Saturday, October 14, 2006
Paci update
It has been a weird day. Some good, some bad. She has not had her paci in her mouth nearly as much. When she has the "broken" paci in her mouth she drools like a son of gun. It's awful. Since she can't suck on it she just holds it in her mouth and the drool pours out. She has to shove the paci back in her mouth every ten seconds. I'm just praying that she'll tire of the hassle and set it aside.

The other thing is that when she tries to talk around it we tell her to take her paci out of her mouth when she talks. We tell her that every time. The miracle is that she usually obeys.

But I wimped out. When it was well past time for nap Popi and I brought her home. But she was being totally freaky. She got upset and was crying, kicking, screaming, flailing about. I knew it was because her broken paci was not comforting her. I couldn't hold out against that. She was so tired and pitiful. I gave her the real thing, thinking that she'd only be allowed the real thing in her crib.

The rest of the evening she asked for paci maybe once or twice. We were able to distract her each time so she forgot. After supper she turned into a total nutjob. She was bouncing off the walls, her cheeks were rosy and she was almost manic. Everyone agreed that her behavior was being affected by the lack of paci. Since she was so dependent you might expect there would be consequences.
Friday, October 13, 2006
...you look like a monkey...
and smell like one too!

Yes, it's my birthday. Today was a better day at work, but still exhausting. The week is over and I'm done so you won't have to hear complaining about that for a few days.

My family has a long-standing tradition of calling each other on our birthdays and actually singing happy birthday (no, we pay no royalties). My brother caught me first, shortly after I got to work. Later in the morning my Mom got me at work too. Then my Dad got me at supper. It's kinda dorky but it's fun; we're pretty much dorks at heart anyway.

M. made us crablegs for supper, with pan-fried potato slices on the side. Except since our plates were totally covered in crab the potatos sat in a bowl. I gave Emma two servings of the potato slices, cutting them up with a knife each time. Next thing I know she's over there picking them up out of the bowl and making a stacked tower of slices. It was pretty funny. The best part was she actually ate them all.

M. and Emma gave me a watch for my birthday. I tried to take a picture for you but my battery crapped out. Which makes their second gift to me even more clever...they got me a second camera battery. I really needed that.

Tomorrow Noni and Popi are coming over for the fall festival here. Unfortunately the leaves have already peaked so they're not as pretty as they were. We'll go to town and visit the SPCA's sweater sale, the library's used book sale, the Farmer's Market and whatever crafters we can find. Oh, they'll have clogging too. They have cloggers at everything here. Best of all, Noni is bringing the fixings for my birthday dinner, peppersteak. And a Pop's cake for dessert. Yay!
Scary night
M. cut a hole in the end of Emma's paci. We're trying to quit the thing. Since she was sick she has gotten horribly dependent on it. She's almost manic about it. When she was at Mary's she never used it. She'd put it away when we got there and then be hollering for it in the car on the way home at the end of the day. But since she's been going to Grandma's she hardly ever takes the thing out. As a result the skin on her chin is spotty and she's becoming quite adept at talking around it. It's just gotten to be too much.

So I mentioned this possible method to M. and next thing you know he comes in with this paci with a giant hole reamed in it. Um, not exactly what I meant. But he gives it to her and it immediately falls out of her mouth. She gets upset. She's confused, she's very upset. She's searching the house for another paci.

I take another paci and cut two slices in the end like a cross. I give her this one. She actually hold this one in her mouth, but she can't suck on it. Then she moves it to the side of her mouth and tries to chew on it. It pops out constantly and she's shoving it in constantly. But the good news is when she wants to concentrate on something she pops it out and puts it down.

This all happened within the last hour before bed so I don't know where it is going. I'm hoping that she'll tire of this defective paci and give it up all together. We gave it to her at bedtime. Shortly after we went downstairs I could hear her upstairs talking, so I figure she must have given up on it quickly.

We'll see how it goes tomorrow.
Emma at play
This girl cracks me up. She'll launch her boat and then when it gets away from her she's hollering "Wait! Wait!"

What I found at Grandma's this afternoon
Emma made herself comfortable in the entertainment center.


This is her pouty face when I took paci away.

Thursday, October 12, 2006
So so tired
Work has been head-splitting stressful this week. I haven't had time to open my mail for three days. I went in early today and got home after 7:00 p.m. Today was the peak of madness. Tomorrow should be much easier (Lord, I hope so). I have nothing for you today. No pictures, no stories, sorry. I'll try to do better tomorrow.
Wednesday, October 11, 2006
New blog on the blogroll
I've added Nat-Bear's blog "A Mother's Journey." Check it out!
New ready bed
Thank you Noni and Popi. We tried it out today. She uses it about like her cousin, C-man.

Tuesday, October 10, 2006
Fall picture
This is for Allison. Here is the view from the house on Thursday last week. I'll try to get you an updated one tomorrow.

When you can think of nothing else...
The last twenty search engine queries to land on my blog:

Tylenol's Simply Sleep - Hey, I only took it the one time!
"at o'charley's" "got a raise" - Congratulations! Post it in the comments next time.
seven years old twin birthday invitations - Is this a prophecy?
stroking daddy - Dude, my mom reads this blog...
deviated path - Here I am!
emma frost "halloween costume" - Yeah, we have no comic book nerds here.
circo pants - Love, love, love 'em! Yay Target!
TODDLER HYSTERICAL FIT - Judging from the fact that you're YELLING I might know where the little nipper gets it from.
pumpkins frost warning - We were completely faked out by that one. We still haven't had frost.
abbreviated bus - This short bus was a church bus, probably not the kind you were looking for.
circo pants - Apparently other people love them as well.
unaffectionate babies - I still haven't forgotten that one, you know who you are.
dora playdoh set - A hit with the toddler set, for sure. But still no playdoh in this house.
emma loveys - It's called tigger, and yes, there are two of them.
charmbracelet - Did you like it? I'm pretty proud of it.
"ironing" routine - No thanks. And why is ironing in quotes, is it "ironic?"
"i wish i had never gotten married" - That was definitely the first time. Not surprising that the sentiment is not original to me.
ring around the rosie roseola - Cool, I had forgotten that association.
softlips balm pictures - I guess you didn't find exactly what you were looking for.
translate audiophones - Very handy, I highly recommend them when you're visiting sites in a foreign country.

That was fun, and fairly G-rated for some of the things I've seen before.


Monday, October 09, 2006
And for her actual birthday...
We have the birthday pizza, a favorite. On an Elmo plate, with an Elmo napkin, and milk from an Elmo cup.


Opening just a few more presents.


The surprise feature, her first ever fireworks. We had to wait until it started getting dark earlier and Daddy came up with the idea to finally do them today. She was a bit ambivalent about them. When the sparkles popped she would recoil against me, but she never really acted afraid.


Bath-time Elmo makes his debut in Emma's bath. He joins the other birthday gifts in Emma's collection, Learn to Dress Elmo and Check-up Time Elmo. Now you can see why I'm immune to the Elmo TMX hype.



Finally, a video of Emma opening her presents tonight:

The leaves they are a-changin'
She led me to the trailer so she could play on it.


And yes she did fall off. Landed in the tallest softest grass. It may have been an inevitability but she still needs to learn how it happens. She was more startled and mad than hurt.


Taken as I was driving home from visiting Daddy at the store.

Toys, toys, toys
Since I'm home with Emma today she's getting a chance to try out her new toys. We'll hand them out a few at a time. We gave her the Little People House this morning. She'll get the rest of her stuff after supper.




To the Lake
After the party many folks had to hit the road for their long drives home. The rest of us went for a short walk down to the lake.


The object of the game is to collect rocks from the driveway to throw into the water.


Considering which rocks to use.


Emma's being transported across the gravel. Kind of like the Jetson's car, huh?

Random weekend pictures
A plaque I received for my birthday. I think I'll put it in my office.


One of the gift bags...(Remember, we were celebrating ten different birthdays)


Nice picture of Aunt K and C-man.


Clowning around.

Party Time!
Decorations for Noni's dining room.


The cake.


Opening presents with Daddy.


Lots of help with opening presents.


She was really interested in the cake till it came time to actually eat it. Then she just wanted to play with the cars.

Happy Birthday, Emma!
Happy Second Birthday to my bright little ray of sunshine!