Yuck

Yesterday was a very bad night around here.  If I had known yesterday what was coming when Tim got home from work, I would have .. I don't know, maybe poured a glass of wine, and hidden in the bathroom with the shower on.

When he got home around 3 -- a little earlier than a normal workday, but it was his first real day back at work since returning from deployment -- Delaney and I were outside to give him a cheerful greeting.  But his face was as white as his truck and he said, "I don't feel good."  Then he went inside, went to the bathroom, came out with his cammies and boots still on, and laid down on the La-z-boy recliner.

He told me that he had been feeling sick all afternoon, and throwing up at work.  As he was telling me this, I started to hear coughing and retching from the girls' room.  It was Annie!   Thus started a night of sickness the likes of which has never been seen in this family.

Annie threw up again and again, and every time I gave her anything to drink, up it went.  I gave her a bath after each of the first two times, and then finally gave up on baths.  I draped a vinyl shower curtain liner over the couch, then laid some towels on top, and then laid her on top.  I held her hair and said, "Poor Annie," while she puked in a pot.

Every time Tim got up I hoped maybe he was feeling better.  I made a little fun of him, calling him an invalid.  But when he laid down on the floor with a blanket over his head, groaning, that ended my feeble attempts at joking.  He rose off the floor only to throw up, and after awhile there was nothing left in his stomach, and he still kept going.

It was everywhere.  I looked around in a panic, wondering what I should deal with first, after the sick child -- carpet, bedding, clothes?

When I wasn't rinsing out the puke pot or tossing more soiled clothes in the washer, I was sharing my misery on Facebook with anyone who cared.

I took Delaney and Timmy to the store with me and we got some nausea supplies -- crackers, ginger ale, popsicles and orange sherbet, per Tim's request.  Thankfully, the three of us were spared whatever nasty bug brought on this Barfageddon.  Delaney was sick for a few hours a couple nights ago, throwing up twice during the night.  Tim thinks her sickness was unrelated to his and Annie's.  But a friend just brought it to my attention that the sicknesses could very well be related.  In fact, she's seen one person catch a bug, a couple days later, another one in the household gets it, and then a day or two later someone else.  She suggested I load up on probiotics, and I just took an acidophilus tablet.  For sweet Timmy, breastmilk is his only defense.  Now we wait and pray.  My prayer goes like this: "Please, God, let this horrible sickness be done with our house.  And if it's not, please let me be sick three times over if only Timmy doesn't get it."

Tim finally started to feel better around 9, and went to bed.  I tucked Annie in at almost 11, before collapsing on the couch myself.  I wanted to be close enough to hear her if she needed me.

Tim was well enough, although still achy and sore, to go to work in the morning.  Annie woke up her normal self, and after one bout with the runs, she was fine the rest of the day.  I really hope we've seen the last of this (at least for a long, long time)!

All better today!

Natural face wash

A few weeks ago, I read about a completely natural and cheap way to wash my face, called the oil-cleansing method.  Yes, it means using oil and only oil to wash your face.  I had already tried and failed at another homemade face wash involving oils years ago.  But this was so easy, I couldn't resist giving it a shot.  It's only two ingredients -- castor oil and extra-virgin olive oil.

As anyone who knows me knows, I am about as crunchy as a Quaker granola bar left out in the sun all afternoon.  I have some crunchy ideas floating around sometimes, but I am also undoubtedly a lover of things packaged and sweet-smelling.  For instance, three years ago while pregnant with Annie, I took an interest in green cleaning and took a workshop.  My biggest takeaway from that workshop was that perfumes and dyes are the devil.  We gave up dryer sheets cold turkey.  Our clothes never smelled clean and always felt rough, but that was OK, I told Tim.  It's better for us all.

About five or six months ago, I couldn't take anymore of the roughness of the clothes.  I bought Bounce dryer sheets in the white box.  They were free of perfumes and dyes, but still left our clothes feeling soft.  I thought it was a nice compromise.

Then last month we went to Cincinnati, and while we were there, I did a couple loads of laundry at my mom's house.  With a little bit of hesitation, I tossed in one of the only dryer sheets she had.  Regular Bounce in the orange box.  Just one time won't hurt.  But as soon as I caught a whiff of our drying clothes, I was like that recovering fish-addict shark in Finding Nemo who, upon catching the scent of blood in the water, proclaimed, " I'm having fish tonight!"

I bought my own box of Bounce in the orange box as soon as we got back here, and now I am rewarded multiple times a week for my hard work with the wonderful smell of clean laundry wafting through the house.  Tim is relieved too, that his clothes feel and smell clean.

I am crunchy when it's convenient and cheap.  Anyone who believes in a natural, organic way of life would be ashamed to be associated with me in any way.  That's a lot of people I know.  Gulp.

Having said that, I have been washing my face with this homemade concoction of half castor oil and half EVOO for several weeks now, and my skin is clear and smoother than ever.  To be honest, my skin was clear before I started this regimen, but it wasn't nearly as soft and it was kind of dry.  Success!

Annalise at 2 and 3/4

I'm a few weeks late with Annie's update too, but oh well.

I was too quick to post the "it's over" post about Lovey.  She asked for him at bedtime the very next night, and I fetched him from her memory box on the top shelf of a closet.  They've been inseparable again ever since.  I expect over the next several months, she'll forget about him for awhile, then remember him and want to hold him a lot, then forget again.  For all I care, she can keep him on her bed until she's 18.  We just hope she's done taking him places by the time she starts preschool this fall.  Obviously, she won't be allowed to take him to preschool whether she wants to or not.

Beginning last Friday, she sleeps in a pull-up and wears underpants the rest of the time.  She's done very well, with only a handful of accidents in the first few days.  I'm very happy to not be changing those nasty diapers on her anymore, and she's very pleased with herself too.

I love the cute way she talks.  It occurred to me that before long, she'll talk like a big kid like Delaney, and I'll forget the adorable way she tells me after I help her put on a jacket, "Don't forget to zwip it."  So I took a video of her today, just for the purpose of posting it here.  I always want to be able to see how she talked as an almost-three-year-old.

She doesn't eat much on most days.  She still acts like we're trying to poison her.  I estimate her daily intake of food to be about 50 to 100 calories.  Yet she lives, she poops, and has cheeks that "I want to squish like pizza dough!"  I don't know how she doesn't shrivel up, she and her sister both.  A few weeks ago, she surprised me by eating two big helpings of my chili.  She must be eating every now and then and storing it away in her little body for weeks at a time.

You know what this kid loves more than anything?  Sleep.  She sleeps about 11 hours every night, and takes at least a two-hour nap every afternoon from 1 to 3.  I am very inflexible about that nap.  I dread being invited somewhere important for between the hours of 12 and 2 (which almost never happens, anyway).  I really, really weigh the importance of whatever it is against her need to nap.  I feel a selfish sort of resentment toward whomever issued the invitation, like, Ugh!  Don't their kids nap?  People need to respect the sacredness of the nap!  If it's an event that starts at 3, I can plan for an early nap.  If it starts at 11, I can maybe plan a late nap.  You wouldn't believe the mental gymnastics I go through to try to plan the day around her.  Timmy will catch a nap whenever he can, but if Annie misses her afternoon siesta, everyone's afternoon is shot. 

Annie and I were both needing a nap in this picture.  But since it was our own event we were missing naps for, I had no one to resent for it.:)

She loves books, and she likes for me to point to the words as I'm reading them.  

She still competes with her sister for everything, and that will probably never stop.  Once, I asked the two of them to get the mail for me, and then immediately regretted it as I watched the two of them sprint to the end of the driveway, shrieking like banshees.  I hoped I wouldn't have to pull someone, probably Delaney, out of the ditch at the edge of our yard.  Annie is offended whenever Delaney gets somewhere before she does, or gets anything she wants.  She might not even want it until she knows Delaney wants it.  I didn't breathe until I watched them both running back to me, having divvied up the mail to their satisfaction.

She asserts her independence one minute, with loud proclamations of "I can do it by myself!"  and the next, she clings to me, begging for help with things I know she can do alone.  

She can pedal her tricycle around the driveway now, but her legs are too long for it.  I guess somebody's getting a brand-spankin'-new bike for her birthday this year.

Cincinnati trip and double baptism

A couple weeks ago we took our first big trip as a family of five.  We went to Cincinnati to spend a few days with my family and have the joint baptism of Timmy and his cousin John Paul.  It was a 14-hour drive there, and a 13-hour one back.  We stayed downtown again, in the same hotel as when we all went for Christmas a couple years ago.  Again, we had two bedrooms, a living room and kitchen for under $100 a night.  The mattress was saggy and there was no continental breakfast, Starbucks coffee or USA Today.  Still,  for the money, we couldn't complain.  We like staying downtown with all the noise and the people and things to look at.  We are not normally city people.

Highlights of the week included a trip to the Children's Museum, the Aquarium, shopping at a real mall, a fun grownups-only dinner out with my brother Scotty and his wife Faith, and of course the baptism and party.

Timmy, 6 months, and John Paul, 4 months

Delaney and Annie having fun with Miles, 5, in the ball room at the Children's Museum

Walking to Bruegger's Bagels for lunch -- about a half-mile from the hotel

Fun at the hotel while I was catching an extra hour or two of sleep

Mom and Dad watched the kids for us one night, and I snapped this picture with my phone when we got back.

Anna and Robert, Miles and John Paul

St. Rose Church

With the godparents, my sister Grace and brother Scotty

Scotty and Grace are John Paul's godparents as well.

As soon as we had all sat down in the pew for the baptism, Scotty said to Tim, Anna, Robert and me, "So if you guys  die, these are my boys!"

Timmy and Papaw

These pictures of Anna and Robert's cats must be included because they're funny, and I don't even like cats.

Having one of those days..

I commented on Anna's Shutterfly site, "That's exactly how I feel every morning!"  Tim commented, "You mean that's how you look!"  It's good to have him back. 

Timmy at 7 months

Once my babies get to be this age, I worry that I might never want to stop having them because they keep getting cuter and more fun with every passing day.  Then they start to sleep better, I start getting more rest, and then my memory starts to fail me.  They are dangerous at this stage, that's for sure.

Two days after he turned 6 months old, he had a well visit.  He weighed 17 pounds, 2 ounces (46th percentile), and was 27 inches long (64th percentile).  While I was waiting for the doctor, he bit down on my finger and I noticed he'd cut his first tooth.  The second one followed about two weeks later.

That same week, he began sitting up by himself.

 He has been practicing crawling for several weeks now.  He gets up on all fours, and moves one knee forward, then the other.  But he has no idea what to do with his hands, so he just lunges forward, and then scoots and wiggles his way to wherever he's trying to go.

This month we introduced solids.  We take the baby-led approach.  So far Timmy has tried apple wedges, broccoli florets, slices of green pepper, banana, cheese, toast, chicken breast, and tomato.  He may have tried some others, but I can't remember.  Whenever he's awake for a meal, we include him at the table so he sees us eat, and gets to try a little of what we're having.  He's mastered biting and chewing, but not yet swallowing.  He'll figure it out in his own time.

He sleeps well as long as we're at home.  He began "sleeping through the night" -- going to bed at 7, and waking up once at around 4 -- right before we left for Cincinnati a little over a week ago, and then that got disrupted with us sharing a room again.  Once we got back, he improved again right away.  He's not sleeping through the night, but it goes like this:  I give him a dream feed right before I go to bed between 10 and 11, he wakes up at around 3, and then again between 6 or 7.  It's not great, but compared to where we were a couple months ago, I'd say we're doing very well.  Since Tim's been home, he gets up with him that last time and I get to sleep in.  That ends when he goes back to work on Monday, but we'll still have weekends.

Lovey is retiring

It's looking like it might be the end of the road for Annie and her tattered, faded little companion, Lovey, after 2 1/2 years.  While we were in Cincinnati last week, she went to bed without it two or three nights in a row.  After she'd gone to bed, I'd see it lying forgotten on the living room floor.  I used to bring it to her in bed not long ago, whether she asked for it or not.  I think I might have been just as unwilling to let Lovey go as she was, maybe more.  I knew that once she stopped carrying it around, that it was really, finally the end of her babyhood.

The timing of this is so unexpected, considering that she and Lovey seemed more inseparable than ever these last couple months.  Tim commented on it when he came home, how attached she was to it.  I noticed too, and wondered why she was suddenly hanging onto it all the time, and wanting to take it everywhere.  

For some reason, when I noticed she'd forgotten to bring it to bed with her the first time in Cincinnati, I decided not to bring it to her unless she asked for it.  Maybe it was the change in her routine, but she didn't ask for it the next nap time or the next bedtime either.  I started to notice that Lovey was being forgotten.  I hid it away in a suitcase to see if she'd notice.  She didn't, and still doesn't, several days later.  So today I told Tim that I was going to put Lovey away in Annie's memory box, at last.  She's a big girl now.  

It's a little bit ridiculous that I'm feeling sad about this.  It was not my plaything.  But it's been hers for so long it almost seems like a part of her.  I love its sweet, smushed face, worn by all the mouthing and handling of a baby, then toddler, then preschooler.  I should be happy that she's decided herself she's ready to move on.  If she asks for it tomorrow, I'll give it to her.  But I don't think she will.   (Sigh)  My Annie-Nanny is growing up.  Tomorrow we will try potty training. 

10 months

17 months

22 months

Annie clung to Lovey the day her daddy came back after 10 months away.  It seemed especially important to her .

Homecoming

We are together again and life is good.  Tim came home as scheduled on Friday, February 3.  Melinda at Melinda Pepper Photography did a wonderful job of capturing the moment.  There are many more pictures, and I look at them again and again because it is such a happy memory.  Since there are no words to express how it feels to see each other again after those many months, and everything we've gone through, the pictures do it.

Tim and I agree that, while 10 months of our life together is missing, it doesn't feel like he ever left -- if that makes any sense.  It's been a smooth, easy transition.  We're a team again, this time with three kids.  The girls are so happy to have him around again, running to meet him when he walks in the door every day.  It doesn't ever get old seeing that.  Timmy took to him right away, no problems there.  We had talked a day or two beforehand about Tim "easing" back into his role as daddy, since things were bound to be a little different, and the kids would need time to get used to him again.  So far, I haven't seen that.  His interactions with them have been so natural and effortless right from the start.  Right before Tim left, he told me, "Don't let them forget me."  He never became a stranger to them.  He loves listening to how differently they talk than the last time he saw them.  Annie changed so much, as he knew she would.  But he is amazed at Delaney too, and how much like a big kid she has gotten, the way she talks and acts.

I was so happy the first time we walked across the parking lot to go into a grocery store together.  It was like the clouds opened and angels were singing.  Getting ready to leave, I was in the checkout line with Annie and our groceries in the cart.  Tim took Delaney and Timmy out to the car.  I just had Annie and the groceries to worry about, and that was nice until I got in the car and realized I'd left my wallet at the counter.  After I'd recovered it and gotten back in the car, I told Tim, "You wouldn't believe it but I never once did that before, not even the whole time you were gone."  He said he believed me, and understood right away how him being there took me out of the routine I was used to.  It threw me for a loop, having the extra help!  (Come to think of it, it's not the first time that having another adult along on a grocery trip -- for example, my father-in-law or my mom -- has made me have to try harder to stay focused and not forget anything.  You would think it would always help, but strangely, it can add confusion.)  But no matter, I still enjoyed every minute of having him on that trip.

I've got my other half back here where he belongs, and it doesn't get any better than this.