Tuesday, December 19, 2006

Tube-day

For Lucy's 15 month birthday today, we gave her what every kid her age wants. Tubes! One for each ear!

We were all prepared for doom and gloom. Long screaming car rides to and from the 'surgery center'. Claw marks on our (OK, mostly my) face. Puke on my body and a half listless child laying on the floor whimpering as we let her watch Baby Einstein until the DVD melted.

It all started out just as we had feared, with a 5am wake up cry. I was able to get her back to sleep, although in a position that completely prevented me from gaining another wink before the 7:30am appointment. At 7am I whisked her from her warm cocoon to the warm car in the garage, braced for 30 minutes of screaming in morning traffic with no food, no drink before the morning procedure. But she just sat there. Sat there looking out the window. Putting up no fight at all. And that's pretty much how the entire morning went. Smooth as a Slurpee on a warm summer day. Hardly any crying. We even stopped at Target on the way home to fill her post surgery ear drop prescription. If Santa is watching, and we know he is, Lucy is SO going to score BIG on Christmas morning.


Friday, December 08, 2006

Bad Hair

We've officially entered the baby bad hair days of Minnesota winters. We have no snow, but it's plenty cold and the static cling is unmanageable. The hats and hoods, and naps and barrettes and snot and food and static cling are really taking a toll on Lucy's frock. We haven't found a good solution - yet.


















We put up a Christmas tree, and surprisingly, it's still standing. I thought Lucy would dive into the spectacle and wallow around in the tree sap. We've been fairly vigilant at keeping her away. Now she spends part of her day, broadcasting the word NO! at the top of her lungs - like we yell at her and scream NO! every other word all day long. But, this means she can hear, and she's not going deaf from repeated ear infections and fluid build up - good good news. We go to the ENT on Monday to talk about the possibility of tubes. Oh please Mr. Dr. Doc, take pity on us all (especially Lucy) and put tubes in this poor kids ears. She's been much better lately, but that's because she's on antibiotics ALL the time.

To beat the Christmas crowd, we took Lucy to the, um, Mall on Wednesday and got her picture taken with Santa. As you can see in this picture, Lucy is so much happier these days. She was intrigued with Santa and spent most of her time touching his beard. Another successful Santa picture. I am so proud.

Tuesday, November 28, 2006

Walking Turds*

The big news to share is Lucy took her first step. There are other things I'll discuss, like the turd I found today on my kitchen floor, but I'll stick with walking for now. Lucy took her first step yesterday at Grandma and Grandpa's house in Atlanta. And then today at home, she took 2 steps. At this rate, she'll be walking by Christmas. Perfect timing for the destruction of tree ornaments. It will be sad to see the crawling go, as Lucy has the most unique crawl of any child I've seen. It always makes people smile. Someday, when I'm feeling ambitious, I'll post a video of it. For right now, enjoy Grandma and her grandkids.
















The Thanksgiving holiday (hold on, I'll get to the turds, be patient) was complete with more Lucy sicknesses and an expensive trip to CVS. We have new antibiotics, inhalers and new antihistamines to add to her medicine cabinet, but I think she is finally on the mend. I honestly think this poor child has had a recurring ear infection for months and I naively blamed her pain on teething. The guilt.
















And finally, the T-U-R-D. Somehow, not one, but two turds found their way out of Lucy's diaper and onto my kitchen floor today. For all I know, there were more and Lucy gobbled them up thinking it was hamburger she threw on the floor! I am not prepared for this. And if you recall, our kitchen floor camouflages everything, so there may be more. I bought new diapers today, more expensive ones with turd flaps. I really hope they work. I never thought I'd be a person who'd have turds on my floor. My house is CLEAN. I don't do floor turds. I can handle poop, and puke and all that other baby stuff just fine. But random turds landing like land mines on my kitchen floor? Please, please, please don't let my child be one of those kids that rips off her diaper and 'plays' in her poop. Next to a child that doesn't sleep (got that), my biggest fear is a poop player.


*This post is a pre-dedication to the much anticipated potty mouth phase.

JUST IN! I took the time (5 whole minutes) to post a video. Here is Lucy today, Wednesday, walking for the first time behind one of her carts.

Saturday, November 18, 2006

Gallons of Motrin

Teething, teething, like 4 molars teething AND a DOUBLE EAR INFECTION. Poor lil Luce. I need some drinksssssssssssssssssssssssssssssssss.

Monday, November 13, 2006

Bye-Bye

Seems it's been more than 2 weeks since my last pathetic post, which was basically just a picture. I've been busy doing 'consulting' work and traveling back and forth to Atlanta to visit my family. My last gig involved planning an event for a non profit organization I worked for several years ago. The keynote speaker was none other than Al Franken, a fact I think drove my parents almost over the Republican edge (conveniently located in North Fulton County, GA). To my defense, I did not line up Mr. Franken, that was done before my arrival. I just got to work with 'his peeeps'. Unfortunately, I did not have the forethought to take a photo with Al. But, my friend Amy did! When she updates her blog with photos, I'll include the link (for those that care, and interested in reading a much more entertaining blog than mine).

Lucy, oh yeah, her, how could I forget! Still not walking yet, but thinks about it once in awhile when she's not pushing every button she can find in the house. We bought Lucy her first laptop, which is basically a toy that has lots of buttons.














As you can deduct, Lucy LOVES buttons. The phone is especially tempting.














If you ask her what an owl says, she'll give you a big Whoooooooooo. If you ask her what a dog says, she'll give you an equally enthusiastic, whoooooooooooo. She'll finish Old Mac Donald Had A Farm with an Eeeee, Eyeeeee, Eeeee, Eyeeeee...but she hasn't mastered that last ooooooooooooooooh. I think she calls me, mom, Mimi. And she finally (finally) will wave bye-bye, sometimes. I always feel like such a failure when the ladies at the grocery store wave bye to her and she stares them down. They always ask her age, and then finish their own question with something like 8 months?

No lady, she's 14 months!

She just doesn't feel like waving bye-bye right now.

Friday, October 20, 2006

13

We are back to months everyone. 13 months now. In celebration of her 13th month of life, Lucy drank out of a sippy cup. And she picked it up herself and then held it and then DRANK OUT OF IT. Only once or twice has Lucy ever felt she should stoop to the lowly level of holding her own drinking vessel. And that was only because I propped it up for her and convinced myself she was doing it on her own. So she drank out of her own cup, and then we went to the grocery store. That was it for the day. Exciting times.

Monday, October 16, 2006

Day Off

Ken took Lucy to his mom's house on Saturday, for the night. Let me say that again. I had 22.5 hours of time to myself. With no baby. And it was wonderful (thank you Grandma Sue). I went out to a movie, dinner, a party. The store, the farmers market. The house was sparkling. I slept for 8 hours in a row with no interuptions for the first time in over a year. I crammed it all in and the time away was just right. When Ken and Lucy got back on Sunday we went to pick out our pumpkins. The squirrels will love them, eat them, destroy them in a matter of days, but it was still a fun day!



Wednesday, October 11, 2006

My cell phone, it takes pictures!

The snow starts flying today and everyone is all depressed, saying things like, “Sure is cold out there”, and “I’m not ready for winter”, and whatever other generic weather comment you can think of on your own. We all know it will warm up again, the sun will shine and we will still get skip around outside before the bottom really falls out in November. Get another cup of coffee people.

Ah yes, Coff-Ay! Filler up! My play group friends and I decided to meet at the coffee shop today (the weather – it’s BAD) with the play area for tots. Evidently, EVERY other mom in the hood had the same idea because it was MASS CHAOS. At one point, no exaggeration, I counted 20 kids. I’m sure I missed a few due to back hallway toy heists and for fear if I took my eyes off of Lucy for more than three seconds she might become a casualty of war. The most exciting part of the whole event was that I captured one small image on my cell phone camera. And then I emailed to myself. And it worked! I’ve learned nothing new in the past year that doesn’t have to do with babies. I am quite proud of myself for figuring out the features of my 1.5 year old cell phone, despite the fact I wasted away half of a precious baby nap in the process.

This is Lucy and her pal Oscar. We were the first to arrive, thus were able to stake out our territory. You can’t see it in this picture, but you have to believe me. The numbers were impressive. Much more so than the photo.

Saturday, September 30, 2006

Growing

Living with a one year old has been relatively good. That's what I seem to remember at the moment, since she's sleeping and I have some time to myself. No teeth coming in, everyone is healthy and the weather isn't bad. I did take her off Zyrtec for a week and she's been sleeping through the night - which of course she won't now because I've acknowledged the bliss. I'm fairly certain there is a direct link between the lack of Zyrtec and the understanding that humans sleep through the night. The saddest part of this post is that I had to break down and give her some tonight, although I cut the dosage in half. She's scratching a lot, and some of her rashes are starting to appear. Those red circles under her eyes have returned too. A woman in a store today told me she looked tired. I told her she wasn't tired, she just has allergies, and she felt horrible and apologized and made up some story about how everyone thinks her son is tired all the time too because his eyes slant?? I'm not even going there.

And I did forget that she is on some sort of liquid protest. At one point this week, she drank 1 oz. in a 24 hour period. I have every type of 'sippy cup' known to mothers, and yet she refuses to drink out of any of them. We are back to bottles in front of the TV and in the car seat. On a good day now, she'll drink almost 10 oz. But the food this kid is putting down on a daily basis - it's impressive. Remind me of this when she won't eat next week.

Other than sleeping through the night and not drinking, Lucy has been very busy flipping through her books, playing with dolls and pushing carts and baskets around the abode. The cuteness factor, at times, is unbearable. As is our groovy couch!

Tuesday, September 19, 2006

Happy 1st Birthday Lucy!

Today is Lucy's real first birthday. If it seems like we've been celebrating for over a month, we have! This weekend we had another gathering with a few friends and Lucy got another birthday cake, sans eggs and dairy. She had no problem consuming large amounts of frosting.
















Lucy's second day as a one year old, today, Setember 20th, started at 4:30am. She wouldn't go back to sleep, so I took her into the family room to crawl around and do whatever you do with a kid at 4:30am. Immediately, Lucy crawled over to the DVD cabinet and started pounding, and I really mean pounding on the doors. She wanted to watch Baby Einstein at 4:30am. What the? How did this happen? Then, after we fell back asleep after 6am, the neighbors woke us up at 7, building their new garage. I tried to make coffee, but forgot to put in a filter. Lucy refused to drink anything until noon, which equals bad mood. We went to the Dr. for Lucy's 12 month appointment, where she had to get a finger prick and a shot. The finger prick bandaid came off (in her mouth) in the exam room. I didn't notice, but the doctor did and fished it out of her mouth. Lucy then bled all over my white shirt. The shot capped the rest of the day off with a fever and less than desirable mood. But here is the good news. NO MORE FORMULA! I don't have to feed my child powder out of a can anymore! Day three and soy milk, here we come!

Saturday, September 16, 2006

Potty mouth

Ken, left in charge of Lucy, quickly realizes how fast a baby can find the simplest of pleasures in the most mundane everyday items. Like eating tampons.














Things are spiraling out of control.




















She even climbed an entire flight of stairs this evening (with a spotter), in approximately 1 minute.

Wednesday, September 13, 2006

Getting My Drool-On

If this line of drool isn't a sign your baby is teething, maybe I should have considered that possibility when she was up for 4 hours in the middle of the night. As a result, the consumption of coffee reached an all time high today.















In other developments, she can climb stairs! Concrete ones at that!

Friday, September 01, 2006

Eleven and a half months

Lucy is more than 11 months old now, coming up on the big 12! Back when I was younger and single and childless and ignorant I used to ask people how old their kids were and they'd tell me something like 1,456 months. I'd roll my eyes internally and think, damnit, just tell me how many years because I hate math, especially dividing by 12 and carrying those extra numbers and why does it really matter anyway, just tell me 2 or 3 or 5 or whatever! But now I know. Everyone one of those months is earned and matter and are full of so many firsts and important learnings. Crawling, teething (and no one every fully prepared me for this milestone), disovering doors - slamming doors, standing up, throwing food, grinding teeth, snorting glees of hello and the list goes on. If you just said she's 1 or 2, you'd feel like you were cheating your child of hard earned life lessons.

We celebrated Lucy's 'first birthday' a month early with family. My parents were in town from Georgia and it seemed like the best time to get all the family together for the big celebration. My mom came up with the brillant idea of a rice crispy treat cake for Lucy, since she can't consume most of the ingredients in a real cake.

All going well, mom putting fire in front of baby.













Mom convinced she'll 'figure it out' and blow out the candle herself.













Quickly blow it out, but not in time. Baby's tender hand covering the flame burning her flesh.













Grandpa brushing the tears of pain away.













This is a might fine cake, even though my mother let me burn myself to get it.













The big first birthay is September 19, 2006. That's when she'll be 12 months old, and I'll say she's one year old for just that one month. After that, it's back to number 13.

Thursday, August 10, 2006

Stomach Sleeper

A night nanny would still be nice, but I guess I'm just getting used to being up for 2 hours in the middle of the night. How in the world I got a child that doesn't like to sleep is truly a medical mystery. The wakings are getting shorter, like last night, only one. But I still lay awake for what seems forever waiting for the other shoe to drop.

So many firsts and new adventures it's hard to keep them all straight. Lucy's crawling like a semi normal baby now - forward. But she still drags one foot underneath her, and I've resorted to putting a sock on that foot to help with the scab that has formed on her ankle. Those front teeth are really starting to show now, and it looks like she'll have a nice big gaping hole between them.

We found out Lucy is allergic to anything that tastes good, so it's up to me from here on out how to feed a child who can't eat dairy, eggs, soy, nuts or peanuts.

This was going to be a detailed post, but Lucy has woken up in the middle of her nap, sitting up of course, screaming her exhausted head off.

Here's a photo of Lucy sleeping, for the first time ever on her stomach. That lasted for only about 15 minutes, but it was still cute.

Monday, August 07, 2006

I need a night nanny

No picture of Lucy today. It's 3:30 am and I'm tired and can't get to the photos right now. If there were a photo posted here, it would be of Lucy sitting up in her crib (note, new skill), screaming her head off. Ken and I would be standing in the corner unsure of what to do.

Lucy is teething, she has a cold (and so do I), and now she's figured out she can actually sit up on her own in her crib - at any hour of the night, all night long. It's been a sleepless weekend. Last night I was up with her for 2 hours in the wee morning hours.

Update - I think she fell asleep. I'm outta here.

Wednesday, July 26, 2006

Miss Sassy

Look who pulled herself up onto the dishwasher today. Ken will be so excited! He just can't wait for Lucy to start climbing into the dishwasher and sitting on top of the door.

Monday, July 24, 2006

5:30 am Update

I bought some shades for Lucy's windows that block out the sun. These are in addition to her other shades. I've created a virtual cave, and it's working!!!! This is the first time any of that stupid advice on the web and in the books has actually worked. Now, instead of Lucy waking everyday cranked up at 5:30am, she sleeps until at least 6:30, and sometimes even 7:30! So don't call me at 5:30 anymore. But, if you are up in the middle of the night, feel free, because we still haven't been able to correct that baby problem.

Now, is it just me, or does it look like Lucy's friend Andre, is, uhm, sharing something with her?

Wednesday, July 19, 2006

Lucy's 10 month birthday 7/19/06

Summer is flying by up here, complete with 100 degree days, car break downs and summer art classes.

Lucy is learning to like the beach, and since we live in the land of 10,000 lakes, there are plenty of them to choose from. As long as the water is warm, Lucy is content to sit at the waters edge and play. So far, no sand eating contests. I'm thankful for that since I've read it looks the same coming out as it does going in.




















My car broke down on the SIDE OF THE HIGHWAY last weekend as I was coming home from a relaxing evening with friends, AT 11:30 PM. It's a long story and I will spare you most of the unimportant details. The repair job was $2000. Very important detail - all the repairs were covered under a recall notice! Very small detail - we got that recall notice two weeks after Lucy was born and just hadn't gotten around to it yet.

I just finished taking a mosaic art class to learn a new technique. It was so fun to use my creative energy for something besides figuring out new ways to contain ever growing piles of poop in dirty diapers. Here's a photo of what I made:
















Lucy is very close to learning to crawl. It's painful to watch the process. I keep showing her how it all looks, but she doesn't believe me. This must be my first lesson in learning to back off and let the poor child figure it out on her own. And in case you are wondering or care or are ever up at 5:30am and need to get a hold of someone...Lucy STILL wakes up just about every night, and at 5:30am. It's so totally unreasonable.

Wednesday, July 12, 2006

New Brush

Heeding the wise advice of Lucy's friend Elizabeth, Lucy is now 100% on board with brushing her teeth every night. The only problem is that tooth on the top, is no longer around? I don't know where it went, or what to do about it, but I can't see it anymore. The rash around Lucy's mouth leads me to believe the teeth are festering in there somewhere, but since she won't let me put my fingers in her mouth (but she's totally okay with putting her fingers in MY mouth), I can't feel them either.



Thursday, July 06, 2006

Tuesday, June 27, 2006

Sorry Wisconsin, I'm not a Cheese Head

Let’s start this post off with a cute little photo of Lucy - my latest favorite as a matter of fact.















We went up to Ely, Minnesota to visit with friends (thus the reason I haven't posted anything in a few weeks). Lucy didn’t care much for her life vest, so that excluded any and all water events. Other than that, she was a little angel the entire time.

Now, onto my latest topic of obsession: Baby Allergies and more specifically, the allergies of my baby.

Lucy has been suffering from allergies, but since the introduction of Zyrtec into her diet, she is a different (much happier) being. The eye rubbing has diminished, the purple circles under her eyes are just about gone, and that rash she’s had on the trunk of her body, PRETTY MUCH HER ENTIRE LIFE, has miraculously disappeared. All this talk that babies can’t have allergies until their 2 years old is a crock. I have living proof that they can and do. I know she is allergic to dairy, and I’ve long suspected she’s allergic to soy (but she drinks soy formula because she can’t drink the dairy, and the non dairy, non soy formula we discovered when she was 7 months old tastes like burnt sour milk, so soy formula it unfortunately is). Add spring time environmental allergies, a little teething, and wow, you’ve got yourself one pissed off baby. I (heart) Zyrtec.

Yesterday she had her 9 month well baby visit. The visit with Dr. Doc was short and sweet, capped off with only one little shot, versus the 4 she had been getting at each visit. Dr. Doc told me to go ahead and give Lucy some cheese or yogurt, to which I quickly questioned, since we suspect she is allergic to dairy. She told me she would probably be fine, since those types of dairy have been processed (and since when is this a good thing), unlike milk. In the back of my mind, I knew this didn’t sound like a fun thing to do, but, I hung my thoughts on the reliable doctor-told-me-so excuse. How quickly I forgot that Dr. Doc would not be in the house to assist me should this eating experiment go wrong.

Lucy snarfed down that cheese faster than I’ve seen her eat anything as of yet. Dinner was a hit! We found something Lucy liked! Her body must know what she can and can not eat!

Fast forward 1 hour later.

Lucy pukes all over herself – hair, pj’s, and our lovely white turned dirty white rug. Hives start to appear on her back and shoulders. She’s lethargic, obviously unhappy and laying in her bed moaning. I call the doctor hotline, the very nice triage nurse asks me questions all while Lucy is screaming into the phone. She decides it’s NOT the shot she got earlier in the day, but not quite sure if it is the cheese. I KNOW it’s the cheese, but am rest assured she’ll be okay. She even tells me to feed her yogurt next time instead of cheese, because that might be okay. Yeah, like I’m EVER feeding her dairy again? Lucy vomits again, this time getting me again and the couch. I call Ken and tell him to get his overtime working ass home.

It seems as soon as she got all that nasty cheese out of her system, she was fine. One laundry basket full of clothes, towels and baby pajamas, one stained couch and two puke puddles on the rug later, all is back to normal.

No Diary for you miss Lucy. And all I can think of, what would this little episode have been like had she not been on Zyrtec (an antihistamine), already? Once again. I (heart) Zyrtec.

Thursday, June 15, 2006

New Revised Definition of a Hike

Now that we are done with the house work, we have time for fun things, like spending 3 hours spreading mulch all in and around our yard. To celebrate the completion of another project, we took off the afternoon and went hiking. As usual, Lucy was a champ and loved every minute of the hike. She wore herself out and actually fell asleep while drinking her bottle before bed. Those of you who have ever been around during bedtime know the rarity and joyousness of this small gift.

Back by popular demand - more photos of Lucy!


Lucy in motion




Monday, June 12, 2006

I'm gonna get you suckas

In the beginning...


The moment you all (mom and dad) have been waiting for...the final unveiling of the newly painted house (from 4 angles, no less). But first, let's look back just a wee bit on that day we first bought this house, way back in April of 2004. Whenever I see that picture of us standing next to the 'for sale' sign, I just think - ignorant suckers. We had no idea the mess we had just bought. Look at those smiles on our faces. Just be glad I didn't have a blog way back then, because it would be full of blood, sweat and tearful stories. This house has been completely renovated - that includes 4 bedrooms, 2 bathrooms, 1 kitchen and everything else in between. And when I say everything, I mean EVERYTHING. We are 'done' for now. No more big projects, no more PAINTING. We've probably gone through about 50 gallons of paint on this beast. The 2 main floors are completed, as well as the outside. We'll do some more landscaping here and there, and someday, and that someday isn't soon, we'll finish the basement. But for now, we will enjoy the fruits of all our labor on the back porch and enjoy the summer (and fall and winter and spring) away.

Drum roll....
















Shutters custom ordered by me, custom constructed by Ken.

















That's our garage. I know, it looks like a play house, but we can actually fit 2 cars and all of our 'stuff' in there.

















Our garden is on the left. That's the porch where you'll find us drunk.

















And that's just the outside. The inside is full of ghastly before and stunning after photos too!