"Melmo"
Last Sunday was the day of no sleeping - no naps either. So I was desperate for something to keep her occupied. I popped in the Elmo in Grouchland DVD, and she loved it. She sat still for a whole 20 minutes. She especially likes it when Bert and Ernie "stop" the movie. Bert is worried for Elmo, and Ernie reassures him that he'll be ok. She danced along to the songs too. When Rob got home Monday or Tuesday, I made the mistake of showing him the DVD case. She saw it and we had to watch it again. Tonight, Rob moved it or something, and she insisted on watching it again. She wandered around the room with the remote trying to get it to work and chanting "Melmo", so we turned it on. She got bored after a while, so we flipped it off and went to take a bath. Afterwards, I put Elmo pajamas on her, and renewed her interest. She was bound and determined to use the remote to find "Melmo". She didn't believe us when we told her Elmo went night-night.

arguing with an 18 month old...
... is like talking to a brick wall. Rob was eating banana slices dipped in peanut butter tonight. Ally was eating a blueberry muffin. She decided his looked better. He gave her a piece of banana with a little bit of PB on it, and she promptly sucked it off. Then she offered him the banana to put some more on. Rob tried to convince her that she had to eat the banana first then, he'd give her another one. She understands this logic. She follows directions when we tell her to do something she wants to do. She acted like Rob just didn't understand what she was saying, so she had better explain it again. If she could talk, the conversation would have went something like this:

Rob: Ally eat your banana first then you can have some more.
Ally: Yeah, "more" that's what I was just telling you - I want some more.
Rob: Ally, you can't have more peanut butter until you eat what you've got.
Ally: But here, I'll give this one back. I really wanted the one with peanut butter on it anyway.
Rob: Take a bite
Ally: Well, maybe if I put it near my mouth, I can fool him.

and so on. I couldn't help but laugh. She was so earnest in her protesting.

Cookout
The annual family cookout is looming... We were thinking of July 16th or 17th. Does anyone have any conflicts for that weekend? Would Saturday or Sunday be best? Let me know... I'd like to get some respomses, so I know if the date would work out or if we should pick another one.

nuts
I bought some oatmeal/raisin cookies with walnuts. (I don't really like the walnuts, but that's what they had) Ally got to eat one on the way home. When I got her out of the seat, the cookie was gone - except for every single walnut. They were all over the place. It looked like she sucked all the cookie off and spit the walnuts back out.

shopping
We needed diapers for day care, so yesterday we went shopping. Ally loves to push the cart. It's not so good though when we're standing in line at checkout and she tries to push into someone in front of us :) I also was looking for a girly looking Cubs outfit, but can't find one. I find all kinds of Cardinals cute little pink and white dresses, but no Cubs.They only have boys Cubs around here. Stinks. Anyway, Ally loves to hand my debit card to the cashier to pay. She gets kinda peeved that they give it back though.

Finally
I hope a pattern is developing! Ally slept all night last night. YAY!!!!!

words
We've added to her vocabulary:

star

straw

car

out

sign language (sort-of) aligator

an elephant sound/gesture (she puts the back of her hand to her mouth and tries to make a raspberry sound)

night-night

bye-bye

cup

go

shoes

moon

and, she's really putting inflection in her jabberings now. You can tell when she's telling you something or asking a question.

I guess I should mention that htese aren't the only words she's added. I just can't always remember all of them. In the almost 2 months since she got tubes, there has been an amazing jump in her communication. I'm a firm believer in ear tubes now. (added 5/26)

Posted by ktjrdn at 07:34 CDT

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sleep
Ally went to bed last night at 9:00 with no problems. We went to bed thinking we'd just have to get up soon, but she didn't wake up until 2:45. Then, I told her to lay down, covered her back up, and turned on the mobile a couple times. I was back in bed in 20 minutes. She woke up aain an hour later, but only stayed up a minute or two and was back asleep. Yay! I hope this will sort itself out soon.

supper again
After the whole picture thing, we went to Applebee's. We didn't really think she'd let us sit and eat, but we wanted to give it a try. We were amazed to be wrong. She sat and munched Kix, peaches, a granola bar, and french fries. We even got to eat dessert! I can't remember the last time we were ready to leave before she was.

pictures
Last night we got Ally's 18 month pictures taken. Penney's was hot!! I was sweating, so I know Ally couldn't have been comfortable, so she didn't exactly want to get her pictures taken. She wouldn't sit down at all. I took a bunch of stuffed puppies for the picture, and the lady at Penney's knocked one off onto the ground. Ally laughed and did the same to another one. We managed to convince her that was a fun game, so she sat down to get closer to them. Then, we had a heck of a time trying to keep enough puppies on the table long enough to get her picture. But we got a couple good ones. Then, I changed her and tried to take a couple of her sitting down in the chair putting on her sunglasses, but she wanted no part of that. We got one, but not quite what I had hoped for. She usually loves climbing around in their chairs. 1 year ago, I got her 6 months picutes taken in a green outfit. Ruth bought Marley the same outfit, so I have it now. So we tried to mirror those 2 pictures from last year too. We didn't quite succeed, but we came awfully close. It was an ordeal. She was happy to be done.

supper
I've been running out of things to feed Ally, because she's been refusing things she used to eat. Like fish sticks. She likes them, but has been turning up her nose when I try to give them to her. And she loves oatmeal, but hasn't eaten it lately. Well, last night we decided to try something new.

When we got home, Ally went to the kitchen looking for something to eat. I made her wait until I had her supper ready - green beans, oranges, fish sticks, and a small cup of Kix cereal. The Kix is all she would eat. She cried and tried to convince us to give her more or something else ( I think she really wanted us to give her some strawberry Newtons ). We just made her get down if she wouldn't eat the food we gave her. Then, after bath at 8:20, she sat down at her table and wanted to eat. So we warmed up the same stuff from earlier, and she ate everything but the green beans and was still hungry. I gave her a bowl of oatmeal, and she ate almost all of it. I don't know what changed - if she's eating more lunch or snack at daycare, or what. Maybe it's the temperature?? - but she just wasn't hungry before. Makes me feel better. I was afraid she was just being stubborn and supper was going to be a battleground like sleeping through the night has become.

stealing my glasses + gentle
I wore my glasses most of the weekend, because I was always tired. Ally kept grabbing them and trying to take them off. I would tell her "no" and she would instantly tuck her head and lay down on my shoulder and give me a semi-hug. Then she'd jump back - smile real big - and do it again. I guess she thought the hug would make me change my mind.

She also occasionally grabs big handfuls of hair and pulls. I tell her "be gentle" so she lets go and either strokes my hair back and forth so it stands up everywhere or hugs me and pats my back then grins at me. Then, she grabs and pulls. I think she likes hearing me tell her to be gentle. I can't convince her it's not a game. It's really cute... except when it hurts.

day care
Usually we go across the hall to another room in the morning, because Ally's teachers aren't there before 7 on Monday. This week, Maggie's mom is out of town, so her dad drops her off earlier than I even get there. So this morning, we walk in to the day care and have to pass through the gathering room - the Gross Motor Room. Maggie saw Ally and squealed. Ally got really excited and ran over to see her. Maggie "tickled" Ally. To an outsider, it might appear that Maggie reached out with both hands and shoved Ally, but on closer inspection, you could see that her fingers were twitching in the tickle manner. One of the teachers almost told Maggie to stop, because she didn't see what was going on. Instead, we had to tell her to be gentle, because she almost knocked Ally over. Anyway, there was no separation anxiety today. Ally ran over to slide with Maggie and the big kids.

sleeping
Today was mainly about sleeping. I wanted her to, and she did not. I needed a nap. Ally needed a nap. She got 45 minutes at 9 am. She cried through naptime at 1 and came out on the other side happy. I did not. Anyway, she went to bed easily. She just didn't stay asleep through the night - as expected. I don't know what we're going to do with her.

swimming pools
We tried to go swimming today in Ally's pool. However, Last time we did it, we decided that her little pool is too short for the slide. The slide takes up too much space. (Not that she cared too much. Rob just thinks she needs a better one, so she has more room) So instead of putting her in the pool, we went to Wal-Mart to get a better one. They have blow-up pools with slides attached, so I picked one out and we went home to blow it up. After getting it all aired up, and mostly water filled, we discovered that Ally didn't really like it. It's hard to slide down a blow-up slide unless there is water running down with you. However, she didn't like the sprinkler thingy that came with it. So, we spent another half hour deflating and emptying it. Then we returned it. Mostly Ally had more fun playing with the water hose. Oh well.

Before all this, Rob discovered that our solar cover was partly under water instead of floating. That's bad. That means that the little bubbles were no longer full of air, with means the solar cover is trash. So we went to the pool store for another one (that we really didn't have in our budget) They have these little solar fish things. They are fish shaped and have liquid in them that seeps out slowly. It's supposed to reduce evaporation and trap heat in the water. The guy seemed to think pretty highly of them. So we're going to try it out and see what happens. I'll be happy not to have the cover to deal with anymore. It was huge and bulky. And if you took it off, you had to store it out of the sun. That meant finding a place for it in the shed. Which meant dragging it wet across the dirt and grass in the yard. Then when you put it back in the pool, the pool gets dirty. And you couldn't dry it, cause you'd kill the grass (and get it dirtier) so it would get stinky if it sat for long. I'm really hoping these fish things work!! The solar cover lasted 2 seasons, and costs around $100. The fish things are $25 for 2 (our pool is big enough it needs 2) and last about a month. We'll see.

Posted by ktjrdn at 00:01 CDT

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lunch
The daycare took pictures of Ally at lunch last week. She was a little tired.

stars
I gathered up all the things that needed returned to Wal-Mart, brushed the dust off them, and took Ally to Wal-Mart yesterday. I was wearing a shirt with the flag on it. Ally was so excited that she found a star on the little blue flap of the child seat in the cart and matched it to my shirt. She kept pointing at it and then poking me in the chest. She tries to say star, but hasn't quite worked it out yet. She got over it for a while, and then later she noticed my shirt again. This time she was sitting on the seat. She stood up and folded herself in half and just about fell over trying to see under her butt and point at the star.

healthy
Ok, I'm mostly healthy now. I feel like I have returned to the normal functinoing world. I no longer feel like Ally is a screaming monster out to get me. Instead, she's just a screaming monster. See... much more rational.

Actually, Ally is slowing returning to the real world too, I hope. last night, she went to bed at close to her normal time with little help from me. She did wake up in the middle of the night and fight going back to sleep, but we're working past that again. She's still got a runny nose and a little cough, but is no longer cranky.

update on Darron
I got an update on Darron's recovery:

He had surgery this last week. They removed his eye and pieced back together his cheekbone and put a plate in to hold the pieces together. They were missing a few pieces of bone, so they took bone chips from the back of his skull. They accidently removed too much and revealed the covering of the brain, but no damage was done (they had a neural surgeon come in to check it out) so they had to put a plate there as well to cover the small hole in his skull. But he is recovering well. They removed some of the dry skin on his face to see how well the burns were healing and Dea said there is little to no his face. YEAH!!! Also, they have had him walk around his room and they removed his trach tube and he talked for the first time since the accident. But all is doing well.

Tantrums
Ally and I spent most of the night sleeping on the couch. I use the word "sleeping" in it's loosest form. She woke up around 5 and starting rolling around and arching her back crying. She wanted me to hold her. But not sitting down. And not with a blanket anywhere near us even though I was cold. And not actually touching her or anything. She calmed down a little and let me change her diaper, but then it was time for me to shower and get ready for work. Rob says she didn't want him anywhere near her. She laid down on the floor and rolled around throwing a giant fit. She'd stop every once in a while to watch tv then pick up again. When I got done with the shower, I went back upstairs, and she crawled toward me a couple feet screaming, then collapsed before she got to me. There was absolutely nothing wrong with her that either of us could see, so we let her throw a fit. Then, suddenly she stood up and ran to me, let me pick her up, and pointed to the food on her table. By that time, I was ready for work, so we grabbed some to go and she was fine. She tried to throw another fit at daycare too. I hate this time of year. This is the same time last year that all our problems with sleep started.