In Between

A hearty hello blog readers! I'm hoping I'm able to find all of the photos I've been saving for my next blog entry. Let me begin with the story of "Baby":

"Baby" joined our family several weeks ago. There were several garage sales in our neighborhood and I stopped sailing early to come back and let Jason run to the Chiropractor. I went to as many sales as I could, then came home and opted to finish up the neighborhood on foot, with Rachel. She loves to be in her stroller since she's not in it very often, so she was very happy to join in. The last sale we go to there's an Elmo doll wearing a chicken costume and when you pushed a button it sung this obnoxious rendition of the chicken dance. Next to it, was baby. Rachel was whining and really upset that she couldn't take one of them with her. Honestly, I'm pretty sure she wanted both, but I was only going to give in to one. (I didn't really want to give in to either of them at all!) So $2 later, "Baby" was purchased. She's heavier than she looks because not only is she a doll....but she vibrates and giggles. The first time you hear it, it's really creepy. But Rachel loved her. So much so, that the evening we went to the June Jamboree, we weren't able to go anywhere without "Baby". I was thankful we didn't have to take her into the carnival with us! I was also terrified that Rachel was going to become so attached to "Baby" that she would be a permanent attachment wherever we went. Thankfully, after a few days the novelty has worn off and "Baby" is now a sometimes toy.

A few weeks after we found "Baby" I found the find I've been looking for ALL season!

A toy kitchen!!! Rachel loves it! Although I see them every weekend, I've been trying to find one that's gently used, still clean and doesn't look like it's going to fall apart at any moment. Not only was this one in great shape, it came with all these accessories! There's a kettle that makes noise like the water is boiling, a phone that works, and dishes! All of the stickers are intact and it's perfect. Rachel has been grabbing the forks and plates and pretending to eat off of them. For some reason her favorite thing is to take a small spatula and try to cram it in my mouth as if to say, "eat this!!"

For Father's Day this year Jason was really sick. We were afraid he had pneumonia, so Saturday he was at the Medcheck having tests and xrays done. Come to find out it was thankfully not pneumonia, but he was still really sick. So we took it easy Sunday and I even went so far as to bake cookies, which I rarely do anymore. Probably not the best idea, but I decided to let Rachel try her first "Mommy Cookie"....to which we promptly had to hide the rest of them as she was begging for another one! But I think she enjoyed it....

I thought for sure I had more pictures, but alas. These were the only ones I could find. Now for some updates and stories on Rachel.

In the above photo she's wearing a little green one piece outfit. It's adorable. I remember this story only because of the condition the outfit was in when I peeled it off of her. We have this cute little pool set up on the back deck and it's perfect for her and I to play in. Rachel LOVES this pool and will happily put whatever she can find into the pool for fun. Pieces of grass she's torn off, cloths, clothes, toys, etc. I don't leave the back door open often, but when I do I'm usually somewhere nearby or in another room for just a quick moment. After she ate that cookie it was one of those times where I was in the kitchen with the back door open and probably doing dishes or cooking and went out to check on her and found her standing in the pool, clothes and all. *sigh* The outfit was sopping wet, her diaper was more than soaked through and she was happy as a clam! (We usually keep the pool drained or one of us is out there with her now). 

Rachel has her own language right now. We're used to it, but it's hard for other people to understand her just yet. Heck, even we have trouble understanding her most of the time. But for the most part, she can mumble something and point so we get the idea. About a month or so ago Rachel was at Day Care and was pointing to the sky saying, "Gaa!!" which we have learned means "bird". One of the teachers saw her doing this and said, "Yes, Rachel, God is in heaven!"

Today when I picked her up her teacher, Liz (who is leaving this week and I am SO sad about it!) informed me that while Liz was training the new teacher, Rachel walked up to her and handed the teacher her pants. Why did our child pull her pants off, give them to the teacher, then patiently wait to have them put back on? I have no idea. So now our daughter is learning how to take off clothes. It's just a matter of time before she figures out how to pull the diaper off....

Over the past 6 months you may have noticed me expressing my frustration and stress with Rachel's tantrums and fit throwing. We discovered she would normally only throw tantrums at home and keep her fits to a minimum if she was around other people or outside of the house. This led me to believe we had to be doing something wrong. Jason confirmed this theory. We realized that we weren't setting good boundaries for Rachel and we were letting her run rampant. She'd throw a fit, we'd try to just ignore it and let her get it out of her system. She'd tell us no and we'd try to reason with her. Honestly, I was just desperately trying to be a nice mommy and try to ignore bad behavior and practically throw a parade when she would demonstrate good behavior. Sadly, this is destructive parenting and it was causing us all kinds of grief. So a few weeks ago we started using time outs, getting in her face and talking sternly, and sometimes gently smacking her hands when she would try to hit or scratch at us. Just a few weekends of this new parenting style has worked wonders. She helps me pick up the items she'll throw on the floor. She laughs, plays and listens so much more. The tantrums are down to maybe one or two in the evenings and maybe a few more on the weekend days when we have her at home. It's like we have another child! Having a child that was mean to you, scratching, biting, spitting, kicking and flopping around was becoming tiresome, stressful and frustrating. I seriously didn't know what to do and was NOT happy when Jason did research and came back with the information that he did. But I'm grateful. Being a parent for the last 6 months has not been fun. AT ALL. Now we hardly have to scold her and she listens! Amazing! Now being a parent is actually fun, because now I get to play with her sweet wonderful side and don't always see her monster side!!

This evening I realized that her 18 month pajamas are getting too small. Not a big deal, but I've noticed it's the pajamas that become small first and soon after I notice her clothing getting too small as well. I've been buying a lot of 24 month stuff at garage sales in preparation for next year, but all of it seems to be winter stuff. So I switched gears this past weekend and have started getting both 24 month and 2T clothing that are both winter and summer friendly. Her closet is SO full right now!! But I've had a ball finding everything. This evening I went to Kohl's and got a bunch of stuff from their clearance rack with a 30% off coupon, then got another 15% off at the register. SCORE! I'm also trying to find more matching outfits. Trying to coordinate clothing is becoming a bit taxing, especially if her drawer is full and I can't dig through it easily to find more clothes for her to match! But right now she's at that awkward "In Between" sizes of clothes. Her size 4 shoes are too small, but size 5 are too big. Some of her 18 month stuff is too small, but all of the 24 month stuff is too big. So right now I keep sending her to day care with shoes that are too big because I don't want to small ones to hurt her feet! And I have yet to see size 4.5 shoes for toddlers. Bah.

So....words Rachel is saying now. She understands most of what we're telling her and can identify people if we say their names. For example, "Go show that toy to Aunt Gail!" She knows who Aunt Gail is. But she can't actually say it back. She can say Thank you, which comes out "Sain Su!" and she does say it at the appropriate times. I appreciate that her teacher enforces that at school.

Whenever we are playfully spitting raspberries to each other she'll spit one, I'll spit on, then she'll point her finger at me and say, "No no." Because they aren't allowed to do that at school and they all tell the other children who do that that it's against the rules.

She'll say, "Mommy?" as if she wants to ask a question and normally what follows after I ask, "Yes?" is something that sounds like this, "mmuh meeh Mocken?" Which means something something something Monty. Monty has gone from "Button" to "Mocken" But she does use the upward inflection when she wants to ask a question.

She's starting to want to eat at the table with us, so as often as we can I try to encourage dinner at the table. Her booster seat doesn't work with our table, because her legs won't fit underneath it due to the lip, so I kind of let her stand in the chair next to me while we eat. She's wriggly and will NOT hold still, but it's about the only way I can get her to eat something other than fruit or olives. If I'm eating salmon or steak, she'll happily eat off of my fork if I feed her because she wants to be like us. But put it on her own plate? Forget it. She's not interested. I hate to say she's a picky kid, because she'll eat it if I eat it.

Today I stopped in at Buy Buy Baby on my lunch break and picked up some new sippy cups. The ones we have are hand me downs and were in great shape, but over the course of a few months of using them and they get left downstairs, in the car, or just out, they get really yucky. The kind we have I don't fee confident are cleaned, so I picked up some new ones. Low and behold, they now have sippy cups with no spill straws! She's going to be elated. She LOVES to drink from a straw. I would love to give her a real "cup" as she likes to drink from those too, but she's not mastered the trick of not tilting your head all the way back and letting the drink spill all over your face, front and back. So we'll hold off on that without strict supervision.

Sometimes she'll get so tickled and excited about something that she'll cover her mouth as she laughs. It's adorable.

I know that we use blanket and pacifier to go to sleep, but she's begun calling both of them "Nigh nigh". And sadly, we're losing the "Out of sight out of mind" trick because she'll beg and search for her pacifier when she's in the mood. Some nights we'll get home and I can keep it tucked away on the shelf until bedtime. Other times, like tonight, she insisted on having it all night because she was tired and cranky.

And no wonder! Poor kid was coughing up a storm last night, so badly that it woke her up and she stayed in her bed hollering, "Mommy!!" (Which actually comes out sounding like Mahmmy). I happened to purchase this new medicine that helps sooth kids from coughing and helps them sleep, but it's all natural ingredients. (Can you say Praise the Lord she's old enough for normal medicine!? Oh I can! PTL!!!! Relief for us all!!!) So I took a dose of that into her and then did something I've not done since she was an infant: rocked her to sleep. I loved it. I've shied away from doing that for a long time now as Jason and I both need her desperately to be able to put herself back to sleep when she wakes up. She does a really good job of it, and I knew that she was awake enough after I had her drink the medicine that laying her back down would result in a huge outburst of screams. And like I said, she's been behaving so much better lately, I could resist. So we sat and rocked in my rocking chair and when I laid her back down, she was out. It was such a wonderful moment!

This weekend we'll be heading down to Newburgh where we'll leave Rachel for a week. I love that during this time while she's not in school she gets to spend quality time with all of Jason's family down there. And truthfully, I know all of our family love us, but they get to see a different side of Rachel when we aren't there. If we're there, she's climbing all over one of us (Normally me) and she wants mommy and daddy all the time. Take us out of the equation and other people get to play with her and hold her. So for right now, I love that she gets to spend time down there. No longer do I look at this as a break I desperately need (because we DID need it the last 6 months!) Now I look at it as a great visit with all of her relatives. She gets to see most of my side of the family quite a bit. Plus, this teaches her how to be without mommy and daddy all the time, and I feel that's important.

I think those are all the stories and updates I could remember to put up here. Thanks for reading!

June Jamboree

Quick update before I begin the story of the June Jamboree: Rachel's results of her lead test came back this morning and they are FINE! So, all of that hype for precautionary reasons only. Praise The Lord!!! We still have a few lead tests that we want to run on some items in the house, but we are so relieved to hear that she's fine!

Okay. The June Jamboree. For those not from the Pendleton area, this is a carnival that is set up every year in Pendleton, normally around the first week in June. Our local Kiwanis club sponsors this and it is THE thing to do every year. I can remember going nearly every single year as a kid to ride the rides and eat a K-Burger. (For those in Newburgh, you can liken the K-Burger to your Texas Barbeques. Each are just "ok", but it's the novelty of it being "famous" from that area).

We didn't want to stay long, and it was HOT. The June Jamboree is really more fun when you're there at dusk or after the sun's gone down and it's dark. We wanted to get there early since Rachel hsa been refusing to sleep on the weekends at nap time. But we did things right! We got a K-burger, which I reluctantly shared:

Rachel really seemed to like it. We walked around for a while, then of course had to let her pick out a duck (since it's the only game she was tall enough to actually do). She stood there FOREVER watching the ducks and didn't understand that she was supposed to pick one up. When she finally did, she wanted to pick up ALL of the ducks and got upset that we had to walk away.

The only ride I felt comfortable with her being on was the big slide....and secretly, I wanted to go down the big slide. So we did!

We went with my brother Alex and his girlfriend Caroline and while we waited on them to ride a few rides Rachel wanted some of Jason's Lemon Shake Up.

And since Mommy forgot the stroller....

And finally, when it was all over with.....

Then woke up 5 minutes before we got home and she ran around like a mad woman!!

Amazing

My last post was me, a mom, being really frazzled. While I don't have the results of the lead test we put Rachel through at the hospital, I do have some awesome photos to share.

I purposely posted about the hectic photo shoot we had with Rachel because I truly expected perhaps one or two good photos to use. And honestly, that would have been enough for me. But no, my dear friend Ginny came through with absolutely amazing photos from what, I thought, was an almost wasted photo shoot.

There are SEVERAL good photos! I'll get them posted if anyone would like to make their own print offs. So if you are in the area and in need of a good photographer - contact me for Ginny's information. If she pulled these awesome photos out of that day, I'm pretty sure she MIGHT have a magic wand for any occassion.

Before I close this post, I am so excited to share this photo:

Her hair is FINALLY long enough to spike in the bathtub like my mom used to do to us kids. I am SOOOO excited!!!

Ode to Lunacy

Perhaps it was the full moon last night....at least it looked full to me. Perhaps it's just crazy season. Whatever has been floating in the air....it's left our household reeling from craziness.

It started yesterday when we arrived home from church. Rachel was refusing to take a nap. We desperately needed her to take a nap as yesterday afternoon we'd scheduled Rachel's 18 month photos. My friend Ginny had graciously offered to meet us at Falls Park to photograph our little darling and capture what she looks like at 18 months. So we REALLY needed her to rest so she would be awake, alert and hopefully not as fussy. Ney, cooperative! I fought her for an hour before she finally was worn out enough she relented and slept for just an hour.

In a rush, we got her in the car, 3 extra outfits and tried in vain to get her to eat something. Nope. She didn't want to.

We get to the park and instantly notice this photo session isn't going well. While she wasn't fussy, she was somber. Nothing would pull more than a cracked smile out of her. She was, however, very interested in the tacos we'd picked up to eat while she was getting her photos taken. (We tried to eat in the car, but she threw a fit when she saw food and we weren't passing any back). So instead of focusing on the trees, the water, the grass, ANYTHING....she was concentrating on our food. So I gave her a few bites here and there that didn't contain as much of the meat that would drip down her WHITE DRESS....and tried desperately to get her to eat the raisins or craisins that I had brought with us.

Ginny suggested we get out of the congested park and head over to where the baseball diamonds used to be as there was a bridge there she takes photos on. It was perfect! However, Rachel had her own agenda. She wanted to run down the bridge, but never at the camera or away from the camera when we wanted her to. Ginny has 2 kids of her own and was more than accommodating and explained to us that photos are practically impossible on children ages 1 - 3 years, at which stage you can bribe them with ice cream and they smile on command. *sigh* So after 30 minutes of pictures that will most likely come out with only one of us smiling at the camera while the other parent is desperately attempting to get Rachel to look at the photographer we gave up and headed home.

Then this morning I arrived at work and was instantly reminded that Rachel's 18 month appointment was today. Crap. This means I don't have the diaper bag with me and will be arriving at the doctor's office without a spare diaper (which we always end up needing) and am also sans toys (aka distractions while the nurse gives shots or the doctor is taking forever).

After a crazy day at work I left 10 minutes later than I meant to and hurridly grab up Rachel and remember to ask for one of her diapers to take with me. Score! I'm feeling pretty good. Until I strap Rachel into her car seat and realize she has a poopy diaper. Did I mention we're already running late and if I didn't get to the doctor's office in the next 15 minutes we lose the appointment we'd waited 3 weeks to get? Against my usual practice, I left her like that and hauled us both to the doctor's office, arriving exactly 15 minutes late and saving the appointment.

Oh....and on the way there? Rachel totally threw up all over herself and the car seat. She was even generous enough to get some on the seat next to her. Lovely.

So we arrive, flustered, poopy diaper, throw up on both of us now and we're late.

Due to our tardiness, our appointment took much longer than usual. Thankfully, the lady at the front knew we needed to get back and get her changed, so she rushed us to the room so I could change the diaper. Rachel needed to be stripped down to her diaper anyway, so it worked out. But as we waited for the doctor to arrive and check her out and then wait more while the shots were ordered and put together...Rachel was antsy and kept trying to open the door to get out (which she can't, she's too short to reach the door handle). But she didn't like being stuck in the room, so keeping her entertained took everything I had.

Today we had to do a lead test, which is a finger prick and then get 2 more shots. One shot is one she's gotten at least twice before, but it stings really bad going in. Lovely.

Finally....she's checked out, questions answered, re-dressed and is ready for shots. Such a trooper. Didn't even cry over the pin prick (but did refuse a band-aid and ended up bleeding all over the faucet, water handles, cabinets.....pretty much little drops of blood over the whole room). Did really well with the shots and they gave her a teddy bear that she hugged tightly after she was done with them.

To try to at least keep her calm we walked the hallway outside our exam room and looked a pictures while we waited on the results of the lead test. 2 weeks ago we would have passed. (And I mentioned before that we had to wait 3 weeks to be seen? Yeah. We wouldn't have this issue at all if I was able to get an appointment in the same week I called and made it.) But some organization lowered the parameters and her levels were just high enough that we now have to go get blood drawn from a vein to have it tested again. Lovely. The doctor informed us that it could have been something on her finger and perhaps the alcohol swab didn't get everything cleaned off. She told me not to do anything differently in our household until we have the test done. So now we have to find a lab that can draw blood from a toddler (seriously?!) and also that as far as these tests are concerned, we're the lowest of the low for children that need to have further testing. I checked on line when I got home and was told the number that will cause a child to have to have these tests is 10 something something something. Rachel was at 5. BAH!

So what can cause her lead levels to be high? Paint....paint chips (which we have neither of)...soil....water...toys....etc. Not sure what we're going to have to do as a result of this test...but I know this will raise eyebrows in our household and we'll be looking for ways to make the house safer. Geesh.

As we were leaving the doctor's office I said, "See you in 6 months!" and the doctor said, "No you won't! I won't be here then, I'm leaving the practice." Now honestly. On top of everything we've been through over the past few days, this was the pickle on the crap sandwich. This pediatrician came highly recommended from my OB, who I think the world of. This is where her children go. I really like this pediatrician. So now we have to go in search of another one. Jason and I have had a heck of a time finding a good family doctor that's not in Anderson. So to find another good pediatrician?

Needless to say.....Jason and I both are pretty frazzled right now with all of this. We'll have to spend an evening this week in the hospital getting tests run on Rachel.....(AGAIN)....