Now I Know My ABC's

We tried to get Clara to say her ABC's a couple of months ago, but she got bored around D, so we laid off for awhile. We asked her again a couple of days ago and she surprised me and repeated all of them. She's a little busy doing her own thing in this video, but it's still seriously cute hearing her repeat them.

She doesn't actually know her ABC's yet of course, but she does anticipate the next letter some of the time. For instance, when I say "n", rather than repeat it, she'll say "o" sometimes. In case anyone is wondering, I don't drill her all day on her ABC's. I don't expect my 20 month old to know her alphabet, or her numbers or even how to eat with a spoon without making a mess. Though I'll admit that I would so love a mess-free meal once in awhile. I'm fully confident that she'll learn her letters and numbers at some point in her life. I just had to get it on video.

And while I'm on the topic of learning new things, I'm anticipating a huge leap in her speaking (or at least understanding) soon. She will come into the room, look directly at us and babble for a bit and then stop and wait for an answer. When we do answer (usually with an "ok"), she walks out of the room satisfied. I have no idea what we've agreed to, so hopefully she'll forget. She also has started repeating all kinds of words. It's usually the last word in the sentence that she repeats, but they've become very clear and she's doing it quite often. It's become more obvious that she understands what we're talking about. Most times.

So now, for your viewing pleasure......

Monday

Clara and I watched our friend Jake for a couple of hours this afternoon. Clara had lots of fun playing with him. She read to him and shared her toys, but didn't want to share her Daddy. Jake fell over and when Chris went to pick him up she was all done sharing. It was fun having a baby in the house again. It wasn't that long ago and yet it seems like ages have passed since she was a baby.

Clara was enjoying Jake's bumbo, so I pulled hers out of the closet. In the first picture she wasn't happy because the baby reached out and touched her. Though she can't yet verbalize it, her body language screams "He's touching me!"



She quickly rectified the situation by getting out of her bumbo and moving it six inches away from Jake's. She then immediately started touching him.

Clara got a surprise in the mail from Grandma and Grandpa on Friday. Her very own backpack! Now she gets to haul around her own junk. I filled it a little too full for church yesterday and she needed help walking straight, but I think I've got the "stuff" to Clara ratio down now and she seems to be a lot more coordinated. Thank you Grandma and Grandpa!

And this last one is just a picture I took tonight of the crew on our evening walk. I've started forcing myself to bring the dogs along. Three of them are a bit of a handful, but the worst part is they save their poop for the walk so I end up picking up poop the whole time because it would be too easy to all go at once. No, we have to space out our pooping and to relieve oneself only once during the walk would just be ludicrous. (Notice our poor tree being propped up and the neighbor's construction zone?)

Rough Weekend

We went to the arboretum last night for a bbq with a bunch of friends. There are several geocaches on the nature trails, so after dinner the group decided to go hunt for one. I stayed behind to clean up. When they had stopped to look for the cache, someone looked over at Clara in her stroller and her face was covered with mosquitos, so they doused her in bug spray and headed back soon after.

She got one bite on her chin and three or four others on the sides of her face. Just like with fire ants, she really has a hard time with mosquito bites, so they were really bothering her today and will probably take a week or so to fade.

Then tonight we went to Market Street for ice cream and fountain. It was dark and Clara started running toward the fountain. I yelled to her to stop because I didn't think she saw the concrete steps. I threw down my stuff and started running towards her, but I couldn't make it in time. She was sprawled out on the steps and had hit her head. The fall looked much worse than it was. I was sure she was going to have a bloody mouth or something, but it was just a scrape on the forehead and a small scrape on the knee.

Add that to the mosquito bites though and you've got yourself a pretty sad looking little girl.

Clara's prayers at night usually include thanking God for Zoe, Dingle and Max. She's also gotten pretty good at sitting still for prayers in church. We tell her that we're saying a prayer and she clasps her hands. Well today, she does just that and then I hear her whispering "Whoa-ee, Dee dee, Whoa-ee, Dee dee. Amen." (For those that are wondering what these two things have to do with each other, Whoa-ee is Zoe and Dee dee is Dingle.) She still can't sit still for a long prayer in church, but if we whisper our own prayer in her ear she makes it a lot longer.

She's also started calling on her dogs when she's crying because she's either tired or in trouble. It's pretty funny. "Whoa-ee, Dee dee, Masi, Whoa-ee, Dee dee, Masi" over and over. And if she's in trouble and I'm the bad guy, she'll throw in a plea for her Daddy for good measure. If that doesn't make you feel bad, being the only one in the household that is incapable of saving your baby, then nothing will.

Welcome Home!

We were welcomed home from church today by 2 or 3 constable cars in front of the house, a wrecker, a silver mercedes in our side yard and several onlookers in our yard. Quite a scene. And we had missed the ambulance by only a few minutes.


Apparently, a woman had a seizure while she was driving, ran into our neighbor's yard first slightly grazing his tree. Then she continued into our yard, knocking over one of our trees, taking mulch and dirt along with her across our driveway and through our side yard. Then she took out the neighbors fence and finally came to a stop in the back of his house.


This is the same neighbor with the barking puppy from a couple of weeks ago. One of his dogs was in the back yard (thankfully not in a kennel) and ran out when the car hit. Another neighbor picked her up and took her to their house and she may have a hurt back leg. We haven't been able to get ahold of the guy who's house was hit, which surprises me since his dog was in the backyard and he says he doesn't leave them while he's gone unless it's for a few minutes, so I hope he's back soon. We tried his cell phone (since he gave me his card after the puppy incident), but his mailbox was full.


The car hit his bathroom, so another neighbor turned off his water. He's gonna have a cow when he gets home. The woman in the car was taken away in the ambulance, but I think she was going to be ok. Say a little prayer for her. The car didn't look bad at all, so I don't think she was going very fast.




One good thing came of it; we met another neighbor. The people a couple houses down from him that have his dog. We talked for awhile and they have a pool, so we were talking neighborhood bbq. And we met another neighbor last week. We went to get donuts and he recognized Clara from when he takes walks with his dog, so we sat with him and got to know him a little. He said his daughter looked just like Clara when she was little, so he was really sweet with her. You could tell he likes kids. Then another neighbor that he's friends with was meeting him there, so we met her too. We're just making friends left and right here.

Edited to add: Our neighbor got home awhile later and Chris went over there. He saw the damage inside. It completely demolished his bathtub, pushing it into his shower and all the way across the room shattering the shower and the mirror. We saw the neighbor a little bit ago and he said the people came over in an escalade to tell him that they don't have insurance! The mercedes was only a month old too. Our neighbor is an insurance agent for State Farm, so at least he knows the ropes when it comes to this stuff.

More Pictures

I haven't posted many pictures lately so I thought I'd put up a few from yesterday. Clara and I went to the playground and crypress swamp area at the arboretum and then to the library in the morning. Daddy went back with us in the evening since he hadn't been yet and we walked down one of the nature trails. It was beautiful, but Daddy got swarmed by mosquitos so we had to cut our walk short.

The cypress swamp area was very nice, peaceful and serene with benches to sit on surrounding the swamp. There were tons of frogs hopping all over the place. There was also a hickory bog nearby, but we didn't check it out since I didn't want to get out of sight of the car (and my purse). Next time maybe.

This one is on the play equipment. It's actually blurry, but I thought her eyes looked big and beautiful so I wanted to share.

Look What We Did Today

I'm gonna be in trouble for this one, but I thought I'd surprise everyone and not divulge that we had a hair appointment scheduled for this morning. I would like everyone to know that I did take your opinions into consideration concerning the demolition of the mullet and I had planned on leaving her hair long provided that I could always put it into pigtails. Problem is, Clara has decided recently that she's not a pigtails kinda girl and yanks them out before we get to our destination EVERY SINGLE TIME, so I got it chopped off today. I think it looks really cute.

We went to my hairstylist up in Conroe, Shanna. I've been going to her since '99, so I thought it'd be neat to pass on the torch to the little one. I half expected Clara to freak out since the big chair and cape looks a lot like the big dentist chair and x-ray apron, but she did fine. I went first so I think she saw that it was no big deal. It was fun trying to get her to look down for any length of time, but I grabbed a book to read to her and she did great.

The best part though was the fact that Shanna didn't charge us for her first haircut! Isn't that sweet? Yay for free stuff! Here are the pics.

Before-slightly unruly

Hanging out in the little courtyard

The first snip

The big girl, Mommy and Shanna

After-much better

More Pee Pee Stories

I was reminded by my mother-in-law that I have another pants wetting story, so I'll share that with you this evening.

When I was, oh probably 4 or 5 years old, I was the flower girl in my uncle's wedding. (I would say aunt and uncle, but they divorced several years later.) Anyway, I digress. I don't remember this event, so I'm taking everyone's word for it that it really happened. What I do remember is that I ran out of flower petals before I got to the front and so I turned around to pick them back up, but that has nothing to do with the story.

I'm assuming I stood still like a good girl throughout the ceremony and walked out just fine. After the ceremony though, when everyone went up to the front, there was a wet spot right where I had been standing. Oops.

Fast forward 15 years. Wow, only 15 years. The man that performed our wedding ceremony was the same person who did Chris' parents wedding. The evening of the wedding, we're standing at the front of the chapel, about to exchange vows when I look at Bob's bible that's just inches in front of me. What caught my attention was a slip of paper that was hanging out the top and the words written on it alluded to this story. While I was reading this, he was in fact recounting something about my childhood, although it was completely unrelated. So, here I am thinking he was about to divulge this embarrassing story.

Turns out he had asked if I had a good sense of humor before the ceremony and had put it there just to mess with me. He had no intention of telling the story. Had I thought about it, I would've realized it was just for my eyes since the print was facing me and not him! I guess my mind was elsewhere.

The night before, he had asked my parents for stories about my childhood to give him a little insight and possibly something to use in the ceremony. Why this story came up, I'm not quite sure. I guess my family has always appreciated stories surrounding bodily functions. I could tell you some doozies. But that's another blog for another day. I will tell one more pee pee story though.

This one happened several years ago. During the middle of the night, I had the using the restroom dream. Have you had one? They're soooooo real. Anyway, I woke up halfway through and jumped up trying to get to the bathroom. At this point, Chris hadn't woken yet, so I was trying to come up with a game plan that would accomplish two things. 1) removal of the wet sheets and replacement of dry ones and 2) and this one's the kicker, try not to wake Chris. Give me a break; I was still half asleep.

So I think I was mid way through the pull off process, when Chris wakes up, rolls over and says "What are you AAAAHHHH!" as he rolls right into my pee pee. He was ticked off that I let him roll into my pee because I thought I could change the sheets with him still in the bed, but mostly I think he just didn't like the fact that I had just wet the bed.

Continuing Saga

Just an update for those of you on pins and needles here wondering how the big girl is doing. Today's nap consisted of two little swats and no crying, followed by a two hour nap. At bedtime, there was no crying, no swats and no exiting the room! Success. I think she's also gone the last two nights without coming into our room in the middle of the night. Maybe she's figured out to stay away from that edge. Now to see if she can keep it up.

I may start the dreaded potty training again after she's got the bed transition down pat. She's started putting her baby dolls on her potty when we're going to the bathroom and this evening she was wearing a swim diaper and told Chris "poo poo", pulled the diaper down to her ankles and headed for the bathroom. Chris put her on, but she didn't do anything. I gotta assume that those are both readiness signals, but I thought she was ready several months ago and she proved me wrong there. What do you guys think? Am I in a diaper-free fantasy land and just imagining that these little things mean big things? Several of my readers potty trained their 18 month old daughters successfully, so I know it's possible if they're ready.

Especially Gifted Child

There's not much going on around here that's interesting enough to blog about, so I thought I'd copy the mom-in-law and write about something from the past. The first story that came to my head happened when I was in the third grade.

I was in the gifted and talented class all through grade school and every year we had to take a test that lasted several hours to determine if we were still gifted. I remained gifted throughout my school career and am to this day. At least there's no test to tell me otherwise.

Well, on the big test day in third grade, I had a pretty bad cough. Coughing and test taking do not mesh well, let me tell you. I would cough for a few minutes and then the teacher would tell me to go get a drink of water. I'd be fine for a little bit, and then the coughing would start back up and I'd have to get more water. Back and forth I went. Eventually the water did what water tends to do and I had to use the restroom.

Restroom breaks weren't allowed during the testing, but the teacher was well aware of the mass quantity of water I had just put down, so she allowed me to go. I came back, coughed, drank, asked to go to the restroom. Came back, coughed, drank, restroom. Came back.......... You get the idea. I was quite the distraction that day, I'm sure.

What happened next was due, in part, to my holy quest to not be in the spotlight. That and the fact that there were several really gifted kids (that hadn't been to the bathroom 30 times) that were finishing the test. I tried really hard to hold the coughs and even harder to hold the pee, but alas, a full bladder and an uncontrollable cough can only lead to one thing.

Yes. I wet my pants in my gifted and talented class.

I started crying, raised my hand and told the teacher what had happened. She escorted me out and thankfully my mom worked at my school and was able to take me straight home to change.

Moral of the story: Don't believe for one second that you can hold your pee for a long time when you've been drinking lots of water and coughing. People will look at you a lot more (and probably laugh) if you've got pee running down your pants so just go to the bathroom.

Good Day All Around

Reason 1: I think the little one is finally figuring out this whole big girl bed thing. Naptime consisted of only three little swats for getting out of bed, then she cried for awhile and fell asleep in bed. At bedtime, she got out once and came down the hall. I told her to go back to bed and she turned around and went back into her room. About 20 minutes later I peeked in and she was still awake, but hadn't cried at all. I'm assuming she's asleep. Don't really care as long as she's on her side of the door and isn't screaming.

Reason 2: I stopped by the Jeep dealership and picked up a knob for the Jeep's air conditioner (the one that controls whether the air is coming from outside or is recirculating or if you want a/c or heat). It's been broken for, oh, I'd say a year probably, maybe more. I tied a ribbon to it and a note that said "Happy Monday, Chris!" and hung it in the garage where he'd be sure to find it. He loved his gift.

Reason 3: I took the VW in to get an oil change. I thought ahead and picked up the trash and stuff inside which I normally forget about. I don't really care so much about the oil change, but the freshly vacuumed interior and the washed windows have me psyched! Since I washed the car last week for the first time in, oh, I'd say a year probably, I'm pretty pumped about it looking nice inside and out.

Reason 4: Clara did awesome the entire time I was running errands this morning. She got lots of hugs and kisses for being such a good girl.

Reason 5: I got a package in the mail from my momma. She knew that I have, like 5 shirts to my name, (other than ratty t-shirts), so she sent me 6 new shirts! Yay! I'm set now. Add to that the two I picked up last week that I spent a grand total of $2.14 on with my JC Penney coupon for $10 off a $10 purchase and I'm stylin. Thank you Momma!! And Clara got a little something, too of course.

Reason 6: Chris and some of his co-workers were treated to a movie this evening. They went and saw Bourne Ultimatum. Nothing like free entertainment.

Reason 7: I scooped poop tonight and now have a poop free yard.

It's the little things in life that make my day (and the free things).

Maybe Not?

Clara was doing soooo well sleeping in her big girl bed.

Until last night.

She was up at 12:30 (hand in mouth, so she got some tylenol), 2:30 (fell out of bed), and 3:30 (just ready to start the day, I think). Nothing was going to make that girl go to sleep. Nothing.

I went in first, then Chris. He got her calmed down to the point that she was almost asleep. He was sitting on the floor next to her bed. Well, she didn't realize he was still in there and when she hopped out of bed and stepped on him, she probably wet herself she was so surprised. Back to square one. So then I took a turn. She was lying there, I was sitting next to her, my head on her pillow, stroking her hair and singing. She rolled onto her side with her back to me and after a couple of minutes I thought, "ah ha, success". As I was about to creep out, she rolls over, touches my nose and says "Nose!" Ahhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhh!

I put her back in, and in a no nonsense tone tell her to go back to bed. I walked out, climbed into bed and a few minutes later, here she comes, arms in the air, fingers wiggling, saying "Up, Up, Up". I tell her "no, this is Mommy and Daddy's bed, your bed is in the other room". She stands there for a few minutes and then walks out. After several minutes of silence, I go to make sure she's not getting into anything. The little booger actually listened to me and was in bed. That was around 5:00. She was up at 8:00, bright eyed and bushy tailed.

Naptime was fun today also. It only took about 2 hours to get her down. I waited outside her door to tell her to get back in bed. It was really hard not to crack a smile when the door would slowly crack open just enough for her to see if I was still there. She would then close it back and wait another minute before doing it again. It would've been cute if I wasn't so darn frustrated with her.

I went to check on her a minute ago because I hadn't heard anything out of her and this is what I saw. I believe this is the very first time she's ever fallen asleep on the floor.


I really see how parents just give in on a lot of things. It's hard work being diligent with this kind of stuff. Chris and I both were nanoseconds away from turning on cartoons for her last night, but I'm so glad we persevered. And I just about let her get away without napping today, but what is that going to teach her? I know she's not ready to give up a nap yet. I just hope this doesn't last too long. I may be pulling the crib rail back out if it doesn't get better soon. I just about did at 4:00 this morning.

Hope everyone else got a good night's sleep.

On Top of the World

Clara had a wonderful time at storytime today. She really loves Miss Terry, the children's librarian. Miss Terry tells the children that they need to sit during storytime, so I have to remind Clara numerous times to sit, but I do allow her to stand during the singing. I figure she's not interrupting the story or getting in the way, so I just let her do her thing. She gets so excited when the singing starts that I hate to intrude. Also, who can clap and stomp properly when sitting, really? Once she stands, most of the other kiddos end up standing as well.


Today before one of the songs, she walked up to Miss Terry and wanted in her lap. She was so sweet to pick her up and let her sing Wheels on the Bus with her. Miss Terry did all the motions using Clara's hands. She was on cloud nine. You can't truly appreciate how much fun she was having in this picture, but it's all I got. I didn't even think to take video (I'm sure Miss Terry's glad about that). She just looked around at all the other kids, smiling her huge smile, laughing the whole time. These are the times that I sit back and marvel at what a precious little girl God has blessed me with. What better thing is there in life than being called Mommy by someone like this?

Weekend Update

There's not too much to report from this weekend actually. Chris has been helping Glenn install laminate flooring in their new house and get some other things set up around the house. While everyone was working on the house Saturday, I took the girls to Tristan's birthday party. It was at Pump It Up (a party place with inflatable jumping equipment), aka Preschool Heaven.


The girls had a lot of fun, but it was a feat trying to keep up with both of them. They would run in different directions, and since Clara was the youngest one there (that was able to play at least), I had to keep a close eye on her. She doesn't quite understand that you can't hang out at the base of the slide or that a 3 year old doesn't like to wait on a "little" kid to get out of his way. Everyone there knew Leah, so I got a little help now and again as I trotted off to save Clara. There were a few occassions that I ended up holding both of my crying "babies" because they had fallen or wanted to take their drink on the equipment or some other really good reason. We had cake and ice cream and then headed over the Glenn and Becky's for some dinner.







Sunday we went to church, and then Chris went with Glenn to pick up the flooring and start installing it. Clara and I had lunch with Becky and Leah and then took them to Wal-Mart to pick up a few things for the house. By then, it was way past Clara's naptime and she was turning into a most cranky booger so we headed home. Later, Clara and I made dinner and took it over to Glenn and Becky's. And that's about it. Everyone else worked really hard all weekend and I went to a party.


Clara's been really cranky this past week. I was pretty sure it was the tooth, but then had the thought "Oh no! What if this is just her becoming a two year old!" The thought of this cranky, whiney, sad little thing inhabiting my home for the next 1-2 years just sends chills up my spine. She really has been a completely different child. My fears subsided a little today though. She was smiling again and played well with Leah tonight, so hopefully it was just the tooth. It was sad to see her like that. She didn't give hugs, wouldn't smile at people and was just generally a party pooper that would throw a fit at the drop of a hat.



Here are just a few pictures from today. The purple basket is her new hat. She promptly throws all of the play food out of it every morning and places it on her head. She got new socks today, so she had to put them on and off all day, which is what she's doing here. That and whining because it's stuck on her heel.

Here she is watching Looney Tunes in her lamb chair. Bugs is her favorite right now. This is the sweet little girl I've been missing lately.

This last picture is a scrapbook page that Chris' mom did of Clara's first time to sleep in her big girl bed. Isn't it sweet? If you haven't already, you should go take a look at her pictures in the link to the left. Her blog's not too bad either.

Speaking of big girl beds, Clara is now on night 5 and she's doing great. A couple of times (especially at naptime) she's not been too keen on staying in bed, but everytime we've put her back in, she's gone right to sleep. Last night was the first night Chris had put her down because he's been out late the last few nights. He asked her if she was ready for bed, to which she replied yes and then hopped right in. He came out of the room a fan of the big girl bed. A few minutes later I hear tiny footsteps and around the corner with a huge smile on her face, comes Clara. The girl was soooo proud of herself for figuring out that, not only could she get out of bed on her own in the morning, but it also worked at night! It really was cute.

What wasn't cute, though was when she came into our room at 6:40 this morning ready to start the day.

Girlfriends

I snapped this picture tonight of Alanna, Clara and Leah strolling through Market Street hand in hand.

And just a quick funny story. It's moving day for Glenn and Becky, so tonight they treated everyone to Sonic. Chris and I were in two cars, but we left at the same time. Because of where I had parked, I had to kind of circle around and go a slightly less direct route than Chris, so he lost me. I actually came up right behind him at a red light and followed him for quite a way.

I ended up passing him by on the interstate and beat him home by a couple of minutes. When we got home, he said "I was driving along and I looked over at the car next to me and thought, she's cute, and then saw a carseat in the backseat and thought, oh, she has a baby, and as the car passed by I thought, and she drives a VW. Then I realized, OH, that's my wife!" I don't know if I should take it as a compliment that he accidentally thought I was cute, or be ticked off that he's thinking this other woman looks cute. Hmmmmmm. I guess I'll go with the compliment. It's far less complicated that way.

Being Neighborly

Yesterday around 2:00 pm, I realized the neighbor's dog had been barking for awhile. Our neighbor shows giant poodles, (and lots of 'em), so it's not unusual to hear barking. The reason I took notice was because it sounded like a puppy and it was only one dog, so I looked out our upstairs window that looks down into his yard to check it out.

There was a solid black puppy in a wire kennel with no water and no shade. I watched him for a minute and he was jumping up, then was trying to lay down on the cement, but it was too hot on his little tummy. He was running around I think because it was too hot to stay in one place. It seemed out of the ordinary for him to be out there, but I didn't want to butt in to someone else's business. I decided to wait a few minutes. He kept on and no one came out.

I knocked on the door thinking maybe he had put him out there and forgotten about him. I still felt uneasy because I didn't want him thinking I was a nosy neighbor. Well, there was no answer, but I did hear the rest of the crew barking inside when I knocked. I went to the other neighbor, who works from home and was the former HOA president thinking maybe he knew his name or had a phone number for him.

He called the management company as I went back over to check on the dog. When I peeked through the fence, it was laying down panting really hard, so I got a bowl of water and went into the backyard. He drank for awhile and then I got him out and sat under a tree for a minute. I took him inside our house to cool him down and see if the neighbor had called back. Sure enough, he had gotten ahold of him at work and he was coming straight home.

When he came to the door, he was just beside himself. He felt terrible and had in fact forgotten that he left him outside. His workplace had been broken into earlier, so when he got the call, he had to hurry in to work and just totally forgot about him. The dog had been out there since 9:30 and I don't think the kennel was shaded at any point of the day. Poor thing! I wish I had noticed him earlier. There's a good chance he wouldn't have made it much longer out there with as hot as it was.

It just makes me feel bad that I don't know many of our neighbors. If I knew this guy better, I would've known something was wrong right away and wouldn't have felt the need to wait in fear of being a "meddler". I now know that he never leaves them outside when he's not home and I also have his card if I need anything. Really, how hard would it have been to get to know him sooner?

I guess I need to go door to door and introduce myself. I think I'll skip the people across the street. They're a multi-generational asian family that doesn't realize that it is proper etiquette in this country to at least smile when a neighbor passes by your home and waves and tells you hello. A stern look and a frown just isn't quite as neighborly in my opinion. They also don't know that when your neighbor watches you mess with your lawnmower for a good 20 minutes, unable to get it restarted and then walks over and helps you restart it, that the proper response is "thank you" or at least a smile and a nod to show that you just, in fact, witnessed the restarting of your lawnmower.

Big Girl

I'm fairly certain I have a big girl on my hands. I turned Clara's crib into a toddler bed a little bit ago, and she jumped right in while I was working on it. We read our story, got tucked in and I closed the door and left.


She did her sleepy cry for a few minutes and I haven't heard a peep out of her in about 20 minutes. I think it's a success, or she could be yanking my chain like she did with the potty training trial run. I bet she's in there right now playing.


I'm going to go check..........

Nope. Fast asleep. Sweet!

Crisis Averted......For Now

Dentist says tooth can stay. He said that we could just leave it for now I think partly because of how scared she was just looking in her mouth. He said a lot of times, if there is an extra baby tooth, there's also a permanent one, so when she's around 4 or 5, before her permanent teeth start coming in, we'll pull it then.

Until then, I think she's going to be very uncomfortable while it comes in. It's pushing on the two teeth on either side of it. She's had a couple of really nasty meltdowns just all of a sudden this past week, so I'm thinking it's from the tooth.

I guess we're going to have a lovely smile for the next few years. I know it's not a huge deal and I shouldn't make a big deal out of it, but I know first hand what it's like to be embarrassed about your teeth. I have fluorosis on my teeth (brown spots from too much fluoride in the water growing up), and I've always been very self conscious about it. I hate to smile for pictures. You add that to being too tall, too skinny, having too many freckles and top it off with a serving of shyness and you've got the makings of a wallflower extraordinare. I excel at blending in with the crowd. My skills really are spectacular. Even better than my fertilizing skills.

Oh yeah, I almost forgot. Something must've lit a fire under me yesterday. From about 4:00 til bedtime I.......
-washed and brushed Max
-cleaned our bathroom
-made dinner (and ate it)
-mowed the front yard
-bagged the cut grass
-edged the front and back yard
-swept up the grass on the driveway
-got the sprinklers going in front, side, and back yards
-cleaned up after dinner
-emptied and reloaded dishwasher
-washed and brushed Dingle
-washed and brushed Zoe
-took Zoe and Dingle for a walk to help dry them
-cleaned Clara's playroom
-watched a movie
-folded and hung 2 loads of laundry and started the dog towels washing
-showered and dried my hair
-fell into bed exhausted

I have no idea what came over me. I hope I'm not possessed or something.

Stripey

This is the view from our bedroom window. Look at the fine job I did at fertilizing. Stellar, isn't it?

The New Tooth Update

I called the dentist this morning and we now have an appointment for Thursday to see about this pesky little tooth. The lady said that the dentist would determine if it is in fact an extra tooth. I told her the best indication I have that it is extra is the fact that aside from the second molars, I've filled in all the lines in the baby book with dates that the teeth erupted. I'm going to have to insert a line for this one. She agreed that it is probably bonus then.

It will probably have to be extracted, but they won't do it Thursday. They'll see how she reacts to the dentist and then decide if they think laughing gas will calm her down enough to do it without traumatizing her. If she's just ballistic, then they'll have to call in an anesthesiologist. Please pray she does well; I really do not want her to have anesthesia. I know this isn't major at all, but there's always a risk with anesthesia.

My poor baby. As much as I hate the thought of my own teeth needing to be extracted, I really hate the idea of my baby going through that when she has absolutely no idea what's going on. Oh, and I'm sure the healing period is going to be loads of fun. I shouldn't complain at all though. We have been abundantly blessed with Clara's good health. I am so thankful that we haven't had to deal with anything more than a couple of rashes and a few head colds. I can't even begin to imagine how hard it is to raise a child with real health issues. My heart really goes out to those parents.

My Little Overachiever

I looked in Clara's mouth today and lo and behold, she's sprouted an extra tooth! I think I see orthodontists in my future.

She has a tooth coming in between her top front tooth and the one next to it. It's coming in sideways because, needless to say, there's no room for yet another tooth. I had noticed she had a little extra space there and just yesterday I noticed that her front tooth seemed to jut out just a bit, but did seem too out of the ordinary. Now it looks as if the front tooth is also a little crooked. Guess she was making room for the new tooth on the block.

I have no idea what's done in this case, if anything, but I'm assuming you don't want to just leave it or else it will mess up the alignment of her permanent teeth once they start coming in. We'll see what the dentist has to say.

That was all the excitement for today, but last night was very exciting. A thought crossed my mind that hasn't crossed it in four or five years. I thought to myself " You know, I think I could do a scrapbook page right now." Yes, after years on the backburner, I did a two page spread of Clara's birth. I feel very accomplished at this moment. I headed to Michael's at 8:30 last night to get some paper. I love the sets of coordinating stuff they have now. I bought a kinda shabby, vintage looking set in pinks, greens, and yellows with paper and all kinds of embellishments. I'm all set now. We'll see how long it lasts. Of course, I should be painting the last wall in the playroom and I really need to sew the curtains for the playroom and a I have a whole long list of other things that I "should" be doing. Oh well, what's one more unfinished project?

My Happy Girl

Clara turned in her summer reading log at the library today and got to pick out her very own book to take home with her. She really does enjoy storytime. She is so independent and friendly to everyone; I love watching her interact. The librarian complimented her today on being such an independent girl. She definitely didn't get it from me, but I hope I can continue to nurture that part of her because I know for a fact that it's no fun being shy.

When we sing "If you're happy and you know it", Clara is the only one who's face surely shows it. That's one of Clara's favorite songs, so she's all smiles during it. Every time we sing it, the librarian looks around and says, "I don't see very many happy faces" until she spots Clara and then shouts "there's a happy face! You can be happy for everybody, Clara." It's pretty sweet. Clara has really taken to her and when the blocks come out after stories are read, she usually is back and forth from the block pile to the librarian, showing her all kinds of things.


Clara finally ate some noodles today. Yay! She has never liked rice or pasta of any kind, but when I tried it today, she gobbled it up. I'm sure she's just tired of the wheat bread I keep throwing on her plate. In the past week she's also eaten cherries, blueberries and olives for the first time and liked them all. I also got her to eat cottage cheese again. She liked it when she first started eating food but then decided she didn't care for it. I tried mixing in a little strawberry preserves and it sweetened it up just enough for her. Now if I could just get her to eat her veggies.

Worn Out

We went swimming today at Amy and Jake's. Megan and Claire joined us also. Jake is 6 mo. and Claire is 4 mo., so Clara was the big kid in the crowd for once. Amy was taking pictures of the three of them on the floor. The little ones were laying on their backs on the floor playing and we got Clara to lay down too and then I told her to grab her feet, so she blended right in with the babies and I think she got some cute pictures of my "baby".


When we got home about 2:30, Clara went straight down for a nap. I finally had to go in and wake her at 6:00. Thanks Amy! I don't know why I don't take her swimming everyday. I took this picture of her when I went to wake her up because I haven't taken a sleeping baby picture in forever.


Pictured are Clara's sleepy time friends. From left to right are Alfonso the frog, Glo Worm and Baby, (whom Mommy recently dubbed Abby). Clara loves all of her sleepy time friends, so much so that she insists on cuddling all three when we put her down. The funny thing is that she really doesn't have any type of security item the rest of the time. As soon as she wakes up, she wants to put them back in the crib, I guess so they'll be sure to be there at bedtime.