A Little Lovin'

I am so in love . . . with my daughter!  She did the absolute sweetest thing yesterday.  She was eating Apple Wagon Wheels, which are a quickly dissolving cracker in the shape of a wagon wheel.  Sophia's pretty serious about her food, so I was quite surprised when she pulled the wagon wheel out of her mouth and shoved it into mine.  Now that's love!

I was thinking it was a fluke, but when Mike went and sat by her, she tried to feed him as well.  All these months, we've been feeding her, and smiling at her, and loving on her, and now she's expressing it back.  It's such a beautiful moment!  I never thought I'd be so overjoyed to have a sticky crumbling piece of cracker shoved at me!

And to top it off, she was cuddling on the couch with Mike, and she expressed her love in a different way.  She pulled her pappy (pacifier) out of her mouth, looked at it for a second, and then put it into Mike's mouth.  Again, that's love - sharing your pretties!

Sleeping with Daddy after sharing her pappy!

What's your favorite way to share the love?

Happy New Year to you, too!

Well, what started out as a great New Year ended up being a yucky new year!

When we got up this morning, we were planning on heading to my brother's house for his and Trish's annual New Year's Day brunch.  However, Sophia had alternate plans.  She woke up this morning with a 100.7 fever, and a runny nose.  I wasn't sure about the fever, but at that time her runny nose was clear, so I assumed she probably had allergies, and possibly an ear infection, given the fever.  I called Aaron to see if it was still ok for us to come to the brunch, and he didn't have a problem with it.

Off we went to the party!  We brought the cinnamon nut streudel that Mike's grandma had made for us for Christmas.  It got rave reviews from everyone!  There was tons of great food there - lots of breakfast casseroles, mini muffins, fruit, cheeses, some great croissants with prosciutto . . . and of course, what New Year's Day brunch would be complete without mimosas and bloody marys!

Halfway through the party, I noticed that Sophia's nose was no longer running clear, but a radiant spring green color.  Time to break out the big guns!  We headed for home, where Sammy fell promptly asleep, and I called Katy Urgent Care Center to make sure they were open today. 

Have you heard of Katy Urgent Care Center?  They are open every day of the week, and are equipped to handle anything from a minor ear infection to being able to take x-rays and set broken bones.  If your child or you is injured or sick at an odd hour, it might be worth it to check them out rather than heading to a crowded emergency room.  

We got there at 3:24, and we were out of there by 4:40 pm.  Turns out, Sophia had two ear infections.  And she's so sweet - she was smiling and happy the whole time we were there, even being sick!  She's taking amoxicillin, and hopefully will be back to normal soon!

The Hard Way

My grandmother has been in town from Tulsa, Oklahoma, and tonight was her last night to be on our side of town.  So, we took her to Cracker Barrel with my parents.  I really love Cracker Barrel - their food is awesome, love the biscuits, and they really do have something for everyone.

Dinner was great, but something awful happened that really helped me learn something.  I finally understand the whole point of where the high chair is situated in a restaurant.  Despite the TGI Friday's issue, the manager finally makes sense . . .

We had Sophia in one of the high chairs at Cracker Barrel, which are really cute and I totally love the design.  We were seated at a round table in the corner of the restaurant, and Sophia was on the outside of the table, facing towards the wall.  When the waitress was bringing our food, a gentleman who was being seated decided he didn't like his table, and jumped up in front of the waitress, and crashed into her. 

She had a large tray of food on her left hand, with a single plate on her right hand.  I don't know how she held onto the tray in the milieu, but she lost the single plate in her right hand, and it crashed down right behind my daughter's head.  The plate shattered on the floor into a million pieces, and the food was all over the place underneath Sophia's high chair.  It was seriously centimeters from Sophia's head. 

I watched it happen, in slow motion, and all I could think was to duck and cover Sophia's head.  Thank God it did not land on her.  She was remarkably unfazed (as she always is), and totally safe.  Unfortunately she did have a bit of egg (over easy) coming up the legs of her high chair.  I'm sure you can imagine how I felt about that! 

So, I learned (almost) the hard way, that you should always put the baby in the least flow of traffic in a restaurant.  Obviously if your table is in the middle of the room, there's not much you can do, but if you are in the corner as we were, always put the high chair next to the wall, so there is no possibility of flying food or plates.

Incidentally, the gentleman who was the cause of all the ruckus said nothing at all, but his dinner companion did pause to ask us if the baby was OK.  Neither one asked the waitress.  She had an awesome afro, a big smile, and a great attitude.  She set down the full tray, sweeped up the mess, quickly ordered the lost plate of new food, and delivered the tray with a smile.  God bless her - she kept my baby safe and a smile on her face the whole time!



Got any restaurant snafus to share?

Pictures!

Today we went to JC Penney and had our monthly pictures taken.  Want to know a secret?  I skipped Sophia's 7 month pictures due to an unfortunate incident that occured during her 6 month pictures, so today I just brought two different outfits for her.  We'll say one is her 7 month picture, and the other is her 8 month picture! 

Both the kids did really well, and I was also able to stay calm and collected, unlike last time we were there.  I also took the opportunity to apologize to the manager there for what had happened during our 6 month pictures (although honestly she really didn't deserve it).  However, she accepted my apology, and even grudgingly offered up one of her own!  I like it when we can all play nice.

Here are some of my favorite shots from the sitting!

Hands down my favorite!!  I had it done in a 20x24, with a silver frame.  So beautiful!

A sweet pic - this is her "7 month" picture.  The bear is from my parents, and the quilt is from Mike's parents.

Me and my sweet kiddos!  I asked the lady if they could photoshop my hiny to make it smaller.  No dice!

Such a sweet pic!  I got copies of these for the grandparents!

Sophia's such a toot - she kept trying to crawl off!

And now for her 8 month picture!  See - she looks older, right?  I cover my mistakes well!

I loved this photo collage - look at the bottom pic of her hands and feet!

Thanks for looking, hope you enjoyed!  I do like JC Penney, they are inexpensive and generally do a good job.  Today made up for our last experience!

Sleepless Nights . . .

I believe that Sophia is either about to get more teeth or else she is about to start crawling.  She's been army crawling for about a month now, but she has yet to get fully up on her hands and knees.  Last night, I put her down at the usual time, but she woke up at midnight.  I tried to wait it out to see if she could fall back asleep, but no dice - she screamed for an hour.

Finally, I sent Mike up to get her, and then she got into our bed with a smile on her face.  Where she stayed, for the next two hours . . . laughing, nursing, grabbing Mike's hair, crawling around.  At 3 am, big brother Sammy came down the stairs and crawled into the bed, too.  It's a good thing we have a king size bed, otherwise, I don't know what we'd do! 

After Sammy got in our bed, Sophia was really excited, rolling over to laugh at him every few seconds.  At this point, I was done.  I took her back upstairs to her bed, fully expecting her to start screaming again.  But she didn't - she crawled around in her crib, on her hands and knees, for about two hours, laughing and smiling the whole time.  Lucky for me, I was safe asleep back in the king size bed again - but I know what she was doing due to our trusty video monitor. 

Sophia fell asleep, and thank goodness no one but Mike got up before 9:45 am . . . otherwise there would have been one very grumpy mommy around here!  I'm ashamed to admit that we've all been in our pajamas all day long, with the exception of Sophia, who got prune juice on hers, so I had to change her into her ducky outfit.  I even ran outside in my pajamas earlier to check the mail - only one neighbor saw me, thank goodness!

And, guess who's starting to crawl on her hands and knees now, instead of slithering like a snake!  Yep, you read it here first - Sophia is well on her way to becoming totally mobile!