Party!

Today Clara and I went to a birthday party for a little boy down the street, Garrett. He turned the big 02. The party was at a place called It'z, kind of like Chuck E. Cheese on steroids. They had the standard arcade type games and several small amusement park rides.

Hugs for the birthday boy!

We like Garrett's parents and really should spend more time around them. I love the fact that Clara went to this birthday party where she was the only white kid there and still was her charming, loveable self. Everyone was so sweet to her and made us feel very comfortable even though we were the minority. I hope to instill in Clara an acceptance of everyone, no matter how different they are from her. I want her to develop empathy for those who are different and who therefore may feel out of place when they're the minority. I want her to be the one who reaches out to those people, but I realize that in order for her to learn that, Chris and I must step out and put ourselves in situations where she can come in regular contact with those that are different.

That's why I love our neighborhood. I would guess it's about 50% white, so there are all different races around us. I also have started trying to do more things in Spring rather than travel up to The Woodlands. There's not a whole lot of diversity in The Woodlands and I don't want her growing up thinking that's the norm. Don't get me wrong, I have no problem with The Woodlands, I just wish it were more diverse. I know of a little 5 year old girl there who was scared of her teacher because she was black. To me that's just really, really sad.

I decided that I want to volunteer and would like to do something that I can bring Clara along with me. I thought that spending time in a nursing home would be a great way to teach her acceptance of people.

So many kids (and adults) are afraid of older people and can't handle entering a nursing home, but we're called to help those that are sick and old and poor. They ain't in the most pleasant environments, so it's going to be uncomfortable at first.

Right now, Clara is at a stage that she loves to hug and shake hands with people. (She got the handshake thing from the greeters at church.) I see how much they love it when she comes to them with her arms wide open and I think she could bring the elderly so much joy just from spending a little time around them. I also think that it won't be too long before she does develop a fear of "different" people, so I think the time is now. I need to call around and see if there's someplace that needs a visitor, if they'll even let me visit with a child this young. I figure that I'll need to start out slowly, very short visits, probably with residents that are more self-sufficient and "healthy" and work our way up to the ones that are a little more scary, like those with wheelchairs and walkers and such.

So what does everyone think? Is it too much to expect from a little one? If so, when does it become easier?

Clara's Rashes

She doesn't have one at this time, but I've been asked about Clara's rashes on a couple of ocassions now, including this morning, so I thought I'd document them on here for future reference.


She's had two, the first one was when she was 7 months old. I diagnosed it as Roseola and several other more seasoned mothers agreed with the diagnosis. She ran a fever on a Tuesday night, which I assumed was because of teething. She had no other symptoms and then a rash appeared on her torso as small red bumps on Friday morning. It spread to her arms, legs and I want to say she had it on her face, but I don't recall. It never itched and as is the case with viral rashes, she wasn't contagious once the rash appeared, only when she was running a fever. It took about a week for it to go away. (The bump on her back in the second photo is a hemangioma, not the rash.)

She got the second one when she was 13 months old. It happened the same way, a fever and then the rash developed several days later. This one was slightly different, so I wasn't sure it was Roseola. It didn't seem to match up to other rashes I was seeing pictures of online and it wouldn't go away. After about 2 weeks I finally took her in to the doctor because Chris' mom was coming to stay with her while Chris and I were in Orlando and I didn't want her having to deal with it. This was Clara's first doctor's visit other than her well check ups. And she hasn't been back since. I kinda wish I hadn't taken her in because we would be going on two years without a doctor's visit. That would be a nice record. That and all the sick kids and germs we were wading in in the waiting room combined with a nice couple hour wait. Next time she's gonna be sick sick before I take her in.

Anyway, the doctor diagnosed it as Fifth's Disease, but I'm not quite convinced that's what it was. Fifth's Disease's signature symptom is really red cheeks, like they've been slapped and the rash is described as being lacy, or splotchy in appearance. Her's was raised bumps. She said that the bumps on her face and the reason it wasn't clearing up was that it was an eczema flare up. Sure enough, a little hydocortisone cream and she was right as rain after a few days. (The hydrocortisone was for the eczema, not the rash. There's no treatment for a viral rash.)

I honestly don't remember if it was all over her body or just on her face. That's the great thing about a blog, I would've surely written down all the details if I'd started writing one earlier. Anyway, enjoy the next pic of Clara in all of her loveliness.

Experiment Was a Success

She had the same breakfast this morning as she did yesterday, the only difference being that I fed her the bananas instead of her eating them herself. Drastic difference in redness. The red patch on the tip of her chin is a month old mosquito bite. There's a tad bit of redness right below her lip, but I did notice that even feeding her myself she got a little bit on her. I did the same at lunch and fed her yogurt to her and there was zero redness.

The following information is based partly on my extensive research at Google University and partly on my stellar deduction skills. It could be that she is allergic to many different things and it's just not very severe. She's still unable to tell me if her mouth itches or her throat is swelling, but the fact that she's not projectile vomiting or going into anaphalaxic shock is good enough for me. I think I'll just not worry too much about it at the moment and wait until she can communicate before trying to figure out if it's allergies. If anything, we can keep a wet rag handy and try to minimize the amount of time food is stuck on her face.

Oh, and for those who are wondering, we had a lovely day today. No whining from either of us. The day started off with her waiting patiently as I got her drink ready and then she said thank you without prompting when I handed it to her. I knew then and there everything was all good.

And on a completely unrelated note, come on fall. We've got some cool new duds we're just itching to wear. She loooves her new boots.

Here's What I'm Thinking

Ok, today I started a food diary of everything Clara eats. I plan to type up ingredient lists for everything, document any reaction, including pictures after she eats and throw in descriptions of her bm's just for fun.


So let me tell you my theory. One place I found online explained eczema like this: People with eczema lack, we'll call it an enzyme, that creates a barrier on the skin. Without this barrier, the skin ends up acting more like a sieve, allowing allergens and ickiness to get into the body.


When you look at it that way, it seems logical to me that if she gets food on her face during the course of eating that it would cause irritation. This would explain why it doesn't happen everytime she eats a certain food and why it just goes away quickly and doesn't really cause other problems like it seems an allergic reaction would. My theory: the degree of messiness determines the severity of the reaction.


Case in point. These pictures were taken after breakfast. The first is after she finished eating, but before I cleaned her up. The second is after cleaning.


Really red and some raised bumps. She had an english muffin and banana pieces. Because they were cut into pieces they were really messy and bananas are highly acidic.

The next two are from lunch. She had grilled "cheese" sandwich and berry applesauce. The second picture isn't really clear, but she did have some redness (and a double chin).

Dinner consisted of ham, green beans and biscuits, but Clara refused to eat anything but a biscuit with honey. Non-messy meal equals no redness. Also her snack was dried tropical fruit and no problems there. She had goatsmilk with both. (I know, sounds yucky but I thought I'd try it out).
I'm testing my theory tomorrow by giving her the same breakfast, only this time feeding the banana to her myself so that it doesn't get all over her. Stay tuned.

You Ever Have One of Those Days?

I woke up this morning and knew from the get go it wasn't going to be a good day. I decided early on that I really didn't want to be a mom today. Well, that's not completely accurate; I would've been a great mom had I been heading out to work, or a day at the spa, maybe a vacation in Tahiti even. Oh, or if she was going to preschool for the day or spending the day with Grandma. Honestly, had I been anywhere other than her general vicinity, I so would've rocked in the mom department.

Instead, every single little thing my child did today just irked the heck out of me. Everything. I had zero patience with her. The morning started off with her getting on my computer while I was blow drying my hair. I have no idea what she did, but when I went to type something, it was all caps. Ok, easy enough, I hit the all caps key, started typing again.......still all caps. Then I clicked inside a window so I could scroll and the window closed on me. Three times. It's all better now, so she must've fixed it.

We went downstairs and I go to fix her a cup of milk. She apparently was nanoseconds from dying from thirst because she flings herself to the floor and goes into convulsions all the while screaming. So I set it on the counter until she's done with her performance. When she comes to and asks nicely for a drink, I hand it to her. She was mistaken in believing that I had poured her juice rather than milk and another tantrum ensues.

She did have some firsts today:

She learned how to open the refrigerator. I was not proud of this achievement in the least. My electric bill will be noticably higher from all the opening and shutting she did today.

Then she learned how to use the step button thing on the trash can to open it. Open, shut, open, shut, SCREAM! Her toes got wedged between the back of the step and the trash can. I had to get down on the floor, wrestling her and the can to get her out.

And then she ate the tip off of a crayon for the first time......and liked it.

Her halloween costume came today and I put it on her. I tried to put the hat on her and she threw yet another fit, this time throwing herself onto the floor and hitting her head on the wall. And then she got up a few minutes after I put her down for her nap and shut her bedroom door. Then realized she couldn't open it back up. And the screaming ensues yet again. She harrassed the dogs even after being told repeatedly to leave them alone. And pretty much harrassed me all day as well.

Ok, now that I got that out, here are the things that I loved most about today. They really stick out because it was such a terrible day.

-A woman at storytime told me how incredibly sweet Clara was and the librarian yet again complimented her on being such a good girl at storytime.

-When I was comforting her after her trash can experience she had her head on my shoulder and she started rubbing my back, comforting me.

-The look on her face as she got her own cup out of the fridge and put it back in all by herself was nothing short of pure joy.

-She climbed up on her step stool in the bathroom with her baby doll Abby. I guess she hadn't seen herself mothering before, because she put Abby on her shoulder and watched herself pat Abby's back with a serious face. Then she started rubbing her back and she got the big scrunched up face smile and laughed out loud. She did this several times.

-Then she turned to the side and was rocking Abby. She slowly looked over in the mirror. I think she was trying to watch herself be a mommy without her reflection looking back at her if that makes sense. Like she didn't want to disturb Abby's mommy, but she really wanted to see her in action. She did it a few times and it was really cute.

-I have a healthy, beautiful, mischevious, curious, silly, polite and completely adorable child that I have the privilege of staying home with day in and day out to see her grow and learn and experience and annoy and I wouldn't trade this time with her for anything. Well, maybe a day at the spa. But that's it. Or cheesecake.

So I guess I'll take the good with the bad and hope for a good tomorrow. Make that pray for a good tomorrow.

The Park

Clara and I hit a different park this morning. Chris and I went to this same park back when we lived in Houston. One time this huge rat thing swam to the shore and got out of the water. I freaked out. Turns out their proper name isn't huge rat thing, they're called nutrias. This west Texas girl had never even heard of them, much less seen one.

Well, the nutrias were out in full force today. We saw about 10 of them swimming around and saw a couple of babies even. We decided to move on when they and the ducks started following us.

It was really nice out this morning. The sky was overcast and there was a slight breeze even. Felt almost like autumn there for a few minutes. As I was getting into the car to leave, there was a group of about 20 moms in one long line jogging down the trails with their jogging strollers. Wow, must be nice to be that motivated.

Ring Around the Rosy

Here's a video of Clara singing Ring Around the Rosy. I can't believe I'm putting this up here, but I'm way too lazy to edit my singing out. Just turn down the volume on the first part.

What is Wrong With My Child (And My Cooking)?

This is getting ridiculous. I just cannot seem to figure out what's causing this redness after she eats. This was last night after dinner. The red spot above her eyebrow is a mosquito bite, but below was red and slightly raised. Poor girl looked like she had a black eye. She really didn't eat much at dinner. There was lots on her plate, (sweet potato, hotdog, chili) but I don't think she touched anything but french fries and ketchup.

And this one was taken after lunch today. There were tiny raised bumps around her mouth. I thought I had narrowed it down to the meatsticks (possibly something in them, not necessarily the meat) and so I cut them out a while back. Hmm. I guess carrots may be one of the culprits. She was eating one today at lunch. And she had an english muffin, apple and soymilk, none of which have ever caused a problem.

Maybe she's allergic to my cooking. Hey, most people wouldn't be too upset if they were unable to consume my "meals". This was tonight's dinner. These are the potatoes after being tossed in a cheese sauce for the ham and potato bake I made. Ummm, my sauce was more along the order of paste. And who the heck can toss cooked potato slices anyway? That's not possible, even if the sauce wasn't the thinkness of peanut butter.

The Week in (Not Very Exciting) Pictures

Because my life is boring (which I wouldn't trade for anything), my blog can only be one thing. I make no apologies. It's boring; and as such, I feel completely justified in sharing random boring photos and stories therein.


So here goes. One day last week, I just had this feeling it wasn't going to be a good day. It started out with Clara waking up and crying in the morning. For some reason, she wouldn't leave her room and her cries were getting worse. Chris was about to leave for work, so he went in and picked her up. I came in a minute later and he just looked at me and lifted up her nightgown, revealing a bare bottom. This was a first. Potty training here we come. (or duct tape in the very least.) Sure enough, there was a diaper on the floor and a wet spot in the bed. I throw the sheets in the wash.


About half an hour later, Clara and I get ready to go downstairs for some breakfast, when I see a pile of Max puke at the top of the stairs. How it still looked like he ate it 10 minutes ago instead of 10 hours, I'll never know. So, I get to cleaning that up. I tell Clara that Max has a tummy ache and she loves on him a little. Ok, puke is cleaned up.


After breakfast Clara and I played outside a little while. Upon reentry, I find two mysterious piles of tiny black and brown shavings and a very small amount of the paper that covers crayons. These aren't your average crayons. These are toddler crayons that are about the size of 5 crayons. No idea who did it though or if it was 1 or 2 of them.



I'm cleaning up one of the piles when I look over and see this.



Guilty! Whoever enters their crates when a mess is being cleaned up gives themself (or in this case, selves) away. It really is a surefire way to determine the guilty party. Another is to watch when you first come up on a mess. The non-guilty will come trotting in like "hey, what's going....whoa! Who did that?" and feel safe to check it out with a sniff. The guilty are nowhere in sight, usually as far away as they can get. That was all of the excitement for that day. It ended up just being a bad morning and not leaking into the afternoon.


Saturday we had Micah and Lisa over for dinner and they brought blackberry pie and ice cream. Clara approved of their dessert choice. But instead of ice cream she got her Good Karma brand Rice Dream frozen dessert. I can't believe I bought something by a company called Good Karma. Oh well, she likes it.


The whole night she said Lisa's name over and over. She really hadn't said it much up until now. All night it was "See-sa, See-sa, See-sa" and she was practicing her thank you's, also. She'd bring us something and say, "key-q" when she handed it to us. When we'd give her something, she wouldn't say anything, so I guess we need to work on the proper placement of "key-q". I'm not complaining though; I've got myself a very polite little girl.


Yesterday she sang her first song that I recognized. I wasn't completely sure what it was because she was spinning around and I couldn't understand the words but then I caught the words "ashes, ashes". When she fell down right after uttering those words, there was no mistaking what her little song was.


This morning she was sitting on my lap while I got on the computer for a few minutes. I'm not sure how I didn't notice this while it was happening, but when I stood up, this is what I saw. (And no, it's not my pee. I haven't peed my pants in several years thank you very much.) Note to self: change diaper immediately upon waking.



Here's Clara right before her nap this afternoon. She's getting better at dressing herself. She even put on her own shoes and got them on the right foot.

Another Project Under My Belt

I've completed yet another crafty thing this week. I'm really getting into my "creations". This is Clara's time out chair. I really love boutique type decor, but it's all way out of my budget, so I'm trying to make all these cute things myself. I really don't like princess or Dora decor, or primary or pastel stuff, which is pretty much all you can find in stores in my price range. So, Clara's just gonna have to put up with my creations until she can inform me of how lame my stuff is.




This is just a cheap unfinished wooden chair from Michael's. I painted one coat of sage green, then two coats of ivory. Then I sanded the whole thing and put the flowers and fairy on. (They're called Wallies and are just pieces of wallpaper cut out and they come in an overpriced package of about 25 pieces. Of course, I only used 5, so you'll have to check back to see what I do with 20 more overpriced pieces of wallpaper.) You just soak them in water and slap 'em on. Then I painted "Tempus Fugit" with a paint pen. It's latin for "time flies". I saw it on a time out chair in an online boutique and thought it was really cute. Now I just need to seal it with an acrylic sealer. Total cost was around $20. (I bought the chair and Wallies with 50% off coupons)

---------------


And in Clara news-

-I just figured out she's been saying "help please" for who knows how long. The sweet thing has been asking for help and no one has understood her. It sounds an awful lot like her word for apples, "ahpoose", so I just figured she was practicing her words, I guess.

-Oh, and here's something obnoxious we taught her, "please". It's all fun and games until she says "up, up, up, up, up, up" or "bite, bite, bite, bite, bite", to which we reply "no, no, no, no, no". Then she pulls out the big guns and says "peas?" How can we say no when she asked politely without prompting? The answer is, we can't. We've found that it's not humanly possible.

-She was reading her animal sounds book and lifted a flap that says "oink" in big letters. She said oink and then sat there quiet for a few seconds. Then she pointed at the word and started saying her alphabet. I believe this was the first time she understood that words are made up of letters. Now she's been picking up all of her books and "reads" them by saying her alphabet while turning the pages.

-She loves saying her alphabet and can say long strings of letters. She goes around saying them all day. Numbers are a different story. She just doesn't get it yet.

-She loves to say "Shoooo-eee" when I'm changing her diaper. She says it over and over until she shortens it to "Schweeee".

-Speaking of poop, I have no idea what's wrong with this child's bowels. I completely cut out dairy this week and I'm still getting the nastiest diapers. Yesterday and today, she produced 4 of 'em! I guess I'm just going to fall back on the old standby and chalk it up to teething. She seems to feel just fine so I don't know what else it could be.

And that's all I can think of right now. I'll leave you with this picture of Minnie Mouse reading to Clara.

Return of the JDog

We got a visit from our former roomie this past weekend. He was in town on business and stayed with us for a few days. We hadn't seen him since he moved in May. It took Clara a minute to warm up to him, but after she did, she was an adoring J Dog fan. She went around all weekend saying "J Dog!" and asking him to hold her and read to her and climbing all over him. She loves her J Dog.

Everytime she slept though, I guess she forgot he was here and would wake up afraid of him for a minute or two. After one of her naps, she opened her door and came running down the hall. As soon as she spotted Jason sitting in the office looking at her, she screeched to a stop and high tailed it back to her room and shut the door. She didn't open it again for a few minutes and when she did, she wouldn't come out. She just stood in her doorway. I think she was psyching herself up to come around the corner again. I finally had to go in and get her.

Here's the lastest addition to Clara's playroom. I bought an unfinished peg rack at Michael's and painted it myself. I spent $4.00 on the rack, $1.00 on the paint and $.50 on the brush. After I painted it, I took sandpaper and gave it a little bit of a distressed look. Didn't turn out half bad in my opinion. I think it'll coordinate nicely with the curtains, if and when I get around to making them.

And this next picture is from Sunday after lunch. Isn't this just the sweetest dress? I'm a sucker for smocking (and sales). Chris had to work most of the weekend, so Clara and I headed to the mall to find some brown dress shoes, but guess what, apparently brown dress shoes are not in style. Seems weird since I see dresses with brown in them EVERYWHERE and even bought one thinking I'd get some shoes later. Anyway, we couldn't find shoes, but we did finally give in to our, actually mostly my, urge to buy this dress I've been eyeing for 2 months now. It was on sale, so I had to get it.

Sunday after church we ate at Market Street and Clara fell asleep about 10 minutes before we got home. I HATE it when she does this. Upon waking when we got home, we spent the following two hours trying to get her to take a nap before we finally gave in. Surprisingly, she did fine until bedtime. I really thought the rest of the day was going to be a whinefest, but I guess the 10 minute power nap did the trick. Of course, that meant I didn't get a Sunday nap and that was NOT cool.

Which brings us to today. I finally broke down and let Clara play outside this afternoon despite the sweltering heat. She was in a swim diaper and cap and as we were filling up her pool, I noticed Max hanging out by the back fence and then realized Dingle was nowhere in sight. (I knew exactly where she was; the dog hates even the thought of being squirted with water.) Sure enough, I peek over and she had slipped through the iron fence and was already a couple of houses down and kept going when I called her. Dumb dog.

So I run inside letting the other two in, grab Clara (because there was water in her pool), find the community key to the iron gate on the side of our house, find a leash, grab Clara and run out back to get the booger. She had made it about 6 or 7 houses down by this point. Thankfully she came when I called her; I would've been steaming mad had she not. I'm just glad the gate to get back there is by our house. It would have been a much larger ordeal if it wasn't. Anyway, that's all the excitement going on around here.

Makeup

I knew it was only a matter of time before Clara got into my makeup, and that time came a few days ago. She had just gotten up from her nap (and I was trying to pry myself up from mine) when I heard her in the bathroom. Apparently, she's into the goth look.


Turns out she was just getting ready to go walk her dog. She put on her lipstick and heels and was ready to go.

It's Not Easy Being Green

Somewhere along this parenting journey, I've become interested in making my home and family a little more "green". I've never been too concerned about my health, diet or my environment....... that is until Clara came along.

All of a sudden, I can't help but think that all of the "stuff" we add to our food to make it pretty or taste really really good might not be the best thing for us. Or the antibacterial craze that's hit in recent years that's made everyone germophobic might not be the best way to train our bodies to fight illness. Maybe that's partly to blame for our new drug resistant super bugs. Maybe all the good cleaning agents that make our tub and toilet sparkle aren't all that great for our respiratory system. Maybe, just maybe, some of this gunk that we've been inundated with is to blame for the huge rise in Alzheimers, and ADD, and autism, and cancer, and asthma, and allergies. So recently, I decided to slowly start making changes in the way we live. Not huge changes and don't worry, I haven't gone all hippy on you guys. Just slightly hippy.

First thing I've done is stop buying antibacterial cleaners. I'm using up what I have, (mostly bath and body works hand soap), but will start buying regular soap. The problem with antibacterial stuff is that it kills most of the bacteria, but the few it doesn't kill become stronger and more resistant. The other huge problem is that it kills the good bacteria. We need the good bugs to stay healthy. The best way to guard against the bad stuff is regular washing with regular soap, which just washes away the germs, but doesn't kill them. I will say that having hand sanitizer handy when a sink isn't accessible is great. And there are certain cleaning situations that I believe merit bleach, so I definitely don't think it's all or nothing.

Secondly, I've started buying more natural cleaning products. The bonus part of this one is that the environmentally friendly cleaners also are non-toxic to us so that means I don't have to be too worried about you know who getting into them. The brands that I've found at Target are Simple Green, Seventh Generation and Method. Method's website is really funny. I didn't even know that it was an environmentally friendly brand; I always thought it was a Target exclusive brand. I also came across a website that gives all kinds of cleaning tips using vinegar. Who knew? We've always bought our pet accident cleaner, called Nature's Miracle, from Petco but only recently did I read that it's also non-toxic. Go me!

So the cleaning stuff is pretty easy. What's not easy, though is food. I've always been a picky eater and just don't eat much if I don't really like the way it tastes, so this one's been mainly me buying healthy stuff for Clara. It's not a huge stretch since she's lactose intolerant and that's caused me to look into the alternatives. What kills me about the healthy stuff is the price.

Clara has drank soymilk since we discovered she's lactose intolerant. She can have some dairy, but when she hits a certain point, it's not good. She's been having pretty bad diapers regularly, so I decided this past week to remove dairy except when we eat out. (And only then because the only thing she'll eat is grilled cheese or quesadillas.) Sure enough, her diapers are back to normal. I figured that until she can tell me her stomach hurts, I shouldn't assume she's ok. Who knows, maybe her fussiness at times could be attributed to the dairy and not teething or being almost two like I assume.

So, I googled vegan diets. I am not going vegan, nor is Clara, I just figured this was the best way to make sure she's getting all the nutrients she needs. She won't eat meat yet and I've determined that her meatsticks were causing the redness around her mouth, so I've taken them away. Combine that with no dairy and voila, you're a vegan, (as long as your not wearing leather shoes). We picked up some soy yogurt that I saw at the store for the first time and apparently they make soy cheese. Did not know that. Where do you buy soy cheese, you're asking yourself. No idea. We went to the health food store nearby and they had rice cheese, so we picked some up. It's american flavor and looks just like the regular stuff....except for the price tag. Eight slices for $5.69! And we picked up a pint of rice ice cream. The bill was around $10. Ouch!

I made a grilled (rice) cheese sandwich today and she gobbled it up, so I guess it's a hit. I'm guessing a trip to Whole Foods in Houston is in order. Aside from the necessary changes I'm making for Clara's lactose intolerance, I've also tried to buy other more natural items. I don't necessarily need it to say organic on the front, but I do want it to be free of artifical colors and flavors. I love it when I look on the ingredient list and it has only 2 or 3 ingredients, all of which I can pronounce. Like my peanut butter: peanuts and salt. Applesauce: apples and water. Syrup: maple syrup. I buy wheat bread, the leanest meat, and low fat versions of most stuff. Clara only gets juice at home every once in a while and only V8 fusion. It's vegetables and fruit, with no added sugar. She gets Welch's dried fruit packs instead of fruit snacks and an organic brand of graham and snack crackers.

I do try to be flexible with her eating. I don't want food to ever become an issue, so I hope to teach her that the ocassional splurge is just fine. I don't mind treats outside of the house one bit. She gets cake at parties, Sonic drinks and ice cream (dairy free from now on). Just didn't want anyone thinking I'm depriving her of a normal childhood here.

And finally, I'm trying to buy less plastic. This post is way longer than I intended, so I won't go into detail. Suffice it to say, we're seriously junking up the Earth with plastic. It doesn't break down, so for all intents and purposes, it's here to stay. The statistics on the number of water bottles alone that are lying around are astounding. I'm all about wooden toys now. But yet again, wood's more expensive that cheap plastic.

For those of you that made it all the way through this post, wow, I'm impressed.

Jumpin' Jaks

Clara and I went to a place called Jumpin' Jaks today. It's an indoor playground with two rooms, a wild west room and a jungle room. It's great, not too sterile, not too safe and not too expensive! You pay your child's age, maximum $4, they have a snack bar that was very reasonably priced and they're open until 9 pm. Finally, I've found an accessible, inexpensive form of entertainment. I thought it didn't exist.

The jungle room is just basically a huge maze. It's so random, it doesn't even look like they used plans to build it. There were spots that even I had trouble maneuvering through. There were little dark corners that would be perfect for a good hide and seek game. This place is probably heaven to 4 and 5 year olds. Everything is carpeted and dangerous pieces are covered with foam noodles, but it doesn't have the same "my child better not get hurt on this play equipment" quality that you see in playgrounds now. Perfect. Each room had a tire swing and a ball pit, but the balls were being cleaned today so we didn't get to play in them.

There were a couple of places that she could've gotten hurt and the slides were a riot. They were enclosed in small hallways, were wooden I suppose and then covered in a slick laminate. Man we got to moving! One was seriously tall. I did let her go down some of them by herself. At the bottom of one of them, there was a padded wall a couple feet in front of it. She was going so fast she flew off the slide and hit the wall with her feet. Another one she turned halfway down and ended up flying off the end and landing on her side. Surprisingly, she went down again.

All in all, this was a great place for a little bigger kids to play. It was a little too much for Clara to maneuver through on her own and it's hard for adults to get through most of it. If she had gotten stuck anywhere and started freaking out, it would've taken me forever to get to her. Nevertheless, we'll be going back for sure; can't beat $1.00 entertainment!

Awesome slide

Peekaboo!

Up.........

.....and dooooowwwwn!

Judd Family Summer Vacation

**I just tried my hand at doing a slideshow, but they don't seem to be showing up and I'm too lazy to fix them right now. You may be able to click on the "view" button that's in the bottom right hand corner to get to them. Sorry.

We're back from our summer vacation. We went all out this year. Friday we hit the zoo and today we went to Galveston to visit the aquarium at Moody Gardens. We had planned on going to the beach and then to Kemah boardwalk in the evening, but by 2:30, someone in our party was ready to call it a day. Plus, it rained on and off during the day, so we came home early.

Becky and Leah joined us on Friday and we had a lot of fun at the zoo. Clara hadn't been to the zoo since she was 10 months old, so she had mixed feelings about all these animals. Chris witnessed her epiphany at the giraffe exhibit. She seemed a bit scared when we walked up to the giraffes. Chris walked over to the information plaque about the exhibit and pointed to the picture and told her "giraffe". He asked her, "Where's the giraffe?" and she pointed at the picture. Then it happened. She looked up at the 30 foot tall "thing", then back at the picture, then back up at the giraffe and pointed to the real thing and said "giraffe". He said it was awesome to watch her realization that giraffes aren't the tiny things in her books or the toy she carries around.

Chris, Clara and Leah fed the pigeons the food that's supposed to go to the koi fish, the girls and I climbed through a tunnel in the aquarium, we brushed goats (Clara thought they were doggies) and Clara refused to sit on the carousel that Mommy spent $2.00 on. Then we rode on the little train that goes all over Hermann Park. That was really fun. We saw ducklings and a bum.

We took a vacation from our vacation on Saturday and Sunday. Glenn and Becky felt the need to be nice to us and offered to take Clara for the night on Sunday. Chris and I hit Market Street and went to a pub for dinner. We were dissapointed that there were no movies that looked worth watching, but we had fun anyway. It's so nice to have a break from the little one. I will say that by this morning, I was missing her and ready to see her, though.

She did awesome at her little slumber party with Leah, (or so I'm told). I'm so glad that she's never had separation anxiety. I was trying to say goodbye to her last night before we left. I just didn't want her looking up after a few minutes and freaking out because we weren't there, but she was busy playing and wouldn't even give me the time of day. Oh well, it could be much worse.

Then today we went to Galveston. We spent some time at the aquarium first. Clara was not impressed with the seals. She was ok with the above water viewing, but seeing those huge things swimming through the water scared the crud out of her. One was huge and came right up against the glass. Clara was not happy about that. She eventually warmed up a little, but not much. They were feeding the peguins while we were there, so they were all stuffing their faces instead of swimming, which was too bad. I really like watching them swim. Clara did enjoy looking at the fish for awhile, but got bored pretty quickly.

We headed over to the Mosquito Cafe and had a nice lunch. It was a quaint little place that some old friends, Wes and Cindy, recommended to us. (We ran into them at Market Street on Sunday night and sat and talked for awhile.) We went to the Strand for my caramel apple and went into a few of the shops. It was past naptime at this point and was still raining some, so we decided to come on back home.

And there you have it, our thrilling vacation. It's not over though! Chris took tomorrow off as well and we have big plans for our final day. Mowing the lawn, a garage project, storytime..... and much more. Can't wait!

The Communicator

Clara did several new things today that I wanted to document, so most of you can just ignore this post.

--While quietly reading a book to herself, she started saying her alphabet. She said "a, b, c, d, Whoa-ee, Dee dee, h, j, k, l". I was shocked. It's the first time she's said any of them without prompting. She did skip some, but the one's she said were in order. It was a counting book that she was reading, but she's not as interested in numbers. Taking after her Mama.

--She was sitting at the table by herself and I looked over as she pointed to Dingle and said her name, then to Zoe and said her name and then she pointed at herself and said "Me!" We've been working on me and you lately, but again, this is the first time she did it without prompting.

--We were singing "Wheels on the Bus" in bed and while she loves to do the hand movements or clap, she's never actually sung the words. She was really trying to today, but also like her Mama, I think she's got a one track mind and couldn't sing and do the movements at the same time. I understand! After we finished the song, she started "singing". I think it was "Pat-a-cake", but I definitely could be wrong. I teared up a little and Chris was like "Why are you crying?" It's like she turned a corner today and it's awesome to see her grow and sad at the same time.

--She was playing peekaboo with her baby doll this evening. She would put the dolls' hands over it eyes and then say "Pooh-da-da!" Too cute. (I'll admit this one happened with just a little prompting.) And last week, while singing "If You're Happy and You Know It", she took Jake's hands and taught him how to clap. My baby's getting so big.

Go Read Something

Some of you may remember my post several months ago asking for help in identifying an interesting creature I discovered in my yard. No one was able to tell me what the little booger was and so I had lost hope of ever finding out what it was. I could only assume that it was a new species that I had discovered and that no one would ever see one again.

I admit that I was wrong. I discovered only minutes ago that it is in fact a species that has been discovered previously and I found this out while reading Clara's goodnight book to her. You really can learn things by reading books, even children's books.

Chris and I put Clara to bed tonight and I was reading The Very Quiet Cricket by Eric Carle. I turn the page and before I start reading, I see the picture and exclaim "That's the bug from the yard! I know what I'm blogging about tonight." Sure enough, the page reads "Hi! bubbled a spittlebug, slurping in a sea of froth." Chris was laughing at me because I was so excited. I looked for a picture of the illustration to put up, but I couldn't find one.

The spittlebug is also known as a frogghopper. The one I found was a nymph and they only do the bubble thing when they're in the nymph stage. One website I went to said that most gardeners have never seen one. So there you go. Mystery solved. Now go read a book and learn something new.

Brunch is on Me

We didn't have Sunday school today because of the holiday, so we got out of church before lunchtime. We decided to go to Chris and Clara's Saturday breakfast buffet place with Micah and Lisa and Glenn and Becky.

I made the comment that I didn't know what Chris was talking about saying that Clara eats a ton a breakfast. She was hardly touching her food. Chris got up to get a made to order omelette and I soon found out why she was hardly touching her food. In fact, everyone in the restaraunt found out why she wasn't touching her food.

So I was able to catch the first spew in her bib. Go me! The second spew was pretty much filling up the entire bib and at this point I'm trying to balance it without spilling it onto her sailor dress. "That's got to be all of it" I think to myself.

I was wrong. This was apparently all of her breakfast and the entire sippy cup of water she had just drank. At this point I believe is when Lisa steps up to the plate. There is a frenzy to grab napkins during spew number 3. I'm still holding out hope that that is all there is and am therefore holding on to that bib for dear life. Had I realized there would be a 4th, 5th and possibly a 6th spew (I kinda lost track), I probably would've ditched the bib for a cup.

Unfortunately, when you're in the moment, you don't think very clearly. At least I don't. I was at a complete loss. This was my first public throw up incident and Chris was oblivious at the customize your omlette window. I think I did pretty good considering the shear volume. And nurse Lisa did awesome. She went above and beyond the call of duty and helped me get Clara all cleaned up and her dress off of her.

I am still amazed that I didn't even flinch when it happened. It was all over my hands, it stunk, but all I could think is to help her get through it and try to keep her clean. I didn't gag cleaning it up or anything. How is that? When Chris gets sick, I don't have quite the iron stomach, but Clara could've done it down my shirt and I think I still would've just been worried about her well-being.

So, my apologies to nurse Lisa, who shouldn't have to clean up bodily fluids on her day off, especially during the middle of her meal. To everyone else at the table (including the newly pregnant woman who really didn't need to witness that), I also apologize.

Our first reaction was, "oh no, our first stomach bug", but it doesn't look like that's the case. She was fine afterwards. She did throw up just a little at dinner, but she was chewing on her hand, so I think she gagged herself. She had been acting just a little out of sorts yesterday and today, but she was chewing on her hand like crazy at church, so I really thought that it was teething troubles. She may have had a little upset tummy and then threw up because of all the water she drank. Or maybe it was just a really mild bug. Who knows. All I know is that I haven't been cleaning up puke all day long, and really, isn't that all that matters?