our last day

Today was our last full day here. We leave tomorrow morning and will drive a little over halfway and stay again in Virginia (a little further from where we stayed last time).

So here's today's rundown....

Down Time after Breakfast (this is what she's been doing most of the time that we're in our room--taking her shells out of her bucket, counting them, putting them back in, taking them out, and starting all over again--she counted to ten this morning correctly all by herself!)

Jockey's Ridge State Park--the sand dune place we went a few days ago when it was super duper hot. Today it was cooler and much more pleasant. We hiked up and saw hang gliders. Our daughter rode in the backpack on my husband's back for part of the way, but then decided to climb the rest of the way herself. She did great! She hiked part of the way back down, too, and then wanted to ride some more in the backpack.

The North Carolina Aquarium

Here she's looking at sting rays and trying to touch them.

She loved watching the dive show and went right up to the diver! We had to go move her out of the way so the woman giving the talk wouldn't trip over her! That's our fearless girl! (The picture didn't turn out very well but you get the idea....)

Our Beach--Kite Surfers (we were swimming in the pool and got out to watch these surfers)

Dinner--I tried soft shelled crab for the first time. It's fresh from the ocean here and you eat the whole thing, unlike regular crab legs that you pick the meat out--it was strange, but I liked it. I had to ask the waitress how to eat it!

Right outside the window of the restaurant was this osprey nest. You could see babies in the nest and the mother had a fish for them.

I doubt that I'll write for a few days. We'll be driving tomorrow and the next day, so there won't be much to write about. So farewell from the Outer Banks!

day four

Mostly pictures today....I have a huge headache and don't feel like writing. It was a fun day...just frustrating to deal with a headache when I'm trying to have a good time!

So here's what we did today....

Cape Hatteras

Driving on the Beach

Playing at the Beach

Catching some Rays

Playing at the Pool

gnats and heat and sunburn (oh my!)

The day started at 5:15 when little miss sunshine woke up talking up in her loft bedroom (she slept soundly up until then, though, so I'm very thankful). She was talking but I let her go, hoping she'd fall back asleep, which she did. Until 6:00. Woo hoo! But really I can't complain because I was so worried she'd have trouble sleeping and she did great.

We had a gnat infestation in our room this morning. It was horrible--ever take a shower only to find bugs on you?? Nasty! We found out at breakfast that we weren't the only ones. There are forest fires on the main land that are blowing smoke over onto the island. It's really hazy and smells like a campfire at certain parts of the day (like the middle of the night when I woke up last night and thought something was on fire in the room and walked around for quite awhile sniffing, trying to figure out what it was!). Anyway, the smoke is evidently driving the bugs inside. They were especially bad in the bathroom. I called the front desk and they said they had spray, so my husband went to get it and sprayed all over, killing many of them (our bathtub was covered in dead bugs. Gross!). When we came back from our morning excursions they had come to clean our room and the dead bugs (and most of the live ones, too) were gone. I hope tomorrow morning is better.

This is a picture of my daughter's toy, which seemed to attract quite a few for some odd reason.

This morning we headed to Kitty Hawk, to the Wright Brothers Memorial. It was interesting, but it's almost all outside with no shade, and it was close to 100 degrees again today and the sun was just scorching. We were all lathered in sunscreen, but I still managed to get a sunburned face. Ouch. Here's some of what we saw.

This is the monument--it's up on a tall hill, which we walked up...it was hot.

This rock says something about their first flight.

This is a replica of their first plane. I chose this picture because R did a lot of sitting down in the middle of walking today--she was tired and probably hot and she kept getting sand in her shoes! The last time I'll put sandals on her when we're out and about doing sight seeing!

She couldn't wait for her turn to stand behind this--I had to hold her up on my knee so she'd be high enough to peek out above it.

We then went to a state park with huge sand dunes, but didn't go climb them because my husband said it would be like hiking in the Sahara Desert. Too bad it decided to be this hot while we were here. We seem to have that problem a lot--last year's trip to Wyoming was very similar in that respect.

Our little one got fussy around lunch time so we came back to the hotel and put her to bed (you know she's ready when she's asking to go nigh night!) I doubted her ability to go to sleep in that sunny loft, but she did great and slept for two hours! My husband napped and I read the paper. It's strange to have down time in the middle of the day on vacation, because usually it's go-go-go, but a little one forces you to slow down, and it's kind of nice.

When she woke up she was all fired up to go "simmum," because I was putting her bathing suit on her, but we kept telling her we were going to the beach (simmum to her is done in the pool). We couldn't get out of the room fast enough for her. When we passed the pool and kept walking toward the beach she was a little sad. But once we got her settled with her sand toys at the beach she had a good time. She was still scared, though, and had to be held anywhere near the water, and even when she was sitting in the sand she wanted to sit on my lap because the water would occasionally come up and get her feet a little wet, and that was scary too, I guess. She liked counting shells (over and over and over--and there are a lot of shells to count, trust me!)

When we came up to the hotel we stopped at the pool and she and I went in, briefly. She was still scared of that, too, and much preferred sitting on the edge with her feet in the water.

After an early dinner we set off for one of the lighthouses on the Outer Banks. This one is the Bodie Island Lighthouse. It was just closing as we got there, so we just got to look around on the outside. We're going back tomorrow on our way back from Cape Hatteras, where we're going to see their more famous lighthouse.

pictures after all!

I said there wouldn't be pictures...I was wrong! My husband brought a USB cord so we can download them afterall.

This morning we drove over the Blue Ridge Mountains. We would've really liked to have driven through The Shenandoah Valley and on the Skyline Parkway, but we didn't want to have any extra time than necessary in the car with our little one. She did great again today, but we don't want to push it! There was a pull off on the highway, though, so we were able to see a little bit. It was hazy, but really pretty.

We arrived at our hotel at 2:00 and our room wasn't ready yet. They said we were welcome to use the pool or the beach. We opted for the beach because our suits and everything were packed away and too hard to find, so we just went out to the beach, took off our shoes, and waded. It was around 100 degrees again today and sweat was just dripping off of us, so the cold ocean waves felt great! Our little one was pretty scared of her first ocean experience. Here she is getting her feet wet with Daddy.

She alternated between wanting us to hold her(during which time she was pretty happy to watch the waves and play with shells she was holding) and wanting us to put her down (so she could run away from the water and sit in the sand--but the sand was hot!)

It was finally time to check in and we gladly explored our nice, cool, air conditioned room. Our hotel is right on the ocean and we have a side ocean view room. We have a balcony that looks over the pool and down the ocean. Here's our view!

We chose a room with a loft so our daughter would have a separate place to sleep, so we could put her to bed early and still be able to move around ourselves downstairs. It's nice and convienient, but we didn't know that there's a sky light.

So we had the same problem we had last night about no way to darken the room! The light shines right down onto her. Thankfully she was so worn out that she went right to sleep despite it being so bright.

From our balcony my husband took some pictures of guys surfing. It's fun to watch them. The waves are much higher than I ever remember seeing them in Florida, the other times I've seen the Atlantic. When we get home we can edit this picture to just show the surfer...we have no idea who those other people are!

So that's day two in a nutshell. Oh, our little girl has a nice black eye in formation--she fell in our room and hit her cheek on the couch really hard. I'm sure you'll see plenty of pictures of it to come. Poor little thing. I feel like a horrible parent.

day one...the trip's begun

So we're in the middle of Virginia in a Holiday Inn that, as we just discovered, minutes before nigh night time for our little one, doesn't have room darkening curtains! What kind of hotel doesn't have room darkening curtains?!?! It looked like it did--they're hanging at the sides of the window and look like they close, but when we tried to close them to darken the room, they didn't move--they were just hanging there and didn't stretch any further. So I pulled them so they were touching each other and I tried to think of something to clip them together as far up as they would go. I so wished I had brought a clothes pin! But then I thought of the hangers they provide in the room which have clips on them for hanging pants. It worked....sort of. We were able to clip them about 2/3 of the way up, so it's darker in here...just not as dark as you would like when your child is trying to go to sleep in a new environment. She's in the corner in the pack and play with the soft chair pushed against one side to block her vision of the rest of the room and a towel hung on the other side to block that view. She thought it was great fun to try and stand up and see Mommy, who was across the room. She got in trouble after the second time of trying that, but I then moved to the floor on the other side of the bed so she couldn't see me in case she did try and stand up again (thankfully, she didn't). I laid there and read with a flashlight for awhile. My husband was at the desk on this computer, blocked by the chair so she couldn't see him. We heard her moving around for about 10 minutes or so, but then she gave up and went to sleep. I was able to come out of hiding and now we're free to move about the room (in semi darkness--it's still light outside and it's coming in the top of the windows).

I write all of that just because it's so interesting the things you don't anticipate when you're traveling with a small child.

But until this little issue, the day went GREAT!!! This morning she was so excited to leave, she could hardly stand it. She kept saying, "Tip! (trip), "beach! simmum! (swimming)" We left at 7:55 this morning. She couldn't have been better in the car for the next seven hours. We drove three hours (she played for the first hour and then watched a video) and then stopped for an early lunch. She happily played with the rocks she found near our picnic table and burned off some energy. We got back in the car and I turned on the remainder of the video, but she fell asleep before it was done. I happened to look back and her blanket was over her head and she was passed out. She slept for the next hour and a half. Once she woke up we stopped to fill up with gas (she was in a good mood and didn't even need to get out--it was 100 degrees or we would've gotten her out anyway) and then drove the rest of our way to the hotel. Seven hours exactly after we left, we arrived.

She's had a great time exploring the hotel room and we went swimming in the indoor/outdoor pool (it's connected with these doors that open and close). She wasn't too sure about the pool, though. She hasn't been swimming since last summer, so I'm sure it felt like a whole new concept to her. She clung to us for dear life. She got more relaxed as time went on, but she was still happy to get out and just sit on the step and kick her feet. Hopefully as the week goes on and we're in the pool every day, she'll come to enjoy it more.

I forgot to bring the card reader, so I won't be able to hook it up to the computer and download my pictures while we're gone.

Some tidbits from the day:

-she loved the mountains! We pointed them out to her after she woke up as we were driving through them and from then on she kept saying, "More mintins?" if she couldn't see them.

-we went to Cracker Barrel for dinner (we never go there in real life, but it just seems like a vacation thing to do, doesn't it?). They have that little peg game at the tables. It entertained her the entire time until our meal came to take the pegs out, line them up on the table, have me count them each time she laid a new one down, and then to put them all back again. It took a lot of concentration and dexterity on her part to get them back in the holes, but she did it over and over. I told my husband we need to buy her one of those--I've never seen her concentrate so hard at something!

-she can crawl in and out of the bathtub by herself in this hotel room. It was fine until I gave her a bath, and after the bath (and after I had drained the water, thankfully) she crawled back into the tub with her clean, dry PJs on and got wet from the remains of her bath water! It's amazing the ways she finds to get herself into trouble!

Well, this is much longer than I thought it would be, but I guess when you're stuck in a semi dark hotel room with a sleeping daughter, there's not much else to do! (My husband has even gone to sleep already as I've been typing, and it's only 8:08!) Here's hoping she sleeps well tonight (she was up several times last night....and I thought we were past that!) and has another good car riding day tomorrow. We have to drive almost just as far tomorrow, but not quite.

last minute prep

We're busy doing last minute things for our trip. But I wanted to post before we left. We're leaving at the crack of dawn on Saturday morning.

1) She slept all night last night!

2) It's HOT! (90 degrees) It's going to be hotter here than where we're going way down south next week. That's crazy.

3) We took an impromptu trip to the zoo today to renew our membership. Not in the plans, but I found out that the aquarium down on the outer banks allows zoo members in free, and since ours was expired, I needed to renew quickly (we were going to wait until we got back). I wanted to have the option to go to the aquarium if we had a rainy day or if it was too hot some afternoon to do anything else. Anyway, at the zoo we saw the lions, who, for some reason, I'm never able to see. The male and female were separated and they were both VERY mad about it and roaring up a storm. I don't think I've ever heard a real lion roar in person. Man, he was loud! My daughter loved it and kept asking for more.

4) My husband had his camera cleaned before our trip. He got it back today and was taking some pictures to try it out. Just thought I'd post a couple. You can sort of see my flowers (after you take your eyes off of my adorable little girl....just kidding).

I'll update during our trip if I can. We're supposed to have internet access, so we'll see.

pummeled

In the last 24 hours we've been hit by thunderstorm after thunderstorm. Ordinarily this wouldn't be a big deal. But remember the basement problem? It's still not fixed, so excessive rain means an excessively wet basement. The guys have been out to look at it and we've had them scheduled for a couple of weeks now to come fix it the week after we get back from vacation, but until then, we still have a wet basement.

Last weekend we cleaned out the basement in preparation, so that means almost everything is up off of the floor and either on shelves or in the crawl space, but there's still the washer and dryer to worry about. My husband is so worried that it'll start getting over in that area and do some damage there.

So last night I didn't sleep much, listening to all of these storms. Our daughter slept well, thankfully (and unbelieveably!). She did wake up once, but it wasn't during a storm, strangely enough. I think she had a nightmare because she was squealing in her sleep prior to waking up and crying for Mommy. I just opened the door and talked to her briefly, which calmed her down and she went back to sleep on her own and without any more crying, so that's a good sign that maybe we're through this sleeping issue.

Here are some pictures I forgot to post. A few weeks ago my husband was cleaning out the garage, which involved building a movable cart to hold much of his wood and woodworking supplies. R wanted to "help" in the worst way, and yet was terrified of every sound the tools made. If I had to help him hold something while he was drilling, she started screaming in fear of the sounds. If I was holding her when the drill came on, it was okay. So here was one of my solutions to her being in the way of Daddy's work----her outdoor "playpen" to keep her out of the way. She actually loves playing in there and usually asks if we'll put her in there. She finds acorn tops that fall from the tree into the bed of the truck, puts them on the ledge of the truck and says, "Mommy, count?" And we count them together (which sounds like "one, two, fwee, fowr, five, seven, five, seven, five, seven....). Anyway, she has a love-hate relationship with loud noises--here's her reaction to the drill coming on.

And here she is enjoying the final product. I don't think that's what Daddy had in mind for what to store on the cart, but she was happy.

the bad news and the good news

(edited to add pictures at the bottom)

The bad news is that as soon as I wrote the last entry, she had a horrible night. The night before last she was up several times. I went in the first time, but didn't pick her up and rock her like I had been. She kept asking, "chair?" and wanted me to sit with her, but I told her no, that she needed to go back to sleep. The second time I just went to the door and talked to her from there. The third time I let her cry....and cry....and cry. It was awful. Worse than when she was a baby because this time she was crying, "Mommy, mommy, mommy!" I felt like I was abandoning her. She cried for 20 minutes, was quiet for two minutes, then started again. I let her go another 20 minutes, then went in to calm her down, but didn't pick her up, though every inch of me ached to hold her and comfort her and tell her I was sorry for letting her cry. I just reassured her, rubbed her head and cheek and told her it was okay, but it was time for sleeping.

She finally went back to sleep. It took me a long time, though, to get back to sleep, and I was exhausted yesterday.

The good news is that last night, without the help of any medication at all, she slept all night! And she's still sleeping at 7:30 AM, which is well past the time she normally wakes up. I'm rather amazed, since I completely expected a repeat of the previous night.

So hopefully we've turned the corner and are back on track for normal sleeping.

And on another bright note, I've been meaning to take pictures of my flowers. I've never had a green thumb. I manage to kill about every plant that's ever made it's way into my hands. But despite my failures, I've had a few success stories.

1) One summer when I first lived on my own I decided to put some flowers on the patio of my apartment. I was skeptical, but for some reason, they did great!

2) I received a plant as a gift from my school when I was in the hospital after our little one was born. Two years later, it's still alive and well--and it's even grown so that a year or so ago I had to transplant it to a larger pot. And it's still thriving!

3) Last summer I tried my hand at a "garden" (I use the term garden loosely, because really all it was was a few tomato plants that I started from seeds last spring). I didn't know you were supposed to get a little metal cage-like thing for it to grow up, so they grew all over the place on the ground, but we did get plenty of tomatoes to eat! This year I tried it again--I started seeds a month or so ago and just a couple of weeks ago I transplanted them outside. Five of the six look pretty healthy. This year I'll know to put the cage things up and hopefully they won't be sprawled all over the ground. (I probably should also add that I tried planting broccoli, basil, and carrots, too, but those all died! Only the tomatoes have lasted--I told you I don't have a green thumb!)

4) Last but not least, here's my most recent attempt. For mother's day my mom took me to buy some flowers. I didn't trust myself to plant them in the ground, so I opted for a planter and a hanging basket. So far I've remembered to water them. I don't know what will happen when we're gone next week.

And these are our roses! Last summer we did a lot of landscaping and one of the things we got was three small rose bushes. They were pretty pathetic last year and we wondered if we had made a wise choice, but this summer they're turning out to be beautiful! I guess we did something right!

THREE!

Three is the number of nights in a row she has SLEPT ALL NIGHT!!!!! It feels just like when she was four months old and I was ecstatic to get her to sleep all night. It's such a great feeling to wake up at 6:00 AM for the first time and realize that I haven't heard her all night. Oh, how I hope it continues. (And let's hope I'm not speaking too soon by advertising this success!)

We had a great weekend--beautiful weather, lots of fun with Grandma and Grandpa, who were here visiting, a movie out with my husband (his belated birthday celebration, since we couldn't go last weekend like we were supposed to--Indiana Jones, which was okay, but not great), and three full nights of good sleep, to boot! It doesn't get much better!

tired of this...

...making sleep updates, that is. I'm really sick of it! I'm ready to be done with this phase.

But....she did sleep all night last night! The first time in a week, I think. She's still taking the tiniest bit of benadryl, plus a little Motrin and her antibiotic. She's coughing and stuffy sometimes, but her mood remains unchanged.

I'm getting more and more nervous about our vacation. We leave a week from tomorrow. Driving a little over half way the first day--supposed to be about 5 or 6 hours, I think, but with who knows how many stops, it could take waaaaaaaaaaaaay more than that. She's never even been a good car rider in the 2 1/2 hours it takes to get to Grandma's house. What are we thinking???? And then almost just as far the next day to arrive in Nags Head, NC on Sunday. Someone please tell me ways to entertain a 2 year old for that long in a car. We have a DVD player, but my sister in law advised us to only use that when it gets really bad, or else it won't work for long. I started putting some toys away a month or so ago that she could play with in the car so she hasn't seen them for awhile, and will hopefully be glad to see them in the car and they will keep her attention for long periods of time. I also have a few new things. Any idea for cool car activities for 2 year olds? I also read that books on tape work even for little kids, so I reserved a bunch at the library (Curious George, Clifford, etc). We'll see if she likes that. The entire vehicle will be filled with entertainment for our daughter!

Then there's the sleeping issue. She'll be sleeping in a pack and play. She usually does okay in one at Grandma's, but that was before this whole debacle. Our hotel has a loft bedroom and the regular downstairs bedroom, so we'll sort of be in separate rooms. But who knows if she'll be waking up multiple times a night, and you can't exactly let her cry it out in a hotel with people trying to sleep next door. So any headway we make in the next week with that will go down the drain while we're gone. Ugh. I ask again, what were we thinking???? Is a fun vacation possible under these conditions? Oh, I hope so.

Well, enough worrying for today. Seriously, if you have any traveling insight with a two year old, I'd love to hear it.

on the mend

I'm feeling better and I guess our little one is better, too. She's rarely bothered too much by a cold, so it's hard to tell. Her mood has been happy throughout the whole thing, so who knows. She's been waking up once a night, which is an improvement. We'll see what happens when she's done taking medicine which helps keep her asleep!!

germs everywhere

Now I'm sick. Yuck. Just a cold, but still....yuck. It's a gorgeous day today and I don't even feel like being out in it because my head is killing me with a sinus headache.

She slept almost all night last night. I think she had a nightmare around 5, because she was making these weird squealing screams before she woke up and started calling me. Then she was saying something that sounded like, "Daddy, Panda." So we concluded that she had a dream about Daddy being chased by a panda, but who knows. Maybe Daddy was a panda. Or maybe she wasn't even saying panda. It's hard to tell a lot of the time. After I comforted her, she went back to sleep until 7.

Last weekend Daddy was watching a softball game on TV (it was his college's team, who was in the playoffs). Our little one was fascinated by it and would get upset every time a commercial would come on and she couldn't see someone with a bat. She kept fussing, saying, "Bat? Bat?" until it would come back on again. And ever since then she's been picking up sticks in the yard, saying, "Bat!" and hitting the soccer ball with it. So on Friday when I went to some garage sales, I had to buy this Little Tikes T-ball set, which was only $1. She loves it and calls it "Baw boss." (her version of baseball) Of course, she can't figure out the right way to hold the bat unless I put her hands on it the right way, but even if she has it wrong she uses the other end of the bat to knock the ball off of the tee. Here's our future superstar:

Oh, and here are a few things I've forgotten to write about in the last few days:

*On the way to the doctor the other day she was saying "Boo Boo," over and over. When I looked at her in the rear view mirror, I saw that she was pointing to her ear. Poor girl. I guess it really was hurting her.

*Her new phrase is, "Wh' are you?" So in the parking lot when she's looking for our truck she'll say, "Tuck, wh' are you?" Or yesterday when Daddy went to put the picnic trash in the garbage bin and she couldn't see him, it was, "Daddy, wh' are you?" Or if she hears a motorcycle a half mile away she says, "Cycle, wh' are you?" It's so cute.

*The girl is crazy for strawberries. Last night she wanted a snack. It was awhile after dinner and not quite her bedtime. We had some strawberries I had cut up for her several days before, but yesterday was the last day they would be any good, so I gave her the whole bowl full, thinking she'd eat what she wanted and I'd throw the rest out because they wouldn't last another day. She ate the whole bowl full! There were a lot of strawberries in there! I've been buying a big container every time I go to the store, since they're in season and always on sale, and she goes through them all within just a few days. This is my daughter who eats like a bird some days and like a wolf on others. On strawberry days it's usually like a wolf.

good news and good weather

So she does have an ear infection (no, that's not the good news....). The doctor's appointment was an exercise in strength--she hollered and screamed while the doctor tried to look into her ears. Holy cow, you would've thought she was getting shots. I had to hold her down with my legs, arms, and hands, and even then it was a struggle. But even though she does have the infection, the doctor thinks her waking has to do more with wanting my company in the middle of the night than about being in pain. She agreed, though, that I can't let her cry it out while she's sick, so I have to wait until that's over before I can start getting her back on the right track.

She took her first dose of antibiotic yesterday afternoon. Last night I gave her ibuprofen, put Vicks on her feet (I wrote about that in a previous post if you're thinking, "Huh? Why?"), and gave her a very small dose of children's Benadryl. She had never had that before and I didn't know how she'd react to it, but I thought it might make her sleepy as well as having the benefit of drying up her sinuses.

So, here's the good news..........she slept all night!!!! Thank you, Mr. Children's Benadryl Inventor, whoever you are! Well, I should rephrase that. She sort of slept all night, actually. I hadn't heard her, so when I woke up abruptly at 4:00 AM I was worried because I thought she might've had some reaction to the Benadryl and that's why she wasn't waking up. I laid there worrying about her, so finally I went in to check on her. I very lightly put my hand on her back to make sure she was breathing, and immediately she jumped up and screamed, "Mommy!!" Stupid me!!! So we did the now familiar routine of sitting in the chair and she fell asleep in my lap almost immediately. I put her back to bed, but then I was wide awake. You'd think with all of the sleep I've lost in the last couple of weeks I wouldn't have any trouble sleeping, but it wasn't happening for me. I was up until 6:00, and then slept an hour more until she woke up at 7:00, and she was so happy when she woke up! It's amazing what a full night's sleep will do. She's still stuffed up, but she's in a good mood today.

Yesterday was my husband's birthday. We were supposed to go out to dinner and a movie and she was going to go play with Kaden and go to sleep there until we came to pick her up, but I didn't want them getting sick or her to have to try to go to sleep in a strange place when she's already having such a hard time sleeping, so we had to postpone our date. He was disappointed, but we decided we could still all go out to dinner. My parents are going to be here next weekend so we'll go to the movie then.

Today was a gorgeous day. My husband's been wanting to go down to the state park about an hour from us where there is nice hiking. We usually go at least once a year for a few hours. So even though we had a huge list of things we wanted to do, we decided to do those another day this weekend and take advantage of the beautiful weather and go down there today. On the way down we tried out the car DVD player we borrowed from my brother to use for our vacation (we leave two weeks from today, which is hard to believe!). It worked like a charm--our little one was entertained the whole way with The Wiggles and we had an adult conversation (with an occasional comment from the peanut gallery about Captain Feathersword wearing a hat or Anthony being dressed up like a cat!).

We hiked and saw waterfalls and caves. Our little one loved riding on Daddy's back and playing with the sand and rocks at the bottom of the cave.

And posing with Mommy wearing our glasses.

We ate a picnic lunch and drove back during her naptime. She slept the whole way. When we got home she woke up and played a little bit, but then asked if she could go nigh night! We were trying to pick up the house, so we weren't going to argue with her. I put her in bed and sure enough, she fell back asleep for another hour! We got our cleaning done and he started mowing the grass all before she woke up. It was a productive day. Now we're all ready for another good night's sleep.

the plot thickens...

So now she's sick! How is a mother supposed to let her daughter cry it out when her nose is completely blocked and crying only makes things worse?

And she's fooling with her ears.

She has an appointment this afternoon to confirm, but we're of the opinion that this whole not sleeping and much screaming problem has been ear infection-induced.

Last night was the worst of them all. We decided I couldn't be the hard nosed "let her cry it out" mother after all because the poor thing was sick and miserable. That meant I was in her room every time she woke up screaming. I lost track of how many times that was. Upwards of 8, I think. She fell asleep in my lap each time....so sleepy, but unable to breathe laying down. Poor girl. I'm exhausted, but I'm more worried about her.

Here she is in a happier time......playing outside last week, contemplating the many sounds she was hearing.

fun for a rainy day

What can you do with a bag of beans, some bowls, measuring cups, spoons, and an empty egg carton?

Entertain a two year old for nearly an hour!

It was raining early this morning and though the sun came out, I didn't want to take her outside because her playclothes are mostly all dirty, so I put some clothes on that I didn't want getting dirty (which she's bound to do, especially just after the rain) before we go out this afternoon to get her hair cut. I had bought this bag of beans last week just for this purpose, since I was recently reading ideas for rainy day activities for two year olds. So I thought today would be a perfect opportunity to use them.

For close to an hour she moved the beans back and forth from one bowl to another, from cup to cup to egg carton, stirring them now and then with the spoon. She was so quiet, just concentrating on what she was doing. I'd put the video on for you to see for yourself but video clips and I don't work well together, so I'm not even going to try.

Last night went a little bit better. She woke up at her usual time of 9:50 (for some reason it's pretty consistent that this is the first time she wakes up). I didn't go in for quite awhile, and she worked herself up into quite a frenzy, calling for me. I finally went in (and she stopped crying IMMEDIATELY--she's learned to turn it off like a switch!) and reassured her. Daddy brought a night light in, thinking that maybe she wouldn't be so scared when she woke up if the light was on. She went back to sleep and I didn't hear her again until 5:30, and instead of screaming for me like yesterday morning she was talking and playing (probably because of the night light). She talked for 15 or 20 minutes and then went to sleep again until the respectable hour of 7:00 AM. Much better. We'll see if the night light prevents any other screaming episodes tonight.

crying it out

Last night was a little better than the previous ones have been. She didn't wake up until 5:02 this morning, so I got almost a full night's sleep, which I definitely needed to try and catch up. She did her crying and calling me, I went in, reassured her, sat with her a couple of minutes, and put her back to bed. She was quiet for about 10 minutes and then did it again, but this time it was a fussy calling for me, not crying in fear or pain or whatever it is. So I didn't go in that time. The first time I could tell it was genuine. This time she just wanted my attention. She went on for about 20 minutes and then was quiet. Before long she was at it again. At 6:00 I finally went in and got her up for the day. It was getting light out and I couldn't fool her anymore saying it was "nigh night time" because she could see it was light outside.

I did some reading this morning both online and in a sleep book I have and almost everything says that if you want it to stop you have to let them cry, as long as you know they're okay, which I know she is. I did that when she was a baby and it was torture, but it worked eventually. It feels even more tortuous now, since she's calling me by name, and every instinct in me says to go to her, but I know it's not going to help her learn to put herself back to sleep. Something I read said that if you knew a babysitter was giving your child candy every day you'd tell them to stop, and the child would cry and protest for awhile, but eventually they'd give up when they realized they weren't going to get it anymore. It said that my continuously going in to comfort at night when I know she's fine is more or less "social candy," and she's going to cry harder and protest for awhile, but eventually she'll give up when she sees that I'm not coming. But oh, I'm not looking forward to it until that realization happens. I dread going to bed now, because I never know how much sleep I'll get. And now I have the added dread of knowing I need to lay there and listen to my poor child cry.

As to why this is happening, I read that nightmares are common, as their imaginations are growing, or it could be separation anxiety, or developmental leaps (potty training, vocabulary explosions....both of which she's going through at the moment). It also said an earlier bedtime could help. We start bedtime at 7:30 and she's in bed by 8:00. I wonder if going back to a 7:30 bedtime would make it any better.

Time will tell, I guess.

it's been a hard day's night

We've had several rough nights lately. For some unknown reason our daughter is waking up at all hours of the night crying and calling for me. She's not sick. She's fine at all other times of the day. She could be teething, but we don't know. She could be having nightmares, but we don't know. It's so frustrating and so exhausting. I have seriously contemplated not going in to her and letting her cry it out when she does this, like I had to do early on (especially when it's the fourth time of the night at 3:30 AM or whatever awful hour) but it's so hard to hear her crying "Mommy, Mommy!" and not responding. Usually I go in, pick her up, reassure her, and she quiets down. We sit in the rocking chair for a few minutes and she either falls right back to sleep in my lap or she's wide awake, asking me for books, milk, going downstairs, and a whole litany of things she'd like. I always tell her no, it's nigh night time, and we just sit quietly for a few minutes. Finally she says, "Nigh night" and I put her back in bed. It never takes very long, but usually within twenty minutes or a half hour it happens again.

I don't know what to do. I feel like I'm the mother of a newborn again. Exhausted.

learning and growing

A few months ago I was worried about her speech. Not anymore. It improves by leaps and bounds every day. My mom saw her this weekend and couldn't believe how much more she was saying than a couple of weeks ago when she saw her last. But in the last couple of days particularly she's made some huge strides:

-she started saying "Bye Bye" instead of "Dye Dye!" Finally!!!

-she started saying "up" instead of "ut!"

-she's saying two and three word phrases regularly now: Daddy's home, Mommy's jacket, Faffles good, mmmm! (that's her word for waffles, one of her favorite breakfast foods), More Wilk (milk), and so forth.

She surprises me every day with words she knows. Today she was doing her shape puzzle that she's had for quite awhile. I usually don't do this, but I asked her, "Where's the square....where's the triangle," and so on. She knew all but one, including octagon and oval, which I didn't even know she knew. The one she didn't know was pentagon.

Small steps, I know....but very exciting for us.

I was just looking in her baby book. Not only does she look SO different,

it's just amazing to me how much she has learned in two short years. She went from helpless infant to mobile, playful, communicating, daring toddler in the blink of an eye.

It's hard to believe.

Happy Mother's Day!

Happy Mother's Day to my wonderful mom.


And to all of you who read this and are moms.

(And to my good friend who reads this blog and really, really, really wishes she were a mom, I really, really, really hope that next year you ARE a mother on Mother's Day.)


My mother's day started out not so good....I woke up at 2:40 AM sweating to death (aren't I a little young for hot flashes???) and with bad heartburn (ever since pregnancy I've been getting regular heartburn. I thought that was supposed to go away once you had the baby!? She's two for goodness sake!). I opened the window, turned the fan on, took Pepcid, and tried to go back to bed. Didn't work. Got up and read, got tired, went back to bed, still didn't work. Got up, watched TV, tried to go to sleep on the couch. Nope. I was up the rest of the night. My little one got up at 6:00, and my husband was going to get up with her so I could sleep in on Mother's Day, but since I wasn't sleeping, I decided to get up with her and let him continue to sleep (Maybe on Father's Day he'll let me sleep in to return the favor!?). Finally around 7:00 I felt like I could go back to sleep, but it was too late! I had to get ready for church.


So we went to church and then out to brunch. We got there at the perfect time and didn't have to wait. It was jam packed when we left, so I was very happy that we had made it in time. Our little one was as good as gold the whole time and ate a TON of her hashbrown potatoes. My husband swears she's a camel... she eats and eats one day and then nibbles the rest of the week, living off of the stored food in her hollow leg or something. So yesterday was her eating day, it seems. She ate cheerios at breakfast, more for her snack in the nursery, more as we waited to eat, the lots of potatoes and some of her scrambled egg.


After we ate we came home and she went to bed. She talked for a LONG time. I went to bed, too, but had trouble falling asleep because of her talking up a storm in the next room. Finally we both fell asleep, but my husband woke me up about 15 of 20 minutes later by telling me we had water in the basement (did I mention it had been pouring down rain all morning?). When we moved into the house several years ago we discovered water damage on the walls in the basement that wasn't disclosed to us and wasn't found by the inspector (they had just painted prior to us seeing the house, so we couldn't see it, but once they took the dehumidifier out of the basement it came back). We paid lots of money then to have a company come in and waterproof the basement. It was a mess and a huge headache, but they have a 100% guarantee that you won't have any water in the basement. EVER. Yeah, well, so much for that. It was pouring in the crack on the wall and was all over the floor. So they will be receiving a call today (thankfully the repairs should all be covered--we just have to put up with the mess again! YUCK!!).


So anyway, so much for my nap.


Before too long our little one woke up crying. She had only been asleep a little over an hour. I went up to see what was wrong. I still have no idea what was wrong, but she just kept crying and crying. While attempting to calm her down the tornado sirens started going off! We turned the news on to watch the weather and sure enough, a tornado had been spotted across town and was heading our way. I took our screaming toddler to the basement and my husband stayed up and watched the news. At first she was interested in being down there--all of her old toys are down there. But before long she started up her screaming again. Ugh.


The tornado appeared to be heading north of us so we came back upstairs and I whipped out the play doh, the only thing I could think of to calm her down. It worked. We were just passing time, waiting for the tornado warning to expire so we could take off for my brother's house, where we would be celebrating my niece and nephew's birthdays and Mother's Day--my parents would be there, too, so I'd get to see my mom for Mother's Day. The warning expired but the storm was heading straight for the town where my brother lives! We left anyway--my husband thought we could beat it. We listened to two things the whole way there: The radio, where they kept warning the people of my brother's town, where we were heading, and our little one in the back seat yelling, "Gada, Gada, Gada, Gada," over and over and over, very anxious to see her Grandma (Gada is her name for Grandma, in case I haven't mentioned that before). It was a stressful trip, trying to outrun a tornado, trying to pay attention to the news, trying to get my little one's mind on something else ("Look R, there's a cow! What does a cow say?" to which she replied, "No! Gada! Gada!"). Plus it was pouring down rain for half of the trip.


We made it to his house and the storm never materialized, so that was good news. Daughter and Grandma were reunited and they spent the afternoon playing together. We hung out there for a couple of hours and had birthday cake. My daughter, the camel, continued her eating binge, and ate lots of my cake and then a whole cupcake of her own! We stopped for a quick (and completely unhealthy) fast food dinner on the way home and she then ate almost her entire Happy Meal! We got home in time for bath and bedtime (which my husband did for me in honor of mother's day) and I got ready for bed, completely exhausted from the night before. We watched about an hour of a movie and then stopped it so I could go to bed. I don't even remember my head hitting the pillow, and that never happens for me. I don't think I moved all night long and didn't even hear my husband come to bed.


So I forgot to take pictures this morning when we were semi-dressed up for church. Argh. It was pouring down rain all morning and we were all soaked when we got home, so we changed clothes and then I just didn't feel like it. While at my brother's house my mom attempted to take one, but my daughter wouldn't cooperate, so this is what we got.

I didn't have to cook all day--that was a treat, and I was with the people I love most. I got a gift card to a local salon for a massage (from my husband and daughter), so I'm very excited about that. So despite being tired and wet and stressed about a tornado and a whining toddler, it was a good day.

it's a bird...it's a plane...

...yeah, it's a plane.

She points them all out. And we only live about 5 miles from the airport, so we see and hear plenty of them!

Today was a much better day. It's been sunny and gorgeous all day, so we've been outside for most of it. She's in her element. Dirty as can be (look at those knees!), but also happy as can be. I think we've got a tomboy on our hands. (Well, at least at this age she is.)

Her Daddy told me that I have to write that she used the potty again the other night. I was out for the evening with a friend of mine so he gave her her bath. I told him to make sure she sat on the potty first, which he did. And she went! That's two times out of about twenty....ten percent for the first week? Not so bad.

rain, rain, go AWAY!

My little one needs to go OUTSIDE!!!!! It's been raining for a couple of days, but it feels like weeks with a little one who has a constant need to be outside. I've never felt it as severely as I do today. She's beyond fussy, which makes me beyond frustrated.... In fact I had to come upstairs and leave her downstairs with Daddy (who took the day off today) just so I wouldn't blow my fuse. I have a pretty long fuse when it comes to her--I don't lose my patience easily with her, but some days I just can't take one more fuss.

We did go outside a bit this morning. I put her rain boots on her, which she loves, but don't fit her very well, and she proceeded to kick them off. So we didn't last outside that time. We tried again awhile later with her shoes instead, with the plan to just stay in the front on the sidewalk. That idea didn't work. She was in the sopping wet grass in seconds. She sat in it, kneeled in it, even layed down on the wet sidewalk (yes, she stopped what she was doing and just layed down on her stomach for no apparent reason). She was filthy and wet. We came in for lunch--an early lunch because I couldn't stand one more minute of her getting so wet and dirty (even though she was having a great time). She was excited for her Dora yogurt. After about five bites she dipped her hands in it while I wasn't looking and started clapping them together yelling, "Uh oh! Uh oh!" This is when I had about had it. I cleaned her hands and the spoon and gave it back to her. She tried to do it again--I caught her in time that time. I tried to feed it to her instead. She shook her head "no" and said, "All Done, All Done, ALL DONE!!!!!!" over and over, louder and louder. That's when I snapped (she's hardly eaten anything in days, which is why I got so frustrated about that). I told my husband I was going upstairs and he was in charge for awhile.

I took a deep breath and told myself she's only being two. But sometimes I just need a break from two. I'm surrounded by two. Most of the time I'm glad I am, but there are moments I wish I could go off to a job somewhere just for a little while for some freedom! Who knew work could be freedom!?

Anyway, Daddy proceeded to bring her up to bed about 2 minutes later. I guess he couldn't take her either (I heard her continuing to fuss and cry about something, though I don't know what). This is an hour before she's supposed to take her nap, but bed's really the only place she belongs when she's acting like this. She went right to sleep, so she must need it, but this is going to make for a very long afternoon and evening, because she's bound to wake up early. AHHHHHH!!

Tomorrow it's supposed to be nice outside. I can guarantee we'll be outside for almost all of it. It's the only way we can all be sane. I think I just need to let her get wet and dirty and forget about it.