Applesauce

I haven't posted pictures in awhile. I should do that. But not today.

I made applesauce for Idgie today. I haven't actually started her on solids but at some point I should get around to it. Solids are so annoying. You have to sit them in the chair and feed them every bite, blah blah blah. At least with nursing we can plop down into my butt groove on the couch and I can surf the internet while she eats. I'm so lazy. With Liliana I didn't start solids until she was 7.5 months. I am considering going even longer this time. Sheer laziness on my part. But admitting it is the first step in recovery - right?

Rating: 1 Lollipop

Speech Evaluation

I took Liliana in for her evaluation. It took about 3o minutes. They went over the forms that they had us fill out this past week. Then they also did a vision check and a hearing check. She passed both the vision and hearing but did score low on the communication part of the questionnaire. So, we have another evaluation in two weeks with an actual Speech Language Pathologist. That will take longer but sounds more fun. This time involved tests and sitting still. It sounds like next time will involve more play and observation.

Rating: I'm not sure. Good that we are moving forward but bad she scored low I guess. 1 Lollipop and 1 Fireball

Bite

One of the 35 words that Lil does say is "bite" (yes we've been counting her words for her evaluation on Friday). Lately she has been doing something really cute. If I am nursing Idgie, sometimes she will get distracted. She likes to look around while she nurses. Liliana will come up and try to push Idgie's head back towards me and she will tell her "bite! bite!" Hopefully she is trying to tell Idgie to eat and not to actually bite me!

Rating: 3 Pixie Dust

Getting Ready for School

Well we have started the process of sending Emmaline to Kindergarten in the Fall. We'd like to send her to one of the local charter schools so I went to the informational meeting yesterday. I loved the school, but I think it is very unlikely she will get in. The person giving the presentation said that after accounting for siblings of current students, there are only 26 open slots left for kids in the lottery. At our meeting at least 15 people raised their hands to indicate they had a kindergartners. There are a total of 4 informational meetings and I am guessing they have a better turn out at the evening meetings. Based on that, I'd guess there are going to be about 100 kindergartner hoping for those 26 slots. That means that only 25% of the kids will get in. The odds are not in our favor.

Rating: 5 Fireballs

Vegan Fried Chicken

So today I had a hankering for making some sort of baked or fried chicken. Most of the really good breading recipes use buttermilk and/or egg in them. So, I did what I always do - I typed "vegan" in front of whatever recipe I want, and see what comes up. Yeah.... whoops. Anyone else see the problem with trying to google Vegan Fried Chicken?

Rating: 2 Lollipops

Naptime

We have turned a corner for nap time. A couple of weeks ago I finally stopped swaddling Imogene at night. She has done great going right to sleep when I lay her down. At nap time though, I still swaddled her and put her in her swing. It was a guaranteed way to make sure she would nap. Well today for nap time, I put her down in her crib unswaddled - just like we've been doing for nighttime. I was worried she wouldn't go for it since the room is so light during the day. Anyway, I am pleased to say that she went right to sleep and I haven't heard a peep from her in an hour. I love this stage!

Rating: 5 Pixie Dust

Decided

Well today I decided to make the call to the Child Find Colorado people. Too bad I forgot that today is a holiday and nobody was in the office. Hopefully I will hear from them tomorrow.

Rating: 1 Lollipop

Wavering

Ever since Lil's two year check-up, I have been paying more attention to her speech and finally came to the decision to NOT have her get an evaluation after all. When I paid really close attention she said more than I thought. She also definitely understands everything we tell her. Then today she had a playdate with a girl two months younger than her. That little girl spoke so clearly! It wasn't even that she could say so much more - it was the quality of the speech. Even with the words Lil does say, most of them sound like complete mush. So I am back to trying to decide on whether to get the evaluation or not.

Rating: 1 Fireball

A story by Emmaline

(Posted at Emmaline's insistence that she wanted to write a story too since I just wrote one . The words are hers, the typing is mine.)

I have fun at the Children's Museum for Lil's birthday. And I liked the supermarket, I like the food, and I bought them all up and used them all up. And now I liked the playground very much.
And now, guess which one is the next? I really really really had fun eating outside. Very fun. It was very fun.
Guess what is the next? Hey? You typed it wrong! That wasn't right. No. The next one is I like the supermarket very much and you did the little bit near the middle wrong.
And now guess what is the next? I really really had fun inside. And Lil had fun at the Children's Museum. She had fun at the market. And just like Emmaline Irene had so much fun at the market.
Guess what is the next one? It's that I liked the other fun twirly slide.
Guess what is the next? It's that we have very very much fun. Too much fun! I can watch TV and do this mommy.
And now the next on is that we have very fun. Too fun!
Now guess what is the next? Guess what is the next? We have too much fun in there! We liked it there a lot.
The End.

Rating 3 Pixie Dust

Becoming a Girly Girl

Emmaline really loves it when I braid her hair and then later when we take it out, it is all curly. "It looks just like my friend Bella's hair!" she always says. Well she took it to a new level last night. I took the braids out and when she laid down to go to bed she suddenly got very worried. "But my hair will get FLAT when I lay down!" I assured her it would still be curly in the morning. In the middle of the night she woke up to go potty. When I helped her get back in bed she was worried again. "See? My hair is getting flat!" She laid very carefully and gingerly onto her pillow. Then this morning when she woke up it was all she could talk about. "Mom my hair is getting flat! It's flat - see?" I assured her over and over that it still had curlies in it.

I rocked the late 80's/early 90's do - that girl doesn't know what it means to be devastated by a flat hair day...

Rating: 2 Lollipops

On the move

Idgie is officially mobile. No she isn't crawling. No she isn't walking.

She has discovered that she can get to what she wants by rolling there! Liliana did the same thing at this age. Want a toy over there? Roll over and get it! I have now found her many times half way across the room from where I left her.

And so it begins.

Rating: 2 Pixie Dust

Miss America

I confess that I am watching Miss America: Countdown to the Crown. Please don't judge me.

Apparently Lil and Idgie have been too.

Rating: 5 Pixie Dust

6 months and 2 years

Idgie and Lil both had their check-ups today. It was, you know....fun....to have them both done at the same time. Yes.....fun.

Anyway -

Idgie:
Height - 25 inches 30%
Weight 15 lbs 35%
Head - 16.5 inches 35%

Doctor said she is looking and doing great.

Lil:
Height - 34 inches 55%
Weight - 26 lbs 45%

We spent most of the visit talking about Lil. I told her about our allergist appointment. I have had Liliana off of dairy now for two days and she has NOT had any diarrhea. The doctor suggested a couple of causes for that and recommended that we keep her off of dairy for awhile longer and introduce and see what happens from there. We also talked about Liliana's speech. Even though she is talking - it doesn't seem to be where it ought to be. She probably on has half the amount of words that the "average" kid should have. It is also hard because Emmaline was such an early talker - so I try hard not to compare - but I don't know where it is "normal" and where it isn't. Anyway, apparently speech evaluations are a free service so the doctor went ahead and gave me the number to call for that. I'm sure I am just being an over paranoid and overbearing mom, but at least if we get it checked out and she is fine, then that is one more thing I can check off my list of mommy worries.

Rating: 1 Lollipop

Huh?

AJ ran across this picture in the news today. It is of the big fire near Boulder.



Rating: 3 Fireballs

Good News/ Bad News

I alluded to it in another post - but Liliana has been having some issues with her guts. She has been having diarrhea since Thanksgiving. Yes - that read Thanksgiving. She has at least one blow out a day. It's super fun. Anyway, we kept chalking it up to different reasons, but we can't keep explaining it away forever. She seems fine in every other way so I figured we could hold out until her 2 year check up on Friday. On a whim the other day, I called up the allergist to get her some testing done just in case this is food related somehow. I figured it takes at least a month to get in to him, so why not go ahead and make a appointment just in case? Well as luck would have it, they had a cancellation right when I called! So we ended up going to the allergist today.

Well the good news is that she tested negative to everything! The bad news is that means we still don't have any answers. He did say that her diarrhea could be any number of things like a parasite, a long lasting virus of some sort, or even something like lactose intolerance or celiac. We will go over all that with her pediatrician on Friday, but in the meantime at least we have ruled out food allergies!

Rating: 1 Sour Patch Kid

Happy 2nd Birthday Liliana (and Happy Anniversary to us)!

Today is our 8th anniversary! Two years ago we celebrated by having a baby - that was a pretty good anniversary! This year we opted to celebrate a day early. Last night we just ordered in Red Lobster and played Quiddler. Enough about that though, because we're boring.

For Liliana's birthday we went to the Children's Museum yesterday. Today we just had present opening and cake. Lil was happy with all of her gifts. Particularly her eyes got so big and excited when the huge dolly was unwrapped. "Baby!" she said.


I had grand plans for her cake - but things just got busy so all I ended up doing was a round cake with a big snowflake on it. Then due to a very long story that involves poop that I won't relate here, the cake remains uncut and we will blow out candles tomorrow!



Happy Birthday Lily-Pie!

Rating: 5 Pixie Dust

Children's Museum of Denver

Tomorrow is a busy day for us. It will be our anniversary and Liliana's birthday. AJ was given the day off today so we decided to spread the celebration out a bit. We decided in honor of Lil's birthday, we would check of the Children's Museum of Denver today. It was super crowded but a ton of fun! They had stuff for kids ages birth-8.

Imogene enjoyed sitting in the soft padded baby "pond" with soft lilypads and cradle swings that looked like leaves. They even had boppies (nursing pillows) there - so it was definitely baby friendly. Take note that Idgie is sitting up in this picture! YAY!!!




Liliana enjoyed the dress-up area the most. I shouldn't have been surprised since she loves to dress up at home so much. She ran around playing in the mirror and just thoroughly enjoying herself.




Emmaline liked the mini grocery store the best. It was so funny to see her carefully selecting items, then standing in line to check out (patiently even - why can't she do that at the real store???). Then she took a turn at being the cashier and was surprisingly good at that too. I think she has been shopping with me one too many times.

Rating: 5 Lollipops!

Resolutions

Back when we lived near family, we used to get together for New Year's Eve and have a pinata and eat food and such. Now we just put the kids to bed at the regular time, and hang out. This year, AJ watched Extreme Trains and I surfed the internet. We're such party animals. It is hard for us to justify partying though, when we have a couple of other celebrations that come so close to New Years every year. (More on that in a day or two!)

However, in honor of the new year, our family did decide to make some resolutions. So to hold us to them, I am writing them out here. Feel free to ask about our progress from time to time.

Imogene: She has committed to learning to walk this year! Sounds like a lofty goal but I think she just might be able to do it.

Liliana: She has committed to learning to use the potty. This is a goal I fully support.

Emmaline: She has decided that this year she would like to start school. She begged and pleaded, we wept and wailed, but finally gave in and agreed that we would send our widdle bitty baby girl to school this year.

AJ: He has committed to not growing 20 new gray hairs every time the girls seem to grow up and develop. I'm not sure he can accomplish this goal but we shall see. He also says he wants to work more on his model railroad this year.

Bethany: I am a realist. I have nothing I think I can actually accomplish this year. However, I pledge to help my family with the stuff they want to accomplish. Which means that I must of just committed to being a better wife and mother. D'oh! Scratch that. I am going to commit to sleeping in at least one day this year. Preferably until 10am - minimum.

Rating: 3 Lollipops