Conversation

Joanna: Is Natalie your girl?
Me: Yes, and you're my girl.
Joanna: Daddy's not your girl.
Me: No, Daddy's a boy. He can't be my girl.
Joanna: Yeah, he's a man, too.

Oh, the vomit.

Poor Joanna got sick on the way home from school today. At first, I thought she'd gagged on her lollipop, but when she proceed to throw up many many more times through the afternoon, I figured that wasn't it. She actually feels pretty good in between all the vomiting, and really wanted to eat and drink. I wouldn't let her eat, but I let her have a little to drink. It didn't stay down. This is what she looks like right now: She's on her mattress in the living room. I was just letting her watch tv and rest next to her "vomit box" not thinking she'd fall asleep. Sadly, she's in her panties, so I'm not sure how long she'll stay asleep! We may have to remake the bed when she does wake up. :(
When we got home from MDO (where Joanna seemed absolutely totally heathly but clearly was actually not), I tried putting Natalie down for a late (and much needed) nap while Joanna and I hung out in the playroom.
My sweet daughter has never ever in her entire life just layed down and fallen asleep. This is how I really knew she was sick. She only stayed asleep for a few minutes at a time because she was still throwing up pretty often. She's such a trooper!
Well, she just woke up, kind of whining and moaning. She really doesn't feel well. :( I put a diaper on her and left her where she was. If she stays asleep, I'll stay out in the living room with her on the couch. Hmmm... maybe Matt and I could carry her on her mattress into her bedroom... I guess that's not the best idea. I don't want her to disturb Natalie (or the other way around) as she's not sleeping well either, being all snargley. Matt will just have to be stealthy in the morning. :) I really hope she'll sleep this off and be able to eat and drink in the morning. I'm thinking she's a little dehydrated. I'm sad to miss Bible Study, but kind of looking forward to a laid-back morning at home. (We'll see!)

Natalie's stats

We decided to go ahead and go to Natalie's "well visit" even though she wasn't. So she has an officially diagnosed cold and can actually go to school tomorrow if she's not worse! Anyway, my wonderful friend Lisa offered to watch Joanna while I took Natalie (Whoo Hoo!!!!!!) so it was a pretty pleasant visit! Sweet Thing was cranky, though.
She is 17lbs 2oz; 26 1/2in long with a head circum. of 17.5in. She's proportunal, but her growth has slowed down. Doctor Harper says it's normal for babies to "adjust" as they really start moving. And boy does this girl move! She doing great developmentally (but we all knew that!) and had to have one shot. I wasn't anticipating that; I'm pretty sure Joanna did not have any shots at 9 months. Oh well.
It made her mad, to put it politely.
She also had to have blood drawn for an iron check. With Joanna, they pricked her finger and squeeeeeeezed the blood out. These days, they take it from the arm, like a grown-up! Seriously I wish I could have taken a picture! I held Natalie in a regular lab chair; she got a little tourniquet on her arm; and the phlebotomist used a tiny needle to grab a couple viles of blood. She was screaming hard, but the good news is that she didn't scream any harder when she was pricked. She was just already mad for oh so many reasons.
For your information: Natalie has good veins, just like me.

We came home and she napped, then we had a little lunch before fetching Joanna. Our friend Kim was in town from Austin with her kiddos so it there was quite a playday at Lisa's. I put Natalie in the Moby wrap so she wouldn't snot on anybody and we got to visit with everyone for a little while. There were kids everywhere! It was nice. I know Joanna had a great time. She came home wearing Vandenberge jeans so there was one accident, but who can blame a girl when there's so much going on?! Thank you so much, Lisa for giving me a 1-kid morning! You can drop yours off anytime!

Natalie is feeling better this afternoon, I'm very glad to say. Sadly she did not have much of an afternoon nap. That may be due in part to her sister spreading Vaseline all over her bedroom instead of napping and her mother hollering at aforementioned sister.

The very good news is that Matt is on his way home!!!

I am 9 months old!

Hi everybody! I turned 9 months old this morning. Today was Sunday, and I was born on a Sunday. Mommy thinks that's cool. I wasn't feeling too good today, but Mommy wanted this to post on the 11th... here goes! I will visit the doctor tomorrow; Mommy will post an update after that. For now, here's what I'm up to.
-I love pulling up and standing on everything I can, even things that are not steady. Sometimes I let go, but usually only with one hand. I'll take a few steps with help, but they're not steady.
-I recently started crawling "for real." I roam around the house on my hands and knees very well!
-I'm wearing some 6-9 month clothes and some 12 month clothes. I am so lucky to have a lot of clothes from some friends of mine who are bigger now. My big sister was so tiny I won't get to wear a lot of her old clothes this winter.
-I really like to eat, especially finger food. So far, I've had toast, crackers, puffs, cheerios, green beans, potato, broccoli, chicken, sweet potato, pasta, and bananas. I love feeding myself, but I will still eat baby food, too.
-I sleep very well in my crib at night. I usually head to bed around 7-7:30 and I sleep until early morning. I like to have some milk and a snuggle with Mommy around 5 or 6. Mommy usually puts me in the pack n play in her room and heads to the couch after that. She's put me back in my crib before, but sometimes I wake up my sister... or she wakes me up! Mommy does not like that... AT ALL.
-I take two naps everyday. They vary in lenth from 30 minutes to 2 hours. Mommy likes the 2 hour ones; they're good for me! Joanna and I usually sleep at the same time in the afternoon, but we sleep in different rooms. I love napping in Mommy's room; it's so dark in there!
-I go to school one day every week. I really like my friends and my teachers. Sadly, I don't take a morning nap when I'm there, so they don't always get to see the best side of me.
-I just love playing in the recycle bin. I also love Joanna's dress-up stuff, and I'll chew on any shoes I come across. I really like listening to and playing music. I have a few toys that help me dance! I'm really very good at entertaining myself... when I feel good, anyway.
-I suck my thumb when I'm going to sleep and sometimes while I'm sleeping.
-My mom swears I cut a third tooth, but it seems to have gone back in or something. I really only have my bottom two. (That doesn't stop me from being an eatin' fool!)
-I can wave and say "hi."
-I really love my family and they love me, too!

Mostly Today, but Yesterday, too.

These first two are from last night. I picked up a pair of footie PJs at Baby Daze for Joanna, even though footie PJs are exactly practical for 2 1/2 year olds. I thought they might be nice for cooler nights, and I figured (rightly so) that she would love wearing PJs like her sister. Natalie in her PJs (couldn't be bothered to look at the camera -- very busy learning how to change channels).

Last night I worked on cleaning out/organizing my bathroom which hadn't been done in Natalie's entire life. Things just kept piling up in there and it was gross. Also, for many months we've all been showering and getting ready in the other bathroom, and I'm about ready to move back into the master. The major reason we "moved out" was because we didn't want to disturb Natalie. When she was really little, she was usually sleeping with me in the mornings we Matt was getting ready and she and I both were very disturbed by the bathroom light. Even now, she usually ends up in our room in the early morning, and it's just easier to get ready someplace else. We have a pack 'n play in our room where Natalie typically finishes her night from 5 or 6 on as well as naps. I'm ready to move back though becuase I find that I very rarely actually use the time when she's sleeping to get ready! Also, I'm working on making my bedroom child-friendly again. I sort of like the idea (dream) of having a "sanctuary" -- a no-kid zone, but it just isn't practical for us! I want the girls to be able to follow me in there and entertain themselves (safely!) while I put on make-up, change clothes, whatever. Wow, really long, rambling paragraph just to say I found these costume jewelry bracelets and I gave them to Joanna this morning. She was SO EXCITED.

Somehow the girls ended up being dressed similarly this morning, and I just had to get pictures!

I would have taken more, but I was very VERY nervous about Natalie doing a face-plant on these concrete/metal stairs. Yikes!

Our friend Amy Creamer was walking past and insisted on taking a picture of all of us -- thank you, Amy!

Amazingly, we're all kind of match-y. I just love how that works out sometimes without one single plan for it. :)

Back at home...

Have I mentioned that child LOVES to dress up?! I'm thinking a trip a trip to the thrift store may be in order for some slightly large, slightly extravegant clothes for her to play in.

We discovered (after she had a particularly fussy morning in the nursery) that Miss Natalie is sick today. When I dropped her off, I swear I thought she was fine. She had a slightly runny nose, but I figured that was due to weather change and her maybe being a little cold. Poor thing is now all raspy in her chest and she has a fever. :(

Anyway, that's why Matt is snapping peas in this picture.

Natalie needed me so Matt snapped peas.

After I discovered Natalie had a fever, I gave her some Tylenol and a little Baby Mozart and she started to feel better. Joanna and I left Daddy and Natalie to go feed and walk David's dog.

Is my daughter stinkin' beautiful, or what?

Joanna and I took Didi for a walk, got her to poop! (the purpose of the walk), and fixed her some dinner. Then we got all buckled in the car to discover it wouldn't start. (Some of you may remember it does this from time to time.) I was parked behind a working car in David's driveway, but that didn't help. I called Matt so he could come get us (not remembering I had Natalie's carseat in the van.) She was asleep on him, poor tired little sick baby. I decided to call my wonderful Vandenberge friends, thinking it might not be too difficult for one of them to come rescue us (and they already had a Joanna-sized carseat strapped in their car!) Lisa and Anna headed right over, and pulled up about 2 minutes after I started the car. I wouldn't have even tried, but Matt called and told me to. He'd been praying for it to start. I started in on the whole, "Well, you know God doesn't always answer yes..." business, never dreaming the car would start. I should just shut-up and listen to my husband. God has been telling me that a lot lately. I really really should just do it! I came home to this:

Wow.

Matt left for Financial Peace pretty much right after that, so the girls and I had dinner by ourselves. I packed Matt a quick snack, don't worry.

See this tray? She ate about this much... three times. I love that sometimes we can all eat the same thing! It was good, too. Baked chicken, green beens, and rolls. Yum. Stay tuned for a 9 month post from my Natalie!

Thank you, Vandenberge's for coming to rescue us!

It's the little things.

I would've taken a picture of the whole girl, but the rest of her was naked. She loves to dress up! These are Daddy's socks with one princess shoe and one of Gran's shoes.

I picked up Joanna first on Tuesday, and we came into Natalie class to find this:
Oh how stinkin' precious she is!

This is one thing Joanna loves to do in the "baby class."

There's a new farmer's market in Humble at the Methodist Church. We went to check it out on Wednesday, and walked past their pumpkin patch as well. I think Joanna was thinking, "what's with all the pumpkins?" It was too hot out there so we left to get ice cream. :)

This is the end of Natalie's wave. She slides her hand back and forth in front of her. It's very very cute. I'm surprised she waves with her left hand, but I'm wondering if she's mirroring us instead of using her dominant hand?

We picked up Natalie's halloween costume today (Thank you, Lisa for the tip -- I forgot to call you back this afternoon and now it's too late!); she's going to be a pink butterfly. It was hard to explain to Joanna why she couldn't have a pink butterfly costume, too. We talked about how she was going to dress up as a mommy for halloween and we were going to get her a Moby Wrap just like Mommy's. Well, toddlers aren't ones for delayed gratification, so we picked that up this afternoon, as well!

That's her "I've been holding this baby all day and my feet hurt and I need some chocolate" look. :) Seriously, though she loves it and she's very much looking forward to this Halloween thing where she gets to carry a diaper bag and wear her baby and push another one (or whatever happens!)

I will leave you with a picture of our technology corner:

The new one looks like it could eat the old one for breakfast. And it has enough memory to do it (a hundred times over). If you look closely, you will see that it has a number pad!!!! I seriously hate having to type in numbers using the row above the letters. I don't have to type numbers much, but I LOVE ME A NUMBER PAD! It's the little things...

Quick(ish) updates.

I had to post a couple of updates on the girls, but I'm not up for downloading pics right now. I'll get to them this weekend, I think!
Anyway...
-Natalie has said her first word! She started last week sometime. It's "hi" accompanied by a very cool hand wave. I don't have a video yet, but I did take a picture and you can kind of tell how she waves. Her "hi" sounds more like "haaaa," but I know what it is!
-Miss Joanna has been wearing panties everywhere all the time (except at night) since Saturday afternoon! I must tell you I LOVE just putting diapers on one kid! We still have a lot of work to do to keep her excited about it and continue growing her ability to do it all on her own, but she's doing so good! She was just ready and she did it! She had one accident at school on Tuesday, but it was around lunch so I know she was distracted. :) She's had a couple of others here and there as well. I think I've mentioned this, but the panties we're using are so wonderful. They're plain white Gerber, and they have extra padding in them to absorb when there's a leak. This means if Joanna's in the kitchen (or say, the front of the Sanctuary at church) and realizes she waited too long, the panties keep her legs (and floor) dry and she runs to the potty. They're also very easy to clean for those icky accidents. We don't have enough, though and they're hard to find, so Joanna's going will get to pick out some others this weekend at the store. I think that's an important rite of passage: picking out panties! I just cannot say how proud of her I am! She is so good about remembering to go, even when she's busy busy. She's even napping in her underwear. My big girl is definitely not a baby anymore! :(
-Enough rambling. I'm very excited that my new work computer has arrived at the church and will hopefully get set up tomorrow! I'm dying to get my hands on it and load all my files and get it "broken in." My little personal computer just couldn't keep up with the demands of my job as of a couple of months ago, so the church purchased one for my position. All I know about it is that is a Dell and it's 17 inches and it's black. I just know it will be so much better at all my graphic-y work stuff. My wonderful mother has been letting me use hers on Thursdays the past 6 weeks or so since I had to start using the new version of this one program and my little Dell just wouldn't have it! I've had a lot of computer issues at work lately, and I'm very much hoping they won't be issues anymore, and that I can just focus on doing good work!