The Kate Effect

bible time locust large

when the AC goes out you leave the doors and windows open. seems logical. especially in Texas.

So here is the question: How do you communicate to the insect world that they are still not allowed in?

that cup sitting in the middle of my living room is trapping a large grasshopper. LARGE. like Bible story locust plaugue large. thats were the cup stayed until Brad came home.

***warning: i am about to type the word POOP***

so it is time for a POOP story.

Hear ye, hear ye! It has been almost two months without diapers! (cheers and applause)

Kate has done a fabulous job of potty training despite all the complaining I may do. I think she actually potty trained backwards. She began with dry nights and naps and worked up to using the little potty. At our house she like to use the little soft seat the sits on the regular toilet which is great until mommy is in a hurry and doesn't look before she sits down. Kate has done great about telling us when she needs to go - like the other day when she yelled "POTTY" in the middle of Home Depot. It was like yelling Go! at the beginning of a race - we ran to the back of the store and around the corner and then back the other way... (note to Home Depot: you bathroom is the most difficult thing to find in your store)

Pooping has been the most frustrating part of the whole process. Kate started hiding early on to poop. Under tables, desks, in closets, behind the couch... any where she could fit. It was always the sign to grab her and take her to the potty. Often time she refused to poop once you got  to the potty. Kate could wait about the three days to poop and then when I would drop her off at the Kids club in the gym so mommy could exercise, Kate would crawl up into the playscape and do her business. They don't change kids or take them to the potty at the gym so my name was called over the intercom to come get her....

This passed weekend I spotted Kate looking shifty so I took her to the bathroom. She was not thrilled. When she jumped down off the toilet and looked in she smiled! Thrilled she said "mom look my poops a tree!" signing TREE as she told me. She was so excited she ran to the front door and yelled at her daddy who was water the lawn " Daddy - I did it! Pooped a tree!" Stifling a laugh he congratulated her but the scene was far from over. She then waved him over saying " come see Daddy, come see my TREE!"

I am in tears from trying not to laugh at this point. Brad's face is turning red as he looks to me for help "do I have to?"  Yes, I nodded, you do.

Ever since then Kate has pooped quite nicely in the potty. She is a skilled tree maker. Whenever I think it might be time to go to the bathroom I ask her "Do you need to make a tree?"

Oh Kate - may you make a forest of trees in your lifetime!

Proper Barfing

everyone in the little house has been barfing for days now. DAYS! KAte at the tender age of two climbs out of bed, runs to the bathroom, bends over to vomit while reaching to flush the toliet at the same time. Impressive but sad.

lets just say that i have a lot of laundry todo.

new holiday scent: Carcase de Rat

A few weeks ago I heard somehthing in the attic above my desk. It was the sound of something rolling and little pitter-patter of four feet. I instantly imagined a colony of rats in my shed and this lone rat was out scavenging in my christmas decor for the perfect tree ornament to serve as their disco ball at their holiday party! I rushed into the bedroom where Brad as sleeping, which was what I should have been doing since it was 2:30 am, and told him to kill the bloody rat who was stealing my christmas decor. Brad was not thrilled with me or my imginative story but he vowed to avenge my our fmaily and kill the rat thief.

Brad place rat poision in the attic and I listen at night for the screams of a dying rat. Unfortunately, I heard no screams only more rolling, scratching and more pitter-pattering across my ceiling. I worked hard to remain calm.

Finally the rat died. Yesterday actually. Dissappointingly there were no screams. How do I know he died?! Because I smell him rotting in my walls.  YEs, you heard right, rotting in my walls!! Just in time for the holidays I have a house full of the new scent carcase de rat. It took me a while to figure out the smell, I emptied all the trash in the house. rewashed the load of clothes that had been left in the washer. I stuck a lemon down the garbage disposal and put a new box of baking soda in the fridge. Then it dawned on me - the rat. At first I was triumphant but that soon melted in to horror. The smell was unescapable and it was only day one.

No amount of apple cinnamon pouppori or Fabreeze could mask the musty rank of dead varment. so here I sit in my reaking house with a perfume sprayed bandanna one my nose. What am I thankful for this year? That I am having Thanksgiving at my moms where the food doesn't taste like decay! 

portable storage

When a place goes quiet, you know something is wrong. This is the rule of thumb with toddlers. When Kate finally goes into her room to play and I realize  I have not not heard anything from her in over 2 minutes, I drop what I am doing and run into her room announcing "Potty Break!"
Most often she is quiet because she is taking a 'potty break' in her pants. Other times she has quietly crawled onto the kitchen counter or climbed into the toilet. Silence in my house is equivalent to a deafening alarm sounding "Check On Kate! Check On Kate!"

Recently this alarm sounded in the car. Kate had been crying because I did not stop to see the horses on the way home from Gigi's, so I handed her a small bag of parmesan flavored goldfish because we are too snobby for regular goldfish. Actually, Mommy need variety. I heard some happy chomping and humming from the back seat so I decided to head to Target and began singing along with Fergie.  Then all of the sudden the alarm in my head goes off and whip my head back to catch a peek at my darling sophisticated child singing with a goldfish hanging out of her nose.

This must be some sort of natural right of passage with children. What was she thinking? It's not like we have showed her this and she is hardly ever around older kids who might have exampled this time tested natural phenomenon.

Did she look at her goldfish from all angles and assess it's amazing ability to not only plug her nose but absorb the large amounts of mucus that have been to flowing since the arrival of allergy season? Is her motivation research, to patent a new tasty way to eat your boogers?  Or did she wonder if the goldfish was capable of swimming up stream and tested it on her flowing snot and it just happen to get lodge in her nostril?

The worst part is her nose was beyond on my reach and therefore she happily sang with a goldfish lodge in the right nostril all the way to Target. Perhaps that was her plan all along... to save the snack for later by using her her nose as portable storage!

day three : no bath

kate has refused to take a bath for the past few days. she runs tot he bathtub in great anticipaition and strips in record time. But as soon as she hikes that first leg up to scale the bathtub ledge she halts.

BUGS, BEES, eeww, yucky. 

She is talking and signing about he little clack fuzz balls that tend to land in the tub from drying off with the new black towels. I have explained that it is only fuzz. I have painstakingly removed each sign of fuzz. I have even demanded that Brad and I dry off outside of the bathtub to decrease the fuzz collection. I am losing.

Tomorrow it is Kate or the Black towel. One will be sitting on the corner waiting for the garbage truck. 

I really love my black towels.

Labradors Gone Wild

"The puppies are here!! The puppies are here!!" - I think of a 101 Dalmatians every time I go to my in-laws house. Brooklyn, their chocolate lab, just had her first litter of puppies. I think about how noisy their little yelps are and wonder how deafening 101 yelps would be. Then I drop to my knees and pray two things: 1.) I thank God for allowing these puppies to be born in a house I do not live in and 2.) That my husband would NOT want to adopt a puppy.

So far so good. Brad, Kate and I were at the house the night Brooklyn was having her puppies (a litter of 11but only 9 survived) and Kate was able to see the puppies while they were tiny and wiggly. She thought they were monkeys. I guess because they were so dark and wrinkly. For days after that she talked about the "monkeys", clearly confused about dogs birthing monkeys. This was no the only thing she was confused about. Every time I asked her what color the puppies were she would take her right hand, palm facing out,and drag it along the right side of her face and said 'Black.'  The puppies are Brown. Her sign was correct for brown but she always said 'Black'.  I would say "Yes, Brown" repeating the right. I was hoping that instead of correct her verbal mistake i would just reinforce her perfectly correct sign and she would eventually get it and switch the word.

I was wrong. Kate said "NO, BLACK" - once again signing BROWN.

Needless to say the puppies have been great fun to visit. Brad was checking to see how many males vs females the night they arrived by picking the puppies up one at a time and turning them over to look at their plumbing. Kate now think that is what you supposed to do - pick puppies up and examine their plumbing. She just recently has decided that petting and holding puppies is way more fun. All the puppies eyes are opening now and we must pay special attention to Kate who like to "help" open their eyes.

I must admit I have been more enthralled with the entire puppies business than I expected. Even to the point of considering adopting a pup myself. Thats when I start sneezing and Kate breaks out in a speckled rash and reality comes crashing around us.

Do you know what really bothers me about the whole puppy thing?  That the poor mama dog suddenly has 12 bulging breasts and hanging nipples for hungry puppies to just hang from. Excuse me, I need to go that the Lord for create me human and not canine 

inch by inch

  Inch worms have invaded gigi & poppi's backyard - including the sandbox! Uncle Justin showed kate the wonders of an inch worm. She like inch worms way better than ladybugs, she runs screaming from ladybugs!

post-nasal drip

you may be wondering if I am still alive. The answer is NO, I have been mauled by tigers that escaped from Austin's zoo of weird animals rescued from circus and carnivals.  Actually that sounds like a better way to die than what I am experiencing now.

The truth is that Kate has still been struggling with her ear/eye/sinus infection. We manage to conquer the double eye infection only to have it return a few times more. Kate now know a song that goes "the infection came back the very next day, thought was a goner, but the infection came back."  After all, I dislike cats just as much as eye infections so I thought it was interchangeable in the song.

After exhausting all the antibiotics we could find on God's green earth we decided to give Kate a shot of the strongest antibiotics available.  We were told that if this didn't work we would then discuss bring a surgeon in and talk about 'tubes'. At this sleep deprived point in time I wondered why we didn't just go for the 'tubes' in the ear.  It's like in childbirth when they say lets push for an hour and then we talk about whether a c-section is needed. Heck, why wait an hour?! Let's talk now.

So Kate had a shot last Thursday and one on Friday. At last, my daughter began emerging from her sickly shell of a toddler.  Granted it was a slow transformation, but little by little she perked up and slept longer and actually ate real food!!  Hallelujah!

I on the other hand spiraled down into my own sickly state in spite of my joy for my renewed Kate. My scratchy throat which I blamed on allergies became a sore throat I blamed on sleeping with the fan on.  After church on Sunday, where I volunteered to carry item after item of responsibility for the Easter weekend festivities, I lost my voice. It only took an hour for it to go from froggy to a squeak.

Sunday evening I had a 102 fever, chills and sweating. I was moaning like crazy and seriously thought someone was trying to steam me alive. I don't get sick often and am not very good at being sick. I stress out about all the things I said I would do and can't and all that I am missing out on.

Thankfully the fever had passed by morning but the last two days have been just as miserable with the worst sore throat ever and still no voice.  People call and are greeted with a noise that resembles that of a dying whale at best. When I say sore throat I mean raw, aching, swollen, sandpaper dry, can't swallow breath or talk.  it has been good fortune for Kate and I to know sign language. we can communicate quite well with out words, although I think she wants me to sing to her. She crawls in my lap and gets very close to my face and says 'eoeoi' which translates to 'EIEIO', as in Old McDonald had a farm, EIEIO.

The Dr. who saw me this morning says I have some viral thing that everyone has this week. Nothing like being told your so very average and not special by the man you desperately want legal drugs from. He sent me home with yet another prescription for Allerga and said all my problems are due to my allergies and post-nasal drip. What a horrible term 'post-nasal drip'. At least I am not dying or worse - have strep.

Kate also went to the Dr today. He said she looks better but there is still some residual infection in the ear. We decided to do one more shot of the antibiotic in hopes of clearing it up completely and post-poning the "Tubes-talk" until the problem arises again. If all goes well we can survive the end of this season and get into summer with no more ear infections!!

Well, all of this is to prove that I haven't abandoned my blog and I am still alive, barely.  Right now I am sitting here writing all the details of our family illnesses so that I don't have to lay in bed and think.  My throat hurts so bad that I have called the family pharmacist,my dad, and asked for every known remedy.  Then I tried them ALL. The only bad part about this is... I don't know which one really worked or which one I should repeat and when.  I laid in bed and considered creating an excel spreadsheet to map out when and what i should do to keep the numb-ness going.  I finally relaxed only to wake up every few minutes due to drooling, which happens when your mouth is numb, or coughing.  Now I have myself so worried about swallowing fluid into my lungs or choking that I can't relax.

I can see the headlines now:

"YOUNG MOTHER OVER-DOSES ON CHROLASEPTIC SPRAY, DROWNS IN OWN MUCUS"

grumpy

The following scene took place at the check-out register in a local bookstore yesterday.

" Hi, Beautiful! You have such pretty eyes. Would you like to hold your book?" said the Cashier to Kate as she scanned our items.

"umph"  grunted Kate as she took the book held out to her.

*KA-chunk* ... the sound of a small board book thrown over my left should and smashing part of a display.

"Kate we do NOT throw books. NO Ma'am."  I scold her as I almost drop the pen I am desperately trying to sign the receipt with.

"AHHH, no,no,no, AHHHHH"  is the verbal translation to the noises Kate emitted while throwing her head back and arching her back in to a royal tantrum.  I almost drop her, but thanks to my super-mommy powers I managed to out balance her attempt to topple us both and escape.

" Kate Allyn D'Anna sit-up, please." I say in the eerie calm, but frightening voice moms are gifted with at their first-born's birth.

Kate, now calm as could be, pulls my face to her and looks me in the eye and signs GRUMPY.

"Yes, I am GRUMPY and so are YOU." I tell her - in a softer tone now that the demon child has left and Kate has returned.

"Having a hard day?" the cashier asks in a pitiful tone.

"Yeah, we haven't pooped today ..."  I said matter-of factually.

"Oh." said the cashier as we grabbed our bags and headed to Sterling.

.... My day picked up after that encounter.  Every time I approached frustration I just stopped and imagined the baffled look on that lady's face at my mention of 'poop'.

Floaters

Note to Self:  Poop in the Tub is a sign to go back to bed.

Early this morning I found out that the plans for my day were not going to happen and I was bummed but determined to move past. I began to chant  'I can take joy in this too.' my mantra to prevent me from totally dwelling on my disappointments. Trying to look forward to my Monday that would be full of laundry, chores and cleaning - I plopped Kate int he Highchair and let her discover oatmeal. I am sure you can imagine the mess I was committed to cleaning up at that point. In keeping with our morning ritual I stripped Kate from her diaper and pajamas in her highchair and, holding her under her armpits, I carried her at arms length to the bathtub. Smiling and enjoying the scene I thought - that chant is working!

Fulfilling my need to be productive I began folding towel and putting them in the bathroom cabinet. I listened to Kate splash about the tub - which she thinks is her daily swimming time in her own personal pool, I realized I was really enjoying myself. Yeah for Mommy!
Maybe if I could learn to not dwell on life's little hiccups and really succeed in taking joy in the changes to my plans....then maybe I could help Kate learn how to mange her feelings of disappointment. Right in the middle of that overwhelmingly sweet and glorified daydream of perfect motherhood I glanced at Kate, who had become quit still, just in time to see her reach for a floating toy.... loofah sponge... POOP!

*POOF* joy gone.

At this moment Kate is finally asleep,her body disinfected. The tub, having fished out the offensive matter and rinsed and cleaned, is soaking in hot water and bleach. Surviving toys also soaking in bleach. Bathroom floor mopped with bleach and towels being washed on HOT. Candle lit on counter to prevent gagging. And the mommy? She is right here reliving the horror for your entertainment because I strongly believe that you deserve to laugh at all my ridiculous experiences.

I say goodbye now so that I can go disinfect my own body in a hot shower and try to piece together the rest of my day. I don't think I will strive for such a high goal like joy. Maybe this time I will just hope for a sanitary day.

Teeth = Drool

Ta-da! This past week we have been swimming in drool while Kate is teething. Finally we can say she has two more teeth on top! There are two on eigther side that have been swollen also but I am not taking in bets on when they will come in. It took these long enough. Although the teeth on either side of her bottom ones have cit through also - out of the blue. No swelling or anything. They just appeared one morning.

Yippy! (are you all squeling with delight or is it just me?) I am most excited for the abilty to actually BITE and CHEW...the poor girl has been choking down big girl food for months. Her stubborn streak refuses to allow her to eat soft or mushy foods. The only soft food she will even entertain the thought of is yogurt. Which she refuses to be fed - she demands to weild the sppon her self and ends up resorting to "grabbing" the yogurt and quickly shoveling it into her mouth before it splatters across her tummy.

Oh, and bananas. For the child who desperately wants to bite off of the banana rather than have it cut up - It will be great to have top teeth to effectively bite rather than using her bottom teeth as leverage and nawing until the banana gives up and falls apart.

Yes, there are better days ahead.

stolen pictures of teya

so I let heather do all the photographing on our adventure to meet new baby Teya. this was optimal for me because I was able to hold the baby longer than her.

Check out Heather's slide show.

clingy and splotchy

ok, Brace yourselves! 
As if lactose intolerance, a high fever for 5 days, and teething are not troubling enough - now Kate has a mystery rash.
Her fever broke this morning (it was a reaction to the shots) and she is doing good on lactose free milk. Now all we have to do is figure out what the rash is about. There are three possibilities..
1. another reaction to MMR  vaccination (some what rare)
2.Roseola - viral rash after a high fever (also somewhat rare with the shots and usually fever is like 104 but Kate's only got to 101.8)
3. Chicken Pox (very rare but that was one of the vaccinations and it looks like the beginning of chicken pox so we just have to see if it turns in to sores.)

UGH

bottom line : my daughter is RARE :)

Of course I am whining just as loud as Kate because I have to miss bible study with a friend, Playgroup (which i am supposed to be hosting), and i can not go visit either of my friend with newborns that I desperately want to hold. Self -centered yes.
My loving mom just says 'welcome to motherhood' which of course shines a big light on the self-centered whining and makes it crawl back into the dark hole it crawled out of.
Now I am chanting the following in hopes that it will make me feel better or at least help me look less desperate for a social life.
"We are grounded for another few days but I believe this too shall pass."
Think of me wherever you may be today - I will be on m couch holding a clingy splotchy toddler and watching Signing Time.

my 1st POTTY

Due to Kate's increasing interest in the toilet and what we do on it... we have purchased kate her very own POTTY.

The original idea was to have it there to sit on when mommy was 'busy' and to peek interest and to be availble when potty training time came. Much to my suprise Kate has taken a real liking to her potty. We sit and read books and sing for a few minutes every time few hours. Mosty after meal times and before bath. I have been so please to see her interest and the way she can paitently sit.

Things get better!!! She actually uses the potty. She is going longer between wet diapers and uses her potty a few times a day!!!!(yes uses it in both ways) I am floored. I am amazed. There have been no talking about it or books read or special videos purchased or bribing with m&m - like eveyother child I have pottytrained.....

Granted this may all fade and I am not delusional in thinking that my 11 3/4 month old is going to be potty trained in a day or even a week....but I am very hopeful that she creates some very good habits.

who would have ever thought that the sight of my first child signing POTTY and running to the little chair with her favorite book would so make me so proud or happy!?!

ahhh... the inexplicable joys of motherhood.

window lickin' good

Kate has discovered the joys of having a patio. For a long time now (since moving in) our apartment complex has been doing some renovation. Namely painting the buildings. Unfortunately they didn't choose to paint one building at a time but to start on various parts of all the buildings. So that the entire complex looks like it was attacked by a giant preschooler learning to color inside the lines. 

The other down side to this is that you never know when you will walk into the living room in your PJ's only to find an illegal alien using a ladder to climb onto your patio with his paint brush in hand. (say illegal alien simply because some cops drove by the other day with their sirens on and stopped at the little church across the road ... and the guy on my patio climbed down his ladder and started telling his guys they should take a lunch break NOW. *i know minimal Spanish* It was only 9:45 am - not really "lunch time") 

Anyways - I stray from my point. We have not used our patio due to the painters - but they are finished with our patio now and we ventured out today to sweep the patio up.

thrush, yeast, and yogurt

yes this should be in the GROSS catagory. Kate and I have a horrid case of thrush/yeast infection. (if you don't know what thrush is...it is like a yeast infection in your mouth! - dry fuzzy white toungue and sore throat and nothing tastes good and worst of all they want you to eat yogurt to make it better! YUCK)

Not only do we have it but we have manage to share it wiith all those around us (sorry guys). It's the first time we have been quarentined from the wholed and it's not fun. Although we have found some amusement in sticking our toungues out at each other - kate thinks it is hilarious.

TIP - if you ever get it, throw out pacifiers and toothbrushes. it helps alot or you will have it twice like us. (thanks for the tip Aunt Sharon)