Nessa: "Ride bike with Sam"

Here are a few pictures from January of Nessa riding her bike with Sam (of the twins, Sam and Sally). The photos themselves aren't great but they're very typical Nessa.

Nessa LOVES her dolls! :-)

Yipes, It's Time To Change My Diaper!

Nessa still has trouble pronouncing certain consonants. In particular, "w" often comes out sounding like "y". Nessa also likes to "help" when her diaper is being changed. Combining these two, when she asks for a cloth to help clean herself off, she says "Yipe! Yipe!" It never fails to make me smile.

"If You Had Told Me Five Years Ago"--Annotations

Apparently, not all the items in my "If You Had Told Me Five Years Ago" post are self-explanatory. I offer the following annotations for the confused:

willingly eat food that someone else had chewed on
Nessa often wants what someone else is having to eat, yet won't accept just having a bite broken off. But she usually can't finish a whole piece of toast or whatever. Seems a shame to let all that food go to waste...

think a crying baby was cute
I was uncomfortable around babies and small children before I had one of my own. I especially didn't deal well with crying children. Now that I have Nessa, I've learned that there's crying and then there's crying. Sometimes, that quivering lower lip and perfect pout are just too cute for words, and one can pause briefly to acknowledge that. (If she retains this trait into adulthood, some lucky guy may have to budget for lots of flowers--and maybe jewelry...)

be happy and comfortable talking to two-year-olds
Again, I never knew what to say to young children before I had one. Now I can natter away all day if the circumstances are right.

willingly take a crying child into a grocery store
One day recently, after picking up Nessa from daycare, I had to stop at the grocery store to get something Tami needed to make supper. Nessa was not happy to see only Daddy that day, and when it became obvious we weren't going straight home, she let me know it in no uncetain terms. Not stopping at the grocery store was not an option, so I took her inside hoping that something would distract her and get her to stop crying. I got lucky--it worked. Apparently all that shopping we do together has its advantages.

be grumpy because the kitchen was a mess (and clean it up before doing anything else)
This is my biggest surprise of married life. My bachelor kitchen was rarely filthy, but I often let dishes that had only been rinsed stack up for a day or two (especially before I got the cats). But when Tami and I were first married she had a long commute from La Crosse to Rochester, so I did most of the cooking. Our limited counter space, combined with wanting to have the cooking dishes clean because I would soon need them again (plus, of course, the cats), quickly got me into the habit of cleaning up the dishes immediately after a meal.

I'll never forget the Sunday that first fall that I was cleaning up a few things in the kitchen even though the football games had already started. I realized I was doing it because I wouldn't be happy if I just left the dirty dishes in the sink. It then hit me, like a 2x4 upside the head, that, in spite of all of my efforts and best intentions, I had become a grown-up.

actively dispense baby product information and advice
Like Tami, I am happy to proselytize for our favorite baby products, and I take the opportunity to do so with co-workers who are expecting, or who have children younger than Nessa. Some days you'd swear I actually know what I'm talking about...

intentionally purchase rutabagas, turnips, bak choy, and kale
I am not a vegetarian. I have little use for most vegetables, and actively despise many of them--much to the despair of first my mother and now my wife. But, for various reasons, I do most of the grocery shopping. (I actually enjoy it. Sometimes I'm so damn domestic I think I've been possessed.) So when Tami needed various esoteric vegetables for some soups she wanted to make for herself, I procured them in the course of one of my regular grocery trips. Thank goodness the produce department was well-labeled: I didn't know a turnip from a parsnip, nor bak choy from nunchucks, when I walked in.

Nessa helping with dishes

These days as soon as Nessa hears the dishwasher open she comes running in yelling "I help with dishes ... Nessa help with dishes..."

Here are some photos of her helping last week.

She can put a few of them away herself, but most of the time she hands the dish to Shawn to put in the cupboard/drawer. She also tells Shawn who the dish belongs to as they put it away: "mommy's spoon, Megan's bowl (all the bowls are Megan's apparently), and so on except that none of the dishes belong to Daddy which is really a pity since he's the only one that really takes care of them! :-)

It's all pretty cute to watch and listen to AND it keeps Nessa occupied for a few minutes! :-)

When she's "all done" she claps!

If You'd Have Told Me Five Years Ago

If you'd have told me 5 years ago that I would ever...

willingly eat food that someone else had chewed on

think a crying baby was cute

be happy and comfortable talking to two-year-olds

willingly take a crying child into a grocery store

be grumpy because the kitchen was a mess (and clean it up before doing anything else)

actively dispense baby product information and advice

intentionally purchase rutabagas, turnips, bak choy, and kale

…I would have looked at you like you had three heads.

How life changes!

Quick update

No, we really aren't hibernating ... I just feel like it! :-)

Although the fact that La Crosse is hitting 50 degrees today (nothing official yet, but I was out at lunch) sure helps in the feel good department! Just last Friday we were still struggling to get above zero here ... wow what a difference in a few days!

Otherwise, none of us have been really sick, but at the same time there seems to be a constant bug just about to hit us ... and with our darling toddler waking up more at night now than she ever did as a baby ... lack of sleep doesn't help. When I'm smart I just go to bed as soon as she does because staying up a couple hours (or more) later and still waking up 4 times a night (OK that was only once) and getting up an hour before her only adds up to trouble. The awful night was the night before last and it was made worse by my having a headache to begin with and so at one point in the middle of the night I finally was going to give in and take some Tylenol but then I couldn't get it open so I just took some advil instead (why or why) so then in the morning I still had a bit of a headache AND my stomach hurt ... not to mention being WAY too short on sleep. I ended up coming home from work early in order to nap and determine if I was really sick or just really tired. I still didn't feel better when I woke up at 5, but after Megan saved the night by making supper and being a huge help while Shawn was at a church meeting, I collapsed again in bed at 8 after carefully filling my tummy, taking tylenol and using some wonderful essential oils ... by the time Nessa woke me up again early in the morning I was starting to feel human again! Whew.

Nessa is in fact getting her eye teeth (one in and one about to poke through) and the way she is nearly chewing her hand off I wouldn't be surprised if molars are on the way as well. We're also wondering if she's having some nightmare or even night terrors lately because sometimes she'll scream and scream and when we get in there she's sleeping as peacefully as can be ... but we're not anymore.

The only other news that fits into a brief update is that Megan now has an email address and loves to get email, so if anyone wants to make her day by sending her email, please let me know and I'll pass on her address.

More sick days

Just a brief update.

Nessa is sick today. We started wondering if she was coming down with something yesterday but decided it was just teething (she was chewing on both of her thumbs after all). Nessa woke me up early this morning (4 a.m. ish) and as soon as I picked her up I knew she was feverish, but when she nursed and went back to sleep I didn't bother taking her temp. Instead I went back to bed for an hour after telling Shawn he could sleep in.

Backing up -- On Monday Megan came down with a more serious cough and sore throat so we eventually ended up at the pediatric Urgent Care for a once over and a strep test. Megan is becoming all too familiar with the throat culture procedure. :-( It was the fastest positive result I've ever had from the strep test. So, we were off to drive thru walgreens to get her prescription. Since it was already nighttime before Megan started on the antibiotics, she missed school on Tuesday. The upside is that Megan and I were able to watch movies and nap throughout the day and I haven't done that with my "big girl" in a long time.

So, today, Nessa's throat was indeed raw (we suspected based on her not eating and the way she kind of grabbed her neck) and I figured with Megan's positive test we should get Nessa in sooner rather than later. So, Nessa is on her first ever round of antibiotics. :-(

Again, on the upside, I'm hoping the extra snuggles will continue as Nessa is content to just sit on our lap or snuggle into our shoulder as she rests.

So, blog updates and template changes are put off once again. Hey, we'll just be happy to get the Christmas tree down this weekend!

Having fun coloring!

Since we so seldom capture a smile on camera these days I had to post one more Christmas Eve photo. This was taken after we were done eating Christmas Eve while the rest of us were still sitting around the table Nessa was entertained by standing nearby and using the piano bench as a table so she could color. Nessa loves to color and will happily tell us what color the crayon she's using is each time and then say "look at this." (And we do have to look or we 'get in trouble'.)

Shawn managed to capture not exactly a smile for the camera smile, but a very happy look that we often see when Nessa is playing and having fun.