So April is nearly over and this is only my second posting for the month... I am sorry about that but life has been moving at a pretty fast pace around here. We seem to have a little bit of a moment to breath and take it easy this week... though I am not going to say it too loudly because well everyone knows good old Murphy and I am not going to invite him into our lives.
At any rate Ash is better. Though it took forever. This flu was a real pain... as it lingered for a week and every other day or so she would wake up puking and she had terrible diaper blowouts for the entire week. Dave and I had agreed that if she hadn't shown marked improvement by Monday we were taking her to the doctor...because it was the flu that never ends. It just goes on and on my friend. Well anyways... she did show improvement and so she did not have to enter the much hated doctor zone. I don't know what he ever did to her but she hates the docs office... not the dermatologist so much but her doc... she cries from the point that they call us back. So we try to go as infrequently as possible. We did have to make a visit to afore mentioned dermatologist. We had the eczema breakout from hell. But a few extra applications of her cream and extra doses of her antihistamine and she was set. We have to pay for those visits out of pocket so we try to keep them to a minimum... but when the need presents itself it is rarely shy about it. Ash likes Lori alot so it is never a hardship to get her in THERE. Besides Lori helped me to feel less guilty about the fact that my child is constantly on allergy medication which makes bedtime easy most nights. Although she is starting to build up an immunity to the sleepiness effect so these last few months we have not had the piece of cake we used to. There for a while she was out like a light in minutes flat. I was however feeling guilty about that. What mother really wants to give her kid Benedryl every night when there are mothers out there who use the same stuff to put their kids to sleep. But like Lori said " anybody who looks at your child knows that she has allergies with the circles she has under the eyes and all the signs in her skin. She is atopic and you are going to need to use that allergy medicine for years to come to keep her comfortable." Besides like she pointed out there are parents who use it three times a day rather than once. And honestly on bad days we do have to use it two to three times but I try not to use it too often because I LIKE my child alert. Still when the nose is running like a faucet and she is head to toe eczema there is little choice. At least we have moved away from the Aderal that she was using which is a prescription allergy med. And this here season is not the time to take it away from her. If she doesn't get at least one dose of allergy meds she is one miserable kid.
Ash is a mile a minute these days. She is so much fun. She is a little parrot and will repeat anything that you say... so beware what you say. Dave the other day taught her " For Shizzle" which means for sure in Snoop Dogg speak for those of you who don't know. Now she goes around saying that constantly. I always hoped for a multilingual kid... but snoop dogg speak was not exactly what I had meant. That is only one of the hundreds of words that this child uses. At an age where they expect 20-40 words out of a child ours has a vocabulary that is easily more than a hundred of words that she uses correctly... and is at this time putting together simple sentences. For example the other day on the way home from the visitation for my uncle she pipes from the back seat " Mommy drop nuk! Mommy get it please!" My own mother says " Holy cow that was two full sentences out of that child!" I could only nod...because I didn't know what to say really. She has been using simple sentences like that for a couple of weeks but it still shocks me a little. I was a fast talker when I was little and I was reading out loud by the time I was three and reading chapter books before kindergarten... so I guess there shouldn't be a ton of surprise still it makes you catch your breath. She is also getting the concept of counting and has most of the colors down pat. Red Orange and Yellow are still able to give her a little trouble but she has the rest of the rainbow down. When she notices that there is more than one of something she will count " One two three ____" and fill in the blank with the item she is counting. So while she doesn't get the count yet... she gets the concept, which is a pretty good step considering she has yet to turn 18 months. She also helps to clean the house... or rather a clean up sweep. We have a little song that she sings as she cleans up... and she actually sings it while putting books and toys away. She also has learned how to feed the dog and wants to do that endlessly. She does it over at Gran and Gramps' house also.... to the point where we have to watch closely because she will feed Lucky the dog all night long if allowed.
Reading to her has become an absolute joy. We have always read to her from the point where she was a teeny teeny baby, only a few weeks old. And we went through the stage where we read the same book twenty five times wanting to bang our heads against a wall. We still often have to read the same book repeatedly... but the reading has taken on a different flavor. Now instead of reading the book over and over we look at the pages and she tells me what is on the page... or what sound the animal makes. MOO cow... and Piggy Oink oink. Quack quack ducky. She will point our balls and puppies and bears and blocks. She will tell you about the blue birdy and the yellow birdy and the bunny. She will find the hidden eggs in the Easter book and point out the Easter Bunny hiding in the bushes. It is always new and exciting. Yes she wants the book read to her, but she also wants a chance to talk about what is in the pictures too. Her grandma Barb got her Goodnight Moon for her birthday and that particular book has the distinction of being the first book that she knows by name and asks for by name. Granted she says " Night night Moon" but she gets her point across. With me getting bigger and needing to take more down time... we read ALOT. But I was thinking just the other night that this pregnancy has given me a special opportunity to be able to sit and read with her for hours that I might not otherwise have gotten. I would be busy with household tasks and other things and not have so much time to sit with her and read to her. So for all that I worry about what a new baby is going to do when she gets here.... the pregnancy is offering me the chance to make hay while the sun shines... and love on the one I have while I only have one.
By the way I did go to the doc on Tuesday as scheduled. Ummmm I lost 5 1/2 pounds in the last week. They are not impressed at all by that... but as I had the flu and was in the hospital for it... they weren't terribly surprised. My A1C ( or the three month average of blood sugars) was EXCELLENT! It was 5.2 and no one could ask for better. I kind of look at that number as my progress report and that number is an A+++ Any thing less than 6.5 is good. less than 6.0 is Excellent and 5.0 is the lowest they want to see. my iron was a little low... but that isn't terribly surprising either as this kiddo makes the thought of protein other than seafood sound terrible. I still have a hard time with nausea if there is too much protein in a meal. With Ash I was looking for the next steak... and indeed my poor husband brought me a really nice steak home as a surprise a few weeks ago and I could hardly eat it. Dave expected me to attack it like the vampire I was when I was pregnant with Ash. I had to control my urges to eat it as rare as possible with her. With this one you could cook it to shoe leather and I still could care less. Instead with this one I want fish! Shrimp! Salmon! You name it if it lives in the water I want it. I think Dave had to control his own nausea when I ate an entire can of smoked oysters the other day.... and I would have eaten another if it was available. Canned salmon has my name on it too. He made me catfish nuggets the other day and I would have married him all over again for it. Go figure.
Alright I have talked your ears right off ... I guess it would actually be your eyes wouldn't it. Anyways whatever it is I should give you a rest. So off I go. I am sure that I will post again... just not sure when.