Babysitter Anxiety.

I know I've mentioned it a time or two, but David and I have yet to go on a date since Ava was born. Not even joking, people. Pathetic, eh? While most people have family nearby, we do not, and we'd prefer to leave her with family initially, or at least David would.

Anyhow, the time has come for us to venture out on our own. One of David's best friends from as far back as elementary school is getting married this weekend, and he's a part of the wedding party, so not only will we be attending the wedding Saturday night, but we'll be out for the rehearsal dinner Friday night, and - lo and behold - no babies :(

Enter David's parents.

They're great folks. They are. But...whereas my family is on the young side, his runs the opposite spectrum, with both of them being 60-ish. Ava is a raging ball of energy. A bundle of uncontainable excitement. You get the idea. How on Earth are they going to handle my strong-willed, perpetually moving toddler?

His dad is absent-minded. You can tell him to close the baby gate 100 times, and there'll still be a need for 101. And also, A sleeps in our bed. How are they - the boobless, don't-smell-like-mommy-and-daddy grandparents going to get her to sleep?! Gah! I'm dreading this.

It's not anxiety about her, really. If it was during the day, she'd be fine. She's a happy little one. It's the fact that we're leaving her for the first time AND it'll be at night, and we'll be gone for six plus hours each time...ugh.

Any tips? Reassurance?

AND...on a completely unrelated note, can I wear this dress to the wedding, or is black tacky?

The P Word.

Let's talk periods.

Normally, I'm a woman who is hush hush about periods. I keep it a big, taboo secret, and always have. I'm just not one comfortable talking about these things, especially with boys, which my friend group has almost always exclusively been made up of. Anyhow, we're getting off topic...

I'm still nursing, and have successfully managed to stave off having a period for over two years now! WOOT WOOT! BUT...I had some spotting the other day, just lasting the course of an afternoon. At first I thought I was getting my first post-baby cycle, but I've heard that the first one is usually pretty heavy and painful post-baby, so after it stopped and didn't return, now I don't know what to think. Anyone wanna volunteer info on post-baby periods to my clueless self?

Thanks, ladies! You're the best!

Wordless Wednesday - Hungry!

15 Months (and 1 Day...)!

We are fresh from Ava's 15-month well check, and I'm happy to report that she is a healthy as can be! I'm less happy to report that her lungs are the healthiest part of her, having gotten a (screaming) workout for nearly the entire duration of the appointment. This kid, for being so mellow generally, really HATES to go to the doctor.

Without further adieu, here are A's 15-mo stats:
Weight: 22.5 lbs (50%)
Height: 32.25" (!!!)(95%)
I never remember to get a head measurement, and they don't do it regularly...oops! Rest assured, she's got a nice noggin :) Otherwise, she's tall and thin...future model?

It's been a while since I've done a "what's A up to?" type post, so here we are:
-She runs like the wind. EVERYWHERE. Why walk when you can sprint?
-She is a great eater, though she seems to be getting pickier. Her faves remain black beans, mandarin orange, strawberries, broccoli, and - the newest addition - french fries. Homegirl loves fries!
-She doesn't eat a ton of meat, following suit with her mommy at that age (and now).
-She still cannot have dairy, and is starting to tolerate eggs better. Mommy can have dairy, though! HALLELUJAH, hallelujah.
-She's so insanely tall, and her ability to reach things is getting her in trouble! She is starting to be able to open doors, too! EEK!
-She can go up and down stairs holding hands, and can jump with both feet off the ground if holding on to something. Too cute!
-She loves to be outside, and we spend some time out there every morning and evening. In the evening after dinner, we eat popsicles and water the garden together, stopping to play on her trike and in her playhouse too. I love it!
-She says a handful of words, including "mama", "dada", "baba", "bapa" (for backpack...how I know D lets her watch more Dora than he lets on), "uh oh", "num num", "hi", "up" and a few others. She uses them sparingly, though. I can't wait until she talks more!
-She's obsessed with my hair still, and likes to fall asleep at nap and bed with her hands in my hair.
-She still sleeps in our bed, and I'm 100% ok with this. David and I were just discussing the other day how we're not ready to make the move yet, and may not be for several months still at least.
-We've still only ever had breastmilk! Yay for 15 months of nursing, and all the benefits it has provided us both, including during our recent bout of illness. She nurses on average 4 times per day :)

Happy 15 months (and 1 deays - oops!) baby girl! You are the biggest joy in my entire life, and the past 15 months have been the best I've ever experienced!

The Post Where I Admit I've Been Letting Things Slip.

Don't worry. No need to call CPS or anything. But with the serious sickies having struck the household, I haven't necessarily gotten my energy back just yet, leaving us cutting some corners. One such example: fast food.

Yep. We've been eating some fast food. And while that isn't the worst thing ever, I've also been letting Ava try her hand with some french fries, and she LOVES them. So much so, that the other day we stopped by Sonic, and this was the scene from the backseat as the scent of flash fried potatoes filled the car:

Mommy, mommy, please please please!


Happy as a Happy Meal:


So cute!

This Week (In Photos).

Mommy & Ava had the sickies:

A just barely recovering Ava:

Swim season begins! It's been in the low nineties!

Tearing up Toys 'R' Us...yes, I'm that parent:

"Cooking":

After a week of cabin fever!!

We love watermelon!

Lend a Hand, Help Japan!

While we're in the giving mood, here's another worthwhile cause near and dear to all of our hearts these days. Sure, we can't give the million dollars that Sandy and Gwen may, but hey - $5 adds up quick! Plus, these are some of the best giveaways I've seen in a long time - great job, Jill!

Check it out:

Signature.

I have finally, like three months behind schedule, taken the lovely Emily's advice and made my own signature:



Doesn't the complexity of the design just knock your socks off? Hahaha

Thoughts?

Baby Noah: Our March for Babies 2011 Baby

As you may or may not know, I belong to a group of local bloggers that meets once per month to network and chat about our lives, our love of writing, and our different hopes for our sites, etc. These women have become a great support system and sounding board for me, and I have been very fortunate in having found them. They've helped me when I've needed it, and now, I want to take my turn to help one of them.

One of our local ladies, Michelle Myers, gave birth to her first son, Noah Jackson, Thursday, two months prior to his due date. She was very fortunate that she was diligent and proactive, and it is a tremendous blessing that he made it here safely. You can find more about him and his birth story here.

As you know, I've worked with preemies in my time as a nanny, and have a very special place in my heart for NICU babies. I volunteered with the Children's Hospital of Austin many, many moons ago in the NICU, and have nannied for three different sets of triplets, and even still, stories of preemies continue to speak to me, and motivate me to make a difference so that - as the March of Dimes so eloquently says - one day all babies can be born healthy. Amen.

The Myers' have been very lucky thus far, with baby Noah growing and gaining weight and getting increasing amounts of breast milk, but with Noah being born so early, he'll likely be in the NICU for some time still, ensuring a hefty NICU bill upon his departure. That's where I ask you to step in.

There are so many ways you can help:

Anything you may purchase from myerscrosstraining.com, including workout DVD's, multivitamins, protein bars and/or shakes, and other things you may have been purchasing elsewhere anyhow, will go directly to support their NICU bill.

Michelle has also written a book about her four-year battle with anorexia, The Look That Kills: An Anorexic's Addiction to Control. If you know anyone - or even yourself - who could benefit from this book, or if you're interested in hearing more of her story, please consider buying this book. All proceeds go directly to baby Noah's care.

If you'd like to make a general donation to the 2011 March of Dimes' March for Babies, you can do so via the widget at the top of the page. All the money goes directly to the MoD, not me, so rest assured it will get directly where it needs to go :)

Thank you guys! Your support - whether monetary or emotional - is essential during this hard time! And, most importantly, your prayers are too. Anyone who has room on their prayer list for little Noah, and for his parents, is the greatest blessing of all!

Wordless Wednesday - Sweet, Sweet Smile.

I've never appreciated this sweet baby smile as much as I do today :)

Welcome to the Other Side.

No, not death. It felt like it for a bit there, though. Not gonna lie...

Anyhow, we've emerged (at least so far - *fingers crossed*) on the other side of the single worst virus this house has ever seen: Rotavirus. I've tried to tone down the language since my blog's early beginnings, but there is no other way to put it than to tell you straight up that Rotavirus is a cold-hearted bitch. She's like the plague and death and ebola all rolled into one. Seriously, we're seven days later, and we're still hurtin'. Yikes.

The good news is:

I wasted my entire Spring Break. Oh wait, no that's not it.

I missed the entirety of SXSW? Nope. Wrong again.

To be honest, folks, even the pounds lost over here don't feel like an upside. I feel DEFEATED. But, just being able to stand up straight and not be doubled over hurling feels like good news. Emerging from an intense illness like what this house has seen really, really makes you appreciate the day-to-day.

Things will (pleaseGodpleaseGodpleaseGod) be looking up over here, though. And don't worry. It may be highly contagious, but one place the mean old b hasn't yet figured out how to infect people is through the interwebs!

And The Hits Just Keep On Coming...

I so envisioned my next post - aka this one - being the one where I announced our house was free of the plague. Wrong again.

If you came here today, though, looking for a little anecdote that will make your most embarrassing moment pale in comparison, THAT I can give you.

Yesterday, I went back to work. For about forty-five minutes. Then, I started hurling my guts up and had to leave for the doctor instead. Normally when I have a stomach bug I skip the doc, knowing there's nothing they can do, but I needed something, ANYTHING, at this point to help, so in I went. This ended up being both essential and horribly embarrassing.

Essential in that the doc gave me Phenergan and managed to halt my vomiting. Thank you, God and Dr. R.

Embarrassing in that he wanted a stool culture. In case those words aren't enough to send you running, I then had to go to the lab to get the "collection kit" to take home, and - while the nurse was explaining how to use it to me - I threw up ALL. OVER. HER.

Today has been much of the same, minus the vomiting. Although, I'm still not quite sure we're in the clear on that :(

When will it end? Seriously, I want nothing more than to just go back to my normal life. I'd love to vacuum right now. Do a load of laundry. Make a menial trip to HEB. All the day to day crap I normally hate is calling my name after spending days trying not to hurl while watching the craptastic greatness that is Everwood.

Maybe tomorrow...

Will It Ever End?

I haven't left the house since Wednesday, folks. It's Sunday. I get cabin fever after a morning indoors, so we're really at our wits end over here.

The good news: Ava is doing so, so much better! She's not throwing up, the diarrhea has slowed (though unfortunately is still stickin' around), and she ate some breakfast this morning.

The bad news: Mama, despite bleaching the house with all manner of anti-bacterial killers, came down with it, and IT. IS. AWFUL. I suppose it was to be expected when I was exposed by not one, not two, but three sick children. And two of them hurled on me. Still, I was hoping my maniacal sheet-washing and Clorox Clean-up wiping would prevail.

Add to that the fact that I spent the entirety of the Perez Hilton "One Night in Austin" SXSW party that I had tickets to last night - where I could've been rubbing elbows with the likes of Rihanna, Katy Perry and James Franco - curled up on the bathroom floor, pleading for it to end, and the fact that I haven't been at work in five days - thanks, break! NOT - suddenly seems more sad than a reason to celebrate.

Sigh.

I am, thankfully, feeling a bit better this morning, and more than anything, am so grateful Ava is getting better. But man...we could use for this bug to leave our house ASAP!

Sick :(

Ava has been so sick, y'all. SO sick.

It all started Wednesday. Well, actually, if we're being honest, it started last Friday, when S - one of the girls I nanny for - was hospitalized for dehydration from constant vomiting. I was hoping that when A didn't develop symptoms over the weekend, that we were all clear. WRONG.

So, back to Weds. I had the day off, as the D's wanted to take some time off during the girls' spring break in order to spend time with them. D had taken Weds, Thursday and today off to go to SXSW, but didn't have any concrete plans for Weds, so we headed down to San Marcos to do a bit of shopping at the outlets. I needed a dress for an upcoming wedding, and he needed new dress shoes, not to mention this futon needs to go like, five years ago, and so we were pseudo couch shopping. All was going well, until we realized it was getting a bit late and we still hadn't had lunch. We were surprised Ava wasn't complaining, but she kept refusing snacks and didn't eat much at lunch, so we wrapped it up and went back to shopping. It was on the drive back to park and finish up our shopping that I heard this horrid, loud noise, and knew immediately that A had thrown up.

It was basically the worst thing ever. She threw up all over herself, her car seat and the car, and to make matters worse, since it was her first time throwing up adult-style (for lack of a better description), just looked on confused and horrified, completely unable to figure out what had just happened. We were thinking she'd ate something funny, but her and I had eaten off the same plate, and I was feeling fine. Hoping the worst was over, we got her cleaned up just in time for her to hose her new outfit in vomit. Bleh.

Since we were almost an hour from home, we piled in the car, saying some prayers and calling the pediatrician. The ped preemptively called in a prescription for an anti-nausea, worried she'd get as dehydrated as S and end up in the hospital for an IV. What he didn't mention, however, was that it was a suppository. Kill me now. Poor Ava.

Long(er) story short, you haven't had the full parenting experience until you've been simultaneously vomited and shat on. She's had some horrid diarrhea, and vomited about fifteen times. We were minutes away from heading to the ER because she went six hours without a wet diaper, but she peed while we were on the nurse line with Dell Children's. Thank you God.

She's getting better now, definitely on the up and up, but man it's been a ROUGH 48 hours.

Thank GOD I still am breastfeeding, as the only thing she was able to keep down between Weds afternoon and this evening was breastmilk, believe it or not. I guess it's true what they say about it being the easiest to digest, best thing for them. I've never been so thankful for my breasts in my entire life!

Where Am I?

Today, I'm posting over at Free Fun in Austin, sharing with y'all my favorite free places to go in Central and Downtown Austin. Won't you come take a gander?

Family Pictures!

Seeing as how they were already framed, these shots of the actual pictures are awful, with the settings just not lending themselves to taking pictures of framed..pictures. Still, though, I wanted to share because - posed pics or not - I love how they turned out so much!!!!

We went to take a picture for our church's directory, and naturally they were trying to upsell us and - seeing as how all three of us are smiling and happy in two of them - it worked!

I love love love the one of Ava and myself alone, too. It was my Valentine's Day present from D :)

Happy Monday, all!

How's This Font?

Ok, clearly we're having some font issues....how's this one???

Nana's Visit!

Bad news: Grandma/Nana couldn't stay forever.

Good news: I have some fantastic Nana/Ava photos to share today!

Let me just say that we had such a lovely visit. It was pretty nonstop busy around here, between our playgroup at Gorgeous Millie Thursday morning, our trip to the Lady Bird Johnson Wildflower Center Friday, and all the Nana/Ava bonding time in between, but it was so nice to have her here!

It started out a bit...discouraging. Ava screamed at the airport anytime Nana got near her, but it turned out to just be overtired/over-hungry Ava, and the second we walked into the house and had dinner on our own turf, she was a-OK. After that, it was love. She's still wandering around looking for her.

Anyhow, without further adieu, pictures:

@Gorgeous Millie, a post in and of itself (at a later date):



@ The Wildflower Center:



and lastly, hanging out at home:



We miss you already, Grandma/Nana!

Wordless Wednesday - Peek!

Backyard Fun!

First off, is this font easier to read? Still too difficult?

The gorgeous weather has continued in Austin, so we've been spending a lot of time in the backyard lately. We have an amazing slide and playhouse set up, complete with push cars, a trike and a cozy coupe, so we're pretty set. Add to that the bubbles and sidewalk chalk we picked up recently, and we've got it made! Ava has also become a popsicle eating machine, and we eat one (sugar free!) outside together every day. It's a nice little ritual for us :) and Ava is definitely anticipating it, since she brings me her shoes and then sits on the floor and tries to put them on when she wants to go outside...

Anyways, check out our fun!

PiggyTails!

Yep, another post about hair - LOL. Sorry, ladies, but the cuteness overwhelmed me so I had to share it!

Ava's first pigtails!



And finally, funny story...
Ava thought this loofah with a handle was the world's largest toothbrush. First she tried to brush her hair and mine with it, and then tried to brush her teeth. It was hysterical!

Part-on Me.

Alright, y'all. Which side do you think Ava's hair should be parted on?


Yes, I'm entirely serious. And yes, if there is an award for most pointless, silliest post, go ahead and bestow it upon me ;)

But in all seriousness, I am conflicted. What do you guys think?!

Sno Cones.

Don't hate me, but the weather here is fabulous. God, I love living in Austin. I'm so in love with this city, it's insane!

See Saw.

Holy cow, my little girl is growing up! Doesn't she look so big?

Lady Bird Johnson Wildflower Center with Nana!

David played hooky was home Friday, so we were fortunate to be able to take a trip the four of us to the amazing Lady Bird Johnson Wildflower Center in South Austin. Such a gorgeous place, even when the wildflowers are barely blooming! We had such a lovely time, and will be going back in a few months when it's in full bloom. If you remember from this post, we went last year as well, back when Ava was just a wee little muffin!

On a side note, did you know that Lady Bird Johnson's real name was Claudia? I'm embarrassed to admit that none of us knew that! Just goes to show that you learn something new everyday!