Day 5

Here is a better picture of the skirt. I had some leftover yarn from a vest I make Aden a couple of years ago.

We are very tired here. I have never paid so much constant focused attention to my daughter. I have to make sure I am always in sight of her. I keep checking to make sure she's dry, I keep telling her to tell me when she needs to use the potty. This morning she was very quiet. I have been drinking tea out of my teapot and my fancy china teacups. (I was inspired by the Fancy Nancy books) So I sat drinking tea this morning, reading my book a bit. Alexa came and sat on my lap for a while and the sun shone in the windows of the breakfast room. It was so peaceful and still. I managed to turn off my brain for a while and we had a nice cuddle.

Alexa is worn out also, at about 11:00 she came and cuddled up again and went to sleep. She has been asleep for over an hour and a half now. So I thought I would write a quick note here while I had the chance.

P.S. If anyone has a better idea for how to potty train please tell me quickly! In fact I think I would pay money if there was some sort of rent a nanny to potty train thing. Someone could make a lot of money doing that!

Potty Training Days

Here is Alexa eating diced tomatos for supper because she didn't want what we were having. And here she is being sweet in the new skirt I knit her. She got her shirt removed because of chewing on it.
The reason I haven't been updating the blog is that we have been potty training for the last three days. The idea is that we put her in big girl panties and tell her how she needs to keep them dry, and to tell mommy when she needs to go potty. We tell her this a million times a day. When she starts to go, we pick her up and rush her to the bathroom and try to get her to finish on the potty. We tell her that it feels yucky to have wet panties and that she needs to tell us when she needs to go. Grandma Penny came up to help out while we did this, so I could just watch Alexa's panties all the time. We are now on day four of the three day potty training, and so far we Alexa has not told us before she has to go. I am pretty certain for a number of reasons that she is ready for this. She knows the potty sign, she knows when she is going to go, in fact she will sometimes go into the other room to pee, unfortunately the living room not the bathroom, and she gives me this sheepish look when she goes. She is staying dry at night. So we are going to keep her home for a couple more days and keep trying. She doesn't have school this week, and so we have a little time to work with. This is such a difficult thing to learn. She has to learn what it feels like to need to go, to understand that she needs to tell me, and then to hold it until we get there.

Such a sweet smile.

Here is that sweet face once again. We are having somewhat uninteresting days here. I am slowly emerging from the flu. I have a sty in my eye according to the dr.-so he cultured it and gave me antibiotic ointment. Ever try putting ointment under your upper eyelid? Not terribly straightforward. We moved the playgroup that was scheduled to occur today here, to Dana's house. I decided to stay home so as not to share my various viruses and bacteria with all the kids and moms. We are still tentatively planning the potty training experiment for Thursday-Saturday.

The Flu

Tuesday afternoon I got a fever, and it turns out it was the flu. I had a fever off and on through Saturday night. I also have an eye infection (maybe pink-eye?) which I will go to the dr. tomorrow about. This has been a really crummy week for us as a result. David stayed home Wednesday, came home early Thursday, and Renee watched Alexa Friday afternoon. I have not been able to do much at all until today. I am still not feeling wonderful, but I don't have a fever-so I am pretty happy about that. I got a flu shot this year too! Seems unfair to get a shot and then get the flu anyway...

Pretty flowers

I love these little promises that spring is coming. A splash of color in a dreary gray world.

I have decided to take back St. Patrick's Day. For those of you who don't know, my father was born on St. Patrick's Day and named accordingly. When he died a week before his birthday, mid-March and St. Patrick's Day became a sad time for me. It has been 13 years now since he died, and my sadness has lessened with time. It occured to me a few days ago that birthdays are supposed to be a celebration of the person's life, and just because Dad isn't alive now, doesn't mean that I can't remember him in a positive way on his birthday. I have decided to stop being irritated by St. Patrick's day traditions. Somehow these things had gotten included in my general dislike of this time of year. So, today I am wearing green-and I am making corned beef and cabbage for my first time ever. It may turn out that we don't even like corned beef and cabbage, but I thought we should try it at least once.

I made something called Health Nut Blueberry Muffins today. I got the recipe from my friend Kati when I lived in Eugene, and I don't even remember making them before, but they are unbelievably good. I love blueberry muffins, and I make a pretty good standard blueberry muffin, but these are like 5 times better. I don't even know why-but if you like blueberry muffins you should try making them. The recipe is on the allrecipes.com site.

Here is something I heard the other day and the more I think about it, the more true I think it is: "Love is not a feeling, it is an ability."

David and I have decided to try to adopt again. We just asked Holt to send the home study paperwork today. We want to do what is called an independent adoption which is where we try to find a child without going through the adoption agency. This requires help from our friends, so keep your ears to the ground for us.

A Brief Moment of Sun

It has been raining here a lot this week, so David and I have taken Alexa for a ride in the bike stroller which has a rain shield. She loves this. She started feeling a bit better on Thursday, so we got some physical therapy in and she went to school. Friday morning was our first day to open the indoor park. The park is sort of a cooperative thing, so you have to show up and unlock and open the park six different times during the Jan-May period. There are two people who do this each time, so it isn't too much work.
We were planning to go to Portland today, but none of the things we were thinking of doing were cooperative. We were going to the OMSI (Oregon Museum of Science and Industry), but the IMAX shows weren't that interesting to us, and the main exhibit was dinosaurs, which neither of us are too fascinated by. The yarn shop would have been fun, but I am on self imposed yarn restriction, so it isn't too much fun to go when you won't be buying anything. We thought of going to the Children's Museum? that is at the zoo, but weren't too sure about what ages of children it is for, so we decided against that. In the end, DH stayed home with Alexa for a few hours and I did some shopping for Alexa and I who both needed a few new clothes. David bouldered for an hour at the gym and Alexa and I took a nap. And that's about it for us this week.

More sickness, dieting

And these would be my new pictures of my adorable niece and nephew. Alexa came to me and handed me the camera and wanted her picture taken.
And the pink sweater that I finished this weekend. I could tell you all the details, but suffice it to say it is a bit too tight on me. Are you interested Holly? Or is it too pink for you? (It is cotton, so you should be able to wear it)
Alexa continues to be sick. Last night I went to bed at 10:00. At some point an hour or two later I wake up to see that David is in be with me and is talking to Alexa who is not in bed despite the fact that the house is dark. "Alexa, go get in your bed" Now I have to say, he must have been really tired to think that this was going to work. I was also really tired, so I didn't do much at this point besides lie there and wish we had a third nocturnal parent. Eventually she came to my side of the bed and I picked her up and put her in bed with us. Again, if I were awake I would have put her in her own bed, but I wasn't really. So she was actually tired enough that she curled up and went to sleep. Now DH and I have realized that there is not enough room in our queen sized be for all of us, since Alexa likes to sleep perpendicular to us and moves around a lot. So David went to sleep in Alexa's bed, leaving me to try and sleep with a squirming sick person who cried out in her sleep and who tends to fall off the bed if you don't pull her back from the edge every now and then. I did not get much sleep. When she woke up fussing and kicking at 6:00 I abandoned all efforts to rest and got up. She got up then and fussed around until David got her to sleep on the red chair until about 8:00. Then she woke up really grumpy and fussy and crying whenever David walked away from her. I have to say I wanted to cry and beg David not to go to work and leave me alone with her. Instead I went for a walk with her in the bike trailer/stroller thing because it has a plastic rain shield. This made me feel better, and she loved it. She had to be pried out of the stroller when we got home-fortunately she didn't have meltdown over this.


Last night I escaped to the bookstore for a while to have some selfish alone time. I picked up a diet book and took it to the cafe area and looked at it while I drank a cup of coffee. I read through the introduction and realized what Dana's mom said that someone said to her is true of me and diet books. "You need to stop buying books about it and just do it" I already know these things about losing weight.

1. I need to exercise in some way. It keeps me sane, makes me feel more positive and my body just feels better. The thing is, I have to find something that I like to do. For now I am enjoying walking It isn't hurting my feet and ankles-just making my legs and hips sore, but that is what happens when you start any exercise.

2. I need to find some healthy things to eat that are simple to prepare and that I like. Low carb things work best for me. Any suggestions for healthy breakfast and snacks would be greatly appreciated. This is the hard thing for me because I can force myself to eat healthy things that I don't like for a while, but obviously I don't want short term weight loss. I want to keep it off. Also - I am lactose-intolerant now - so the obvious things like yogurt and cottage cheese are only OK in small amount with the assistance of lactase tablets.

So-sorry for the rambling post about boring stuff. I am hoping that writing this out will help me be accountable for doing it.

Company

We had company this weekend and Alexa was in heaven since both of them were willing to read her stories. Sunday Alexa woke up with a bit of a fever and a very stuffed nose, so we kept her home all day. She seemed to be better this morning, but after lunch she had major meltdown and then fell asleep, so she didn't go to school. Her fever is gone now, but she has a runny nose, and she isn't eating very much which is unusual for her.
The time change and some nice weather has made it possible for me to take walks the past two evenings. It is so relaxing for me to be out of the house, alone, getting some exercise and some fresh air. If my legs would hold up I would walk for an hour!

Random sleeping and potty training stuff

Here are some older pictures from our trip to the zoo in Arizona, but I really like them and thought you might too. Here is Alexa getting a ride from Auntie Holly. We had the stroller, but it was hard to see the animals from there.
She adored the merry-go-round and cried when we had to get off.
Laying on Poppa's head.
Potty training - I finally plotted out the information we have been collecting regarding the status of Alexa's diaper and unfortunately there are no consistent patterns. This was frustrating, so I sat down to think some more. I thought about trying the leaving her naked bit again. Then I thought, what if I get her some underwear and that way, I can see when she is going, she will feel wet and yucky and we will keep it from getting on the floor. So I got online and looked for potty training underwear and it pulled up a site from a lady who was offering her three day potty training method. I looked at it and it seemed to make sense, so we are going to try her way. The one difficulty is that it requires three days of my undivided attention, so we need to wait for spring break to get three days in a row when there is no school and we can stay home the whole time.
Alexa fell asleep while finishing her supper last night. It was so funny. She would close her eyes as she put a bite in her mouth and then struggle to open them again. Then her head started bobbing around and she was gone. It was only 7:00 but we put her in bed with her clothes on. About 3:30 this morning she came and got in bed with us. She stayed there kicking and elbowing us for the rest of the night.

A package.

We got a package in the mail today which was sent from Aunt Holly but actually mailed by Nana. I know this from the handwriting on the package. So I know Nana loves us because she put a LOT of stamps on the envelope. I finally figured out that she was using up some 39 cent stamps. And Auntie Holly knows what Alexa loves because she sent us a monkey plate and utensil set
..and a book called Elmo Loves You which Alexa swiped and quickly sat down to peruse.
This weekend we finally hung the star lamp that Holly sent us for Christmas. This is the best picture I could get of it turned on.

A walk in the sun.

The sun was shining and it was sort of warm-so we took a walk with the monkey.

Here I am trying to get far enough ahead of Alexa to take a picture, she is coming as fast as she can toward me, so this is difficult.

Physical Therapy

Here is Alexa at Physical Therapy. Unfortunately I took the video with the camera sideways and can't convert it - but I still like the video. The idea is for her to sit down and stand up a bunch of times to strengthen her muscles and improve the "grading" of her movement. Basically she needs to improve the way her contracting and extending muscles work together spo that her movement is more smooth and less jerky. She has improved quite a bit at this recently, she is now sitting down only about 5 inches from the floor. More squatting than sitting.

The other two are her sitting and standing on the swing. Balance practice. The younger girl is a student who helps out sometimes. This is nice for me because otherwise I am the assistant and it definitely takes two adults to get Alexa doing what we want her to. It is hard work for her and she is very tired afterward. Tired enough that she took a nap yesterday, which hardly ever happens anymore.

This morning we have occupational therapy, so this is all for now.

Potty Training

And here is my brilliant daughter who peed on the potty this morning. We have been struggling with potty training. We are trying to get through Phase I of the potty training protocol given to us by Alexa's teacher. This requires checking her diaper every hour for two weeks and recording the status. This is really hard to be consistent with. In addition to just remembering to do it, we also have school, therapy and random other apppointments interfering with our schedule. She has actually gone on the potty a couple of times now - so I think this is progress.