Things I Don't Want to Forget

And we are once again in the "Better Late than Never" category!

-Sprout was sicker than she has ever been this week. She had a fever about a week and a half ago and some cold symptoms, but seemed to be on the mend. Then, BAM! Sunday night she was miserable. She was screaming. She had goop coming out of her eye. She had a fever of 102.5. And Dr.DH was on call and at the hospital. What good is living with a pediatrician if he's not there when your baby is sick? :) Anyway, he told me that the eye goop was a sign of an ear infection (who knew?), so we took her to the doctor the next day and she did indeed have TWO infected ears. So, we started a new antibiotic and I spent the week nursing my miserable girl back to health. She stayed miserable until Thursday when she finally started perking up. Now, she's still a bit snotty, but mostly back to normal.

-She has a love/hate relationship with barrettes and hair clips. She pulls them out constantly and then immediately wants them back in her hair. Her hair is starting to look shaggy, but I don't want to cut it, so we play this game all day long to keep it out of her face. It was even worse this week when her eyes were gooping and it got all in her hair. Gross!

-Her vocabulary continues to amaze me. We have now surpassed 50 words on her word list. New on her word list: Heart, star, corn, o's (for Cheerios), ear, goose.

-And her almost-words: she says "gee-nay" for "penguin" and "see-nay" for "elephant." She knows what she's saying, but they don't quite resemble the real work enough for me to count them.

-She absolutely floored me yesterday. I was changing her diaper on a plastic changing table in a restaurant. There were some instructions in raised plastic and she pointed to the number "4" and said, "four" (well, "fo"). I was stunned. We read counting books all the time and, in one of them, she has been pointing to the four and naming it, but I assumed she only knew it on the page of that book. For her to see a tiny 4 in a completely different context and recognize it, was pretty exciting for this proud mama!

-She also recognizes and says the letter "B" in one of her alphabet books. We'll see if she starts pointing that out anywhere else.

My silly, smart girl continues to amaze me. Such a trooper through illness and continuing to learn so much. It's hard to believe that this time last year, we were so upset and concerned that she wouldn't smile or interact with us at all. And now, she isn't a baby anymore. She is a little girl with her own ideas and personality. I'm so grateful to be on this journey with her!

Weight Loss Update

I'm down a pound and a half and, for the first time in a long time, my weight is in the "healthy weight range." I'm pretty proud of myself, I have to admit, because it's been such a long road, but I've kept with it. I'm not done yet. I'm at the very top of that range, and I'd like to be a little closer to the middle of it. I need some wiggle room. And I kinda want to weight less than DH. That may be silly, but it's true.

Things I Don't Want to Forget

What does a monkey say? "Ooooo, ah, ah!" Soooo cute!

When you ask her if she's hungry, she says, "food." Except that she draws it out and adds a quiver in her voice so it's more like, "foooooooood" and anyone who saw her performance would think we starved the poor girl.

Speaking of "foooooooood," the girl will eat anything when she's in the right mood. She was picking the raw onions out of her chicken couscous salad last night and eating them. Crazy stuff. And spicy is not problem at all. I always think she will balk, but she sucks it down.

As expected, she screamed through most of her 15 month check up. She weighs in at 32.5 inches long (95th percentile) and 23 pounds (55th percentile). So she's bulking up a bit. She's jumped up quite a bit in the weight category. Like I said, the girl likes to eat! Still long and lean, though.

We had a play date today and both kids wanted to play with a small beach ball. Her friend REALLY wanted it. He would throw it and she would go get it. He would promptly scream because she had it. She would smile, run around the couch with it, come back and hand it to him sweetly. It was a cute game, but I think she enjoyed it more than her pal.

And the absolute best thing to happen this week came yesterday. When I put her down in bed for the night and said, "I love you," just like I always do, she said "iiiiiioveu" or something like that. My heart melted. And she's done it a couple of times today, too. So special.

My New Adventure

With the new year, I decided that it was time to start something new. I've been thinking and praying for quite some time about my next steps and I believe that I'm called to the Diaconal Ministry in my church. In the Episcopal Church, a Deacon is an ordained position, requiring a lot of education and training. It will probably take me a year or so to even become an official candidate and then at least another three years of training and education before ordination.

The role of a Deacon is to serve the community, to bring the needs of the community into the church, and lead the church in response to those needs. I have to discern a specific call to ministry, but eventually will take on a larger roll. It is not a full time or paid position, but definitely a serious commitment. One of the advantages to not having to work now is that I can devote the time and energy to serving others.

I feel like I've been lacking in this area for quite some time, though. I've been so wrapped up in myself and my baby (and before that, my job, which certainly was a ministry in itself). But I've always known that serving others was important to my life, indeed, it's purpose. It's the thing that drew me into education and drew me to Africa and other under served communities. I know that I'm not meant to be a full time teacher right now, but I am still called to serve in a big way. And so, I'm starting the journey. I'm just talking to lots of people right now. Nothing formal. Maybe I'll determine that now isn't the right time, but for now, I'm moving forward.

Weight Loss Update

So I posted a few times at the beginning of my journey with Weight Watchers. There have been plenty of ups and downs along the way, but over the last 8 months or so, I've lost 45 pounds. I have a half a pound to go before I'm officially in a healthy weight range. I'm not sure how long I'll keep going after that. I'm so proud of myself for getting to this point, even though it has taken so long. I'm glad that DH and I decided to make these changes for our family.

And it's good timing, because we plan to officially start TTC this month. Just waiting on my period. We haven't been avoiding for some time, but the biological clock is a-tickin', so I'll be pulling out thermometers and OPKs soon. I can't say I'm looking forward to it. I was really hoping for a surprise before it came to that, but so it goes! I'm so happy that I'll start any new pregnancy in a much better place than my last one.

Things I Don't Want to Forget

Just because I skipped a week doesn't mean Sprout hasn't been busy. We've both been pretty sick and are finally getting back into the swing of things.

She is still talking like crazy! She adds new words every day. "star," "goose," "toes," and "teeth" are among her most recent additions. Our official refrigerator word count has 36 words on it, but I know we are missing some. Craziness.

Oh, one more word, "uck!" She says it when she has a poopy diaper. I guess I say "yuck" a lot when changing her diaper. So, instead of poo, it's "uck." Love it.

And she has learned "flag" and "frog." The problem is that when she says either they sound a lot like a very different four letter word that begins with "F." We were in church on Sunday and during the processional, DH pointed out the flags. I shot a look at him and we were both worried she was going to show off her new word, but she didn't. She was too mesmerized by all of the other distractions. It would have been a funnier story that way, though.

She started clapping again! She learned how to clap and did it all the time for awhile and then just stopped. I guess she thought she was over it. Now, we sing "When You're Happy and You Know It" and she claps her hands in the appropriate places.

Speaking of music, she is following along a lot of songs these days and doing the hand motions. It is so nice to know that she really has been paying attention all those months of silly singing I've done! "The Wheels on the Bus" is her favorite. She has a board book with the song in it and she brings it to me about 20 times a day to sing/read. Now, sometimes, she reads it to herself and tries to do the hand motions. It's so cute to see her "bumpity-bumping." Her favorite is "shh, shh, shh."

She has finally started giving hugs and kisses, mostly to her daddy since he has been working harder at teaching her.

Our newest project is working on her learning to feed herself with a spoon. It's messy, but she's making progress. We hadn't worked on it at all until last week, but it's time, I suppose.

She has her 15 month check-up today and she's every bit a 15 month old, so we are expecting a lot of screaming. Hopefully, she will behave herself!