Fun in the sun

It was another incredibly beautiful day today, and I am feeling so much better. Alexa and I went to the park and she did so many things that help her leg strenth and balance.


This is Alexa signing "help".
She also signed bath today without prompting which was really great so of course I gave her a bath in the middle of the afternoon. She needed it anyway - she had dirt and playground bark all over her and in her hair.
My friend Dana mentioned in her blog about teaching her son that he can choose to have a good day or a bad day. I am thinking this is something we can all learn to do. It is true that some things are beyond our control, but we do have control over our attitude and that makes all the difference in the world. Today was a good day!

Sickness, knitting..

I don't have much to offer for the past couple of days. We did get a nice surprise visit from this cutie, Brendan, his sister Marissa, and their mom Lisa. Other than that we have been sick. David actually stayed home from work yesterday he was feeling so bad and I wasn't feeling so well myself. We thought Alexa was sick too since she slept in until 10 in the morning and then took a three hour nap. Then she stayed up until 1:30 in the morning. She is wide awake and happy this morning and on her way to school.
Other than that I am still knitting. A pair of socks for David. My first Fair Isle knitting (where you are carrying two yarns at once) This is a bit challenging but a good learning opportunity. I am also making a short sleeved sweater knit from the top down in the round - so no seams to sew up which is great. I learned two useful knitting expressions from my knitting friend Julie. A project that you have ripped out completely is called frogged, because you rip-it rip-it rip-it. And if you just unknit a little bit it is called tinking. (knit spelled backward) A project that came out badly is an UGH - this is a label on the Ravelry knitting site.

Alexa goofing around

We played outside Saturday in the backyard. So much fun, the hose, the ball, her broom etc. David actually did participate in the climbing competition yesterday, and while he did not make it to the finals, he did win prizes for participation, a t-shirt, chalk ball and chalk bag. I feel like I am getting sick today with a cold, so I am drinking echinacea tea and taking Zicam. I have high hopes for the Zicam. It is the only product on the market that has actually proven to reduce length and severity of cold symptoms and is allowed to advertise so on the box. Alexa and I are going to a funeral in Eugene tomorrow. My friend Sally's husband Harry passed away last week. Sally is the lady who taught Carleen and I to knit which as it turns out I love to do.

Alexa loves my gloves

I know this isn't a great picture, but Alexa was carrying around the gloves which I showed yesterday and her doll and giving them both hugs.

The good news from the doctor is that Alexa's nose is fine. No damage to her septum. Other than that - I am glad it is Friday, but David is planning on attending a rock climbing competition tomorrow, so he won't be able to take care of Alexa to give me some sanity time. (He is not competing, just going to watch) He suggested that I go to Eugene to see Penny, but unfortunately that is even less restful since there are many new things for her to get into and lots of puzzles, crayons, card games etc in the toybox. This is a lot of things for me to pick up. So - I think I will stay home.

Pictures of the nose.

Tried to get a picture of the nose. You can see what looks like a shadow on the side of her nose near the eye.

She wasn't really in the mood to pose for me.

Busy Days.

We have had a busy few days here, and I haven't been blogging as regularly or taking pictures as often as I was. Here are my finally finished Twisted Stitch Gauntlets which are pretty but were a huge pain to knit. I don't think I will knit another pair of gloves for a long time and if I do they will be fingerless! Alexa's nose is looking much better. She has a bit of a bruise on the nose next to her eye and a scratch accross the top of her nose. We will see the doc tomorrow to make sure her septum is OK.
My orthopedic appointment on Tuesday was sort of inconclusive again. The x-ray shows that there is bone formed accross the joint, but the Dr. isn't sure if it is strong bone or not. So I am going to wean myself out of the cast boot over the next two months very slowly.
Alexa had occupational therapy yesterday, and we have physical therapy today. Her teacher at school just called and said that Alexa is progressing well enough that she is ready to move to a new class that meets for 2 hours instead of 90 minutes. She will go Monday and Thursday afternoons from 1:30 to 3:30 starting March 3.
We have been having some trouble getting Alexa to sleep the past few days. She was up until well after midnight last night, and she had no nap yesterday. She just wiggles and squirms around in the bed. We tried to hold her still, but you can't really hold a fighting three year old still for a long time. She gets so angry and screams at us.
She also got into the bathroom yesterday and transferred all of the toilet water to the floor, her stuffed dog, and her clothes. I was really really at the end of my rope by the time David got home. Anyway-today has to be better.

Alexa's nose

Tonight Alexa tripped and fell into the piano bench hitting the bridge of her nose. She got a bloody nose and cried and cried. My daughter is normally a really tough kid. When she got the goose egg last week she only cried for a minute or two, but tonight she would calm down for a minute and then start crying again, so I knew she was really hurt. I decided we should go to urgent care, so we headed out to the one at the hospital where she was seen once before, but on the way I called the office of our regular doctor and left a message for the on call doctor. We got to the urgent care place while waiting for a call back, so we went in only to be told that the pediatric clinic was closed, and the immediate care clinic didn't see patients under 12. The on call doctor called back as we got back in the van and said to come over to the office and he would see us there. WONDERFUL. They were waiting at the door for us and looked at her right away. Alexa definately understood when he said he was going to look at her nose because she started fighting to get away and screaming. I had to hold her down so the doc could look up her nose and make sure there were no hematomas which fortunately there weren't. We were sent home with instructions to ice it for 20 minutes every three hours. (Not in the night fortunately) So here is David holding an ice bag on her nose while she watches her Curious George DVD. I can't believe she allowed us to do this! We have to go see the doctor again in 3 days when the swelling is down to make sure her septum hasn't been "deflected". I keep looking at her and it seems like her nose is a little crooked right now. I really really hope that is just the swelling.

Playgroup

We had our first playgroup today in a couple of months and it was a lot of fun with near record attendance. Carleen, Tayler and Reese came up. Playgroup was at Chet's house.
I snuck a picture of Tayler in, she was feeling camera shy.

Oops-got this picture in twice. Jeannie and Lane and Josh

Martha and her new baby Zach, and the back of Josh.
Carleen and Reese.
Zooey
Josh played the harmonica for us.
Also present but unphotographed - Shereen, Lissy and Alan, Shelley, Jessica and her sister (whose name I don't know) and me of course. We had a very nice time and received a call that Andrea had her baby this morning, a boy - but I didn't get any other details except that it was a fairly short labor of about 4 hours.

I finished another old project.

I finally finished this sweater thing AGAIN. David got me the yarn for it over a year ago, and I made what I thought was the appropriate size, but it didn't look flattering, so I took it all out and was too discouraged to start again for a long time. Finally I got motivated again by looking at picture of other people's finished vests on the Ravelry website and started again. Another beautiful day and we went for Japanese food after meeting. Yummy. DH ate Octopus sushi and reports that it was not rubbery at all. I prefer the fancy sushi rolls with cooked fish in them. Alexa loved the soba noodles and hoovered them in.

Beautiful Weather

We have enjoyed several days in a row of lovely weather with temperatures approaching 60 degrees. This means we got to go to the park which Alexa loves. She swings for as long as we are willing to let her. Even the bike rack thing is great fun. It was warm enough to take off our coats for a bit. There were some other kids there, so Alexa chased one little boy around for a while and he let her play with his soccer ball.
Alexa and DH went to the park today for a while and mommy enjoyed some alone time. Then David went climbing, and now he is at Home Depot getting a piece of plywood and a 2X8 to act as a ramp and a wide balance beam for Alexa to practice on.

The bump on the noggin.

Yesterday at PT we put a little stuffed animal in Alexa's dress like this so she could use both hands to hold on the Elizabeth while traversing the balance beam things. Today, she is trying to put her little stuffed animals in her shirt again, kind of cute.
So this is the bruise from the bump yesterday. It looks so much better already. I am amazed at how quickly she heals.
And this is a sweater that I made her last year. I put it on her today and it is too small unfortunately, but I really like this pattern and the yarn.
One funny thing. The other night Alexa got into our shower and turned the water on. She made the funniest sound. She didn't get very wet fortunately since most of the water went over her head.

Valentine's Day

Here is Alexa in her Valentine's Day dress. It was sunny and beautiful here today. We went to Alexa's first physical therapy appointment today. She went accross some "balance beams" and up some steps to put some stuffed toys in a bin.


At the end Alexa and mommy got to swing on a wide bench swing. Then while I was talking to the therapist, Alexa tripped and banged her head on a hard metal part on the swing and got a big goose-egg on her forehead. It was scary looking - an area about 1 inch in diameter swelled 1/4 inch out. I called the doctor just in case, but they said as long as she wasn't exhibiting excessive drowsiness or personality changes that she was probably OK.
Tonight I made a special Valentines Day dinner for us. David and I had crab legs, asparagus with cheese sauce and Ceasar salad. Carrot Cake with cream chees frosting for dessert. Alexa had macaroni and cheese. Yummy, and cheaper than going out.
Happy Valentine's Day!!

The hanger temptation

Alexa is secretly addicted to playing with hangers. Whenever I accidently leave the bedroom door open she disappears into the closet and shoves the hangers back and forth, pulls them off the rod and puts them back. What fun. Cheap too.

Stayin' Home blog

Just a note, I am now a contributor to a blog for mom's staying home with kids that was started by Dana. It is under the friend's websites list, so you can visit if you like, or if you are a stay at home mom you can ask to be a contributor.

A Fairly Nice Day

Amazingly enough we had a little sun today and the temperature is 57 degrees. We went for a walk and then Alexa played outside for a while with her ball.


The less happy news is that I have to have a root canal at 7:30 am tomorrow. I hate going to the dentist and I hate root canals. I had a really mean oral surgeon do my first root canal about 5 years ago and it hurt for some reason. He left me sitting alone in the room for about 15 minutes with it hurting and when he cam back he rudely commented "What are you crying about?" I also had one dentist accidently poke me in the nerve with the needle while trying to numb my mouth. Now that was just an accident and not evidence of incompetence, but it added to my already significant dentist anxiety. So now I avoid the dentist until my teeth are so messed up that I have to have root canals. Again, I know this is shooting myself in the foot behavior, but I can't seem to overcome it. Anyway, the dentist today was really nice and I explained to him why I didn't come see someone earlier and he was very kind about pointing out that a little preventative dental care would hopefully preclude future root canals. I will give it another try, but it is hard to overcome fear with logic somehow.
Here is another video of Alexa. I admit it isn't that fascinating if you aren't her mother, but I am sure I will someday be glad to have these little everyday moments captured.

And as always, thank you for reading!

DH

So just so you all know - DH is for Dear Husband. I think the Flylady is the one who started that one-I just stole it. My DH of course is David Herbert, so that works too.
I finally am going to the dentist tomorrow. The tooth that has had a hole in it for months finally broke a piece off Saturday and another one today. I now have about half a tooth. Don't know what they will do about that. Guess I'll find out tomorrow morning.

Lenore has finished high school!

There was a nice graduation party for Lenore last night. Unfortunately many of my pictures were blurry, but since I was the only photographer I guess they are better than nothing.

Thanks to the Alphabet Family for having us over.