOD JOB when she falls - honestly, she fell maybe 18 inches off a slide and wreaked that kind of havoc in her mouth). He examined her teeth and took a couple x-rays and declared that her adult teeth are OK, the bones around her teeth are OK. Whew. He scheduled another appointment for two weeks to check the teeth and make sure that there isn't any nerve damage.

That appointment was today. I have been peering at her upper right incisor (hereinafter called her "tooth") at every opportunity and have been mildly concerned that it was looking somewhat grey. Grey, for those of you lucky enough to NOT get Dental Baptism By Fire (or slide as the case may be) from your children can mean that the nerve in the tooth is damaged or dying. I wasn't sure because mouths aren't the best lit places in the world and Lucy isn't exactly a STILL child, if you know what I mean. I mentioned the grey-ish-ness to the dentist this morning along with a couple perplexing moments from bedtime last night and the car this morning, where Lucy seemed to be in pain and might possibly have been saying something that someone might construe as the word "teeth". If they were drunk. And listening carefully.

The dentist looked in her mouth and agreed that her tooth is grey. And I said "Oh crap." and buried my face in Lucy's curls because I thought crying was a) likely and b) overreacting. The dentist suggested we watch the tooth for another 4 weeks and see how she does. If she continues to maybe, possibly, sort of sound like she's complaining about pain her tooth (and oh, by the way, the kid is getting her 2 year molars, so it's not like her mouth is a vacation anyways), I am to bring her back in to see him. Otherwise, we'll have another round of x-rays in 4 weeks and probably a root canal.

And then all the air was sucked from the room.

Because OMGWTFBBQ, we CANNOT afford a root canal! And that's on top of the HOLY SH*T BALLS, a ROOT CANAL?! On mah preshus baaaybeee?! The one that has already had SURGERY on her EARS at the tender age of not-quite-two?!?!

The dentist assured me that a root canal on a baby tooth is different than one on an adult tooth and that they are "less expensive". I have a feeling that his definition of less expensive is slightly different than ours, since we were recently waffling over a $10 shipping fee. And by waffling, I mean, weren't going to pay it, since the item in question, though free, was a "nice to have" not a "must have". I'm thinking a root canal is a little more expensive than $10. You?

It has begun

I know that I have mentioned several times that we bought this house from Mike's parents.

There have been plans for a development to go in the field next door to our house and Mike's parents weren't comfortable with those changes. They opted to buy property and build a new house farther out in the country.

We've lived here for four and a half years (!) and that whole time, our view next door was this:

Until earlier this week, when construction equipment moved in and made it look like this:



My biggest concern about this project has always been Domino's response to the "invaders" to his property, since he views any land he is in proximity to as HIS and YOU need to BACK OFF away from HIS PEOPLE. I figured we'd be spending a lot of time with Domino in his crate downstairs so that we could all have a break from the barking and the running and the barking.

So far, however, he's been pretty blase about the whole process. The construction dudes had been over there for a solid half an hour before he started barking at them and once he went outside and ran up and down the property line barking a couple times, he stopped and settled down. He apparently felt comfortable that he had properly defended us from those killer construction workers. He just started barking again as I'm writing this, but I'm sure it's because a marauding construction worker has strayed too close to our property line.

Most of the people on this road to whom I've spoken about this project have been of the "It's Terrible, All This Progress" opinion. I'm completely the opposite, falling squarely in the "WOO! Maybe we'll get CABLE! And WATER! And oooh! Sewer!"* camp.

*It should be noted that my house is not without running water and indoor toilets (we're not THAT country), however, we are on a well and a septic system. I have mostly acclimated to life with a well and septic, but I don't care much for the taste of the well water and UGH, the septic system. I can't have a garbage disposal (EW!) and potty training Emily was more nerve-wracking than it should have been, with her over-zealous toilet paper usage. We have to have the septic system suctioned every couple years and I am hoping to hold off until after Lucy is potty trained. Apparently, M used toilet paper as his nose-blowing medium of choice and flushed the result, so I'm a little worried that we're not going to make it. Our well also requires a water softener and that is circling the drain, so we have some MAJOR expenses (like $13,000) looming at an unknown time. We'll discover that it is well and truly dead when my white laundry turns yellow again. And won't THAT be awesome!

In all, it's hard to believe that this project is really starting. And I have absolutely NO concept of what it will be like to have houses on the other side of my fence. Hopefully the kids will have some friends who live over there. Wouldn't that be nice?

Two

Lucy turned two on Saturday.

I can hardly believe it.

It seems like just yesterday, she looked like this:

And now, we have this:

I can't believe it. I can barely remember the days getting up every 2 hours. I don't remember the wee baby that she was. All I see now is the big girl she is becoming.

And a big girl she truly is. She had her two year check up yesterday and she is 36 1/3 inches tall, which puts her in the 96th percentile for her height. She is 30.8 pounds, landing her in the 85th percentile for weight.

We keep a growth chart of the girls on the wall in our living room and I marked Lucy's growth on the wall during her birthday party Saturday. She grew over 6 inches from last July to now.

I got her lots of monkey themed clothes for her birthday, and among them, I got her some monkey underpants, figuring that they would help prod her along on the road to potty training*. She LOVES them. And insisted on wearing them under her shorts (but over a diaper) all day Saturday. She was so excited about her goofy monkey undies.

*Not that I am trying to hurry her down that road, but we are going through a low-key process of sitting on the potty when she wants and getting very excited if something happens. She has started asking for diaper changes, especially after pooping, so I know the signs of readiness are increasing. We'll get there when we get there. But, are we there yet? I'm looking forward to getting rid of the expense and hassle of diapers.

Since her tubes were installed, she has started going through a language boom. As we were leaving yesterday morning to take M to school*, I told Lucy she could bring Monkey (her lovey) with her in the car. She immediately scooped up BOTH the monkeys she had in bed with her and said "BO!". No, not both. You can have ONE.

*M has class or an activity 4 days a week. Most of the time, he's at a local church for English classes. He's also had a trip to a local (small) amusement park and Niagara Falls. He goes to Toronto on Thursday and to the nearby Six Flags next week.

She has also added the word "please" to her vocabulary and now says "peesss" and signs "please", which makes me much more likely to do whatever it is she is asking.

This next fact might only be interesting to me, but she is apparently outgrowing her size 8 shoes. She has some big ole feet and has been compulsively taking off her sandals at every opportunity. I finally figured out that they are tight and they hurt her toes. So onward! To size 9! I also had to move her up into her 3T clothes because the shirts of her 2T stuff were all tight and short and the shorts and pants were getting hung up on her butt.

Speaking of shoes, this girl is obsessed with shoes. She LOVES them. She loves to play with them and does a fair job of putting them on by herself. Mike is very worried about the potential expense of this obsession.

Lucy is our adventurous eater. The spicier the better. She also has discovered a deep and abiding love for the cheeseburger. French fries she can take or leave, but jalapeno potato chips? Are delicious. Whenever Mike has the Cholula out, she asks for some. And when he gives it to her, she eats it with gusto. She gets tired of eating the same thing every day, unlike her mother and sister, who would eat salad (me) and open-faced peanut butter sandwiches with a smiley face (go on, guess) every day for weeks on end. I have to force myself to remember to change it up for Lucy so she doesn't get bored. Which requires a lot more thought than I am capable of when it comes to lunch.

Lucy has also recently mastered the fine art of chewing gum. And not swallowing it. Mostly. The first piece disappeared within 5 minutes. The second one hung around for half an hour or so. All of them have eventually been swallowed, but she happily chomps away on it. We'll get her to stop swallowing it some day.

Having 2 kids 23 months apart has been challenging, but wow, is it rewarding. I love watching the girls play together and I love that they are so close. Lucy cries when we drop Emily off at summer rec and Emily asks for Lucy when Lucy is with my mom. I am looking forward to watching the two of them grow up together.

Relief

It was an eventful 4th of July for us.

On Thursday evening, M mentioned that his arm was swollen. I looked at it and agreed - it had a discernable goose egg on it, surrounding a mosquito bite he got earlier in the week. My mom and I discussed it and agreed that if it didn't look better in the morning, I should take M to the doctor just to be sure that it wasn't infected or an allergic reaction.

In the morning, M assured me that it was much better. I looked at it and disagreed wholeheartedly. Almost his entire forearm was swollen and the swelling extended past his elbow and was heading for his bicep. I took him to my pediatrician's office and Dr F (a wonderful colleague of the fabulous Dr S) decided M had an infection. We received a prescription for antibiotics and a recommendation that we come back if the swelling wasn't significantly better by Monday morning.

That afternoon, I took M to a local science museum and then we went to see our community fireworks display. It was pretty miserable. It was cold and rainy and we weren't even totally sure that the fireworks were going to go off, but eventually they did and it was great. M really enjoyed the fireworks.

The next day, Lucy started coming down with the flu-like bug Emily had been fighting earlier in the week. She was feverish and cranky and fell asleep on the couch twice and on my chest once during the day. We stayed pretty close to home, hoping that the rest would help Lucy heal enough to be able to go to Mike's parent's picnic that afternoon.

Lucy got up from nap and was as bad as ever. She had a 103 degree fever and was FRAGILE to the highest power. The least thing would set her off into massive screaming fits. It was all kinds of awesome. After a few minutes, as I was making plans for me to stay home with the pissy toddler, Lucy seemed to perk up. She got down off my lap and started wandering around, playing. This was such a marked improvement, we decided I would go to the picnic and take Lucy home after dinner. That way, I would get to see most of the family, I wouldn't have to do dinner here for Lucy and me and all would be happy.

And that's exactly what we did.

I had dinner at the picnic and Lucy ate her weight in chili rice. After dinner, we said our goodbyes and were home by 6:45 pm. I had Lucy in bed at 7 and she was asleep by 7:45. I then spent a very enjoyable evening by myself. I watched an episode of House and worked on getting my feed reader down below 600 posts.

Mike, M and Emily arrived home about 10:30. I went out to the garage, mostly to see if Emily had crashed on the way home.

Mike got out of the car and said "I broke his foot."

I wasn't totally sure I had heard him correctly. The garage door was still going down and I thought he might be joking.

Until I looked through the windshield. M was sitting in the passenger seat and he looked very unhappy.

Mike had to help him out of the car and into the house. He sat in one of our chairs and I got my first real look at his foot. His foot was very swollen. I made an almost immediate decision to take him to the emergency room.

I called the coordinator of M's trip and told her that I thought M had a broken foot. She agreed that I should take him to emergency.

We spent 4 hours in the emergency room and were given a diagnosis of a left talar avulsion fracture. M was put in a splint and told not to put any weight on his foot. They gave him crutches and taught him how to use them.

Sunday was a very somber day around our house. We spent a lot of time trying to come to terms with what a broken foot would mean to M's trip. He is going to Niagara Falls this week, Toronto the next and a nearby Six Flags the week after that. In addition, we are taking M to New York City the weekend of the 17th. None of those activities are very compatible with a broken foot, crutches, wheelchair and a cast.

When we left the emergency room, they told us to consult with an orthopedic surgeon on Monday.

I wasn't able to get M in to see the doctor we were told to see until this morning.

The doctor eventually decreed that the break I've been freaking out about for the past two days is really not as bad as it sounds and is really more like a bad sprain. Then he proceeds to tell M all the things he can do sans splint. And then we ask, well, if he can do all those things without the splint, can we just get rid of the splint all together? And the doctor hems and haws for a while, then tests M out with a rigid shoe and an ace bandage around his ankle.

M hops down of the table gingerly and LO! He can walk! And it is GOOD! He has a little limp and says it hurts a little bit, but DUDE! A limp? Totally OK with me. A cast from toes to knee? NOT OK. NOT OK AT ALL.

The three of us; M, his chaperone J and I were all beaming the whole time. I couldn't get over the immense sense of relief I felt.

M is supposed to be bearing part of his weight on his crutches, but he is 16 and his listening skills only go so far. I kept after him for a while, but then decided it was just not worth the effort. His foot is clearly feeling MUCH better and that is a very good thing.

As we were leaving the doctor's office, M requested a special dinner to celebrate the not-quite breaking of his foot. I asked what he wanted and he said hamburgers.

So that is what we had. Hamburgers, corn on the cob, and tater tots (I even splashed out and got the Ore-Ida brand instead of the cheapie Aldi brand that I already had in the freezer). M had two hamburgers with cheese, tomatoes, onion, lettuce, ketchup and mustard. And he was in heaven.

The Daring Child

Emily and I went with M to the local amusement park this week.

I had a ton of fun watching Emily explore.

When we got there, I asked her what she wanted to do, did she want to go on the tea cups or the spring ride? She said no, she didn't want to do either of those. I directed her over to the kiddie rides and asked if she wanted to go on those. No, came the response.

Finally, I said, let's go on the tea cups and then decide what to do from there.

We got on the tea cups, and Emily giggled the whole time. We were the only ones on the ride (rain was threatening) and I think the operator let us go a little longer than he normally would. I had so much fun laughing with Emily. She didn't stop laughing the whole time the ride was going.

We got off the tea cups and went immediately to the spring ride. It shoots you maybe 20 or 30 feet in the air and then drops you back down 10 or so feet. And so on. It makes your tummy feel all funny. Again, Emily laughed like a fiend the whole time.

We got off that and hit the Bobsled rollercoaster ride. Again with the laughing. And screaming before we would go down a hill.

This kid is seriously fearless.

And it is odd to me because she is normally fairly timid. She takes some time to warm up to new people and situations. She has to check things out before she is comfortable somewhere, but take her to an amusement park and she wants to go on the biggest, fastest and scariest rides.

This year was slightly different because she was also excited about the water rides. Well, after a bit.

We got changed into our suits after we rode all the land-based rides that Emily was big enough to ride. (When that kid hits 48 inches, look out - she's going on EVERYTHING in that park. Mike better be with us because there are several that I won't even consider.) As we walked to the water part of the park, Emily started saying that she didn't want to go swimming. I was a mean mommy and told her too bad, we were going anyway.

We picked out a tube slide ride that required a two-person tube. I dragged that stupid tube up to the top of the ride and Emily started telling me she didn't want to go. I told her again that it was too bad, there was only one way down and that was in the water. She reluctantly got in the raft and then chanted "no" the whole way down.

We got to the bottom and I asked her if she wanted to go again. "YES!" came the enthusiastic reply. So I dragged the tube back to the top again. And again, Chicken Little started to back out on me. And I made her go down with me again, with her chanting no the whole way.

We ended up going down that slide at least half a dozen times. She loved it.

I took her over to some smaller, kiddie-sized slides and she loved those even more.

I had so much fun that day, watching her walk around the park. It was a Mommy & Emily day and I am so glad to have had it. And having had that time with her, it makes me that much more excited to take Lucy and Mike back there with us later this summer.