Happy Birthday to Me!

So yesterday I turned the big 3-0. Very exciting. But being the shy, introverted, avoider of all fanfare if I can help it sort of person that I am, when Todd asked how I wanted to celebrate the day, I opted for just a quiet family dinner out.

Now when Todd left for work yesterday morning, he mentioned that there would be presents to open during dinner. Usually we just do books - that's been our trademark gift to each other for a long time now. I have to admit, though, that in the back of my mind I was kind of hoping that instead of books, my gift would maybe happen to be new seat covers for our kitchen chairs. Remember how a few posts back I mentioned that we had finally gotten rid of the last vestiges of that hideous yellow? Well, we have....on the walls at least. The seats of our kitchen chairs still happen to be hideously yellow, and the fact that they now match nothing in our house is an affront to my sense of order and flow. Todd, being sensitive to this slight idiosyncrasy of mine, tends to be fairly accommodating in matters of home decor. I was crossing my fingers for new kitchen seat cushions.

Imagine my surprise when Todd pushes a slim packet across the table to me while we're waiting for our entrees to arrive. No seat cushions inside, of course. Instead there was only this:

And when I flipped open to the first page, there before my very eyes was an itinerary for a four day trip for Todd and me to Portland, Oregon and Seattle, Washington!

Most of you know that Todd and I never really took a honeymoon when we got married nearly seven years ago. There were many factors that played into this - we were too poor, Todd was finishing up school, we were about to make a major life transition in a few months to move here to Missouri - we just weren't able to make it happen. We did four days in Omaha in lieu of a more spectacular vacation. It has been our dream to take a trip to the Pacific Northwest as a sort of late honeymoon, but we've just never gotten around to it, and here Todd went and planned this trip for us without me having even a glimmer of an idea he was doing it! AND he even took care of the babysitting question, conspiring with my sister to have her fly out here to babysit the girls while we're away! Amazing! Seat cushions? Who needs seat cushions? I'll take a dream trip over seat cushions any day!

Oh, my goodness, I am beyond excited, and I will be spending many happy hours this spring and summer poring over these books, my gifts from the girls:

Thank you, thank you again and again wonderful, awesome, beloved husband. I can't wait to take this trip with you! And thank you, thank you again and again wonderful, awesome sister for so graciously agreeing to watch our kids so that we can do this. I was completely, utterly taken by surprise - you guys know how to keep a secret well! Oh, I'm so, so looking forward to this! It seems like September can't get here fast enough!

Bittersweet

Today I enrolled Iris in the Pre-K program for the coming Fall.

I have to admit that I felt a little teary afterward in the car as we were driving home. Ridiculous, I know, considering that there are still eight months before she actually has to go, and it's only going to be two days a week for a few hours. Not a huge deal, right?

Oh, it's what it means, though. It means we are now standing on the threshold of a whole new world. A world that will begin to take her farther and farther out of my realm of complete influence - all right and good, and she is ready, but it still crushes me a little to think that very soon I will no longer get to be intimately involved in every single detail of every single one of her days.

It's such a milestone moment. Yet I'm left wondering if I'm ready...ready to send my little girl off to school. How is it possible that she's grown up so fast?

Because it seems like yesterday, literally just yesterday, that she was this:

Our baby.

Vomit Vomit Everywhere

So Lydia had her first experience with vomiting last night.

Unfortunately, it started at our babysitter's house. And nothing makes a babysitter want to say, "Hey! I would totally love to babysit for you again. We had an awesome time! Call soon, OK?" than a nice pile of vomit on her carpet, I'm sure.

She struggled until about midnight, vomiting every 30 or 40 minutes or so, and then she was OK for the rest of the night. Today she seems to be completely fine, so I don't know if her supper didn't agree with her or if it was a random bug or what.

I'm just relieved that whatever it was doesn't appear to be sticking around. Ew! Is there a more disgusting chore than cleaning up vomit?

Crash..or the Girl Formerly Known as Lydia

We experienced some high drama at our house last night.

It was about 5:00 pm, and I had just gone upstairs to try to figure out what to feed the girls' for supper and pack the diaper bag. Todd was due home from work any minute, and we had about fifteen minutes before we needed to leave to drop off the girls at my dear friend Sarah's house so that Todd and I could make our appointment that evening.

All of a sudden I hear a thud! boom! boom!

Of course, instantly my heart skipped a beat, my body flooded with dread, and I rushed over to the stairs where Lydia was on her hands and knees at the bottom, her blanket twisted around her legs, crying at the top of her voice with shock and fright.

I jumped down the steps at record speed, and as I gathered her into my arms, I noticed that her lip was bloody. All the way up the stairs to the bathroom I was thinking, Oh Lydia, please let it just be that you bit your lip and not that you knocked out a tooth, or worse, you poor, poor baby.. and selfishly, I'll admit it, way, way in the back of my mind I was thinking, Please let it be that you just bit your lip because we really, really need to make this appointment tonight..I know, again, selfish. But there you are. This could not have happened at a more inconvenient moment.

So, once upstairs in the bathroom, I laid her on the floor and tried to get a closer look in her mouth to see where the source of the blood was. Not fun. Lydia, as you can imagine, wasn't a real big fan of me probing around in there, which didn't make it very easy to get a good look. But I persevered, and the minute I lifted up her top lip, it was all very clear what the issue was.

It appeared she had torn her frenulum. You know, that little weird, seemingly useless flap of skin attached to inside of the lip and gum. Blood. All over in there. *shiver* My poor, poor girl!

A bit of panic set in. My brain froze. What to do? Where to go? Pediatrician? ER? Urgent Care? Do they even do stitches for that? With shaking hands I dialed our pediatrician's number while shouting at Iris to get her shoes and coat on. Lydia, once I had stopped messing with her mouth, was over it and just rested calmly in my arms looking at me curiously while I rushed around like a maniac.

Because my ped's office couldn't get us in before 6:45 pm that night (who knew they were open late on Mondays?), they recommended the ER. This was a bad, bad choice as there is nothing quick about our local emergency room. By the time we got there and got checked in, Lydia's mouth was not even bleeding anymore, and she was happy as a lark. I, meanwhile, was freaking out a little about all the sick people whose germs were swirling about in the air potentially infecting my girls and feeling more and more like we shouldn't even be there. We waited an ENTIRE hour (the supper hour too, mind you) in the waiting room before deciding to maybe try for that 6:45 pm appointment at the pediatrician's. The chances that they would actually do stitches was nil according to the nurse who checked us in, and so why wait for an eternity to see an ER doctor who would essentially tell us this, when we could receive the same information from our own dear doctor (conveniently located right around the corner) about a billion times faster?

To make a long story short, that is exactly where we headed, and Lydia did indeed sever part of her frenulum. This heals perfectly fine on it's own in a matter of days, apparently, and is no cause for any alarm. It's actually quite a common occurance in children who have fallen, according to our doctor, because of where and how they grab with their hands while falling, or something like that. I wasn't paying complete attention to what he was saying because I was just so glad it was no big deal. Whew! It never hurts to be sure though, right?

She's a super brave girl, our little "Crash". And not easily deterred by something as minuscule and unimportant as a torn frenulum. The minute (she didn't even wait to take off her coat!) we walked in the door she made a beeline straight for the stairs!

I think she's going to be a thrill-seeker, this one.

Lions and Tigers and....Moles?

My worst fear (well, my worst fear in regards to my lawn, anyway) is about to be realized. We are on the verge of being invaded by moles! I say "on the verge" because it hasn't actually happened yet. But, oh, my goodness...they're close. So very, very close!

A few days ago, I was out in our yard winding up hoses (Lesson: You never want to leave hoses just lying around in the grass lest they kill the grass underneath - just a glimpse into one of my idiosyncrasies). I happened to glance over at our neighbor's backyard as I was doing so and noticed what looked like a huge clod of dirt, almost like a hole, right on the border between our yards. Oh man. Those rabbits better not be digging holes again, is the thought that passed through my mind. We had HUGE issues with this happening last year, in case you're wondering. I moved closer to inspect the hole....and nearly jumped out of my skin! Holy cow - the mole was actually still in the process of digging his tunnel underneath the ground!! I could see him moving around under there! It totally freaked me out, and my mind went completely blank as to what I should do.

What I should have done was bonk him on the head with a shovel to kill him and then stomp down the tunnel. This would have delayed any immediate digging into our yard by him or any of his little moley friends, giving me time to organize my plan of attack. What I did do was call my sister and talk to her for moral support while peering at the ground to check for movement and sqeamishly tapping the tunnel with my foot. As much as I view moles as the worst possible thing that could happen to our yard, there is no way I could actually kill one of them. Yikes!

I spent the rest of the day anxiously checking out the kitchen window to see if the mole was burrowing into our yard yet and obsessing over the sure destruction of our lawn. In my desperation, while waiting for Todd to come home from work, I went a little crazy and bought a whole bunch of this stuff:

Todd was a good sport and applied all of it this past weekend for me AND he and Iris destroyed the tunnel. Who knows if it will make a difference or not? At least we're doing something, right? And so far, they've left our yard alone. Maybe it's because of our hard work, but I'd like to think that it's the hand of God holding them back. He knows how much a mole infestation in our yard would send me over the edge. I know...crazy...but we spend a lot of time taking care of our grass (watering, mowing, fertilizing) and it would be devastating!

Like Mother, Like Daughter...

Over that last month, we've been implementing something I like to call Independent Playtime. For 30 minutes every day Iris goes down to our basement and plays BY HERSELF. During that time, I'm able to e-mail or blog (yay!) or do chores uninterrupted, Lydia gets to take her morning nap in peace and quiet, and Iris gets to work on valuable skills like being able to entertain herself. It's a win-win situation for everyone!

Occasionally, however, I WILL spy on her just to see what she's up to - especially if it's been really quiet. Imagine my surprise and delight to discover that instead of playing with toys this past week, she's been doing this:

She's a girl after my own heart - I often sneak in some reading during Independent Playtime too! Oh, that both my lovelies will grow up to cherish books!

Mommy: (teasing and goofing around) I think you should....hmm....pick Lydia's nose!

Iris: (shrugging her shoulders nonchalantly) No thanks.

Mommy: (feigning shocked surprise) You don't want to pick her nose?

Iris: (matter of factly) We-ell.....I'm not a big picker.

Mommy: You're not, huh?

Iris: We-ell....daddy always says, (beginning to sing) "Don't stick your finger up your nose......"

My Girls

Here are some things I am loving about our girls right now:

Iris....
-her stellar singing and dancing - we think she's secretly dying to be a rockstar!
-her phenomenal imagination - she comes up with the most creative scenarios
-when she calls Lydia "Lydia Lou Lou"
-her love affair with blankie
-when she asks daddy to "wrastle" with her
-when she tells us to "vamanos" and claps her hands (thank-you Dora)

Lydia......
-when she grabs her toes
-how when she's nursing she'll stop and look up and smile at me
-how she acts so excited to see me when I get her up in the morning
-how excited she gets when she sees Iris or daddy
-her love affair with her hands
-her roly baby thighs
-when she talks to her toys
-the way she tries to engage us with her eyes