The comings and goings of the fab four

This week has gone by pretty quickly. Monday it rained. Seriously. I had a hard time doing anything because I just wanted to stare out the window at the beautiful rain. It was also only about 88, which was absolutely amazing. Lydia went to school and I tried to clean the house and go grocery shopping (Okay, so grocery shopping in the rain might not be my favorite thing, but at this point I’ll take it!).

Yesterday, Christy and Gray came over. Lydia was verrrrrrrry tired from school on Monday, and of course she’s reverted back to waking up at 5:30. We had it so good for a few weeks, we should have known… She only took a 45 minute nap to top it off, so when her friend got here she was in truly rare form. She kept going up to him to give him a “hu(g)”, and would end up knocking him over. At the end of the visit Gray was running away from her. She was really acting brutish. At one point she went upstairs, and was walking around and *WHISTLING*. She has done it before, but not really continuously. Christy said she is a Whistling Savant. Definitely. It was hysterrrical. The kids cried more than they didn’t cry yesterday (Gray was supposedly in a bad mood too), but Christy and I laughed at them non stop. Sorry kids.

This is a picture of Lydia after she woke up from her 2 hour nap after Christy and Gray left yesterday.
Today Lydia went to school and I started a Bible study. I was able to take a nap afterwards, which was really the highlight of my day. Lydia and I went to the mall to pick up the pictures we had taken of her a few weeks ago, and she didn’t want to leave. We played in the kids area, and then got cookies and watched the people walk by. We looked at some shoes, and then called it a day. It was great because when we got home, it was almost time for daddy to get there.

Tomorrow we’ll probably try to hit up a water aerobics class in the morning, then go to a playgroup in the afternoon. Should be another fun day!

I have some pictures downstairs, but I am not going to go get them because this blog is actually a procrastination break from cleaning! I’ll try to post some tomorrow.

This weekend we have been able to do a lot of relaxing. Friday, Lydia and I went to the Y for a water aerobics with the old folk. Lydia did GREAT, after having a horrible time on Thursday morning. We came home, had a snack and layed down. Lydia ended up sleeping almost two hours. This, in itself, was quite miraculous. Then we met Christy and Gray at Olive Garden for lunch. I was a little nervous because sitting still is NOT Lydia’s strongest suit. I packed a bag full of books and toys, and said my prayers. She did so great, and the man sitting behind us even complimented us on Lydia and Gray’s wonderful behavior. I think his exact words were, “I have never seen two better behaved babies in a resturant!”. I about fell out of my chair. Gray and Christy came over to play at our house after lunch, and we had a great time. Lydia is not much into sharing her toys these days, but we’re working on it. Gray doesn’t seem to care that Lydia steals every single thing he picks up, which is good. Usually she’ll take it away, and then bring him his cup or something else that he has brought. I guess that’s a beginning. Friday night we ordered a pizza, like we do every Friday, and watched a movie.

Yesterday was pretty uneventful. The weather was hot and sunny, we were stuck inside again… Robert was kind enough to take Lydia to the store with him in the late afternoon to get groceries for dinner, and I went shopping by myself for the first time in what feels like forever. It was heavenly. He also cooked dinner after I got home!

This morning we got up and went to Sunday School, and then to church. The church we’ve been going to has a great class of 20’s-30’s called the Action group. They also do a monthly social event, and they also do outreach projects throughout the year. The curriculum is also very interesting – each week we discuss a current event and how it relates to Christianity and specific scripture that they’ve pulled. Today we discussed the JonBenet Ramsey case and how it is portrayed in the media. Everyone was so nice, and we are so excited to start going every week. We are hoping to find our *first babysitter ever* so we can go to the first social event in a few weeks. This afternoon we went to the kickoff party for the early PTA that I’m a part of. They had ice cream and a bubble machine, and LOTS of crazy kids running around. Lydia had a blast, and was happy all evening. We’re looking forward to the long weekend next weekend, but are hating that we’ll miss our trip to the mountains with the Good & Plenty gang. Next year we’ll be there with bells on.

Oh, and it rained today, and it’s supposed to rain tomorrow. HALLELUJIAH!

Today Lydia had another great day at school. Her teachers wrote on her form “Lydia loves school, and school loves Lydia”. They said lots of wonderful things when I picked her up, too. Today they said she’s such a little mommy. She is always playing with dolls and loves babies. Nothing we didn’t already know, but cute. Her latest favorite thing to play with are her little people. She likes to “feed” them, and sit them at their table and chairs. I think she’s a little confused about the chairs, though, because they are a little remaniscent of a potty. Sometimes she will say “pee pee”, and sometimes she will say “eat”. So hopefully we’re not confusing her.

While she was at school, I attended a water aerobics class at the YMCA. I was the youngest person there by a good 35-40 years, but it was nice to be in the water and get some exercise, even though I felt utterly ridiculous. I also enjoyed showering at the Y because they have great water pressure and nice big stalls. We have neither at our house.

Tonight I made pasta bake and Lydia ate two huge bowls. I finally found something she’ll eat a lot of that has some nutritional value! Unfortunately, I stupidly burned two of my fingertips while cooking, and they are now blistering. My fingertips are blistering. This will cause problems, I am sure. I have also been carrying Lydia’s little ice packs around to keep my fingers from hurting so much – there are two that are in the shapes off flowers, and one that is a dog. Since I will occasionally eat a popsicle and share w/ Lydia, I think she thought that these were popsicles. She kept coming up to them and licking them. She was a little confused, I think. She did say “cold” whenever she touched or licked them. So that’s a nice change from the all inclusive use of the word “hot”.

I haven’t taken pictures in the last few days, but I’ll try to load the ones from earlier this week.

We have stayed pretty busy this weekend. We decided to go to the Dallas World Aquarium on Saturday. I think the high yesterday was 104, so a lot of people had the same idea. We had to wait about 30 minutes to get in the door because the ticket line was so long. Luckily, the waiting area was covered, and had lots of stuff to look at. Robert liked the aquarium, but I was disappointed. Lydia really didn’t seem to care either way. There was a leopard, which she did show interest in, and some ducks, and she did like the snakes. Of course I didn’t like the fact that they had a leopard in a cage, but whatever. I think Lydia enjoyed looking at all of the people that were there more than anything, and there were a LOT of people. It was basically a line of people walking through. I was very glad, though, that we had arrived when we did, because the line to get in was at least twice as long to get in when we were on our way out. I highly recommend the SC Aquarium in Charleston if you ever get the chance. I don’t think we’ll do the Dallas Aquarium again.

Today we went to church, and Lydia hung out in the nursery. We got her before communion, and when we were waiting to go up for communion, she yelled out “bye bye!” and then a few minutes later “night night”. She was definitely tired, and she wanted everyone to know that she was ready to get out of there and lay down. She fell asleep in the car and took a decent nap, but not long enough. We went to the mall this afternoon to get Robert a few more clothes for work, and she pitched a great fit because she didn’t want to stay in her stroller. She is very tired, and will go to bed early tonight! She has her third day of school tomorrow, so I know she’ll be happy to get out of the house and break up the monotony.

I’m now 20 weeks pregnant, which is halfway. I am still not getting huge, but the baby is definitely getting bigger. Robert felt him kick this morning for the first time. It’s gone by very quickly so far, but I’m not sure if that will continue. It seems like w/ my pregnancy w/ Lydia, it went quickly until the beginning of the third trimester, and then slowed way down.

It continues to be sweltering here, but I think it’s supposed to cool off to the upper 90’s this week. The nights are supposed to get down in the lower-mid 70’s though, which supposedly makes a big difference. It has been getting down to 80 at night, which usually means that a heat advisory is issued the following day. It just heats up SO fast in the morning if it doesn’t get below 80 at night. I look forward to the days when Lydia and I can go outside and play. There are tons of great parks and playgrounds around here, all vacant right now, of course.

I will post some pictures here later if Blogger will cooperate!

Lydia got a package in the mail from Mimi & Papa B in the mail today with a new outfit. She tried to put it on herself, but it just didn’t work out. She’s starting to get it though.

Apparently, Robert has. He called me from his fabulous networking cocktail last night about 6:00 to let me know that he had gotten into some pine nuts, and would be coming home asap for his epi-pen. Fortunately, his boss lives close to us, AND had driven yesterday (he usually takes the train, like Robert). When Robert got home, he was extremely swollen – comparable to the episode his senior year of college when he accidentally ate pesto in a meatball sub – and very panicked. He took the epi-pen, but I guess in his frenzied state, he pulled it out before the epi was able to get into his body from the pen. It didn’t make a lick of difference. He continued to swell, and broke out in whelps. His whole body was red and even his arms and legs began to swell. We went to the hospital, and luckily, it was not crowded. They got him back immediately and gave him some steroids and a shot of epinephrine. He started feeling better immediately. They also gave him an IV of Tagamet. When he had his episode two years ago (we all remember Robert’s pesto during the lamaze party incident, right?), they gave him Pepcid and Benadryl at the hospital, so I guess any of those antiacids can work the same way? SO about 2 1/2 hours later, after much waiting, watching the entire movie Finding Nemo, and giving myself and Lydia a self guided tour of The Medical Center of Plano (very nice, by the way), we were able to come home. Lydia got to bed about 10, but unfortunately still woke up at 6:30. She is in school today, and hopefully can make it through the day. Robert went to work a little late, and said he is feeling much better. His eyes were a little puffy today, but nowhere near the alien resemblance he had going on last night. We’re glad he is okay, now. We’re going to see if we can reduce the average allergic reaction/hospital trip from our current average of one a year. If you see him, just remind him to never eat green sauce.

Lydia had her first day of school today – she had a GREAT time and apparently did really well. The teacher said, “I wish all the kids were as good as she is!”. They said she did great and loved dancing in music class and loved playing with the beach balls. Of course, a ball is her favorite toy beside her little people and her babies! She ate a good lunch, and was very happy this afternoon. She talked to Nana, Papa and Emkat (and Milo the cat) on Skype too. So it was a busy day. I was able to clean for several hours, uninterrupted, which was so different from cleaning with a toddler around!!!

This past Friday night we had one of Robert’s friends from work over for dinner. He’s from Salt Lake City and moved here in the same program as Robert. It was very nice to have someone over to hang out! Saturday night we went to my friend Christy’s house for a little get together for Gray’s first birthday. Lydia got to play with their cat, which was super fun (as always). Her husband Shawn invited Robert to play poker later that night, so he got to have some boy time with some new friends. We skipped church on Sunday and just went to lunch as a family.

Texas is getting better, but it’s still been over 100 every day since I can remember (actually I think it was 96 last Monday, so that’s a lie). It’s supposed to be at least 100 for the next 7 days. They said if we hit 100 for 4 more days, it will be one of the 4 hottest summers on record, and that shouldn’t be a problem. I’m thankful that I’m not hugely pregnant yet!

Robert continues to enjoy his job and all of the training. We are looking forward to the first paycheck this week. Hallelujiah! He is going to a cocktail hour tomorrow, which sounds like a great networking opportunity. He comes home happy every day, which is wonderful.

This week has been pretty good so far. Sunday we visited the same church we visited two weeks ago (King of Glory, Dallas), and once again it was wonderful. A couple we met on our first visit took a lot of time to talk to us and hang out after the service. We also met the pastor, and he was a wonderful man. He sent us a kind letter this week, and just really impressed us with how friendly and welcoming he is. Of course he’s retiring soon, but it really shows why the church has such a wonderful, welcoming structure.

Monday we were going to go to another bounce gym but Lydia was just too tired for an 11:00 playtime. Yesterday we had lunch with our friends Christy and Gray at a neat resturant close to our house, then they came over to play. It was great to just visit with a friend, and for Lydia to have someone different to look at. Today was a rough day, Lydia woke up on the wrong side of the bed. She had to tag along with me to a doctor’s visit, but then got to go to another playdate. She saw her friend Marisa again, and I got to talk to her mom again. They are great, I really like them a lot. Lainie, Marisa’s mom, said that they discussed me taking on the position of playgroup coordinator for the PTA group at their board meeting last week, and that someone would be calling me this week. Shocking, but I’m sure it would be a great way to get more involved. We’ll see if it happens! Tomorrow night we have open house for Lydia’s school, and then on Friday, Robert is having a guy from his program over to hang out and visit. Apparently he’s getting lonely too. It will be fun to meet him, and it sounds like Robert has scored his first friend!

I am now about 18 1/2 weeks along with the pregnancy, so getting very close to the halfway point. Baby boy Ferguson is doing well, per today’s visit with Dr. Eisenberg. His heartbeat was very strong. We also are in the process of scheduling the induction for either Dec 28 or 29th. My parents are planning to come out and stay w/ Lydia during the delivery, and then we hope that some other family and friends will come out after that (did you guys catch that hint?????).

I’ll get some new pics up as soon as blogger starts cooperating.

I just went into our room and Lydia was under the bed trying to get a paci out. The paci was at the head of the bed against the wall, and she had climbed under the bed at, where else, the foot. But she made it and no calls had to be made to get her out.

I just went into our room and Lydia was under the bed trying to get a paci out. The paci was at the head of the bed against the wall, and she had climbed under the bed at, where else, the foot. But she made it and no calls had to be made to get her out.