Seventeen Months Old.

I can't believe this girl is 17 months old. One more month, and we will be halfway through year two. How does time move so much faster you have kids?!

Brooklyn is just starting to understand a little more speech and to use a few words. Her words are "juice" (can mean food or drink), "bye-bye", "bubbles" (said buh-buh), "uh-oh", and oddly enough, "touchdown." Click here if you don't believe me. Or if you just want to see a cute video. In speech therapy she is working on learning her body parts and names of family members. So far she can identify her nose. We are still working on everything else. She is starting to understand a few spoken commands like "sit" and "no". She can also use sign language for "more" and "all done."

Physically, this girl is all caught up. She is all over the place climbing, running, walking, tumbling, etc. She is working hard on her fine motor skills, but other than a few balance issues, her gross motor skills are right on target for her age, hooray! In occupational therapy, she is working on her pincer grasp, using a spoon to feed, stacking blocks, and turning book pages.

At this age, Brooklyn's favorite things are her blankie, shoes, freeze-pops, snuggles, mashed potatoes, swinging outside, doing anything independently, blowing kisses, Praise Baby dvds, Barbie dolls, and dancing.

We sure do love our 17-month-old!

A Long Weekend

It was a long weekend around here, ya'll. Usually when people say they had a long weekend, it means they got an extra day off work and spent it doing fun stuff with their family. That was not how we spent our long weekend.

On Saturday, Brooklyn just wasn't acting right. She was irritable and spacing out a lot. She just didn't seem like she was with it. She had 4 seizures, which was the most she has ever had in one day before. She also took extra naps.

On Sunday, she starting having seizures not long after she woke up, and they continued all day long. I took her to the doctor, and they said that if they continued, she needed to be seen in the hospital. They also said that they weren't sure we could wait 3 weeks to go to CCH. We went back home, and she continued to have seizures and got sick to her stomach. I called the hospital after her eighth seizure, and they wanted us to bring her in. They admitted her immediately (and by immediately I mean the decision was made upon exam but it actually took 5 hours to get admitted because nothing is done quickly in the hospital). She had two more seizures that evening for a total of 10 in one day.

They allowed her to sleep from 1am-4am and then woke her up. They bribed her with a poptart and chocolate milk. They needed her to be sleep-deprived for her EEG.

They ran the EEG, and she earned the name "firecracker." If you aren't familiar with an EEG, they wait until you fall asleep and then they measure your head and mark it with a blue pencil. Then they put a sticky, gritty gel paste on your head and then place electrodes on the marked spots. Then they tape them in place and turn on the machine to do a 20-minute recording of the electrical activity in your brain. Well, it all went well until they turned on the machine, and Brooklyn woke up and started screaming. They tried to calm her down, entertain her, pacify her, etc, but she was fighting mad. After fighting them for nearly an hour, she got sick on them, and while it momentarily distracted them, she wiggled a hand free and jerked all of the electrodes off of her head. They had to wash her hair, let it dry, let her fall back asleep, and start all over. Luckily, the second time it went without incident. They did, however, refer to her as the firecracker from that point forward.

They then contacted experts from the Mayo Clinic and asked us if they could test her for about 80 rare metabolic disorders that seem to coincide with her symptoms. They drew blood and sent off a urine sample. We should have results in 1-2 weeks.

In the meantime, they informed us that she is just a little mystery to them, and they don't feel that their expertise is adequate to figure her out. They felt that she was stable to return home while we wait for test results and they encouraged us to continue with our plans to travel to CCH. She was overjoyed to get back in her own bed last night! We had a long weekend, ya'll.

Creativity.

While some would view this at a swimsuit floatation device, Savannah prefers to think of it as a hat. Look out, Princess Beatrice. This American girl has some interesting headgear too.

Many things can be said of us, but we are nothing if not creative around here.

Attention, please.

We have a monkey in the house. I repeat, a monkey in the house.

Savannah was never a climber. Brooklyn is giving me a run for my money. She has been found in various climbing-ish places lately. On top of the desk, on the back of the couch, on top of the toy box, on the dining room table... and these are just the few that happen when I am paying close attention! Ahem.

They say that time heals things and reduces your memory of things, etc. Sweet mercy, I definitely forgot how busy this age is. Never content to sit still, and always up to something. After placing Brooklyn in her room playing with her kitchen set the other day, I went to put on my makeup. She got quiet, and I found her on top of the toy box eating a cucumber. Whole. Fresh out of the garden vegetable bin, with the dirt still on it. They say not being exposed to dirt can actually kill ya. I guess we can cross that off of Brooklyn's list now.

But really, when its all said and done, what's a momma to do with this sweet monkey? Hugs, kisses, a whole lotta cleaning up, and a whole lotta coffee, that's what.

Lake Day

Today we spent some time at the lake.

A good time was had by all!

Someone Else Said It Better.

I have nothing profound to share today. But this article spoke volumes to me yesterday. Read it!

Happy Birthday, Connor!

Savannah enjoyed celebrating Connor's birthday yesterday. The kids had a tour of the fire station during which they got to climb in a firetruck and meet firemen. Then they headed to Connor's house and dined on sandwiches, watermelon, and dirt cake. Between jumping on the trampoline, hitting a pinata, and watching Connor open his presents, I'd say it was a very fun time. My little firefighter came home and took a nap! Thanks Connor for letting us help you celebrate turning 4!

Wordless Wednesday from My Grandparents

Dancing in the Rain

Freaked Out.

I'm a little freaked out, people.

I'm a planner. The hubby highlighted the wrong days in my planner the other week and we had a little spat about it. I things to be very planned, scheduled, and prepared for. I like them to go seamlessly. I think God gets a really big kick out of this...I probably serve as entertainment for the angels quite often.

The hubby recently had a career change. And I'm so thankful he saw clearly that he other job was stressing our family nearly to a breaking point, and was man enough to stand up and say thats enough. But I digress.

Because of the career change, and the job change, there was a little break in paychecks. Or a six week break... but who needs specifics. And because we have never been particularly good at saving money, and because the jeep needed repairs, and because of other factors, we didn't exactly have a nest egg. Eh, its overrated.

So when D informed me yesterday that he wasn't going to get paid until the 22nd instead of the 15th, as I planned, I started to get a little hyper. By the time we paid our house payment, there was going to be no extra cash for the jeep payment. I had no good plan.

As I was getting the laundry out of the dryer, I realized I hadn't gotten the mail in a few days. So I slipped out the door and walked across the street to the mailbox, fetched the mail, and brought it back inside to open it. I noticed there was a letter from the bank that has our jeep loan. That is odd, I thought. Curiously, I tore open the envelope and there was a letter informing us that we have now had our loan for a year and have made our payments on time every month, so as a reward they were offering us a chance to skip July's payment, if we wanted to.

Seriously? I'm a little freaked out.

I love it when God tips my life upside down and then rights it in a better way than I could have ever planned. God is awesome, and I'm thankful for every time He does that, even if I do protest every single time my world is rocked. Maybe one day I'll learn. Hopefully.

Wordless Wednesday

Happy 4th of July!

Date Forty-Six : Fair Time!

Yesterday we took Savannah and Brooklyn to the fair. And 2 of their aunts came along too!

We kind of cheated on the no-kids-on-dates rule this week, but the fair is just so much more fun with children. And an aunt who is willing to ride the rides! ;)

Savannah thoroughly enjoyed riding a camel.

And I'm pretty sure Aunt Em enjoyed the rides with Savannah! ;)

And of course Miss Social made new friends.

And Brooklyn danced to the ghetto music and enjoyed people watching. And there are some interesting people, let me tell ya.

And we left at bedtime with cotton candy, a funnel cake, and deep fried oreos.

We sure had a good time at the fair!

If You Give a Girl a Summer Day...

If you give a girl a summer day...and...

If a girl has lots of long hair... and no time or patience to fix it...

She might cut it all off.

If a toddler has a library reading list.... she might complete it by the second week of summer.

If you take a cute baby to the pool.... she might think its awfully bright and squint... which you might find adorable and take a picture.

If your toddler and her best friend are members of the same pool, they might wreak havoc on the entire pool population together.

You might need to sit on the side of the pool with the other mom and say "whose kids are those?"

Eventually the children will get hungry and need to take a lunch break at the pool.

And if you are very lucky, at the end of such a wonderful day, the children will be angels and snuggle...

And then they will pass out from exhaustion.

Thank God for wonderful summer days!