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Avery's school pictures

My absolute favorite!

One

Wordless Wednesday #1

Avery!

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Re-entry going well so far ...

... but it's only 10:50 am, so the day could still go horribly wrong. Not that I'm anticipating this. :)

After five days on East Coast time, D and I both woke up early (for us) this morning. Avery went to sleep at the very reasonable time of 8 PM last night, slept in her own bed until 6 am, then slept in our bed until about 7.  She is running a serious sleep deficit, so I'm very grateful for her good sleep last night. I feel reasonably well rested considering how utterly exhausted I was on Monday.

I have much to blog about, as well as some pictures and video to share, but I can't sort through pictures and videos when Avery is with me, so that will have to wait until she's at school and I get a moment.

I'm so happy to be back in Portland.  While I think DC is a beautiful city, and I always love the excitement and adrenaline of visiting large cities, I'm not an East Coast girl.  I'm a PNW girl (who just happened to be born in Colorado, but was always meant to live in Portland). I haven't heard a single car horn since we landed, and yes, I did drive downtown yesterday.

It's now 4:15 pm and the day has been OK.  I haven't been feeling well lately (what's new?) and started feeling really poorly at New Seasons while Avery and I were eating lunch.  I felt so bad that I didn't have it in me to do the grocery shopping, so I just left and came home to nap.  Avery took that time as an opportunity to make a huge mess in the upstairs, but at least I feel better having napped.  

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Birthers

Can they all just shut up now?  My eyes cannot roll far enough back in my head to express my feelings on birthers, Trump, and this issue.  I'm surprised they haven't started questioning whether he was born at all. 

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Portrait

Here is my favorite picture that my uncle, Herb, took of Avery.  To me, it just screams "Avery!" Note: I scanned it from a paper version, then reduced the size of scanned image.

Arrow

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California ➙ Oregon ➙ School

That was Avery's route this morning.  A 6:40 AM flight from CA to OR.  RHG picked us up at the airport, dropped Avery at school, then dropped me at home.  Brilliant stroke of genius on my part not to cancel school for her today.

I'm not too tired right now, but I also don't feel like doing much of anything.  I know I would be short tempered with Avery were she to have come home with me.

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Trip details ➙ Later

The trip was great.  As is typical, I don't feel like detailing them right now.  A good time was had by all.  Five days of major theme park visits was probably a bit much stimulation for a 3yo - not to mention this 35yo - but we managed well and had a lot of fun.

Pictures can be seen over at Casa de Trio. Oh, and here's a picture that Avery took of me and Dad.  She's a good photographer.

Picture by Avery.

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Put a bird on it ➙ ⿃ (that is a bird in a random East Asian script)

About the only thing I do feel like detailing right now is my new love of the phrase "put a bird on it."  From Portlandia, as I'm sure all PDXers know.  I haven't found Portlandia to be nearly as funny as it could be, given the gold mine of comedy here in PDX.  And I didn't even find the "put a bird on it" skit to be that funny.  However, in my head, it's become the motto for all things Portland.

Case in point: when we pulled out of the parking garage in our rental car in LA, one driver honked at another for no good reason.  I find that honking is quite rare (relative to other parts of the country) here in Portland.  In fact, the other day, D and I and several other cars sat through an entire cycle of a light while someone tried to get their car in gear.  Not one car honked.  I say that PDX is one of the few places where that is the norm.

Anyway, back to the rental car parking garage.  As this person was honking, D stopped and let someone through.  We made a joke about bringing PDX to LA, then I said, "Put a bird on it!"  And now I say that everytime I do something Portland-like.

I'm quite sure that no one else finds this nearly as funny as I do, because, trust me, I find it really funny.  So the next time you let someone in while in traffic, yell, "Put a bird on it!" and think of me ... or of Portlandia since they technically came up with it. 

Nutshell

Friday in a nutshell (as told in my FB status)

Exhausted after a full day of fun:
- Slappy Cakes (make your own pancake restaurant)
- Followed immediately by Playdate PDX
- Followed immediately by dance class
- Followed immediately by a playdate with Friend Elise & Nolan
- Finally ending with all three kids asleep at my house for the Gs' date night.

Thank goodness all three kids went to sleep without protest and were asleep by of 7:30.  My patience was wearing a bit thin and D was at motorcycle training, so it was a solo performance for me.  Avery didn't get a nap, so during the afternoon, any NI (Nolan Indiscretion - things like existing, breathing, touching anything, looking at anything, etc) set her off.

Dance, Dance, Dance

When we return from our trip to California, the new session of dance classes starts.  I've signed Avery up for three back-to-back classes.  I am not sure how that's going to go, but we're giving it a whirl.  Until Friday, I'd only signed up for two classes, Pre-Ballet and Terrific Twirling. However, today Miss Erika said that the hip hop class next session would be doing Michael Jackson and, well, I couldn't resist.   I'm thinking if Avery has a clothing change between each class, that should keep her enthusiasm up.  Of course, enthusiasm is not a weak point of Avery's, so maybe just showing up will be enough.

Denied

Our lottery application for the White House Easter Egg Roll was unsuccessful.  Such a bummer.  I didn't realize until we didn't get it how much I would have liked Avery to go.  My aunt has graciously offered to have an Easter Egg hunt in her condo for Avery on Easter, so that will still be tons of fun for Avery.  Plus, she'll still get to wear her adorable Easter dress (which she is head-over-heels in love with and asks to wear on a daily basis).

Strawberry season

And now I know what I will be doing during strawberry season: picking, then leathering (thanks to Lori for sharing that link via Google Reader).

I'm also looking forward to blueberry season since Avery just loves frozen blueberries.  I plan to freeze a lot of blueberries.

My favorite pictures of me & Mom and me & Dad

I saw these two pictures, which I have sitting in one of our guest rooms, as I was tidying up today.  I figured I'd scan and share.

My favorite picture of my me and my mom is more because the picture actually came out than because it's a good picture.  It was taken the summer between my sophomore and junior year in HS. I like it so much because it's amazing the picture has our faces in it.  We were walking along a rocky beach in Wales near our relatives' house.  There was a stone wall and we just set the (film) camera on the wall, set the self timer, and hoped to at least capture some part of our faces. I think we did quite well!

My favorite picture with my dad is of him and me in our backyard when I was 2 or 3.  I don't actually remember taking it. I'm not sure how old I was, but I remember my dad often working in the yard.

Maybe I'll upload them to FB and tag my parents. 

Sinus

(Likely) sinus infection

I went to the doctor yesterday.  I'm so sick of being sick.  He thinks I have a sinus infection that is causing all the issues.  The sinus infection causes post nasal drip, which causes the excessive coughing.  The excessive coughing is causing the acid reflux.  Acid reflux often affects your voice.   He prescribed some antibiotics and then asked if I'd like something to help with my cough (which is annoying and frequent, but doesn't sound bad).  Normally, I am, for whatever reason, hesitant to take medication for something (other than depression which I'm more than willing to pop some pills for!).  However, this time, after initially starting to ask if it was necessary, I stopped myself and then replied, "Yes!"

Through all this, I've been so grateful that I never started smoking.  If I ever had a smoker's cough, I would surely be driven insane.

Alpha dog

In other news, Turtle has seemingly replaced Eddie as the alpha dog in the house.  It's been trending this way for a while with Turtle often pushing her way to be first out the door and minor things like that.  Last night, I was giving the dogs some left over food.  I put some in Eddie's dish and Turtle pushed her way to his dish and ate it.  She never would have dared do such a thing a couple of years ago. 

Eddie had a total of two poop accidents while staying at the G's house while we were in Mexico.  Since he's been back home with us, we've had at least three, maybe four.  Rachele said he spent a lot of time outside.  Please note that they didn't force him to be outside - Eddie loves to be outside.  Turtle is more an indoor gal.

School pictures

Avery had pictures taken at school recently.  Her first school pictures!  They're the standard school pictures you'd expect to see.  In all of them, she's genuinely smiling and looks cute, but since they're standard school pictures, they are nothing special in terms of photography skill or capturing a moment.  Regardless, I ended up buying the entire package figuring it was cheaper to buy these pictures to send to people rather than pictures done by a professional photographer (should I ever get around to setting up a session).  I get the digital images as part of the package, but I haven't received them yet.  I'll post a few of them when they arrive. 

Scary pumpkins

If the point of Halloween is to have the scariest pumpkins, we might just win!  Before we left for Mexico, we went to a Halloween carving party hosted at the house of one of D's colleagues.  It was the first time D had ever carved a pumpkin.  We stuck them on the front porch and forgot about them.  Here's what they look like now.

Usual

The Reentry Usual

As usual, reentry into normal life was a bit bumpy after our return home from Mexico.  Today is the first day I'm not exhausted and craving a nap.  I've also had trouble finding time and energy to blog.  Also as usual, since I haven't blogged in a while, it seems that nothing is worth blogging about.  Bah.  Whatever.  Bullet points it is. 

• We arrived home about 1 AM on Wednesday morning to find that we had no heat and a smoke alarm was beeping.  After fixing those two problems, the three of us all feel into a deep slumber. 
• Avery was thrilled to go to school on Wednesday.  I think she really missed her friends and her routine even though she didn't once ask when we were going home. 
• Wednesday afternoon, I napped for five hours straight.  Even for me, that is a lot of napping.  And it was out-cold napping, not fitful.  Yesterday, I napped for an hour or so.  That was fitful napping since Avery wasn't thrilled with the idea of quiet time for her while I napped.  Today, I hope for no naps. 
• Avery is at school today.  She wore her Halloween shirt from last year, which very much looks like a boys shirt.  I think it probably is a boys shirt.  However, instead of the tan cargo pants that I'm sure I paired with it last year, she chose to pair it with a fun pink and orange skirts, tights, and sparkly black shoes.  My little fashionista. 
• Avery threw up several times yesterday, didn't eat much of anything all day, and around 5 pm fell asleep on the chair in the living room, then moved to Turtle's bed and fell asleep there.  She is not the type to fall asleep unless it's bedtime, so she must have been feeling quite poorly.  However, she didn't have a fever and was happy as a clam this morning, so I kept our plan to have her go to school today.
• We managed to forget Avery's travel car seat at the airport.  I picked it up on Wednesday.  It would have been a piece of cake except that I made a wrong turn and ended up in long term parking rather than short term.  In the end, I learned it's just as easy to park in long term, though it's a longer walk. However, that walk is in the tunnel, so it's an easy walk. I also learned that the walkways in the tunnel don't move if no one is one them.  At first, I figured it was broken, so I didn't get on it.  The next time, I just kept going anyway and it started moving as I walked.  I haven't seen moving sidewalks do this before.

Watch that tone

Avery started her "why?" phase several months ago.  When she started asking why this and why that, she would do so with a curious, sweet tone.  In the past few days, that tone has shifted from sweet to whiny.  Me: "Avery, we're going to eat dinner now."  Avery: "Whhhhhhyyyyy?" as if I'm asking her to clean the entire house or some other such chore. 

Chilling

I took a few pictures in Mexico, but I don't feel like sorting through them to post.  I will, however, post my favorite.  I like it because I love how happy she is on the floatie.

Sick

Damn it! I'm sick!

I woke up in the middle of the night, swallowed, then realized it wasn't going to be good in the morning. Yep, I have a sore throat. I'm achy.  I have a headache.  At first, I figured I was just going to have to plop Avery in front of the TV.  Then I realized I could call her school and see if they have room for her today.  We have to pay for an additional day, but given how awful I feel, it's worth it.  Thankfully, Avery was totally up for a day of school.  I didn't even try to convince her that wearing a dress with a skirt underneath isn't the best look - I just put on some sneakers and let her go in that.

You'd think that since I have a day off from parenting and that I'm sick and that I love to sleep, that I'd be napping now.  Apparently, my constant need/desire to nap is subsiding (could the acupuncture be working?!)  I went upstairs and tried to fall asleep, but realized I couldn't, so I decided to at least make good use of my time and organize pictures on my computer.

Avery's favorite person in the whole wide world

When I got home from Yummy Group last night, it was clear that the evening wasn't relaxing for D.  Avery had fallen asleep at 6:50 on the chair downstairs before I left, so I didn't say goodbye.  She apparently woke up at 9 and had been crying on and off for 1.5 hours to see me.   Anyway, I was exhausted and I didn't want to do battle with the sleep in your bed, or sleep in our bed when I knew D was so tired, so I scooped up Avery and we headed into the guest bedroom (I love to sleep in the guest bedroom - I sleep sooooooo well).  Anyway, Avery settled down quickly enough.  As we were laying there not talking and both drowsy and about to fall asleep, Avery sits up and says to me, "Mommy, Aunt Chele is my favorite person in the whole wide world."  I said, "Including me?"  And she said, "Yes."  There you have it, folks.

Yummy Group - Ten 01

When I got the menu at the restaurant, I was not overly happy with the choices.  You know how something on a menu often jumps out and sounds delicious?  Well, that didn't happen, so I ordered the sturgeon and hoped for the best.  Well damned if it wasn't delicious!  I was most pleased.  I just tried to find the description of it on their online menu, but it's not there.  It must have just been on it yesterday or something.  It came with grilled watermelon, corn, and pickled shallots.  Sounds weird, tastes delicious.  Perfection.

Dessert was the same thing.  Nothing much appealed to me, but I persevered and ordered the Zeppoli: ricotta beignets with orange custard. It was perfect!  Just my kind of dessert: no alcohol and nice and tasty without being too rich.

While the food was excellent, the conversation was even better.  Being able to get unbloggable things off my chest with friends is invaluable. 

Landscaping

They are currently putting in our new landscaping.  The trees are looking great.  I'm so happy we moved the tree that was located too close to the house.  It's now in the middle of the yard in front of the window to my office.  In a few years, it'll give me a ton of privacy, you know, for the very important tasks I do in my office like blogging and Facebooking.

I'm also so happy to see they chose to put a lot of heather plants in.  I love heather.  We didn't specify a whole lot in terms of what we wanted for plants.  I described things I like and things I don't.  I asked them to remove the weird evergreen tree and put in something else.  I asked them to move our Japanese Maple to a better location.  Other than that, I just trusted they know more about this stuff than us and let them go to town.  I think I'm going to be very happy. Plus, the guy whose doing it is so very nice.  While things haven't gone all that smoothly with our designer, he really knows how to hire people.  I don't think I've met one person he has hired who has been anything other than friendly, professional, and competent.

It's not done, but here's an in-progress photo.  You can also see in it how the last corbel is now installed. 

Craptastic

Drama

We had a little family drama (extended family, not family with D, Avery, and me) around here yesterday.  It sucked.  Majorly.  I don't feel it's appropriate to blog about it since I don't really have that type of blog, nor do I feel like rehashing it.  However, I will say it has completely drained me of the energy reserves I seem to have been building.  Damn it.  The good news, though, is that my mood - which tends to plummet for days with this type of emotional thing - is very stable.  I'm just exhausted.  But what's new there?  Thank goodness tonight is dinner out with friends. 

Wow

A colleague forwarded D an email from the Trailblazers.  It's a standard marketing email, in this case advertising pre-sale tickets.  Check out the picture.  See anyone familiar?  Considering D hardly goes to any sporting events, I find it quite astonishing that he'd end up in a picture used for marketing of one.

Mood

I can make it, I can make it ...

Avery woke up in such a mood today.  I am letting her watch her second 30-minute show of the day (her latest favorite: WordWorld). We, thankfully, have Tumble Bugs at 2:30.  I was hoping to hit the grocery store before then, but the guy fixing D's office still hasn't arrived and he has no key to get in. 

Garage doors

Our new garage doors are installed.  They still need to be painted, but they're installed and working.  It took the guy all day to do it.  I wasn't expecting it would be such a long process.  It didn't help that they guy doing it was clearly just hanging on until his next drink and probably smoked about 40 cigarettes while he was here.  However, he did do a very thorough job from what I can tell.  It seems very solidly done. Interestingly, they are much quieter than the old doors, so that's nice. 

I think the doors actually make the garage look smaller, or at least the doors themselves look smaller than our other doors.  Maybe this is due to the diagonal lines drawing the eye towards the center of the doors?  Either way, I think once they are painted brown, they'll look much better than our old doors.

I asked about an estimated date for when everything might be done. They're targeting the end of next week. I'm translating this to mid-October. I am so looking forward to it being done, though my loathing of all things house maintenance has dissipated at bit in the past couple of months. I guess having to deal with so many people coming in and out of the house for various issues has given me more practice and therefore made me more comfortable with it. Not sure, but I'm grateful for it.

Backup

I bought a backup hard drive yesterday ... finally!  I spent a lot of yesterday sorting through files and organizing documents and photos.  I still have quite a bit to do, but I at least feel like progress is moving forward versus spinning in circles.

This is a 500GB drive, but it's portable, so I plan to store it in the fire safe and then do a manual update once a month.

Stuff

Dog run is officially complete

We bought bark dust last night.  Today, while Avery is at school, I put it down in the dog run.  The dogs now have a pooping sanctuary, though they'd much rather just have the whole backyard in which to poop, I'm sure.

I've also developed my method for near-daily poop pick up in the run.  I put on gardening gloves, then put a plastic bag over the glove.  I pick up all the poop and put it in a plastic or paper bag, then I toss the plastic bag in with it all, then toss the bag in the trash.  So far, there is no stench in the dog run or the garage, which is where the trash can is kept. The biggest challenge is the plastic bags.  We just don't have that many plastic bags.  I do most of our shopping at New Seasons, which doesn't use plastic bags.  Plus, even if they did, I usually bring my own bags.  I carry them in my purse, so even at stores like Target I rarely get a plastic bag.  If anyone wants to save some of your plastic bags, I'll take them!

Organization kick

I've been on a bit of an organization kick lately, probably because I have more energy. In any case, it's nice to get things sorted out.  There's still much to do, as there always is, but I like organizing and decluttering.  I find it relaxing the same way that some people like to cook or read.  I really want to focus on getting my computer cleaned up and the photos sorted and backed up, but I fear if I spend too much time at the computer, I'll start to have wrist problems.  So I'm trying to attack that project in chunks. 

I think compared to the average American, I stay more on top of getting rid of stuff and keeping things cleared away.  I have no problems throwing stuff out/giving it away/recycling - whatever.  Stuff is just stuff to me.  Nonetheless, I'm shocked by the amount of time I spend sorting stuff, moving stuff, decluttering stuff, and just generally dealing with stuff.  Part of that is my constant need to reorganize.  I will change something around completely if I think it'll make it easier to maintain a system of organization.  With Avery in the equation, I find that with each new phase, comes a shift in needs.  For example, now we're getting bombarded with art projects.  I don't want to immediately chuck them all, but I also know I'm not going to hang every one of them up.  It's just too much.  So I need to find an easy location to put all these art projects until I get a moment to sort through them and pick the ones to keep or display. 

Cure

Race for the Cure

In our case, it was more like Stand, Shuffle, Stand, Shuffle for the Cure.  D left the house before us because Avery and I were so tired this morning.  He signed up for the 5k run; Avery and I signed up for the 1k walk.  Of course, as can be expected, Avery and I missed our walk, so we joined in with the 5k walkers for a bit, but eventually tired of the huge crowd, bypassed the start line, then left the shuffle early to eat some breakfast.  Sleeping in for the Cure is more my speed.  

Date night: Pasta and The Town

Following a dinner of pasta, we saw The Town last night.  It's directed by Ben Affleck, who also directed Gone Baby Gone.  Whatever you may think of his acting skills, the guy can definitely direct.  Both movies were great.  Gone Baby Gone was better, but The Town was still a very good movie. 

House

I completed my masterpiece of manual labor!  Okay, it's a bit higgledy piggledy and not the most attractive thing in the world, but the point is that I did it all by myself (except for some digging by D, but I didn't ask him to help, he just jumped in for a few minutes).  I did lug all the 50 lb bags of paving stone from the store to the car, out of the car into the garage, then out of the garage and to the pathway. You may ask, "Why did you do this, Megan?"  To which I can only answer, "I have no idea."  I guess I wanted to prove to myself that I can actually do these types of things if I decide to do it.  And I did.  And I also proved that I prefer to dial the phone and have someone else do these things for me.  It wasn't so much the physicality of it, but the general cluelessness I have about how to go about doing these types of things.  What I need is a DIY mentor.

I now need to buy a bunch of cheapo bark dust from Home Depot to cover the dirt in the dog run area. We have a section with bark dust on it (that you can't see in the pictures) and the dogs far prefer to poop on that to the dirt.  Plus, the bark dust cuts down on the dirt the dogs track into the house. Also, buying cheapo bark dust means replenishing it as it gets thrown out with the poop won't be painful.  

Before

After

I had this amazing idea for a slide for Avery.  I even went so far as to call a guy who builds custom play equipment for backyards to get it priced out.  Unfortunately, the cost would be around $2500 and that is a wee bit steep for a slide.  What I wanted to do was install a covered slide in the shape of spiral that starts on our deck and then lands on the concrete slab below the deck.  Of course, we'd have to put the rubber stuff used on playgrounds on the concrete.  But wouldn't it be so awesome!  Avery and her friends could go down the slide from the deck and then run back up the yard to go back down - fun and exercise!  And it's making use of our sloped backyard.  Ah well, it's good to dream big.  Maybe we'll win $2500 and decide that this is the ideal use for it.

Doozy

Friday was a doozy

A long, exhausting day.  We started off the day by heading to Little Gym.  Avery was just not herself at all.  She was for a bit, but then she started to cry whenever any kid bumped her, didn't want to participate in the activities and was just generally very un-Avery-like.  Henry was a bit out of sorts, too, so Christie and decided we couldn't very well go home and deal with the situations solo.  Solution: food carts and the park.

We hit BBQ Fusion (excellent!) and then went to the park blocks to eat and play.  Following that, we decided to head to CdT (that would be here) to continue our playdate.

Avery immediately wanted to put on princess dresses and Henry obliged.  I don't care what you say, even with hair most girls would kill for and no issue wearing princess garb, that boy is all boy.  It's fascinating to watch them play.  Avery is all about the performing and the twirling and getting the attention of adults; Henry is all about running, noise making, running, playing with cars, running, playing with balls, running, and running.

We played outside with the tube and cars and blocks; we did crafts at the kitchen table when it started to rain; and finally, I yelled uncle and put on Monsters Inc for the kids while Christie ran to the local diner to get us (mostly me) milkshakes.

Immediately following Henry's departure, Elise arrived for the Gs date night (Nolan stayed home with Jay because their date night was unusual in that it wasn't really a date night).  I made Elise and Avery a tent in Avery's room.  They spent much of the time before dinner in there.  Right before dinner, Avery had a complete meltdown.  Elise saw the opportunity to be a golden child and turned on the charm while Avery was kicking and screaming on the floor.  Elise: "This is delicious!" as she downs the dinner.   So cute.

It was clear Avery's tantrum was a meltdown and (in my opinion) beyond her control.  She was so tired and I think feeling a bit under the weather.  D and I divided and conquered.  He took Elise upstairs to play; I waited out Avery's meltdown until the blessed words came: "I want some milk!"  That is now the signal that she's capable of calming down.  I was able to pick her up and she proceeded to eat her dinner and drink milk and return to my lovable Avery.

We read a book (I couldn't handle more than one I was so tired), then both girls were asleep by 7:30 with no issues at all.  That means Avery earned her second sleeping reward: a pretty purple dress.

House Progress

The arbor and most corbels are up on the house. The remaining corbel goes in the eave that they'll need a 40' ladder to reach, so it'll have to wait until Monday to go up. I'm hoping the garage doors go up next week.  I think those and staining the deck darker will make a huge difference.  The deck will be stained the same color as the corbels.

The corbels are the items in the eaves. I don't know why you can't click on the picture to embiggen, but they're there.

There will be lights at each spot with the wires.  The two trees (one on each side of the new sidewalk) will have two spotlights on them each. Not shown: we also have lights lining the other side of our driveway.

We have two large holes dug in the front for the trees; the lights are ready to be wired.  I think a lot of the landscaping work should start next week.

Voice

My voice is still hoarse, but it's getting better.  I can at least talk, though I'm trying to limit myself until it's fully better.  I find myself marveling at the loudness and clarity of the teachers' voices in the various classes Avery is taking right now.  I've never before marveled at such a thing.  It's a good reminder not to take things for granted.  

Silly Me

When Avery and I were at Little Gym on Friday, I realized that I follow the teacher's instructions with such vigor it's as if I'm waiting for praise, too: "You know where your feet are Megan!  Very good!"

Colorblind

Elimination Diet - Day Two

Day two was brutal.  I came this close to just chucking it and eating the damn cheesecake.  I made it through.  Now I just have to make it through today.  One day at a time. 

Interestingly, I'm not having any trouble with no Diet Coke.  No problems with no dairy.  Very little problems with no wheat.  I think the biggest one is really sugar.  More so, it's just being able to eat whatever without thinking about it. 

Last night's dinner was trout and curried* sweet potatoes.  This morning's breakfast was brown rice, smoked salmon, and curried sweet potatoes.

*Technically, curry powder should be off the list because it has red pepper in it.  However, I'm pretty darn confident that nightshades aren't my problem and it is a minimal amount anyway, so I just said screw it. I'm crazy like that.

Colorblind

When Avery was younger, D was convinced she was colorblind.  I said no, most kids don't learn their colors until around 2yo, so that she didn't know her colors at 18 months was nothing to worry about. Sure enough, around 2, she started to point out colors by name.

Well, it turns out that D was probably right.  He thought she was red-green colorblind like his brother.  I now believe she's yellow-blue colorblind.  Yellow-blue colorblind is much less common than red-green.  She knows colors quite well, but I started noticing a while back that whenever she sees yellow, she says it's blue.  Never the other way around.  It's like she can't see yellow at all.  And sometimes she'll say white is black, but I suppose that could just be not remember the name of a color.  I don't know.  I'll ask the eye doctor about it when we go back for her checkup.  Sadly, her room is painted yellow.  If she sees yellow as blue, and she's not particularly fond of blue, I wonder what she thinks of the color of her room? 

Avery Quotes

Avery's sentence structure is improving each day.  There are many times I'm surprised to hear the (relative) complexity of the sentences she's speaking.  As stated before, I suck at remembering the cute things she says.  Off the top of my head, here are a few:

Avery: "Dad!  We need to talk the dogs for a walk."
Dad: "Why?"
Avery: "Because it's part of the deal!"

She often says, "That's too loud for my ears," and, "I don't like that noise in my ears."  I don't know why, but I find that phrasing so cute. 

Clearly I must say this one a lot: "I don't have the patience for this right now!"

Yesterday, I asked Avery what she wanted to do.  She thought about it earnestly, then replied, "I want to go buy a purple elisatard."  First, she knew specifically what leotard she wants.  Second, she called it an elise-a-tard.  I corrected her pronunciation and she's gotten it right since then. 

Sleep Routine

Our world has been thrown into chaos, relatively speaking.  For the past few weeks, Avery gets ready for bed as easy as ever, but when it comes time to actually stay in bed and go to sleep, well, that's a different story.  She comes into the hall and plays; she asks us to repeatedly come upstairs to put the blanket on or to cuddle with her; she reads books really loudly; she brings her potty into the hall, then proceeds to go potty in the hallway (in the potty); and on and on. 

Closing the door doesn't work very well anymore.  She cries like she's really actually scared.  I can handle crying because she's throwing a tantrum.  But crying that sounds like she's scared I cannot handle.  So that trick won't work for us anymore.

I decided to make a huge sleep chart and then show her the prize she gets if she stays in her room after we put her to bed at night: a purple skirt!  We've tried a sleep chart before, but it was smaller, she didn't help make it, and I didn't buy the prize in advance so she could see it.  This actually worked last night!  She stayed in her room and was asleep about 15 minutes later.  Awesome!

Glasses

Avery now wears glasses

We went into the eye doctor (an MD doctor, not just a person who fits people for glasses) for Avery yesterday morning.  After examining her and dilating her eyes to be sure, the doctor said she is farsighted.  This fact is what is causing her eye to turn inward.  I typed an explanation on Facebook as to why glasses should fix the problem, so I'll just cut and paste that here to avoid duplicate effort:

It should. If it doesn't, the next step is putting a patch over the stronger eye to force the muscles of the weaker eye to gain strength. The step after that is surgery. I got the impression from the doctor that eyeglasses will probably fix Avery's issue since we caught it early.

Basically, Avery is farsighted. However, farsighted for a child is different than for an adult because a child's eye muscles are still developing. I am not entirely sure, but it seems logical that for an adult whose eye sight was 20/20 as a kid, their muscles developed normally, so the result of farsightedness is only blurriness (as opposed to an eye curving inwards). Since a child's muscles are not fully developed, the strong eye focuses on the object while the brain turns off/reduces its use of the weaker eye causing the muscles to never fully develop.

Wearing eye glasses puts everything into focus so the weaker eye doesn't need to turn inward. Therefore, as the muscles develop, they develop normally. That's how I understand it.

Also, children can apparently outgrow farsightedness. This is a long term thing in terms of wearing the glasses, so she may need to wear them until she's around 8 or 9, but it's possible that at that age, she'll no longer need them and will have perfect vision again.

Note: This is all the way I understood it from the way the doctor described it. It's entirely possible I've misunderstood something or connected some dots wrong, so don't take this all as fact.

Taken with my phone, so not the best quality, but doesn't she look cute!

When they put the glasses on her, I was shocked at the thickness of the lenses.  It's not so much that the glasses look thick as much as that you can tell it's a strong prescription.  Basically, I don't get why there weren't other signs that her eyesight was that bad.  The only sign was that the inward turning eye.  She rarely trips, she seemed to be able to see things far and near, nothing.  Anyway, they look very cute on her, though I wish they'd had some more tasteful frames.  I must remember that it's not about me - she picked the ones she liked.  I love the shape she chose and I'm thinking well get another pair in just a silver frame of the same style (you can order those online, but they didn't have them in the store).  Those can be her backup glasses.  D and I figure they're going to get lost or broken at some point, so better to just have two pairs.

So far, she's not resisting wearing them.  The doctor said that kids often take to them right away because it feels better to wear them.  While she's not sensitive about them, those who see her, please make a big deal of how cool her glasses are. We want to make sure she wants to wear them since she's supposed to wear them all the time she's awaking. 

Tantrums & Poop

Mom is leaving today.  Thank goodness she was here yesterday.  I don't want to type out the whole thing, but Avery was just a handful yesterday.  The whining, the crying, the tantrums.  It's been so long since we've had a major tantrum (thank goodness they're rare vs. regular now) that I was utterly exhausted after it.

Making things worse is that it's as if Eddie's bowel is programmed to expel its contents whenever things are hectic and my stress level is already high.  We've had no fewer than four poop accidents in the house in the last 24 hours.  Part of it is his incontinence, but part is also that he's refusing to go in the dog run, which is hilarious to me since about 50% of the time that is where he pooped BEFORE there was a fence there.  

Dog Run

It's in, it's OK looking, it's a bit crooked.  I think he mismeasured slightly, not taking into account the space the lever would take up.  As a result, it's not perfect and that, of course, is difficult for me.  I don't know that I want to pay more money to get it perfect (more money because I think the only option would be to reorder a gate that is maybe ½" shorter in length - I think I could legitimately tell him the time it takes to reinstall it needs to be free). 

Bookcase

Weekend Recap

Avery and I had a couple of playdates on Friday, the second of which was at Rachele's.  Very convenient for me since D and I had date night on Friday night.  We decided to make it a double-header and saw two movies: The Other Guys and The Kids are All Right.  I thought The Other Guys was very funny.  The Kids are All Right was good, but not as good as I was expecting given it's stellar 96% rating on Rotten Tomatoes.

Saturday we didn't do much of anything but nap before the G's arrived to drop Elise and Nolan off for a 24-hour break from the kids.  Our first overnight with both Nolan and Elise was about as easy as having two additional children could possibly be.  Nolan went to sleep without a fuss, as did Elise.  Avery had a bit more trouble - as she always does when we have guest children around - but even that was easy to deal with.  Nolan woke once during the night (D got up with him).  I got up with Elise and Nolan in the morning.  Avery came down to join us when she finally woke up.  The kids played well together.  Nolan entertained himself with my drawer of plastic containers.  All in all, an easy little stint in having three kids and three dogs in the house for a somewhat extended period of time.  Hopefully future weekends will be the same.  Fingers crossed.

Sunday, after E&N left with R&J around 4 pm, D put together Avery's new bookcase (see pictures below). We ate out on Sunday night, followed by an evening of TV - Madmen, Design Star, Rubicon. 

Avery's Room

We decided Avery's room was too cramped with both the chair and the new bookcase, so we have moved the chair into our room.  Clearly, we need to move the map behind the book case (all in due time, people), but I'm so very happy to have a place to put all the books and toys that were lining the floor of her room.  Eventually I'll buy some baskets/containers for some of the cubbies, but I wanted to get an inventory of the books and stuff we have before doing that. 

I've also decided that I need to buy Avery curtains and bedding that are a bit more girlie.  Now that her personality is more formed, I recognize the decor doesn't reflect Avery's personality very well. 

Real Housewives of New Jersey

Crap.  I'm totally hooked. I knew I shouldn't have started watching it.  It's like crack.  These people are crazy, but I just love to hate them.  Which is why we all watch those shows, isn't it?

BFF Dialogue

I am absoluetely terrible at remembering the cute things Avery is starting to say.  I have busted out laughing a number of times now that her vocabulary is verbose enough to relay more than simple things.  I did jot down a couple of exchanges between Avery and Elise during our weekend.

Avery, to me, at dinner: "I'm having a conversation with Friend Elise." 
Avery, to Elise: "How was your day Friend Elise?"

Elise, with genuine enthusiasm: "I didn't fall down the stairs!"
Avery, with matching genuine enthusiasm: "Good job, Friend Elise!"

Totally Awesome Desk

Check out this idea for containing cord mess.

Cold

Avery's cold = awful sleep

Normally when Avery is sick or has a cold, her sleeping doesn't change much at all.  Not this time.  She has a little cold with no cough.  Mostly just a runny nose.  Her sleep the last couple of nights has been crap.  She's come into our bed and then proceeded to demand milk in the middle of the night, breathe noisily through a snotty nose, and just keep me awake.  Hopefully she'll be all better by the time we leave for Vegas so the G's don't have to deal with this situation (I apologize in advance, RHG).

Absolutely Hilarious

I don't usually watch videos people post, but I finally clicked on this one posted by a FB friend.  So very funny, even if you love your iPhone as I do.  Do not watch with kids around - language is not appropriate.

House

They've finished the pillars for our house.  They're a little too big - or the deck is slightly too small - but better than what we had, so we're happy.  They'll also look better once they're clad in brick and painted the same color as our house.  A few pictures.  Clearly, the house hasn't been painted yet.

Running

Avery went running with D the other day.  Here they are stretching before the run.

Reentry

Transition

My reentry into normal life from vacation is going well so far.  It helps that my mom is still here to help out with Avery, and that I had the house cleaned before I came home. I have been on/off exhausted, but happily these periods are mixed with chunks of energy.  Past episodes of anxiety/depression have left me exhausted all the time, so having some periods of energy is a very nice change of pace.

Potting Flowers

Yesterday, after an appointment with my therapist/PMHNP, Mom, Avery, and I went to the nursery to buy flowers for the pots on our back deck.  After we got home, we napped for a while, then set about planting the pots. It turns out that we only have one little shovel, so Mom ended up doing all the work while I supervised.  Yep, I'm sticking with that story.  Each time I look out, the pots make me happy, so hopefully my brown thumb and I can keep them alive.  I should have taken pictures of them yesterday because they look a little beaten down after all the rain last night, but hey, at least I took some pictures.

Zoo

This morning, we met Christie and Henry at the zoo to tour the new dinosaur exhibit.  It was awesome!  Avery and Henry both had a great time.  Being there in the very slight rain was actually somewhat pleasant.  It was very fine mist and not cold, so it was more a matter of just getting past the wetness.  I have some pictures, but I need to do a post on Avery's blog, so I'll save the pictures for that.

Dinner at the G's

Tonight we're having dinner at the G's.  Then RHG also said we could leave Avery there while we caught a movie.  Never one to turn down such an offer, I think odds are very good we'll do this if we can swing it given the movie times.  Movie is still TBD.

Designer

Lunch & Designer

D and I had an unexpected lunch date today.  Since we needed to meet with our designer/GC's showroom at 1, we met up for lunch beforehand.  My head is rather in the ground on this whole house business.  I have just kind of shut down and started to pretend like it's all beyond my control. It's the way I was when we bought this house, too.  We made quick decisions and then I was ready for them to implement and for everything to be done.  It's not lack of patience on my part as much as it is lack of interest in the process, I guess.

He's going to come back to us with a few more drawings for paint color options.  You know the picture I scanned in before?  I thought it was a computer drawing, but it's a hand drawing.  Wow.  Anyway, they're going to do a few more of those with different house colors to see if we can get it nailed down.  We also decided to skip the porch - at least the porch that would be in front of the windows.  We're most likely still doing a decking over the existing concrete steps we have.  We're also looking into other options for replacing/changing the brick.

In case you're wondering, he was finally diagnosed with Bell's palsy. It is a less than clear cut case because he had paralysis on his entire right side of his body, not just on his face.  He can walk without a cane now and we were able to meet with him in his showroom, so I think things are getting back to normal for him.

Tantrum update

Avery's been doing much better with her tantrums the last few days, and I've been handling them better, too.  Of course, we have just been driving to and from school and those trips are usually without any issue, but she's also been a bit more toned down in her tantrums at home.  She'll whine or cry when she doesn't get what she wants, but it's less drawn out and dramatic.  I've been rewarding her with a sticker for getting into her car seat without a hassle.  I figured we'll start smaller than a TV reward as long as I can get away with it.  I found some free Sesame Street video podcasts that only last about five minutes.  I don't like the idea of her watching a lot of TV in the car since that means less TV time at home (adhering to a screen limit time to avoid Angry Child at nighttime).  I like TV time at home because it gives me a break.  I don't want to waste TV time in the car.

Sleeping

She ended up sleeping with us last night.  I vaguely remember pulling her into bed with us after she came into our room (which I was later informed by D was around 2:30 AM).  First she came in without making noise, but since I wake up whenever there is any movement or sound of any kind, I was aware that she came into our room.  At first she just stood next to the bed, then she went to sleep on the floor for a while.  Eventually stood up and asked to come into bed with us.  It's all a bit of a haze.  Normally I would have checked the time and then told her to go back into her bed, so I'm not sure why that didn't happen last night.  It wasn't desperation for sleep or frustration on my part.  I think I might have been somewhat asleep and just wasn't thinking straight.  Overall, she has gotten good at going back into her own bed without help from us if she wakes up in the middle of the night.  I'm currently knocking on wood for that trend to continue.  

Packing

I have told Avery several times about our upcoming trip to Colorado.  When she got home from school yesterday, first she stripped down (always her first act when we get home), then decided she wanted to get into dinosaur jammies, then she she said she needed to pack for our trip.  I gave her the ladybug bag to pack, but she also decided she needed to bring along the box that we had been pretending was a mailbox. What she packed: two pieces of junk mail, our mailbox key, and several shredded up pieces of paper.  Sounds about right to me.

Comprehension

On the way to school this morning, I was explaining to Avery why she is going to school three days this week (our travel next week).  I finished, then she said, "and daddy/daughter date night!"  It seems all future events get all jumbled in her mind.  I told her yesterday that tonight will be a Daddy/Daughter date night since I'm going out to dinner.  It was very sweet to hear her so excited about it.

We talk a lot in the car lately.  She likes to observe what I'm doing or not doing: "Mommy waving" or "Mommy not waving."  The why questions have started, though I'm not sure she really understands what "why?" means since she doesn't always use it at logical times in a conversation.  An example of her why question used properly: at the stoplight today, she said, "Mommy not going. Why?"  I explained that we stop on red and go on green and she seemed satisfied with that answer.  I'm curious to see if she'll retain that bit of knowledge.

And while this is not a leap in comprehension to document, she says the same thing every time we go to or leave school and I find it adorable.  A couple of weeks ago, they went on a buggy ride around the hospital grounds and over near the private school.  The private school apparently has goats on its grounds.  They saw one of the goats.  So now, every time we walk by the buggies, which are stored on either side of the entrance to her school, she says, "'member buggy ride?"  I say, "I remember you telling me about the buggy ride.  What did you see?"  Then she yells, "Goats!!!"  Then she usually points to the seat (I presume) she was sitting in and points to the seat next to it to say, "Ethan!" (whom I presume was sitting next to her).  She talks about Ethan, Owen, and Ali from school.  The other day she even asked for Ali.  It's very different for me to hear her ask for friends from school since she's forged these little friendships on her own.