46

After the zoo on Friday you would have thought that Katie would have been exhausted (I know I was), but as soon as we got home she was off to play - well, I checked her out early when we got back, but as soon as her other friends were home from school. I took Connor over to my friend Candy's house and we sat out front with our babies. She had borrowed a friends Nikon D40 to take the team pics for her son's t-ball team, and we were talking cameras. What little I know about them anyway. I can teach you a little bit, but I don't claim to know what I am really doing. I know the basics, and I know how to play with my camera. My main advice, it is digital - so just take as many pictures as you can to get used to it, try out all the settings, just PLAY with it. And of course while I was there I had to snap a few pics of Connor with my camera.


Then he got a little tired. This is his tired face. He starts to fuss and you know it is time for a nap!!

Katie was going to spend the night at Mia's house. Notice that I say WAS. The girls have decided that they are too grown up to have to tell us when they go house to house. First they left Mia's house and came down to ours without telling, and then (even after we told them that if they did it again there would be no sleepover) they left our house and went back to Mia's. Believe me, it was pitiful when I went up to get Katie's bag.
"we forgot"
"can't I have one more chance"
"Pleeeeaaaaassssseeee"
Nope, maybe next weekend Katie ....

Katie is on a painting kick. Or, if she sees me painting then she wants in on the action ... which means that I have to stop what I am doing for her to paint. She did help me paint the hair on a new creation in progress.

Then she wanted to paint Daphne from Scooby Doo. So, I drew her out a reasonable likeness of Daphne and she painted away. She painted half the shirt red and asked me to finish it. I outlined the scarf, and did the lips. Other than that it is all Katie. She is especailly proud that she combined the orange and yellow to make the color for her hair.


Connor tried water. He kept grabbing at Chip's bottle so we let him have some. I think he was mainly enjoying the cold on his gums, but he drank a little. He always wants to "help" so a lot ended up pouring out on his bib.

I am a little embarrassed by this purchase, but not enough that I don't think it was a great aquisition. Found this at Target on clearance for $19.98, originally $79.99. The bad part, it is "naked Brothers Band" themed. The good part, it can store pictures, music, and it even can do Java games. Oh, and video as well. I can't make myself pay for an iPod, but this is close. I mainly wanted something to carry some pics around.

45 - Zoo Fieldtrip

I rode with Charity (better known as "Jacob's Mom") to the zoo. I ended up with Katie and her friend Seyerra for our fieldtrip. Honestly, these girls are hilarious. Or they would have been if we were at the zoo alone. In the midst of hundreds of school kids it was not nearly as funny. If they had been able to run and cavort to their hearts content I am pretty sure I would have been rolling with laughter! Although we might have to include Jacob and Trayvon since the girls seemed to love chasing them. Not that the boys did not chase back :) Everytime I took a picture Seyerra had to pose. Well, everytime she knew I was taking the picture.
The girls loved the sea lion show, begged to see the spiders and snakes, and ran from the stench of the rhinoceras. Almost every animal we saw made Seyerra say "that can kill you", so I had to keep explaining to her that in most cases the animals are more scared of us than we are of them. I think my favorite was the killer ostrich! Sure, they could, but how often do you hear about ostrich attacks?





AS soon as they got off the bus Katie, Seyerra, Jacob, and Trayvon started playing. About halfway through we ran into Charity with Jacob and Trayvon, so the kids chased each other for a second before we could herd them on to the next exhibit. And, when we were done and waiting for the group we found the boys first, and the merriment continued. Even when the rest of the crew turned up these four could not get enough of each other. Have I mentioned that Jacob is the class heartbreaker? Or that he "doesn't like girls"? Me thinks he doth protest too much!!




It was a long and exhausting day. I could not wait to get home and relax, and I really could not wait until I could finally sleep. I still can't wait to get rid of this sunburn! But, it was a blast. One of the best things about being home is being able to go on fieldtrips with Katie. Having that special time with my little girl while she still wants me around. Great, now I just remembered that the day will come, way to soon, when she does not want her Mommy to go on the fieldtrip :( Luckily I also remembered that I can go anyway :)

44

Oh to be a child. Katie has totally forgiven and forgotten about being pushed down. I have not and I still watch her like a hawk when she is playing outside, but so far everything has been running smoothly. I think the little boy got in enough trouble that he does not want to repeat his mistake. I just hate feeling like I have to be looming over my child in order to protect her!!
Katie must truly love Mia (her new best friend), she used her own allowance money to buy her an ice cream the other day. Have I mentioned that I abhor the ice cream man? And I did not expect this to happen so quickly. They love to share clothes. They change back and forth. Somedays it is just changing a t-shirt for a tank top. Today they were trading their jeans for long skirts.
Connor has become the King of Rolling! From one day to the next!! Now you can't keep him on his back. You put him down and he immediately flips over. He rolled across the whole living room today. (I cleaned the carpets so I would feel a little better about that). I think he is not too far from crawling. He has figured out how to shimmy. He will rock side to side on his tummy until he inches closer to his toys. His chubby little legs just flexing.

He is even getting better at sitting up. Those little muscles will get coordinated eventually and we will be living on lockdown. Lucky for Katie she is big enough to work the gates. And he is LOVING the Biter Biscuits ... nasty nasty messy things!
Connor also had a CT scan on his little noggin Thursday morning. He was amazing! I expected him to freak out and scream like crazy, but he just lay there watching the machine. He was completely fascinated! It did help that he had his pacifier in, just sucking on it for all he was worth. And I am sure that having Daddy there holding his hand was very calming. That boy loves his Daddy something fierce! I am anxious to find out the results, but who knows how long that is going to take. I think it took almost 2 weeks before we really heard about his chest x-ray and abdominal ultrasound. Apparently we need to bug them until they give us the answers we need. I just feel like they should be the ones to contact us, they are the ones getting paid. They are the ones with the medical knowledge. We are the poor schlubs who have to sit around, worrying while they twiddle their thumbs.


Today is our 6 year anniversary!! It would have been Wednesday, but we overslept and had to reschedule our ceremony :) Now you know the real reason I did not want a big wedding. I would have had to be on time!!

43 - I HATE BULLIES AND THE ICE CREAM MAN

I have NEVER been so furious in my life. I don't even think that the word furious comes close to describing the way I felt - and feel now. I was literally shaking, my heart pounding with adrenaline. Katie was playing across the street with her friends Jacob and Travis. There are also a boy and a girl that live in the house nextdoor, and they were playing basketball together. Well, most of them were, Katie and Jacob were running around playing chase. I was finishing up changing Connor's diaper and handing him to Chip when I looked out the window just in time to see one of the boys SHOVE my daughter to the ground. I tore out of the house, ran across the street to take my sweet crying baby in my arms. "what did you do to my child?!?!?" are the words I was screaming as I raced across the street. And this boy lied, straight to my face. "I didn't do anything to her." I watched him! I saw it with my own eyes! This 10 year old boy shoved my 5 year old girl down!! Of course I told him that he was never allowed at our house again. When I asked if his Mom was home he lied again. "No" His sister said yes, then the Mom must have heard and decided to come outside. I barely restrained myself from shoving that boy down as hard as he pushed my girl. I barely restrained myself from teaching that boy to NEVER touch my child again. This is the same boy I had to make leave my house last week for throwing a cup of Kool Aid on another girl, heard him tell someone they have a "hairy butt" (both of which he lied and said he did not do), and he bit another boy on the finger. Oh, then later that night his mom came over with $2 worth of quarters in her hand that he said Katie had given him. My girl does NOT let go of money. He and other kids like him are the reason that I sit outside to watch my child play. If he ever does touch my child again he is going to get a lot worse than a spanking from his mother.
Also, I was asking Katie about it while she was taking her bath. Apparently this all started when he threw something at Jacob and made him cry. Jacob is 4!! What right in any world does a 10 year old have to hurt a 4 year old. They weren't even playing with them!

And ---- I HATE THE ICE CREAM TRUCK!!! RIP OFF RIP OFF RIP OFF!! It came down our street twice today!! I told Katie and Mia that I was not buying ice cream today and they jumped on their bikes and went to ask Mia's Mom! Well, they will be in for a surprise because we have teamed up, we each will only buy them one day a week. $2.00 for one ice cream as opposed to $4.00 for a box of the same stuff. Nah, I don't think so! Did I mention that they probably had at least 3 popsicles each already!! I can't even imagine how much they are going to go through this summer. I have been buying those boxes of popsicles that are like 18 for $1 so it does not hurt as much.

On a calmer note, Katie and I made a late discovery yesterday in the backyard. I found the remnants of a robin egg when I was checking out my rosemary bush (yes, it is that large) so I started to look for the nest. It was right on the corner of the gazebo area of the deck. Of course I had to climb up and take a look, and there was still one egg left. I am fairly certain it is a dud since I was not being divebombed by angry parent birds. Katie - fearless creature that she is - climbed up on the rail today to look in and said the egg was gone. Katie's friend Mia came to the backdoor and I expected Katie to be right behind her, and then I saw her perched on the railing!! There was another adrenaline rush moment.
She told me later that it had "hatched", and I was not going to tell her otherwise. Maybe they will return to the same nest next year and I can get some good shots of their progress.



this is Jacob, Katie, Travis, and Mia watching a movie on Saturday. See how nice it is when they are all about the same age!!

And just because they are ADORABLE...

42 - Connor's Six Month Check-Up

So, we finally have an answer. Connor is 20 pounds 2 ounces!! He is 27 inches long with a melon - I mean noggin - 17.75 inches! That puts him in the 90's percentile wise for weight and head circumference, and only 75th percentile for height. He is definitely a chubby little Buddha baby. He is intensely cute with his chunky monkey rolls. And there is no happier baby!!

(Chip will probably kill me for that picture!)

Katie's bronchitis seems to be in check, but we have to keep up with her inhaler. I let her stay home from school today since her appointment was right smack dab in the middle of her day. But, that did not stop her little friends from knocking on the door when they got home from school. At least it was just two today. They were pretty good overall. They played school, and I cleared the table and let them paint.

Katie was trying to amuse Connor by making faces. Too bad Connor was not going to be consoled, he needed sleep. The only time that boy is grumpy is when he should be in bed. A boy after my own heart.

41

Man, I make all these plans to keep this updated more regularly, then I just fizzle out. So, here I am playing catch up again.
We have been descended on by the neighborhood kids. I am about to go crazy with girls. Or, I was. I had to put a stop to the foolishness that started. I don't mind having a few kids in my house, but there were just too many of them. And especially when they came over to "play with Katie" but Katie was in the backyard and there were still three girls hanging out in the bathroom putting on Katie's make-up. I ended up with nail polish on the floor, the wall, and the coffee table. There was powder and blush everywhere. The handtowel was soaking wet and laying in a clump on the floor. ARRRRGGGGHHHHHH!!! Seriously!! These girls would never be allowed to do that in their own homes, so why do they do it here? Give them an inch and apparently they will take a trip around the world. Then there is Katie, just being sweet Katie - offering them all kinds of food. It was costing me about $10 a day to have these kids over. Not to mention that instead of being able to clean up the mess that exists in my house (and there is plenty) I had to clean up the new messes. There was no way to make headway. Then there was the fact that I was having to send kids home for fighting. Oh, did I mention that most of these kids are 3-5 years older than Katie! WHY WOULD THEY WANT TO PLAY WITH A FIVE YEAR OLD??? So they can boss her around. Katie loves playing with the big girls but I am starting to think that her time with them needs to be limited. We have cut back on having kids over. Katie has made a friend her own age that lives about 5 houses up. She has been friends for a long time with the boys across the street. I am comfortable with that. I want her to be friendly to everyone, but I do not want them all in my house. I do not want to play police when they are over. And I especially do not want to have to play maid and nurse while they are here.

Connor had another chest x-ray trying to figure out this Horner's Syndrome thing, but everything looks normal. Next we are looking at urinalysis and a head scan. We also had taken Katie to the doctor several times recently for various problems, but we kept telling them she had a cough. We finally got the female doctor of the practice, and she checked her out - Katie has bronchitis - two inhalers and a suspension. Poor girlie, but she is starting to feel better. Katie also had her endocrinologist check-up. She is doing so awesome! Her A1C was 5.6!!! Doc said we can start just checking her twice a day - not that we will be able to do that. There are too many times that Katie comes to us asking to be checked. But she is doing so great on the pills, much better than she ever did with shots. Finding out about monogenic diabetes was the best thing ever!!! Miracles do happen, but I am still waiting for the cure!!
We went to visit Chip's parents in Cleveland, MS last weekend. It was surprisingly relaxing. It was nice to just sit around chatting with his family. It will never beat seeing my own, but it is still pretty great. Katie had a FABULOUS time with her cousins. They played frisbee, climbed trees, and rode a scooter. We wnt to the park near their house to feed the ducks. We sat around and talked about nothing. Connor rarely was put down. He loved all of the attention. He is such a happy baby!





Katie finally got her new bike. Mimi and Pop Pop had given us the money for it at Christmas but the weather was finally good enough to warrant actually purchasing it. We had decided on one at Sports Authority, but when we got there they did not have the same one. Katie wanted to go to Wally World, so of course we did. She picked out this pink bike that is 18 inches. It is really a bit too big for her, but it does have training wheels. It will definitely last her longer than the 16 inch bikes which she looked like she would outgrow by the end of the summer. And she picked out her own helmet and pads - Cheetah Girls. We took it out to the park behind the house for her to ride with her friend Mia, but she is having a little problem with hills. She can't pedal standing yet so it is hard for her to get enough muscle behind it. The first time she went down the hill she did not manage to turn in time, and she ran into someone's fence. She was not hurt and she got right back on. I think she will end up being a bit sore trying to llearn to ride a new bike, but eventually she will get the hang of it. Now if I can just get her to agree to learn to ride without training wheels!





Can't you just hear this belly laugh!?!?!?! How adorable is this man?