The road to Kansas: Part one

Emmy and her favorite teacher, Miss Christine,
& Miss Mary Ann. Somehow, she knew she
wasn't going to see Miss Christine again.

In all our recent updates, one post I've failed to get around to is sharing photos from our adventures between our old home and our new one!

Her last day with Miss Amy & Miss Jamie

Emmy went to school a couple of extra days the week after New Year's while we had the packers and movers there.  Here are a couple of photos from her last two days of school. Her teachers also had the kids make their Brown Bear, Brown Bear books and the last pages, when you see the Teacher and Children, had photos of all her teachers and each child in the class. Such a great memory for her!

The movers packed up the truck on Friday, January 6th, which is also when Emmy came down with the stomach bug. Yuck. We were camped out at Mary Ann and Joel's during this time and they were gracious hosts and we were so glad to be on familiar turf, but it's just hard to be sick when you aren't "home."

Sick Pickle.

We still managed to make it, though, to the baptism of our godson, Henry, that Sunday.  What a special day!  I also failed to ever post anything back during my fall updates about sweet Henry's birth, so I have failed him in my blogging as his godmother. :) 


So, here are a couple of photos from our first time meeting Henry on October 19th, the day after he was born!

Meeting Henry.  Lisa is the most beautiful new mom ever! Lucas wasn't too bad looking, either. 
But of course the sweet baby was the star!

I'm one day old!

Such a good baby, he slept until he was sprinkled

Back to Henry's baptism, we headed to Greenwood to celebrate with Lucas, Lisa, Will (our first born godson), Henry, and their family. Emmy was feeling MUCH better on Sunday morning and she and Will had a lot of fun playing. Too bad they both got a little loud during the service. At least they were well behaved for the baptism itself. Except, as we were standing at the front of the church, answering all those important questions the priest asks you, Emmy looks at me and says "Mommy, I'm ready to go to the nursery now." Nice.

But then he didn't like the water.

Henry did so well!  He slept through most of the service, until he had to be handed to Nicholas for the actual baptism, and then he wasn't too fond of the water.  Isn't he the cutest thing?

After the church service there were special refreshments during the church's usual social hour so we got to spend more time with Lucas and Lisa's family and some of our other friends who made the trip.  It was a fun day! We headed back to their house afterwards to let the kids take naps but before nap time, we had Emmy and Will sit down so we could take pictures of them in their cute church clothes. They were hamming it up!

We are going to miss living only an hour away from these boys and their parents.  We won't talk about that now because it will only make me cry!
Here are a few more photos from the day, including the cute photos of Miss E and Mr. W.

After Henry's baptism, we returned to Augusta to the comforts of Mary Ann and Joel's house, where MA (at the time about 14 weeks pregnant) was stricken with the stomach bug, and a few hours later I fell as well.  Poor Emmy I think was over it, but it made her gag reflex so sensitive that she would throw up while eating so we three spent that Monday doped up on phenegren and zofran, drinking broth, eating popsicles, sleeping and praying this would go away and not infect Charles or Joel.

Charles spent lots of time at our house patching holes and getting it ready for the renters.  Time was not on our side, so in the end we hired a painter to paint the kitchen cabinets and hall, our lovely housekeeper, Patricia, came and gave it a once over, our handyman came to fix some plumping concerns that proved to be above Charles' skill level, and we hired a landscaper to do some yard clean-up we simply ran out of time to do. Whew. Good news is we left Augusta knowing a lease had been signed and renters were moving in the following week. Yay! It was very, very hard to leave, but after all we'd been through the last few days, we were just ready to be done.

We headed to Mom and Dad's and set up camp there. Emmy and I left a few hours ahead of Charles and it was a relief to be done with that part of the journey.

 The next morning we headed to Spartanburg for a visit. We had lunch with my old boss/professor/mentor and her husband and they gave us a delightful tour of some of the new areas on campus at Wofford and caught us up on what's been going on.  We walked around campus, of course let Emmy look at all the fountains, and visited with a few other folks that I used to work with and we knew from our days as students. It was a great time!

 That afternoon we headed to Eric and Erin's house. Erin was due any day with baby Nora and we stayed with Stella while she went for a haircut.  The girls had fun playing and then we all had dinner before taking our very sleepy girls to their respective beds.  Erin was having some contractions during dinner that gave her pause and I told Charles on the way home "she is having that baby tonight." Sure enough around 11 pm she texted me that they were heading to the hospital and baby Nora was born the next morning! Yahoo!  More on that later, and happy 2 month birthday today, Nora!

Unfortunately 2 year olds move too fast for a good photo, with my camera,
but these two were being so silly and playing in Stella's bed. Too cute!

The next morning (Friday, for those of you struggling to keep up, it makes me tired remembering all of this!) we got on the road for a trip through Atlanta to Rome.  We stopped at Jane and Jeremy's for lunch with Jane and the boys.   I got a decent shot of Shepherd, Emmy, and Jasper together after lunch. Aren't they adorable?  I need to get Jane's copy, because of course her fancy camera and fancy photographer skills snapped a far better shot than my iPhone!

After lunch we said our good-byes and were back on the road again, this time a short drive as we continued towards DeeDee and Granddaddy's and detoured for a very short visit with some Army friends who were in the process of moving that very day!  We stopped at their new house just to hug necks.  David was Charles' Brigade commander and he and his wife, Sharon, have been mentors to us. Their girls are wonderful and their oldest daughter, Caitlin, just graduated from Wofford last spring.  It was nice to see them, even for a few minutes.  Their beautiful youngest daughter, Grace, has been very sick the last year and they have really been through a lot.  But their faith and strength is amazing!

Then it was time to hit the road for the last leg of our trip, next stop Rome!  More to come in part two...

March comes in like a lion

Well, we started out March with a bang! Aunt Meredith came to visit and I got the flu. That's right, the real, honest to God flu, influenza A to be exact.  Just in time for Mer to arrive, lucky us!

Sadly, this means I have n'er one photo to show for the weekend, but we all loved having her here. Emmy dragged her around the house, making her play with all her toys.  I came out of my room after showering on Sunday morning and to check in on Emmy and Aunt Mer, who were playing with blocks in Emmy's room.  She said "no, Mommy, you go back in your room." Well, we know who was the favored one here!  When Emmy was sleeping we sat around (or laid around really) and talked and watched ridiculous amounts of TV. Charles and I are now enjoying the new show "Smash" and since the recent episodes are On Demand, we re-watched them with Mer and well, now we are delighted to say she is hooked too. Ha!

I am feeling much better, but let me tell you what Internet, I paid the price for forgetting to get my flu shot.  In December I meant to ask my doctor about it when I saw him one more time, and I forgot. Then I figured I'd just go get one at Walgreen's or something since our insurance would cover it, but with Christmas and moving, etc. I forgot. And so, when I woke up Thursday morning feeling achy and feverish and like I couldn't get out of bed, I thought "oh, crap."  Fortunately Mary Ann convinced me go to get a flu test and I went Friday morning, which was early enough for me to take Tamiflu, miracle invention that it is.  And guess what? Everything "they" say about the flu is the truth. It did not start with a runny nose or congestion.  In fact, I'm not really very congested at all. I had a cough that came about Wed. late and when I coughed it made my throat hurt a lot, so much I wondered if it could be strep.  But it only hurt when I coughed, so I blew it off. But then the aches and chills and fever came. And you just don't feel like you ever want to move again.

This is when it is really hard to be away from family. I can't tell you how much I wanted my Mama on Thursday and Friday (are you ever too old to miss your Mama?).  I know she would have come and helped out with Emmy.  Folks, if you are lucky enough to live near parents or family who help with your kids, consider yourself extremely lucky.  My Mama will always be at least a couple of hours away, at least for the forseeable future.    Plus, Charles is in school and not in control of his own schedule at all, which meant he couldn't, say, stay home Friday morning for a few more minutes to get Emmy to the sitter, or come home for half an hour at lunch to pick her up from the sitter and get her down for a nap.  Sigh.

Luckily, we have found a sitter, really it's someone who offers childcare in her home and has gone through all the steps to be approved by the installation's Child Development Center. And, she lives right down the street, score!  Emmy has been twice and I will probably settle on at least one, if not two, standing mornings a week to take her there for a couple of hours, just to give myself some time to run errands or clean in peace. I can be a lot more productive on my own sometimes!

We also tried out the hourly care offered at the Child Development Center and Emmy had great fun, it's just hard to get booked in there. Their offerings fill up super fast, alas.

The last few weeks have otherwise been relatively uneventful, I'm sorry to report. Hence, the lack of blogging. I know, I know, where are the house photos you say? I'm sure everyone is dying to see more, so I promise I'll work on that.  I just need to take the photos, and I'm not so good with the photography, you see, so I sort of dread it.  But I will, cross my heart.

We're nice and settled into our house, been enjoying some unusually warm weather, along with the rest of you I suspect.  But here, warm still means windy and boy, is it windy! 60 degrees can still be too cold to stay outside for long with the wind whipping. Of course the most beautiful day so far was Thursday, when I was laid up sorry on the sofa, but Emmy and Charles got to go out side and even had visit from the ice cream truck. Yay!

Oh, yes, and how could I forget, Rags wrapped up February with a hairline fracture in her back leg after jumping out of Charles' arms.  So, now that we're a 2 day drive from her grandfather the vet, we had to make a trip to a local vet and wow, sticker shock, 300 bucks.  He did not see any fractures on the x-rays but clearly she was hurting so he gave us a few days worth of pain pills and sent the films to the radiologist, who said he/she did see some green lines, indicating a fracture.  Fortunately, she is now using her foot again so hopefully we can avoid repeat x-rays tomorrow. He did check out her eyes again and put her on a new medicine since the one corneal abrasion wasn't fully healed.  Fingers crossed for a good report and cheap visit tomorrow!

So, hopefully March will go out like a lamb!  Here are a couple of random pictures from the end of the month for you.  We'll get to work on some March photos.

Emmy insisted on eating her chili with chopsticks the other night.  Still a bit of a learning curve...

I got out of the shower and found her like this. We were doing laundry and she took two clean dresses out and put them on over her pajamas...backwards. (And underneath she's also wearing a pair of madras shorts...pictured below.)

A little light reading...

Amazing multi-tasking Dad...he can iron and entertain the toddler at the same time!

She is very advanced, you know

Last week was a busy week for Emmy! On Tuesday she had another check-up at the Developmental Clinic at the hospital where she was born. They offer this as a free service to preemies born at the hospital and they bring them back sometime after 6 months and then again sometime around 16-18 months. As it turns out Emmy was 18 months Monday so she was exactly 18 months for her evaluation this time around.

Again she met with an occupational, physical, and speech therapist and they evaluated her fine and gross motor skills, her social interaction, her speech, her eating, etc. She is 100% caught up to 18 months in ALL areas and in fact is ahead in most! Not that we were worried at all, but we were happy to hear it officially. And of course, now we can say "oh she's so advanced". Haha. The therapists were laughing at her faces she makes and impressed with how well she obeys/understands commands. They asked us if she had at least 20 words she could say, and we guessed yes, at least 20, but when we started counting later, we've gotten to at least 40 words that she can come up with on her own. Not that it matters, but it's funny to start going through the list. She's also very good at repeating, but not everything she repeats she remembers to say on her own.

Emmy went to school in the morning, as usual, and we picked her up about 11 for her 11:30 appointment. By the time she was actually "seen" (which involved playing with the therapists mostly) it was after 12, and by the time we left, she was falling asleep in her Daddy's arms. Imagine if she'd been more awake!

They did take note of our little tip-toe walker. She walked around on her tip-toes a lot when she was first starting to walk while holding onto us or the sofa, etc. Then when she started walking on her own, she walked more flat-footed, I'm sure for balance. Now that she is walking, and running, with confidence, the tip-toeing has returned. She WILL (and does) walk flat-footed, but she just doesn't like to, so the therapist told us just to make sure we stretch out the backs of her legs on occasion.

Then, on Wednesday was Emmy's 18 month check up with her pediatrician. Boy, she was not happy to see Dr. J, which is funny since she never does any of the "bad" stuff to Emmy (the nurses give the shots and prick the fingers!) . But she sure cried when Dr. J did the routine listening to her heart and lungs, looking in her eyes, etc. When she checked her ears, much to our surprise she found a bad ear infection in her left ear! We were so surprised. Her nose had been runny again since the weekend, but we hadn't noticed any other signs. She also had her flu shot and chicken pox vaccine. Not a fun visit! We left with an antibiotic prescription and we go back in a month for a recheck on her ear and a 2nd flu shot and one final vaccine.

Oh, I'm sure you want her stats...she is 29 1/2 inches tall and 19 lbs 6 oz. Yep, she's still under 20 lbs. But, she's grown taller and gained weight and she's following her own growth curve, just on the tiny end of things. Who cares?

The speech therapist did ask for Dr. J to check her upper frenulum as she thought it seemed attached. Dr. J confirmed that it is, but Emmy's isn't severe and she said most kids will fall and it will tear on it's own. To send her to a pediatric surgeon to have it clipped would require anesthesia, etc. and there's not much point since in all likelihood it will happen on it's own, bleed a lot, and feel better with a popsicle and a lot less risk, which was fine by us. My mom reminded me that it happened to me when I was 3 during a sandbox incident on the playground.

Needless to say, our very advanced child was a bit unpredictable the end of the week. I'm sure it's the combination of antibiotics and vaccines and maybe just general toddler cantankerousness, but she gave us quite a difficult time a couple of nights. Thursday night was the worst...we stayed up super late getting ready for a dinner party we were throwing for our friend Lizzie's 30th birthday (it's our thing...we stay up super late getting ready for things...we both work well late at night) and just as we were going to bed, Emmy woke up. And would not go back to sleep. Each of us maybe got 3-4 hours of sleep total...not good heading into another day of work and a dinner party for 12. But, the party was lots of fun and everything went well. And Emmy was in bed by 7 pm on Friday, but then back up at 6. Yuck.

So, we all spent Saturday being lazy in our jammies. Charles and I took turns letting each other sleep (he's also not feeling well...Emmy shared her runny nose with him). Man, we needed it. She was up a couple of times Saturday night, but thankfully last night we were back to our usual full night of sleep. Whew!

What's been goin' on

On Tuesday Emmy had her check-up with the developmental clinic at the hospital where she was born. We met with an occupational therapist and a speech therapist, and then their findings were given to a neonatologist who met with us. Essentially, they took a check list of gross motor skills, fine motor skills, and social skills she should have at different ages and just played with her and marked them off. They were looking for her to meet all of the skills she should have for her adjusted age (they were using 4 1/2 months adjusted, 6 months actual although she's really more like 5 months adjusted 6 1/2 months actual). She is doing everything she should be doing for her adjusted age, and is doing somethings in the 5 and 6 month categories. Emmy is completely caught up in the social category (no surprise) as she is quite the happy, laughing, smiley, "talkative" baby and she follows objects, etc. so that's good. She's farthest "behind" her actual in gross motor skills. But they said that's always the last to catch up, and of course at this point there is no concern. They will have us come back in 8 months to evaluate her once more.

One of the items she was listed as just "emerging" in was rolling from her back to her front. She'd done it only once and when she was angry in her crib so they couldn't check it off, but they listed it as emerging. Well, the next day, it emerged. Charles went to get her about 7:15 when we heard her talking in her crib, and she was on her stomach. Later in the morning I put her down on the floor for tummy time and she rolled from her stomach to her back, and then to her stomach again, and she's just kept on! She's on the roll! You can tell she's quite proud of herself.

She's also pushing herself up completely on her arms (also something that was just emerging on Tuesday) and while tummy time was becoming better and better, now she's wanting to be there! This means she's also rolling over to sleep on her tummy, and that's created a bit of a problem. It must not be as comfy as she'd like because now she'll cry when she can't get comfy. We'd just gotten into this great routine where she didn't want to be rocked, really, so we'd put her down and she might fuss a bit, but she'd be asleep within 10 minutes. Now it's taking longer, she's waking up more, ugh. I hope this passes quickly!

Unfortunately the last week she's finally weaned herself from nursing. She was just getting too frustrated with nursing, I guess because she wasn't getting much, and she'd cry for the bottle after just a second. I know I have done the best I can and in some ways I'm relived, in others I'm sad. It just was never the great experience I'd dreamed of and I feel a bit guilty, but I don't regret pushing through to this point. I'm still trying to pump, but I'm getting less and less, so I don't know how long I can keep it up. I'd like to keep giving her that little bit of extra immune support, especially through this nasty cold and flu season, but that may not be in the cards. We'll see! I'm pleased we made it this far and certainly this summer I had my doubts!

Emmy's little friend Timothy has Hand, Foot, and Mouth Disease. No fun! Poor baby has had a nasty fever and been so miserable this week. Of course he probably picked it up at church, which has had me worried for Emmy. And then yesterday a low grade fever emerged. But, she has no other symptoms; she's eating fine, she's happy as usual and there don't appear to be any sores in her mouth and no rash on her hands or feet. She's got three little bumps by her mouth, though, and a rash on her bottom, so I'm worried she may have a case of it, too. I'm planning to take her to the doctor tomorrow if they can fit us in just to confirm either way. If it is indeed HFMD, there's nothing they can give her, just Tylenol or ibuprofen to help with the fever and any pain (the mouth sores are supposed to be painful). Of course I'm supposed to entertain spouses from Charles' unit on Tuesday night so I'm anxious to find out if it's a good idea for me to still have them over. Adults rarely get it, but they can carry it and I don't want to infect anyone else. Argh, miserable timing, but as Charles pointed out it's better this week than last week!

Here's Emmy "hanging" her "Emmy's 1st Christmas" ornament and a photo of her with a present from some friends at church for her baptism. It plays "Rudolph the Red Nosed Reindeer" and she loves it

I am inept with the snot sucker

Emmy has a little congestion that has appeared the last few days, and she's graciously shared it with me. She doesn't seem very bothered by it, but she does have a little rattling sound when she breathes sometimes. So, I have attempted to use the nasal aspirator, AKA the snot sucker, to help relieve her of the congestion. Either it's not so bad that she needs anything relived, or I'm very inept at using the aspirator, because usually all that happens is I make her madder than a hornet. Some saline drops have helped a little, but if you think the aspirator alone makes her mad, you should ask her how she feels about the saline drops. May I suggest ear plugs when you do so.

This past Saturday we took a trip down I-20 to meet "Aunt Sarah" for lunch at the Blue Willow Inn. Yum! She really wanted to see us and wasn't able to get here anytime soon for a visit, so she asked if we could meet halfway, so off we went! It was a quick trip so we could get back for nap time, but it was a fun trip. The food was delicious and it was good to catch up. Emmy loved looking at the fish in the pond outside.

On the way to Social Circle, where the inn is located, Charles noticed a big field of sunflowers along the interstate. Seriously, a sea of yellow. So on the way home, we got off at the exit right there and decided to try really fast to see if we could get a picture. Sure enough, the first right was a road that ran through the field so we stopped to take a picture. Yes, this does indeed mean we are undeniably related to Charles' Dad. :) Hopefully, we did him proud.

Emmy is in love with ceiling fans and light fixtures. She smiles at them and sticks her little tongue out when she does, which is super cute. She's particularly fond of fans. Turn a fan on when she's looking at it and her face lights up. She is also in love with the painting that hangs over our sofa in the living room. I sit there to nurse her frequently and she will stop eating sometimes to smile, laugh, and talk to the painting. The other night during dinner we had her laying on her boppy, facing the back of the sofa and she just sat there and smiled at the painting. It was painted for us by our friend Jocelyn when we moved into this house. We love it, but now it's even more special! Perhaps this means Emmy is going to be an art critic? Above is is a picture of her earlier today smiling at the painting, and a picture of the painting itself. It has been hard to catch a good photo since usually I'm too close to her, but I tried!

It's no fun being sick

What I thought was allergies/sinus drainage yesterday turned out to be a cold or some similar unpleasantness when I woke up this morning. Lots of congestion, coughing, sneezing, etc., which means I really should stay away from the hospital for a day or two. So, I shed a tear (or two three), and I've stayed home today. I hate to not hold her or be able to nurse her, but I not only want to keep germs away from her, I don't want to spread this to any of the nurses or other babies, etc. If I don't develop a fever and I feel better tomorrow or Friday, then I will go back. Ironically, I probably picked this up at the hospital. Sigh.

Charles came home midday and went to feed Emmy and drop off milk. She ate like a champ! She is still 3 lbs 8 oz and they have lowered the temperature in her isolette and will probably turn it off completely tonight. So, she may be in a regular bassinet tomorrow! We will get some gowns and socks and hats together to take up there tomorrow. We finally can start putting her extensive wardrobe to use!