Some updates

Let's see... the ick has now spread to Daddy who is currently upstairs resting with a fever and stomach bug. Poor Daddy. Feel better! I went to the doc this week to get checked out for my general achiness and the chills I've been getting everyday for the last few weeks and the good news is that it's not Lyme disease. Bad news is my white blood cell count was high which probably means an infection of some sort but they offered no treatment for it - just said to come back in and get blood work re-done in a week. Huh. Knock wood - Sophie seems rather in good spirits and good health for the past 24-48 hrs. Emily however, had been feeling better after cutting her tooth but now is having a miserable day and so I'm thinking she might be getting another tooth coming through. Really, we're just trying not to fall completely apart over here. And this rain... Oy.

Sophie can't decide what she wants to be for Halloween. She has vascilitated from wanting to be Jane Jetson to a cupcake fairy princess to a ladybug again to any other countless number of desires from the costume catalogue. I don't know quite how she will ever choose.

And September is over. How did that happen???

Another update

Emily cut a tooth! We still think she has a cold on top of the tooth though. Double whammy, huh kid. No wonder you were so miserable.

Update on the ick

Well, you *knew* this was coming, right? BUt of course Emily came down with the ick yesterday (the cold kind - not the stomach virus kind). She had a very rough night sleeping and is having a hard time breathing but doesn't have a fever and still manages to have some happy moments as well. Yes, I knew we would not escape without her getting it, too. Now we just hope she recovers as quickly as her sister did. Sophie is upstairs sleeping away and had a great night sleeping. Hopefully she will feel rested and happy again like yesterday.

Stay well, folks!

interesting week

It's been an interesting week here at the Oxenford Ranch. At playgroup on Monday, Sophie experienced her first "gerbil pile." She was in the yard running around with her little buddies and next thing I look over and Sophie is on the ground with four children on top of her and her little face is looking over at me like "uh, mom... a little help here??" There were no tears until all the children got off her so I thought it was going to be all right but then she started wailing. I think the shock of having four children on top of her just hit her and she had a delayed reaction to the sheer intensity of it all. She recovered but then when any kid would chase her she would stop dead in her tracks and stand still and cry. I think she was trying to prevent another pile on.

Then Sophie went back to school on Tuesday and seemed to have a great day. But alas she woke up Tuesday night throwing up all over herself and her room. The poor girl... It was so pathetic. She has been lucky enough to not have a stomach virus for a long time (well, since Grammy was here during the great stomach ick of February 2009) so I think it was just so weird and upsetting to her. She was up with it at least 3-4 times. So there were 3-4 sheet/blanket/pajamas changes along with lots of other causalities (like her white rug). The next day she seemed pretty good in the morning though of course incredibly tired. So we thought maybe we were lucky and she was on the mend but then she got worse throughout the day and was up again all night the next night because she was coming down with a cold. Woke up on Thursday with a fever and feeling lousy. By mid-morning she had a runny nose and her throat clearly hurt. So she spent Thursday in bad shape and stayed in her PJs all day. Thankfully, Dee Ree was here so she was a big help and brightened the little patient's sick day considerably. Yesterday, after another rough night of sleeping Sophie slept until 10:45am! She has never ever slept that late in her life. But when she woke up she did seem slightly improved and I think the good resting let her recover quite a bit. Today she woke up at the normal time, got a decent night's sleep and so far seems like her normal happy self. (Already asked to put on a dress and is running around the house doing her usual Sophie things.)

I hope that's the end of it for her. If she did have a stomach virus on Tuesday and a cold virus on Thurs. and already feels pretty good by Saturday then I'd say we're pretty darn lucky. But when I talked to the pediatric nurse about Sophie this week she warned me that if this was Sophie's first time in school that "I should be prepared for her to be sick all year long." Sigh. I was pretty much a weepy puddle upon hearing that dose of reality. So, we'll see. If she does come home sick every week from school well, I might just pull her out for another year or at least a few months. Once we get Emily squared away with a good nightime sleeping routine, maybe then I could deal with a toddler who is sick all year but until then, I just don't know that our family can handle it.

In other news, Emily so far does not seem to have caught the bug. Let's hope it stays that way!!

Sophie and Emily pre-ick




Sophie in the throes of sick yesterday morning

Happy 4 Month Birthday Emily Anne!

Today is Emily's 4 month birthday! To celebrate, we fed her some rice cereal for the first time. She opened her mouth up wide once she got the hang of it and seemed to be really enjoying it but then spit most of it up. Oh well. It was a good first solid food attempt.

4 months already. Where did our little baby go? She is trying to sit up all the time. She is such a sweet and smiley little girl with "sparkly eyes" as her daddy calls them. She is talking more and more and making all kinds of new sounds and starting to blow bubbles and make raspberries more now, too. She is definitely teething. Some days are pretty bad but today was a good one so I am thankful that she wasn't hurting too bad on her birthday.

We love you more than words could ever express sweet Baby Emily!! Happy Birthday!!

Update: I started this post yesterday on Emily's actual birthday (9/21). Never got a chance to finish it and wanted to post some videos of her being chatty which I hadn't gotten off my phone yet. Since then, poor Sophie was up all night with the stomach flu last night. Sophie had her first full morning of school yesterday and seemed to have a great time. I don't know how quickly stomach bugs travel but man if she got it at school and was sick already last night, that was quick, huh? Poor girl had such a rough night. I am waiting to see how she is this morning. Fingers crossed it is a quick bug and with a little TLC today she'll be feeling better soon.

Beach Babies

So we're down the shore again - this time with GGMom. (I know, aren't we lucky to get to go to the beach again??!!) The weather is perfect. (Could do without the sand flies though.) We're having a pretty nice time as far as vacationing with two small children goes. Sophie has a total blast up on the boardwalk. Emily is teething so has had some pretty tough times down here so far but she seems to really like being in the baby bjorn and walking the boards.

1st Day of "School"

Yesterday was Sophie's 1st Day of "school" at St. Stephen's Episcopal Church. She will be going to school two days a week from 9-11:30am on Tuesdays and Thursdays. The first day yesterday was a shortened day (only 1 hour) during which parents were encouraged to stay. Sophie was very very excited to start school and we've been talking about it for many weeks now. Everytime we drive past the school, we'd tell her that was where she'd be going to school soon. So the excitement had been really building.

After Sophie got up yesterday, the whole house was excited for the big day. Sophie barely ate any breakfast (I think she was excited). And we all had to hurry up to be sure she got to school in time! Sophie got dressed in her back to school outfit (she had two choices of outfits and chose this one!). She picked which back pack she wanted to bring (the pink kitty Dee Ree gave her) and we headed outside to take a few photos. Unfortunately, she ditched the backpack for an american flag (and never would put the back pack on again) and we snapped a few pix under her favorite maple tree.

When we got to school there were kids and parents all outside waiting on the lawn. It was very exciting! And, then her best friend Nevyn showed up! We kept the fact that her friend Nevyn was also registering and attending the very same school on the very same days as her a surprise. Both Sophie and Nevyn were literally jumping for joy to see each other. Soon, the director opened the doors to the school and school was officially opened! Sophie literally bum rushed the door (and left me and baby emily and even Nevyn in the dust) and I had to call her and stop her and get her to wait for us instead of rushing in without us. We walked up to her new classroom and once she got inside she immediately started playing with all the great toys and puzzles and books left out for the kids by her teachers, Miss Jen and Miss Chrissy.

When she met her teacher for the first time, I was so touched because Sophie stuck out her hand to shake hands with her. Isn't that too cute??? After a little while of the total chaos of kids playing and parents snapping photos, Miss Jen and Miss Chrissy kicked out all the parents for a few minutes. We all made our way downstairs and outside to wait for them to bring the kids down and dismiss them.

Well, you would have thought it was a torture chamber in there. The howls and sobs from the open windows made all the parents anxious to know whose kids were losing it. After about 15-20 minutes passed (and I STILL have no idea what they were doing during that time - for all I know they could have been torturing them!) the kids came out down the stairs into the yard. Thank goodness Sophie was fine and did not look upset at all. Poor little Nevyn had clearly been one of the screamers and was all teary and red faced - poor little guy. But not my Sophie. I had a feeling she'd be fine and quite frankly, I think she's probably thrilled to be rid of mommy and baby Emily for a little while.

Finally all the kids got to play on the outside equipment which was just great because Sophie has always wanted to play there (we drive by it a lot on our way to do errands) and I always have told her no. What a great way to end a perfect first day of school, huh? Now we'll just see how it goes when Mommy leaves for real for the full two and half hours and who cries that time (probably mommy!).

Definitely pox

Well, it was definitely chicken pox in our house. Sophie had some on her arms and legs which would get worse throughout the day but then fade when she was rested. They never turned into blisters and she never seemed really itchy. Emily has about five red spots on the side of her neck which look like they might be chicken pox but probably could also just be bumps from where she gets wet from drinking her bottle or spitting up. But so far, knock wood, that is it. So thank you all for your good thoughts and prayers. It seems the worst of it really wasn't that bad at all and might be on the way out. We are so grateful it wasn't worse than that for either of them and feel extremely lucky if this is as bad as it would get for us. Considering it's now day 5 for Sophie, we feel she must be getting over it by now (most of what we read said that day 3 would be the worst). Hooray!!!

In other news, Sophie has a new princess flapper dress that she had to have at Toys R Us and will not take off. If she could she would sleep in it (but we don't let her). She immediately wants to put it on when she wakes up in the morning and prances around in it all day (going on day 2 now). Emily had some early am wake-ups this weekend which was kind of a bummer but I guess she could have been fighting a chicken pox virus and I still think she is teething, too. Thankfully, she slept until after 6am today so that was rather kind of her, I thought.

Update: some hope

Sophie woke up happy as can be with no more spots anywhere, no fever and the ones on her arm look a lot better. Soooo... we are cautiously hopeful. Fingers crossed it isn't pox....

A possible plague upon our house

Sophie might have chicken pox. This is what her arm looked like yesterday. We had taken her to the doctors to get a shot (MMR) and I asked the nurse to take a look at these little bumps which I had just noticed on her arm that day. She didn't have any on her belly or back. Just some on each arm and a couple on her leg. Nurse grabbed the doctor who came in and seemed pretty darn convinced they were chicken pox even though she had no fever. Of course we will be pretty bummed if it is chicken pox because she is supposed to start her first day of "school" on Thurs. and we are supposed to go down the shore again soon. Sooooo you can imagine how anxious I am sitting here waiting for her to wake up so I can see if she is covered in spots or not. We will keep ya'all poste of course...

Have we mentioned?

Sophie has a BFF and his name is Nevyn


Sophie has developed a bit of a "thing" for band-aids


Emily sits in her bumbo chair sometimes now

which Sophie is thrilled by


Sophie's crib is now a "big girl bed"

Baby Liana turned 1 year old! And she had a party at the Zoo

And Aunt Pat and Caely were there

Emily is really long

And there were pot bellied pigs involved

All in the last week. Life moves pretty fast these days. Next week Sophie starts school!!! GAH!! Where is the time going??