What my family is doing while I'm at work...

I'm just going to go ahead and call bullsh*t on that right now.

Just kidding, guys! I love you! Have fun, and I'll see you soon!

This Week

This week, Brigid has been to the doctor twice, once for a fever that was caused by a general virus (and was just something we had to wait out) and once for a rash that simply turned out to be the result of the fever clearing up.

This week, we thought that one of our dogs had pinkeye, and we just narrowly avoided a pointless trip to the vet by waiting it out.

(Whatever was wrong with her had cleared up by the next morning.)

This week, our other dog ate a jar of petroleum jelly. And some other various pieces of tupperware. And an entire pan of noodles. And a couple of teaspoons of shortening.

(Because of course she did.)

This week, we had a day of torrential rains that washed garden pebbles all over our up-the-hill neighbors' yard, overwhelmed our new drainage system and washed out about a third of our pine straw, and cut mud ravines through our down-the-hill neighbors' yard. And we were pretty sick about it. Until the house two doors down was struck by lightening. Then we just decided to stop worrying about it.

(The fire department was out to double check, but the house was actually fine. It did knock out our immediate neighbors' satellite service and wireless router, though.)

This week, work has been tough, and I haven't been getting enough sleep, so I've been a little more on edge than my family deserves. And of course, this is the week that Brigid decided to work a little more attitude than normal.

(Mostly due to her not feeling 100%, but still, it's been trying at times.)

This week, I've felt like I'm constantly behind on everything, and I just can't seem to figure out how to get caught up.

This week has really taken it out of me, and I'll be kind of glad when it's over.

Are you tired of vacation photos, yet?

Almost done, I promise! I just have a few more that I want to get out there, and then that's it. For this trip, anyway.

Just wait until we go to Florida in August...

My parents have these fake plastic ice cube things out in their pool house, along with some small surfboard-shaped trays, and Brigid was obsessed with these items, for some reason. She'd spend at least an hour a day, stacking the plastic ice cube things on top of the trays, passing them out to individual family members, and putting them back in their container, just to dump them out again. One day, she was stacking them up on her trays, but every time she turned her back, my dad would dump them back out again. She was so confused.

Finally, after it happened three or four times, she looked at my mom, who said, 'What is your papa doing?'. And, my poor dad...Brigid looked at him, eyes wide, and said 'Papa?' in the saddest, sweetest voice possible. She looked like she was about to cry. If she had, I think she might have taken my dad down with her. As it was, he just apologized and helped her restack everything she had been working on. I think she's won him over...

Brigid travels with an entourage, y'all.

We went to the county fair while we were visiting Indiana, and there was a petting zoo, of course. Do they even have county fairs without a petting zoo? Brigid pet a donkey, tried to feed some angry looking goats, and finally succeeded in winning over a miniature horse. She also hung out with her nana, watching her aunts ride fair rides. The scary ones that swing around and go in circles and drop long distances, and other such nonsense. Every time a ride would swing around, my mom would say 'woo!' or 'wow!'. Brigid picked up on that up pretty quickly, so it was funny to hear her parroting my mom. She also had a couple of bites of a corn dog, a little bit of cheese off of a piece of pizza, and a handful of kettle corn (I eat the kernel part, giving her the rest, just to avoid the choking hazard part of things). And, it turns out, she is not such a big fan of cotton candy. That was a surprise...

All in all, it was a fantastic trip. I can't wait to do it again next year!

Fever Baby

Hey, so, Brigid had a fever this weekend. And while I tried not to freak out, because, you know, toddlers get fevers all of the time, and it's no big deal, well...

We didn't quite make it through the weekend like we thought we would.

When I was getting Brigid ready for dinner on Friday, I realized she was feeling a little warm. So, we took her temperature, realized that she had a slight fever, treated it with Tylenol, then sent her to bed.

She woke up Saturday feeling fine, but as the day went on, the fever came back. A little more Tylenol, a cool bath, and she was fine for bedtime.

When she woke up on Sunday, though, she was a little furnace. And she was actually starting to act a little sick, too, because all she wanted to do was cuddle. And while it was sweet and all, B is not normally known for laying on the couch with daddy all of the way through an entire movie. So I was a little nervous that we couldn't wait until her pediatrician opened on Monday to take her in. And then, when her fever didn't respond to another dose of Tylenol at all that afternoon, we started to look into nearby urgent care centers to visit.

Of course, the one three minutes from our house doesn't take patients younger than two, so Steve drove her to a pediatric immediate care center forty minutes from our house. And, by the time they made it there, Brigid was acting fine. And I received three picture texts from Steve showing a happy baby just hanging out. And Brigid was diagnosed with a general virus that seems to be making the rounds across the area, and prescribed Motrin for the fever.

And despite a lovely 3am wake-up call that had Steve and I fumbling around in the dark for medicine and thermometers, Brigid woke up fever-free and happy this morning.

I'm pretty sure she was only clear because we took her in to be checked out on Sunday night, instead of waiting to make the appointment for Monday morning, but I guess it's better safe than sorry.

Maybe next time we'll make it all of the way through the weekend. But knowing us? Probably not...

That's not how that goes...

Once again, Brigid seems to lack the general idea of how things work...

 

 

...although, since she's hanging out with her feet up while Papa does all of the work for her, maybe, just maybe, she has a better grasp on things than I'm giving her credit for.

Isn't that fire truck awesome? It was my dad's when he was a kid, which makes it a three generation toy now. Do they even make things that last for three generations anymore? Also, we were watching an episode of American Pickers once (and by we, I mean Steve...I was probably doing some sort of internet chatting at the time), and they (they being the pickers, of course) went nuts over a similar toy. Steve's been slightly nervous that my parents were going to get rid of this one ever since...

But after seeing Brigid in it last week? I think it's probably pretty safe to say it's not going anywhere any time soon.

Throwing Rocks

One of the things on my dad's list of Brigid activities for our week in Indiana, besides swimming all day and eating Twinkies for breakfast, was throwing rocks into the pond that's on their property. Because, really, it's kind of fun to throw rocks into the water, and where, in our little corner of suburbia, is she going to get the chance to do that? Especially now that we've gotten the drainage issue in our backyard fixed, and there's no longer a river to run through it?

(See, this is why I love going back to Indiana. I'm still kind of a country girl at heart...or at least I can be, for short periods of time. Just don't ask me to mow the yard or pull up pond grass, ok? Because...well, I've done enough of that to last me a lifetime.)

And while it took some time for Brigid to get the hang of getting the rocks into the water, without following them in herself, after two or three nights of playing along with her grandpa, she got kind of attached to the whole thing.

And the last night we were there? After they had finished emptying their cup of rocks into the pond?

Brigid marched right back into the garage, walked up to the bucket of gravel that my dad had been pulling rocks from, and called for her papa to come get some more. Because she was just not quite done, yet, apparently...

 

 

I am going to be really, really sad when my parents sell this place someday.

King's Island

I kind of already posted about this event here, but I was posting from my iPhone, and for some reason, the blogging app wouldn't let me upload any pictures.

So, here are the pictures I would have posted, if I could have posted pictures...

I'm still not sure how I ended up with the cutest kid in the world, but I'm not complaining. I'm just thankful she's learned the power of flashy accessories at such a young age, you know?

Big Boy

So, the family vacation...it was a good one. We headed up to Cincinnati for a few days to see Steve's extended family, some of whom had never met Brigid before, since the last time we were up there was for my baby shower two years ago. And we were able to squeeze in some time with our old friends, too, around all of the family activity, which was even better.

I've missed everyone up there, and I'm not going to lie...if it wasn't for our jobs here in Atlanta, and the fact that my mother-in-law is so awesome at taking care of Brigid while we're working at those jobs, I would possibly consider moving back. All of our friends have kids around the same age as B, and we took a group of them to an awesome splash park in the area, and Brigid seemed to love it, and I'd forgotten how pretty it is in southern Ohio.

And even if I can't move back, I need to figure out how to get more often for visits. Because two years is just too long.

Anyway, one of the best parts about the trip to Cincinnati, at least in the opinion of my husband's family, is the stop at Frisch's Big Boy in London, KY, which just so happens to be the first one you come to on the trip up from Atlanta. Because, apparently, Big Boy is just a northern thing. Not that I care, because it's never been all that important to me, but everyone else seems to love it.

Of course, my experience with the place was tainted by the time when I went with some co-workers, and one of the guys I was with was given a fish sandwich that the restaurant had never gotten around to thawing before they served. But that's just me...

Brigid was fine with it, though.

Heading Home

Last week was full of family time. 

And also a lot of iPad Monopoly. 

Oh, and some Harry Potter, too.

But mostly, family time...

 

And it was awesome.

(Yeah, I have A LOT of pictures to upload and post this week...you've all been warned.)

Things we learned at King's Island...

Brigid loves the splash pad but hates the haunted house. She loves her Snoopy cup but is less than thrilled with the giant Lucy who wanders the park. Regular diapers are terrible when you wear them through water rides, but swim diapers do little to hold anything in outside of the water.

Changing multiple diapers in a wet swimsuit is not fun. At all.

Cincinnati summers may be less humid than Atlanta summers, but they're still pretty hot. Especially when you're running around an amusement park in the sun.

And blueberry ice cream with sprinkles really is the best thing ever. But in that hot sun?

Skip the cone, and stick with a cup/spoon instead. It's for the best, I promise.

Where's Waldo?

Or, in this case, where's Brigid?






I just hope we didn't forget anyone...

We're officially on the road to vacation...I can't believe we actually made it through the week :)

Happy weekend!

Tomatoes!

I probably should have taken pictures of Brigid and Steve planting the seeds for their now enormous tomato plants together, just so I could track where it all started...
But I didn't. I fail at Mommy 101: Take Pictures of EVERYTHING!!

Obviously.

Luckily, my husband is there to cover for my mistakes...

My favorite little gardener...never has one person been so proud of one tiny tomato.

She looks like she's playing that game with the orange peel teeth, doesn't she? I think she's really just chewing, though. Not exactly a lady, that one...

I...I don't even know. Tomatoes make teeth strong and pretty, maybe?

Yeah, we'll just go with that. Happy Wednesday!

I really, really, really wish you could all hear how well my formerly darling little girl has picked up the word 'no'. It's kind of hard to explain, without audio/visual aids, because it's not even 'no' that she says...it's some kind of southern 'no' and 'naw' hybrid that is absolutely always accompanied by a very firm headshake. Not an overly adamant headshake, mind you, just a very deliberate one.

It would be kind of funny, actually, if it weren't so darn obnoxious.

Me: Brigid, who's mommy's favorite baby?
Brigid: No (headshake). No (headshake). No (headshake).
Me: Mommy doesn't have a favorite baby?
Brigid: No (headshake).
Me: But I love you very much.
Brigid: No (headshake).
Me: I DO TOO!
Brigid: No. No. (headshake, headshake).
Me: I do. And I'm going to kiss you to prove it!
Brigid: NO (headshake, followed by a full body contortion to pull herself out of my reach).
Me: You've become quite the little snot, you know that?
Brigid: No (headshake, smile).

I give up.

And I love him anyway...

This is what my husband bought for himself during the Disney Store's online sale:



Slightly freaky, yes?

Add this to the complete set of Nightmare Before Christmas plush dolls he bought in the same sale to stock our potty-training 'prize closet' (I know, I can't help it...), and I think it's safe to say we have a problem in this family.

So, yeah. Happy early Halloween, I guess?