Afternoon tea

This weekend Gabby got to participate in her first REAL tea party! David's mom told us that La Duni at Northpark was hosting a mother/daughter/furry friend tea party sponsored by Build-A-Bear, and it sounded right up Gabby's alley.

Gabby's friend Finley is also a big tea-partier, so Christina and I brought the girls and their friends (Finley brought her Build-A-Bunny and Gabby brought her Build-A-Hello Kitty) down the the mall for some fun.

The car ride down was cute...David put his carseat in my car so Christina and Finley could ride with us, and the girls' reactions to having another child across from them in the car were funny. Gabby kept giggling at the novelty, and Finley just seemed a little perplexed by the whole thing.

When we arrived, the tea party host came to greet us wearing a top hat, cape, and gloves. He was quite fancy! He took us to our table and immediately brought over some frosted cookies with fondant pieces that the girls were able to construct into bears. Then came the tea service and bellinis for the moms, and little cups of hot cocoa for the girls. The girls LOVED the cocoa. Finley finished her cup just seconds after it was poured, and Gabby wasn't far behind her. I lost count of how many cocoa refills they had, but we definitely got our money's worth.

And then came the food...a three tiered platter with savory sandwiches on the bottom, baked goods on the middle, and pastries on the top. Each tier contained a few items especially for the girls, and plenty of things for the moms. The girls had grilled ham and cheese, mini chicken sandwiches, teddy bear strawberry muffins, and apple turnovers. The moms had mini tenderloin sandwiches, cucumber radish sandwiches, chicken salad, brioche, popovers, and scones. And all of us got mini flourless chocolate tortes and cuatro leches cupcakes topped with merengue. YUM. All the goodies were served with a platter of assorted jams, flavored butters, and different sugars for tea.

Bearemy the Bear showed up and made the rounds to meet each child...Finley was petrified by the life-sized bear and was having none of that. Gabby wasn't scared, but preferred keeping her distance. A photographer set up a spot in the courtyard where each kid could get their picture taken with Bearemy, but neither of our girls went for it. They did however LOVE running around outside together, and once they got a taste of it, the tea party was pretty much over and they were ready to play.

After consuming more sugar than either one of them has probably had in their lives, the girls were totally BONKERS. And they totally egged each other on and fed off of one another. One girl would take off running through the mall, and the next thing you know, the other one is taking off after her, with both of us moms chasing after them yelling, "STOP!" One decides to jump down the stairs, and the other one has to do it too. One decides to just go limp and sit down on the asphalt while walking through the parking lot to the car, the other one follows suit. When we finally got them strapped back into their carseats and contained in one place, we were EXHAUSTED! But it was totally worth it...the whole experience was just adorable, and for not even being three years old, the girls got to enjoy a pretty fancy afternoon!


All this was for us!



Finley makes her cookie bear

Gabby takes her cookie decorating very seriously.

Finished product! I didn't even help her very much...she followed the picture they gave us.

Proud little artist!

Mmmmmm, cocoa.

Doesn't chocolate make you want to smile like this??

Finley loves merengue.

Two pretty girls

Me and Cheese Face

Mothers, Daughters, and Furry Friends

Silly pals!

The aftermath

Alexander's birthday

Saturday we drove out to the Fort Worth Zoo for a birthday party. My friend Julie's little boy Alexander turned three, and we finally got the opportunity to meet Alexander and his new little sis. Julie works in my district, and we were both pregnant at the same time. We have seen each other's kids grow up through pictures, blogs, and Facebook, and it was great to see all the kids in person. Alexander was an adorable little ham...you could tell he KNEW it was his birthday! Somehow, my photographer (ahem, David) failed to get ANY pictures of Alexander or any of the party festivities. But it was a great party, and the three of us all had fun. Here are some of the few pics we DID get...

Gabby did not travel light. She had her purse, her binoculars, and Molly the Dolly.

She was in LOVE with those binoculars. She correctly called them "binoculars", but I think she thought she was using them to take pictures. We were wondering why she had to look at EVERYTHING through the binoculars (even things up close, or people walking by) until we heard her comment, "I'm getting LOTS of good pictures!". Ha!

"Taking pictures" of the gorilla.

And more "pics" of the passersby.

This guy had the right idea.

And back at home, we have our own little zoo.

Boob fixture

When we redecorated Gabby's bedroom this summer, we wanted to get a cute, girly chandelier. We were never able to find one that was small enough to fit nicely, so we just left the default, cheapie light fixture up figuring something would come along.

Last weekend when David was cleaning out the garage, he found an extra light fixture stored in there. It was only slightly nicer than the one that was already in there, and it had an ugly gold ring around it. BUT, I thought if we painted the gold parts with pink paint, it would be a good temporary fix until we find a cute petite-sized chandelier.

Now I am not so sure. Do you see what I see?
All I see when I look at that light is a big huge boob with a bright pink nipple. Do we need to take it back down?????

Bathroom humor

Tuesday is Kindermusik night. Gabby is back with her favorite instructor, Miss Jeanie. She runs the franchise that covers Frisco, Allen, and Plano...and she is the BEST. Since I am on dance class duty on Saturdays, David has been the accompanying parent for Kindermusik. But the class was moved up by 30 minutes, meaning what was already a tight squeeze for David before, is now no longer possible with his work schedule.

Tonight was my first night back at Kindermusik, and I was worried that Gabby was going to be disappointed that she no longer gets her evening with Daddy (because let's face it, we all know how she just looooooooves her Daddy, to the point that Mommy becomes irrelevant). So I talked it up all morning, got her all excited, and even enticed her with chicken strips (Chic-Fa-Way!).

I picked Gabby up from Pattie's and we ran over to Chick-Fil-A for a quick dinner on our way to class. And because we are continuing our worldwide tour of potties across the nation (for those of you who haven't potty trained yet...public bathrooms are FASCINATING and you will have to visit EVERY SINGLE ONE that you encounter)...we stopped in the restroom before ordering our food.

First, there were two stalls. Ours, and the neighboring one, which contained ANOTHER mom and toddler. In the echo of the bathroom, there was a loud and constant barrage of mommy-orders (don't touch that/keep your hands of that/leave that trash alone/don't lick the door/don't open the latch yet, mommy's still going/no, don't peek under the stall/NO! That's DIRTY!/STOP TOUCHING EVERYTHING! Hands on hips! etc, etc, etc). It just sounded hilarious...rapid fire orders alternating between the other mom and me, and often simultaneously.

Then, they went to go wash hands while Gabby and I were still finishing up in the stall. The other mom used the strategy of singing the ABC's while handwashing to make sure her little girl washed long enough...great idea...however I am SO not the type to start singing in a public bathroom. But apparently Gabby IS, because as soon as the mom started singing, Gabby just started belting out the ABC's right along with her, while we were still in the stall. It was too funny that they were out there washing hands, and here is my silly girl randomly chiming in from inside the stall.

When we finally made it out of the stall, the mom was cracking up at Gabby, and then mentioned to us that she had read that you should sing "Happy Birthday" twice while handwashing, but since she and her daughter were working on their ABC's, she always sings the alphabet instead. And the second the words, "happy birthday' escaped her lips, Gabby immediately went into her LOUDEST rendition of the birthday song...which immediately caused the OTHER little girl to start singing along loudly...the other mom and I could barely even hear each other's friendly small-talk due to all of the echoing wails. When we came out of the bathroom, the people sitting in the back of the restaurant were chuckling...apparently they had all heard all of the singing through the door.

I always think these little occurances are so funny. A few years ago, I would have never imagined myself chatting it up with a perfect stranger in the Chick-Fil-A bathroom while two little girls who have never met are gleefully singing together.

In the end, we had a good time together at Kindermusik. Gabby didn't have her beloved Daddy there with her, but she did survive the evening with me.

Deja Sick

We have had the flu before, we have had to do breathing treatments before, and we have been battling a few potty *issues* for a while now. Since this weekend, we have been battling ALL THREE AT ONCE.

Gabby had a really rough day on Sunday. She hardly slept on Saturday night, and we were up and down with her the entire night. Sunday morning she woke up cranky, and soon after I noticed she was wheezing again. She didn't want to get up, and once up, she didn't want to sit up or walk around...just wanted to stay curled up in a ball on the floor. We figured the crankiness and wanting to stay hunched over was from constipation...our stubborn little girl had not pooped since TUESDAY. She is amazingly adept at holding poop, and is extremely strong-willed. Usually, we figure it has to come out at some point, and it does (after several days), and the cycle starts again. This time, she needed a little extra help.

We called our doctor, and he suggested we give her a suppository to give her some immediate relief, and then start her on a daily dose of Miralax. He also said that if we could get our hands on a nebulizer, that we could go ahead and do a breathing treatment with our leftover albuterol to help get her wheezing under control until we could take her in to Acute Kids (they don't open until noon, and we were trying to make it through the morning to avoid an ER visit). It is NOT easy to find a nebulizer on a Sunday morning, since they are usually only sold through pharmacies. Luckily, the CVS down the street from us had one in stock, and as soon as the pharmacy opened at 10, David was able to run over and pick it up. The whole morning was so stressful...not wanting to go to the ER, but also not wanting to be careless, trying to figure out what the best thing to do was, all the while with Gabby fussing and wheezing. I was so relieved when David walked in the door with the nebulizer and our anti-constipation supplies.

Have any of you had to give your kids suppositories yet? It was traumatic for all three of us. But Gabby got some immediate relief, and it calmed her down a bit. The breathing treatment didn't make a huge difference, but it was enough that I definitely felt OK about waiting until noon to get to Acute Kids.

But then, as we were getting ready to leave, Gabby got upset again and started crying HARD. I was holding her trying to calm her down...it didn't work, and she vomited ALL OVER ME. On my face, in my hair, soaking through my shirt, THROUGH MY BRA, it was bad. We had been pumping her full of prune juice and fiber all weekend, so I was covered with what smelled like fermented prune juice, and bits of oranges and oats. So David grabbed her and she went straight into the tub; I jumped into the shower. We didn't get into the car until almost 1, and Gabby fell asleep within about 30 seconds of pulling out of the driveway. Luckily there were two of us, so David waited in the waiting room while I stayed in the car with a napping Gabby.

By the time we made it into the exam room, Gabby's tummy was hurting so bad again, I could barely answer the doctor's questions with all the wailing going on. She said that Gabby was getting enough oxygen that we could take care of the tummy issues first. They gave her an enema (another traumatic experience) but it DID get things moving, and Gabby was feeling way better afterwards, although still wheezing like crazy.

Finally at 3:00, she was able to get her breathing treatment. Gabby did have a low fever, so almost as an afterthought, the doctor decided to test for flu. I was CONVINCED she wasn't going to have it...yes she was wheezing, but she wheezed last time she had a little chest cold. Yes, she threw up, but I thought it was from all the crying. And yes, she had a fever, but really, I didn't even realize she had a fever until they took her temperature since all morning we had been preoccupied with the constipation and the wheezing.

So...yes, she has the flu. Pretty sure it is H1N1, since the doctor said that they haven't been seeing seasonal flu yet. She is doing breathing treatments every 4 hours around the clock. Last time we only had to do every 4 hours during the day...this time we have to wake her up twice at night. Although they still haven't diagnosed her officially with asthma, the doctor said that for now we will call it asthma...because that is an underlying health issue, which means she was allowed to prescribe Tamiflu. We are continuing with the Miralax each day until she is pooping regularly for a week...then we can start to back off a little and only use as needed. Apparently, holding in your poop is a pretty big issue in the toddler world...and it can lead to serious health problems and even surgery. So far we are doing really well with the Miralax, so hopefully that will give her the boost she needs to get into a good habit, and she won't be chronically constipated.

We didn't get home on Sunday until almost 5pm. That day Gabby had 4 breathing treatments, she threw up, had a q-tip shoved up her nose, a suppository shoved in her hiney, an enema, 3 massive poops (a lot stacks up in 5 days), spent over 3 hours at the doctor, got only about 2o minutes of a nap after having only a few hours of sleep the night before, and must have just felt yucky all through that.

However, things have been smooth sailing since Sunday. I was worried about Gabby getting enough sleep with us having to wake her twice a night for breathing treatments. She has been AWESOME. She wakes up, puts on her mask, and sits happily for 15 minutes while we read books, watch Oswald, and talk. She is cheerful, funny, silly, and good natured about the whole thing. And then when it is over, despite being WIDE AWAKE, she curls back up without a fight, and quickly falls back asleep. I was worried about her getting enough to eat...last time she had the flu, she didn't want to eat or drink ANYTHING. And now with the constipation, we have to be really selective about what she eats, and a lot of the things we might turn to when she's sick and not feeling like eating (crackers, ice cream, cheese) need to be limited. But she has had a decent appetite, and we haven't had a problem getting her to eat good, non-binding foods.

And really, Gabby hasn't even seemed sick since Sunday. When we woke her up at 3 in the morning on Sunday night, she was warm again so she got a dose of Motrin. We haven't had to give her anything else for fever since then...temp has been normal since she woke up on Monday morning. She eats, drinks, sleeps, and is in a fabulous mood. David stayed home with her Monday and Tuesday, and she ran him pretty ragged...the albuterol makes you hyper, and Gabby was literally racing around the house most of the day...he couldn't get her to stop moving. The pedi told us we could go back to daycare after 24 hours without fever...tomorrow we will be almost 60 hours without fever, so she should be more than healthy enough to go back to Pattie's.

Here is our abnormally cheerful kid, considering it is 3 a.m. and we have woken her up for the SECOND TIME last night for a breathing treatment.

Picture catch-up

Here are some of the cute pics my mom took while she and my dad were in town a couple of weeks ago.

We tried out a new splash park in Frisco. Gabby was more impressed by the playground than the sprayground, but it was a fun morning. She doesn't like to get water on her face, so she spent most of the time like this...


And here again...



Saturday evening, Sean and Christina dropped Finley off for a night-o-fun with my parents while the four of us went out for a nice dinner. You probably already saw the bubble wrap video, and here they are playing with play-doh.


My mom tried to get a nice picture of the two girls together in their jammies. It didn't quite happen here...

Or here....

And then it just went downhill. And yes, that second "chair" they are using is indeed a potty seat.

Here is Gabby having a snack with my mom (and wearing her shoes). They always eat at the counter together (something we never do) and Gabby thinks it is so cool. Bananas dipped in yogurt...yum!

Afterwards, we made another recipe from our fairy cookbook. This one uses frozen yeast roll dough. You thaw it, twist it, paint it with food coloring diluted with water, and the designs bake into the bread.

What an artistic family I have.

David bought Gabby some princess accessories...and here she is, admiring her beauty.

Gabby's new thing is to play "haircut". She will drape a blanket on you for a smock, and says, "I be Holli" (my hairdresser, who also cuts Gabby's hair on occasion, when I am not being cheap and cutting it myself). After she cuts your hair, she compliments you on how good you were, and gives you a pretend lollipop, for "being a good patient." Here, it is her turn to be the "patient" and I'm Holli.

And now it is my mom's turn to be Holli. Look how still and serious Gabby is!

Playing outside with my mom. We are seeing a lot of this face lately...

But at least it is balanced out by smiles. Check out those ears! Must be from her Daddy...

Trying her darndest to make her mad face. She can't hold it for very long before she starts giggling.

More pictures soon!

Goodnight, mom

I met and met a group of girls for dinner and drinks tonight, so David was on bedtime duty. He just got a new iPhone a few days ago and captured this cute little moment before putting Gabby to bed. Sweet, huh? It's nice to come home to a video message!

I've waited two and a half years for this day...

Saturday morning was Gabby's first dance class! She is taking a combo tap/ballet class for 2.5 to 4 year olds. She has been excited about her class for the past month now (ever since I brought her to the studio to see what it was all about), and I have probably been every bit as excited as Gabby for class to start (probably more).

On the morning of class, Gabby was so thrilled it was finally the real deal...she got to wear her tights, leotard with tutu, and pack her shoes up in her little dance bag. She was so hyped up about class that we couldn't get any good pictures of her before leaving because she was zooming all over the house like a crazy person.

I had two worries about the class. Worry #1: she would freak out about being on her own in the studio and would hate it (all of our other classes have been Mommy and Me, so this was her first time to go solo). Worry #2: that she would think the class was a drag, because she would prefer to just dance freestyle and not have to follow along with the structure of the class. I was wrong on both counts...she LOVED it. She did not hesitate one bit to march into the studio without me. Her teacher (Miss Jenna) asked her name, and Gabby introduced herself. Gabby followed Miss Jenna's directions to place her dance bag with her ballet shoes in the back of the studio, and then stood obediently on the blue circle that marked Gabby's spot on the floor. She waved at me one last time before they closed the door for class to start. She was ready!

One really neat thing was that it turned out that the little girl standing next to Gabby was an old friend...her name is Sophie and the two of them were in Kindermusik together for two semesters. Gabby and Sophie always got along well in music, and it was neat to see them giggling back and forth with one another before class started. Small world!

Once class started, all the moms hovered around the tiny window to catch as many glimpses as we could of all the cuteness going on inside. Watching those little girls following the instructor was probably the cutest thing I have ever seen. In their tap shoes, they tapped their toes and heels, shuffled, walked like penguins, hopped like bunnies, did airplane arms, and cute little "ta-da!" moves. Halfway through class the girls went and retrieved their dance bags, brought them back up to their spots, and changed shoes (with the teacher and aide's help). I was just impressed to see that Gabby successfully picked up her own bag...we used a tote bag we haven't used much before. Then for ballet, the girls did butterflies, jumps, leaps, tippie-toes, and kicks. At any given time, 2 or 3 girls would be following along, and 2 or 3 girls would be off doing something random. Then they took turns doing some progressions across the floor, and during Gabby's turn Finley decided she wanted to go too, so she just jumped up and went across with Gabby. I cannot even put into words just how adorable all of this was. The other moms and I spent the entire time just laughing and how sweet and funny the little girls were.

Overall, other than the tiny viewing window, the class was super! There are just 5 girls in Gabby's class, with one intructor and one assistant. All of the moms were amazed to see our girls standing on their spots, lining up, following instructions, and listening to the instructor. Miss Jenna was totally great with the little ones, and I could tell that Gabby liked her instantly.

And Gabby actually did really good in the class! She was almost always following directions, she tried every step, and most of the time she stayed with the class. She did a really good job of copying her teacher. I am not sure how long that will last...in both Kindermusik and Gymboree, after the newness wore off, Gabby was much happier to march to the beat of her own drummer rather than participating in the class activities. But regardless, she had FUN in dance class. I could tell she was having a great time during the class, and when the let the girls out at the end, she just broke out into chuckles as soon as she saw me. Chuckles like that usually mean she is excited and proud of herself. I am so excited for the next class!!


Trial run...trying on her dance outfits. This one was by far her favorite. We might have to wear it every week...I could barely get her to try on her other two (non-pink) leotards.




Posing

Gabby is teeny tiny...the smallest dance tights I could find were still too big.

The morning of class! Gabby is excited and spazzy.

The most still we could get her that morning for a picture, walking out the door.

Taking pictures with Finley outside the studio. Notice they are holding hands!!! Oh, the sweetness!

Ballerinas already! It took about 5 minutes of coaching and begging from me, my mom, and Christina to get this shot.

LOOK HOW ADORABLE!!! Miss Jenna is up front, and the assistant is on the far right. Gabby is second from left, Sophie is right next to her, and Finley is on the far right. Still amazed at how well they all lined up, on the very first day.