Dop

Tonight Jeff was rearranging Alex's food on her plate to optimize her choosing procedure, and I asked him (told him?) to stop. Alex also told him to "dop" while gnawing on a particularly unruly bit of pizza crust. And of course he did "dop", because what Princess wants Princess gets. :) She's already training the men around her. I like it.

She's feeling infinitely better. So much so that she ran around mostly noodle (naked) for about an hour. Oh, and she's got dual pony tails now. I had an epiphany and realized most of her hair was long enough, so I tortured her for endless seconds getting those darn microscopic pony tail holders in, but she looks friggin hysterically cute in them, so a new hairstyle is born. Until she tells me to dop doing it, in which case...That picture of her looking a little bit put out...well, I think she was, but she got over it real fast.

She also pointed out that the owl says "hoot". I had no idea that she knew that (I'm still not convinced that it wasn't just a really amazing coincidence) but she says it like she means it and very clearly, so she must know yet another animal sound!

More Counting

Alex has had a much better night so far - she stayed asleep for a half hour straight! But ultimately, her snotties caught up with her and she required a quick suction and much patting. That didn't work, so I resorted to the only thing I could think of that might calm her down - I counted verrrrrry slowly to ten. Several times. Whilst patting in time to the counting. Sucess! She's clearly as excited about numbers as I've always been. Yay math etc. :I

Anyhoo, she's still asleep, and it's almost been two hours now. I don't know if it was numbers, antibiotics or crispy noodles (my vote is crispy noodles) but whatever it was that is giving Alex actual sleep, hooray!

Alex counted in (somewhat) even numbers up to ten today. She skipped four because she can't say her "f" sound yet. Makes me wonder what she's really saying when we think she's saying "suck". Hmmm.

We had the extreme pleasure of visiting the baby ER this morning because her cough hadn't improved and our doctors were inexplicably absent from their office. We got special not-really-an-emergency-but-they're-here-so-let's-get-this-over-with treatment, and she's once again on antibiotics for an ear-ache which happened to accompany the miserable cold, cough and teething marathon. The upside? The Chinese buffet is next to our drug store, so we got Chinese takeout for lunch (and dinner, and lunch tomorrow...). Alex likes crispy noodles very much, even when she can't taste them.

Many thanks to Mom for suggesting that we try to get Alex to drink chicken broth out of her sippy cup today to make up for her not eating much with the cold. It didn't work, in fact, she spit it out almost immediately. Not what she was expecting, I guess. It's a little different from grape juice.

Also, many thanks to Lu and Cori for the Ta-Doodles, but we'll be waiting on using those since Alex has, a mere five minutes ago, discovered that her true artistic gift is to draw on walls. Though I did get a great crayon drawing in her sketch book before she discovered her love of crayon-dining-room-wall murals.

We also played outside today since it's in the 60's for some inexplicable reason. Alex was banned from the back yard after attempting to eat Nandina berries, then banned from the front yard for trying the same trick with the Japanese Holly. All in all a successful outdoor adventure considering that she didn't actually ingest anything.

Sick and...

Oh yeah, Alex is also teething. Like she has been for the last how many months? Tooth number thirteen has broken through today, with fourteen, fifteen and sixteen coming in close behind. And now she's finding her crayon-drawing skill on the cover of her classic Christmas videos. I should go.

Bleh, Alex and I are still sick. She coughed all night long, so no one got any quality sleep and we're all more than a bit cranky. Well, the cats are ok I suppose. But we've got to go out shopping today because Alex is bursting the seams of her footie pajamas. Only in the footie region, she's still not breaking any records for weight.

Well, I hear her screaming bloody murder upstairs. Her "showowower" must be over. Off to another day of snot wrangling! :I

Pity She's So Sick

Ok, so I had assumed that Alex has the same nasty cold as me - congested, runny nose, sore throat thanks to all the dripping - but she's also all coughy and sneezy. Even sicker than me? Perhaps. Does she care? Perhaps not.

She's run around the house with more energy today than she normally has. All she wanted to eat today was Christmas cookies. (Go figure, that's pretty much everyone's diet between Christmas and New Year's, no?) So the food choice coupled with copious amounts of juice could explain the energy level. But she was in a good mood too. WTH? She's tough, that we've known forever, but man, what a downer to be feeling awful and know that she feels the same way and can smile about it! Makes me feel like maybe I'm taking my exploding head cold too seriously.

She worked very hard on her pronunciation of "trouble" today. Coincidence? No. Sugar-fueled step climbing and cat harassing - the usual.

But I got time off for sick behavior today and squeezed in a tiny nap. Tippy helped by following my hands with her head. Sadly, she didn't get to plop on my chest to get scratchies since I need all the lung capacity I can get. Poor, neglected kitty. I'm sure she's laying mid-comforter right now lamenting lost petting opportunities today. If she only knew how much time I spent couch-bound because I had to save my energy for baby retrievals......

So, many thanks to Auntie Lu for the cookies that kept Alex alive today. And Jeff for plucking Her Tiny Hineyness from the stairs many many many many times. And thanks to him in advanced for being on baby patting duty tonight.

Well, no suck luck with the second Christmas miracle. Alex was up at least 4 or 5 times last night, so I just slept on the floor in her room so I could pat, tuck in and generally comfort the Snotty One. In true Alex form, about the last time I got her on her way back to sleep, she started talking. Always has an opinion about everything, even if it makes no sense to the average English-speaking adult.

And, of course, early this morning, after tossing, turning and wincing on the wood floor all night, I heard at least one cat investigating Alex's door. Probably wondering why I didn't seep by the canned cat food all night so I could be ready if they got hungry...

Anyhoo, now Alex and I are both feeling super-crappy, but at least I know how to blow my nose.

A Christmas Miracle

While Christmas day was strangely uneventful, it was capped off with a miracle - Alex counted to two. It happened like this - I was counting the number of arms placed in fleecy pajama sleeves. I said "One." and she said "Two." immediately after. So......I guess that's not really counting as such, but she did repeat this pseudo-counting scenario many times over, with big, prideful smiles each time.

We tried to go past two, but no luck.

So, I think officially she counted to two in even numbers. That works, right? Cue shaft of light over baby's head, and it's a Christmas Miracle.

We're hoping for one more miracle tonight. Alex has (along with Mommy and Daddy) sprouted a cold. Poor Jeff's been sick for almost three days, and Alex and I succumbed today. So, if it's not too much trouble for whoever is in charge of miracles, please let a very snotty Alex sleep through the night!

Oh, and Alex got pushed over by Aggie, our pug-niece. Bad dog, no. Overly excited dog, yes. We forgive you Agatha! But Alex is working through all possible dog-torture scenarios.

Jeff is stocking up for the Christmas festivities - booze sweetie, booze. And Alex is helping, which I can only hope means that she is quietly supervising from the shopping cart and not picking up bottles and inspecting them for winey goodness. I really should pack the car for our overnight with Oui Oui and Pop Pop. At least we don't have to bring toys, since she's got the contents of an entire toy store waiting for her.

Today in Head Injury News

Today was a big day for Alex because she managed to hit her head three times today. Same place every time. No bruises yet, but surely because we're seeing family starting tomorrow she'll have sprouted bruises, scratches, weeping sores, and anything else that could possibly reflect poorly on our non-padded parenting ways. We're so looking forward to carpeting.

She also had an epic stair-up stare-down with Custard. Stairs and stares are always a good combination, especially when Custard is feeling lethargic and draws it out so I'm left in the catch-her-when-not-if-she-slips position for a considerable time. Time has no meaning for babies and cats unless they want food. In any case, Alex decided that a well-placed pat had no place in the staring contest, and thus cat and child were happy.

Diesel has been on the "no touch" list all day as she's apparently suffering from the holiday crankies. Which means more pats for Jeff. And lots of plant destruction. Brugmansia, I'm sorry for the missing leaves, and passion vine, I know the passion is now official gone, at least for those few flowers you had then suddenly didn't have any more. In happy plant news, the Christmas banana is still intact, tyvm, if only because the leaves have the sense to grow up and out of the way of Queen Sticky Fingers. (Now would be a good time to mention that I'm not a photographer by any stretch of the imagination and all anyone should expect of a photo on this blog is that the subject was the subject I meant to shoot. I promise that, and bad lighting. And maybe a cat in the corner.)

I guess the only other excitement for the day was Alex's ability to eat more cheese than, ummmmm, uhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhh, someone who eats a lot of cheese. Thank Aristaeus ( http://www.theoi.com/Georgikos/Aristaios.html ) that she got over that milk allergy!

The Fab Life of the Mommyculturist

If you're a friend or family member of mine, you have probably heard a lot of mundane stories about my exciting life as a stay-at-home mom. I'm sure all of you thought, "Boy, I wish she would write all those fabulous poop stories down in blog form so I could read them over and over again!" So here it is, for all the poop story fans. And the "You'll never believe what she ate today..." fans. And the "Yeah she ate it twice." stories. You see where I'm going. It's hypnotically exciting stuff.

Well, it is for me.

I realize that an average day in our house reads kind of like the starter fluff of a Sci-Fi Channel movie. You know, the opening scenes where the mom is making breakfast, feeding the cats (though here, that particular event occurs anywhere from 4 A.M. on, as the cats often find themselves wracked with a painful canned duck craving in the wee hours of the morning) and kissing the bleary-eyed husband good morning whilst handing him his cup of coffee and a chocolate croissant. Mmmmmm, chocolate croissants...........

Yeah, so anyway, there's the opening scene. The one -before- Frankenfish ( http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Frankenfish ) jumps out of the water and eats everyone. Good times. And thankfully, most days Frankenfish never shows up. If he did, Alex (that's the aforementioned eater of all things strange) would eat him. In stick form. Mmm, Frankenfish sticks.

So, the real reason why I decided to start on this blog adventure was not because I wanted to spend a few months working really hard on it only to abandon the project because it turns out I don't have the stamina to maintain a blog, but because I thought I'd give my family and friends the option to read some of my stories about the daily joys/grind of raising a seedling family. Instead of calling them every five minutes with the latest naughty word repeated, cat litter ingested and bruise received.

Since I'm not just a mom (even if sometimes I forget I had a life pre-Alex) but also a horticulturist, I thought this would be a fun place to write about me keeping a bit of my professional life alive in my feeble attempts to live as a tree hugger. And maybe convince the next generation to hug trees too. Just not the ones with poison ivy on them......