Saturday, February 18, 2012

Presidents and Paci Fairy Weekend

Let's talk about Eli and his love of all things Pacifier related.  This kid was in love with his pacifier from the start.  His sister had the love too.  She had hers until just after her 4th birthday, but that's a whole 'nother story.  But Eli's devotion had an extra twist because he needed one in his mouth and one for EACH hand.  And the ones in his hands had to be fluffy.  This took me a while to understand, because when I tell you what it means, you are going to gag.  Fluffy meant they had to be covered in fuzz/dust/lint/nastiness.  He would RUB the pacifiers onto linty things like sheets and stuffed animals to attain his desired fluffiness.  These were most often, but not always, saved for his hands.  At times, he would actually put the fluffy pacifiers into his mouth by accident, AND HE DIDN'T CARE.  If I washed the fluffy paci's he would sob and cry and be almost inconsolable.  My kids are very unique.

So, it was time to bid the paci's farewell, all five of them, even the fluffy ones.  We had restricted their use to naps and night, but enough was enough.  The paci fairy came for Lucy, so the tradition had been established.  We talked about the paci fairy for weeks and months and prepped our fragile child accordingly.  We put them all in the special box and Eli placed them in the mailbox right before bed.  Our fairy uses the mailbox system.





Bedtime was eerily easy (I had intentionally skipped his nap and ran him into the ground for 2 hours at the park).  I'm not even sure if he mentioned the pacifiers once.  He went to sleep and that was that.

At 1am when he woke up crying and barking like a dog.  There were a few mentions of the pacifiers, but more importantly the poor child had developed croup.  We dosed him with Motrin, brought out the humidifier and calmed him down rather quickly.

Georgia Power stopped by the electrical pole in our front yard from about 1:30 - 2:30 am, because well, that how things happen around here.  There was plenty of loud engine noise and excessive running of thing-a-ma-jiggers going up and down to adjust something important.  That was enjoyable.

And then Eli woke up at the not uncommon hour of 5:45am.

We went to the mailbox to see if the fairy had taken the pacifiers and we found this on the front porch!


(It's a chair that has a cover and it spins around.  It's the only thing this child has recently shown any interest in having.  He never asks for anything and since Lucy seems to get 'so much', the fairy took pity on the poor kid).  Lucy wanted to know how that tiny little fairy could carry something SO big.  

And that was that.  There has not been ONE mention of those pesky pacifiers since.  All the fretting and worrying was for NOTHING.  If you learn anything from this long and drawn out entry, it's simply, Do It. Take them away.

For something to do during the day today, we (I) painted Lucy's entire room Pepto Bismal pink.  She was very adamant about the color.  While I was working, Lucy laid in the middle of the room on her bed (all her furniture was pushed to the middle) and played video games, read books, talked to me, and in general, was remarkably unphased by the big change going on all around her.  


The theme of the room is pink, with NO flowers, butterflies or anything girly (except for, of course, the overwhelming color of pink EVERYWHERE).  Stay tuned for pictures of planets, and things related to science, upon request.  She even gives me interior decorating challenges.  

Eli rounded out the day with a temp of 103.5 and creating a bit of late day worry for his spry and well rested parents.  The fever came down and he showed interest in puzzles, so it was agreed upon by all friends (and the on-call nurse), that we did not need to take him to urgent care.  Because a weekend isn't really a weekend around here without a visit.  We have two more days left of this long and luxurious weekend, so there's still hope.

Tuesday, January 03, 2012

Clearwater Marine Aquarium

For Christmas this year, we gave Lucy the experience of wading with the dolphins at the aquarium featured in the movie, Dolphin Tale.  She saw this movie in the theater and begged daily to meet Winter, the star.  We watched the webcams and read the book.  She could rattle off details about bottle nosed dolphins and she always wanted to know how long it would take to get to Clearwater Beach, Florida. 

Turns out even from Atlanta, it's a long day of driving.  Especially with a 3 year old brother.

Anyone can wade with the dolphin, for the right price, of course.  On this day, you should note it was very cold, high 40's, with a wicked wind.  We dug deep for our Minnesota roots and donned our wetsuits.  Most of the time I think Lucy was completely overwhelmed with the fact that she was actually touching and playing with a dolphin.  We bought lots of schwag to remember the experience-- tshirts, bags, mugs, bookmarks.  Because Lucy loves STUFF and she's a marketing executives dream. 

We were in the same tank as Winter, but we played with her friend named Panama.  Turns out, Winter doesn't do the shows, as she's in fairly high demand.  She also can't do most of the tricks, because of her tail amputation.  Panama was very sweet and at one point even dosed off as we rubbed her tummy.  The trainer had to wake her up to continue the show.  We also had a huge crowd gathered around the tank, maybe 100 people.  There was so much to take in and experience.

Here are the best shots of the day!
















Being the little brother is really tough sometimes.