She listens a little too closely...

I had a midwife appt today. The midwife commented that the baby is really far down in my pelvis (no kidding.....) Dillon was present for this.

She has recently taken to giving Peaches all the made-up names. Usually they aren't even really words. A few minutes ago, she walked in with Peaches on the leash and asked:

"Would you like to meet my dog, Pelvis?"

Happy Solstice!

It is officially the first day of winter. Well, actually not until 7:22 pm (EST), but hey, why bother with details when there's a reason to celebrate?! Of course, not that I'm celebrating the first day of winter, because, well, I'm not so much. What I'm celebrating is the return of the sun- the days start getting longer from here until the summer solstice! So what if it a mere number of seconds that the day is longer-- it's longer and that's all that matters!!

Dillon was asking what the solstice meant, so I was trying to explain it to her yesterday. I tried in vain to find a picture on the internet that would illustrate the tilt of earth away from the sun. When that didn't work, I tried drawing a picture. I drew a big picture of the sun, then a couple of pictures of the earth tilted forward and away. She seemed to follow, then after this 3 minute explanation was done, she said- "Now draw the earth touching the sun so it burns up!"

I think my explanation was lost on her. Maybe we'll just stick with "Now the sun will be out a little longer each day."

35 weeks

Here's a picture from yesterday. She's giving baby sister a kiss.


















Here's another of just me (no small feat since Dillon would jump into all the pictures at the last second...)

The times they are a changin'...

Things feel very topsy-turvey these days. I'm really ready to be done being pregnant- not enough to wish for a premature baby, of course, but just ready for term to be here. I'm uncomfortable and not a lot relieves it- except sitting with my feet up :) And that's just not happening nearly enough. My midwife appointments are now weekly starting this week- I'm almost 35 weeks.

It seems as though Dillon has outgrown naps. That's a harder one for me to deal with, though I have to admit that she really does OK without one. It used to be that she slept horribly at night if she didn't have a nap, but now not so much. She's a little more "fragile" in the evenings, but that can often be attributed to her (inherited from her daddy's) trait of ignoring her hungry belly until she's falling apart. We've been working on that lots and lots lately. She's also gotten a lot better at entertaining herself to give me some work time.

Peaches has taken huge steps in both bravery and stupidity in that when she goes out to pee, she pees, then runs directly into the road. A busy road at that. It's happened twice, making me none too happy either time. I suppose no one clued her into the fact that she shouldn't make her very pregnant owner chase after her in the snow so she doesn't get hit by a car in front of the 3 year old owner. Nor should you spend the rest of the day groveling at having made your owner so angry. It only irritates her more to have you underfoot all day.

Dave is months from finishing anesthesia training. We both marvel at how close after 11 years of pursing this dream. Close, yet far- he's developed serious "short-timer's" syndrome. We've been making some plans for him to work some- as an anesthesiologist- during his ICU training. Just seems unreal- both that it's possible AND the amount of money he can make doing so.

Life's just unsettled right now. Not in bad ways- very exciting way, but sometimes I feel a little like someone at the top of the roller coaster that's headed for an amazing ride- can't wait, but scared to death all the same.

16.7

That's what the thermometer says at our house. A balmy 16 degrees with about an inch and a half of snow. Wasn't it 60 degrees here last week?

We played outside a couple of times today until I got entirely too whiny about being cold. Dillon either got cold as well or just got tired of hearing me whine about it, I'm not sure. She had a good time pretending we were penguins in Antartica (no real stretch there...) and that I was protecting her from freezing. My solution was to pretend we were Carribean penguins and go inside. Yes, I realize there is no such thing as a Carribean penguin.



I got tagged by Karen to post 6 weird things about myself.
1) I profess a belief in a desire for homeschooling and teaching things honestly, yet I teach my child about some falsehood as Carribean penguins as a not so clever ploy to get to go inside. In my defense, the wind chill is 5 degrees.
2) Along those lines- I have the coldest feet on a living human being. I wear socks to bed year round and will only go sockless on the warmest of days.
3)I can curl my tongue.
4) I get up between 5:30-6:00 most mornings to exercise. And than I actually do it.
5) I stopped drinking cow's milk after we visited a farm and saw cow's being milked and an explanation of how they separate the baby from the mother after a certain amount of time so the baby doesn't drink all the milk. Dillon was an infant at the time and I was working, having to pump on the days that I worked. It just all added up to being completely repulsed by the thought of drinking a big glass of milk. As if that weren't weird enough, I still eat cheese, though.
6) I hate crowds. I'll go without something from the grocery store if it means I have to go when it would be crowded. Or I'll skip an event if it's more crowd than I think I can deal with.

So there you go...

And what did you learn today Dillon?

"Hey mom, it doesn't hurt when I clip this thing on my tongue!"

I'm so proud.

"But I don't like to use my imagination!"

This is what Dillon declared when I declined to buy her a very noisy wooly mammoth toy at BJ's one day. I explained that I don't like noisy toys because 1)they make the same sound over and over which I find incredibly irritating and 2) I think toys should be for helping you use your imagination.

Fast forward to that evening. She found a hummingbird feeder that I've never managed to find a home for until we actually have hummingbirds again in the spring. She spent a solid hour pretending to be a hummingbird- first she was an egg hatching, then she'd fly to the door and want to come in, then used her wings to hold the feeder still so she could eat out of it- on and on. Last night, she found a pair of Dave's socks and spent about the next half hour pretending she was a dog with broken legs and they were her casts. She figured out all kinds of ways to do things with 2 broken legs.

It really is unfortunate she doesn't like to use her imagination. I wonder what she'd come up with if she did?!

Feeding the birds

Our neighbor gave us some sunflower seeds. Not wanting to deal with scattering the seeds for the birds, this was Dillon's solution:




















This is the back step, immediately outside the back door. For some reason, the birds just aren't jumping up to eat it from this spot. Couldn't be because of the dog going past that spot several times per day. I suppose it's the thought that counts.

Happy Thanksgiving!

Here we are Thanksgiving evening. We had a great day, cooking and hanging out. I took Dillon & Peaches for a walk in the woods. We found several dens of hibernating animals that I sucessfully kept both Dillon and Peaches out of. Dillon was sure that every one of them was for a bear, even though they were all far too small for a bear to get into. Our neighbors across the street saw one in our driveway a couple of years ago & Dillon has never forgotten it. Otherwise, she made creative use of any and every downed branch by turning them all into horses. We had to pet the horses, she rode them, we fed them, and groomed them. Peaches, for her part, ran and ran and ran. Only once did she stay gone long enough to make me worry a little. But return, she did and slept well when we came back in.

So, we explained Thanksgiving as a special day that we think and talk about the things that we are glad we have in our lives. We checked out a book on Thanksgiving from the library, which she's enjoyed. Dave & I said we were thankful for our families, our friends, for the new baby coming, for Peaches and for getting to spend the day together. Dillon said she was thankful for Dimetredon ( one of her toy dinosaurs). What about mom and dad, we said? Yes, she's thankful for us. What about Peaches? Yes, her too. What about grandparents? Yes them, too. But mostly Dimetredon.

I guess it's good to know where you rank.

What happens when you don't like your hair brushed

It gets cut shorter. She inherited my touch-me-not-ness when it comes to hair. She does not like it touched, put behind her ears, put up in any kind of holder, brushed or washed. Ever. Without exception. And has no problem telling anyone that makes the mistake of touching her hair that she doesn't like it "messed with." The only way to brush the rats nest of tangles that mulitply before your eyes is to sit her in front of a movie. Therefore, as the person that has to fight this battle, I decided long ago that once she is old enough to take care of her own hair, she can have any length of hair she wants. Until then, it's going to be shorter.

The haircut was surprisingly easy. She was watching a movie, I had scissors ready and simply said "Here's what we're going to do." She went for it and even wanted her bangs cut. She liked it right away and has reveled in the many compliments she has gotten on it. Dave didn't like it at first, but has grown to since then. I think it looks really cute, even if it is a little uneven in the back.

Dental floss

Yesterday morning while I was in the shower, with Dillon and Peaches waiting oh-so-patiently for me to finish
D: "Momma! Mumble, mumble"
W: Honey, you know I can't really understand you when I'm in the shower."
D: "But, Mumble, mumble"
Something about her voice made me think I should look out to see what was going on.

What did I see? Dillon with a length of dental floss, looking at Peaches, and Peaches gazing contentedly back at her.

What was her question? "How do you floss a dog's teeth?"

Poor Peaches- the indiginities you have to suffer at the hands of a very curious 3 1/2 year old.

Getting ready for baby sister Jab

No, her name is not really going to be Jab. And to answer the obvious next question, no we don't have a name yet. We're talking about a few, but haven't settled on one yet. I'm 31 weeks along, so we still have time. Besides, I don't think any baby has been traumatized by not having a name at birth, should that be the case.

Today was my midwife appointment & I finally got to meet the third midwife. I really liked her, as I did the other two. I could have any one of the the three of them at the birth, just depending on who is on call at that time.

After the appointment Dillon & I walked over to the hospital and took a tour of the birthing center. They weren't busy at all and the nurse was wonderful in explaining to Dillon what everything was. Something came up that the nurse had to attend to, but we were able to stay in one of the rooms, which gave Dillon the opportunity to ask questions (of course...). Her questions were all good and she said that she liked seeing where baby sister Jab would be born.

On an altogether different and much less happy note, we got a call today that a friend's husband had died. He was diagnosed with esophageal cancer around a year ago, then in spring it was found to have spread to his lung. It was the father of one of Dave's med school classmates, but his mother and I have gotten to be good friends. This loss, as well as the recent far-too-early loss of an uncle, really brings home the concept of the circle of life- a loss in their lives, an upcoming gain in ours, but right now I feel really sad for them.

Hair= food?

Yesterday we went to our homeschool club meeting. It was a science fair day, so I wasn't sure how much there would be of interest to Dillon, but we went anyway. There was a presentation on rockets that she was really drawn to in spite of there being loud aspects to it. She's now saying she wants a rocket like one of the ones we saw there but couldn't launch because we were indoors. It was otherwise too crowded and noisy there for her taste, so we left to take recycling in to the recycling center.

From there we stopped at a horse farm close by and asked if we could visit the horses. They were really nice and spent a few minutes telling us about the horses and such- as well as which fences not to touch since they were electrified. We found a gate that was not electrified and a friendly horse that came right up to us. We stayed for a little while feeding grass and petting the horse until it decided that Dillon's hair looked like a good snack and gave it a little nibble. No permanent damage done, it just scared her a little. To her credit, she went back to petting the horse afterward. On the way out there was a friendly barn cat wandering around that we stayed a few more minutes to pet. She spent the whole way home telling me all about how the cat kept the mice out of the barn and probably had mice in it's tummy. She later woke up from her nap asking why the horse nibbled her hair, though it was a little funnier to her then.

What else is going on?
The ongoing conversation about what it means to be a good pet owner.
Dave is now sick on the day we were going to have a friend and her month old baby over, so we've had lots of conversations about why it isn't a good idea for a baby that young to be around someone sick.
We played with the flashlight (thanks Mimi!) in a dark room for a little while this morning and talked about why shadows looked different depending on close you were to the light.

Now it's time to try to convince her that breakfast really is a good thing.

Education where you find it....

It's no big secret that we plan on homeschooling. I've done hours of reading on the subject- reasons, methods, opinions, resources- you name it. We have several friends that are homeschooling, so I've spent a great deal of time both in the company of homeschooling parents and homeschooled kids. Dave & I are both convinced that it is the right choice for us. The reactions of others is often interesting, running the gamut from incredulous to completely supportive.

As Dillon has reached and is in the midst of typical preschool age, I thought I'd start documenting some of the educational stuff we do. We feel like life alone provides an immense amount of education and don't really- at this point anyway- subscribe to any kind of formal plan. So, we don't work on ABC's or numbers or anything that typical preschools do. This isn't to say that we don't talk about those things, we just don't do it in any kind of organized- "let's learn about ABC's" kind of thing. We feel like we have a house and environment full of interesting books, toys, things, conversation, friends, and opportunities and that it provides an incredible amount of education.

One day last week, Dillon asked me why space shuttles had wings. The general rule around our house is that questions about flying objects are best answered by Daddy. So, yesterday morning, Dillon again pulled out the coffee table book we have on Space, crawled in Dave's lap and asked again. They spent about the next half hour talking about rockets, satelites and shuttles. Today we were reading about sea creatures and read a page on plankton and how lots of sea animals small and big ate plankton. She started telling me that it was what balleen whales ate, but not toothed whales like killer whales and sperm whales- they eat meat. It went on to Narwhal whales which aren't really toothed or baleen and what they eat (it's meat, by the way- we looked it up).

Highlights from the rest of the day-
-We picked up a pomegranite at the grocery store since we'd been looking at one on a CD case a few days ago and had talked about what they were. I noticed it & pointed it out, she asked to get it so we could see & taste the seeds.
-We also came home with Clementine oranges. Dillon wanted to make juice out of them, so we got out the little hand juicer thingy & she had a ball- and made some pretty decent orange juice.
-Dave came home early & she wanted him to build her a glider from a box of those balsa wood airplanes that have been around for years. They spent a few minutes talking about how aglider worked.

Am I bragging? Sure, a little. Mostly I just want to have something in writing for future's sake. She amazes me in her ability to absorb things that are interesting to her and I think it'll be fun to look back one day to see what her interests were at this age.

A revelation

There's a commercial on up here about Prince Edward Island. In it, a man is at the airport looking forlornly at the empty baggage carrier for his luggage, which is nowhere to be found. Various people come up and offer him items of clothing, which he accepts. The whole idea of the commercial was that if everyone had been to PEI, we's all be that nice. Sure. What's funny about the commercial is that Dillon said- "That man had the same thing happen to him that happened to you!" Me: "You mean the lost luggage?" D: "Yeah!!" Me: "Did I look that sad about it?" D: "Yeah, you did."

I think US Airways may have lost Dillon as a future customer.

Life, Love and Friends

Here's a picture from last week of Dillon doing one of her favorite activites as of late- loving on baby sister. The baby gets more hugs than I do. She constantly wants to talk to the baby and feel her move and love on her. She still offers names, though they are all of the functional item variety- Tweezer, Soap, Castle- things like that. I'm 29 weeks along in this picture.

We went yesterday to a friend's house, where several other friends were there as well. I was sharing some of my worries about having a second child- how Dillon would really handle it after the new wore off, how I would handle all her questions during those early sleep deprived weeks, etc. I was also sharing some of my concerns about the logisitics of the labor and delivery part. Based on her reactions to my recent trips to the ER, my feeling is that she will want to come with us when it's time for us to head to the hospital to have the baby. I've talked with the midwives about it and they are comfortable with a sibling there, but request that someone be with her. I'm also fine with it, but most of our friends have young children as well, so it makes it a little harder to accomodate an unpredictable event like labor and delivery. As I was talking about this with my friends yesterday, everyone was sharing their experiences with having children at deliveries & offering suggestions and help. While I've always felt that it would all work out and all be OK, I have a more definite plan in mind now and feel like that piece of getting ready for the baby is settled. I have a place close by that she can go to- complete with someone who can pick her up, a house full of interesting toys AND lots of kids around, as well as 2 different friends without small children who can be available evening and night to be with Dillon in the hospital. I'm thankful to have a group of friends with whom I could share my thoughts and in return get such great support from. It is undoubtedly what I will have the most difficulty leaving behind when we move from here.

As for the life part of this- I just have to say-germs, germ, germs. We are a germ factory around here. Dillon is anyway. Tuesday it was a pretty short lived GI bug with her spending several hours vomiting. Last night she started running fever. I gave her meds for it, then she was back to running fever at 3:00 this morning. Gave her more meds, then spent the next 2 hours with her trying to settle back to sleep- "Momma rub my back, rub my foot, rub my arm, hold my hand, I need a drink, I'm out of water, I can't get comfortable..." She finally went back to sleep a little after 5:00 and is still asleep now. How on earth will I ever do this with 2 of them?

Halloween

A couple of recent pictures. The first was of our pumpkin that we carved for Halloween. The second is Halloween night. The dragon costume is from her birthday and I recently made her a horse costume mostly just because she likes pretending she's a horse so much of the time. At 6:00 pm Halloween night, after vacilating between not dressing up, being a horse and being a dragon, the dragon won. So, here we are at the city's Halloween event. There wasn't much to it, so we walked down the street to a friend's house. They were getting ready to go trick or treating, so we joined them. Here's Dillon & Abby:

Abby would march right up to someone's door and loudly say "Trick or Treat," where Dillon wanted no part of it, even though there was candy involved. So, we only joined them for 2 houses and were done. Last night, she must've been thinking about it because she said "What's that you're supposed to say to get candy from people?" We talked about it again, but explained that Halloween only happens once per year. We had to sympathize with how difficult it must be to figure out the complexities of social norms. She did enjoy the 2 pieces of candy that she got nonetheless.

A new skill

Buttons!

She wore a shirt with 3 big buttons on it the other day. I saw her putting it on, left the room (probably to go pee for the thousandth time that day...), came back in and it was buttoned. I asked her if she did it herself- like maybe I thought Peaches did it for her or something. She very proudly told me she had. Then yesterday she noticed that the buttons on my sleeves weren't buttoned, so she buttoned these tiny little buttons all by herself! I asked her how she knew how to do it & she said she just figured it out! I know it wasn't because Dave or I taught her- it never even occured to me to teach her how to do a button. She's so proud of herself and I think it's pretty cool how she figured it out without ever really having practiced it- she doesn't really have any shirts with buttons on them.

A small misunderstanding...

Dave went moose hunting yesterday. He was complaining of his lower back and butt muscles hurting when he got home and said "Oh my buttocks!" as he was getting up from laying on the floor. Dillon stopped whatever she was doing, looked at him and said-

"Did you say your butt talks?!"

:)

Baby names

Dillon's votes for what we should name the baby:

Jab
Dillon
Scissor ("We'll call her scissor, but we won't use scissors on her!")

I keep telling her we'll put her choices on the list :)

A rough week...

It's been a rough week around here! First Dillon was sick, though seemingly for only a short time. Then I caught whatever she had and was sick for 3 solid days, including an ER visit for IV fluids. Dillon was pretty upset by me having to go to the ER, but once we got there and saw that I was really OK, she was OK. She was pretty enthralled by the IV & the fact that we came home with it in place for me to get a second liter of fluid. She also learned a new word- dehydrate- when we were able to compare what was going on with me to the process that makes raisins out of grapes. Hey, education is everywhere! As for me, I'm finally feeling better, getting my appetite and energy back.

Then yesterday afternoon, she was trying to play with something that Peaches kept standing on. She got frustrated with Peaches and grabbed her head, poised to bite her when I grabbed her arm. She pulled away from me and in the process pulled her elbow out of socket- "nurse-maid's elbow." So, on to another trip to the ER. She was scared of having to have a needle in her arm. I didn't know if she'd have to have an IV or not and could only assure her I'd be there with her no matter what. Dave met us in the ER, and they sent us up to the pedi clinic. In the process of waiting to be seen, she popped it back into place herself. So by the time we were seen- which wasn't really all that long- she was climbing on and off the table, waving both arms around, you name it. All was well.

And in true Dillon style, as we were finishing the visit, the pediatrician asked "Do you have any more questions?" Without missing a beat, Dillon said "Why did all the dinosaurs die?"

An epiphany for Dave

Dave: "You know, I never realized how much Dillon is like me until my vacation. I mean, I knew she had some of my traits, but there were so many times over that week that I could totally see myself in the things she did and said and how she reacted to things. I mean, she looks like you but she acts like me."

Uh huh. I told him I didn't ask that many questions when I was that age.

The newest line of questioning is along the lines of- "let's pretend that dinosaurs are still alive. What would happen if one stepped on our car? Then there's the ubiquitous "Why?" of course. It gets more complicated- let's pretend you're me and I'm you and Peaches belongs to someone else and you're trying to fix dinner and I won't let you. Would you like the taste of cherries then?

Making applesauce

We had plans today to go pick apples, but Mother Nature had other plans. We woke up to pouring rain and watched it continue to do so all day long. Instead, we went by the orchard, ran into the tent and picked up a bag of pears, a bag of MacIntosh apples and a half gallon of cider, paid for them, ran back out to the car and came home, staying mostly dry along the way.

At home, we got out the apple peeler & peeled several apples to make applesauce. We also sliced up a couple of pears and apples to dehydrate in the oven so we'd have some dried fruit. As the applesauce turned into sauce, Dillon got the priviledge of adding the cinammon. We now have very liberally cinammoned applesauce! :) It is delicious though and turned out to be a nice way to spend a couple of hours.

I've really enjoyed thinking of educational and fun things for she & I to do together, especially since she isn't going to go to preschool (or even school, for that matter). I think it's really important that she knows where food comes from and what fresh food tastes like. We're really fortunate to live in the midst of many kinds of farms, so it's been great taking advantage of that opportunity. I enjoy cooking with her (far more than playing with toys...) and she seems to enjoy cooking with me. She's gotten pretty good and stirring without sloshing everything out of the bowls. Maybe she'll be cooking dinner for us in a couple of years...

Question of the day

"Momma, is your tummy getting big because you have a great big poop in there?"

Feeling movement

Dillon finally got to feel the baby move today! I've been trying to get her to feel the movements, but either the baby stops moving when Dillon puts her hand on my belly or most often, Dillon can't be still enough to distinguish her own movement from anything else. Today, the baby was kicking strongly enough for Dillon to feel it twice. She thought it was pretty cool & I'm glad she finally got to feel it.

Dillon's twins

I came home from work yesterday to hear Dillon's explanation of how her tummy was so big because she had twins in her tummy. Their names are Erma and Comey. We had to do lots of pretending that the babies were being born. I had to hold a washcloth (actually just a clean sock) on her head and help her dry the babies off when they were born- multiple times. She would grunt and tell me that it hurt, but it would be over really soon, then would excitedly tell me how big they were when they were born. Then she'd jump right up, and run to get some other prop for our scenario. She apparently recovers from birth really quickly! There was also an explanation in there about something called "Sperm Day," which only occurs the day after the first snow. Not sure about that one.

We've been reading a wonderful children's book about where babies come from & she's clearly learned a lot from it. She now wants to know if every male in public has sperm or not and if every female has eggs. She wants to know if Peaches has eggs. This has prompted another conversation about how it is fine to ask those questions, but they are private questions and need to be asked quietly to mom or dad- not loudly at the grocery store as she is staring at someone.

Tunbridge World's Fair

On Saturday Dillon & I went to the Tunbridge World's Fair while Dave was on call. Tunbridge is a small town in Vermont that holds this fair every year. It is one of THE events of the fall to attend, though I have no idea why it's called a world's fair. There was simply a lot of everything- food, noise, people, expense, stuff. It was a lot of fun for the 3 hours we were there. Dillon got to watch people contra-dancing, which is a early form of square dancing, she rode the merry-go-round, got to ride a pony as well as see and pet lots of animals. There were tractors everywhere to see and cheap toys to try to talk me into buying. There was even a tractor pulling a wagon operating as a shuttle to the parking lot.

I asked her today what her favorite part of the fair was, thinking for sure it would be the pony ride or the tractor shuttle. Nope. It was a ride we watched for approximately 2 minutes- that large boat looking thing that swings really high from side to side. She asked to ride it, as well as the Himalaya, a ride that goes really fast in a tilted circle. Of course, she's too small & in reality they would've scared her to death, but from her point of view, they were the coolest things there.

Friends

Dillon & Peaches were actually playing a few days ago & I got a cute picture of it.














This is Dillon & her friend Annan. Annan often comes over with her sister, Mesa, who is my mother's helper on tuesdays (so I can work mostly uninterrupted for a few hours).














This is Emma. We first met Emma when she was about 3 months old & these guys have been playing together ever since. This was at the farmer's market last night.

A conversation

As I was finishing my lunch today-

D: "So, momma, we're going to talk about something"
me: "OK, what are we going to talk about?"
D: "Forklifts. How does the operator get the prongs out from underneath the load once he sets it down?"

This definitely falls into the category of stuff I never knew I needed to know. Good thing the library has lots of books on heavy machinery.

The vet's

Took Peaches to the vet this morning. She has fleas & intestinal worms. Great. Otherwise she's in good shape. The vet told me that they've seen lots of problems with fleas this last year because it was such a mild winter last year. It still doesn't thrill me that the house has to be treated for fleas. Or that Peaches has worms. At least it isn't heartworms.

As expected, Dillon had many questions about the happenings at the vet's office. The vet took Peaches back to the back exam area for the anal gland exam (thank you!). As soon as she left, Dillon wanted to know what was going on beyond the exam room. I explained that that was where they kept the meds & did testing on the blood, etc. More questions. So, when the vet came back in I asked if we could just stand at the door and look back there. She was really nice & took us on a mini tour. It so happened they were working on a dog in the very back that had an unfortunate encounter with a porcupine. The vet warned me that there was a little bit of blood where they were pulling the quills out & asked if it would bother Dillon. I had to try not to laugh since Dillon is drawn to anyone bleeding, injured, whatever. She is enthralled with wounds. So, we got to see them work on pulling the quills out of the sedated dog's snout. Poor thing.

She couldn't wait to tell daddy about the dog that kissed a pine needle :) You could even see her get to the porcupine part, think about it, then say pine needle. An honest mistake, I suppose, they were like a bunch of needles!

Ultrasound results

We have a baby with
- a 4 chambered heart with a hole where it should be at this point
-Intestines inside the body
- 2 kidneys, located in the correct places
- an intact spine with no signs of any defects
- appropriately sized ventricles within the brain
- a moving mouth- and everything else for that matter
and .....

- little girl parts

So, it's another girl! We're happy, though we would've been happy with a boy, too. Dillon was far more interested in the box of toys in the ultrasound room than the actual ultrasound. The u/s tech got some really great views, even a great profile view of the baby from the shoulders down, looking like she was trying to stand up on my bladder!

It was fun seeing the baby and reassuring to see that everything looks pretty good. Unless there's a problem, that'll be the last look we get at her until she's born. Dillon says she's fine with having a sister, even though she had said she wanted a brother.

Riverview Farm

We visited this beautiful farm Wednesday in Plainfield, NH. Interestingly, if you follow that link, that site was created by a student that took one of the web design classes I taught. Anyway, the farm is Riverview Farm because it has a really nice view of the Connecticut River. I gave Dillon the option of going hiking or going to pick fruit & she chose picking fruit. So here are some pictures of our day.

Recent questions

"Would race cars be quieter if they had mufflers?" I'm wondering how on earth she knows what a muffler IS let alone what it does.

"Is that dog poop?" Said regarding the hushpuppies that were part of dinner last night. Also said as she reached out to pick it up. I almost choked I was laughing so hard!

We went yesterday to pick fruit- raspberries, blueberries and apples. We had a wonderful time & I took some great pictures that I'll try to post later on. The apple pie I made wasn't bad, either!

Question of the morning

"Why do people have tailbones if they don't have tails?"

Good question.

New Camera!

I finally have a new camera! Here's a couple of pictures that I took yesterday.















That's a lizard she's holding. We thought it was a worm when we saw it this morning, but she excitedly informed me it had legs. She, of course, reached right down to pick it up. Since it was pretty cool this morning, the lizard wasn't moving all that fast, so she got to hold it for a little while. In this picture, the lizard has both of it's front legs on her finger, which she thought was just the coolest thing ever.

Almost as cool as these- her construction trucks. Not a great picture- it was taken with the old, not too good camera. She loves these things, along with the 2 videos of Caterpillar ("Cat") machines that were lent to us from a friend. Much like with the dinosaurs, I've learned far more about construction trucks than I ever felt the need to know. I'm not sure who will learn more from homeschooling!

Compassion at it's best

me: "What are you doing, honey?"
Dillon: "I'm putting leaves over the slugs so the wind doesn't make them cold."

Being 3 1/2...

is a challenging thing, I think. Seems like there are leaps and bounds in some areas- she's doing all this "reading" all on her own now. She's using phrases from books in everyday conversation, as in "there's a plane exclaimed the cat!" one day when she was pretending to be a cat and saw a plane. The questions are as prolific as ever, but are getting more complex. But at the same time, any upset results in hysterical screaming- or if it happens to be Peaches doing the upsetting, she hits or kicks at Peaches. For a kid who has absolutely no problem with using words to express herself any other time, she seems to have lost all ability to do so when upset about something. I've been buying cheese in these individually wrapped "sticks." We've had square ones and round ones. I made the mistake of buying the square ones at the last grocery store visit when she had secretly decided that the round ones were her favorite. Almost every morning since I bought groceries, she has spent several minutes crying over the fact that I got the wrong stick cheese. Ugh.

It'll pass, I know. Please let it be sooner versus later.

"What a great dog!"

That's been the consensus thus far from those that have met Peaches. And she really is. For as much as we loved Satchmo, he was difficult. He couldn't be in public because he'd bite anyone that tried to touch him. He couldn't be out when people were around since he couldn't stop barking whenever anyone would sit or stand. Peaches, on the other hand, is a little nervous around someone new, but warms up quickly and will let anyone pet her. She perks up and stands guard when someone comes in the driveway, but then relaxes once we've let her know it's OK. She loves kids and does her best to keep up with them, even when they scatter in different directions. She was overjoyed when Dillon got up this morning, jumping around and running down the hall. It was the happiest and most playful she's been yet. Being a mostly outside dog for the last few months, she just seems to understand that outside is where she is to relieve herself. She also doesn't seem to have developed a taste for people food, which is excellent. Even if Satchmo hadn't eaten all the ham that caused his death, he was really agressive in trying to get food- often getting underfoot when I was cooking or trying to steal food from Dillon. Hopefully, we can keep her from developing a taste for it. While we probably wouldn't have gotten a dog right now if it hadn't been for Dillon's love of dogs, I'm really glad we have. She really is a great dog.

Peaches

Is she REALLY my dog?

Yep, she's really your dog, Dillon.

The first evening was a little stressful with Peaches nervously chewing on everything and Dillon alternately being hysterically happy, laughing and screaming crying. The excitement of having a dog of her very own was just so much. Yesterday was better, Peaches did a lot less chewing and has already seemed to bond with us some, Dillon in particular. She wants to know where Dillon is at all times and will just sit down and subject herself to the various pokes and pets and tickles by various stuffed animals that Dillon seems compelled to do to her. To Dillon's credit, she is very gentle with her and has only required a little guidance of dog body language ("When she moves her face away, that means she wants a little space." "But I don't want to give her space, I want to love on her!") Last night they layed on the floor while Dillon fed her dog food piece by piece. Poor dog can't get a nap in for anything since Dillon can't leave her alone long enough. On the other hand, the only place she'd sleep last night was on the bed with Dillon. For her part, Dillon's in love and tells Peaches that regularly- "I just love you so much, Peaches!" So far, she's a great dog and it feel like a good match.

Pictures at last

For whatever reason, my computer finally decided to recognize the digital camera card from our replacement digital camera. So, I'm finally able to post some recent pictures.

A quick update first- I went to the midwife on tuesday. Dave and Dillon were both able to join me- this being the first time Dillon has gotten to go. We heard the heartbeat again with no problem at all; Dillon wasas fascinated by the cool dollhouse in the office as she was hearing the heartbeat. We are scheduled for an ultrasound on September 5 at 1:15, then my next appointment is the 7th at 10:00. Dave will be on vacation, so will be able to go to the ultrasound. I'm planning on showing Dillon the video of one of her ultrasounds so she'll know what to expect.

Went to a friend's house today. She's decided she's through having kids and was wanting to get rid of all her cloth diapers. I brought home 2 rubbermaid containers full of diapers today as well as a new diaper pail. This on top of diapers and covers (32 items, some diapers, some covers) that I bought (for REALLY cheap) from a friend a few weeks ago. We are now fully stocked with cloth diapers of all sizes, for alost no money at all. I love hand me downs!

OK- the pictures- some are of a trip to a county fair that a friend of mine and her daughter Kristi (who does a good bit of babysitting for us) took Dillon on last friday while I worked. They said she had a great time- and given her love of animals, I have no doubt she did. The water picture is of a little swimming spot that is walking distance from our house. We went there twice last weekend. The water is really cold, but it didn't stop Dillon from wading right in, pretending to be a dog swimming (no surprise there!)

updates at last!

I thought I'd take a minute and try to post some updates. Life has been crazy lately- well for the last 15 weeks or so anyway...

Most everyone knows now, but just so it's in here somewhere, I'm now 15 and a few days pregnant. The first trimester was tough. I was so profoundly exhausted that there were a lot of things that got neglected during that time. I wasn't terribly nauseated, but didn't have much of an appetite. I did my best to eat nonetheless. I am finally feeling better and have been able to start exercising again. I even dug out the old heavier duty stroller for Dillon and I to use to go on some walks. With gas almost $3 a gallon here, it seems like a good choice.

Our trip to Little Rock was enjoyable in many ways, though the actual travel part was not. It took us 15 hours to get there because of a flight delay and a missed connection. Then there was the "lost" bag. I'm still dealing with that one.

We've otherwise been enjoying summer a great deal. We started swimming lessons, then dropped out because somewhere about the 4th class, Dillon stumbled while in the water and her face went in. It freaked her out so badly that she would not get in anymore. After 4 classes spent sitting at the side of the pool with her steadfastly refusing to get in, we gave up. I wasn't going to force her to get in, so I didn't see any point in continuing to go. We have gone to the community pool a couple of times and she loved it. It started at zero depth and very gradually gets deeper, so she has a lot of control over how deep she goes.

Last week we went to see that was in Andover for a conference. There happened to be a pond there full of bullfrogs. It was really interesting because there were many tadpoles in the process of turning into frogs and they were all basking in the sun in the really shallow water. Dillon was enthralled. There happened to be a net there, so we caught a couple of different ones so she could touch them. We have spent lots of time talking about amphibians since then- how they start out like fish, breathing only water, then develop the ability to breath air as they turn into frogs. It's way better than learning the ABC's in her book.

In animal news, we are going next saturday to pick up the newest addition to our family. Her name currently is Peaches, though I'm not sure we'll keep it. She's about a year- 18 months old and is quite simply a mutt. A cute one at that. She's about 25 pounds, so just the perfect size. Dillon doesn't know we're getting her and won't be told until the actual pick up time. I simply cannot take that many more questions about when something is going to happen. Already the baby coming is sooooo far away. In any case, she will be beside herself with happiness to have a dog of her own. Maybe then we can stop stalking all the dogs we see in public just for the chance to pet them....

Once again, out of the mouths....

At the grocery store yesterday...

D (loudly): "Did you see that big, FAT man?"
W (MUCH more quietly):"Yes, he was a big man, but people don't really like for other people to tell them they are fat. It would be better to just say he was big."
D: "Even if he really was fat, too?"
W: "Yes, even if he was fat, too."

Good thing I don't embarrass easily, though this wasn't quite as bad as they time she asked me, one by one, if every man on the aisle we were on had a penis.

Questions of the day

"What would happen if I didn't have a head?"

"What would happen if nostrils could drive?"

worms and dirt

We spent a little time outdoors this morning, in spite of the less than springtime temperatures out there. It's supposed to be a high in the upper 50's today, which is not terrible if the sun is out. Right now it is out intermittently, but only for short periods and the wind is blowing. In any case, Dillon was fascinated with some bugs this morning. Given the cool temp, they weren't moving very fast, so I showed her how to gently poke them with a stick to get them to move. Then she decided she wanted to find some worms, so we got a small spade and a bucket out to dig for worms. We found 3 before she got bored with it and wanted to move on to simply collecting things. She's funny- most of the time she hates having her hands dirty- finger painting gets a serious "I think not!" look- yet put her outside in the dirt and she wants to dig with her hands and pick up worms. Of course, she also smears it all over her face. We had a good time- I love watching her being so interested in the outdoors.

The things that daddy teaches

"Put your nose on this!"

He's always picking at her saying this. One morning while they were at breakfast while I was working, he was picking on her and she told him "put your nose on this!"

Bat seed?

A conversation this morning:

D: I'm putting some bat seed up here because that's what bats eat (pretends to spread seed on the kitchen counter).
W: Bat seed?
D: Yes, birds eat bird seed, bats eat bat seed.

Can't really argue with that logic.

A big adventure

Wednesday, Dillon & I went on a big adventure. She had her 3 year pediatrician visit at the hospital. I've been riding the bus quite a bit when I go up to the hospital since it's free, our bus system is really nice and it's a total of 30 minutes I get to read a magazine while someone else drives. As an added bonus, not one person asks me why the whole time! Anyway, Dillon has seen the bus many times and has heard me talking about it, and so has been asking to ride the bus. I decided that this would be a great time to do it. So, we rode the bus yesterday. She loved it! Everyone that got on the bus got asked "Riding the bus is fun isn't it?!" with a big smile. It wasn't a big crowd on the bus, so several smiled at her and talked to her. She got to see the big construction vehicles along the way. Once we got to the hospital, she got to play with all the big toys in the waiting room at the pediatric clinic. The visit went very well, with Dillon, true to tradition, crying the entire time the nurse was in the room, then giggling everytime the PA tried to touch her. As for the vital stats- she's just shy of 30 lbs (I thought she was more than that....) and around 37 inches. That puts her at 34th percentile for weight and 40th for height. We had to wait a few minutes for the bus back, so we watched the groundskeepers put out mulch. Dillon, of course, had a million comments and questions about this. Fortunately, the guy was amused when she informed him he was doing it wrong, that he was supposed to have the rake turned around the other way.

All told, she loved it and wants to do it again.

Another GI bug?!

Poor Dillon's been throwing up most of the day. She was acting really sad this morning, wanting to be held a lot. She kept saying that her tummy didn't hurt and told me not to ask her if she was going to throw up. Then all of the sudden, up it came. All of it. Bless her heart. She seems to feel better now, but we'll see how tonight goes. I feel bad for her- that's like twice in 8 days.

Cooking

I've found that one of the things I really enjoy doing with Dillon is cooking. It's given us the occasion to talk about where food comes from, what good food is and what junk food is. While I've never really understood a heavy reliance on fast food, I read something about a year ago about french fries being the "vegetable" most offered to toddlers. Certainly as she gets older, I've have less influence over what she eats, but I'm hoping that talking about it will help her make better decisions in the future.


Anyway, for the last several nights, I've been able to get her involved with fixing dinner instead of begging the watch a movie the entire time. We've had lots of mushrooms for dinner since they can be cut with a knife that's not sharp. I've also found that she's pretty safe with a hot pot or pan on the stove- she's touched them enough times noe that I' can just tell her they are hot & she's VERY careful. So last night, she was insistent that she wanted to cook on the stove like I was. The burner had to be on because she wanted there to be steam. So, I put a little water in the pot and let her make soup.

So, what's she making?



Why, it's grape carrot noodle soup, course. After she decided they were done, she put them in the fridge to cool off, then ate the grapes as part of her dinner.

What's going on around here....

I keep trying to get here to post and things keep coming up. So I'll run down the highlights.

A GI bug - last night at 9:00 Dillon said her stomach hurt and she wanted to hold a towel since she felt like she might throw up. Sure enough, a few minutes later, EVERYTHING came up. And came up. And came up. Bless her heart, she was miserable. She threw up a little every hour or so during the night, but nothing like the original occurence. She drank some water this morning, then threw it up. She fell asleep on her bed a little before noon & has now been asleep for about an hour an a half. Poor baby.

Dave's herniated disk- 2 + weeks ago he herniated a disk in his lower back. He's slowly getting better, though sitting for 30 hours working diligently on his final project for his class didn't help it.

Paperwork for the sleep study has arrived. It has to be filled out, then they will call with his appointment. Of course it arrived in the midst of finals and now 3 long days working in the OR. I may have to help him fill it out so he can get this sleep apnea addressed.

I started working for the Muscular Dystrophy Association clinic at the hospital doing case management work. They have several clinics per year that I'll need to go to, but the rest of the work can be done mostly from home. It'll be interesting work & will be a bit of a learning curve not only figuring out resources, but also figuring out how to make this work being at home. Dillon is less than cooperative with playing on her own to give me computer time- or time to make phone calls.

It snowed yesterday. Only about an inch, but that's an inch too much in my opinion. It's March. It's almost my birthday. It isn't supposed to still be this cold- or snowing- this close to my birthday. I am so over winter. The birds are starting to come back & we're starting to hear them singing - or hammering on trees, which does help. It would help more if it were sunny and 8o degrees.

Dave is no longer Dad or Daddy. He's almost always David now. So is every father in every book we read- as in "Why is that boy's David not holding him?"

Dillon's a little perplexed by the fact that her friend Lydia now goes to school 2 days a week like her David does. Lydia's mom will go back to work in July, so Lydia has started easing into daycare, so there's been a couple of times that Lydia's not been somewhere we normally see her. I think Dillon's really going to miss Lydia when she's in daycare full time. I may have to see if I can go pick her up early occasionally so they can play together.

I had to take Dillon with me to teach class last night. All said, she was very well behaved and entertained everyone with summersaults, dancing and handing out pretzels. Everyone was really nice to help entertain her while I answered individual questions after the lecture part was done. When we first got there she asked "What are all those people of different sizes doing?"

Rarely a dull moment around here. I wouldn't mind a few sometimes.

Grocery stores

It's happened twice now- compliments in the grocery store. Today, we were in line & Dillon wanted to go over to an area that she's gotten to play the last couple of weeks as I checked out. We were in a different line today, too far away from that area. Of course, she got upset as I stopped her from going where she wanted to go. I tried putting her in the cart, which, of course just escalated her upsetness. Then I remembered what actually works when she's upset like this- verbalize what she's feeling. I whispered in her ear "You're upset because you want to go over there and I won't let you." Instantly calmer- "Yeah." "And you want me to put you down so you can go." Calmer still- "Yeah" Then I explained in simple terms that it wasn't safe for her to be that far from me in the grocery store, etc. All this happened in just a minute or so with the end result being her sitting calmly in the cart seat. The lady behind me told me that she wished she knew what I was saying. I was a little surprised, since you just expect everyone to be unforgiving of a melting down child. I asked her why & she said "Because it's working." I just smiled and said that we talk a lot. A very similar situation happened a few weeks ago with someone else telling that I handled an upset Dillon really well. I just wish it was the first thing I thought to do instead of something I have to remember. Often it is, but not always.

It's so interesting, these random compliments. You really do expect everyone to be unforgiving. Parenthood is such a tough thing and society expects kids to be seen and not heard- especially in public places. So for someone to compliment you on your handling of child's very realistic, but not publically desirable behavior is refreshing to say the least. It also really makes your day.

An honest question

"Does everyone know I'm cute in this?!"

:)

The demise of naptime?

Please, no, say it isn't so.......

Oh but I think it may be happening. In fact, it seems like it's the demise of sleep in general. Not only did she not take a nap today, she wouldn't go to sleep early. So here it is, 9:00pm, I'm craving total quiet and some personal space and getting neither. Her bony little behind is parked on my leg shifting around, I'm sure putting a tailbone-shaped bruise there. I'm being asked questions like "Why is Dillon not sleeping? Is it because I'm three?" "What would happen if I were 2?" What would happen if I were purple? What would happen if I were a blue dog? What would happen if I were a pink cat?" while she scribbles on a little piece of paper.

Ugh.

Out of the mouths of babes...

I asked Dillon to let Dave put her pajama shirt on last night so I could finish getting ready for bed.
Dillon: "No, I don't like Daddy." (Nevermind that he'd been the favorite all day long)
Me: "Why do you not like Daddy?"
Dillon: "Cause he says words I'm not supposed to say."

Yes he does. And was present for this conversation. Hehehe.

On a different note, it turns out that the pileated woodpecker is female and is probably building a nest. Our neighbor says that they start nesting in March, so we may get to watch baby pileated woodpeckers!

Our backyard visitor

Remember the tree the fell in the woods behind our house? The culprit that caused the inital damage to the tree is back- a pileated woodpecker. He (or she) has been camped out there for hours at a time hammering away at this tree for the last 2 days. It's really interesting to watch since it's such a large bird. It must be 18 inches tall. Our neighbors are bird watchers & in conversation with them last summer, they had mentioned how they'd like to see a pileated woodpecker. So, I called them yesterday to come see it. They were so excited. Dillon's had a good time watching it too, especially the bright red head. She keeps asking what it's doing. Thankfully, it's not a particularly noisy woodpecker like the ones that'll be out in full force this spring and summer.

Happy 3rd Birthday!

I had hoped to post this last night after all of the birthday festivities were said and done, but it didn't really work out that way. On Wednesday she got to open some presents and spent lots of time opening the flaps and reading the book from Randy & Tawni, and fed various items to alligator, bat and dragon from the tea set Mimi sent. Since Dave worked all day Wednesday and got home only about 1/2 an hour before I left to go teach class Wednesday night, we decided to do Dillon's birthday celebration on Thursday. I also decided to go the route of a very small birthday party in lieu of a larger one that would've been completely overwhelming to Dillon. So, on Thursday morning, Lydia and Emma and their mothers came over to play. We had pizza for lunch and small individual cakes so that Dillon could blow out candles. She got a green rubber squishy frog and a frog sticker book from Lydia and a Little People dinosaur set from Emma. Lydia found the tea set and had a ball with it. Dillon was pretty happy to go along provided she got to share her tea with her frog (and that he didn't have to leave her clutches). They all fought over who got to play with the dinosuar egg from Emma. Overall, a fun time was had by all, though my head was ringing with the squeals and screams of 3 little girls by the end of it all.

Naptime, of course, was not going to happen, so, thinking she'd go to bed early, we gave her her presents late afternoon and had our little celebration. She got squishy dinosaurs from Nana and a dragon costume from Mom & Dad. She wore the costume for a while, then wanted to Dave to take it off, explaining "I like it, I just want it off right now." Fair enough. I think Dave & I could've taken a walk and she'd been fine, she was so enthralled with all her new toys. This made winding down for bed quite the challenge. But, she eventually did and didn't stir again for several hours. At 3 am, she wanted stegosauraus so she could play with him ("but I'll let dimetradon sleep"). I let her have stegasaurus, but she had to be quiet. She was and was actually asleep again before I was. This morning she had already turned on the lights, found dimetradon and was looking for stegasuarus when she called out to me.

So all said and done, it seems like it was a good birthday for her. I thought I'd do what I did last year and do a run down of likes & dislikes.

Likes: Things that fly, though birds are the least interesting to her- mostly planes, flying horses, flying dragons, bats, and helicopters; dinosaurs- she knows several by name; helping me cook- she can safely stir something heating on the stove; nursing- though sometimes she forgets to ask & I forget to offer; going to breakfast and the Montshire with Dad; reading books- especially if the book involves any of her other favorite things; going to the grocery store with me- and getting to walk instead of ride in the cart; being tickled; cutting paper with scissors; cuddling with Mom and Dad; bathtime

Dislikes: Crowds; noisy places; staying in the nursery at church without me (seems like I wrote that last year...); snowshoes (not that it matters this year given how little snow we've had); having her hair brushed (though the discovery of "tangle monsters" has helped)

Could take it or leave it: painting; coloring with crayons; being a ballerina is pretty much limited to when we're at Lydia's house and there is a lot of ballet stuff around- and even then the interest is brief

I'm finding it to be such a fun age because she can really articulate what she's learning and what she's interested in. I enjoy taking her interests and expanding on them- for example, one day we took a big piece of paper and taped it to the fridge. On it we drew a big tree with a place for bats to sleep and some birds' nest for the 2 birds she wanted me to draw. She also wanted a place for dragon to land, so we made a grassy spot. We also made a paper mache birds nest. The librarian knows that when we come in, I'll have a topic for looks that we're looking for. This time is was dinosaurs and we came home with 5 dinosaur books. Although she can definitely be more vocal when she disagrees with something, I also find that it's so much easier to reason with her now. I love hearing what comes out of her mouth, though I'll also admit that the constant microanalysis ("Why did the dinosaur exhale just then?") a little exhausting some days. She's a really happy kid that smiles and giggles a lot. I think we'll keep her :)

Oh, OK

Conversation last night:

Dillon: "what's that red thing on your plate?"
W: "A beet- you want to try it?"
D: "Yes"
A few minutes later
W: "Did you try your beet?"
D: "No, I don't like it."
W: "How do you know?"
D: "'Cause I'm a kid and kids don't like beets."

An important skill

Yesterday afternoon we found ourselves in need of some time out of the house. All of us. So, we went to a local Mexican restaurant for an early dinner. Dillon, being excited at the not so often occasion of eating in a restaurant was very excited. Even more so when she discovered the opportunity to practice a new skill she has- blowing out candles. She went from booth to booth, crawling up into the bench to oh-so-carefully blow out each candle. There weren't really many other people in the restaurant and she didn't go to any tables that were occupied, so we let her do her thing. She was quite proud of herself. We got a chuckle out of it. I'm sure the staff at the restaurant were thrilled to have to re-light all the candles, but hey, she could've been smearing food on the walls.

Snowman

We finally had wet enough snow to make a snowman, so that's what we did yesterday morning. Our neighbor gave us a snowman kit with all the buttons, hat, pipe, etc. in it- but no, not the snow as someone asked me. Dillon kept wanting to climb on the snowman, so there was a lot of explaining that the snowman couldn't hold her up. But all told, we had a good time and are now the proud owners of a pretty cool looking snowman. We did add arms after the picture was taken. Afterall, there are lots of little branches laying around from the large tree falling and snowmen must have arms!

Almost there...

She pooped on the toilet! She's using the big toilet without the toilet seat insert! She's used the toilet at someone else's house! She's not had an accident in 2 weeks. All that's left now is nighttime. I think that may be a while, but she could surprise me.

The pit

I remembered a funny story this morning from a couple of weeks ago. We were at gymnastics. At the end of class the kids can get into this big pit full of foam blocks. I asked Dillon if she was ready to get into the pit. She asked me "The pit, but not the arm pit?" I had to laugh, which made her laugh and assure her that it was not an armpit. Granted, the foam is pretty smelly, but not really armpit smelly. The instructor thought it was funny, too and said that no one has ever asked that before. :)

Pictures

Here's some pictures of the tree that fell. We're estimating that the part on the ground is around 60 feet and the part still standing is around 25 feet. Big tree! There's alo a picture of Dillon in her beloved flying horse costume. It's getting small, so she can't wear the hat very long before it gets uncomfortable. That's her equally beloved penguin she's holding.

Hide and Seek

Dillon: "Let's play Hide and Seek"

Mom or Dad: "OK, go hide."

Dillon: (hiding in plain sight on her bed with the door closed, giggling)

Mom or Dad: "Where is Dillon?"

Dillon: "I'm in here hiding on the bed!!! Come find me!!!"

The logic of a child

I just opened the fridge to find 2 sanding pads in there. They are in there with the 2 empty cups of applesauce that were placed in there by Dillon & Lydia on thursday. Why? They are birthday cakes because friday was Lydia birthday, so they had pretend birthday cakes. That explains the applesause cups anyway. I'm not sure about the sanding pads- it was done while I wasn't here. I'll have to ask her because the answer will be interesting.

She's also taken to rationalizing things. She'll see a picture of a flying horse, so that means she needs to watch the flying horse movie that night (aka Disney's original Fantasia). Or she'll see a picture of a lion or zebra, so that means we need to watch Madagascar that night.

A little under an hour ago, a rather large tree fell behind our house. A small storm came through, mostly just strong winds, but this tree was already damaged by pileated woodpeckers, so there were some big holes in it. Most of the tree is not really on our property, but some is including all of the branches. It's quite a mess back there. I'll have to take a picture and post it. It's kind of interesting to see the woodpecker holes from this perspective, too, though.

By George...

I think she's got it! We were home all day with the exception of about an hour and a half for gymnastics. She used the toilet several times throughout the day- no accidents whatsoever. Even went diaperless to gymnastics. About half the time I asked her if she needed to go and the other half she told me she needed to go. She even went a couple of times and told me afterward. Very excitedly, I might add. She's as proud of herself as we are of her.

There are still a couple of steps to go before I'd consider her fully potty trained, but hey, we'll get there. Namely, she's got to conquer the fear of falling into the big toilet- even when there's a smaller kiddie insert thing on top. I'm not pushing it. Where we are now only happened when I stopped asking her if she wanted to pee on the toilet all the time. The more I asked, the more resistant she was. Maybe I'm a tad lazy, but I have to admit, I prefer this method of waiting until she can pretty much do it herself, then just being the support staff. I have a couple of friends that have been potty training for months and it just seems tiresome for everyone involved. My opinion, of course. In any case, I think she's well on her way to being potty trained!

The questions are evolving...

Now one of the more popular ones is "What's she/he/it NOT doing now?"

How on earth do you answer that?

"I'm not sure honey, maybe you can tell me" is the best I've come up with so far.

Potty count- twice yesterday- once all by herself, of which she was quite proud.

A compliment

On sunday, we went to the first birthday party for one of Dave's anesthesia classmates. It was from 1-3, which is right at Dillon's naptime. As it happened, she woke up about an hour and a half early that morning. Several times throughout the party, Dillon would become quite indignant that one of the babies that were there (all around a year old) would come up and take a toy from her. She would come to me and express just how offended she was at how "that little boy didn't ask- he's SUPPOSED to ASK!" It was tough for her to understand that they were just learning how to share things and could talk yet to ask for things. So, her solution was two-fold. First, she would take the toy she wanted to play with to a chair out of the reach of the babies- pretty good, I thought. Second, she'd go grab a piece of a cookie off the table. The food was out of the reach of the little ones but just perfect for Dillon's reach. I think she must've eaten 3 cookies while we were there. She was very excited for Clayton to open his books we got him. Much more than he was, so she opened them for him and showed them to him. When that didn't get the desired response, she took them to his mom, who was appropriately excited, which thrilled Dillon. She was started to get really tired and having more trouble with coping with the babies, so we were loading up to go home, at which point she just absolutely melted down. We made it home and she took a much needed 3 hour nap. Interestingly, though, on Monday, one of Dave's other anesthesia classmates that was there made a point to let Dave know how well behaved they thought Dillon was and that she did a great job of being gentle and sharing with the babies! Wow- perspective. It isn't that I thought she was not being well behaved- she was- I guess I just recoginzed it as more of a struggle for her that it must've appeared. In any case, it was a nice compliment.

And as for the potty chair use-- twice yesterday- none today so far, but we had to be out of the house for a while this morning, which throws her off. We only have one brief place to go tomorrow, then nowhere thursday, so she'll have plenty of opportunity to get the hang of this!

Woo hoo!

We had a success with the potty chair tonight! We borrowed one from Dillon's friend Emma since she's finished with it. Thus far it had been used only as a stepstool, but over the last couple of days she's been putting her various animals on it. Tonight, she said something about needing to pee. I offered the toilet or a diaper, both of which she refused. A little while later I heard her in the bathroom and walked in to find her sitting on the potty seat. She requested that I read her a book, gave me a little smile and peed! No telling how she'll feel about it tomorrow, but tonight, that's one less diaper I have to wash!

Why?

Are we ever in the why stage! I should count, but I'd be willing to bet she asks "why?" 200 times a day. While I understand it's a stage and it's normal and it'll pass and blah, blah, blah, I'll also admit that it is exhausting. She will absolutely disect an event- why did he open his eyes, why did he close his eyes, why did he open his mouth, why did he show his teeth, why was he standing, why did he sit down, why did he make that microscopic movement to the left when the sun was shining over his right shoulder during the last leap year? The only time I've ever been so profoundly at a loss for answers was when she was a newborn! I must say the words "I don't know" for at least 100 of those questions each day. Sometimes the questions are just so out there that there simply isn't an answer- why is that the ground, why is that a rock, that kind of thing. Then there are the ones that are kind of fun because you get to see her learning something- do planes flap their wings, how can helicopters fly when they don't have wings, why is the sun hot, why to animals on movies use their front feet for hands when real animals don't do that?

We really do try not to say "Stop asking why!" because we do want her to ask why, and also, really, the reply would just be "why?" So there are a lot of "that's just the way it is" answers. So many, in fact, that if I try to pre-empt some of the questions by asking them of her, she'll say "It just is!" regardless of the whether that makes sense or not.

We played outside for a while today. We got her some snowshoes this year. She put them on a few weeks ago, then promptly fell down. Of course, that association stuck and she has steadfastly refused to put the on. The snow is now deep enough that walking around on it really is easier with snowshoes on. No amount of asking and pointing out that she was falling down without the snowshoes on was going to persuade her to put those things on today until I said that we could pretend that they were ice skates. Suddenly she was interested. I ran with it and quickly put them on her. She got the hang of it pretty quickly and we had a good time walking around the yard. She still fell a couple of times, but so did I. She was smiling and seemed to be proud of herself, so we'll see how it goes the next time I mention them.

We went to eat Mexican food tonight. It wasn't very crowded in the restaurant & there are some chairs with a sun and moon painted on them that she wanted to see. We let her walk the few feet over to the chairs to look at them, then she came right back. A few minutes later, they seated some pople at that table. She was highly offended that they would even think about letting someone sit in her chairs. We had to do a little talking to convince her that they belonged to the restaurant and that the poeple could sit there. She seemed to buy it, but they got dirty looks every time she thought of it. Right up until the chocolate desert arrived. This, of course, made those chairs suddenly very unimportant. Funny how chocolate does that!