The Sexiest Thing a Man Can Do For His Wife

(I said FOR his wife, not TO her...)
Posted by GoddessKristin on 01/20/09 at 06:40 PM [link]

No

Dessa says her alphabet now. Sort of. With a great deal of prompting.

Well, let's be honest - she repeats after me. And when we write them down, she does recognize a couple of letters (usually), but generally she thinks the rest of them are the letter L. It's early days.

One of her major problems is that she seems to think she knows the alphabet better than I do. She intersperses her letters with sudden, abrupt declarations of her very favorite word right now. See if you can figure out what it is.

Posted by GoddessKristin on 01/15/09 at 09:07 PM [link]

Goodnight Dadd...BWAAAAApppp

This vid is from back in September but I came across it today and it made me laugh so I thought I'd share.

We had gorgeous weather here this past weekend but didn't get to enjoy it. Dessa's got some sort of stomach bug and was feeling lousy. On Friday night just as I was putting her to bed she ralphed all over me. This was no mere baby spit up but a true and honest drenching. Gads. Dave came up to help me (he changed her while I changed me). After we were both less horrible I read another story to her, brushed her teeth again and brought her in to say goodnight to Daddy. Aaaaaand she ralphed all over me again. So much for my clean T-shirt.

The next morning was not pretty. Everything started exiting the other end and even her overnight diaper couldn't contain it. We popped her into a bath and again Daddy Dave cleaned up the god-awful mess. Then I made a wonderful rice pudding that she wouldn't touch for 2 days (I am a wonderful nurse). She was pretty subdued (for her) and watched a good deal of Sesame Street. By the time we put her down for a nap we thought we were in the clear.

Not. So. Much.

After 45 minutes or so of fussing, her tone changed. Out of the chatty thing she does when she's fighting sleep we heard, "Uh oh, Daddymommy!" (when she wants us both it's one word - Daddymommy. Or sometimes Mommydaddy). When we went up to check her out - well, let's just say we had to put her in the bath again. Gawd. One wonders how it was physically possible for diaper contents to wind up in her armpit but as God is my witness it did.

She's still not 100% so she's on a restricted diet (stuff like Pedialyte, applesauce, bananas, rice pudding, oatmeal... the occasional goldfish crackers because she lurves them... but otherwise very bland). I'm hoping this clears up soon because I do not exactly feel like the Mother of the Year when I feed her applesauce, rice pudding and strawberry yogurt for dinner but what can you do? She's not dehydrated and she's not starving.

After having been vomited on twice I'm counting that as a win for me. Before you ask, I've already tried chicken broth and she's having none of that. The Saltine crackers I handed her? She crushed in her hand and dropped to the floor with a mournful, "Oh no!" She did enjoy the 7-Up I gave her Friday night but I replaced it with Pedialyte (which she doesn't care for too much) because of all the sugar in 7-Up. Happily she has lots of energy and other than the ugly diapers she's fine. A little crankier than usual (who wouldn't be?) and she's sleeping hard but this too shall pass.

Get it? Pass? In my Very Exciting Blog Entry about the state of my child's bowels? Clever, no?

Alas, no.

Tune in tomorrow when God only knows what horrific topic I'll tackle. It's all excitement around here I'll tell you what!
Posted by GoddessKristin on 01/13/09 at 06:58 PM [link]

True to my word

I really am trying to update a bit more often and to that end I have a new video to share. I'm going to make an effort to include more videos when I can because I actually do take a decent amount of them and Dessa gets funnier and funnier the more she talks. Of course, it may only be me who finds her hilarious but take a gander.

By the way, she's telling Dave that she loves him there near the end. Just a couple of weeks ago she finally started responding to the thousands of I-love-you's that we heap on her daily but her version is "Wah-loo!" I hope she doesn't correct herself any time soon. She's even beginning to say it without being prompted.

Tonight, when it was time for bed she was perfectly willing. Getting back into the swing of 6:15 wake-up calls means she's pretty pooped by day's end. After a long time of snuggling with me I finally put her in her crib. As usual, she stepped over to her music box and pressed the On button. Then she lay down on her tummy. I offered her "Deeda" and a book, the combination she now prefers for bedtime company. (Deeda is a lamb puppet that a friend brought her from New Zealand. Her name comes from the "Murray Had a Little Lamb" segments on Sesame Street in which a large red monster named Murray and a Spanish-speaking lamb named Ovajita - "little lamb" in Spanish - go to various schools to learn things. Dessa loves Ovajita and Murray second only to Elmo). Anyway, just about every night now she tucks Deeda under one arm and a selected book (or sometimes books) under the other and goes to sleep. In the morning (when it's not a school day) she spends time reading the book to Deeda, which means she entertains herself for upwards of 45 minutes before we have to go get her. I'm thrilled to pieces that she wants both the stuffed toy and a book. It just tickles the reader in me (it's also a total bonus that we don't have to go racing to her room as soon as she wakes up).



You can't see Deeda here but trust me, she's tucked up under Dessa's right arm. They're good pals.
Posted by GoddessKristin on 01/07/09 at 09:04 PM [link]

Day Late, Dollar Short, What Else is New?

Christmas was really lovely this year. Dessa was more into the spirit of it all, though she would have been immensely satisfied with a single gift. She was fascinated with what she got and immediately wanted to play with it and only it. Whatever it was.

She was showered with presents. A favorite is the gorgeous wooden block set that Grandma, Auntie B and Cousin Z sent (when my mom saw it she immediately gushed, "That is the kind of toy she plays with and then you save it for her children and their children and their children...") Dessa actually stacked the blocks instead of her usual tendency to sweep anything put on top of another thing to the ground in a scorched earth policy that would make Godzilla proud. Unfortunately I have no pictures of this yet because each time she begins stacking I rush to grab the camera and Dessa, seeing this, grins cheesily and chirps, "Smile!" and... she runs toward the camera and away from her gloriously stacked blocks. Soon, I hope, she will be less star-struck.

But there are other images for your enjoyment. First off, Dessa sporting a new Elmo outfit. She was delighted to wear this and kept pointing and saying, "Elmo!" to her chest.

Next up, an action shot ripping open a present. Honestly, she opened the book sitting next to her first and would have been content to sit on that couch and look through that book for the rest of the day. It was hell getting her to put it aside. She was still in her PJ's at this point. We had a storm come in on Christmas morning and I didn't want to bring her to Nana's in her dress, which has short sleeves. Besides, it's more cozy to open presents in your pajamas, isn't it?



We did, eventually, wrest her into her Christmas dress (after a nap, though. I'm not as much of a fool as I look). I think she looks about 5 in this picture - how can she be so big already!?



The present opening continued pretty much all day. Lots of friends and neighbors stopped by so it was quite a party.



Santa brought Dessa a toy vacuum cleaner that talks. When you roll him around he says things like, "Hello! This place is a mess!" or "This place is a pigsty!" I thought he was cute in the store but his constant bitching about the state of my floors is beginning to give me a complex. Dessa was a little put off by him at first too but after a few days she spontaneously started to run him all over the floors, just the way we do when we vacuum - back and forth, back and forth. A little hausfrau in the making.



She looks far more delighted than I do when I'm vacuuming.

As for the rest of us, things are well here. My surgery went wonderfully - I was walking on the leg without crutches the day after surgery and fully mobile within a couple of days. Without the plate I can handle stairs much more comfortably. I only need to be cautious for about 6 weeks because the bone still has the holes from the screws. Once they fill in I'll be good as new. I went back to work today and was actually relatively happy to be there. It's hard to leave Dessa, of course, but it was good to be back in the swing of things.

That's the news from here. One of my many New Year's resolutions is to keep up the blog a little more frequently. We'll see just how well that goes.
Posted by GoddessKristin on 01/05/09 at 07:49 PM [link]