this and that

:: Rebecca's been sick.  Several nights ago she started waking up around 9 pm, crying, and wouldn't go back to sleep.  We figured it was teething.  Well, the night before last she woke up again, but this time with a fever.  Then she woke up two or three more times in the night, crying, burning up, shivering, miserable.  Several doses of pain reliever and lots of tugs at the ears later, we were pretty sure it was an ear infection.  I found out (after five years of being a parent--thankfully I haven't needed to know before now!) that our pediatrician's office is open on Saturday morning, so I got her in.  Only her ears were "beautiful," according to the doctor.  No ear infection.  Viral.  She got another dose of ibuprofen when she got home, after it kicked in she got off my lap and started playing for the first time all day, and hasn't had a fever since!  I don't know what it was, but it's so nice to see her back to normal, and it was great to get a full night of sleep last night!  (She's still fussy at times and chewing on her hands non stop, but at least she's smiling and playing and sleeping and *wince* even getting into EVERYTHING like normal).

:: It's COLD!  Rachel was so thrilled because she finally got to wear her slip under her dress to church.  Her older cousin passed a slip down to her with a bunch of other clothes over the summer, and she's been wanting to wear it, but I kept telling her it was too warm (the slip has several layers on the bottom, making it kind of flouncy, which is why she loves it, but I thought it would make her too hot in the summertime).  So she got to wear it, but I had to remind her several times not to lift her dress up to show people her slip, since she was so proud of it. Finally she said, "Yeah, it's kind of like having a secret!" 

:: Rachel had a walk-a-thon at school last week.  Instead of a traditional school fundraiser, where kids sell stuff, they just ask for pledges for their walking.  It was a dreary, chilly day, but at least the rain held off.  Rebecca and I joined Rachel at school during the time her class would be walking.  It was nice to put faces with the names I hear her talking about. 

16 months

At 16 months Rebecca seems to be talking so much more than I remember Rachel talking at this age.  She's actually understandable sometimes. 

One of her newest words is "box."  There's a diaper box that's been in the hallway outside her bedroom for a few days (I need to move it...but then I wouldn't have been able to teach her this word!) and she kept pointing to it, wanting to know what it was.  I told her it was a box.  So she practiced saying it, and now every time we go in or out of her room she points to it and says, "box!"

One of her other newer words is "bup" which means "cup," but also "button."  She uses it when pointing to a button on my shirt, but also her belly button (which she loves to play with!).

She's started noticing when airplanes fly by, but when she hears them she says, "gock," which is her word for "truck."  Anything that makes noise is either a bus or a truck, in her eyes. 

She loves playing outside.  Her favorite thing is to get in and out of her red cars (she has a cozy coupe and a push along buggy car) or getting on and off of her little bike (not a real bike, just one you push with your feet).  She would really love to ride Rachel's bike and points to it all the time.  I'm sure next spring she'll be riding the tricycle all over the place.

Inside her favorite thing to do (besides carrying around other people's shoes or trying to capture the remote) is to chew on pretend food.  She empties the toy grocery cart daily of the plastic food and carries around various pieces, chewing on the ones that fit in her mouth.

She's a super friendly girl.  When we go out she waves to everyone and tells them hi.  People are always stopping to talk to her because she's told them hi. 

Rebecca has always loved to eat, but her tastes are changing a little bit.  She loves veggies, surprisingly, but doesn't like anything that is hard for her to pick up.  If I feed it to her, then she'll eat it, but if it's hard to pick up (like rice or scrambled eggs), she doesn't want to eat it until I feed it to her on a spoon. 

She loves being held, and gives hugs and kisses.  She's such a sweet girl!  

finally

There's a tooth poking through!  That's my assurance that this fussiness will come to an end soon.  It's one of the one year molars, and I'm sure she's getting the other three, too, though they haven't made an appearance yet....but the fact that one finally started coming through tells me that this WILL pass...eventually.

I'm so tired of having a fussy girl.  She's always been so happy until lately.  She still has her moments (usually when we go somewhere--she's pretty happy when we're out and about but mostly she's fussy.

Unless she's bothering something she shouldn't.  Then she's perfectly happy!  Like today when she got into Rachel's paints.  Twice!  FYI--Washable paint doesn't come out of carpeting as easily as one would think.  I now know from experience.)

My husband gave me a wonderful gift today--a whole afternoon to myself!  He took the girls hiking.  It took an hour to get there and an hour to get back, plus the hiking time (Rachel hiked 2 miles all by herself up a "mountain!"--we don't really have mountains in our state, but this was actually called a mountain), so I had quite a nice chunk of time, at home, BY MYSELF!  I don't remember the last time I was in the house by myself.  I actually asked him to take them somewhere because I needed to sew, and I didn't know how in the world I would do it with them (actually, Rebecca) around.  Rachel asked me a month or so ago to make her a Snow White cape because she wants to be Snow White for halloween.  She has the rest of the costume already, but wanted a cape to go with it.  We went to the craft store a few weeks ago and she helped me choose the pattern and material, and I finally got around to making it today while they were gone.

Here they are on their hike....

Rachel at the top

Cute Rebecca

My girls!

I'm not thrilled with the results of the cape, because the directions on the pattern were wrong, and the material was hard to work with, but she loves it and wore it all evening after she got home, so that's what counts.  It's actually a Little Red Riding Hood cape, so she can be either Snow White or Little Red Riding Hood.  She played both.  Next she wants me to make her an Alice In Wonderland costume (there's a pattern for that in the same package as the cape pattern, which is what made her think of it).  I don't think I'll be sewing again anytime soon, though I did enjoy it.  It had been years since I had the sewing machine out.  But it's just too difficult with our little mischief maker around.     

So here she is with her newest obsession--wearing her sister's "gack gack" (back pack).  She can't put it on by herself so she walks around carrying it saying, "gack gack, gack gack," until you put it on her.  Then she tries really hard to take it off, but can't, so she either falls over or ends up fussing.

She looks so funny...

But it was so big that I gave her a smaller one that we have.

She wears it around all the time (notice all of the drool??  Definitely teething....)

what's in a name?

Rebecca's learning lots of words.  But she's pretty efficient.  For instance, "gock" is her word for sock, truck (sounds a little more like "guck" though), rock, and clock.  As long as you're right there and are observant, you know what she's talking about.

This efficiency isn't always useful, though.  Today I was holding her and I said, "What's my name?" 

She replied, "Mamamamama," to which I cheered,

"Good girl!!"

I then asked her, "What's your name?" 

She replied, "Mamamamama...."

Oh well....she tried.

fussing

Rebecca's been fussy.  That sums up the last week or so....

Here's what she's usually doing:

(Trying to climb up on Mommy's lap, saying, "Up!  Up!" in a very whiny voice.)

When she's not climbing, or fussing because she can't climb on whatever it is she wants to climb on, she's playing and being cute....but usually she's fussing, at least lately.

(The lighting isn't very good, because the sun was streaming in the windows.  I should've closed the blinds for better pictures, but I was enjoying the sunshine!)

She's drooling a lot and has a runny nose, so it could be teething...or a cold...or teething during a cold.   Whatever it is, I hope it's over soon. 

And Rachel wanted me to take her picture, too.  Here's what she was doing:

(watching a show--doesn't look too comfortable, does it?)

the Lucy dress

Several years ago, my niece, Emma, saw the movie, "The Lion, the Witch and the Wardrobe" and fell in love with one of Lucy's dresses.  She and her mother asked my mom if she could make Emma a dress like Lucy's.  My mom watched the movie and constructed a pattern on her own of a dress to look as much like Lucy's as she could. 

Here's a picture of the movie cast with Lucy (the youngest, in the front) wearing the dress Emma liked so much.

Well, Emma wore and loved the Lucy dress (as it's always been lovingly called) until she grew out of it, and then she passed it along to Rachel.  I'm now reading Rachel the book, The Lion, the Witch, and the Wardrobe, and she's loving it.  Last night she asked if she could wear the Lucy dress to church today.  She hasn't seen the movie, and doesn't know what her dress looks like, but now she knows who Lucy is, and enjoyed wearing the dress this morning.

And Rebecca looked cute (in one of Rachel's dresses) so she had to be included in the pictures, too!

toothless

Lots of excitement....lots of drama....lots of tears (mostly hers because of the blood...but some of my own, too, when she wasn't looking--I hate this growing up stuff!)

First this....

Then this...

Then this!  (ice cream to celebrate)

The tooth fairy came last night and left two dollars (one for each tooth) and a note telling Rachel that she could keep her teeth (Rachel wrote the tooth fairy a note last night asking if she could keep her teeth.  She saw it on "Super Why" months and months ago, and told me that when she lost her teeth she would write the tooth fairy a note, too, asking to keep hers, so she did!). 

This morning Rachel went out to the bus stop and told some of the other kids that she lost her teeth and that the tooth fairy had come. One of the older kids immediately told her, "The tooth fairy isn't real."  Rachel insisted that she was, and the older kid told her she'd understand when she was older.

Inwardly I gave the kid a punch in the nose.  Don't you dare mess with my little girl's innocence like that.  I know it's bound to happen sometime, but do you really have to knock her down her very first morning???  I'm still upset about it. (Okay, so I know I did the same thing to you, Jennifer, when I found out about Santa, so it's probably a taste of my own medicine, but does it really have to happen to my own little girl????)

She walked away and went to a friend of hers and told her, seemingly unaffected by what he told her.  Oh, how I just want to wrap her up in a bubble of protection and keep the world out of her eyes, her ears, her mind.... 

This letting go thing is the hardest thing I've ever done.

our littlest chatterbox

I thought Rachel talked a lot.  But Rebecca may well give her a run for her money in a couple of years, judging from how much she jibber jabbers now. She seems to really like the sound of her own voice, so she's constantly "talking." 

Sometimes she even makes sense!  Just now, as I was typing this, for instance, the school bus stopped outside to drop off our neighbor (it's the afternoon bus, so Rachel wasn't on it).  The breaks squeaked quite a bit because it's raining out, so Rebecca heard all the squeaking.  She stopped what she was doing, listened, and said, plain as day, "bus!"  She hadn't even seen it--she knew just from the sound!  What a smart girl.

Here are some other words she's learned in the last couple of weeks:

"uh-oh"
"baaa-baaa" (her sheep sound--not really a word, but that's what she says when she sees a picture of a sheep)
"car"
"gock" (this is her word for sock, but also for clock)
"la-la-la" (she says this whenever she hears/sees someone singing, and then she usually starts dancing)

She's a talker, that's for sure, and just like Rachel, we're not sure where she gets it.


(In other news, I think the tooth fairy will be making her first stop at our house in the next day or two.!!  Rachel discovered her very first loose teeth this morning before school!  Two at the same time!  She's so excited, but a little nervous at the same time, because I told her it might bleed a little bit.  I, on the other hand, tear up when I think about what it means....just another step closer to my little girl growing up....  So what's the going rate for the tooth fairy these days, anyway????)

her own style

When Rachel and I went school shopping this summer, she was so proud that she picked out this outfit all by herself. Usually I pick a few things out and ask her which one she likes best in order to decide what to buy, but this one she found all on her own and asked me if we could buy it.

We had to wait for a cooler day for her to wear it for the first time, since there are long sleeves, and she was so excited to finally put it on this morning, so I had to snap a picture.

Her shirt says "cute" in case you can't read it (her backpack got in the way), and I have to say that I definitely agree! :)

dinomania

Rachel's been obsessed with dinosaurs lately, and my husband told her we'd take her sometime to see dinosaur bones. So yesterday we finally went to the Cleveland Museum of Natural History.

In addition to dinosaurs, we also saw live animals, including the eagle you see above.

There was a special building exhibit for young kids, which both girls really enjoyed.

It was a fun family day.

on top of the world

My husband got home last night from conquering Mt. Whitney.  He's always dreamed of climbing a 14,000+ foot mountain, and a couple of years ago he set his sights on Mt. Whitney, which is the tallest mountain in the US, outside of Alaska.  He tried last year, but got really sick up near the top with altitude sickness and had to come down.  He decided to try again this year, using medication to help him with the sickness.

The climb involved two years of training and lots of time away from us, hiking, or working out.  I didn't like it, but I didn't want to be what was standing in between him and his dream. 

He called me on Monday afternoon from the summit, and we were both in tears as he told me the news that he had made it.  He thanked me for being so supportive, and has told me that a part of me was up there with him, because I helped make it possible.  Knowing how much he appreciates my sacrifice helps make it worth it.

(This is his friend, Jim, on the left, who climbed with him.  Jim made it, but was pretty sick on the way down.  He ended up in the hospital, diagnosed with Pulmonary Edema.  Thankfully he's doing better and they were able to come home on schedule, though some of their other plans were changed.)

As I saw these pictures last night, I got a lump in my throat and my eyes filled with tears again, just so proud of him for all of his hard work and determination to realize his dream.  My husband is the hardest worker I know, and never gives up. 

I hope my girls inherited his work ethic and perseverance, because they certainly won't inherit it from me.

I'm so proud of him!

our little business woman

Over the weekend I had a garage sale (it was a neighborhood garage sale, so there were probably 30 or more sales around our neighborhood on Friday and Saturday).  My object wasn't so much to make money, but to get rid of baby stuff.  TONS of baby stuff.  And I'm happy to say that it's all gone--what wasn't bought was picked up Sunday by a guy who organizes a free store for his church.  I was sad to see some of it go, knowing that I'd never have another baby to use it, but I also feel that much more free, having huge piles and boxes of stuff out of my house.

A few weeks ago I asked Rachel if she'd like to have a lemonade stand at our garage sale.  When we go to sales, her favorite part is buying a cookie or lemonade from kids, so I figured she'd love it. She was SO excited about the idea and talked about it for weeks leading up to the sale.

The day before school started we bought the supplies and made the poster.  My mom found her an actual lemonade stand at a garage sale she went to, and brought it down for her to use (My mom has been here for several days, helping me while my husband is off climbing Mt. Whitney in California this week--which ,by the way, he accomplished this afternoon!  I received a call from him from the summit!  So proud of him!). 

Friday she had kindergarten.  I was outside very early in the morning, getting ready for the sale.  Rachel wanted to help, which means she was up and ready for school early as well.  The bus comes at 8:30, but at 7:30 Rachel was already out at the bus stop, waiting (all by herself, seeing it was an hour early!).

She couldn't wait to get started with the lemonade stand when she bounded off the school bus at noon!  We got it set up and the selling began.

She LOVED it!  She'd ask everyone who came up, "Would you like to buy some cookies or lemonade?" 

Sales were good on Friday.  The customers at my garage sales were kind and stopped to buy from her--probably because she was so darn cute!

Friday night she asked if she had enough to go to Disney World (she made about $13 that day....).  We told her no, so she asked, "Is it enough to go get ice cream at ______?" (insert name of our favorite ice cream store.)  Like ice cream is the next best thing, second only to Disney World!  She really has NO concept of money!

Saturday our sales were pretty slow.  She was excited to get started (I wouldn't let her start selling until 10 AM, because most people wouldn't want to buy lemonade or cookies before then), and all of the neighborhood kids had heard about her lemonade stand and were gathered around most of the morning, either helping with the sales or buying cookies.  She was the most popular kid in the neighborhood!

But around noon, they all were gone and slow sales had our little business woman bored.  Lucky for her, help was on the way, in the form of her cousins.  They were coming down for lunch, and her cousins, Ethan and Alex, were excited to man the lemonade stand for the rest of the afternoon.  Her cousin, Emma, entertained Rachel and Rebecca.

I made Rachel pay her cousins a little bit for their time manning the store, since she really didn't have anything to do with the lemonade stand that afternoon.  Even after paying them, she still made almost $25 this weekend!  The most money she's ever had is $4!  I don't know what she'll do with her earnings. 

Since it won't get her to Disney World, I guess she'll be eating a lot of ice cream!

fifteen months

Poor Rebecca hasn't gotten much face time on the blog lately....life's been a lot about kindergarten lately.  But she still pretty much runs the show around here, since she still requires two naps a day, and life revolves around those (and now kindergarten bus times).

At fifteen months (tomorrow!) Rebecca is a complete joy and a complete stinker at the same time.  She's a little monkey, climbing up on everything climb-able (and even things that aren't!).  I don't remember Rachel climbing much, so this is new.  Once she gets on top of something she likes to stand on it (coffee table, couch, rocking chair, whatever....), so I do a lot of rescuing. 

She's still into everything she's not supposed to be into--loves touching papers, electronics, remotes, telephones, and the like.  Baby proofing is completely necessary around here because everything goes into her mouth.  Rachel's room is pretty much off limits to her (even though her main goal in life is to climb the stairs and go into that room!) because of all of the crayons and little, tiny playmobil and princess polly pocket toys in there.   But she LOVES Rachel's room and some of her happiest moments of the day are the few minutes that she sometimes gets to go in with Mommy.

She's developed an attachment to her soft, pink blanket (the one Rachel chose for her before she was born, which is just like her own purple blanket) and the 101 Dalmation stuffed animal that her aunt gave her for her birthday, and is sooooo excited to see them every time she goes to bed. 

Rebecca said her first sentence this week--she was telling Daddy goodbye as he left for work and she said, "Ba-ba, Da-da!"  (Bye, bye, Daddy!)  She doesn't string other words together yet, but she sure always has something to say!  She babbles a lot, and often loudly!  She likes to hear her own voice.  Other words she says:  Mama, aww (ball), up, hi, and probably some others I can't think of at the moment.

She currently loves shoes, cars, bikes, going outside, and Winnie the Pooh.  She has no interest in watching Winnie the Pooh (more than for about 30 seconds) but she loves the Winnie the Pooh stuffed animals and books we have.  She also recognizes Elmo, but again, only likes the stuffed animals.  She doesn't care a hoot about TV.  Rachel at this age loved her Baby Einstein videos or anything else we let her watch, but Rebecca loses interest after just a few seconds.  Of her actual toys (though she'd rather play with anything than her real toys), she mostly plays with books, which she chews on, play food, which she also chews on, and a shape sorter, though she's only just learning to put the shapes into the holes--mostly she takes the shapes out and puts them back in the bucket, over and over.

She wakes up between 5:30 and 6:30 AM (I won't get her up until 6:00, though), naps from 8:45ish-10ish, and again from 1ish-2:30ish, and goes to bed at 7 PM.  She loves to eat (always has!) and her favorites include bananas, cheerios, toast, apples, peas (yes, peas!), broccoli, turkey, strawberries, goldfish crackers, graham crackers, or really anything you put in front of her!  Actually, she doesn't seem to like eggs.

And that's my darling girl in a nutshell! 

the new normal

Yesterday Rachel was dressed, had her chores done, and even had her backpack on while she ate breakfast, all by 7:30 (the bus comes at 8:30!).  She was so excited! (and she had a great day, by the way...she was the first one off the bus, gave me a big hug and said, "I was a good girl!  We had gym today!")

Today, the second day of school, she was lounging in her PJs, looking at a library book about dinosaurs (she's really into dinosaurs at the moments, thanks to DVR'd episodes of Dino Dan, which she loves) at 7:30.  When I told her she needed to put the book away and get moving for school, she said, "I'm tired."  (She was tired, too....she took a nap yesterday afternoon, which she rarely does anymore, and she slept past her 7 AM wake up time this morning.)  Guess that was just first day excitement yesterday!

And so it begins--trying to get into a routine and figure out just what is the new normal.

So far I know the new normal means keeping Rebecca awake a little bit longer in the mornings for her morning nap until after the bus comes (it was rough this morning because she woke up really early and was super fussy and sleepy before naptime got here).

The new normal means cleaning/laundry while Rebecca takes said morning nap (this is until she gives up the nap, which I know will come at some point during this year--then I'll have to find a different time to clean--likely during the afternoon nap, though I prefer to rest during that time!). 

The new normal means (sometimes) running brief errands after Rebecca wakes up, but before the school bus gets back (she gets up around 10 and the school bus gets here at 11:45, so that means the errands need to be quick ones, unless I want to forgo her nap).

We'll see how it goes!