Weekly Update

Hello!

It has been one ca-razy week around here. It started simply enough. The warm weather continued and on Wednesday L was able to meet her friend C at the park for some outside time!

Sometimes you just need to get out and RUN!



Does this look like a naughty face to you?



It is!! She's grabbing mulch from the ground and then eating it. Ugh! I thought that we were past the mulch eating!

So we went to a place where the mulch is much harder to eat!



The swings!





L had a great time playing and was dirty from head to toe when we headed home. We went downstairs to play knowing that Brad was only ten minutes behind us and was about to be home. I took a minute to check my email when I heard THUNK (pause) SCREAM... WAIL...

I rushed over to L who had jumped off the couch and had clipped her forehead on the corner of the coffee table. She was screaming her head off poor thing and I got her some ice and sat on the couch with her. She calmed down and Brad came home and we decided to take her to the emergency room to see if she needed stitches. She had a giant goose egg and gash on her head, but she got over the hurt pretty quickly.



So we spent Wednesday night in the ER. L ended up without stitches and we got strict instructions to bring her back if she vomited, lost consciousness, etc.

Thursday morning I had a meeting and L went to childcare. She did fine and we came home after lunch for a well-deserved nap. After I put L down she threw up a little. It wasn't a ton, and I wasn't too worried, but I called the doctor who told me to take her immediately to the ER. So... we went back to the ER. She checked out fine and there were no problems. After two ER visits and a late night and a day without a nap, we were both absolutely exhausted. Friday rounded out the week with some dental work for me, and I was glad to see the week over.

Saturday things started to get back to normal.

It may seem silly, but it was really exciting to me that L drank out of a straw! We got tropical smoothies (YUM) and I thought I'd just attempt to get her to take a sip. We've tried all kinds of straw cups before with no luck, but I guess smoothie was just what she needed!



I also tried to get a bunny photo since we're closing in on 18 months. L is just simply not interested in sitting still! This was the best we got:



Other than that, Saturday was just a day for playing.



...making heart pizza...



...and playing with a ballcap (hey whatever works right?)...



See you next week for (hopefully) a very calm update.

:o)

Weekly Update

Hello everyone!

It's been another week at our house that has passed us by way too quickly. L had a mild case of the stomach yuckies (it's been going around) on Sunday, but has made a full recovery. I have thought several times that I was going down with her, but I think that I have just been having some psychological stomach yuckies instead.

Some good friends gave us some toys this week. L loved the musical instruments. Brad put the drum on her so she could play and carry it around and she thought that was great.





There was also a bowling set, which she is enjoying, although the actual concept of bowling seems to be escaping her. She's got the part where you throw the ball, and the part where you knock the pins down, but hasn't seemed to make the connection between them quite yet.







This is just a random photo of L sitting at the table, but I like it.



Yesterday I had acupuncture (more about that later) and Brad took L to the air museum. L loves airplanes and so he thought it might be a great outing for them. As it turns out, she really like playing with the buckles in her stroller, but I think they had a good time.





Today we met Brad for lunch. He's got a little bit of a late day today, so we were happy to get out of the house and have some family time. On our way home I realized that I'd like to extend our morning and get her down for a late nap, so we went to the airplane park to play.



I was actually shocked. We saw a friend there from playgroup and while she and I stood and talked L took off. She climbed the equipment and went down the slides by herself and just played. It was another one of those moments when I was just so surprised at how much she's grown. I'm almost teary just thinking about it now.



An airplane flew overhead and L was apparently very proud of that airplane. She gave it a round of applause.





There are so many ways that L growing up and getting independent is so nice and helpful in my day to day life. It's just the way it is but it's so amazing to think how fast she's grown and a little bittersweet that with all this growing and changing she won't be that tiny baby anymore. (there are times that it's really nice though... like I got to have an adult conversation!)

...and now for a little announcement. Brad and I started thinking about expanding our family in November. There was never any question about whether or not we wanted L to have a little brother or sister, and in November we decided it was about time to start thinking about it.

We both felt that we were being led to give having a biological child another try.



So here we are doing another cycle of IVF. I start my daily injections (three of them! ugh!) in another week. I'm having massages every couple of weeks and acupuncture weekly through the cycle to keep my stress down and hopefully to help find a more successful outcome this time. I should have my egg retrieval surgery at the very beginning of March.

I'm on completely different medications this time and doing things a little bit differently. I'm a little nervous about side effects, but with my acupuncture I think that I'll be able to keep anything under control.

This time around it's so much easier. I have to say that the pressure is sort of off. We're looking forward to having a biological child if that's what God wants to give us, but at the same time our adoption experience was so positive and we're happy to expand our family that way if our IVF cycle is not successful. We know that we'll be parents again. We'll just have to see how that happens.

All that being said, it's a very emotional process. The last time we went through all of this was a really hard time in our lives. The loss of control over our fertility was very hard to suffer. I do feel peace though. I feel like I know that everything is going to end well, whether I ever carry a child in my womb or not.

So... the next three weeks ought to be a very exciting time. We'll keep you posted.

See you next week!

Weekly Update!

It's been a pretty regular week around here. It snowed and iced a couple of days last week so playgroup was canceled and we spent a lot of time indoors. L fell off the high chair on Wednesday, but that was about the most exciting thing that happened.

L was standing on the top of her high chair. She's still obsessed with the buckles and enjoying sitting atop her high chair working on getting them buckled (which she is starting to have some success with, by the way, requiring me to come and "rescue" her by unbuckling them) and on Wednesday she crawled up to the top and stood up. I said her name and she startled, falling off the back of the chair and onto her head. I wasn't concerned because she was wandering around the house like a crazy woman all morning so I figured she hadn't suffered any damage, until a couple of hours later when her left eye started to swell. We called the doctor and went in, and luckily nothing was wrong and she never developed a black eye.

Her new obsession this week has been putting on her own clothes. She's not really good at it yet, but judging by how quickly she's learned to buckle things, I'm guessing she'll figure it out before too long.

One day she was working on her shoes:

(I guess I was having a hard time standing still, but you get the idea)



...and one morning she spent a good 20-30 minutes working on a pair of jeans.







I also like how she's only got one sock on:





... and that's about all for this week! I can't believe I didn't take more photos!

See you next week!