Sunday, October 31, 2010

Haaaaaalloweeeeeeeen weeeek!

It has been a heck of a week. Here's a really long post about what we did... if you just want to see Fiona in her costume, feel free to skip to the end :-)

Monday: Awesome Fall/Halloween party with Mommy group friends. Fiona was Thomas the Tank Engine and Adele was a ladybug.

Tuesday: Adele began early intervention (EI) this week because she was boozing it up before lunch. Ok, no, not that kind of intervention. It's a system where the school sends out a team to assess her and make a plan to help her hit the milestones that she's a little behind on. Mostly she's behind on gross motor - she's not rolling over, and not sitting up yet. The big thing we'll be doing is just giving her more tummy time to strengthen her upper body, and people will come over every couple of weeks to check on her and suggest new exercises/activities, etc.

Also on Tuesday: Fiona moved into her very own big girl bed. Those of you who have been reading for a while may remember a previous attempt months ago to move Fiona out of her crib... it worked for a few days but then she really wanted to sleep in her crib again, so we switched back. This time instead of just a regular twin bed (that she kept falling out of) we tried a toddler bed with guard rails and she LOVES it. She just gets in, snuggles down and goes to sleep.

(That's the gorgeous quilt Grandma made for her when she was born)

Wednesday: I had a late night meeting at work and Ben took care of the girls. This is good because it reminds him of just how awesome I am. Unfortunately neither of them were in bed when I got home, but they were both still alive, so it was an overall success.

Thursday: EI follow up appointment. Playdate with friends. Flu shots for both girls in the afternoon.

Thursday night: Fallout from flu shots. Fiona cries whenever she sees her bandaid, but won't let me remove it. Adele is up all night miserable with a 103 fever.

Friday morning: Fiona doesn't want to take a bath in case her bandaid gets wet. Adele is crabby. She's had the cold and a cough for weeks and in combination with her flu shot ache and teething pain is in a baaaaaaad mood.

Friday afternoon: I make Adele an doctor appointment because she seems really sick. She's coughing endlessly, and frequently coughs so hard that she throws up all over whoever is holding her. Which is me 100% of the time. I am concerned that she's having some king of nasty flu shot reaction.

Saturday morning: As soon as Adele wakes up it's clear that she's really sick. She's wheezing - making this scary whistling noise - and coughing, coughing, coughing. I take her in for her appointment and it turns out she has bronchiolitis. This is when the tiny passages in your lungs get all full of crap causing coughing, wheezing, etc. She's more vulnerable to catching nasty viruses that cause things like this because her lungs are not as tough as those of a full term baby, and the worst part is that there's not much that that can be done, we just need to wait for it to run its course. Last night she was up for the majority of the night coughing and throwing up on me, and today the cough seems more infrequent, but more severe when she gets going. It's really awful, and exhausting for both of us, and it makes me nervous for what's in store for us over the next 5 months of winter.

Sunday: On a brighter note, today was Halloween! Fiona and I practiced how to trick or treat all day, and she was super excited to go out trick or treating with her cousins (and Daddy). Today is the day that having kids really pays off... she came back with a lot of candy!

(L-R Andrew - ninja, Fiona - Thomas, Emily - Cleopatra, Adele - Ladybug, Ryan - dementor)

Fiona loved her Thomas costume so much (thanks Aunty Cathy!) and had a wonderful time trick or treating. Adele and I were sad to miss it, but it was way too cold to take her out. Hopefully we'll all be able to go next year! Happy Halloween!

Tuesday, October 26, 2010

Granny and Grandpa Visit!

My parents came to visit at the beginning of the month and we had a crazy fun time! Here I will present a collection of our activities, but I will only be talking about the ones that we took pictures of because, honestly, my brain functions so poorly in its exhausted state that without the visual reminder it may as well not have happened ;-)

One of the days we went to the Minneapolis Sculpture Garden. We had not been here before and it was really great! Here you can see Minneapolis' most famous image - the "cherry and spoon" sculpture...


Fiona loves to hide and jump out and yell "peek-a-boo!" and there were many opportunities for her to do this. In combination with being allowed to run around, she had a wonderful time.




Adele, as usual, hung out tied onto me and had a fun time observing Fiona and her antics. She's so easygoing, it's really fun to spend time with her!


Fiona's second favorite thing is trying to stick her hands into bodies of water... and we even managed to accommodate that!


Check out that giant fish!

On a different day we went to the Minnesota Landscape Arboretum. We hadn't been there before either and it was beautiful!

The leaves were all changing, the sky was blue, and some of the colors were incredible...


There's a sculpture there right now that is made by Patrick Dougherty - an artist who uses branches to make huge structures. Check out his website, really, it's amazing!


Fiona managed to find a variety of water features to paddle her hands in...



And found time for her third favorite thing... jumping off dangerous stuff!


And Adele, of course, hung out and was happy!

The other thing we did that I have photographic evidence of was going to the Zoo. It's always fun to go to the zoo, and this time was no exception, although this time Fiona was a little more batty...


Aaaaaaaahhahahahahaha. Man, I'm funny.

Other than that, we saw some bears and leopards up close...



And Adele hung out and was happy... and sleepy!


It was wonderful to have visitors!

We miss you Granny and Grandpa, come back soon!

Tuesday, October 19, 2010

A momentous occasion!

I know, I know, as usual I am behind on catching up. My parents visited for 10 days and I have so many photos and activities to share that I don't know where to start. So, in the meantime, here's the latest...

Guess who finally pushed a tooth through?!

No, not Fiona. She was an early adopter of the tooth. Her first two came in at almost exactly 4 months and she just kept them coming. I thought Adele was going the same way when her first two were right there at almost the same age... but they never came in. Yesterday at 10 months, 2 weeks and 1 day old one finally popped though. Here's a super flattering picture to commemorate the occasion :-) (Click to enlarge, it's tiny but it's there!)


More of it is in today, but I didn't think it was fair to torture her for a second, clearer picture.

And to make up for the indignity of that one, here are a couple that are just too cute to believe :-)



Now hopefully she'll start sleeping better than she has been while preparing for the first tooth -- at least until number two gets its act together. And when that time comes, I'm ready, armed with a tylenol-orajel-big glass of wine combination. Don't worry... the wine is for me. Though if she'd take a bottle...

I'm KIDDING!