Emily surrounded herself with toys last week. She is getting very good at avoidance techniques when it's time to go to bed! "If you can't reach me, you can't make me go to bed!"
Emily and I attended the youth group pizza party at the church on Sunday to help welcome our visiting mission group from Indiana. As I was loading up our plate to head outside I noticed Em had snagged a chocolate covered cherry from the table. If you click on the picture, you can see an enlarged version of the damage. (No, I didn't pop her in the kisser!)
Later in the evening, Ryan and his friend, Dylan, played a few games of tackle football with some of the other kids. Here's the difference between a 16 year old and a 14 year old after a hot, sweaty game! Ryan will be thrilled this one! That's it for now. I'm working on a collage to post later that I think you might enjoy!
We ran away as a family last Wednesday to our favorite vacation destination in Tennessee and returned last night. It was relaxing, but it was an adventure to say the least.
Tom drives the first leg through Ohio. I drive the second leg from Cincinnati through Kentucky and a short bit of Tennessee and then Tom picks up the final stretch and drives us to our cabin.
We stopped in at Skyline Chili in Cincinnati for a bit to eat. Prior to ordering, Emily and I made a quick visit to the restroom for a quick pit stop and a diaper change (for Emily, not me!). While I was taking care of business, Emily found her reflection in the toilet paper dispenser and began to admire the little girl smiling back at her... a little too much! Before I knew it, Emily was laying a great big kiss on the little girl looking back her. Ok. That was a nice way to say she was smearing her lips all over the toilet paper dispenser... but she really was kissing it! And, what better place to kiss a toilet paper dispenser than Skyline... might as well have been a White Castle! Blech! Needless to say, she received a good disinfecting before returning to the table for lunch! And it was all just the beginning...
The rest of the trip was pretty uneventful. Emily entertained herself in the back seat and took a couple of nice long naps. Ryan watched a movie in the back seat, kept Emily entertained when she dropped a book or a toy and listened to his iPod. Tom and I took turns driving and that was that.
The weather was beautiful for our trip down and once we landed and started to unpack, Emily was scooting around the cabin like a wind-up toy that had been wound up too long. She was running from room to room and leaving a trail of giggles and toys behind her.
We visited our favorite restaurants, stopped at the visitor's center, drove through the Cove, and we spent lots of time resting, reading and hanging out as a family. Ryan spent a lot of his spare time texting his girlfriend and Emily spend a lot of her spare time finding more places to admire herself. She found a mirror behind our bedroom door and slapped sloppy kisses all over the beautiful little girl that was smiling back at her. Thankfully, it WAS a clean mirror. However, later in the week, Emily found that a distorted version of that beautiful little girl was also reflected in the handle for the toilet (eww!), the glass on the oven door (yuck) and in a doorknob or two in the cabin (gross)... and yes, she kissed each and every one of them. Who knew she was that infatuated with herself! I had to be on super high guard duty around all shiny objects all week!
To keep her out of the house for a bit, we did spend a little time in the hot tub and Emily and I spent a couple of afternoons in her baby pool that we brought along for the trip. Not sure what Ryan's doing in the picture below... but it does appear that he might have gotten his new phone a bit damp.
We did have a beautiful view of the mountains from our cabin. You can't beat waking up in the morning to this view and watching the sunset over the same... we spent quite a bit of time on the porch relaxing.
During our stay, Tom wound up with a pinched nerve or something that caused him a great deal of pain and made even walking difficult for him. He wasn't sure if the bed at the cabin was causing the problem or what was really going on. We drove to Gatlinburg for lunch and after lunch Tom could barely walk back to the car. He rested at the cabin the rest of the evening and when he was up the following morning he made a pretty quick decision to have it checked out. Even though our insurance would have had a better co-pay rate at an Urgent Care, for some reason the only Urgent Care in the area was "accepting only established patients".... so what's the point of an Urgent Care? Tom was essentially forced to go to the ER in order to get checked out. After spending about 2/3 of the day out of town, he ended up with 3 different kinds of medicines and an interesting list of "possible" side effects... we thought the potential of being drowsy, hyperactive and irritable all at the same time might make for an interesting remainder of the vacation... (Fortunately, only drowsiness showed a bit of itself on the way home and I ended up driving most of the trip.)
We had a couple of incredible rain storms while we were in TN. It's really cool to hear it rain on the metal roof and then to run outside and see the rain rolling over the mountain ranges. Emily got to see a pretty awesome storm shortly before she had to go to bed.
After the dark storm, the sky lightened up immensely and there was a double rainbow in the sky. The rainbow on the left was probably the most incredible rainbow I've ever seen. All the colors were extremely bright and you could make out each and every one of them... well, most of us could. Poor Ryan is color blind and he could only see 2 of the colors. I forget what colors he said he could see but it seems like maybe it was blue and green? Poor kid. It really was gorgeous and I don't use that term often.
This is us still rainbow watching.
On Sunday, we went to church at The Church of The Cove. Emily and I spent most of the service in the nursery so we were pretty tired by the time we were done with church and lunch. Emily and I took a nap when we got home and Tom took Ryan to a nearby parking lot so he could get some skating in.
Here's Ryan... yet again texting the aforementioned girlfriend (while on his board). ;-)
I don't know what this trick is called... but it looks complicated.
Here's the stud taking a break while his dad is probably offering some very fatherly advice... yeah, right. So that brings us to the end of the week and our trip home. Tom insisted that he was okay to drive and that he'd let me know if he started to get tired. He was conveniently wiped out after about an hour into our 8 hour drive. ;-) No, seriously, I didn't mind driving for the day and Emily travels really well so it wasn't a problem. She took a decent nap before lunch and then stayed awake until we got home around 7:30. Here is some video fun of Emily. No... I wasn't driving when I shot the videos!
Oh, Josh... She still won't say Mom, Dad or Ryan but she'll randomly say "Josh... Josh... Josh... Oh, Josh". Go figure!
She was getting very loopy when we were about 2 hours from home. We had stopped at the outlet malls so the guys could check for some shirts. Em and I opted to sit it out in the car because they were only "going to be gone for a few minutes".... riiiiight. We had snacks, we made faces and after I got tired of entertaining Emily started entertaining herself.
We all made it home safe and sound and slept very well last night. Tom was back to work this morning and I was back at home with Emily making phone calls to the insurance company and trying to figure out what we were going to have for lunch. So, as you can see, after our big adventure, we've now returned to life as we know it.
Today, we essentially followed our regular routine (in the previous entry) but we took a trip to the pediatrician for Em's 2-year check-up. It seems we've been having a lot of appointments lately. Here's a run down of what's going on with Em's PT, speech and other developmental areas and what some of the recommendations are that we've been given.
Help Me Grow (HMG) - This is the early intervention service that is provide through Marion County. HMG has provided us with a wonderful social worker named Nikki who helps us with all the paperwork involved in getting the services for Emily that she needs. Nikki visits every couple of months and coordinates Em's evaluations/assessments that happen about every 6 months. The evaluations/assessments then determine if Em needs referred to receive other services. In most counties, HMG also provides or pays for the early intervention services that their cases require. However, in Marion County, we have been extra blessed to have those services stripped away. (Did you detect the sarcasm there?) Marion County's HMG program and only refer us for other services but they can't help provide them. My understanding is that this is because Marion County's MRDD levy failed and these were some of the cuts that were made. VOTE YES for MRDD!
Because these early intervention services aren't provided by HMG at this time or another agency in Marion County, and because we love our daughter enough to get the services she needs, we now get the opportunity to pay a $20 insurance co-pay for every treatment and we are limited by our insurance to 20 sessions per year even though it has been recommended that Em receive ongoing PT once a week until she no longer needs treatment. This is no fault of HMG, from everything we've seen they are doing absolutely everything they can within their power.
Physical Therapy (PT) - Emily still receives physical therapy once a week and while it's mostly play-based due to her age, we are learning things to do with her while we are at home to keep her stretched out. She still has high muscle tone but it's nowhere near as tight as it was when we first brought her home. At that time, her trunk was very tight, she still acted like she had a stiff neck and it was pretty tough to change her diaper because she wasn't very limber. The fun part with PT is that every time Em has a growth spurt her muscles can't keep up with the bone growth and we backtrack. During PT, Em gets to play on a slide and we focus on alternating her feet as we go up the steps (she tends to step up with her left foot all the time) and she has been working on sitting down at the top of the slide and getting her balance while there. (Imagine keeping your head above your feet as you try to sit down on a narrow platform and don't have good balance or control.) During this process on the slide, Em is also learning how to maneuver her feet and legs around when she's sitting on them. Sometimes she just gets "stuck" and needs a little help getting the muscle control accomplished to get the job done.
At PT, we also sit on the floor with Em straddling our leg and we help her stretch her leg muscles and trunk. We do this by putting a shape sorter to one side and the shapes on the other side and let her adjust her balance while we help her hold her feet flat on the floor. (Her feet are frequently in the tippy-toe position... this kid's gotta have strong calf muscles!) This past week she stood on a very soft, spongy pad and had to adjust as her feet and balance as she picked shapes up off the floor and put them in a container that was up pretty high. We do a lot of other activities at PT and at home but these are some of the bigger ones we're doing now.
Emily received a speech and language assessment a few weeks ago and it was recommended that she start receiving speech therapy once a week for a year. Again, our insurance will only cover 20 visits so we are seeking alternative funding for this. (No, we're not going to rob a bank.) Em is now 25 mos. old but due to her premature birth and her 8 mos. spent in the baby house this age is adjusted for assessments. At the time, her adjusted age was probably about 21 mos. She was assessed with a comprehension (Receptive Language) of approx. 30 mos. and an Expressive Language (speech) development of approx. 11 mos. In other words, she thoroughly understands what's going on and what we're saying and is above average in that area, but she's about a year behind schedule on talking and expressing her needs verbally.
We were supposed to start speech therapy last week, but canceled it due to Grandma's service. We start tomorrow (Tues.) and I'm anxious to see what they do to help a 2-year old learn to use her words that she's been storing up.
In other Emily news, we have an appointment with Children's Hospital in a couple of months to have a physical medicine specialist check on Em. The team that we have working with Em right now believe there is a deeper reason for Em's delays. If there truly is a deeper cause, there's a chance this will qualify us for the alternative funding that I spoke about above. At this point, the team seems to be leaning toward a possibility of mild cerebral palsy and/or PVL (which CP is a symptom of). We may be having someone look more closely at the MRIs that Em had done last year. At that time, there were some concerns, but the signs weren't showing themselves as much as they are now. I'm praying that we find "something" so that we know what we're dealing with and how to best proceed from here on out. I've done a lot of reading about health issues with internationally adopted children and premature children and I'm firmly convinced that early intervention is key. The longer we spend on diagnoses, the longer we go without truly working on the problem.
We are surrounded by the wonderful teams at HMG, PT, Speech Therapy, and our pediatrician's office. We have great support from our online adoption community, our family and our friends. We thank you for your support and your prayers! Go team!
It's another exciting day in the Hypes' household today! Now that school is wrapped up for me (Jenni), I am able to sleep in... well, at least until my internal alarm clock wakes me up at 6:30am... and I can work around the house for a couple of hours before our precious little drop of sunshine decides to wake up and start jumping in her bed. I'm waiting for the day when she can hurdle the crib railing. I fear it's not too far away.
- - - - - - Once we're up and moving, we typically get a request for milk and breakfast in the form of sign language. If you remember, Emily picked up on the "milk" and "more" signs right off the bat about a year ago and she loves to put them to use. Most of the time we go with a lazy breakfast which involves walking around the living room with a sippy cup full of milk and a bowl or baggie of dry Cheerios (or occasionally Honeycombs). We've been practicing carrying the bowl with two hands, but nearly ever day we forget and spill dry cereal all over the carpet and nearly every we practice picking cereal up off the floor and putting it back in the bowl. We like to think of it as "occupational therapy" or a lesson in patience for Mommy. You would think that some day I would be smart enough to remember to strap her into her booster seat, wouldn't ya?
After breakfast, we go to work... ie. we get all the toys out of our toybox and go from one to the next, to the next, to the next. At some point before lunch we still take a nap and sometimes those naps actually last up to 2 hours!
Lunch these days usually consists of meat/protein (chipped ham, corn dogs, fish sticks, peanut butter sandwich, or chicken if we're lucky), a vegetable (usually peas, corn, mashed potatoes, lima beans or the occasional french fry or smiley fry when we're out to eat), or fruit (applesauce, mandarin oranges, bananas, peaches, apples, or strawberries) and of course milk. Sometimes, if we're lucky, we might even sneak in a cookie if we were good and ate most of our lunch.
After lunch, we usually repeat the after breakfast routine. Sometimes we throw in a video. It seems that Baby Einstein stuff with sign language and Elmo's World are the favorites right now. Em also seems to enjoy the Little Einstein shows on TV which is an animated series that has a lot of music and interaction with it.
Emily still takes an afternoon nap and they tend to run from 45 min. to 2 hours as well. She's usually awake by supper time and we tend to repeat our lunch menu as options. She still doesn't like pizza... bummer... and has convinced herself that she doesn't like chicken so much any more. She usually like bread but seems to get tired of it after a couple of bites.
After supper we usually play as a family, read books, wrestle or play a fun game (usually Mommy hides around the corner and jumps out to scare the begeebees out of Emily... and she gets some pretty good belly laughs out of it.) Lately, I've started giving pony and piggy back rides around the house and those seems to be pretty entertaining as well.
Bathtime comes around about every other day unless it's a dirty play day and is a big hit. Emily loves to round up her foam letters from her floor puzzle as well as any other Mommy-approved bath toys and plops them in the tub. She pushes Mommy's footstool into the bathroom so I have something to sit on by the tub and the stripping commences... hers, NOT mine! She loves splashing and laying down in the tub and even though she acts all freaked out when I rinse her hair she signs "more" when I'm all done.
When it's time to get out of the tub, we wrap her up in her towel and take our "baby burrito" to her bedroom to find some pajamas. We play a bit and put toys away until the munchkin's hair is dry and then it's on to bed. Our bedtime routine usually consists of giving Daddy a kiss and/or a hug and playing "flutter" with Daddy. Flutter consists of putting your hand over Daddy's long eyelashes and letting him tickle your hand with them, then they swap and Daddy's hand goes over Em's long eyelashes so his hand gets tickled. Occasionally I get let in on the fun but Daddy's really the better player!
Bedtime's usually around 8:30 and Em still settles down pretty quickly. Every now and then we wait a little too long and pass the bewitching hour... but even then she only cries for about 15 minutes or so.
I was able to visit Grandma on Thursday afternoon and spent some time sitting with her. They had given her a light dose of morphine to help her out and it seemed to help her breathing.
Tom and I received a call late yesterday morning on our way up from the hospital's parking garage that Grandma had just passed away. She was with family and they were praying for her and reading some of her favorite scriptures to her.
She will be greatly missed but we have no doubts that she has joined Grandpa in Heaven and is running through the fields like a little girl again. I can only imagine what Heaven might be like... but it's a better place now that G'ma's there! I'm gonna miss her, but I celebrate this next phase of her life!
Grandma is still in the ICU and they are starting to wean her off of her ventilator. Today they had her off the ventilator for about 2 - 2 1/2 hours and she did ok. It is picking up when she can't. They are also not sedating her as heavily as she had been so today she was able to follow people around the room with her eyes and seems to recognize her family. She had movement in her right foot yesterday and then today had a little movement in her right knee.
My mom, her brothers, and their spouses have been taking turns going down to stay with Grandma during visiting hours. A few from my generation have been in to see her as well. I've heard the staff are tightening up a bit on visitors to her room because there are just so many of us. They are only allowing 2 visitors at a time in her room and the others have to wait in the waiting room, not in the hallway. Apparently, some of the other patients (or families) have complained because there were so many people there to see her. Sorry about that! She just has a big family!
I'll try to keep you posted when I learn something new. Please keep the prayers coming for Grandma and her kids.
Emily was being especially animated the other day at lunch. I couldn't pass up the opportunity to snap a few pictures. She was looking at these this afternoon with me and she thought they were pretty funny. (The first one is one of my all-time favorites I think.)
We've had some fun times over the past week. Here's a quick snapshot to share with you!
If you remember some of our past entries, you'll recall that Emily has tried mashed potatoes and cake icing for styling her hair. This week she decided to try bananas.
Pre-Banana
Post-Banana Mohawk
Playing footsie with big brother, Ryan.
Sampling one of Great Grandma's cookies.
Have you seen the video of how she moves her crib? I'm still trying to figure this one out... it was WAY out from the wall.
Uh-oh. Look, Mom, someone scribbled on my table!
We had a yard sale this weekend and our friend, "Aunt" Mary came to visit and hang out for a while.
"Uncle" Dave came along, too!
The Brandy Winfield Memorial Poker Run came through town during our yard sale. Em had a blast waving and blowing kisses to all the riders that passed through and parked along our street.
We've been wondering how Em's bed ends up so far away from the wall during naps and over night. I'd always assumed Emily was jumped in her crib, scooting it along as she went. Today she showed me otherwise.
I've entered a new phase in toddlerhood. Emily has been preparing me for it all along and I didn't even realize it!
Emily doesn't say a whole lot these days but something she very clearly says about every 10 minutes is, "What IS that?" Today it took on a while new twist!
I was setting her booster seat up at lunch this afternoon and noticed "something" on the chair it usually sits on. The first thing that popped in my head was, "What is THAT?!?!?" And, to quote a line from the new movie "Baby Mama", I thought to myself, "Is that poop or is that chocolate?" I opted not to carry out the 2nd part of the scene. (She licked her son's finger and made a comment about it being chocolate.... Yeah, eww!) I grabbed a rag to clean up the aforementioned "something" and learned quickly that it wasn't going anywhere. I ended up having to use a plastic knife to chisel it off. After a little investigating -- no, I didn't taste it! -- I determined the questionable substance to be petrified chocolate pudding.
A short while later, Em was snacking on a cracker and had dropped some pieces on the floor. I asked her to pick the pieces up and not only did she pick them up and eat them but she also snatched up a piece of our cat's toenail that had snagged on the carpet and stuck IT in her mouth. She quickly realized it wasn't a cracker and spit it out. Yeah, that's just gross. I'm either going to have to have Spencer totally declawed now or put mosquito netting over Emily's mouth so she can't eat weird stuff. What is THAT all about? My kid wouldn't eat macaroni today but she'll stick a cat's toenail in her mouth???
Many of you that are following Emily's blog are family or close friends. I just wanted to post a quick update to let you know that Emily's Great Grandma Isler (Jenni's grandma) had a stroke on Saturday and is currently in the ICU at Riverside Hospital. The stroke has affected her right side and she is not able to speak or move her right side. She is currently on a ventilator and her sons and daughter are taking turns staying with her.
We appreciate your prayers and I'll keep you updated!
On a fun note, when we mention Great Grandma's name to Emily she responds with, "Mmmm!" Why? Well, even though Great Grandma is over 90 years old and still lives at home by herself, she continues to bake cookies to share with people that come over to visit.... including her great granddaughter, Emily. When Emily goes over to visit, she gathers up Great Grandma's teddy bear collection and piles them on Great Grandma with love and then she moseys over to the counter where the cookies are stored and hints that she just might like to sample some of Great Grandma's latest accomplishments.
I had a long day yesterday since I stayed after work to hang out until the board meeting I was supposed to attend. I left the house before Emily was awake and wouldn't get home until after she was in bed. This doesn't happen often and I was kind of bumming that I wasn't going to get to see her. Tom surprised me by coming into town and they had dinner with me before the meeting. I was touched.
While at Bob Evans, Emily decided she wanted to try the lemon from my water and then afterwards showed us her sign for milk.
This morning Emily had physical therapy and because she did so well we stopped at Project Playground for a few minutes before heading back home.
...she's a big fan of mulch and an even bigger fan of rocks these days!
Tom and I learned yesterday that Steven Curtis Chapman's (a popular Christian musician) daughter, Maria, died in a car accident at their home on Wednesday. One of Chapman's sons was backing an SUV up and didn't see her. To make matters worse, several of the family members saw it happen. Maria, had just turned 5 shortly after Em's birthday and the accident happened several hours before one of the boys' graduation from high school. She was the youngest of their 6 kids, 1 of the 3 they've adopted from China.
Here's a play-by-play of the birthday extravaganza...
The party was held at Grandma and Papa Gaston's. Mama and Papa Hypes came as well as Uncle Jeff, Aunt Pam, and cousins, Jeffrey and Rachel. Aunt Shell and Aunt Laura also came as well as Mom, Dad and Emily's big brother, Ryan.
We had a smorgasbord of food... hot ham & cheese sandwiches, chicken sandwiches, relish tray, escalloped pineapple, baked beans, chips, salsa, finger jello and much more. Of course there was also cake and ice cream!
I'm this many.
Emily and Aunt Shell
...she standing on her head just like Elmo at the left side of the picture.
Mama and Papa taking a break for a photo op.
Totally unprompted, Emily immediately found a new hat as she was unwrapping her presents.
Also unprompted, Emily immediately decided this stroller was for her instead of her dolls.
We needed a little assistance with blowing out the candle... and if you look closely, Emily dug into the icing as soon as she was close enough to the cake.
We're doing much better with using a spoon...
...except every now and then we get food in our hair and it make for a great hair sculpture.
Emily had a wonderful birthday party and it was great to be able to celebrate it with our family. Thanks everyone for the wonderful birthday wishes, cards and gifts. We have been so blessed to have Emily as our daughter.
I just put my 1-year old daughter to bed for the last time. Tomorrow, she will wake up as a 2-year old.
I've been reflecting a lot this week on the past year. I would guess this is what most parents do but I had a really hard time celebrating Emily's first birthday last year. I really struggled with the way I thought I "should" be feeling vs. what I was actually feeling. We brought Emily home from Kazakhstan on February 7, 2007. We celebrated our homecoming with our family and friends at a handful of baby showers and then Emily turned one just 2 1/2 months after we got home. It felt odd to have a birthday party so soon after all the other parties and after only having Emily for a short time so we didn't really do much for her 1st birthday.
HOWEVER... now it's time for a birthday party! We will be getting together with our families this weekend to celebrate Emily's 2nd birthday. I have so many memories running through my head this evening of the past year. And... I get to celebrate the fact that we've managed to keep Emily alive for a whole year without any major traumas. Yeah, yeah, there was bronchiolitis, a couple of colds, the fall down the steps, the stumble into the plant stand, and the recent rug burn from the basement steps, but overall I think we did okay. I tend to agree with my sister-in-law who emailed me this morning and suggested that maybe, just maybe people should be buying me gifts for accomplishing that major feat! We survived!
So, what is Emily like now that she's going to be 2?
Emily LOVES:
her big brother, Ryan
books
bears
hugs
milk
cheerios
swinging
bath-time
pictures of snakes and anything that resembles a snake
Daddy's belt (a snake!)
hats
looking at pictures of family and friends
playing dress-up
spending time with her grandparents
our cat, Spencer
going over the Weee! Bridge and railroad tracks
helping Mommy with chores at church and around the house
going for walks and playing outside
ringing doorbells
feeding and caring for her dolls and teddy bears
Emily DISLIKES:
having to say goodnight at the end of the day
falling down steps :-)
when she's away from her brother for too long
our cat Spencer's short hair after he was shaved
being told "no" when she's wants to do something
tomatoes
melon
lettuce
some fruit juices
pizza (for now... we have high hopes on changing this one!)
laying down for naps (but settles down very quickly)
....the dislikes are really hard to come up with!
We have been so blessed by this little girl. I don't think I've ever laughed and smiled this much on a daily basis.
Along with these blessings I'm also thinking of Emily's birth mom in Kazakhstan again. I don't know the circumstances of her pregnancy. I don't know if her family or Emily's birth father knew of her pregnancy or if they might be thinking of her tomorrow. If I could tell them something I would thank them for the blessing they have given our family. We never take for granted the opportunities we have been given to love this little girl to the best of our abilities.
I am thankful for all the sticky kisses that I press into my cheek as I drive to work and for all the runny noses that need wiped and dirty diapers that need changed.
I am thankful for the twinkle in Emily's eyes as she responds with "Baa!" when you ask her what a kitty says.
I am thankful for the "Wheee!" that I hear when we turn onto the familiar roads that contain a railroad track or the Whee Bridge.
I'm reflectively thankful when I look in my rear view mirror and see an empty car seat looking back at me.
I'm thankful for the toys that didn't quite make it into the toybox before bedtime so my bare feet can stumble on them in the morning as I get ready for work.
I'm thankful for the opportunity to watch the same Elmo and Baby Einstein episodes over and over and over and over and over and over....
I'm thankful for all the sippy cups that have gone missing behind furniture and in the car and are found with rancid, lumpy, dried up milk in them.
I'm thankful for the big hugs and pats on the back that I get from my little girl on a regular basis.
Why didn't anyone ever tell me how incredibly awesome it would be to be Emily's mommy?
Happy Birthday, Snickerdoodle! You're going to wake up as a 2-year old tomorrow and what a year of adventures we will have ahead of us!
Emily was in a better mood today. She was teasing me this morning as we were getting ready and was being ornery in the car on the was to Grandma and Papa's. She loves the car rides to their house and especially likes going over the railroad tracks and the bridge on their road that we have lovingly called the "Wheee Bridge" since my college-aged cousins were little.
This afternoon, when Emily woke up from her nap at Grandma and Papa's, I was given a heads-up that she had a run-in with the last couple of carpeted steps that head to their basement. (This is the "whoops" part of the story.) No bruises this time, just a pretty rug burn by her eye. It hasn't seemed to bother her too much except I must have reminded her about it when I put her pj's on tonight and her top brushed up against it.
Oh, another fun story to share... as I was putting Emily to bed tonight we said our prayers and talked about our day tomorrow as I was laying her in her crib. I usually tell her the night before who she gets to play with the next day and what kinds of things she might do. Tonight, I said, "Tomorrow you get to go play with Grandma and Papa."
To which she promptly replied, "Wheee!"
"Good Night. I love you." ...door closes behind me and I walk out with an ear-to-ear grin on my way to share my story with Tom aka Daddy.
Soooo, we've been sneezing a bit in the Hypes' household this week. Nothing big, just a little sneezing. At first we thought maybe Em was dealing with some allergies. But then, I started sneezing and had a scratchy throat. Mother-daughter allergies you might ask? Nope, just a really weird cold!
We've handled our colds very well for the past week and then today... something happened.
I put Emily down for her nap after church this afternoon and some sort of snot monster had taken her place when I went to get her up from her crib. I was blessed by the snot monster though! It seems to like me. I picked it up from the crib and was fortunate enough to have it's muzzle nestled into my neck and it came to rest on my shoulder (and wipe it's nose on my shirt). The monster was unusually cuddly and wanted nothing more than to be embraced by me. I couldn't set it down and couldn't pass it off to Tom for hugs but eventually I was able to sit on the floor with it and coax it back into a drippy version of Emily.
The poor kid has a non-stop drippy nose and still has lots of sneezes to share with us. I'm hoping this is as bad as it gets.
Sorry, no pictures with today's entry. I'll be kind and save you from that!
