Cinco de Ear Infectiono

Last night Matt took Em out to swing while I ran upstairs to grab her a sweatshirt. She's the type of kid that never wants to stop playing, regardless of the elements. You can almost hear the voice inside her head, "m-m-m-muust....hhhhaaavvee....f-f-f-f-f-un," chattering as she continues to play through shivering, purple lips. Before I reached the door though, they were back inside. She was laying on her daddy's shoulder and said she was cold and wanted to go in. Ah, a sure sign that something was wrong. We both thought she felt a little warm, and put her to bed early (or shall we say actually on time for once). At about 3 she woke up crying that she wanted to cuddle.

Over and over...

I finally went in gave her the pat on the back that usually calms her, but she just kept crying and trying to climb up in my arms. I went back to bed hoping that it would stop, but then I heard coughing and groggily remembered that she didn't feel good. My first thought was another ear infection, which meant that she wasn't going to get back to sleep laying down, so I went in and held her. When she still wouldn't go back to sleep I brought her to our cozy, full-sized, pregnant- bellied-plus-a-husband-and-body-pillow-bed. A genuine sleeper's paradise.

Um, no.

I think it was at about 5:30 that my tears started flowing. The night before I had to get up four times to pee, not including the time I went before going to bed and when I woke up for the morning. There wasn't much time for good sleep. And now another night of little sleep. As I laid wide awake I couldn't help but think that in a month in a half I'd be up half the night with a newborn, and well, it just made my hormones take over. Then Matt (who was also awake and going to work in a couple short hours) started rubbing my arm. Soon I felt another little hand doing the same. Poor little sick Em sat up to rub her crying mommy's arm. The tears that flowed after that were for an entirely different reason.

My doctor wasn't in this morning, so I had to bring her to someone else who suggested that I talk with my doctor about seeing a specialist. Saw that one coming. I would rather not get tubes in her ears but this is getting a little insane. It's just strange because she never had a single ear infection until December, and now she's had five. Boo. Oh, and when I gave her the latest round of medicine she kept saying she didn't wike it. It was yucky. So, I tried to give it to her quickly. Big mistake. Everything she'd eaten all day long came up in nice brown chunks all over both of us. Mmmm...nothin' says lovin' like hugging your kid and telling them it's okay that you're both bathing in vomit. The phrase "the things we do for love" takes on an entirely new element after becoming a parent.

To My (not so) Baby Girl

April 28, 2008

April 28, 2009

April 28, 2010

Dear Emma,

It's hard for me to believe that two years have passed since you came into this world. I vividly remember the day that you were born. Your daddy and I were so nervous and excited to finally meet you. It was hard to believe that you were really ours. You were so tiny, swimming in even your newborn clothes. Driving home with you from the hospital I was so nervous. I may have even made your daddy pull over to the side of the road so I could ride in the backseat to watch you. I had so much to learn (and still do!) about being a mommy.

You grew and changed so much in those first several months. I knew you were going to be spunky. Even in your first year you were silly and laughed often. You were a fun baby, but your transition from baby to toddler has been my favorite. I'm amazed by how much you've changed from your first birthday. You're no longer a baby. You're an amazing little girl. I love spending time with you, and you bring your daddy and me more joy than I even thought possible. You are so loved, baby girl. You are surrounded by people near and far that think you are so special. Even as a little two year-old you have a huge capacity to love. You're always talking about some family member, and how you want to see or call them. You love calling up a grandparent, aunt, uncle, or cousin to tell them what you're doing and to hear their voices. You also talk about your friends a lot and ask multiple times a day what they're doing.

You have quite the vocabulary and talk nonstop. I mean, seriously, nonstop. The last few times that we've taken long car rides late at night your dad and I place bets on whether you'll fall asleep or just talk incessantly. My bet is always that you'll stay awake, no matter how late it is or how action-packed our day has been. I always win. You also love to pretend with your stuffed animals. I often overhear conversations that you have telling them that they need to obey mommy or daddy. Haha- I guess that's something that you hear a lot.

You're also such an active little girl. You love running and dancing and jumping (everyone is jealous of your awesome calves) and playing outside. Whenever you're on a swing you always yell, "Go higher!" and when you learn something new you say, "Watch me!" to whoever is willing to listen. One of your favorite indoor activities is coloring, which is great because you're always good at restaurants as long as you have a crayon in front of you. Your favorite thing is drawing small circles, which I think is quite advanced for your age. :) You also have developed a love for singing. Though, I'm not going to lie, I'm pretty sure you won't be making a career out of it. Girl, right now you can hardly carry a tune, but you love belting out songs with the radio and your favorite songs to sing right now are "Twinkle, Twinkle Little Star" and "Jesus Loves Me."

Your daddy and I are so proud to be your parents and thank God all the time for the privilege of raising you. Of all the great experiences I've been able to have in this life, my favorite is being your mommy. I love you so much and look forward to seeing how much you'll grow in this next year. Just know that no matter how old you get, you will always be my baby girl.

Wuv you soooo much,

Mommy

Blame it on the dra, dra, dra, dra, dra, drywall

What happened to mid-March through mid-April? I tell ya, I think the time was stolen because it's all kind of a blur to me. So much has happened. We moved out of our house, visited with our Finnish family, became Finnish citizens, entered the last year of my twenties, and Emma, well don't even get me started on how much she's changed. In less than a week she'll be TWO, and in a month and a half we'll be the parents of TWO (I suppose technically we already are).

Last time I blogged I was on a roll, confident that I would continue my consistent writing and picture uploading. That was over a month ago. I remember writing my last post and thinking, "Tomorrow I'll put up super cute pictures of Emma's acting debut." So many tomorrows have turned into yesterdays since then.


I blame the Chinese drywall.

About a month ago, our awesome neighbor, who knows all the ins and outs of the neighborhood, told us that some houses in the neighborhood had Chinese drywall and we better get ours checked out. Since we've only been in our house a year and all this about the drywall came out before we moved into it, I wasn't too concerned. I mean, what builder was still using tainted Chinese drywall in 2008?

Um, ours was.

Matt was even less concerned than me, but I figured we would get it checked just in case.
I was told that the inspection should take about an hour, and that the inspector couldn't come out for about a week. Not the best sign. He was obviously very busy checking lots of tainted houses. When he did come, it took him all of 30 seconds to determine that we did, in fact, have the dang drywall.

Awesome!

The builder would supposedly move us out and "make it right" but not until June. It's one thing to unknowingly live in a toxic environment. It's quite another knowing we were exposing our little girl and unborn child to it. We stayed in the house one night- and then decided to get the heck outta there, whether they would pay for us to get out or not.

Thankfully, Matt's parents opened up their home to us once again. And we got our start date moved forward thanks to the power of pregnancy and connections. Supposedly, we'll be back in our house by the end of June. We'll see.

There have definitely been casualties along the way.

For instance, our Mac.
The one that we paid over $700 to have fixed.
The one that was only 2 years old.
Will we be reimbursed for that?
Nope.

My laptop.
I haven't blogged in the last month partially due to the fact that this beast is so dang slow now, and it seems like it's going to crash at any second.
I was blaming the poor craftsmanship of Dell.
Now I think the real villain is my walls.
Or the Chinese.
Or our builder.

Our brand new video camera that we just bought at Christmas.
Also dead.
We were just starting to use it more often and getting really great videos of Em.
I guess that means they also owe us all those lost memories.

Except all these electronics died in vain because if we wanted to get our house fixed, we had to sign a form releasing our builder from the responsibility of paying for these items. But really, what choice did we have? We could join one of the lawsuits...and do what in the meantime? Just let our house sit and maybe someday get fixed? Maybe someday get paid for it, maybe not? There just wasn't a whole lot of options for a family with two small children.

Today when I saw our builder advertising signs for a "secret sale" I contemplated standing next to the guy with my own sign saying that the secret was that their houses were constructed with Chinese drywall. But I didn't. Today at least. But I'm definitely keeping my options open...