Of Boxes and Doctors and such

I used to hate injections, I remember shooting across a clinic floor as a child--the nurse had me sitting on a rolling chair--much much later I've realized that if I examine the needle beforehand I'm much less nervous about the prospects of it piercing my flesh. My asking to examine(read: hold) a syringe catches a lot of doctors & nurses off guard, but I figure I should do the exact opposite of what I really want to do, i.e. cry & beg, then wriggle away.

SO, today was Fiona's 15 month checkup, she had three injections. I tell her about all of this ahead of time. I talk about the doctor's office and how she might get shots, that it will most likely hurt but the hurt will pass, I will be with her. She was nervous as soon as we entered the exam room, I barely managed to keep her distracted at first. There were 3 people to see, the nurse to assess her, the doc himself, and then the injection nurse. Each time someone left the room, Fiona signed her bye-bye (blowing kisses), I knew absolutely she wanted to leave by the time the injection nurse entered. Which is worse, watching baby dry heave in the parking lot with a virus you can do nothing about? Or being asked to hold her still, for a necessary evil, while someone pokes needles in her? I think both are about equal at this point. Fiona was just beside herself and very nearly panicked to begin with. I asked the nurse to wait a moment, calmed baby girl down somewhat, explained again what was to happen, and she was definitely more compliant although still complained loudly. Dr. Baum on Maui was so fantastic with injections, he was smooth and moved quickly as to get it over with. I actually think that this Doc is a little afraid of the tiny kids, maybe someone bit him in the past. Anyway, after the injections I repetitively console Fiona, how brave, how well she did, and ready the sippy-cup of milk. In a few minutes she's signing about the fish all around the office again, but still clinging to mama, perfectly fine with me. We took a break outside for a snack & patting river rocks in landscaping, then off to music class, brave baby.

Fiona's 32.25 inches, 22 lbs 10 oz. So, 94th percentile for height & 49th percentile for weight. She likes to finger paint with her food lately, accomplishing very little actual eating unless I'm spooning food into her mouth. She did enjoy authentic finger painting recently, it's a whole buncha fun getting dirty and clean once again. "Don't stress about mess" is a key mantra there. She gestures and talks about everything. If I point to an animal and ask her what it is she'll baby-sign if she knows the sign. Every time we drive past the horses on the way to the park she will sign "horse", I think she likes horses almost as much as dogs. Porter-kitty takes a lot of love, to some it may look like abuse, but it really is purest of loves. Reminding her of "gentle hands" all the time, and telling her how well she's done with her gentle hands has done wonders. The other night Fiona signed "Papa" during the bedtime routine, it was great fun to tell Gary that his daughter was asking for him to say goodnight.

Goal this week is to get the garage sorted out and packed. Translates to sorting through what I've put out there for good-will, what never made it into the house from the last unpacking, and random boxes for the garbarge that've been over-looked. The movers are coming on the 30th, so everything has to be completely buttoned up by then. We'll not be taking a trailer or some such, so if it's not in the car it's gotta go into the moving truck. All the joys of moving out, the carboard & peanuts, and pa-acking tape...almost a Take-Me-Out-To-The-Ballgame there but I'm kinda tired, maybe I'll work on that. :)

The End, and Begin again

The return trips are always hardest I think. Got home yesterday afternoon. Fiona took a backslide in her improvement from illness, probably 'cause we jumped the gun a little and gave her some milk yesterday. I found out yesterday that VERY little dairy should be give to the stomach virus. She has improved immensely already on cereal w/ water & clear liquids. Durango was pretty nice, I was disappointed that we couldn't explore properly as the baby was SO ill. Gary & I did take FULL advantage of the hotel, as we were almost shut-ins. Salina, UT is not that great, serves only as a stopover, don't stay at the Best Western there. Eureka, NV was tiny and cute not completely commercialized and therefore not dirty(as I described NV before). While driving we decided that Hwy 50 is so much better a drive than I80, more scenic, more chances to see neat little towns and get crazy good coffee and iddy-biddy local shops. Most of the video I took on the way back was in the car, 'cause now we're on a mission, not so much lallygagging. We'll be here for a couple of weeks and then begin the trek back to the new condo in Denver. Lots of packing to do, and if we have some time, a little exploring of surrounding area before we bail out. To be continued...

Thust cawl me Toofee

How many injections did it take for my mouth to be numb enough to fill 9 cavities? I don't know, I lost count. Can't focus my left eye properly, my bite feels funny, my speech is impaired to the effect of retardation...at least I'm not drooling. *shexxy*
SO I had fillings today. And what the doc thought would only take 1 hour took almost 3. I was frightened going in there, it's the unknown. Yup, this is the first time I've ever had fillings. Apparently I have very hard tooth enamel and deep grooves. (read:I'm naturally groovy)
After the engergetic story my sweet husband related to me last night, while I'm staring at him wide-eyed and beginning to panic, I was freaked. You must understand first, that Gary is of a very rare breed of human who ENJOYS the dentist, and anything they do to him there, masochist. So, as he's excitedly telling me his story of fillings and gum-cleaning, I'm trying to keep from screaming and running away somewhere to hide. I couldn't sleep later. BUT now it's all over with, and supposedly I won't have to do anything like this for many years, thanks to the hard enamel and great filling work that Doc did.
Must drink smoothie so as to avoid becoming angry-numbface bent on destruction.
Fiona sleeps right now, cutie-patootie.

Saga ends the day begins

Ah, the early morning. I've finally succeeded in waking before Fiona, I plan to run. The jogger has finally been retrieved from persons remaining anonymous. The cycle shop called the authorities yesterday and an officer went to the house. Cops know how to scare people, he told the wife that keeping the jogger is felony theft (over $100) and her husband could goto jail, she could goto jail, and the kids would goto foster care. Sounded to me as if the officer was pretty fired up about getting the jogger back. Maybe crime is slow in Roseville?
Anyway, it's a Burley jogger, real purdy with lots of pockets, a hand brake, a proper running jogger. We'll probably get it out for a spin tomorrow mornin' as there is a MOMS meeting this mornin' and then we have Music Together class, maybe we'll make it to the park in between. It promises to be a busy day!
We just got to the area, I'm only just getting comfortable, and now we're leaving. This weekend begins the road trip to CO to scout new place to live. I'll be more prepared for car-travel with a toddler since our foray to S. Diego in May.
Fiona is into shoes already...sort of. She likes to take shoes off of her doll, and she's getting better with the fine motor skills required to put them back on Lili (doll). It's a bit heart wrenching to watch her get SO frustrated and keep trying over and over. I want to help her, but I've got to be careful not to take too much control, reinforcing for me that there is a fine line between helping someone succeed and doing a task for them. If I want Fiona to feel she's succeeded at anything, it's best to let her figure it out as long as she's safe. Actually she's not been very open to mommy helping anyway, she'll grunt sort of and pull back what she's working on or push my hand away. Fiona wants to do things by herself---*goosebumps*, burgeoning independence. She untied my running shoes last night and tried them on. I grabbed her sandals--gifted from Great Aunt Carole--that she loves, we put them on and went for a little walk. She likes to sit on the curb outside and look up at the trees, practice walking up and down inclined grassy areas, push the wagon around & put in it rocks, leaves, and the like. There really is nothing as exciting as something on the verge of becoming, most especially a person!
Also, I've made a face book thing, partially to catch up with people, mostly 'cause there are unlimited photo uploads and prints can be ordered. I made the albums private though so one must be a 'friend' before viewing. I'm looking forward to seeing who decides to join!

Saga of the Jogger

I bought a baby jogger---apparently for someone else. This has been a 3 week trial so far, and looks as if it'll take another week or so to clear it up. When I called the bike shop after the appointed 2 week(max) delivery time they were surprised that I didn't have the jogger. Turns out that they had a digit wrong in our phone number and the person they called figured it was a gift as they just had a baby, came to pick it up, and now won't return it. Poor kid missed one digit and it's turned into a big mess. I told him that the authorities should be involved if the people won't return the jogger, essentially a theft. So I wait. I'm all geared up though, got new kicks and new sports-bras, new socks, no excuses now! Other than the snot I've been plagued with this past week, what a terrible sinus illness went through our little family!

Fiona remains cuter than cute. Yesterday I asked her to help pick up by putting a big-knob puzzle back together, she sat right down in front of it and put all 3 animals back in their rightful spots. I do help a bit by turning the base of the puzzle to a more friendly angle, but for the most part it was all her. Ah, the tiny things that make mommies proud! Still no language that we can understand, maybe my innate translator is broken? Aside is a pic of little one in her 'clubhouse', part of the bookshelf/cabinet that Gary kept saying we'd paint eventually. But it turns out that we'll be bailing out Cali and moving elsewhere. We're planning a trip to scout Colorado, since we both envisioned living there long ago. So we shall see, we shall see.

Stomping & Teeth

She has a marching stomp! Little baby-girl stomps when she's impatient or upset, or wants something. It dammed cute is what it is! "Fiona, do you want some milk?" stomp-stomp-stomp-stomp-stomp accompanied by some "uh-uh-uh" and maybe even the baby sign for milk. The signs are sporadic now, but she'll sign milk when she's drinking milk. Or Fiona will sign bath & sleep when I say "Ok, it's time to take a bath & go to bed. Are you tired Fiona?" It's been since February that we started out BabySigns classes the first time, it's really neat to see her start to use them. Since she's not started saying anything we can recognize yet(or my mommy-translator hasn't switched on yet) it's comforting to know she has a form or communication.

She cried for 2 hours solid last night. We couldn't leave her side, or she'd start again. In the midst of one of our attempts to get back to sleep, she must have been tumbling around in her bed somehow, I heard a wooden *smack* and the flat out panicked screaming started---different from plain old crying about pain and I-want-mom-or-dad cry. Gary grabbed the chilly-chewy from the fridge and Fiona chewed it so hard I thought it might pop. So we sat awake for about an hour, then Gary went to bed eventually I put her in her crib had to tell her over and over I wasn't going to pick her up again, once she was calm enough I went back to our bed, watched the monitor(the little tv monitors are totally worth the money). Fiona complained a little, then sat and soothed and sucked her thumb.
I'm tired today. I put some Arnica Flora gel on Fiona's bruised eyebrow, no wonder she screamed so. I think at some point in there too, she just got so worked up and she was so tired that nothing was going to help but time and cuddling. Sometime in there she still managed to be Fiona-cutie-boo...after Gary got the teether, she enjoyed it for a bit, then tried it as a bracelet and made a special fuss about uncovering her foot so she could test it as an anklet. Wow, 2am fussies, and still has that uncontrollable urge to play.

omigawdwhatveidone

In order to be more 'user' friendly for family and friends from the Pacific to the Mainland I have gone and made a "blog". I never liked that word, I've been resisting the idea of, and the new social phenom of, "the blog". This is easier than creating a web page for now. So, I'll be responsible and make little stories here and there about our adventures, more important though there will be photos for everyone to see and keep up with our Fiona's progress.
HERE GOES NOTHIN'