Night at the (Wax) Museum

On Tuesday, Norah and I were treated to a "Night as the Wax Museum", courtesy of my cousin, Donna (who helped organize the event which was held at my and Jason's junior high Alma mater ).


I prepped Norah before going, explaining that we'd be going to a "big kids' school", and the "big kids" would be pretending to be statues. She was stoked. Her first attraction was to the "cowgirls" (AKA "Annie Oakley).


I personally think the big draw was their affinity for cowboy boots and skirts; a combination N has been loving of late.














Then, it was on to the ballerinas, of course. (I know it looks like she's not paying attention, but she's actually trying very hard to get her feet into the same position as the dancer's)




















Two words: "Tutu Envy"

















"Michelle Kwan"...I wish I could have gotten all of Norah in this frame...she was mimicking the skater's stance, too. So cute!










My personal favorite was "Vincent Van Gogh". He never moved...Seriously, I don't think he blinked the whole time we were there. Norah wouldn't have anything to do with him. Probably a combination of the facts that 1) he was a male, 2) he had facial hair, and 3)he was not wearing a dress.


















I could tell when she met "Carrie Underwood" that the wheels in her head started turning.











Within moments, she had located the stage and was singing a solo, completely unprompted. I'm telling you, this child has stage radar. It was all I could do to convince her to leave the microphone alone.














Donna located an abandoned backboard, so we thought it would be the perfect opportunity for Norah's wax museum debut. She proved to be quite the quick study.











After the students packed up, Norah found her favorite character and asked her for a private dance session (back on the stage, of course). The ballerina was a sweetheart and obliged, much to Norah's delight.

Jason and I were participants in Rayburn's first annual Wax Museum once upon a time (I was Greta Garbo and he was Ray Charles, in case you were curious), and it was fun to see the tradition carried on by the next generation (even if it was at the expense of making me feel OLD).

Just a-Swingin'

A couple of weeks ago we took the plunge and invested in our first backyard swing set. If you've yet to experience this All-American rite of parenting passage, I'll let you in on a little secret: they don't come pre-assembled! Jason and I spent two evenings just labeling and sorting wood (a strategy that I think really worked to our advantage) before he finished it up with the help of Uncle Grant, over the weekend.




One of the things I love about my husband is, his willingness to read directions. Before he even picked up his drill, he consulted the instruction manual.

Eli saw Daddy sitting in the box and decided it was the place to be. (After we shooed him away from the sorted wood about three thousand times, we were thankful for his taking up residence there!)






Norah was thrilled to help carry "the swing set" into the back yard. She's always happy to be a helper.












The finished product! Interesting side note: my childhood swing set was also green and yellow.






Eli's inaugural slide...










Norah rockin' the swings...















E never tires of the slide!
















No rules prohibiting "train sliding" in our backyard! We're all about sharing in Robinson County!

Both kids' favorite (as well as mine!) is the two-man swing. They sit back to back, and Norah is able to build up momentum an swing all by herself (which means I don't have to push), and Eli just holds on for dear life, grinning to beat the band.

Obviously, the kids are loving the backyard right now. The only downside was the week-long rain that kept them from their new favorite pastime (but that is NOT a complaint...I'm happy to have a green yard and especially for the cool front that the rain resulted in!)...but rest assured, they have made up for lost time! We've been picnicking and swinging every dry day since. I foresee hot summer afternoons and a fat lot of sunscreen in our future!

Word to the wise...if you don't want to come over to swing, you might start working on an alibi. Norah has invited everyone (including complete strangers) she's encountered since the swing set's construction over to swing with her. (Including our preacher, who agreed to schedule a play date with her!). The conversation generally goes something like this:
N: Guess what! I have a swing set in my backyard!
Unsuspecting Bystander: That's neat.
N: You wanna come over to my house and swing sometime?
UB: Ummm...I'll have to get back to you.

Succumbing to Bluebonnet Peer Pressure

Monday night, N&E partook in the traditional, Texan, obligatory rite of passage known as the "Bluebonnet Photo Shoot."

We were lucky to have a field of bluebonnets very close to our house, so we avoided the lure of pulling over on the side of the highway and taking photos of two toddlers amid crazy, high speed traffic.


This photo made me laugh. I can think of so many of my sister and me from our childhood where one of us was laughing and the other crying. Here, Norah is just oozing sisterly sweetness, and all Eli can think is, "Get off me!"


This was my favorite shot of Eli by himself (read: he wasn't crying)














Truth be told, he didn't care much for the bluebonnets. (After a good month of pointing out the window, excitedly saying "Flah! Flah!" (Flower! Flower!) each time we drove down the waving sea of blue that is the bypass.) He found them to be prickly, itchy, and uncomfortable up close. I'm sure his affection for them will grow with time. I think all Texans, at some point, feel a sort of blissful contentment and peace at seeing the showy bluebonnets of spring. It smacks of "going home". One of those few, sacred things that, in spite of progress, politics, and time, still remains unchanged.

She looks so grown up to me in this picture!
















































This is one of my favorites...I'm not really sure why . Maybe because Eli just started walking and he's trying to hard to catch up with his big sister.




































This one made me laugh, too. Eli's expression cracks me up. Probably just wishing he was ANYWHERE else.













Next time, I think we'll go a little later in the evening. The sun was still a little bright, even at 7pm. I guess those 9pm summer sunsets are just around the corner!













Happy Spring!

Here, Kid. Don't Say I Never Gave You Anything

Norah and Eli's favorite "together" activity for the past couple of weeks has been tooling around the house on Norah's tricycle. They seriously have clocked in HOURS worth of cycling...always with Eli in the rear, "pushing" Norah, who, incidentally would pedal as fast as she could. At first, I thought it was a little insensitive on her part. I mean, the kid can't walk, so cut him some slack, right?

Wrong. Aparently, my 3-year-old genius was serving up a pint size helping of "Tough Love", trike style.


Notice any similarities between this photo and the previous one? Two days after the first one was taken, Eli figured out how to stand up, mid-room. Note the big grin on his face. It's pretty much a permanant fixture anytime he's on two feet...which is pretty regular these days. Literally, from the first time Eli stood up, he started walking like he'd been at it for weeks. Up and down the hall...all around the house. It was as we had suspected for so long. He knew how to do it, he just wanted to perfect it before showing it to us.
















I got a little camera-happy during their training sessions...


However, after seeing how the scenario played out...I'm glad I did. I really do believe that Norah played a big role in helping her little brother get up the confidence to finally "let go" and take off.





And I think she'll be proud of these photos when she's older. (Honestly, she's pretty proud of them now)













Well...except maybe this one...






In just one week's time, Eli has gone from crawling to dancing with wild abandon!



And Norah's loving it. (After all, even Sleeping Beauty needed a dance partner) I think these two are gonna be thick as thieves! (And that will be such an answer to prayer!)

Lately, I've been putting E down for his nap about 30-45 minutes before N because he just can't wait any longer. She finally put her foot down about it today.

N:Is Eli gonna take his nap now?
A: Yes, sweetie, he's really tired.
N: But I don't want him to take a nap until I do. I want him to play with me!

Two weeks ago, she was begging me to put him down for a nap so that she could have some peace and quiet, and all of her toys to herself.

Eli seems to share her sentiment. He has woken her up from her nap 3 times this week-- and that doesn't count the times I've busted him mid-operation! (he usually wakes up 30 minutes to an hour before she does) He goes into her room, walks right up to her bed, and repeatedly shouts her name ("Nah-Nah!") until she gets up. Guess it's time to go back to synchronized naps!

From the Mouthes of Babes...

N: (making up her own verses to "Be Careful Little Eyes" in the back seat of the car today)
"Oh be careful little toes when you tiptoe. Oh be careful little toes when you tiptoe. For the Father up above is working down in love so be careful little toes when you tiptoe!"

N: Beholdy comes! Riding on the clouds, shining like the sun, at the trumpet call. So, lift your voice. Hear and you'll believe. High on Zion's Hills I'll Va-Ca-tion!"

(For those who don't know, the actual lyrics are "Lift your voice, it's the Year of Jubilee. Out of Zion's Hill, salvation comes!")
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N: ("Reading" the model name of the truck pulled up beside us at a red light)
"S-I-L-V-E-R-A-D-O (pauses as if sounding it out to herself)....Car!"
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Tonight, Jason was holding Norah's hands and letting her climb up his legs to flip backwards. What was her sing-songy exclamation each time she performed this impressive feat?
N: "Ta-Da! I'm famous!"
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Norah ambushed Jason and I while we were cuddling and immediately demanded to be center of her daddy's attention. When her demands weren't met, she resorted to whipping out her first 5-syllable word (at least that we can recall)
N: "Daddy, I want you to snuggle with ME!"
J: (continues jokingly cuddling with mommy to make Norah jealous)
N: "Daddy, I want you to snuggle with me, but you are not cooperating."
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Not to be left out, here are some of my favorite "Eli-isms" of late:

"Ah duh"- Translation: "All Done". Spoken after each meal.

"Tuh-kuh-buh"- Translation: "Take a bath?" Spoken, without fail, the instant he's finished with his evening meal. This kid lives and breathes by his schedule.

"Bite"- No translation required. He doesn't mess around when food is involved and annunciates very precisely (especially on the "t" in bite)

"Goot" (Rhymes with "Foot")- Translation: "That bite you shared with me was out of this world!"

"Nigh Nigh"- Translation: "Please, just put me in my bed so I can go to sleep."

"Bye Bye" or "G'bah"- Translation: "See you later!"

"Cup-cuh"- Translation: "Cupcake". Also, "Cookie". Always said with an enthusiastic, expectant look in his eye.

No More Moldy Bread for Eli

Disclaimer: Gruesome photos to follow. There is a happy ending, but if you're squeamish, take a hike. (Just don't accuse me of posting without pictures again :)

We had the misfortune/fortune (dependent on whether your a glass half full or half empty kind of person) of discovering that Eli, like his father, is pretty allergic to Penicillin. (And no, he didn't get exposed to it by moldy bread, as the title implies. If we ever found any moldy bread growing up, my dad would always say, "No big deal, just a little penicillin", so that's just what I always think of when I hear the word)
At any rate, it all started with a little, rash on his torso. It really resembled ant bites, but since I couldn't' find any ants in his bed (he woke up with the rash), I decided to ask a pharmacist. (Couldn't get into the doctor's office that day, and didn't want to wait through 4 hours of urgent care like the last time). The pharmacist asked if E was taking any antibiotics, and after I fessed up to his being on day 9 (of 10, I should add) of Amoxicillin, he hypothesized that E was reacting to his meds. I wasn't worried. It didn't seem to be a big deal. He wasn't itching or running fever, and seemed to be normal, other than the rash, so I didn't sweat it.
The next day, it had spread a lot! I didn't feel as comfortable as I had before, so we went ahead and took him into Urgent Care. The doctor walked in the room, took one look at him, and declared that he had a "more convincing penicillin allergy reaction than some textbooks photos" he'd seen. He said there wasn't much we could do for him, other than Benadryl to control the itching (which still hadn't started).

The next few days, it got progressively worse, and was accompanied by a fever which responded well to Tylenol and Ibuprofen (it would go back to around 102 in between doses)
Around day 4, he started itching. The Benadryl helped some, but seemed to stop working a couple hours before I was allowed to give him more, so I'd do my best to distract him. (If he wasn't thinking about it, it seemed to bother him less than if I, say, put him in his bed and left him to sulk). We spent many a late night (2-4am) waiting out those Benadryl doses. Look at how thick those welts are around the leg hole of his diaper. Poor baby!

He was a real trooper. I know I couldn't have handled it as well as he did. He never really cried, except when he was really tired and unable to sleep for itching (between Benadryl doses)











Days 5-6 were especially bad around his eyes. He didn't even look like himself. Thankfully, he never lost his appetite.













Finally, Day 8 came...Eli discovered Norah's magic wand and....









Voila! No more rash! (That's just strawberry jam around his mouth) So, from now on, no more penicillin for the boy!

The One with the Regurgitated Raisin

For those of you who don't read picture-less posts, just walk on by. The fact of the matter is, I haven't been so great at photo documentation of late (unless you want to see the awesome full-body rash Eli has developed as an allergic reaction to his antibiotics), so if you want to wait around until the next time I feel like uploading pictures, I'll see you then. In the mean time, I did have one story I needed to record that should pretty well seal the deal that I wont be voted Mother of the Year, at least for 2009.

Last Monday afternoon I stopped into Old Navy and tried a couple of things on. Naturally, since I had both kids in tow, I used the "big daddy dressing room" to accommodate the shopping cart I was wheeling them in. While changing clothes, my cell phone rang and it was my newlywed sister, who lives out of town and who I greatly look forward to talking to, so I took the call, in spite of the lack of privacy. Meanwhile, Norah decided that she wanted to sit on the bench in the dressing room, as opposed to the cart. I complied (with the agreement that she wouldn't stray from the bench), in hopes of keeping her quiet long enough to have conversation with Amanda.

The next thing I know, Norah is off of the bench, asking me if she can eat a raisin she's discovered on the dressing room floor. I immediately give her my full attention and shriek "NO! Absolutely NOT!", resulting in a look of wide-eyed shock and bewilderment from my daughter that could only mean that she had already commenced consumption of said raisin. My fears were confirmed as she proceeded to spit the half-eaten, offending raisin back onto the dressing room floor next a couple of crushed goldfish crackers (also not ours), clearly in hopes that this would purge the wrong-doing. All I could think of was how many times I've watched kids spit things out of their mouths and onto the floor...and who was to say this was the first time THIS raisin had been regurgitated. Germs! Germs! How do you disinfect your child's mouth in situations such as these!? And seriously what was Norah thinking? She KNOWS better than to eat random trash on the floor, and at a public place with nasty, concrete floors where people drop their drawers, no less! Ok, I have to stop...I'm grossing myself out again. Happy thoughts. Happy thoughts.

It ate at me. All day long in the back of my mind I wondered what childhood disease we could look forward to contracting in the weeks to come thanks to the "second-hand raisin incident". Fast forward to dinner that night. I went out with my sister-in-law, Paige, and our good friend, Katy. During the course of our conversation, Katy mentions that she had been to Old Navy earlier that day and that she had tried on some clothes, and like me, had received a cell phone call. She then proceeded to tell me that her daughter was begging for a snack which she happily gave her to keep her at bay while she finished her call. I excitedly inturrupted her at this point, to ask which stall she had been in...
K: "The big one".
A: "And the snack? It wasn't, by chance raisins and gold fish crackers, was it? And did you happen to notice if she dropped any on the floor?"
K: (mildly amused by my apparent ESP): Ummm...yeah, actually, it was, and she did.

Granted, who knows how many people stepped on those raisins between Katy's daughter's dropping them, and Norah's decision to wolf them down, but I was still mildly relieved to know from whose hand they fell.

What are the odds that this happen in the first place AND then that we meet for dinner the same night AND happen to discuss it? Crazy. Still disgusting, but crazy, nonetheless. Moral of the story? Don't take calls in the dressing room.