Happy Spring! -- general update

I’ve been meaning to send a general update for a week or so … seems like the first day of spring is a good day to do it! We’ve certainly been enjoying the spring weather! Last week we even had an incredible day over 60 degrees that absolutely required a post-dinner trip to the park! As you can imagine, Frosty is no more and there is actually very little snow left at all in our yard (!) … but it is rather wet in some spots!

Here are a few more random updates of all sorts:

• I’m in denial that Nessa is almost 2, but in less than 2 weeks you’ll be able to see her 2 year birthday pictures here! We don’t have anything major planned (even though it is her golden birthday … I know how she feels since mind was when I was two also), but will have a little celebration with her daycare friends in the afternoon, cake and presents here after dinner … and then Grandma and Grandpa Brooks should arrive in the great north sometime before Easter Sunday and we’ll celebrate then too … we don’t have any definite plans yet with the Groth side but the rumor is she’ll be receiving some pretty special gifts.

• Nessa has started correcting us if she thinks we’re signing something incorrectly. Note that I did not say that we are actually signing it incorrectly OR that she’s signing it correctly (she still has a ways to go before her fine motor skills will match what is required for many ASL signs … but she gets it close enough to count for a toddler) … but apparently what she sees in her head doesn’t match what we’re doing so she tells us “NO, like this.”

• Megan joined 4H in Houston with her dad and while she’s only been to one meeting, she’s very excited. She plans to take a goat to the Houston County fair so I’m sure there will be some updates on how that project is coming along this summer!

• Busy time for the Brooks Groth household coming up: In April, in addition to Nessa’s birthday and Easter, Tami has a work conference the week after Easter (in town but I’ll be gone at night a lot) and will be attending the ICAN conference (www.ican-online.org) later in the month. (Including travel days I’ll be gone Wednesday April 18th thru Monday after April 23rd.) Then right away Tuesday April 24th our local ICAN chapter is planning a larger CAM (Cesarean Awareness Month) event at Winona State. Whew! Then in May Shawn will be in San Jose for work for two weeks (expect this to be somewhat of a reoccurring event). I actually suggested that Shawn volunteer to go in May since it’s better than most other months for us for awhile … I didn’t think about the fact that he’ll now be gone for Mother’s day … oh well, I’m sure us girls will manage a special weekend.

• This elimination diet thing really sucks! Testing found a lot of my food sensitivities but not all of them and the only way to find them is basically trial and error with eliminating them which is frustrating. Then I’ve now reached the point with avoiding the ones that were found in testing (little things like gluten, corn, dairy, soy, garlic and chocolate) that I’ve avoided them enough to get my body detoxing (I even have some days with near normal energy levels) but that also seems to mean that when I slip up and eat something that contains one of these, especially corn, I feel awful … literally drugged tired, headache, digestive issues … blech. So, after a miserable weekend, I’m totally paranoid about what I eat this week. :-(

• I need to brag more about Megan as she is growing up (I’m not ready to call her a young woman though yet!) and while she still has her moments (don’t we all?) she is maturing so much in so many ways. She is responsible about getting her homework done (except art for some reason) before spending too much time playing. Megan seems to be doing so well in school now too (I’ll know more after parent-teacher conferences Thursday) and I just love seeing those 100% on her spelling tests … that is SO huge after everything we’ve been through with reading and recognizing words! Her class is working on multiplication and division and after just a little bump in the road when they started, Megan is now very much into it. And knowing her multiplication really comes in handy when she’s baking or cooking for me and I ask her to double or triple the recipe (she’s a great cook/baker!). I love my big girl!

• One of my very favorite things to watch these days is my girls playing together. Megan has always been great with Nessa, but now it’s so fun to watch them actually play together. They do many different things, but most often they play “kitchen and babies” as they have to make food and feed the numerous baby dolls that inhabit our living room.

• Nessa is very clear way too often these days about what she thinks is okay and what is positively not acceptable to her … sometimes she thinks that Shawn having his arm around me is NOT okay and she’ll come over and push him away from me … of course we don’t think that’s OK ;-) but I think sometimes we take just a bit too much pleasure at testing her reaction.

• Nessa thinks she can do pretty much everything herself these days and she’s right a surprising number of times!

• One good thing (there are a few) about this whole food allergy diet thing is that most of my clothes are at least loose if not outright too big now. Now when I get the energy back and make time for real workouts I won’t be able to put off shopping any longer. :-)

I’m sure I’ll think of a few things I forgot just about as soon as I send this … but at least it’s an update for now … more photos should be coming soon too. :-)

P.S. Sorry if the formatting looks like crap on this post ... I wrote it between throughout the day while waiting for my project to compile at work and apparently Outlook and blogger don't get along well.