Good Morning

Well, it's Tuesday morning. I'm still trying to feel "back to normal." At first I thought I was feeling this way because of our 4-day family vacation, but it shouldn't take a whole week to get back to normal after that. Especially since I unpacked us and washed all the dirty clothes from our trip as soon as we got home. I think part of the way I feel has to do with being locked inside the house to avoid the smoke from all those fires, but mostly I think it's because it's summer and we never settled into a new routine after Sweet Pea got out of school. We just pretty much hit the ground running, and now we're continuing to blunder from one thing to the next. Whenever we have a day with no plans, I try to keep working on keeping the house clean and making cleaning improvements before Sweet Pea's birthday party. Whee...

Here are some pictures from Asilomar, and then I'll chat about other things.


The first two days we were at Asilomar were quite warm so we enjoyed some time at the beach before dinner each night.

So we got there on a Friday, hiked a lot and narrowly avoided getting hit by lightning on Saturday, and on Sunday Sweet Pea was still completely exhausted from all the hiking she'd done on Saturday. She fell asleep at dinner.

I can't remember what I had told her "no" about, but The Bug was not happy. But I think it's a great picture. ha ha!

My family is very musical. My brother has played guitar since high school and every time we get together, if we can get our hands on a guitar (we borrowed this one from friends b/c my bro didn't want to take his guitar on an airplane from VA), he plays and we all sing. It's fun. Sweet Pea is exposed to a lot of music at school - one of her teachers plays guitar, they sing every day, and they have a dedicated music teacher come in on Thursdays. The Bug, however, upon hearing my brother start to play the guitar and sing, stood up, looking around wildly, and yelled, "IS THERE A TV IN HERE?!" I was a little mortified at that. Maybe I should learn to play a musical instrument. hee hee...

A lot of my thought these days is going toward preparing for BlogHer. I'm a total newbie, never been to a conference, my blog is (at this point, anyway - don't know whether or not I'll change it - I might get inspired) not about making money with ads or attracting zillions of readers, so I'm interested to see what I'll learn and come away from the conference with. But right now I'm just worrying about what to take to wear, how I get from BART to the Westin (it's a three block walk but I did the Google street view and I am rather certain that if I don't have a map I will get lost), and other little things like that.

I am very thankful that Megan at Velveteen Mind posted specifically to newbies about how we'll need cards to hand out - and she even procured a discount for us from MOO.com! Christina at A Mommy Story is going to put up a post soon, again for newbies, to tell us what to expect at the conference. YAY and thank you, ladies!

I still need to procure a nice sweater for the event, SF being what it is weather-wise and all, and I'd also like to buy a certain pair of shoes and if I can't find my license plate purses before the conference (they're still packed but I don't know where, argh) I may also purchase a small Basura Bag to use as a funky purse.

I'm still dreading leaving the kids for three nights. I know I am going to have a lot of fun and it will be really good for me to get away from home and do something for JUST ME. Furthermore, I know that Slipshod will take good care of the girls on the Friday of the conference and they'll have a lot of fun that night and all day Saturday with the added presence of their Grandma S and Boopa. But I've never left them like this before, so it's a big unknown and somewhat heart wrenching for me to think of leaving them for that long. Especially since I'm going to have to leave them after dinner on Thursday at the BART station. The Bug is really not going to like that. Sigh.

Oh well. I'm going to have a lot of fun and I'm very excited that Christina and I have already made a date to party hop together on Thursday night. Yay!

In the mean time, I am on a mission to prepare the house for Sweet Pea's birthday party as well as work out the details of food and helium for the balloons before I leave, so that when I come home I won't have to freak out and work like crazy that last week before the party.

Whee!

After the conference and the birthday party, I am hoping to FINALLY locate all of my soapmaking stuff in the garage, order what I need (the solid oils - palm & coconut), and get back into soapmaking, for fun, to get a jump on Christmas presents for the family, and possibly to teach as well - some members of my local chapter of the Holistic Moms Network have asked me to teach them how to make soap. Should be fun!

Oog

Wow. Sorry it's been so long since I updated here. I've been wanting to blog for a long time but this summer is BUSY!

First I was waiting until I had time to do a big long birthday post for The Bug, but you know what? I did the same thing last year. I *will* write that, but there has been a lot more going on since the beginning of the month.

Last Friday we went to Asilomar with my brother and his family, in from Virginia, and one of my sisters & her hubby, as well as Mom and Dad, to celebrate Mom's birthday. We had a lot of fun being together but it was EXHAUSTING too. Sleeping away from home was a challenge - the girls are used to sleeping on a full sized bed together but there they only had a twin, and the last night Sweet Pea fell out of bed three times. Additionally, the bed Slipshod and I were on was crap, so we didn't sleep very well. We also kept the girls up too late every night and they are still trying to recover from that. AND then there were the daily hikes. Unless you're carrying your two-year-old while she is sleeping, this is what hiking with a two-year-old looks like. Every five steps she does this:

MUST. PLAY. WITH. SAND. MUUUUUUST PLAY WITH SAND.

But there were two other hikes during which I carried her, sleeping. Never did catch up with the main crowd on any of those hikes and in fact on the one pictured above, I just stayed at the rocks with The Bug and let her play until the rest of the family finished the trail, turned around and came back.

While we were hiking (or not, as the case may be) at Point Lobos on Saturday, an electrical storm came up off the ocean and swept over us rather suddenly. It was the first time I have actually been afraid to be outside in a storm. It was CLOSE. We saw lightning strike the hills not far off. The park rangers were driving around saying over their speaker systems, "the safest place to be right now is in a parked car - not under a tall tree." We were running back to our cars during pretty much the whole storm, though. We got pelted with big, fat raindrops and were soaked by the time we made it back. And by then the lightning had ended as well. Thankfully, none of us got zotted. It was quite the adventure! After that we drove back to Asilomar and dried off and ate lunch at the very nice living room connected to Mom & Dad's room.

Anyway, despite how exhausted we all got it was a really fun time with family, especially my brother and his family, who we don't get to see very often.

We drove home on Monday and on Tuesday Slipshod flew out to Minneapolis for work for the rest of the week. We'll see him tomorrow after work. The girls and I have been trying to settle back in to life at home but we're not really there yet. All the laundry from our trip is clean, but not folded or put away. We finally went grocery shopping yesterday to replenish the kitchen, which we had tried to eat clean last week before we left home. Today we need to shop for birthday presents for THREE cousins (siblings - we missed the first 2 birthday parties & the third is this coming Saturday). Tomorrow I'm probably going to drag the girls shopping with me in Tracy because the Bass outlet is having a huge sale and considering my usual small collection of cheap T-shirts is starting to show holes, I think I need some new clothes. Thankfully my sister (who has the coupon for the big sale) will be accompanying us.

But really, the big thing I've been meaning to tell you?



Yeah. I'm going to a conference, AND that means I'll be away from the girls for THREE nights! I've been away from Sweet Pea for one night at a time before - well, rather, she's been away from us, having occasional sleepovers with her Grandma and Boopa - but I've never been parted from The Bug for longer than five hours, and never overnight.

I'm really excited about this, and nervous, and scared. I know the girls will be fine with their daddy and grandparents but I also know I will miss them and they will miss me. And then there's the part about how I'm a Country Mouse going to San Francisco for a few days. Eeep!

More on all of this later. The girls are fighting over the toilet (seriously)! Just wanted to finally end my silent streak and say HI!

Shots Follow-up

So Wednesday actually turned out to be a good day for Sweet Pea. While the morning totally sucked, what with the five shots, TB test and finger prick, Sweet Pea cheered up some before going to school.

Then, while she was at school, I got a phone call from our family dentist. We went there last Monday and Slipshod, Sweet Pea and I all got our 6-month teeth cleanings and checkups (and all passed with flying colors, hooray). While Slipshod and I were having our cleanings Sweet Pea and The Bug, after they got bored with watching me get my cleaning, went to the reception area and the really fun receptionist gave them crayons and paper and other things to play with. The receptionist also invited Sweet Pea to participate in the monthly guessing game so she could enter to win May's prizes.

Turns out that Sweet Pea guessed exactly right (how many balls and jacks were in the jar), and she won their totally sweet prizes, which were a bocce ball set AND an Eddie Bauer competition badminton set (which also includes a volleyball)! It was fun to get to tell Sweet Pea that as soon as I picked her up at school, and then we went directly to the dentist's office, where the receptionist and dental assistants and the dentist himself came out to congratulate her and take her picture with her prizes. The picture will go up on their bulletin board in the waiting room as soon as it's printed and sometimes we stop by to say "hi" to the receptionist (because the dentist's office is in the shopping center very close to our house where we go to the grocery store, Jamba Juice, and sometimes Starbucks).

All that excitement made for quite a thrilling afternoon for Sweet Pea and as soon as we came home after picking up the badminton and bocce sets, we put up the net in the back yard (well, I did my best - apparently competition sized nets are twice as long as normal nets and we have a teeny tiny back yard) and had fun trying to hit the birdies. The girls somehow miraculously both managed not to hit each other's heads or anything else with the rackets OR drop any bocce balls on anybody's feet. Whew! We had lots of fun with those toys in the back yard again yesterday and will continue to do so all summer, I'm sure, and for years to come!

Getting back to the shots, the nurse who gave them told me that the day after the shots would be worse than the day of. Sure enough, Sweet Pea had a hugely swollen left shoulder/upper arm yesterday. While putting an ice pack on her arm, I called the doctor's office for advice. The receptionist told me to ice it (hee), and to draw a circle around the swollen area so I could tell if it was getting any bigger, and to call if it got bigger. Sweet Pea's discomfort in the swollen area was not pain, but itching. The swelling appeared to go down for a few hours but at bedtime it looked bigger, however, it had been doing well enough all day that we decided to let her sleep on it, and this morning it's getting better. There is still swelling and redness and it's still hard, but all of that has lessened some and seems to be continuing to go in the right direction.

Sweet Pea also had a fever at bedtime last night, but we gave her Motrin before she went to sleep and this morning she's fine.

Her cough is also MUCH improved from the walking pneumonia, so WHEW, I think she's really going to be okay soon.

Yay! :o)

Wednesday

Counting down...

Today is Sweet Pea's last day of school this week. I know I already posted that, but man I can't wait to have tomorrow off.

Turned out Slipshod completely forgot that he had agreed to keep The Bug home OR be in the waiting room with her while Sweet Pea got her shots, and he had a conference call this morning, so I had to take both girls to get Sweet Pea's shots. We were a little late (I had figured on either only getting Sweet Pea ready, or having help getting both girls ready, argh) but since the shot clinic is in a separate room from the doctor's office we were the only people there and the nurses weren't too bothered - or if they were, they didn't let on.

Besides getting Sweet Pea her full kindergarten panel of shots & tests (3 shots, a TB test & a finger prick to check iron level in blood) we had to play catch-up with two more shots, so UGH. I could have opted for a couple shots later, but the nurse said it is safe to get them all at once and I figured we might as well just get as much done today as possible.

For some reason I thought Sweet Pea would just cry a little bit but not have too hard of a time. The reality, unfortunately, was that she COMPLETELY freaked on me and I had to fight her to get her shirt off with the help of the nurse, and then hold her screaming, thrashing body while the nurse quickly gave her all the shots. Sweet Pea SCREAMED and fought and SCREAMED and shouted at the nurse, "STOP THAT!" It really, really sucked, especially since her being so tense and screaming, etc. caused her more pain with these shots than she would have otherwise had. One of the injection sites was bleeding a lot after the shot and had a bruise within two minutes of getting the shot. That's the one that's hurting her the most.

The nurse suggested putting ice packs on the injection sites and giving Sweet Pea Motrin to help with the pain. Sweet Pea has turned down Motrin so far but I am really going to try to get some into her before taking her to school. But the nurse said that tomorrow is when she's really going to feel the pain from this experience. That's why I'm really glad we're not doing anything or going anywhere tomorrow.

I felt awful about the situation while it was occurring, and I still do. I have to believe, though, that getting her those shots was the best way to go. As it is I already feel like I was an asssistant in her torture, and I fear she will always remember this and she has been scarred for life by the experience. There she was, yelling and screaming for the needle poking to stop, and what did I do? I held her down for the nurse so she could poke her some more. Well, I didn't actually hold her down. She was sitting on my lap but I had to hold one of her arms at a time because she was trying to fight off the nurse with whichever arm that wasn't getting the shot at the time (she got shots in both arms).

Ugh.

The one thing I keep telling her, which I hope will help her not be scarred for life by this, is that she will never again have to have 7 shots at one time (well, 5 shots, a finger prick and a TB prick). She will still need shots, but from now on it will only be one or two at a time.

Sigh.

While we were at the dr's office I set The Bug up with a little notebook and some crayons but she was too curious to stay in the chair once Sweet Pea started screaming and squirming. She came over and stood next to me asking, "why are you crying, Sweet Pea?" and eventually, after nobody answered her and the screaming and struggling continued, she began to cry a little bit too, out of nervousness or worry or just plain empathy for her sister. The Bug is very easily pulled out of these things, though, by the offer of a lollypop from the nurse. She doesn't hold grudges. Sweet Pea remembers, though... she was like, "to hell with your lollypop, lady; Mom, get me the frack out of here NOW." I bought her a smoothie (I know, we're Jamba Juice fiends) and brought her home and put her on the couch and turned on her favorite cartoon (currently Peep and the Big Wide World) and she's been chilling out there ever since.

Unfortunately, I had such a difficult time getting the girls ready to go that we did not get Sweet Pea's hair brushed or put up before leaving the house, and all her crying made her nose run, so she's got snot in her hair that I have to wipe out now before brushing her hair and putting it up. Sigh.

Guess I should go do that now. I was going to try to get The Bug to nap before school time but she didn't go for it (I did try). Now it's too late & she has to wait until after we drop off Sweet Pea. This is one of the reasons I'm so looking forward to not having to take Sweet Pea to school and pick her up during the summer: The Bug will be able to nap at the time of day that works best for her, and stay asleep when she needs to take a longer nap. None of this waiting to get Sweet Pea to school and having me wake her up to go back to school to pick up her sister.

Okay - The Bug needs lunch. Off I go.

Yep - Still Here, Really

The cold mentioned in my last post was a decently quick one for me and The Bug. Sweet Pea STILL has the cough but her lungs were given the "all clear" on Monday after diagnosis (last week) of and treatment for walking pneumonia.

Today Sweet Pea will have her kindergarten shots. She hasn't had any shots since she turned 2 and is not looking forward to this appointment.

I am still cleaning like a Tasmanian dirt devil (see what I did there? hee hee), trying to get the house ready for company at The Bug's birthday party on Saturday. Making good progress every day, but there's so much to do, lots of work still stretches out before me.

Today is Sweet Pea's last day of school this week. Thursday and Friday there are no classes because all the teachers will be having parent-teacher conferences; ours is Friday afternoon. Sweet Pea's progress report (which was mailed to us to review before we meet with her teachers) is very good and they finally said that she is academically advanced for her age. I always thought so, but they never said anything like that in past reviews. Slipshod said, "maybe they couldn't tell before." They've noted in this last report and in person when I see them at school that Sweet Pea has suddenly come out of her shell quite a bit and is more involved with the other kids and is also working in all areas of the classroom instead of sticking mostly to art and language works. Next week Sweet Pea has school again on Monday and Tuesday. It seems kind of weird to just have two days' worth, but you can bet she'll be going!

Sweet Pea and I are both very much looking forward to her being out of school for the summer.

There is lots more going on around here, but that's going to have to do for now - I'll continue to update as I can!

Thursday's Doings

I haven't been posting about us being sick again, because I just CAN'T HANDLE IT. But we are. The girls and I. Sweet Pea, of course, is getting the brunt of it. Seems it always happens that way.

We had been playing every day with our neighbors for four days or so before I found out that one of their kids had been sick that whole time. When the younger one got sick I became aware of the situation and of course by then we'd been well exposed and that same day Sweet Pea already had awakened with a sore throat, which turned into the cold we've got now.

Unfortunately Sweet Pea got a cough a couple days ago that started sounding increasingly like the one she had when she was diagnosed with walking pneumonia and yesterday she was completely exhausted when I picked her up from school, so this morning I took her to the doctor before school. She has either walking pneumonia again, or the doctor said it could alternatively be a virus. Either way, Sweet Pea's lungs don't sound right; she is getting plenty of oxygen, but she is also wheezing. So, immediately upon leaving the doctor's office we went to the pharmacy, then grabbed some lunch at Jamba Juice (hee hee, nothing wrong with a special treat to cheer us up after a sucky diagnosis), and before taking Sweet Pea into her classroom I gave her her first dose of antibiotics and albuterol. I'm not the least bit excited about medicating her so much again, but what can I do? I sure as heck don't want her to get full-blown pneumonia, and the doctor prescribed the albuterol to help her breathe better and cough less. I figured that since she'd be running around at school I'd better give her the stuff that will help her breathing and coughing.

We had an appointment for Sweet Pea to get her kindergarten shots tomorrow morning but I asked the doctor her opinion on that, and she said we could if we wanted, but if we could wait another week that might be better. So I rescheduled those for June 4th. Sweet Pea is excited to have a week's reprieve.

Unless Sweet Pea's cough is drastically better and there are no other symptoms or backsliding, we are to take her back to the doctor on Monday so they can listen to her lungs again and see how much progress she has made on the medicine. If her lungs sound the same or worse or she has other symptoms, they will probably do a chest x-ray to see if she has pneumonia, and possibly also do whatever tests there are to check for asthma.

There truly are no words to describe how distraught I am about us being sick again, especially since Sweet Pea's cold progressed so quickly beyond a cold. The Bug and I have the cold as well, but I am only coughing a little and The Bug is not coughing at all, and *I think* we are getting over it. I just CANNOT HANDLE the reality of more illness in the house. I feel like my head is going to explode. We've had so much more than our share (according to my measure, of course) of illness over the past 6 months. It has just GOT to stop. I told Slipshod this morning that if I didn't know I'd go batshit crazy without friends and actually leaving the house, I'd just keep the girls home all summer and not see anyone, for fear of them getting sick again.

Hopefully this will be it for a while. Hopefully the weather will continue to warm up and then stay that way instead of going from Africa hot straight back to winter temperatures and rain. Maybe THAT will allow us to move on like we should with the seasons and be well for a while. Here's hoping.

Updating In Photos

To make up for my long and boring absence I'd like to offer you lots of pictures of the things we've been doing over the past month or so. There are three posts full of pictures - enjoy!

Sometimes Slipshod and I like to do messy kitchen science with the girls. Slipshod's favorite thing to make for them (and help them play with) is Non-Neutonian Fluid, a.k.a. cornstarch and water. When you exert pressure on it it reacts like a solid and resists (which means you can roll it into a ball in your hand), and when you just hold it, or just lay your hand on top of it, it reacts like a liquid. It's lots of fun to play with. Check out this cool video of some guys running across a pool of it! Sweet Pea totally wants to do this. So do I, for that matter.

This is our latest pet: A Green Cabbage Looper caterpillar which arrived on our Napa Cabbage from the farm last week. It's been in a cocoon since the 20th and has yet to hatch out. We're still checking on it several times per day to see the brown moth it will become.

Above and below, some spectacular splashdown shots of the girls in our own pool in our own back yard. Hee hee!

Continue on to the next post to see more recent pictures and read more little updates.

Remember the Heat Wave?

Yeah, a couple weeks ago, before winter returned. Well, here's what the girls looked like for a couple days:

This is their Ikea-fied (last year) play room upstairs, and the best real smile I've been able to photograph on Sweet Pea for ages (go ahead, click on the picture to see it larger).

As you'll notice, they believe they are supposed to sit on the table (actually they don't usually do that - it was a spur-of-the-moment bit of silliness, I believe). They also think the chairs are for standing on (see that one backed up to the wall under the window? That's where they stand to yell out the window to the neighbors when they're outside playing and we're still inside getting ready).

Here's The Bug posing after saying, "Take a pictow of ME, Mom!"

And for two days during the heat wave, this is where we were after school: At Speed Racer's house, playing in his pool.

Sweet Pea had the brilliant idea to make the slide end up in the pool and I swear it kept Sweet Pea, Speed Racer and The Bug occupied for a half hour with no letup. It was a really fast, constant three-kid parade: Out of the pool, up the back of the slide, splash down into the pool. And repeat.

One more post with pictures for you! Keep on scrolling if you feel like it.

Catching Up In Pictures (Still)

When we have lots of family over, like we did last Sunday, The Bug makes a point of hanging out with all of her favorite people. Upon seeing Boopa up on the landing lounging against the wall with a pillow, she grabbed an identical pillow and joined him. She later instructed my sister to grab a pillow and join them and the three of them had quite a party up there on the landing. ha ha!

Sweet Pea drew this picture for me one morning last week while I was taking a shower. The spots on the kitty showed up because she did the drawing on top of a step stool. I think it's a pretty cool effect.

Sweet Pea began showing an intense interest in space (I mean above and beyond, "hey, there's the moon") back in December. Now she'll even deign to do a drawing at school sans cat if you can believe that!! She even knows which planets are gas planets vs. rock or ice planets, and knows where the asteroid belt is. She flipped Saturn & Jupiter from the actual order in this drawing, but otherwise it's spot on, I think, and the next day she did another very similar drawing and put them in their correct places. She's so cool. :o)

Some days (okay, most days) I feel inadequate as a mother - I feel like I'm ignoring my kids to blog or check e-mail, pushing them away too often so I can clean, etc. etc. etc. And then some days I realize, "hey, they're happy and I cook them breakfast almost every morning." Only rarely do we eat cold cereal.

Weird

I can honestly say that today is the first time in my entire life I've had my birthday during the winter.