Thursday, September 29, 2011

Something new everyday

First things first: we have no idea what made Stasa sick. I took her to the doctor today and after looking her over and running a strep test, they sent us home with instructions to bring back a urine sample, which I'm still waiting to get...because, you know, catching my kid's urine in a cup is exactly the type of thing I look forward to. Anyway, I'm pretty sure it's just your run-of-the-mill stomach bug and will pass with time.

With all that's been going on with Stasa, we've just been hanging at home, keeping it low key and making good use of the playroom. She surprises us everyday with what she knows. If you ask her to count, she'll say "3, 2, 1, 2, 3!", but if you just sit back and watch her, you'll catch her counting the right way "1, 2, 3...8, 9, 10, 11, teen." Same with the ABCs - she pretends she doesn't know them, but then can sing the entire song if she thinks you aren't paying attention. And she's so damn observant. I swear she's got better eyesight than Tom and me combined. Tonight's moon was barely a sliver (it's a waxing crescent) and she spotted it immediately in the dusky sky. This morning we were stopped at a traffic light and she was quietly announcing the color, size, and type of vehicle that was passing us: "little red cah", "big black truck", "yellow schoolbus!", "ambahlance"...

And she can hear the slightest of whispers. It's like she's a secret agent or something with spy equipment. Tom and I will have a quick conversation in hushed tones and she'll perk up and yell out "Stasa have ice cream, too!" "We going to play place?" "I don't want any naptime!" 

She's something else, that kid. And the other one? Yeah that one has started doing the unbelievable: pulling up. On her own. The other day I went to pick up the girls and spied Lexi playing and stood so she couldn't see me. She crawled right over to this low play pen where another little boy was quietly playing. She got there, grabbed the edge, and slowly but surely pulled herself up to standing and quickly snatched all of the boy's toys. I stood there in awe, but then chalked it up to a fluke. Then she did it again and again when we got home. And then again the next day and the day after that. She so wants to be in on whatever Stasa is doing, after all, that is her current idol. She gets so upset when we're all playing in the same room and Stas walks out and she'll start hightailing it down the hall to be with her big sis. 

We're off to the Yo Gabba Gabba live show tomorrow night at the Patriot Center. Stas will be dressed as Foofa, natch. And you know I'll have pictures to share. For now I'll leave you with these cuties.

Monday, September 26, 2011

Oh, goodie

Stasa woke up and promptly puked. And then puked again 30 minutes later. Looks like we've just bought ourselves a visit to the doctor tomorrow.

Updated: After ralphing the second time, she was totally fine and ready to party. Literally. And since she woke up her normal self, we sent her to daycare and she was completely fine all day. Fingers are crossed that we have no more "episodes" tonight or tomorrow.

Future Olympian

She's such a daredevil and already crawling over all sorts of things, including my legs.


And she's oh-so-happy with her new abilities.


"I'm gonna getcha, camera!"

It's apparent you're a parent when...

...you've spent the majority of your Saturday catching vomit coming out of your almost 3 year old. Oh how life has changed. We thought it was food poisoning since she was ralphing minutes after eating (and drinking), and she was fever-free and her usual high energy happy self. Besides the puking, we spent the morning and early afternoon playing and puttering around the house. She woke up from her nap ravenous and quickly ate a snack and drank some water...and managed to keep it down. 

We kept it low-key on Sunday, too, and played around the house...painting self-portraits...
I traced her body, traced and cut out her feet, and she glued all the parts on. Tom did the majority of the painting. She's pretty smart and got most of the parts in the right spot. Especially the car.
...playing with Play-doh...
I was told that was a baby snake that was sleeping on its mommy.
...taking a walk...

Stasa asked if we could take her to the play place at the mall and we promised we would after her nap. You know she remembered when she woke up. Kid doesn't forget anything. So off we went and she ran around happily by herself. 

After the mall we did more of the same: hung out at home. 

26 Weeks Old

So much to share

It's not that I've been slacking on blogging so much as I've been running around like a mad woman. I do have many videos and pictures and stories to share and will do that tonight. Promise.

Wednesday, September 21, 2011

She sits, she scoots, she swipes






This kid scoots and crawls all over the place now. This morning I put her down on the floor in her room and went to get dressed, Tom and Stasa were across the hall, brushing their teeth in the bathroom. As I'm dressing I hear Tom say "What happened? Who's that?" I peeked around our door and caught Lexi scootching her butt across the hall and into the bathroom, determined to be a part of our morning routine. And if you put something down she's not supposed to have, like an envelope, girlfriend doubles her speed to  get to it before you can. SWIPER, NO SWIPING!

Tuesday, September 20, 2011

A girl, her daddy, and a pink ball

We got home a little on the late side tonight, but Tom was already home and basically had dinner on the table, so we were still able to have enough time after dinner to take advantage of the nice weather. Tom asked Stasa if she wanted to play outside. She perked up and announced that she wanted to kick the pink ball with daddy. So kick the ball they did. 


Then after about 30 or 40 minutes of non-stop running and kicking, she announced that "ball is tired. Ball go bed now." And she scooped up the ball and marched inside with it. Ball done.

Monday, September 19, 2011

Lexi's first Redskins game

We took Lexi to her first Redskins game yesterday and she was a trooper - when we got to our tailgate spot we started setting up and she promptly fell asleep on Nicole. She was awake for most of the game, but slept again during halftime and the third quarter and fussed a bit during the fourth quarter. Tom made waaaaay too much food - he brought close to 18 pounds of meat for 8 people, and we all went in to the stadium over stuffed. And of course the majority of my meal was cookies. So delicious.

Waiting for Dan's friend, Carlo, to arrive


Checking out the game


Unsure about that last call


When did she get so big?



25 Weeks Old

Tuesday, September 13, 2011

A peek into our night

6:30 PM
Dinner with both girls. Stasa eats part of a tortilla, some refried beans, a ton of shredded cheese, and half an apple. Lexi eats mushed banana. Well, really Lexi pretends to eat mushed banana, but really just coos and shrieks while nomming on the spoon.

7:15 PM
Bath with both girls. Lots of giggling and splashing and eating of toes. I'll let you figure out who was responsible for the toe eating.

7:30 PM
A clean Lexi gets dressed and fed before bedtime.

7:45 PM
Stasa finishes her bath and runs around naked with her towel trailing behind her like a superhero.

7:47 PM
Stasa manages to get into her undies, but then decides she HAS TO GO POTTY RIGHT NOW DADDY.

7:48 PM
Stasa decides she doesn't actually need to use the potty.

7:49 PM
"I WANT MOMMY!"

7:50 PM
Stasa finally gets in her pjs and gets in bed and Tom reads her bed time story of the week: Things That GO!, otherwise known as the "fruck book".

7:58 PM
I finish feeding Lexi and put her in bed and join Stasa and Tom for the end of story time.

8:02 PM
Story time is finishes and I'm directed to tuck in and give kisses to all of her friends.

8:03 PM - nearly midnight
Tom works out, I finish homework, and together we relax, chat, and watch too much TV. We realize it's close to midnight and that we should have gone to bed hours ago.

Midnight
Stasa wakes up crying. We go in to comfort her. As we're cuddling her and trying to calm her down, PFFFFFFFFFFFFFT she gasses us, laughs hysterically, and then says goodnight.

12:10 AM
Juuuuuuuuuuust start to fall asleep.

12:12 AM
Lexi wakes up screeching hysterically.

12:17 AM
I feed Lexi and put her back to sleep.

12:18 AM
Juuuuuuuuuuuuust start to fall asleep. Again.

12:20 AM
Stasa pads down the hall and into our room. We send Stasa back to her room.

12:21 AM - 1:20 AM
I lay in bed awake, unable to get comfortable.

3:15 AM
Lexi wakes up screaming. I squint at the clock and realize we've actually slept a couple of hours. Tom goes in to put her pacifier back in and comfort her, but she just gets more ticked off. After her crying for what feels like forever, but is actually only 5 minutes, I go in and feed her because we're all exhausted and don't want Stasa waking up again.

3:38 AM
I put Lexi in bed and sigh with relief because she's back asleep. Just as I'm getting comfortable in bed, she wakes up crying. Then Stasa walks in. Again.

3:45 AM
Stasa's finally back in her own room and we've turned the monitor off and Tom goes in Lexi's room to calm her down. Again. And Again.

4:30 AM
Monitor is still off and Lexi's still crying. She's fed and dry and mad. We finally give up and shut her door and our door and finally fall asleep.

5:00 AM
My alarm goes off. And I hit snooze thinking I'll get up in a minute.

5:30 AM
My alarm has been snoozed a couple of more times and now Tom's alarm is going off.

6:20 AM
We both finally get up and out of bed. Then it's a rush to get showered and dressed so we can get the kids up and ready. I realize I need to be out of the house by 7:15 to make it to Stasa's dentist appointment on time.

7:27 AM
We all leave the house.

Monday, September 12, 2011

Stasa's first official manicure



Of course she chose pink, and hot pink at that. She sat still (mostly) while her nails were painted and kept her hands on the arm rests while her nails dried. Next time we'll get her toes done. Best $0 ever spent (probably because I paid to get a real pedicure for myself).

Sunday, September 11, 2011

Girls and goats

Wonder what a sick Stasa looks like?


Yes, she still chews on her blanket(s) - I have no idea how to break that habit. At least we've got her down to only chewing on them at nap and bed time (and when she's sick). Her cheeks are pinkish (as are her arms and legs) from fifth disease. The good news is, she's much better. This kid truly has 2.5 speeds: On, Off, and Sick. And as soon as she's on the mend, she back to On.

*********************************************************************************
The other night Lexi was so smiley, so I decided to take advantage of her good mood and set up my seamless paper for a quickie photo shoot. In hindsight I should have either waited until Stasa was napping or for a time when Tom wasn't cooking dinner. Oh well, I managed to get a couple of decent shots of Lexi before Stasa crashed the show.


Can you tell she wasn't feeling too hot?



*********************************************************************************
My goal today was to get us out of the house for awhile since Tom would be at the Skins game most of the day (and night). I woke Lexi up from an early nap (in the hopes that she would then nap longer in the afternoon) and we headed out to the Reston Zoo.

Self-picked outfit, natch

I had never been to the Reston Zoo, but figured we'd try it out since it's local. Turns out it was the perfect choice for a 2 1/2 year old. It's small - only a few animal exhibits, but so easy for a small kid to navigate on their own and easy for parents to keep an eye on them while they do. Of course we spent the majority of our time in the barn, feeding the goats and sheep. It was pretty much Cox Farms revisited. She got all sort of upset when this huge sheep snatched her feed cup, flipped it up, and ate all the food.

Blurry greedy sheep eating all of the food

Other than that incident she had an absolute blast. 

24 Weeks Old



And LOL at this. She was loving all over on her bear.

Wednesday, September 7, 2011

Plague, plague, go away, don't come back another day

Stasa's sick again. This time with a double ear infection and fifth disease. She's had a slightly runny nose the past couple of days, but no other symptoms and has been her usual sassy, energetic self and then BAM fever of 100.5 yesterday evening and rosy cheeks this morning. This morning Tom took her to the doctor, got the diagnosis, and a prescription for an antibiotic. 

The thing is, she almost never has any real symptoms and always acts like her normal self until she's extremely sick. And it makes me feel like a crappy mom because I feel as if I should recognize that she's really sick, but I don't because she looks and acts like she always does. 

And it's not like she's not washing her hands - that's one of her favorite pastimes and she'll wash her hands for an hour if we let her. But she has picked up this nasty habit of licking things. She's so quick about it, too. Before I get a chance to wipe down the shopping cart, she's swiped it with her mouth. Add to that the numerous kids in her class with noses running like faucets and maybe it shouldn't be too surprising that she's sick.


Tuesday, September 6, 2011

Redefining luxury

**Sleeping in is a thing of the past. If we sleep past 7:00 am we consider ourselves lucky.
**If I jump in the shower before 6:00 am or after 8:00 pm, I'm able to enjoy a solo shower. Showering during nap time is like playing Russian roulette. Since both upstairs baths share a wall with Stasa's room (yeah yeah, *excellent* planning on my part), a nap time bathing may or may not wake her up. And you know her. Every bath is *her* bath.
**When we make it through an entire meal without either of us having to hold Lexi or listen to Stasa whining, it's like a fine dining experience.
**There are a few occasions when we're able to watch a non-Nickelodeon show without interruption. During the day. While the kids are awake.

***************************************************************
I started this list over the weekend, but then took a break because being able to work on my laptop without sticky fingers touching my screen is next to impossible. So now I've totally lost my train of thought up there. On to something else!

Stasa is all about tummy time these days. Yes, you read that right. Stasa, the almost-three-year-old is forever doing tummy time. With Lexi. With her baby. With her bear. And she tries to make us do tummy time, too. "Mommy, tummatime on the floor!"



I just realized how dirty her baby is...guess it's time for a bath!

Lexi is army crawling and rolling all over the place now and gets stuck in strange places. The other day I walked out of the room for a few seconds to grab something and when I came back, she was happily laying with her arm stuck under the TV stand. 

Pretty much everyone in our family loves our iPads. Stasa is so adept at using them and manages to find the most random videos on YouTube. And since she always watches videos under my YouTube account, my "favorites" list makes me look like a crazy person (which I admit, I am). I'm not sure which I shake my head at more, The Annoying Orange, Chocolate Rain, or Thomas Climbing the Slide.



Thursday, September 1, 2011

The frustration of toddlerhood


Two and a half has been one of the most fun and frustrating ages at the same time. Every day seems to be a roller coaster of emotions with Stasa. She normally wakes up and is immediately happy, but if you don't put away her chew blanket fast enough, she notices.

::swing:: <---------(that's the pendulum of emotions swinging toward crazytown)

She's chewed on blankets for the longest time. We used to let her chew on them whenever she wanted, but recently we've put some rules in place and only let her have them at nap and bed time. So when she wakes up in the morning, we get her to put her blanket away, but if we don't do that at just the right moment, she melts down. In a major way.

::swing::

Then she's all of a sudden happy again and chatting up a storm with Lexi. ::swing:: Now upset because she DOESN'T WANT ANY PANTS. WANT BUNNY DRESS AND PINK SOCKS. ::swing::

And it goes on and on like that until she's dropped off at daycare and then we pick up where we left off the minute I pick her up after work. Then there are those days when we're just coloring or building castles and she looks over at me and says "wuv you mommy." Of course there are also those days when we've spent too many of our precious evening minutes in time out. See what I mean? Emotional roller coaster. And what kills me is SHE KNOWS IT. I'm certain of this. The kid *knows* exactly which buttons to push to frustrate me and then in the blink of an eye she's her sweet loving self again. WHAT GIVES TODDLERHOOD?

Enough complaining out of me because it's really not terrible. There are more moments of happiness, silliness, and sweetness than those frustrating moments. And even though I swear she knows how to push my buttons, she's not a malicious kid. She's got a heart of gold and is so surprisingly good when we least expect it.

She cleans up her toys when you ask her to.


She builds the best princess castles.


And she makes the best dinner and serves the tastiest tea.