Easter Best

7 months and a night on the town

Snow Baby

yogurt face

we are just coming out of the flu fog. more pictures and updates to follow....

Lessons Learned

So the homecoming day was not as I had hoped. I had wished to have a clean house and a smiley baby and quality time with my husband. Instead he came home to this:


I woke up Monday morning to blood pouring down my face (nose bleeds thanks to pregnancy), throw up all over Maggie's crib and an awful diaper. It was a startling beginning to the week. After the phone calls to sister and mom about "Baby with the Flu" tips and after brushing my teeth and grabbing a few sips of english breakfast, I felt a little less daunted with the task of caring for pukey baby. It got worse and worse as the day went on and I had the full-immersion into Life as Mom. (ie. getting thrown up on about 20 times, literally).
My sweet friend brought by Pedialite for Maggie to stay hydrated; although she was only allowed to have a few sips at a time and even that didnt stay down.
Then half way through the day, my other sweet friend brought me a bagel and a latte and things were looking up. I had been so busy changing sheets, changing maggie's clothes, changing my clothes and getting thrown up on; that I hadnt had time to eat or grab some caffefine. The latte gave me the urge to carry on and love this little child.
But as Mojo's flight kept getting delayed my tiredness began to creep in. Then I thought of 3 things that gave me some welcomed and needed perspective.
1) I have a new found respect for women's whose husband are in Iraq. They not only have to do the duty of single parenting and bare the brunt of flu and illness all by themselves, but they have the added worry that their husbands could die. A plane delay was no biggie.
2) It took me until 2pm to pray and then it was spurred on by being covered with puke. It was easier to put trust in the energy from a latte then to ask the Father for some help and wisdom. That kinda needs to be the first thing I do when my babies get sick and not have it be that far into things. It was the real refresher of the day.
3) I realized that perhaps this might be the only time that I can give this much attention to Maggie while she has the flu. Most likely, the next time, I'll have one or more around my feet and I wont be able to hold her the entire day. It made me feel glad to have this time to hold a towel beneath her mouth and rub her hair as she got scared from all the throwing up. So plane delays were okay, changing clothes for the 10th time were fine... I was able to hold my baby while she was sick.

And who wouldnt want to hold that precious baby?

Day 5

one More day!

We woke up this beautiful Sunday morning to WARM weather. Stomach bug be damned, we are going outside.
After lovely coffee and conversation with our good friend Catherine at our local Bongo, Maggie and I headed to the park.
As soon as we got out of the car, I realized being cooped up for a few days had made maggie long for play time! she was saying hello to everyone! We watched the dogs at the park for about 30 minutes and then she just ran and ran. Her little cheeks got red from getting hot! it was lovely for us to get some activity. Sadly, 5 days of not exercising and being sick and i was out of breath! She was yelling hello to all the new dogs that would come up and then yell "bye bye doggie!" to the ones leaving. so sweet.
Here is my little girl RUNNING to the park!





After the park we came home to nap. She was so sleepy she immediately said "night night" when i laid her down. When she woke up we had a visitor! Mimi got back from her vacation in Mexico so Maggie got to play with her for a few hours and I got a bit of a break. We decided to not go to church since we both arent 100% and so many of our friends at church have the bug that we didnt want to get it again. After dinner and bathtime Mags went to bed early and now I am off to eat ice cream!!!! Daddy comes home tomorrow night and we are so excited!!!!!

Day 4

Good Friends + Good Baby= Great Day

Although Mags and I were still under the weather, today was a good day. I realized this morning that I was going to continue to feel worse if my house looked like a disaster zone. So i texted my sweet friend LeighAnne and she came and played with Maggie for an hour while I cleaned. It's amazing how much more you can get done when you dont have a toddler under your feet.
I felt better the cleaner the house got. Now, i had to stop a few times and drink water and sit down b/c I got a bit weak but I was glad I was up and doing something.
It was SOOO pretty outside, I felt bad I didnt feel well enough to take Maggie to the park.
so before nap time we went out back and threw the ball for Harriet. Maggie and Harriet had a blast. And I drank my tea and just watched. It was nice. I'm looking forward to cleaning up the back yard this spring since Maggie will actually want to play in it now.




Then after lunch I put Maggie down and had a wonderful hot shower. Then Maggie woke up just in time for Daddy to call from Norway. During snack time Maggie cried and put her hand to her mouth and when I looked inside she has 3 new teeth coming in, two of which were bleeding from eating the waffle. Poor baby! I'm so glad I dont remember teething.
at about 4 oclock I started to get stir crazy and called my neighbor/good friend Stephie and left a msg. asking if she could stop by and hang out with Maggie while I get out.
A few minutes later she was knocking at the door! I was so excited! I was going to go to Marche to get a snack but they were closed:( so I went to East Garden and picked up flowers instead.


After dinner I was getting maggie ready for bed and while putting on her pjs I was singing the catechism song we sing at church. I always pause to let her say, "God!" but i never actually think she will. Well, tonight she did and i about fell over! And more importantly, she did it for the video camera b/c I know daddy will be so SAD to have missed this! When I called my sister to let Maggie sing it for her, her son who is 3 got on the phone and said "My daddy plays the bass guitar. Does uncle mojo play the bass guitar?" he was excited when i told him, yes Uncle Mojo does.
Anyway, on to the brillant baby video. My little catechism darling! Click on the link below....its soooooo worth it! excuse me yelling in the camera and my bad voice. i was so excited!

http://video.google.com/videoplay?docid=5555326353258693498&hl=en

ps. mojo copy the above link and then paste it into the web address box if you cant click on it. you're gonna want to come home right when you watch it!

Day 3

A Wash:

After coming home from Stacey's house I realized we had gotten a bad stomach bug. Things were looking bad. Maggie was actually a doll (of course!) and took two very long naps and went to bed at about 6:45.
But between naps and feeding her, this is what we did:



We watched Mr. Rogers (where Yo-Yo Ma made an appearance), Reading Rainbow (where I learned some good tips for teaching maggie how to read...rhyming is the key), and Between the Lions. PBS is pretty cool, especially when you lay on the couch all day. I couldnt believe how well Maggie just played around me and brought me toys and books from her room. She is an angel baby.

Megan brought me sprite when she brought back Harriet so that was a help. Even just seeing someone else was nice. After a dinner of chicken soup for Maggie and broth for me, she went down easy. I watched Lost on abc.com and went to bed by 9pm. I think my favorite character is Desmond...i feel like he is the culmination of all things Lost. Like he gets the brunt of everything. Honey, Cant wait for you to watch this one!