5/22 A Motorcycle

Today we had to go to my Historic District Commission meeting, Violet did great I brought lots of food, set her up and she was as good as gold! We then went over to play with Karl, Stocky, Grams and Gramps. She loves Grams little kitchen. She was fascinated by the boys working on Karl’s motorcycle. In the evening she had a slight fever from the immunizations, threw up and only had 2 night terrors. Maybe this is a trend toward sleeping better… we can only hope and pray!

5/21 More Firsts: The Quilt Group and Dr’s Office

Mariane Sobodash gave Violet a quilt in a beautiful box. I pulled the quilt out to take to the quilt meeting today and she climbed in and started playing. She then put all the diapers around her. She went to the Hand’s All Around Quilt Group meeting today and was able to meet all the ladies. She had a blast, after about five minutes of warily staying in my arms she was off and running, handing people scraps of paper, taking them back, blowing kisses, and after each thing running back to me for another bite of cake. She loves sweets! What a joy to share her personality with a group of women that have sent so many wonderful wishes, blessings and prayers to us thru the whole process.
We had our first pediatrician appointment this evening. Since we’ve gotten back she goes to sleep around 7pm and has her between 3-4 night terrors each night. Her first around 1am then sometimes another at 1:30 but I can typically sing her back to sleep in her crib, but the one at either 3 or 3:30 is usually inconsolable in her crib so at that point she is in bed with Todd and I which is pretty funny because she immediately stops crying but she flops this way then the other, then crawls on top of me, crawls off, kicks Todd, then is sideways, then is flopping her feet, so needless to say at that point there is no sleep for either of us but she wakes up around 4:30am bright and chipper with smiles and kisses for both of us. It is such a special time for that half hour we lay there playing before getting up at 5am. The other thing we wanted to talk to Dr. Howard about was her nervous scratching; she will scratch at her arms or the back of her neck until she bleeds. I have been cutting her nails daily and dressing her in long sleeves and high necks to help them heal and we stop her as soon as we see her doing it. Unfortunately both of these are common and they typically lesson over time, so in the mean time there isn’t much we can do other that what we are doing already. She has acquired quite the little Buda belly in the last couple of weeks, she only weighs 23 lbs (25% for her age) so we’ll keep giving her food. She is quite the little eater; 2 bananas, 2 hardboiled egg whites, a scrambled egg and 8oz of yogurt is her first breakfast… she just never stops eating! She is at the 50% for head circumference and at 32.5” she is at the 75% for height. Great news! She cried when they strapped her in for the chest x-rays to make sure her cough wasn’t pneumonia and was a total champ with only whimpers when they drew blood to fill EIGHT tubes but she totally lost it (and so did I) when they had to give her five immunizations. What trauma! We all went home and went to bed. Good news is she was so exhausted she slept thru the night with no terrors!

5/20 Playing with Dad tuckers us OUT!

Today she turned 19 months old! We went over to Grams and Gramps so we could meet Uncle Karl, who flew back in from NYC last night. We had a great time playing and running around. We were learning that you can’t just walk off the top stair you need to turn around and go down backwards, which was hilarious. She doesn’t like her hands dirty and if she falls she will hold them up for us to clean them, and after each step she would hold her hands off to be brushed off, it took a while to get in the habit of going down all the stairs and THEN whipping off our hands. She is just too precious. Later she pointed until I had put water in one of her bowls so she could splash in it, she then proceeded to take off her socks and shoes to splash with her feet. Guess I need to run out and pick up a kiddy pool, I just saw them advertised for 4.99! Talk about cheep entertainment! She is a water bug! Later she took a nap and Mom and Luke came over to help put the books back in the barrister and pull out the porch furniture. Luke installed the baby gate which is pretty funny because we still need to put in the railing. Todd spent the evening with Violet playing and bonding and I spent the evening cutting three weeks worth of grass, they were so tuckered out from playing hard they took a nap. I pulled out the rest of her clothes to take up to her bedroom.

5/19 First time without Mom or Dad

Today I had an appointment so Grams went with us to watch Violet while I was busy and she was a trooper. I did bring a bowl of garbanzo beans, which she loves but doesn’t like the husks so each one she gives you the husk because she doesn’t want it in with the other beans in the bowl… too funny. We ran errands all afternoon, and she loved it, she is so mesmerized by all that goes on around her and all the sights to see. Today we learned “kiss on the lips” so now we can blow kisses and give kisses on the lips. She is so cute. We have been slowly meeting all the neighbors and they all fall in love when she giggles and blows kisses.

5/18 Daddy’s Last Day Off

We ran errands today while Todd put in the base molding behind the barrister so all the books could be moved back out of the dining room. Violet is always very interested in playing with the 14 piles of books that need to go back upstairs and we are tired of trying to distract her from that area of the house. We are still working on Mama and Dada. Those are her only English words so far but everything is still Mama (food, toys, etc.) so we are now learning that there is only one Mama. We found a basket for her toys and she wanted to be a toy! Grams and Gramps gave her a mini radio flyer wagon that she puts her baby dolls in and pulls around. A big hit because it is just her size!

5/17 Laundry and Mail Day

After sleeping in and a leisurely breakfast Violet and I started on laundry which she helped by sitting in the basket and collecting the dirty laundry, she also helped by putting the clean clothes I give her into the dryer. Todd spent the day following us around putting up safety latches, outlet covers and baby gates that we didn’t get to before we left. We went thru 3 weeks of mail and found out Violet loves junk mail we had her going back and forth between the two of us all afternoon. I’d give her a piece of junk mail to give to daddy and he’d give her a rag to give to mama, it was too cute. She got to meet Grams and Gramps and even blew kisses and gave them high-fives.

5/16 Going Home

We left the hotel at 6 am to make our first flight of the day… a four and a half hour flight to Tokyo. Five minutes into the flight she fell asleep and we watched two movies, thinking “our child is a dream, this is a piece of cake!”. We then had a four hour layover in Tokyo. She spent it running back and forth between us, either playing with her stacking cups or Todd giving her ‘trot trot to Boston’ while trying to check email. She was a real trooper. We were thinking that the next 12 hour flight shouldn’t be so bad. Once we got on she was wide awake and did ok as long as she was in my lap, so trying to put her to sleep on the seats between us was five minutes of crying. Needless to say she got lots of sleep on my lap and when we got home I was exhausted. Luke/Stocky and Clara were our “pick-up crew” as everyone else was out of state. Violet got her first ride in a car seat but with the smoothness of the Explorer and the driver she wasn’t car sick! Good News! Clara painted two signs, one at my parent’s house and one at ours, how awesome!










Our pick up crew was great! They dropped us off to unpack any essentials, we all walked up to the store for the necessities and then they left to go make us all dinner while we got settled. Violet had a great time, her new home has garbage cans to play with and paint cans that are just her size for a nice place to sit. Stocky and Clara came back with dinner for us all then afterward they left and we crashed for the night, after being up for over 34 hours we were beyond done!