Catch Up

Happy Easter to Most, by the way! I'm catching up because I woke up early and Adessa is snoozing and... 'nuff said- Here's what's been going on. (And in case you're wondering, Orthodox Easter, "Pascha", is next weekend. We wait for after the Jewish Passover. Stay tuned for that one.)


Posing by our blooming wysteria.


Puddle stomping in the woods with BFF Gwennie. Such joy! Such a mess!


Kristine's Adoption was Friday! We all got to witness her official adoption into our family: I have a brand new baby sister, who's about to graduate 8). My mom made cute buttons that said, "It's a girl!"


Adessa was prepared to be a star witness.


Hunting Eggs at Easter Egg Hunt #2 on Saturday, Coastlands Church. Her sugar-load (and mine) was adversly affected by the fact that after she put about four eggs into her basket she stumbled upon an opened one. She was quick to dispatch it's candy contents, but not before all of the other eggs were scooped up by toddlers. She was none the wiser!


Very cool Easter community outreach by the church. People worked like mad to help us park, push the stroller for me, help us find what we needed, and have so much well organized fun. Impressive and awesome.


The Petting Zoo. I told Adessa to sit down, that then the people working the zoo would put the animals on her lap. She plopped down on the sopping wet grass, of course. After getting her situated on the little buckets that were seats, she then though she couldn't move off. Luckily, many animals happened by, so she could lean out and try to touch them, and the zoo-people were so helpful, she got to hold a chicken, bunny, and made an attempt at a baby goat.

Come....just ... a... little... bit...closer, ...please ...bunny!


Ahhhhhhhh...sweet bunny.


Sweet chicken, too!


** If you look closely, you can see that Adessa is on to her third cast on her left arm. Her waterproof wonder-cast cut into her thumb, a fact I only discovered after causing her much pain while wiping her hand off. She hadn't complained about the cut, the infection, or the swelling and I noticed it only when it had gotten pretty bad. I felt terrible. I also felt like I should be giving her daily physicals in case there was anything else wrong that I wasn't picking up on by her behavior. Yikes! So now she has a nice litte well fitting splint, and her thumb wound is healing nicely. Yay!

Fun with the Riverside Cousins

Calvin's sister and her family came up for their spring break, and Adessa had some serious cousin time. Fun! A highlight was visiting the Boardwalk and having her very own ride partner in youngest cousin, Melissa, who made sure that she stayed IN the boat this year. (we had a little near-incident last year with the Matessa's, where she leaned out over the back of the boat to try to touch the water, I jumped the fence, the dopey teenager finally stopped the ride, etc.)
She figured out that waving was fun and will someday make a marvelous float queen, she waved and waved and waved. When it was evident there were going to be no more rides for Ms. Adessa, she was most miffed. And it was nap time, so we whisked her away, one of THOSE kids that you see throwing fits at the amusement park.

Enjoying an ice cream cone with Daddy. (She wore her hat and sunglasses the whole time!) (And I ate most of her ice cream cone, don't worry...about her, at least.)


Her first ride, not too sure as she got strapped in...


But then she loved it.


And the wave!

Easter Egg Hunt #1

In what might prove to be the first of many Easter Egg hunts this season, we went Saturday to a very sweet local Rec center egg hunt. Our mama's group came, and my mama came with "the boys" (Elijah and Jaden) and we hunted and picniced and had a great time. It was a lovely community feeling (I saw several people I went to high school with and their kids) and a lovely day.

For Adessa, however, the day was less about hunting eggs than, err... stalking bunnies. One bunny in particular. There was a fund-raising bunny who would sit as close to your kid as they would allow him and take a picture for a small donation. Adessa loved this bunny. She wanted to be right next to him pretty much the whole time. I spent less time with the mommy group and more time getting to know Jeff, the very kind, very patient and tolerant, very hot inside his suit, soon-to-be-dad, husband-of-someone-I-went-to-school-with, giant Easter bunny. Adessa doesn't know about Easter bunnies, but she knows about bunnies, and she just wanted to be near him. We did hunt for eggs, but I got lots of questions when we were out of sight: "Where bunny go?" She held his hand, sat on his lap, danced with him, hugged him many times, played peek-a-boo, and mostly just followed him around, happy to be in the presence of the bunny. Basking in the bunny-glow. 8) It was noticeable to all, people kept coming up to me and saying, "Wow, your daughter really likes that bunny, huh?" Yeah. We finally paid the $5 for a formal picture, which will be sent later, and we definitely got our money's worth. Pretty fun!

Mom and Elijah and Jayden, and Kim and Gwen and Adessa, spotting the bunny for the first time.


Hunting for eggs in the kiddo area.


Bunny Bliss.


Bunny Love!

Well Here's An Unexpected First!

"Um, yeah, I broke my arm." Showing off the new cast.


Napping with the first cast on.

Her first broken bone. That's right, friends, sometime last week the little miss broke her arm and neglected to tell us about it. Saturday she was whiny and clingy, but also had a fever, so I wasn't sure what was what. She wanted me to feed her and even hold her juice for her, which was weird, and I noticed she wasn't climbing into her tower, she asked to be put in. We talked about going to Urgent Care on Sunday, but Sunday she seemed mostly fine... climbing all furniture as normal except for a slight overuse of her right hand and underuse of her left. The babying of her left hand continued, until finally, on Tuesday, Calvin took her in. After wiggling her arm and hand all around and thinking it was fine, the doctor said, "Well, since you're here, we might as well do an x-ray." And lo and behold: broken. A bulge? fracture right by her wrist.

She was a champ and got a cast on, (bribed by daddy's promise of a lolipop,) and then... got home, got her little cast signed by mommy,... and took her cast off. Just like that, easy as you please, she's suddenly holding her cast in her good hand. Whoops. So we quickly try to cram it back on, hoping that the 10-second rule applies to casts, and wondering if she's going to need x-rays and everything all over again. Taking her sweater off today the cast came off again, with her sleeve, so we went back to Urgent Care and got her right fixed up. She now has a space-age material, waterproof, very snug, smaller cast that seems just great. Sheesh! All throughout, she's complained barely at all, and even the initial break was unnoticeable, which means no one can figure out how she broke it. She's either incredibly fragile or terribly good at pain management. 8)

Oh! Calvin's parents got a new puppy, in these next shots you can see both the cast AND Carson, the cutest cocker spaniel puppy, ever. We've been playing up how Sunny (their older cocker spaniel) has a new baby brother. Adessa loves the puppy, wants to "Hold you" all the time and belly laughs at all his antics. Fun!

She talks... In her sleep.

She's talking a ton during the day, that's been happening for a while. She gives a running commentary on things she sees, (insistently, until I acknowledge what she's observed.) And now, she's having vivid dreams and talking in her sleep.

About two weeks ago she woke up in the morning holding her hands out to me: "Wash hands, wash hands." When I asked her why her hands were dirty, she said, "Pizza." Its nice that she's worried about cleanliness even in her dreams. In the middle of a recent night, she didn't wake up, but was plainly tormented: "MINE, not yours. MIIIIIINE. Share." Crying... then wailing, "Ouuuuch." Such subtleties the subconscious conjures, whatever could she be processing? During the worst one, she must have been dreaming about a tantrum. She woke up in the middle of a full blown, thrashing display of toddler discontent and it took several laps around the house to calm her down. Since I barely remember my dreams, all the credit for the night life in her head goes to Calvin's side of the family. There, she is in good company, as pretty much everyone has sleep walking/talking stories. We'll have to keep a good eye on her, even when she's asleep.

The Exploratorium

Adessa accompanied me on a school field trip to the Exploratorium on Friday. It was the second time in her short life. (Really, what a lucky gal!) She got a lot more out of it this time, I'm sure, and was able to interact with a lot of the exhibits and do many of the hands on things. Not pictured were some spining sand exhibits, where she could have stayed and played in the sand all day. Pictured are...

A spinny disc physics table.


Fun with water.


Playing a marimba/xylophone thingy (without the pacifier!)


Climbing in the kid's area.


Her 21 month birth-day. (The day before the Exploratorium.)

Ms. Adessa Faye

This beaut of a picture is the only one taken on her 20 months, 8/12ths birthday. (February 12th) Not her best look.

That's better! Valentines Day, 2009.

Dog sitting. Sugar has a tiny leash, so as long as Daddy held on to Adessa, she could hold onto Sugar.

Tiny Dancer! (Thank you, Madrina Romina!)

"Own bed, big girl!"

Accessorizing, with attitude. (That's her new funny face, which she practices in the mirror.)

Sprinkling the topping on apple pies, in her tower.

Adessa:
In the spirit of this being Adessa's baby book as well as family and friend update place, I'm going to record milestones and more in this post. She's 20 1/2 months. She can now run and jump with both feet coming off of the ground at the same time. She says phrases like "Where Mommy go?" "There it is." and lots and lots of words. I think we've over-used some adjectives,as the other day she described someone's (admittedly very attractive) mantel clock as "beautiful". She likes to help out, which is nice, on her terms 8). She will fetch things, wipe down her high chair tray, mini-sweep with her mini-broom, (not actually very helpful when I'm actually trying to sweep, but cute). She loves to put things away: she'll hang up her sweaters, put food back in the fridge or cupboards, put away laundry, and put my shoes in my closet. These would be very helpful, though for most of them she likes to do it while being held, which is getting harder on my back. We got a "Kitchen Tower" contraption which allows Adessa to be safely at counter level. We've already experienced some very happy cheese grating, baking, toast-making, dish washing, and counter-wiping. She has ventured into her own bed and sleeps there for some naps and some nights until the wee hours. She plays, actually interacting, with her friends. She has for the last few weeks been incredibly weepy and demanding. She's wanting to be held all the time, crying about any hesitation in getting her way, frustrated easily, and hard to predict. We are all working on patience and distraction and trusting that it will pass. She loves her music class, and has started paying attention to what the teacher is doing and following some directions, which is adorable and fun to see. She likes letters, and whenever there's a sign or book or anything printed, she starts singing the ABC song.

Baby:
The new baby (yet to be named) comes in about two months, which means I have just two more months of being able to focus all my mommy attention on Adessa, and get some preparative things done. I am feeling more tired and achey, and I have less lap for her to sit on. Sometimes I think the girls are kicking each other through my belly; they have practically already touched when Adessa's elbow meets with some poking out baby part in a thin-skinned section of my expanding stomach. Sometimes it's painful. I haven't yet "prepared" for the birth as much as I did for Adessa, but I'm hoping to resume practicing my breathing and focusing, and that it will be easier going into labor knowing what to expect.

Me:
I found my long lost library card. And figured out how to search for and request books online. My eyes are too big for my... brain? as now I have a zillion books to read, and more coming in all the time. I've loved it, though! It started with a survival kick, "The Unthinkable: Who Survives when Disaster Strikes, and Why." Awesome. "Deep Survival" was also good, and Malcolm Gladwell's kind of related book "Blink." Now it's "The Gift of Fear." by Gavin de Becker. So intruiging. I highly recommend them, all applicable to our lives and what I mostly learned was: trust your intuition. And participate in safety drills and read all safety instructions! When something crazy happens, we fall back on the essence of whatever training we have had, and can't be relied upon to think rationally. Emergency services won't be there for a while, so act. Put the oxygen mask on yourself, first, then people near you! 8) I think all this is notable because I haven't been this stimulated by a subject for a long time, besides labor and baby and kid books, and I like seeing the overlap of my new learning throughout the different books. For those of you who thought I was a know-it-all, random fact dropper to talk to before, get ready for more.