Mother & Daughter Dinner

Never again. Well, maybe never is too harsh of a word. How about - not for a really long time. I'm talking about going to a sit down restaurant with just myself and Lauren. I took Lauren to meet my parents tonight so she could spend the weekend with them. On the way we stopped in Fairview Heights to eat at Logan's Roadhouse (my favorite steak place). She was fun and happy in the car on the way over but turned into a little terror when we were seated inside.

Lauren doesn't like to sit in a high chair anymore so we tend to put her in booster seats. The only problem with that is that she will not sit still. We colored on the menu they gave us and we read the books in her bag (all of which took about 5 minutes). After that, she was EVERYWHERE. She tried to climb up the wall, she tried to stand on the table. She wanted to get down on the floor. She wanted to get under the table. She knocked her head against the back of the bench 3 times trying to get away from me. AHHHH!!!! We had a great waitress who got our food to us very quickly. Did this slow Lauren down? No! She tried to stand on her plate of food while it was on the table. I ate my dinner so fast I felt like I was inhaling it. It's nice when both Joe and I take her to dinner because we can take turns entertaining her. By the time we left, food was all over her mouth and all over my clothes.

Finally we met up with Grandma and Paw Paw. She was so excited to see them. Once she was strapped into the car seat in their car she looked at me, waved and said "bye-bye". She was ready to go with no looking back. I shed a few tears because this is the first time she has been away from both her dad and I for more than a day.

Lauren is now going to be at her grandparents' house until Sunday. I will be back then. Happy Labor Day!!

Cookie?

This afternoon I took Lauren to the doctor to have her eye checked. It looked like it was getting infected and I didn't want to mess around. When we walked into the lobby of the doctor's office, Lauren said "Cookie?". (Background: At the end of each doctor's visit, the check out nurse gives each child a cookie - Lauren must have remembered this). I told her she would get a cookie after her visit with the doctor. After sitting in the lobby for a few minutes, the nurse opened the door and called Lauren's name. What does Lauren do? Look at her and say "Cookie?". The nurse explains that she will get one when she leaves.

After getting her weight and taking her temp we are taken to the exam room. We waited quite a while. Lauren colored on the table paper, read some books and colored some more. When the doctor finally walked in the first thing out of Lauren's mouth was "Cookie?". The doctor told her she would get one when he was done looking at her eye. Thankfully her eye is not infected. She scraped the lid pretty good but the eyeball itself was not damaged. I asked the doctor to check her ears because we will be flying in a couple of weeks and I wanted to make sure they were clear. Everything was good.

Lauren and I leave the exam room and go to the check out desk so I could pay the copay. The women are fawning over Lauren and all she can say is "Cookie?". Oh. My. Goodness. Can someone please give the child a cookie?! I asked Lauren what the magic word was and after saying "pees" she was given a cookie. I told the ladies you would think Lauren never had a cookie except when she came to the doctor's office. Let me set the record straight - Lauren gets a cookie almost every night so she is not left wanting.

I didn't get to spend much time with Lauren tonight because I went to the beauty shop to get my hair done (have to cover the gray, you know?). Tomorrow night is our last night together for a couple of nights because she is going to spend the weekend with Grandma and Paw Paw. Hmm...I wonder if I could get my mom to blog about that experience.

Happy Happy Da-da

Today was Joe's 32nd birthday. This morning I was prepping Lauren to say "Happy Birthday Daddy". She kept walking around saying "happy happy." I thought we were good to go. We sat down in front of the computer to record our birthday song and email it to Joe. The whole time I sang, Lauren sat with her finger in her mouth and wouldn't say "happy" anything. At the end she finally blew a kiss.

For Joe's special dinner, we ordered Imo's pizza (his favorite). It must have been his luck day because we had a coupon that was for buy 1 get one free. 2 pizzas! Boy was he in hog heaven. After dinner, Lauren helped her dad open his birthday gifts. As she opened one of his shirts, she said things like "soft", "shirt", and "blue". What a smart child!

We (meaning Lauren) had a little difficulty going down for bed tonight. We had a couple of episodes like this last week but hoped we had moved past it. We'll see. All-in-all it was a good day. Two weeks from today we go to Walt Disney World. Let the countdown begin...

Think Goose

From June until the first part of August, Lauren's favorite movie was 101 Dalmatians. Now, however, her favorite movie is "kitty". Translated that means Aristocats. By far her favorite part is when the cats and 2 geese line up to walk back to Paris. One goose tells the cats to "think goose" and they begin to waddle. There is some great music that is playing. Lauren walks like a goose when this scene comes on. It's hilarious! Sometimes she likes to dance with Mom and/or Dad when it's playing.

Sometime yesterday Lauren hit herself in the eye with her play broom. It must have scratched the lid because this morning it was very red and a little swollen. I have been putting neosporin on it and tonight I actually put a little hydrocortisone on it to help with the itching (she's been scratching it).

Tomorrow we celebrate Joe's 32nd birthday.

Packed weekend

Whew! Lauren and I are just back from the night at my parents house. Let back up a minute... Joe and I took Lauren to the registration fair for Parents As Teachers yesterday. She had a fun time doing the activities but I think her favorite was splashing in the water. After the fair, we ate lunch before Lauren and I headed to Southern Illinois. The trip started somewhat rough - I had to pull over 3 times to attend to a fussy child. That is unheard of for us. Typically, Lauren is a great traveller but she was in a mood yesterday. After we passed through Fairview Heights she fell asleep (thankfully).

Grandma rode with us to Shawneetown for Gran Logsdon's 96th birthday party. Sometimes Lauren gets a little overwhelmed when a lot of people come at her at once. However, at the party she did GREAT!! There were several of her little cousins there that she only sees a handful of times each year. It took a while for the kids to warm up to each other but once they did the had a blast running around the house, chasing each other and playing follow the leader. When it was time to leave, Lauren gave kisses and hugs to everyone which also rare. Once we got back to Harrisburg, Lauren got to hang out with Paw Paw before bed.

Sunday morning we hung out in Harrisburg with Grandma and Aunt B before heading back to St. Louis. We made a pit stop at Sonic for 1/2 price happy hour and a corn dog to share. When the corn dog was 3/4 done, I took it off the stick and let Lauren hold it while she took a bite. I asked if Momma could have a bite now to which she smiled, shook her head no and tried to stick the rest in her mouth. The girl sure does love corn dogs.

We are home now and Lauren is happy to see her Dad. They are playing in her room and just enjoying each other. On my agenda for the evening is laundry, dinner, grocery shopping, and more laundry. Until next time...

Toe? Toe?

The first words out of Lauren's mouth this morning were "Toe? Toe?" while pointing to the toe that was hurt the night before. I believe she was trying to ask "what in the world is going on with my toe?". Bless her heart, I knew it had to be throbbing this morning. After getting her dressed quickly I saw to the care of the toe. Lauren was fine leaving a band-aid on today but for safe measure I put socks on her and gave her a dose of Tylenol. She didn't really hobble around much today which is good.

After dinner we made a family trip to Wal-mart. Lauren's only been about a dozen times in her life. I find it faster to go without her. She starts out riding in the basket portion of the cart but within a few minutes she is asking to walk. Joe tends to shepard her along while I do the shopping. On the way home we stopped at Dairy Queen. Seeing that I am on Weight Watchers again - and only had 4 points left for the day - I got an ice cream sandwich. As I was paying the kid at the drive thru, a little voice in the back seat said "ice ceam, ice ceam". Sharing in the care is difficult to do so we shared it when we got home.

Tomorrow is a big day. We have a Parents As Teachers enrollment fair in the morning then we head to Shawneetown to celebrate Gran's 96th birthday.

Introduction

Welcome to our blog! After seeing the cool blog my sister-in-law started I decided to shamelessly steal her idea and start a blog for our family. Many of our family members live far away and this will good way to keep people involved in our lives. I'm new to the blogosphere so it may take me some time to add the bells and whistles - but don't worry, they will come.


Today is Lauren's 21-month birthday. I can't believe how quickly the time has flown. I find myself getting teary-eyed when I think about the litte girl she is becoming. Sappy but true.


Tonight after dinner we had a minor incident. The big toe on Lauren's right foot got caught underneath a door and the nail was pulled way back. There was some blood with a few minutes of tears and crying. Joe put a Dora band-aid on the toe with neosporin hoping to make it better. However, Lauren does not like having the band-aid on her toe and kept trying to take it off. We sidetracked her by giving her ice cream. She was gimping around the living room a little bit before she went to bed. It was so cute watching her pamper her foot. Anyway, she went down to bed pretty easy tonight - probably because she was worn out from the toe drama. I know I'm worn out from the toe drama so I am going to wind down now too.