Two weeks

So, two weeks, no binkie. I guess it's safe to say you're officially done with it. I'm not sure why I'm not 100% thrilled about it. Probably a combination of wishing you didn't have to stop being a baby quite so fast, along with the fact that you're much more VOCAL without it. I like the talking, I do, but sometimes the volume is deafening. You were nowhere near this vocal with the binkie in your life. I'd still rather have it this way than not. And you usually respond appropriately when I remind you that I can't hear you when you yell, you need to speak to me in a normal tone. Yep, I'm one of those mothers.

Your birthday party's booked at Chuck E. Cheese's so I guess that's really happening. Yet another thing I'm not 100% happy with, but what can you do? I'm going to work on the invitations tonight, but realistically they probably won't go out until this weekend. Nothing like giving ample notice, eh?

Snip snip

You got your first "official" haircut this weekend! It's a cute bob and pictures are forthcoming. It was getting unruly, so we had to do something about it. Still no bangs at Daddy's insistence, but that's fine.

We got the new mattress and the bed is taking some getting used to. Hopefully I'll adjust.

You got to see lots of fun people this weekend, including Auntie Chelle (you can say "Chelle!") and Aunt Talmar and Uncle Tom. All in all, I think you had a pretty fun weekend. There was a fair amount of Barney-watching going on, so that's a plus. You also got to color and play with your new blocks. It was pretty exciting.

Your birthday party looks like it might end up at Chuck E. Cheese's, though my initial inquiries into this costs of this idea have left me shaking my head in disbelief, so we'll just have to see.

Heffalump movie

Oooooh, I want to take you to see this!

Pictures!

I've uploaded the pictures from the last couple of months, including a separate album for Christmas pictures. I don't have a lot from Christmas morning, but they're in the Christmas album. And the 18-24 month album has pictures from Vegas with Jackson!

Links on Friends and Family page. Email me or leave a comment for access if you don't already have it or have forgotten the password. Thanks!

(PS - made appointment for 3/2 - shots await you!)

Binkieless and lovin' it

Last night marked the one week point since the binkie went away! You actually had one sometime over the weekend to soothe you in a particular car ride nap, but that's the only time and you gave it up willingly at our destination. I'm so proud of you.

No new developments on the potty front. We talk about it and sit on it and hang out waiting for the peepee and poopie, we have the peepee song memorized, and no real luck yet. Oh, well. We'll keep trying. While I'd LOVE to say goodbye to diapers for a while before thinking about Baby #2, I also don't want to push you in this area. You'll get sick of diapers soon enough, and we'll be ready.

Still boogery and this morning you were coughing quite a bit. It worries me so I'm going to really have to keep an eye on it. Which reminds me that I need to make your 2-year Dr.'s appointment here soon. Maybe I'll go do that now.

What we did on our daylong vacation

We cleaned the house, then went out and bought a really nice new mattress, and this:


You got to join us on the excursion to IKEA, made much more pleasant by the lack of rush hour traffic on a normally-holiday Monday for Martin Luther King Jr. birthday.

Our old bed was awful awful awful. I can't believe even YOU could sleep on the darn thing. Now it's a catch-22. We're waiting for the new mattress to be delivered on Saturday, and so the old mattress is sans box spring on the bed frame. Well, our old mattress is such a piece of junk it's basically a cement-hard slab of beat-up coils and fabric. Ugh. It's quieter and moves around less, but it's hard as a ROCK. My poor back.

On other fronts, the goobers in your nose seem to be tapering off. I am over my cold too, so at last we're on the mend again. Thankfully this one sped through pretty fast. My asthma is another issue entirely.

Birthday planning

So, I'm still picking a theme for your birthday. I think I have it down to three choices:

1. Care Bears
2. Sesame Street
3. Disney Princesses

I prefer them in that order, and will probably go ahead and go with Care Bears. For some reason, though, I keep waffling. Probably because my REAL #1 choice is actually SpongeBob but I'm going to refrain from that for a two-year-old's birthday party.

One more day to Friday!

Things are rolling along fine. I've been very very busy with work. Interviews for promotions, meetings with clients, training people on new processes... It's been very tiring, and worse since I'm also getting sick. So before I brag on my brilliant and beautiful daughter, I'd like to take a moment to brag on my incredible, loving husband.

Do you know how incredibly cool your Daddy is? How much he loves you? I know I've said it before, but he is just so natural with you. This week I have been a giant ball of stress, and busy a lot, even completely absent one full day/night. And he has stepped up to take care of business. He has gotten you out of bed and dressed for school almost every morning this week. He loads you in the car every morning, sparing my bad back. He makes you dinner, feeds you, cleans you up. He entertains you with his fabulous drumming, shoulder rides, Barney and Sponge Bob, reading stories, and more. It's amazing, and has taken so much of the load off of me this week. And this while he's stressed out himself, teaching new classes every day and learning how to navigate the new world of a high school teacher. He gets short with me sometimes, but something has to give and I do understand that. He even made dinner last night (good SPICY tacos!) because I just wasn't feeling up to it. WE LOVE DADDY!

Not much news on your front just cool things you do that I haven't logged yet. Lots of talking, even in sentences now, which is fun. I don't understand them all, but when it's something like "I want Mommy!" or "Ceili [has/is wearing] Mommy's shoes!" it's just downright cute. You also understand enough to understand situational lying now. That is fascinating. You were in the car with me and Grandma last week, kicking the back of Grandma's seat. She stretched her arm across the seats and looked back as you gently kicked her arm. She said, "Who's kicking me? Ceili, are you kicking me?" You smiled slyly and slowly shook your head no. You thought that was really funny, too, and giggling ensued. Great.

Counting is still going well. It's more rote memory, but that's where it comes from right? We're talking up potty training, but I've been so busy this week, we've made no real headway there this week.

And I realized this morning as I was getting you out of the car for daycare that you were binkie-less yesterday. When I got home, you didn't have one. You didn't have one before dinner or after. There weren't any around, so you didn't pick one up post-dinner. You didn't have it before or during your bath. And after your bath during your lotion massage as you were getting sleepy, you didn't ask for one. When you cuddled with me, with Daddy and eventually fell asleep with your blanket on the rug, you never had a binkie.

Maybe binkie's days are numbered without a lot of hoopla. Could it be? I'm going to keep them hidden for now and see what happens. Maybe you'll forget all about them. Wow.

Nice weekend

We had a very normal weekend, and it was wonderful. The hectic days of the last few months are a thing of the past. I couldn't be happier.

Saturday after looking at furniture with Grandma, you spent a couple of hours with her concentrating on potty-talk. We're really stepping this up now, trying to get you excited about the potty and the big girl panties you'll get to wear. Last night, in fact, I let you try on the JoJo's Circus panties and you danced around the living room enjoying them. Then it was back into diapers and jammies.

Anyway, I was able to clean and reorganize your bedroom FINALLY while you were with Grandma. It was great to be able to put your new big white bookshelf in there. Finally room for all your books. In fact, it looks like you have none, taking up less than 1/5 of the room on there. I'm sure that will change.

We also put the Christmas goodies in the attic, which itself was cathartic. I feel like we have our house back at last.

Yesterday we enjoyed a nice stroll up to Mama Java's coffee shop with Grandma and Uncle Chris and later in the afternoon we got to enjoy some free gourmet gelato at a new gelato joint at 36th St. and Camelback. That was really nice, and you are a gelato convert. Too bad the freebie stuff is over and I'm sure that little cup you enjoyed will probably be $3.00 today. Oh, well, it was a special treat.

You're still doing well, though you've got a little cough going on. Considering how nasty my cough has gotten (I'm finally going to call the Dr. on that), yours seems very minor. Hopefully it'll go away quickly.

So, back to the grind. Next weekend - shopping! And soon I'll be planning for your birthday and making your 2-year Dr.'s appointment. I'd better get on that considering how far out they make well baby appointments.

Confession

I have a confession to make. I want another baby.

Actually, I want two more. But I'll start with one.

I can't do anything about that right now, and it's sheer insanity to imagine taking care of two (my mind goes back to the ER night with you, or the ER day with me), but still...

Must be hormones talking. Shhh. Go away. We'll talk in a few months.

What a difference a week makes!

Things really are back to normal, THANK GOD! It's been a tough month or two, and I forgot what our normal life is really like. In fact, with Daddy not working exactly regularly for about 3 months, we haven't really been "normal" in a while.

But this week he's been doing his student teaching, for the first of his nine weeks. So we all get up together, get ready together, leave together, come home around the same time, eat dinner together, and go to sleep at a reasonable hour. The ONLY thing that's still off-kilter a bit is your bedtime. You've gotten into the habit of going to bed pretty late, so we're working on shifting that back. Having said that, when it's bedtime, you scream and whine until you're actually placed in your bed... then you settle right down and go to sleep. You've never done that before, but it's quite nice. No prolonged talking-down or tiptoeing out as you drift off anymore. You're growing up.

Your energy level is back to 100%, you eat like a pig and your belly is doing that cool snake thing again (huge after a meal, and flat and sinewy in the morning). I suspect another big growth spurt is around the corner. I never mentioned it but you weighed in just over 28 pounds at the hospital. That was down a little. Not surprising, though.

AND - Today's cool development is COUNTING! You counted to five last night without ANY prompting from mommy and daddy. I held up fingers, and you counted them right off. I was so glad Daddy got to see it too. I was so proud of you, and you knew it. You just glowed and clapped along with us. Everyday you amaze me more.

So there you go. We're all doing much better. If I could get my cough to go away, I'd think we were all just perfect! Okay, maybe not quite that good. :)

On the mend

Well, you appear to have had an allergic reaction to a virus. I had no idea that was possible, but apparently it's fairly common. The initial reaction wasn't obvious and the fear regardless is of swelling in your mouth, throat, etc. Thankfully that didn't happen, and the days of Benadryl seem to have kept things in check. They dismissed you Thursday night though you were still pretty ill. By Saturday you looked almost as good as new. I could still see the shadow of the last of the hives on your back, but the swelling was all gone. THANK GOD! The Dr. said this could happen again anytime, or might never happen again. No way of knowing. And I guess it's irrelevant which of the dozens of viruses your body was fighting. You're better, and that's all I care about. You spent New Year's Eve with Grandma and generally had a pretty nice weekend.

My back is better too, though last night set me back a bit since I slept wrong. Daddy starts his first day of Student Teaching today too! He's very nervous.

I think 2005 is showing signs of improvement already. It's about time.

If I owe anyone an update, an email, a phone call, whatever, please forgive me. Things have been a little rough lately. I should be caught up soon I hope.