"teeth are not for biting"

people that is.....Camille didn’t bite anyone at school on Monday. Actually she has not bitten again since Sunday. Monday morning I told her teachers that she was starting to bite. I told them if they heard a mad/frustrated scream to get to her quickly. Miss Julie said she heard it once and just looked up and said “Camille No!” and that did the trick. Miss Julie said that it may happen but not as likely to happen at school as much as it would happen at home because Camille does not play as close to the kids there as she would play with her sister at home. Makes sense. They read the book “Teeth are not for biting” during circle time. Not sure if it sunk in at all but it’s still very sweet of them to do.

christmas cards and thank yous

I finally got my Christmas cards done last night. What a job!! We also got thank-you notes and gift cards for the girl’s teachers this year. That was quite the job too. Av has 6 teachers (2 preschool 9-noon, 2 after care noon-3 and 2 after after care 3-5) and 2 therapists (speech and hbr) and Camille has 5 teachers (3 from her infant room and 2 from her new explorer classroom). I am so grateful for each and every one of them. I wish we could do more for them. I think teachers in general are amazing people. It takes a very special person to be a teacher. All of the girl’s teachers go above and beyond. You can tell they truly care and I just wanted to make sure they knew I noticed and how much we appreciated it.

Holidays

I am so out of this world excited for the holidays this year. I am having a hard time contracting on anything else. My sis and I went in together and got the best most perfect gifts for our parents this year. They are going to be blown away! They deserve them so much because they go above and beyond for everyone they know and gave us everything we needed and most everything we wanted growing up. Sorry Mom, I am not going to say what they are. Hehehehe As for my girls I think they are going to love their chairs along with everything else they get to unwrap that day. They are lucky little girls. Av is going to be so excited by a piggy bank G&PP are giving her and a coin purse full of coins from AA and UM. She will also be getting several things on her “list.” We have a few things for Camille but I think at this age we could wrap up diapers and she would not care. Just the wrapping will be fun for her. We did get them a cardboard playhouse. It is one that you set up and they play with it until it falls apart and then it’s done. The girls will be able to draw on it and color/paint/glue stuff on it anyway they want. It was $19.99 and I think it might be a big hit. It is a toy that won the best toy of 2008 award. This Friday we have a little holiday party set up with the Shumans. They will come over and the kids will play and exchange holiday gifts. Then we will put the babies to bed and we have a babysitter for the big kids. The adults are heading out for dinner. After that we will have a slumber party at our house and make a yummy breakfast in the morning. Saturday night we will have Christmas with John’s Dad’s family. They are a blast so it will be a good time. On Sunday the girls and I will get up and head to WV. We will be there for almost a week. I can’t wait to veg and hibernate at their house. John will fly in on the 22nd. On the 23rd we will drive into Pittsburgh and have Christmas with the Werner side of the family and then on the 24th we will have the day/dinner with the Welsh side. Then back to WV to wait for Santa! On the 26th we will head back home. That night is John’s annual chili cook-off that him and his friends have been doing for YEARS. John’s little brother will come and sit at the house while the girls sleep. I have Christmas week and New Years week off work!

Fussy, fussy, fussy Camille

Well I officially stopped nursing Camille for good. It is sad, but had to be done. I was only nursing her right before bed. On Wednesday I was at the immediate care with Av so John put her to bed. On Thursday I was home alone with the girls but I knew a sitter was coming the next night so I thought if I was going to do it now was the time. She cried when I put her down on Thursday but not too bad. On Friday Heidi came so John and I could go to one of his Holiday parties. My mom ended up coming for the weekend and surprising us. It was so nice to have her and we took advantage of it by getting dinner together on Sat. So both Friday and Saturday we left Camille before bedtime. On Sunday Camille was very clingy with me. I think I left her a little too much over the weekend. Poor thing was out of sorts. She is teething too so that is not helping matters but she has just been very fussy. I was kind of glad to drop her off at school today. I hope she does not spend the whole day crying and biting other kids. Hehhehe The other fussy thing she has been doing is refusing to sit in her high chair. In her new classroom the kids sit at a table in chairs. At home Av sits at a small table and chair so I think Camille feels she needs to too. UGH She arches her back so it makes it next to impossible to sit her in her high chair and then when you do get her in it, she just screams and will not eat. So we have been trying to let her sit at the little table but she makes such a mess there plus she does not want to sit and eat. She wants to walk around the house with her food. UGH I think we are just going to have to put our foot down and wait her out in the high chair. She is just not as big of a girl as she thinks she is.

list

Recently Avery has started to see things in the store that she wants and will ask for them. This really is the first she is asking for things and she is good about it and does not “bug” too much for things. With Christmas coming I have started to tell her “you can ask Santa for that.” When we tried to see Santa but she would not go near him so we started a list for Santa. Now when she sees something she wants she tells me she wants to “put it on her list for Santa.” The other day after saying that for the 20th time she looked at me and said “my list for Santa is getting big.” Heheheh She is pretty funny. I’m not sure what I am going to do after Christmas is over and I can’t tell her to “put it on your Santa list.”

sick again

Wednesday Av came home from school not feeling well. As the night went on I got more and more worried about her. Her breathing was just off. It was hard for me to decide if it was just fast from the fever or if something was off with it. So I decided to play it safe and when John got home Av and I left for a Take Care Clinic at Walgreens. I had called and they said they could see a 4 year old. So we got there and it was a joke. The lady tried but ended up saying she thought she had pneumonia but didn’t know for sure and didn’t have the equipment to tell for sure. She sent us to an immediate care. By the time we got seen at the immediate care Av’s fever was back up so they thought the breathing was just fever breathing. They checked her all out and decided it was just a virus. At that point Av kind of perked up so I was feeling better about the whole thing. At 8:30 she was hungry. She ate her dinner well and went to bed. The next morning she woke up pretty okay too. By noon though she was heading down hill. Her fever came back, she was breathing fast, her heart seemed to be racing, she was moaning like she was very uncomfortable and she was not making sense while talking. I made a dr appointment and sent her to bed for a bit. She fell asleep and when I woke her for her appointment she seemed better so the whole time we waited at the dr I was second guessing myself. Kept thinking they were just going to tell me the same thing they told me last night. They didn’t though. He said she had an ear infection and was going to give us an antibiotic for that but still wanted to send us for a chest x-ray. He said the meds would clear up pneumonia if she did have it but he thought it would still be worth it for us to know for sure if she did have it. After sitting in another waiting room with a limp 4 year old in my lap for an hour we finally got the x-rays taken. We had to wait again for the results. Before leaving Av’s dr he told me he would be the one to give me the results over the phone while we were still at the x-ray place. Well when we got on the phone his nurse told me that he needed us back in the office. That scared the crap out of me. She said he needed to see her and he wanted to do something else. I didn’t know what he had seen on the x-ray (tumor???) but I couldn’t call John or anyone because I didn’t want Av to hear that I was scared. So back to the dr I drove us. Come to find out the pneumonia was in her left lung right behind her heart and he wanted to make sure her blood pressure and oxygen levels were okay again. They were thankfully, but if they had not been he was going to admit us into the hospital. The whole day I was telling Av that the stuff the drs needed to do might be a little scary (x-ray) but none of this would hurt (like a shot would). Well the dr decided to give her a shot of an antibiotic to get it going. By that point though Av didn’t even really have the energy to fight it. It was quite the day but thankfully we have wonderful doctors that care so much. She is much better and will soon be back to herself.

bully

Camille has become a big bully. Well maybe some of it is that she just does not know better but I do think some of it is a bully personality. She will just take a sippy cup and whack Av on the head with it. She has started biting too. As soon as she gets mad/frustrated she opens that mouths and goes for it. She bite Av twice yesterday. Av needs to start playing a little defense too though. You can see the biting coming from a mile away so I have tried to get Av to yell NO and back away. Av is so innocent yet and just thinks that things like that are mean and so people should not be doing them. She does not understand that her sissy does not know that yet and it’s our job to teach her. Last week at the doctors as I was talking to the dr all the sudden Av said “sissy standing on the chair.” I looked over and sure enough Camille had climbed on a chair and was standing on it. Ugh. Av never stood on a chair in her life!

Pictures of the pictures

Avery

Avery had her 4-year old check up last week. When I told her, her first question was if she was going to have to get shots or not. I told her I didn’t know (I really didn’t) but that it would be okay either way. Well that didn’t do it for her and she just didn’t want to go. So I decided I would call and ask. I figured I had a 50-50 shot of her not getting shots and if she didn’t have to it would make the whole thing more pleasant. Well I didn’t get the answer I was wanting. Not only would she have to get shots but at age 4 it is a big round of shots. I told her she would have to get a shot but I didn’t say how many (5! one was her second H1N1). They only way I could get her to go without crying the whole time was to promise McDonalds afterwards. We found out though that she is 39 1/4th inches and 31.9lbs. She is still in the 50% for height!!!! After all that testing we did when she had dropped so much on the growth curve now she is holding strong at 50%! It was great news. The dr was very presently surprised at how well she was doing. He asked if she was starting to “read” 3 letter words and I said yes, “cat, dog, ect.” I also told him that she can read/recognize all of her classmates names. He was pleased! She is just amazing. He is the same dr that helped us through all the stuff with her when she was born. He has been pulling for us/her since her birth.


On a different note Av rode a new horse the other day. Wendy Lou. She was very excited. We had talked about it a lot and so she was excited to meet a new horse and to give him/her treats.

Pictures-Big success!

I decided to try again. I would love if twice a year I could get a great professional pic of the girls. If you remember I tried in Feb and it was a disaster. Av and I both left in tears because she refused to smile for the pics. This time it went great though!!!!!! I didn’t make it a big deal at all. The night before I showed her the cute outfit and told her what we were going to do. I also told her if she didn’t want her pic taken that was fine but we were going and Camille was going to get hers taken and everyone (G&PP, her friends, and Aunt Ann) were going to get a pic of just Camille. That did the trick. She wanted everyone to get a picture of her too. Av wore a black and white skirt that had a red flower on it and a red sweater with white and black ribbon on it. She also wore knee high socks with red bows on them. Camille had on a red sweater dress with big black dots on it, white tights and a white long sleeve shirt. They looked sooooooooooo cute. A couple mothers there asked me where I got their outfits. I also had another outfit for Camille. I wanted to get a funny 1-year-old pic of her. So we got there and we had to wait a bit but the girls were good and played. Finally it was our turn. Avery did so well. They smiled and sat together (kind of, Camille kept trying to run off). I got 2 poses of them together. One picture is a close up that shows off their cute/pretty smiles and one full body of them standing together. Their smiles are not as big on the full body but they are just standing in a way that is totally them. Av has her knees together kind of shyly and Camille is ready to take off. Av refused to smile and get her picture taken by herself. That’s fine. I got what I wanted. For Camille’s second pic I had a pink tutu and a headband with a big pink flower on it. She wore just her diaper and that get-up. Hehehehhe I wanted her little pudgy body to show in the pic. She looked so cute and we had quite the audience while she was posing for these pictures. Everyone was ohhhhhing and ahhhing. After she was done she took off through the store in her tutu and got more ohhhhhs and ahhhhs. She was quite the ham. I need to try and scan the pictures so I can put them on here.

decorating the Christmas tree

Christmas Tree

We had a super weekend! We stayed home on Friday and just played, played and played some more. Friday afternoon the girls and I got out the inside Christmas decorations. They thought that was a blast. There are Santas everywhere and so far Camille has been pretty good about leaving them alone. The girls loved looking at all the Christmas books and Avery was in heaven with her collection of Christmas purses. They think the stockings with their names on them are pretty cool. I asked Av if she was going to fill mine with presents. She said, “no mommy, that’s Santa’s job.” Heheheh she is too smart. On Saturday we got up and headed off to find the perfect Christmas tree. We always head down to the waterfront to where some Christmas tree vendors set up shop. It’s nothing all that special but it’s kind of a tradition for us and it’s always fun by the waterfront. I was determined to get a picture for our Christmas card so I talked to Av a little bit about it. I showed her all our picture cards from the past and she loved looking at her friend’s baby pictures as well as her own. I told her she needed to smile for me when I asked her too. She of course said, “no!” So I told her that was fine but I was going to mail out a picture with or without her and I thought Jackson and Caroline (her bff’s) would be very disappointed to get a picture of just her baby sister. That did the trick! I got better pics of her than I did of Camille. It was a beautiful day. Very cold but sunny and pretty. Avery picked out a great tree and then we headed home for lunch. The girls found it very silly to have a tree in the house. That night we went to the Mason’s house for a full-fledged dinner party. It was a blast and the kids were so good. We were there till 11pm. Camille partied the whole time. I partly felt like a bad mom but she is NEVER up past 8:30 so once in awhile is not going to hurt her. Yesterday we took the kids to the gym. It was Camille’s first time in the day care there. She did pretty well. It was a nice break for mom and dad. John had made chili that morning and after the gym we decided to invite the Shumans over for dinner. Not knowing if we had enough chili or not we decided to turn it into a chili cheese dog party. I decided last night that I don’t eat enough of those. Heheheh boy are they good. Our Christmas tree is still not decorated though. Hopefully tonight that gets done. I hope to get some more cute pictures of the girls.

monkeys climbing on daddy's suitcase

new things Camille is doing

Camille’s talking is all the sudden taken off. She says dog, ball, Jack, more, milk, eat, book, off, up, Avery and a bunch more I can’t think of right now. She knows what a dog and a horse say. She knows her belly, nose, ears feet and hair. She really can get her point across. Last night in the bath I was dumping water on their heads to wet their hair. I put the cup down and she picked it up and handed it back and said more. She has 2 favorite books. She will find them out of all the books, bring it to me and plop down on my lap for me to read it. One is called Little Quack and the other is an Ocean book my Aunt Rosie sent them. Little Quack is nothing special but the Ocean book is a pop up book and each page makes a different ocean sound. It is pretty neat. We read it over and over and over again and she just says more each time. There is a book at hbr that she loves too. She can pick it out just by its spine on the bookshelf. It is a pop up book too. When I put her down for her nap she usually has her socks on but by the time she gets up she has pulled them off. Well yesterday she was wearing tights so when she got up they were all pulled at but she could not get them off. She pointed right to them and said off. There is a yummy Mexican restaurant within walking distance to our house so we are there a lot. It is very kid friendly. We took G&PP this weekend and they were surprised that Camille gets her own dish of salsa and knows just what to do with it and the chips. Everything she knows is learned from watching big sis. What Avery is doing Camille has to be doing it too. My sis said this weekend, “thank goodness Camille has that booty, it balances out her belly.” Hehehehehhe

Graduates

Av will soon be graduating from Mickey to a bigger horse. Miss Becky thinks she is ready to move up and on! Apparently all horses have a different walk and each walk works different muscles for the rider. Av is stronger now and can handle a more aggressive walk. Avery told me that Mickey ran (trotted) while she was riding him the other day. She was very exited.

Camille is graduating from the infant classroom to the explorer (that sure is a nice name for the “I’m into everything!” stage) classroom! She has started to visit her new classroom this week to help get her adjusted. The first time Miss Megan took her to meet her new teachers and classmates she would not let Megan out of her sight. She warmed up though and soon was off playing and exploring her new classroom so much so that Megan was able to leave. Megan said she fit right in with the older kids (not too much older though the ages for that class are 14-20 months). Today Camille was going to head to her new classroom at 10:30 and stay till after lunch. Monday will be her first full day as an explorer. Camille is already doing most of the things in the explorer room i.e. walking, drinking from a sippy cup and napping from 1-3. It will just be getting used to sleeping on a cot and eating at a table on a chair. I wish I could be a fly on the wall sometimes.