Alright alright this may be a bit overdue... as I did have an ultrasound on TUESDAY. This however is only Friday. It could be worse. Trust me it could be a lot worse. We are still dealing with the daylights savings induced sleep shake-up here in this household. Not to mention both myself and Ash had the flu all day today. Not one of our best days... although in all fairness, A is dealing with her issues with remarkable aplomb, it is MOMMY who has had the worst day ever. But then it is mommy who stays up to make sure that someone greets Daddy at the end of a long evening at work... and mommy who stays up with him for a little bit of adult time while he is winding down from work. It is also however mommy who wakes up with the baby in the morning. So I stayed up until 1:30 with my husband and got up at 6:30 with my daughter. My husband however slept until 10:15 AM and my daughter went down at 9:30 PM. This is the standard course for my days and I am starting to think as we progress further into this pregnancy that Dave my just have to deal with the household being asleep when he gets home. He doesn't like coming home to a quiet house... but as he is not willing to let me be the parent who sleeps in EVER, he may just have to deal with it.
So as I was saying A and I have both been struck with the flu and that makes for a somewhat miserable household. Especially as mom doesn't have the patience for just about anything and A is somewhat fussy because she feels bad too. Dave who wasn't sick left early for work... and I guess you can't blame him really... and because he was little help around the house and kept making comments as to my ability of surviving this illness in tones that I found offensive, I was frankly happy to see him go. At least with him gone I was just sick and dealing with a sick child... as opposed to sick and dealing with a sick child while also dealing with attitude. Honestly I don't know if it is all men or just mine, but there are days.
Ash has been steadily picking up new and different words. Today she used the word pinky. Yeah where did that one come from right... but I have been singing the " where is Thumbkin" song with her for a couple of weeks and apparently she has a liking for that particular finger. She also has mastered the use of Me and Mine. She really does use them correctly too. I don't know if it is because we always talk to her like she is an adult... and as I am home with her we talk to each other all day long. Or if she really is just the smartest kid ever. She has an alarming tendency of getting into the refrigerator when you open the door. This can be a bit of a pain as she is not so willing to move once she situates herself inside the door and starts pulling out that condiments. ( we currently are still looking for the cocktail sauce... it disappeared a couple of days ago) Apparently she has been ushered away from the refrigerator with "no no no" enough times that it has made a bit of an impression because the other day as I was drawing up my insulin she saw that I had left the door ajar and she toddled over saying " no no no" and closed the refrigerator door. All I could do was laugh. Now if we can just get the point across that SHE is the one that shouldn't be in the refrigerator. She also has decided that she likes to be chased. So she will take something that she knows that she shouldn't have and wait until I notice and then start running with a squeal. If I do not immediately start the chase she will stop and look at me for a moment and start off again. If she looses you from her line of sight she will come back until she sees you again and off she will go with a squeal. She is quite persistent and will continue until you do actually chase her. As I get bigger this seems like a less and less agreeable pass time for me... but it doesn't matter The Child Wants To Be Chased! and will stand for nothing less than a good chase. Luckily she is 1. easily tired out ( though not as easily as mom ) and 2. Easily distracted. As the weather has been so nice this week I have taken her outside to play several times. Which has made quite an impression because now every time that Dave goes out for a smoke she wants to go "side" with him. She does not take nicely to him turning her down! She has also spent the last few weeks perfecting the art of feeding herself. I don't know whose idea it was that a child younger than the age of six should feed themselves... but it is a bad idea. We are talking food in the hair and eyebrows floor to ceiling and everything in between. She has been intermittently feeding herself along the way, but it has only been the last few weeks that the idea of being fed by myself is truly offensive. The same is starting to happen with baby food. She sees what we are eating and wonders if we are crazy when we offer her the mush. So we offer it every now and then when the food we are eating is entirely inappropriate and the rest of the time she chows down on what we have. She LOVES asparagus, Brussels sprouts and cabbage. Yeah who would have thought? She also is a serious fan of salami and bologna. As a matter of fact bologna is one of her new words this week. She also has found that she can do two things that seriously alarm mommy. The first of which... she managed to stand up in her high chair despite the belt and the tray. We haven't been using the five point harness that ours comes equipt with... but it about time to start. Also her new way of telling us that she is hungry is to ummmm climb into the highchair and sit down she then looks at you and says "Eat" She has also climbed over the arm of the rocking chair into the rocking chair ( with out falling) and has taken to trying to climb up the book shelf from the couch. As this puts her significantly higher than any other climbing feat that she has attempted it takes my breath away. She is a climbing fool. When I pull her down Dave will say " you can't change the kid's nature just let her climb." I however don't want to visit the ER for a tumble so I am constantly chasing and saving the child from herself. Lord only knows what she will come up with next.
So we had another chance to see babe number two this week. Dave and the babe stayed home so it was just mommy. This was the heart study and there were also parts of the anatomy that couldn't be seen because of her positioning last time. Well we once again were in that room for an hour trying to get her to move... and once again we walked out with half of the pictures. I have to go back again in two weeks to see if we can get a better view. This kid is STUBBORN! She was obliging enough to show us again that she is indeed a girl. The ultrasound tech said that their group had not been wrong in the entire time that she had worked there... and that is a considerable amount of time... so I am betting that this is indeed a girl. She is still laying transverse on her left side. She is also a serious snuggler. She burrows into me when they try to look and everyone has remarked on what a cuddler this one is bound to be because of it. She is REALLY active right now. I guess it is the way that she is laying but I would swear that there are two in there. I have NEVER said that with any of my other children. I have gotten to the point of feeling the kicks and pushes with 4 of them and this one is BY FAR the most active. That scares me just a little. Because A was no where NEAR this active... and she is really hard to keep up with at the best of times. I guess we will just have to wait and see what this one will be like. That is not such an easy task. She is growing just the way that we want her too and over all the docs are extremely happy with how she is doing. I have developed an allergy to the Evil shot. It is very necessary so I am just taking Benedryl and we are watching it closely for right now. You may remember from the last pregnancy that it is a very viscous liquid and that it is put in over a long period of time. Now I end up with a huge itchy welt that lasts for about a week and a half. Doc has said that it would probably be best if this were my last. Dave and I had already decided to get my tubes tied... but as I am having problems with the shot this time... we don't want to push it.
Over all this has been an uneventful pregnancy. I have come to terms with the fact that I am not so very fond of pregnancy that it breaks my heart that this will be my last. As a matter of fact as I move through this pregnancy I am aware that I am ambivalent about the pregnancy. With A I was so excited about every little thing... even the discomforts. This time however I am not charmed by those discomforts. Instead I am put out by them and tired of them already. The other thing is that those discomforts seem to be showing up earlier in this pregnancy. My feet already swell to Grapefruit size. I didn't see that happen until 28 or 29 weeks with A. My back is constantly hurting and there is a nerve in my back that gets pinched constantly. And while I am not at that point where I just want it over yet I am certainly not singing through the pain like I was last time. But hey we have less time to go than we have already gone... so bring it on!!!

Daylights Savings SCREW YOU!

Jeez it has been a bit I guess... but in my defense the other mom blogs that I follow are just as lax in updates as I am. Is that an excuse, not really, although it may be a bit of validation. It is difficult sometimes to steal a minute... and Daylights savings did a number on this household. It is still extremely questionable how our bedtime routine is going to work out. Sunday night we had screaming for an hour, followed by a fairly peaceful slumber. Monday night we had an easy down at about a half an hour after "Normal" time and then she woke up at three o'clock in the morning and was up for a half an hour screeching followed by another hour or so playing next to me in bed. As long as I didn't try to make her lay down I was safe. Tuesday night I gave up trying to get her to bed and let her get up to play after I had been at it for an hour and a half... She was then up until 12:30 and slept until after 10. Last night she must have been exhausted from the nights before because she asked to go night night at 9:15 and was soundly asleep by 9:30. ( I know, but I wasn't going to ask questions I snatched that up with a smile!) She did however wake up this morning before 8. But as this is the schedule that we had before the stupid time change I wasn't complaining too loudly. My only fear is that last night was too good to be true and there is some evil plan in the works for tonight.
It truly puts me out when she is so unwilling to go to bed at night. You see as a full-time mom my whole day revolves around my child and I am willing to go with that. After all I have made this choice and we have made a lot of sacrifices so that I can live this way. But as this is my "job" I get little help from Dave. I have given up on asking for it... and I have come to realize that when he does help we are usually at odds about that help. For some of those things I can afford to be laid back... some things I cannot. When he hands the child a baby carrot and turns back to his computer I have to intercede. When he puts diapers on so that they nearly fall off and leak I have to intercede. Perhaps it is done on purpose so that I will quit asking for help. Whether or not that is the case, that has been the outcome. Now before you go thinking that is a conspiracy theory on my part, let me just say that I actually read that diaper bit on a blog written by a daddy the other day as a suggestion to daddies who wanted to get out of diaper duty. I was shocked appalled and dismayed to put it lightly. I would never have dreamed that the loose leaky diapers might be ON PURPOSE. Blame it on my naivete I suppose. At any rate, that time after my daughter goes to bed and before I do has come to mean the world to me. Especially since nap time usually is nap time for mommy too. This pregnancy wipes me out and I cannot be the mommy that my daughter needs me to be in the afternoon if I don't take a snooze with her. So when A stubbornly refuses to go to sleep at night and infringes on my time I get cranky. Before too much longer it will go back to mommy not having ANY time again and I want to enjoy what I can while I can. Combine that with lack of sleep on the part of many parties in the household and um... well lets just say we have been testy around here.
Please don't think that it has all been crankiness and sleepless nights around here. Quite the contrary our days are still filled with laughs and love, they just have to share space with crankiness this week. I guess it isn't all daylights savings either.... A is teething. Bringing in four at a time again. Teething always disrupts our schedule so you add that and the full moon this week.... any body think of anything else that I can blame it on... oh yeah and I seem to have stomach flu that won't let me go so you do the math on all that and it becomes a bit of a mess here.
Still in and amongst all of these troubling issues in the house.... Ash learns a new word every single day... sometimes several and uses them. She now adds "see ya later" to her bye bye and she says "bouncy bouncy" while she bounces on the couch. She also will freely call anybody a stinker. She is a stinker of the highest degree. She will tell you if she needs her butt changed and will lay herself down for it. She will also tell you if she wants to go Night night if I am not moving in that direction fast enough. She has been saying drink forever but now has added a few things to that, now she will tell you if she wants water or juice. And if I tell her the glass is empty she will point to the kitchen and say " More"
She also now will pull out clothes ( clean, dirty, it doesn't matter to her) and dress herself. She doesn't care if she already has clothes on and she is not terribly concerned with whether they are on correctly. She walked around all day yesterday with a Pajama top around her waist like a skirt. The day before she had a dress on over her outfit she couldn't get her arms in so it hung around her neck and shoulders (inside out) like a preppy wears an oxford sweater. I am not allowed to correct the clothing issue. And really who wants to. It is really cute and we aren't going anywhere. Today for a good half of the day she wore one sock over the footie of her sleeper nightie. Add all that to the fact that she will wear any loose shoe she finds around the house and you have quite a little card. I will say that for all of that cuteness I have yet to get a good picture of it and I apologize profusely for that failing. I have no excuse...
She also has become quite the computer expert. We got a computer program for her for Valentines that plays with her and shows colors and numbers and other concepts. It rewards her everytime that she touches the key board or clicks the mouse. It took a bit for her to warm up to it but now that she has we are constantly being nagged about her playing with Bear Bear ( the program has a bear to help narrate and navigate) As it was only downloaded to my computer ( daddy is no dummy) I am the one who has to make way for the kiddo to share my computer. On tuesday she played Bear bear the entire time that I was gone for my doctors appointment and a trip to the grocery store after. Dave swears that every time he tried to take her away from it she had a tantrum...
Which brings us to a new and constantly interesting development. She has tantrums. As of yet they are not the kicking and screaming variety but they are something to see none the less. Still Mommy is not a whining or tantrum fan so we are real big on ignoring and not giving in to said tantrums. She has a beaut of a temper though... and it will be something to watch that progress with time. I won't lie to you the challenge of fostering that budding independence while still nurturing and ensuring that constant knowledge of mommy's love is tougher everyday. She gets frustrated easily and while I want to be sure that I make everything okay for her... but I know that part of being a good mommy is to let her figure it out for herself. The funny thing is that three or four months ago she had a lot more patience. When she was a little younger she would sit with a puzzle of some sort for as long as it took to figure it out. Now after a minute or two she will look at me and scream with frustration. She has also taken on this fake cry that is enough to make you laugh outloud at her. Which is what most of us tend to do... and for the record that does not amuse her highness. Nor for that matter does waiting for anything that she has asked for. When she wants, she wants it NOW!
Speaking of now... I have been stealing the time to write and my time is up... someone wants me to read a story and I think I had better get going... or I will be sorry. I don't have time to post photos with this one... but I will be sure to post double with the next. I Promise... yeah yeah yeah you have all heard it all before... but I am doing the best that I can!!!! Really though there is a nuclear explosion that I need to avert! If I haven't blogged in two weeks someone please send a team in to look for me.

I guess that it has been about a week again since the last time I blogged for y'all. I would like to say that it is because I am busy with huge life altering issues that keeps me from writing... but the truth is that I am busy with Facebook and Mafia Wars, either that of reading. I have just finished the second book in a fantasy trilogy that is rocking my world. I am loving it!!! So much so that last night as I was finishing it I was saying things out loud like " I knew that Lemuel was Tris's Grandfather I just knew it... that is why he is so powerful." and Gasping " Oh NO!" with dismay as I was finishing up. At first Dave was concerned.... then he thought it was hilarious. It is taking me longer to devour books now that A keeps me busy, so that 600 page book took nearly four days.... but it was worth every second. It does however cut into the free time that I used to use for my blog. I apologize profusely... but as soon as I get the third book in that series I can guarantee that I will abandon you again.
Not to mention... there really isn't anything exciting with my pregnancy lately. I go see the Doc every week and I get the evil shot. The cerclage is holding and all is well. Having gone through it all with A's pregnancy it seems a little old hat and I am not sure that you really need a day to day blow by blow account of it all. Our newest little girl likes to party when I want to sleep and kicks her sister back when she elbows her. ( I am going to have to break the climb all over mommy's tummy habit soon I am afraid.) But baby and mom are fine. We have passed the point in Aidan's pregnancy where I went into the hospital. And in a few short days we will pass the point where he was born. The week after that we will pass the point when I went into the hospital with Aislynn and then a week after that the week that she was born... and 3 days after that we will hit VIABILITY. So we are chugging right along.
I am HUGE this time. If your first full term pregnancy has you feeling like a whale at the end... your second ( and I am sure subsequent ) pregnancy(ies) makes you feel like a whale at 5 months pregnant. The kiddo is laying Transverse which means that her head is at one hip and her feet and butt at the other... In other words she is lying sideways inside of me. Doc and midwife chuckled and said that is uncomfortable for mom because it hurts the hips. I have been complaining about my hips for weeks and they have just been saying that the second one is harder on those joints. But now there is a definitive reason why my hips feel like some one is pushing down with one hand on each hip... there is someone doing that. She is 9 ounces and that is bigger than any of the others at this point in pregnancy. Go ahead and say it " its only 9 ounces pushing on those hips for crying out loud!" I know I know.... sigh. I will stop complaining about it now I promise! But for the record MY HIPS HURT!!!! Her heartbeat stays in the 150s to 160s. Which is an extremely presentable heartbeat for a kiddo her age. As to names we have a good one... but we are still thinking it through. We will let you know closer to time.
A is a mile a minute. Her cousin R came over for the weekend... and they had a ton of fun. She LOVES her cousin. She has been talking endlessly about her since she left. I know this because in the babble of incoherent words ( Which I am certain have meaning) you can catch R's name pretty frequently. A's bum is better. Mom has been extremely vigilant about changing... and it has paid off. The best part is that now if I tell her that I am going to change her butt... she will say butt... and then say Lie down... and then she will do so. Easy as pie... of course every now and then she gets a mind to run off and i have to chase her down. All I can say is it is a good thing that my legs are longer because she moves faster than I do now. Combine her new speed with my slowing down with pregnancy and there is a problem. She also has started walking over to Gramps and Grans and out to the car by herself, rather than my carrying her. That is wonderful because she is considerably bigger than my weight restriction and we have just been making do. I still carry her when it is dark or there is snow or ice on the ground. She loves the freedom of walking by herself... and gets pissed at me when I stop her from wondering away from the plotted course... but that is what mommies are for! Speaking of that Independence ummmm she is taking it to a new level. She also is taking frustration to a new level when things don't work out quite right. She is a little firecracker right now. Keeps everyone on their toes. She also has a mind of her own... what gave her the idea that that was okay I don't know. So the day moves forward with little explosions that break up the monotony every now and then. Who would have though that it could get more fun.
She also has made up her mind that she wants what we are eating ALWAYS. So Dave and I are having to dairy free our diet. It feels cruel to say no no no you can't have this. It is probably for the best. She has taken to walking around in other peoples shoes. She is always wearing daddy's or mommy's shoes around. Though we have to be careful with Daddy's boots... they are REALLY big and they are a little dangerous because of how big they are. But she loves it. She also plays like she is going bye bye all the time now. She will pull on a discarded sweater of mine or a tee-shirt of dads sling a "purse" over her shoulder and wave bye bye. She gets to the door but then doesn't really know what to do from there. So she comes back and goes bye bye again. If she is really lucky she can complete her ensemble with my sunglasses and looks tres chic.
I am still nursing her. I was told that I needed to wean by now... but it means a lot to both A and myself. There is no visible problems caused by it so we nurse at nap and nite nite time. She seems to get comfort from it. And I can't steal that comfort from her. Some day I am sure I will have to limit it, but for right now she is still young. I have to go though as my daughter is wanting time mommy and this is not time with mommy. So duty calls. I will of course keep you updated as we go.

So I suppose that I should tell all of you how that ultrasound went hmm? We learned several things at that ultrasound.
Firstly that we are indeed having a second little girl. We will soon have two little divas in our household. Dave is currently looking for a hobby that will take him out of the house as often as possible in the abject fear of too much estrogen becoming a factor. I of course have little or no sympathy for him thinking back to the days when his two boys would spend the all weekend every weekend with us and I at times thought I needed to find the cure for too much testosterone. I am seriously excited by that announcement as that means that my daughter will have a sister ( not counting Aislynn as she is an angel sister and is not terribly helpful at tea parties.) I never had a sister and so I am thrilled my daughter(s ) will have one. Dave chuckles and says that he had plenty of sisters and wonders what it would have been like to have had a brother to grow up with.... Once again feel the sympathy rolling off of me when I think of my days playing GI Joe or He-Man...
Secondly we learned that this girl is going to be STUBBORN. With double caps if that is possible. We were in that room for an hour and some trying to get that little girl to move so that we could get pictures of all the body parts that the doc wanted to get pics of.... and she didn't move. Not so much as a slow roll. Oh she pulled up her feet and kicked my belly ( as if to say LEAVE ME THE HELL ALONE) but she is laying on her back transverse... ( that means her head is on one side of me and her butt on the other) rather than hanging out head up or down. With her laying with her back against me... there is no way to get the pictures of that little spinal cord. Try try try though they might ( and two people tried) She would not move. Jiggle, push, and press on my belly and she simply moved her legs a little and went back to sleep. On top of which we tried to get the 4-D ultrasound to see her little face and all we got was her holding her hand in front of her face. I kid you not ... it looked like every picture we have of her Uncle Brenden when he is trying to avoid having his picture taken. This is an issue we will have to take up with her when she is older to be sure! At least we have a fairly good picture of the little girl parts.... this having been agreed upon by three different people looking at the ultrasound pics. They have not made any references to food yet for which Dave is profoundly appreciative. The descriptions they were giving for A while I was pregnant Ex. Her little Taco.... and You see the little hamburger right there... were turning him off of his food.
So either we have a very stubborn little girl... or she can sleep through a typhoon. Either way she will take after her father to be sure. Not that it would surprise me...because I am starting to think that Dave must have really strong genes... because the one we have is taking after her father in surprising ways too. Some of those ways tug the heart strings and some of them set the pot to boil. A has a new and surprising ability to completely tune out the sound of the voice of any person who is telling her to do something other than what she wants.... ummm can we say DAVE! And then he seems to seriously mean it when he says that he never heard you... At least A doesn't have the vocabulary yet to pull that one. Although I must take a moment to brag and say that her vocabulary is OUTSTANDING for a child so young. Well lets be honest she is just outstanding period... and that is not really my bias talking she really is just outstanding.
She is approaching the terrible twos. It is funny but Dave and I remember with her brother K that he went through them at like THREE. He was the easiest baby all the way through the first year and the second and then three hit and WHAMMO! he was in the chair every five minutes and that is tough to do when you are three and get a three minute time out. A seems like she is hitting that point earlier than he did. Not that there really is any comparison as we were weekend warriors with the Keaganator and full time with the kabashlynn. ( You will find that I am fond of giving nick names that are longer than the original... and if I can't find one that is clever I will simply make one up.)
The little bear has been going through a few tough issues in the last week or so. The ear infections that woke us at 2 with a 105 degree temp was treated by a medication that gave her some... how shall I put this delicately seriously awful diaper issues. One explosion after another... some days we had four or five. By Thursday night I was crying while changing her bum. By Friday I took her to the doctor. On Sat even with prescription cream I refused to give her any more of the evil antibiotic. Two days with out the medicine and there are still raw weepy spots left on her bum... though a great deal of healing has gone on. This weekend we did not go anywhere and I left her in a diaper and shirt so that I could tell as soon as possible that the diaper had been filled... then used washcloths rather than diaper wipes... and cried as Dave helped me to hold her while I cleaned her up. She learned the word "owwie" this weekend. It has been hell for everyone involved. But we are on the road to recovery and now she says owwie when I change her butt even though I don't think it really hurts anymore.... she also crys when I lay her down to change her... but mostly just from the memory of the owwie, not because it really actually hurts all that bad. I am grateful that the worst of it is over though... because a mommy whose baby is crying so badly who is five months pregnant isn't pretty. Talk about a basket case.
It didn't help that the weather gave me a migraine on Sat morning ( very very early) that didn't let me go until Monday afternoon. And still is giving me flashes of pain and tenderness. It also doesn't help that being pregnant I can't take anything for that pain. So poor Dave was left in the house defenseless with a woman in pain and a baby in pain. Over all I think that he pulled through it like a champ. This is not the first migraine that I have had since my child was born... it is however one of the worst. I spent a good portion of Sunday laying in the bed with my daughter hoping for a merciful death. Note to God: it is a strange and cruel torture to give a mother of a toddler a migraine. At least A was in a mellow mood because of the Tylenol that and Benedryl that she was getting on a regular basis to keep her rear from hurting and itching. I can hear all of you now.... "Why wasn't David taking care of the baby" Well that is easier said than done. Dave is a very passive parent, responding only when there is a crash or a scream. He is also more often than not totally engrossed in the computer or the TV or what have you. So after A tries to get his attention and fails she comes to me. So laying on the couch or the bed when you don't have a door on your bedroom is really not a safe zone. These are the things that drive me crazy about him... but one of the nice things about the migraine is that I get fuzzy. I don't get mad about much because getting mad hurts... so I just layed on the couch and Dave put on an endless string of movies and I let my young daughter crawl and climb all over me until nap time... at which point I sacked out with her. We would wake up and so it all over again. There are times when having a low-key child is REALLY a blessing... though Dave and I are both pretty low-key so it was bound to happen. Here's hoping for another in the same key!
As you can see there is never a dull moment in this household... although it never seems like we are doing anything. I suppose only a mother can find all of this exciting... but then I am the mother of the most outstanding little girl in the world... and in a few short months I will be the mother of the TWO most outstanding girls in the world. Can I get a HELL YEAH!!!!!!

A says happy Valentines day my Ear!

Dave and I had plans for Valentine's day. They didn't include our child! My parents were going to babysit and we were going to my favorite restaurant for dinner... followed by a leisurely and enjoyable visit to the bookstore. Ahhhh Heaven. I started thinking around nine o'clock on Friday that those plans were headed south.... As I was changing our princess for bed I noticed that she felt awfully warm. Checked her temp and sure enough 102.8 not a good temp. I gave her Tylenol and she went to bed with an alarming ease. I informed my dear husband when he got home and he said well sounds like she will need to go to the doc tomorrow. We decided we would play Sat by ear until we laid down next to our daughter and both of us were SERIOUSLY disturbed by just how warm she felt. Off I went to get the thermometer.... only to find that her temp was now 104.6. I informed Dave of that and he said " Nuh uh" and took the thermometer from me.... only to get a very similar reading. "Turn the light on" he ordered. I got out of the bed to do so and he took her temp again. 104.5. Ummm gulp uh oh. So we started getting dressed and getting A dressed for a trip to the hospital as that temperature scared the ever living crap out of both of us. We stopped occasionally to take her temperature and be concerned over the number. Why I am not sure.... perhaps we were hoping that we had used the damn thing wrong. Perhaps we were waiting for divine intervention. Meanwhile our little angel though that this was all great fun and was laughing and chortling and otherwise showing her enjoyment. Apparently checking her temp every couple of minutes was not a terrible idea because about 20 minutes after we got the original scary reading it started going down. Yeah your guess is a good as mine... but it was 102.8 by the time we all were ready to go. Well with that in mind we decided to do what every parent wants to do in these times of crisis.... I woke up my mommy.... who despite the hour was very helpful with tips to pull down the temp and the bit of advice that we really wanted to hear. " you don't want to bring her to hospital if you can control it yourself. Wait until you can get to the doc tomorrow if you are able to bring it down some."
So at 2AM daddy and mommy popped A into the tub. She thought this was GREAT FUN!!! ( until we got to the rinse your hair part) and by the time we were done the temp was moving downward. We then proceeded to take turns following her around the house with a glass of water asking her if she wanted a drink. At 2:30 AM we had a temp of 100.9 and both felt it was safe to go to bed. So at 8 the next morning I called the doc and got an appointment. Where A did not pull the "I'm fine I don't know what she was thinking" routine that she usually plays and was indeed visably sick. She also still had a temp over 102 and was glassy eyed. We walked away with a script and a verdict... Double ear infection. And Doc was seriously impressed by how the left ear looked. I didn't take that as a good thing.
So off we head to home armed with a script and looking at our daughter we knew that we couldn't take her out. My parents had started making plans for their own Valentines outing and so we adjusted our sails and went in our new direction. A nap was the first order of business and while she did that Dave went to the grocery store to get comfort foods for her ( and me). She didn't nap nearly as long as she should have considering her post midnight hi-jinks. After about and hour and a half up she popped though not exactly looking for a good time. Her wonderful daddy pulled the couch to the middle of the room so that mommy and baby could sit on it and watch T.V. and sit we did watching one kids movie after another. This was the first time that A really watched T.V. as this is not a big pass time in our house. But she did so like a champ curling up in mommy's lap with her bear bear and her blanky with daddy's pillow under her head she watched T.V. and cuddled her little heart out.
Her daddy brought me a box of chocolates and got me the largest shrimp for shrimp cocktail that he could find. He got every treat that he could imagine that my heart could want..... ( we are definately going to have trouble getting through to the next paycheck, but I couldn't complain when I had my breath taken away by what he did) as well as three new books to read. He then climbed up on the couch next to us and we all three did the cuddle as we watched movie after movie after movie. It was a slice of heaven. Truly some of the most enjoyable hours that I have ever spent in my entire life compliments of my sick and clingy daughter and my impulsive and very indulgent husband.
I had to chuckle the next day as I realized that our little one now has done this for our anniversary and our valentines day.... and that is the only time that she has really ever been sick other than allergies or a cold in her entire life. Maybe she is making a point. Maybe she just has really bad timing. But both dave and I agreed that we enjoyed those hours on the couch with our daughter far more than we would have enjoyed a latte in the bookstore with out her. That is NOT to say that we are not eventually looking forward to the opportunity to get out ( or even stay in) WITHOUT her. Just to say that sometimes you really get what you need.... even if you didn't know to begin with that it was also what you wanted.

Okay so I am bad.... very very bad. It has been so long since I last wrote anything for you guys that I am sure that most of you have stopped checking. I apologize profusely. I would love to be able to give you some really great excuse as to why I haven't done this in a FULL MONTH. But the truth is that the only excuse I have is motherhood. And while it is a good one.... it really only covers about half of the issue. You see it is EXTREMELY difficult to type when my daughter wants to be on my lap constantly. However she does sleep every now and then... although this last week she has been teething yet again and sleep has been elusive and that causes a frustration in and of its self. The other problem is that I haven't done a very good job of making my daughter play by herself. She is of course the center of my universe and so when I sit down to do something at the computer she immediately wants to be a part of it... and being the type of mommy I am, I get up and do something with her.
Again that is only half of the problem the other half is that ummmm I found reading again... so I have been filling up my free time with reading other people's writing... That means that the few minutes of Melissa time.... have been used to do something that Melissa enjoys... the problem is that I don't compartmentalize very well. I have a hard time saying that I will read for a half of an hour and then work for a half of an hour. I just read through the writing time. I am bad I know.
So anyways.... enough with boring explanations when I have probably lost all of my readers anyways. I survived the cerclage... and so did the baby. I am still pregnant and we still have a healthy heartbeat. It was a pain, literally and figuratively. I HATE spinals. I don't do paralyzed well at all. We were there from 7:30 until 5:00 and most of that was me on my back in a bed waiting for the spinal to wear off. The whole time wishing that I could be home with my daughter. We have started the evil 17-P shots and we go to the doc once a week these days. All is well and we have nothing but confidence at this point that we will have a happy healthy baby.
As to our happy healthy baby at home... She is mile a minute and a laugh in every one. Every day she learns new words and we have to be very careful not to say bad ones around her. She picked up the word "ANNOY" the other day and walked around singing "annoy annoy annoy annoy" Cracked us all up. She has also learned the word "me" and tacks it on to every thing. "down me" , "up me" , " Nursies me" Having so many words at her disposal is VERY helpful because she has learned the word for a lot of things that she frequently needs or wants. That is so nice. She has learned a whine that drives me crazy, but we are working on that and we are adding please to our vocabulary as we have already mastered " thank you" She also now tells mom or dad if she needs a diaper change. That is AWESOME. As I told Dave it is the first step in potty training.... and as long as we always change her as soon as we know she needs it she won't like sitting in a dirty diaper!
She is Growing like a wildflower. I refuse to say a weed because she is definitely wanted. At this point we cannot cram her into 12 months anymore.... and she is starting to move into 24 months with out looking ridiculous. She is out growing her shoes. So a trip to the shoe store will happen with in the next few weeks.
She had everyone laughing so hard we were in tears last week as she stood in front of the full length mirror contorting herself to see her back in the mirror. She has also started to dance and that is just as much fun to watch. She tries to help fill the dishwasher at gramps and grans house which consists of taking everything that was just put in out. It makes for a long chore when she helps.... Which for that matter is just about every chore. Dave and I have been trying to involve her in the cleaning up of her toys and books, but once again it consists of her following us around the living room tearing apart everything we just did. She always gives us a very dirty look as she tears the house back apart. She has this scowl that just rocks you back in your seat with a laugh. She has taken to jumping on the couch and standing up in chairs and just giving mom a general heart attack.... But before she stands she always looks to see if I am watching. She knows that she doesn't REALLY want to fall.
Our little princess is growing so fast it boggles the mind. Every day is something new.... and every day she seems just that much bigger. Life is good with her in it!!!

Lets get you all up to date shall we....

It has been a bit since the last time I blogged. In my defence I had one going for the new years and my wonderful little helper ( can you see my gritted teeth) deleted the entire thing. I swear to God even I don't know how she did it. So I threw my hands up in frustration and I threw myself on the floor and I played with her instead. ( you thought I was going to say had a temper tantrum... be honest.) But I went to the docs this week ( on Tues) and so I thought that I had better write down the results hmm.
So yes I went to the doc and had a normal clinic and a check in with the dietitian and oh yeah I had an ultrasound too. It was an NT scan or Neucaltranslucency scan for those of you who need a the nomenclature. It scans the spinal fluid on our little package and takes some blood out of me and tells us what the chances are that we will have trisomy 18 or 21 as well as any spinal cord defects. This is a really cool test in that it is a really long ultrasound and we get a chance to really see our little one.
This particular time our little one was a strange mix of accommodating and a real pain in the ass. You see this child sat for a good thirty minutes one cm away from where the ultrasound tech Christy needed the child to be. However our little peanut was willing to give us a great shot of the gender and Christy is 80-90% certain that we are having a little girl. Yes you read that right it appears that we are to be having another daughter. And though there is still a chance that could change Christy said that she was willing to go to Vegas on the odds that she was right. And I have to say that after so many ultrasounds with our other little girl I would say that it looks alot like she did. We are still early though so we will have to see. Until we know better though we will say that this is a girl. In six weeks we will get a REALLY long look at her and see if Christy is right.
Oh yeah and the scan ( when we finally got to it) was normal and we have like a one in twenty thousand chance of having a problem... really low. Not that I was terribly worried. We also established that I will be going in Wed of next week to have the minor surgery of a cerclage. Which is to say that they are going to sew my cervix closed to keep the baby in there. I will of course let every one know how I am as soon as we are home and I can sit at the computer.
Ash is doing wonderful. She is growing so fast. We are at that point where her lack of vocabulary frustrates her (and me) fairly regularly. There are so many things that she wants to say and ask for. She has also gotten to be quite independent, refusing to let people feed her and the like. My mother laughed the other day as she was watching our struggle at the dinner table and when I asked her what was so funny.... she answered, "Watching her go through the terrible twos at 14 months and wondering what the heck is in store for you when she is actually two." Ha Ha Ha. Very funny. And yet so true. She seems to hit all of her milestones on the early end of normal if not WAY before she is supposed to be hitting them. She is so proud of herself when she is able to do something by herself and has the sweetest grin to share with everyone in the vicinity.
She is so much fun right now! I know that I have said that at every stage but really she blows my mind right now with how much fun she is. She makes me giggle at least once a day and usually considerably more with her antics and the smiles that accompany those antics. She has found out that if she spins in a circle she can make herself dizzy, and boy she must like feeling dizzy because she does it all the time. Spinning spinning spinning. It makes ME dizzy. And last night we all watched weak with laughter as she was being chased by her shadow. She was running backwards bent over at the waist looking at the shadow until she backed into a chair and fell on her rump. The look of consternation on her face when she saw that shadow still there. These times with her are the times that I would like to freeze in time and visit repeatedly as I watch her grow and learn. Everyday it seems she learns something new. She has more words at the end of every week and uses them. The list of words seems endless... even when at times it is just not enough.
That is not to say that she can't communicate. The other day she went over to the shelf where we keep her diaper and bedtime items. She kept pointing at something, but with so many things on the shelf I was at a loss. "I don't know what you want" I told her and finally she pointed and in a very frustrated voice said.... "NOSE" Ding on goes the light as I follow her finger to the Kleenex. So I pull the box down she pulls one out and blows her nose. ( well as well as any 14 month old can) Tell me this kid ain't the smartest kid you ever met! Also the other day we were looking at a book of animals that she got from her aunt Shannon for her birthday and when I turned the page to farm animals she pointed at the cow and said.... "MOO" For certain things that she doesn't know the words for that she uses a sound. For example the hair dryer and the vacuum cleaner. She also knows some of her colors including: yellow, blue, purple, and green. The way she says yellow is enough to make you sick its so cute. Another one on the top ten cutest words list is when she asks for a "dink".
As cute as it gets around here I have a hard time imagining what we are going to do next year when we have TWO OF THEM. GOD HELP US. I had been thinking that we had to have a boy because we already had the most beautiful, cutest little girl in the world... How could we match this one.... but I think we are going to find out!!! Watch out world... cuz if the next one is half as gorgeous as this one.... we're in for a hell of a ride.