Birthday Party

Tuesday night we had a combined party for Margie and her cousin Twiggy (whose birthday was Monday). Papa and Mimi gave Margie the outfit she’s wearing in the pictures.

Twins Hat

One of Daddy’s coworkers gave this hat to Baba, and he’s thrilled with it. He looks pretty slick, doesn’t he?

Go to the Ant, Part II

The ant bit Margie again last night, but she’s still carrying it around in the paper towel. In fact, she slept with it last night! This morning shortly after seven I heard someone turning the handle on my bedroom door, and Margie tiptoed in with a wad of paper towel clutched in her hand. She climbed onto the bed, and we had the following conversation (with lisp and bad grammar on her part):

“You still have your ant?”

“Yeth. He’th thick.”

“How did he get sick?”

“He ate all he’th candy. He needth to thleep in your bed.” [places the paper towel under my comforter and covers it up] “He bit me again.”

“I know. He’s a naughty ant.”

“No, he not naughty. He a nithe ant.”

“He is, huh?”

“Yep.”

“Margie, you know what?”

“What?”

“I love you.”

“Yep. And you wuv my ant, too. I wuv my ant. I wuv anth and wadybugth and beetlth and flieth.”

Go to the Ant

Margie’s got me howling today. Baba and I were at the table working on thank you notes, and suddenly Margie came running to me screaming and holding out her index finger. Firmly attached to the upheld digit squirmed a large black ant. It seems Margie’s affinity for six-legged creatures bit her in the finger. I grabbed a paper towel and pulled the offending insect off her finger, then crumpled the towel into a little ball. Margie started laughing through her tears and said, “I want to hold it in the napkin!” Thinking I’d misheard, I asked her if she wanted me to throw it away. She hollered, “NO! I want to hold it!”

She’s walking around the kitchen with the paper towel wrapped in her blankie and singing a lullaby to the ant that bit her. There’s forgiveness for you.

Young Entrepreneur

Yesterday one of Baba’s fish died. DH and I figured Scaredy-Bob wasn’t doing so well; afterall, Baba gave him the name because he was always hiding behind the foliage and floating near the surface of the water. Mimi noticed the belly-up fish yesterday afternoon when she stopped by and Margie wanted to show her the aquarium. Innocent little Margie gushed that the fish was “sweeping,” and Baba took the news rather well, saying, “At least I still have four fish.” Apparently the harsh realities of life aren’t weighing too heavily on him at this point.

Baba and Papa have embarked on a new business venture. This morning Papa came by the house with a truck full of aluminum cans which Baba had faithfully crushed for $1/bag. They took the load to a recycling yard and made $66 each. Baba is beside himself with the enormity of his profits. He cheerfully set aside some to give to the church, but gave me a silent stare when I informed him that some of it would have to go into savings. Seems he’s saving up for a special kind of sleeping bag (“You can sit in it and read and be warm while you’re reading!”), and he needs $40 to buy it. I haven’t seen the item in question, so I’m not sure it’s even worth that much.

Papa says in a couple years they’ll have to split the profit three ways because Junior will likely want to get in on the deal. And I imagine that new little boy cousin won’t be left out of the venture for long . . .

Baba’s Fish

Baba is the proud owner of five fish: three Tiger Barbs (Bobber, Scaredy-Bob, and Junior), a Swordtail, (Nemo), and a Plecostomus (Grand-père). He came up with the names on his own (except Nemo, which little sister named). Grand-père is the French word for “grandfather” and is also the name of a puppet on Mr. Rogers. Scaredy-Bob is so named because he likes to hide behind the plants.

Potpourri

I know, I know, I’ve been bad about posting lately (not to mention the lack of new pictures), but . . . whew, we’ve had some busy days! Junior, Baba and I spent most of the day at our midwife’s house. Her monthly support group met today, and afterwards we stuck around to chat and ended up eating lunch with Leah and her son. Margie stayed home to have rare one-on-one time with Daddy, who took today off of work.

Leah and I have worked out a bartering deal–I’m sewing slings for her to give to new mommies, and she’s paying me with massages! It’s a swell plan, because my back gets tight when I do a lot of sewing, and a massage will be just the thing to fix that problem. Who can beat a deal like that? Tonight I spent a couple hours putting together some slings because Leah is planning to come with her massage table tomorrow morning.

Today at Leah’s house I noticed something about Baba that I really appreciate: he’s so kind to younger children. Leah’s son just turned three, but that didn’t stop Baba from playing with him all day. They had such a good time together! When I mentioned it to Leah, she said she thought it might be because DH is so involved with our kids. Afterall, when Baba sees his daddy caring for himself and his sister and brother he’s learning that it’s a pleasure to spend time with young children. That’s just one more reason why I appreciate my husband so much!

Papa and Mimi gave Baba their old fishtank the other day, and DH took him to Wal-Mart tonight to pick out some residents. I imagine he’ll want me to get some pictures of that soon, so be on the lookout.

Mommy’s Top Ten

Top ten things a person doesn’t expect to hear coming from her mouth before she becomes a mother:

1. Please take your hands out of your pants.
2. Your finger does not belong in your nose.
3. Stop licking the table.
4. If you can put it in the potty chair, I’ll give you a Tic Tac.
5. WILL YOU PLEASE BE PATIENT!!! (catch the irony there?)
6. Go back upstairs and put on your underwear.
7. I am not a jungle gym.
8. Let me clip your toenails.
9. Stand still so I can wipe you.
10. No, there’s not another baby in my tummy.

True story.

Be sure to check out a great photo on my sister’s blog today.

News

What an interesting day we’ve had today! My comment from yesterday about expecting a long night turned prophetic when Junior woke for his usual middle-of-the-night feeding around 1:00 a.m. When I tried to nurse him he started screaming . . . and screaming . . . and screaming (is any of this starting to sound familiar?). It took us over an hour to get him settled down enough to eat, and then we repeated the process at 6:00 a.m. when he woke up hungry again.

This episode was the last straw. Immediately this morning we called our family doctor, and DH insisted on seeing her today. We compiled all of our evidence, did some research and came up with an amateur diagnosis of infant reflux. This is what I’d been suspecting all along, but I thought we could muddle through it much the same way we did with Baba. However, after the past week, and especially last night, I was approaching my breaking point.

Our doctor listened to us for quite awhile, and together we came up with a plan that has at least given me some hope. She gave us a prescription for antacid medication for Junior and suggested that I cut all dairy and peanut products from my diet. We’re following this plan for a couple of weeks in the hopes that whatever is wrong with Junior will improve during that time (and that Mommy will get on more stable emotional ground). After this initial time period we’ll start experimenting with diet changes and possibly removing the meds to see if we can locate the source of the problem.

There’s good news about Grandma as well. She finally had the angiogram this afternoon, and the prognosis is good! Her heart isn’t much worse that it was a couple years ago when they did the same test. The heart attack she experienced involved a minor blood vessel, and after a few days of rest she should be able to return to normal activity. We’re so thankful for this excellent news!

Long Day

Junior and Margie hit the hay, and Baba’s taking a bath, so I’m using the momentary quiet to collect some thoughts.

Oh, scratch that, Junior’s fussing . . .

He’s back down. What do you suppose would cause a baby to start crying after 30-60 minutes of peaceful sleep almost every night? Junior does this, and Margie used to do it as well. It’s a source of frustration to me . . . the baby’s in bed, but I can’t relax until the hour mark has passed.

There he goes again . . . it’s gonna be a loooong night.

Today was a long day. DH took the day off work, and we spent most of the day in Eau Claire mostly for the sake of keeping ourselves busy. Junior does much better when we’re out-and-about during the day rather than staying at home. DH dropped Margie and me at the mall while he and the boys ran errands. I’ve been looking forward to spending “girl time” with Margie, but I think she needs to put a few more years under her belt before she’ll appreciate it. We spent a lot of time in various dressing rooms while I tried on clothes, and I think she would rather have been eating broccoli.

After getting the shopping out of the way, we paid a visit to Grandma in the hospital. She had a “mild” heart attack last night, and we’re waiting to hear the results of an angiogram performed this afternoon. Baba and Margie seemed curious about the various tubes running from Grandma’s arms, and they enjoyed inspecting the pulse ox meter. Those who might be reading this, please do say a prayer for Grandma and Grandpa; they’ve had some rough sailing recently and sure could use it.