Talking 'Bout My Generations

In the sermon yesterday, the preacher was talking about leaving a legacy. He asked everyone that knew the names of their parents to stand up. Then he said if you knew the names of all four grandparents, to remain standing. Quite a few people sat down. Then he said if you knew the names of all eight great-grandparents to reamain standing. There were maybe 10 of us that were still standing in a room of around 300 people. I was actually pretty surprised. I figured there would be a lot more than that.

Of course, once we sat down, I started running through the names and couldn't remember two. I knew I knew them, and finally remembered them after spending the rest of the sermon thinking about it. I even know most of the maiden names and some middle names. I have a one track mind and it was set on auto pilot; I couldn't pull it back to the sermon. And then I started going through Chris' great-grandparents and could name all of his maternal ones, but couldn't quite remember the paternal ones. I got home and quickly looked them up and felt much better.

Anyway...... the point of the sermon (I think) was that in four generations, even your own family probably won't even know your name. It's important to make sure what you believed in is passed on after your gone. Your legacy is passed on through those that you bring to Christ. At least that's what I got out of it. Of course, during class, we always have a person from the praise team come and lead songs with the kids and she asked "What word did all of the songs we sang have in them and what did Carl preach about this morning?" I was like, "uh, I dunno". And the answer was joy, so maybe I totally missed the point of that sermon.

I'm really interested in my genealogy. I don't know why, but after having my own child I see such value in remembering the past. I think that's why I love that Clara has two of her great-grandmother's names. I hope that she wants to know all about them once she's older. If we do have more children, I want them all to have family names somewhere in their name. I also love the idea of passing things on and having traditions and stories to share with the next generation. I love that Chris' mom has started a blog. In the short couple of weeks she's written, I've already learned things about her that I didn't know. Now if I could just get my mom on here.

On my dad's side of the family, there was a tradition of naming children with double initials for a couple of generations. I believe my great-grandfather and his siblings, as well as my grandfather and his all have double initials. My great-grandfather was Lemuel Lamar and my grandpa was Vernon Verome. It kinda ended there, but my name is Kelsey Kristine and I have a couple of cousins with double initials. If we have a child that we can't think of a good family name for, I'd like to at least do the initial thing.

Clara's Room

I've wanted to take pictures of Clara's nursery for awhile now, but it's always been too messy when I think about it. Well I finally remembered today and since we're toying with the notion of turning her crib into a bed, and getting rid of the changing table since she's too long for it, I thought I'd better get it done. It will soon be a little girls room, not a nursery. Sniff sniff.

I was never really interested in the themed bedding I saw when I was expecting, so I decided on this pretty floral set and then made her room kind of a garden theme, with butterflies, bunnies and frogs. It kind of has a shabby chic thing going. Then after we moved here, I found a really cute book in the bargain bin at Barnes and Noble on stenciling kids rooms and it came with the stencils included. I fell in love with the sheep and thought it would look great in her room. It strays from the garden theme a bit, but not too far. I absolutely love her rocking lamb; it was her birthday gift from us.

I bought the letters above her crib from a company online. They were very reasonbly priced and you could choose from lots of different fonts, sizes and thinknesses. I painted them and added the ribbon myself. I also hung a few butterflies from the ceiling instead of buying a mobile.

This wall is my main dilemma in child proofing her room prior to getting the crib out. I've got to figure out a place to put her storybooks so she can't get her grubby hands on them and there are some breakable things I need to move, but where?

The shelf above her changing table holds a couple of my old dolls. The blue dress was a doll dress made by my grandmother and she also made the sock monkey. There are a couple of my My Little Ponies and a paperback Charlotte's Web that was the first "big kid" book I read.

I painted the walls and did the stenciling back in September. I was very pleased with the way it turned out, but it took FOR-EVER. Let me assure you, stenciling is not for the faint of heart. But if you stick with it and really take your time, it looks wonderful.

And here's Daddy and Clara giving Mommy a big hug.

First Sick Night

It finally happened. After almost 20 months on this earth, Clara kept me up for the first time ever because of sickness a few nights ago. The girl has had her share of head colds and the ever popular teething episodes, but they never kept me up. I've had to enter her room to soothe, comfort, medicate or nurse on plenty of occasions, but she's always just gone back to sleep.

Monday night was different though. I went into her room around 12:30 because she was crying and was coughing ever so slightly. I started rocking her when she coughed again, this time spewing clear throw up looking junk all over my shirt. I put her back down thinking she'd go back to sleep. Nope. Two shirts, one bath, two sheet changes, two pajama changes and two blankets later, we were chilling out on the couch having a snack and drink to calm our tummy, watching Bugs Bunny. I was finally able to get her back to sleep around 4:00 and she was up and at 'em at 7:30. Ugh.

I'm guessing she just became nauseated from all the drainage and saliva she's been swallowing. She's been coughing just a little since then, but has slept just fine the past few nights. Good thing, cause that was so not fun. I was beat the next day. I can't even imagine dealing with a truly sick child.

Fam

My mom, dad and sister came for a short visit this week. They got here Tuesday and left this morning. It either rained or threatened to rain every day so we didn't get out quite as much as we would've liked.


Wednesday morning, Clara hitched a ride with Bia and Aunt Linsey to go shopping while Chris and I headed up to Huntsville. We are now the pround owners of only one house, not two! It is nice to have that second mortgage gone; I feel a lot more secure with only one house, that's for sure. I can't complain, though. We were very blessed this past year with the way everything went with our move. We were a little concerned about it taking a long time to sell our house in Huntsville, but then some friends from church heard we were selling. They came out and took a look and it was just what they were looking for.


We did a lease to own, and a year later, we sat down and closed on our house. They were the perfect renters. On time, no problems whatsoever and they even made a few upgrades this past year. Couldn't have asked for better renters. We hadn't really talked much this past year, so it was nice to chat with them at the closing. They have twin girls that are four months older than Clara so we got to swap stories about what the kiddos are up to. It took forever to finish up though. After all papers were signed, the agent went to fax it to their lender and it took about an hour for them to review it. So we got to talk for a long time.


Nice part about the whole deal was that since it was a private sale, there were no real estate agents to pay on either end, so we made a little more than we would've otherwise and that's always nice.


Wednesday evening, my mom and dad headed to Rosenberg to spend the night with my aunt and uncle. Linsey stayed here and we went to Market Street for some dinner and some fountain. Clara dove right in this time. She wasn't scared at all; every other time she's been slightly leery of the water. I guess maybe the extra time she's been spending in the pool is paying off. She was even putting her face directly over the holes, waiting to be sprayed in the face. She got it right in the face a couple of times.

The next day, Linsey, Clara and I headed to Mercer Arboretum. It was overcast, so it wasn't just sweltering hot. Clara got another ant bite on her toe that turned her whole toe red and made it swell and she got a couple of real good mosquito bites also. (This ant bite looked weird. The next day, instead of having a white head like most do, it was dark red and looked like a blood blister.) Anyway, we saw a couple of really big spiders and lots of pretty na-na's (flowers).

Strolling with Aunt Linsey

Being uncooperative for a picture with Mommy

Right as we were finishing up and heading over to the library for story time, it started raining hard. At story time, Clara got to play with bubbles and blocks. During the bubble blowing frenzy, kids everywhere were rubbing their eyes, crying because the bubbles were popping in their eyes. It was great fun. Linsey sat in the wrong chair though; one of the bubble blowing moms kept flinging soap all over her. It was still raining when we left and it kept raining throughout the day.

Clara and Aunt Linsey at story time

Standing on her watermelon carpet square

That evening, we went to Cheesecake Factory after dinner for some cheesecake. Yummy. Clara got to eat a little cheesecake, but mostly got whipped cream off of ours. I brought little cookies with me, so she quickly figured out how to dip her cookie in the whipped cream and that kept her occupied until she ran out of cookies. Then she decided that pretty much anything tastes better dipped in whipped cream, so she dipped her sippy cup and ate it off of the bottom. She really is a smart cookie.


Friday, we had planned on going to the zoo, but it rained all morning, so we all slept in (except for Chris who had to work). Clara didn't wake up until 9:00! She never sleeps that late. The girls headed to Old Town Spring when it let up late in the morning. We didn't stay too long though because Clara started melting down.

Clara and Bia at Old Town Spring

And that's about all we did. Not too exciting I suppose. The rain really did put a damper on things. Good thing Bia and Aunt Linsey LOVE to shop, because you can always browse racks of clothing while the rain pours down outside, although that's not too exciting for PawPaw. Clara enjoyed her time with everyone and was able to call them all by their names. She thoroughly enjoyed eating Aunt Linsey's gummy bears. (Aunt Linsey couldn't resist the way Clara looked up at her and said "Peas" over and over and over. What a sucker.) She loved all the attention. She even crawled up in PawPaw's lap yesterday morning and laid there for about 15 minutes motionless while we watched The Princess Bride. She never sits still in our laps for that long. I guess there's just something about your PawPaw that makes it better.

Can't wait for the next visit.

Night Terrors

Looks like Clara might be experiencing night terrors. She's had 2 episodes now that I thought were just nightmares. I went looking up what might be causing them and discovered that they're probably night terrors instead of nightmares.

Night terrors, although they sound awful, aren't as bad as nightmares, for the kids at least. The difference between the two are with nightmares, they wake up and are scared, they want to be comforted and can remember the dream. With night terrors, they aren't really awake when they're screaming or thrashing. Their eyes may be open and they may even talk or yell, sometimes saying mean things they normally wouldn't. They are in a deeper sleep than when you have nightmares, so it's really hard to awaken them and I found out you aren't supposed to try. You just keep an eye out to make sure they don't get hurt or fall out of bed. Once it's over, they roll over and go back to sleep. They aren't scared and don't remember it. That's why I said it's easy on the kids, but it's pretty painful to watch.

They usually happen in the first part of the night, although her first one was around 6:30 am on Saturday. She's been waking up around that time a lot lately, but usually I let her cry for a couple of minutes and she goes back to sleep. Well, Saturday her cries were a little more intense. I went in to her and she was doing the crying where she can't catch her breath, you know the one that usually happens when they've been crying for a long time? Only she had only been crying for a minute or two.

When I picked her up to console her, she didn't seem to calm down, so I brought her to bed. The instant I placed her on the bed, she let out a blood curdling scream and was arching her back. It was pretty scary. I picked her back up but she still wouldn't calm down. I got her calmed a little bit and went to lay down with her on my chest and she did the same thing. She wouldn't let me sit in the rocker with her either, and talking and singing didn't help. She only calmed down after about 10 minutes of walking around with her. I think she probably wasn't awake, but I didn't really notice because she seemed awake. I was able to put her back down and she went to sleep.

I didn't think too much of it until she did it again last night. She had been asleep for an hour or so when the screaming started. Chris went in first and said she was lying there, eyes closed. He picked her up and she got worse. I came in a few minutes later and she was even more frantic. We figured out she wasn't awake, so thinking she was having a nightmare, we tried to wake her. It only seemed to make it worse, and it wasn't working. It was like she was in a trance. We turned on lights, had her sitting up, were talking loudly, turned up the music in her room, brought a dog in. Eventually she seemed more aware and seemed a little confused, but calmed down almost immediately. I then rocked her back to sleep and she went back down just fine.

It was so hard to watch her, I was almost crying myself. And after reading that you should just let them come out of it without consoling or holding, that's not gonna be fun. I read that it just makes it worse, which was definitely the case with Clara.

From my reading, it looks like only about 5% of kids experience them and most have them when they haven't gotten enough sleep. Either missing a nap or getting to bed late. Clara did in fact have a late night last night and was up probably 3 hours past her bedtime, though I don't think that was the case on Friday night.

At any rate, they're no cause for alarm and they're something she'll probably grow out of within a few years. Lets just hope they don't continue at this current rate, for Mommy and Daddy's sake.


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On a more cheerful note, Clara had her first ice cream cone last night.

As Promised

Here are the mullet pictures I promised

Exhibit A- side view

Exhibit B- business up front

Exhibit C- party in the back

Exhibit D- the comb over

We eargerly await the opinions of the masses.

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Clara had a friend from church over to play this morning in the back yard. Wesley is a few months Clara's junior. They were cute; they pretty much ignored each other most of the time and did their own thing. They would occasionally jabber something to the other or laugh in the other's general direction, but were content to just play side by side.

Here are a few pictures from our swimming excursion this evening. She's loving the pool now that she's figured out how to balance in her tube. And we're loving it too now that she's not scared.

Story Time Fun

As you can see, I forgot to take a picture of the infamous mullet. I remembered after Chris put her to bed. Eventually I'll get a pic.

We went to story time at the library today. Clara is very comfortable there now and walks in like she owns the place. This morning she headed straight over to a grandma on the floor with her granddaughter and proceeded to pick up the baby doll lying next to her. I thought for sure a meltdown would ensue, but I had her give the baby a hug and then she kissed her and she handed her back to her mother. Sweet. Crisis averted.

After the stories, the librarian poured out blocks all over the floor for the kiddies to play with. Clara played for awhile, but then caught sight of something more interesting than blocks. She made her way all the way around the circle, stood behind the smallest kid there, who looked to be around a year old, and pointed to him and said "Baby", over and over. (Nevermind that her was just about her same size.) Then she bent over at the waist, stretched her arms wide and said "Ahhhhhhhhh". This is the air hug that she's developed that allows her to "hug" just about anything. Unsuspecting toddlers, squirrels, birds, frogs, spiders, doesn't matter how big or small. Anything can be air hugged. I'm sure the other mothers were wondering what exactly is wrong with my child.

Then Clara started getting a little ancy and I knew it was about time to leave. I was sitting behind her and had turned around for a split second when she started crying. When I turned back around, a mom was apologizing to me. I'm like, "for what?" And she said that her son had hit her. But he was several feet away from her, across the block pile. I was slightly confused, but then she said he had thrown a block at her. Sure enough, I look and the block had hit her right under her eye. She was NOT happy. It took awhile to calm her down. I don't know what these blocks are called, but they're made out of plastic and are covered with raised "spikes", so you build with them by pushing the pieces together in endless ways. They sorta work like velcro. I know that description makes no sense at all, even I can't picture what I'm describing.

Anyway, if you click on this next picture, you can kinda see where he got her. Just to the right of her nose there are 2 horizontal lines of little circular indentions. The redness had gone away by this time, but he must've hit her pretty hard to leave indentions.



Here's another one outside of the library. Notice her owies. The girl just cannot seem to stay on two feet. She now thinks that owie means knee.



And just one more little Clara story and I'll call it a night. I get out the umbrella today and she starts beating her chest saying "oo oo oo". I tell her "No, this is an um-bre-lla". She again says "oo oo oo". I say "No, not gorilla". She says "oo oo oo". A gorilla says "oo oo oo", I tell her. "An umbrella doesn't say anything". She says "oo oo oo". I say "Forget it". Who knew gorilla and umbrella sounded so similar?

Randomness and Another Poll

Sorry for the lack of posting. No excuses really, just lazy. So this is a catch up post on the goings on in the Judd house. The big news is that we've (re)started potty training. I started on Monday and she finally went on the potty for the first time this afternoon. She went a second time a few minutes later. I guess she was full. I had finally given up trying to get her to the potty on time, so she's been running around naked yesterday and today so I can catch her right when she starts going and throw her on the potty. It does mean I have puddles to clean up, but hey, I have 3 dogs; I'm used to cleaning up puddles. We'll see how it goes this time. If anything, she's thoroughly enjoying nakie time.

We went swimming last night and Clara seemed a little unsure of the water again, so we decided we should go for a few minutes every day or two so she doesn't forget how much fun it is. Chris took her again tonight and she had lots of fun. She did a lot better and was much braver this time, so I think we will keep it up.

I finally finished the letters in Clara's playroom. I decided to stain them. They turned out cute, but I'm not sure how much I like them just yet. I need to finish painting the last wall and get some curtains hung and I think it will pull everything together. Then I can decide whether or not I like 'em. Thanks to those who offered their opinion.

Hmm. What else? Oh, we're getting really close to closing on our Huntsville house. Hopefully it will happen in the next week. Woohoo!

Oh, and it's finally stopped raining here. Well, it's raining right now, but hasn't in the last few days. We have a really bad fire ant problem in our yard and I bought ant killer like a month ago but I haven't been able to put it out because you aren't supposed to do it before rain. I was finally able to do it a few days ago, but haven't wanted to let Clara play outside because, well, now there's ant poison in the grass. I watered this evening and it's raining right now, so I think we'll finally be able to go play outside tomorrow. It's only been about a month since we've played in the yard.

This morning, we met up with Erin, Becky and Leah for our cheap movie of the week, Flushed Away. I thought it was only so-so and Clara wholeheartedly agreed. She only made it a few minutes before she got bored. Even popcorn couldn't keep her attention this time. Actually, I think she woke up on the wrong side of the crib this morning, cause she wasn't in the bestest mood today.

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Alright, I need more opinions. The subject this time around: the fate of Clara's mullet. I probably should post pictures so you get the full effect of the mullet (for those of you who haven't seen it up close and personal as of late). It really is fascinating how portions of her hair HAVE NOT GROWN AT ALL! I mean, it's been 19 months. Come on! How is that even possible?

So, I have a dilemma. Here are my options. Do I cut it off, going back to square one?

Pros: Death of the mullet.
Cons: What do I do with her hair at this point? She doesn't like headbands and the little bows still don't stay in very well. That leaves us with boring old nothing. Also, I don't like the idea of her not getting used to having her hair messed with. I can see starting to brush it into pigtails at the age of 3 being very traumatic and not much fun for me either.

Or do I cut only the most mullutenous part off?

Pros: I could leave enough for itty bitty pigtails.
Cons: I would still be cutting off hair that she's worked so hard for and I've waited so long for.

Or, last but not least, leave good enough alone?

Pros: Ok, her pigtails are pretty darn cute, when she leaves them in. Plus, the cheapskate in me prefers not to spend money on a haircut.
Cons: She is going to hate me when she's older and looks back at pictures of herself. She will truly be horrified that I let her out of the house with that mullet. I would. Of course, it will be all my fault, not her Daddy's, even though it's her Daddy that wants to leave her hair like it is. But we all know that won't matter. It'll still be my fault.

If you'd like to wait to post your opinion until you see Exibit A, I will try to take a good picture tomorrow.

Until then....

4th of July

I hope everyone had a nice holiday yesterday. We headed out early to the parade in The Woodlands. The rain miraculously stayed at bay until the parade was over. Daddy showed Clara how to wave her flag to everyone in the parade and she thoroughly enjoyed seeing all the balloons, bubbles, dogs and bicycles.

Clara's first tattoo. Sorry Grandma's.

After the parade, we went to our weekly movie, but this time Daddy got to come with us! We saw Barnyard and Clara loved seeing all of the animals. Then, we went over to Brandon and Erin's house for dinner and a game of Imaginiff. And what kind of friend would Clara be if she didn't talk her best bud into getting a matching tattoo? Friends don't let friends remain tattooless.

Say "cheese" Clara

Silly girls

Snow Cone

Apparently, this walrus and his bucket have gained internet fame. For some strange reason, these pictures we took tonight of Clara reminded Chris of it, so he made this cute collage. I don't know why that walrus is so funny, but he is. You may need to click on the picture if you can't read it.

Everytime I look at it, it cracks me up. How did the human race function before the internet? Seriously.

Hope everyone has a safe and enjoyable 4th!

Play Food

Clara has become very interested in pretend play, so we bought her some play food this weekend. Instead of eating her food though, she began playing with it in a very unconventional manner. Daddy put one piece of food down her dress and that did it. She loved putting the food in and out, in and out, all the while, Chris and I were cracking up.

In this video, I'm trying really hard not to laugh too hard so as not to disturb her play. Please ignore the hairdo; her pigtails normally don't make it 'til the end of the day.