Beating the Heat

Today it was 94 degrees and humid. As soon as we got up this morning, we closed all the windows and shades and turned the air conditioning on. We went outside as little as possible. This morning Lydia had violin lessons and Jayson took Audrey and Charlie to the gym. Lydia told me as we got in the car, "It is sweltering out here." We did venture outside to go to the farmers market because our favorite corn guy had promised the girls free ears of corn the next time he saw them. As soon as we walked up, he grabbed a freshly husked ear for each of them and they dug in while he sang, something he's well-known for. Then it was back home. I took Lydia and Audrey to see Brave. The girls insist we all share a bench seat so we can cuddle, and I can't really argue with that. We all loved the movie. There were some parts that were scarier than I expected and I held them a little tighter. During one particularly scary scene, I looked down at Audrey and asked her if she was OK. "Yeah," she said as she dug her fingers into her popcorn," I just got a seed in my mouth."

After the movie we came home for dinner, and then Lydia had a baseball game tonight. I was hoping it would get canceled due to the heat, but no such luck. She did great. She still hasn't had a hit off a pitch (just the tee), but she played catcher and did a great job. At one point, I overheard a boy on the team ask her when her bedtime is. She responded, "Seven. Sometimes eight. Sometimes even nine. One time in a hotel, I stayed up until eleven." He gently grabbed her arm and said, "At your age, you can't be staying up that late. You need your sleep."

Tough as Nails

We took the girls to the dentist a couple weeks ago and Audrey had a cavity. Jayson and I both were relieved that if one of them had a cavity, it was Audrey. Audrey is the child who asked the nurse for the flu shot instead of the flu mist, and watched with no emotion as the needle went into her arm. Today was her appointment to have it filled. We didn't want to give her too many details about what would happen. We basically told her she had a cavity and the dentist would fix it. She was pretty excited because she loves the dentist. When we got there, an assistant we had never met called her back, which I think threw her off just a little bit. I think the assistant would have preferred if I had stayed in the waiting room, but I wanted to be there, and Audrey wanted me there. I made sure to sit in the corner and not say much.

They gave Audrey some laughing gas, and I'll admit I was a bit disappointed it didn't make her more loopy. It pretty much caused her to ignore everybody. The entire time they worked on her mouth, she stared straight ahead with her mouth open. The dentist laughed and made jokes and asked her questions and she just stared straight ahead with her mouth open. No tears, no flinching, no complaining. When it was all done, she just looked at me and smiled.

We told her she needs to start using our toothpaste to prevent cavities. She likes the fruity taste of hers better. Tonight I told her if she doesn't use our toothpaste, she might have to get another cavity filled. She told me that's OK. It was fun.

Little Sluggers

Lydia and Audrey are playing baseball and tee ball this summer. It's through the West Allis rec department. Lydia has practices Monday through Wednesday and games on Thursday. Audrey has practice/games every Wednesday.

Audrey is the smallest on her team, having turned four just a week before the league started. She loves it and seems especially fond of running the bases. I didn't get to go to her first practice because it was also Lydia's last day of swimming. I was very excited to go to her practice yesterday. So was she. She kept running up to me all day to tell me tidbits of information, including, "Mommy, they guy (I'm assuming it was her coach, and not some random guy watching a bunch of little kids play ball) said I can't blink when I hit the ball. I can't blink. I have to keep my eyes open." I asked her to show me how she does that and her eyes got very  big as she pretended to swing a bat. On an adult, it would look like a zombie hacking at an innocent human, but on her the look was endearing. She also told me, "Mommy, after practice, we get juice and snacks. But only the people practicing. If you don't practice, you don't get the juice and snacks." Got it. Practicing is clutch if you want the juice and snacks. She also has throwing technique down pretty well, but only in slow motion. You can almost see the gears working in her brain as she slowly puts her left foot forward, brings her right arm back, rotates her arm forward, and releases the ball.

Lydia has an additional obstacle in the fact that she doesn't get a tee. It's coach pitch baseball. In a game, if they get three strikes, then they get a shot at it with the tee. This happened every time she was at bat for her first game tonight. What was great, though, is that she wasn't even that great at hitting it off the tee, so it would dribble off and land a couple feet in front of her and she could easily get a base hit. This resulted in her actually scoring a run, which she was very excited about. I'm glad she can even hit it off the tee because she has my uncoordinated genes in her. There's a reason I run. Anything else is too complex. I bike too, but Jayson makes fun of me every spring when I have to admit that I forgot how to shift during the winter.

What was really great about Lydia's game was how involved she was in it. For every batter, there was a cheer of "Here we go, (insert name here), Here we go!" Every single batter. Every single pitch. And it only got a little bit old after the first inning. She also did a great job watching the game, even when it was her turn to sit on the bench when they were fielding. She just sat there and watched. When she was fielding, we were worried she would be a little space cadet in the outfield, but she actually ran towards balls! I was very impressed.

A Weekend Away

This past weekend, we went to Minnesota to visit friends. It was a nice mini-vacation. We had a doctor appointment for Audrey first, though. We finally found out that she had shingles, it wasn't contagious, and there was medication for it. Exactly what we wanted to hear! So, we hit the road. Our first stop was Chippewa Falls. We met our friends Brooke and Steve there (they were also going to Minnesota for the weekend) and went on the Leinenkugel Brewery tour. We had done the tour five years ago, the last time we visited the same friends in Minnesota, but it's a fun tour. Lydia even paid attention for a lot of it.

The next day we headed to Minnesota. The first stop was the zoo, which was great! They have a dolphin there, which the girls had never seen before in person, so they thought that was neat. There was a dinosaur exhibit that terrified Charlie. Audrey begged to go on the monorail, so we did that too.

On Sunday we went to a water park. To our surprise, Lydia loved going down the slides. She usually is more cautious of things like that and needs a lot of convincing, but she walked right to the top and went down without hesitation. We were so proud! Audrey loved floating on the lazy river, laying on my lap. It was so relaxing. I found out that while I was on the lazy river with Audrey, Lydia had decided she was brave enough to go off the diving board and discovered she really can't swim and a lifeguard had to rescue her. Not too long after that, it started to rain with no sign of letting up, so we had to go. The girls really enjoyed themselves, though, and really want to go to a water park again soon.

Monday morning we headed home. We stopped in Madison for lunch with Grandma Deb and then were very happy to get home!

Our First Cavity

We took the girls to the dentist today for a routine exam. It turns out Audrey has a little cavity that needs to be filled. We're telling her as little as possible about it, just that she gets to go back to the dentist in a couple weeks (they love the dentist) because there's an owie on one of her teeth and the dentist needs to put medicine on it. Luckily, she won't be getting a shot of Novocaine. I guess they use a numbing gel now. Also, luckily, she's our toughest kid, so it won't be as bad as if it were Lydia or Charlie.

The Mystery Ailment

Sunday night Audrey woke up complaining that her arm hurt. Monday night she woke up complaining that her arm hurt, and then a little while later, her hand. I discovered a bunch of red bumps on her palm that looked like tiny blister under the skin. We went to the doctor on Tuesday and he was not very concerned about the arm pain and told us the bumps were a virus similar to hand, foot, and mouth disease. He told us we could give her ibuprofen for the pain and as long as she didn't develop a fever, she would not be contagious after a couple days. He said it would spread and probably last a week or two. Tuesday night, whe woke up with arm pain again. Wednesday morning, we saw that the bumps had indeed spread to her arms. Wednesday afternoon after her nap, the bumps had spread up her arm and were no longer blisters under the skin, but raised blisters with liquid in them. She also complained more of arm pain and would not use her right arm. I took her in to the doctor again, but our regular doctor was out, so she saw a different one. This doctor was stumped and concentrated more on the arm pain, but found nothing wrong. She could move it OK and no matter how the doctor twisted it, Audrey didn't seem uncomfortable. She brought in another doctor to look at the bumps and they concluded that it's a virus like chicken pox. They said she would only really be contagious of people came in direct contact with the bumps, so she needs to wear long sleeves. In June. None of the three doctors seemed to be very sure of their diagnoses, and we go back on Friday for a follow-up, right before we're supposed to head for Minnesota for the weekend. It's frustrating to see her in pain and not know what's causing it. She is such a trooper, though. I'm very curious to see how this ends.

In other news, two funny things from Lydia:

I told her that this morning I found Charlie licking my deodorant. Lydia said that was gross and I agreed. Then she said, "Now you have to put it back in your armpit! Disgusting!" Apparently, she is more worried about my delicate armpits.

Tonight Lydia told me, "I think you were cuckoo when you were a little girl." I confessed to her that I think I'm still a little cuckoo. She looked at me very concerned and said, "Should I tell somebody?"

Baseballs to the face and dunking babies. No really, it was fun.

Today was Lydia's second baseball practice. She got hit in the face with a ball and didn't cry, and that moment has gone on Jayson's list of Top Ten Proud Daddy Moments.

Audrey had swim lessons so I swam with Lydia and Charlie. Charlie's new favorite thing to do is go under water while I put my hands on her waist and glide her around. She asked me to do it over and over again. Just to make sure the other moms and lifeguard didn't think I was abusing my child by constantly dunking her, I made her say, "One, two, three, GO!" and then she would push her face in the water before I would glide her. She loved it. I loved watching her underwater with her big round eyes and huge toothy smile.

There's 104 Days of Summer Vacation (I wish)...

Today was the first official day of summer vacation. It. Was. Awesome. Not so much because of what we did, but because I got to wake up with my girls (Jayson too!), eat breakfast, lay down in the afternoon, and just BE.  Here are some highlights from the day:

It was Lydia's first day of baseball! She is not all that athletic or coordinated, so we were a bit worried, but she did great! She totally grounded some balls and threw them in the general vicinity of where she was supposed to! She did get lapped running bases. I'll take responsibility for the lack of speed. Those are my genes.

Charlie has moved up to the big-girl swings.

This was a new experiment. We are having a rummage sale in two weeks. I dumped all their toys on the futon and the took turns picking one toy to sell and one toy to keep. We got through about half of them and will continue tomorrow. I was surprised at how willing they were to get rid of some thing. In fact, there were a couple things they picked to sell that I rescued.

No, Charlie did not just run laps outside. She just woke up from her nap. It was 85 degrees outside and her bedroom is upstairs where it gets the hottest. She refuses to let us turn on a fan and insists on using a blanket. She wakes up a hot mess.

I gave the girls frozen Gogurts for their afternoon snack to hep them cool off. Audrey is a little mommy and helped Charlie by feeding her when she got to the bottom. Then she wiped Charlie's face.

WTH?

Today, shortly after most of my family had arrived for Audrey's birthday party, Lydia was playing hide-and-seek with her cousin. He hid pretty well and she was looking all over the house for him. She walked through the kitchen and into the living room, within earshot of everybody, saying, "Where did he go? Where is he? Where the HELL did he go?" All of our eyes got big and we held back laughs that came exploding out. She was mortified and I could tell right away. She ran up to our bedroom and I followed to find her laying on the floor crying, with her head under our bed. I talked to her for a while and explained to her why people laughed. I think the embarrassment was enough to ensure that she won't be saying it again.

And Summer Vacation Begins.... NOW!

I am committed to posting more now that school is out. I plan on staying very busy this summer and will no doubt be exhausted at the end of the day, but unlike during the school year, I won't have any grading or planning to do! So, blogging will hopefully fill that hole. Also, with more frequent blogging, some of the posts might get boring. Like this one.

Friday ended with beers on a local patio with a large group of coworkers, many who will be missed as they move on to greener pastures. Jayson and the girls met me there for dinner and then we went grocery shopping and got We Bought a Zoo from Redbox.

In the morning, I did the Lozilu mud run with my sister, my bff, her sister, and a group of women from my sister's gym. I was not sure if I would be ready for it, just a day short of two weeks from my appendectomy. I knew I could run, but any kind of stretching or lifting was off limits. Luckily, I only had to skip one obstacle, which was climbing a wall. The giant Slip N Slide was my favorite. See how fun!?!?

My sister came home with me and while we waited for her husband and sons to drive from Madison (my oldest nephew had a baseball game), she played with the girls and I got food ready for Audrey's party. When everybody arrived, we went out to eat downtown at Ryan Braun's Graffito. The food was decent, but servings were small and overpriced. We sat on the patio where we could watch boats go up and down the river, and the kids enjoyed that. We wanted to get ice cream in the 3rd Ward, but everything was shutting down, so we went to Oscar's closer to home.

When we got home, we got beds ready for my sister's family to stay over. The kids played outside. I gave mine a quick shower and took one myself with Charlie (she won't go in alone) and it was bedtime. Everybody was asleep immediately after such a long day.

Today was Audrey's birthday party. Her buddy from the gym, Nathan, came and she was just beside herself with excitement. I made her an Ariel cake, per her request, and it turned out! Yay! Nathan gave her plush Angry Birds toys and as I type, she is cuddled up with them in bed, one happy little girl.

Tomorrow is the official start to summer vacation and tonight we talked about all the things we want to do. The list thus far:

• Museums (we have a Discovery World Membership and a Betty Brinn one-time pass)
• Beaches (we like Fox Brook Park in Brookfield)
• Splash pads 
• Fountains at Bayshore
• Pools (the gym for sure, but hopefully some outdoor ones too)
• Water Park (we got passes to Country Springs for Christmas)
• Shedd Aquarium and possibly more of Chicago
• Jelly Belly
• Library
• Bay Beach (and visit the fabulous Adam and Jenny and their new little baby)
• Bike rides
• Zoo
• Madison
• ???

Hopefully we'll add to the list.

Smartest Two Year-Old Ever

OK, I may be exaggerating, but it's my blog and I get to do that. I've been MIA for a couple weeks with the insanity of school finishing up and a surprise appendectomy, but summer is just around the corner and I plan on blogging much fore frequently.

Here's Charlie singing her ABC's (kind of) and counting (kind of... she skips six and gets stuck on thirteen). Also, don't call her Charlotte.