Yards and Yurts

Nothing new to blog about, really.

We went to the doctor yesterday and she is back up to a whopping 21 1/2 pounds, so we're half-way back to normal with regards to weight gain. This puts her around the 20% percentile of kids her age. However, she evidently had a growth spurt because she now stands at a towering 33 1/2 inches tall! I think we'll have a yard party once she reaches 36" (pun intended).

Powerball tickets went on sale here in NC yesterday. There is a drawing tonight, so I think Matt is going to pick up a couple just for fun. It definitely would make the house hunting go a bit easier.

Speaking of house hunting, we went for a third look at this one neighborhood in Concord yesterday. Ten foot ceilings, enormous kitchens, bonus rooms, and closets the size of my current office. We sat down with the sales manager and he laid out how much our house would cost with the options we wanted. I think he saw me shoot a 'look' at Matt wen he announced the price of the home, so he offered to calculate how much we can afford (I think as an attempt to make me feel better). Why do people like this always try to get you to buy the most house you can afford? The gentleman didn't seem to understand me when I told him that, just because we can afford a house doesn't mean that I'm comfortable actually spending that much.

And isn't a house just a place to sleep and store your stuff, anyway? In my mind I'm ready to minimalize - get rid of most of this 'stuff' I've been accumulating for years and pare down to a simpler way of life. Get back to the things that actually matter. I feel like the more attached we become to things, the less we attach ourselves to people. Is that the example we want to pass down the generations? I watched a TV show this weekend about a guy who built a Mongolian yurt on the shore of a lake, and actually thought that might be a nice way to go. The simple life.

Plus with a yurt, I could afford those granite countertops and whirlpool bathtub.

Back to Normal

Okay, so we're definitely back to normal. Well, almost.

I think the nurse put a little something extra in Katy's IV last week - ever since she has come home from the hospital she has the worst case of the tantrums I have ever seen. I know, I know, she's only a year and a half old...but still. The child now expects oatmeal to appear before she's even finished uttering the word, or else. She even pitched a fit out at breakfast Saturday morning (has NEVER done, in a year of eating every Sunday morning at Panera) , and I got my first taste of Everyone Is Staring At You Becuase Your Kid Is Having A Tantrum. Lovely.

Ladies and gentlemen, pay no attention to the child screaming her head off because her mother won't let her stick a piece of bagel up her nose.

On a much happier note, her understanding of her surroundings lately and ability to talk about them is absolutely amazing to me. Four things from this weekend that are sure to bring a smile to my face, if not the annoyed patrons trying to enjoy a quiet breakfast Saturday morning:

1. Before we even pulled in to the Panera parking lot Saturday morning, she looked out the window and saw the building and started clapping, saying bagel! bagel!

2. On the way out shopping Sunday afternoon, we drove past the movie theaters that we go to for church on Sunday mornings (you can check it out here...Kinetic Christian Church)...she saw the building out the window and chimed in with chursh...chursh

3. In a dressing room, a person a few stalls down started to have a fit of some sort, sneezing seven or eight times in a row. Each time the woman sneezed, Katy smiled at me and said bess-u, bess-u.

4. At the grocery store, she was intently watching the teenaged boy that was bagging our items. When he went to put the first bag back into our cart, she looked at him and said tank you. For a split second he looked at me, sort of puzzled (probably like she's not expecting me to actually talk to this baby, right?), and then looked back at her and replied, "Um...no, thank you."

Well, at least I know she's polite...I guess our next task is patience.

Mother's Day, Belated

So this past Sunday was Mother's Day, which we spent down in Florida (as most of you know - since the only people who read this are the same people we were visiting at the time).

Why is it that the moms (on their calendar-designated day of the year) always spend their time in the kitchen, welcoming family and friends to the house, and spending time with their kids (how is this different from any other day, by the way?)...while Father's Day is typically meant for dads to sit back and relax while everyone else makes sure they don't have to do anything?

And speaking of spending time with the kids...

For Mother's Day this year we splurged and had Katy surgically attached to my hip last Thursday once the whole vomitus projectilus kicked in. Thankfully they were able to separate us by the time we left the hospital Tuesday afternoon using an oatmeal cookie and an Elmo video.

For a tangible present, Matt came up with this gorgeous necklace from Red Envelope. The top layer is mother of pearl with two Chinese characters on it, the bottom is silver etched with the translation "MOTHER AND DAUGHTER". Beautiful, isn't it? And appropriate.

How I Spent My Summer Vacation, Part 2

Just when we thought that we had seen the worst of it.

Total lethargy combined with spontaneous vomiting? Bad.
Total lethargy and spontaneous vomiting while on a 10-foot leash to an IV and trying to choke down hospital food? Much worse.

My first ambulance ride.

Check out my new room!

Taking a nap, sipping on a little IV fluid.

Just threw this one in to prove we didn't send her there alone.

Starting to feel a bit better.

How I Spent My Summer Vacation

By Katy Riggs.

Friday morning.
Feeling a little better Friday afternoon...having a popsicle.

After throwing up aforementioned popsicle...

...and the rest of the weekend.

Conservation of Matter

n. Physics - the principle that matter cannot be created or destroyed, regardless of its changes in form or reactions between the parts.

So can someone explain to me how 1 teaspoon of potatoes and 1 tablespoon of water can morph into a quart and a half of projectile vomit?

The plane ride down to Florida for Mother's Day Weekend went better than expected - Katy slept most of the way down, much to the delight of the gentleman in the seat in front of her. And she even got to enjoy herself at the pool for an hour or so that afternoon. The fireworks didn't start until Thursday evening, a few hours after she had hit the sack for the night.

I will puke green eggs and ham,
I will puke them in your hand.
I will puke them on the floor,
puke and puke and puke some more.

I have never seen so much come from something so small. Every fifteen minutes for five hours. And in exact reverse order from the way I saw it go down. (Hey! aren't those grapes? and that looks a little like a chicken nugget.) I always thought of a stomach as a little like a washing machine, but apparently it's more like a single-file line when it comes to u-turns.

Four pairs of pajamas later (and two for me), she finally dozed off to sleep for a couple of hours. Later on Friday morning, she seemed to be getting back to normal - we started to rest easy thinking it was a 12-hour virus and we can be on our way to the beach in no time. Little did I know those germs were only incubating, organizing the troops and strengthening for their next assault. Their plan - wait until I put on my favorite white shorts.

Funny Lady

I didn't know that last Wednesday was the start of a phase. "Fish and cookies" is now her standard answer to everything.

(Coloring at the highchair with markers)
"Which color do you want? Red? Blue?"....signs fish, signs cookie...

(Sitting in her room before bedtime)
"Which book do you want to read, 'Goodnight Moon' or 'Hungry Catepillar'?"
"Feesh?...Coo-key?...Feesh?"

(Takes a spill while pushing her tricycle around the driveway)
"Aww, sweetie, don't cry. Did you get a boo-boo? Can you show me where?"
Looks up with the tears still in her eyes and a smile on her face..."feesh?"

You get the idea.

I think I'm finally catching on to this - she's finally showing us her sense of humor. Before now she would laugh when we laughed, let out a giggle at a silly face...shoot she'd down right wet her pants when we'd start tickling her feet. But this whole fish~cookie business is her first attempt at creating humor. Pretty neat if you ask me, especially since I know which one of us she gets it from.

Lost in Translation

Apparently, "a few highlites for summer" doesn't mean the same thing to me as it does to the woman who did my hair this morning at Carmen!Carmen!

Well, whatever. It is just hair.

Speaking of which, at what age does curly hair become taboo? We see it on children all the time, perfectly formed ringlets and long, cascading waves. And everyone thinks it is adorable. I even had people say that to me, after Katy was born. "Oooohh - maybe she'll get the curly hair!" But apparently someone, somewhere decided that you only graduate into womanhood with the purchase of a flat iron and straightening serum.

The stylist this morning asked me if I ever straightened my hair. (Ha!) "I always leave it curly. Mostly because it's easier, but mainly out of principle."

Miss Naturally Straight Hair didn't get it.

Who decided that beautiful women only come with straight hair? Probably the ones who determined we aren't supposed to have stretch marks or a stray chin hair, either. Ever watch a makeover show? It's the first thing they do - pull out some straightening creme, a hair dryer, and voila! Look at her! She's so much prettier now, right everyone? And all the flat-ironed heads in the audience nod in agreement. Follicular discrimination at its finest.

Enough for now. These chin hairs are a-callin...

Fish or Cookies?

That's what I asked after Katy had finished her dinner last night. Simple enough of a question, even for an 18-month old, right?

You see, my mom started a ridiculous reward system when I was growing up that has now carried on to a third generation, the Empty Container Prize. Anyone who emptied a container during the course of a meal (can you tell leftovers were common?) got a prize, and usually one that involved a new container of leftovers, or (yippee!) something from the freezer of leftovers. Who came up with this ridiculous game?

So, since Katy's dinner is usually concocted on a per-night basis, the container-emptying-opportunity arises quite often. However, so as not to traumatize her with some mystery dessert from the freezer that is totally unrecognizble without an ice pick and some carbon-dating, we rely on life's simple favorites. Vanilla wafers and goldfish crackers.

"Fish or cookie? "

She spent the next 4 minutes playing verbal ping-pong, repeating "fish" and "cookie" one right after the other. And she didn't need to be signing fish and cookie for emphasis, that was just to be cute, I'm sure. The look on her face wasn't the typical "maybe-she'll-actually-fall-for-it" look that I normally get when it's in the middle of dinner. This time it was sincere, earnest, and inquisitive. Why can't I have both? Why should I have to choose?

Fish and cookies it is.