Daddy Called It

Parker, apparently I'm a terrible mother. You've had the sniffles for weeks now and I've been assuming that they'd go away on their own. In my defense, they were bad in the beginning then got better and have recently gone bad again. But you're happy and eating and nothing at all seems wrong. Except that the night before last your dad was up most of the night listening to you cough and breath heavily. So yesterday morning he insisted that I call the doctor. I took you in, and you giggled and charmed everyone there. No temp, no diarrhea, good appetite, but upon a look in your ear I learned that you are in fact sick with an ear infection. Uggh, I had to call your dad and admit that he was right and I was wrong. I REALLY hate doing that, but I'm really glad that we know. But darn it kid, if you're going to be sick would you please act out of sorts so that we know!

So, mark this on the calendar, you've had your first illness and antibiotics at 6 months old.

Paker's 6 Months Old!

This probably doesn't sound right, but it's hard to believe that she's only been with us 6 months because it's hard to think of life before her being a part of the family. She and Payton adore each other. Today they were playing peek-a-boo together and they both just giggled and giggled, it was just what a mom hopes to see from sisters. Parker was sitting in my lap, and Payton was hiding behind the arm of the chair popping up making Parker laugh, over and over. I love baby giggles, it's such an amazing sound, she seem to have no control over it, it just takes over and makes her whole body jiggle.

So what is our little bundle up to? Parker's perfectly capable of rolling over both ways, but still has no desire to be on her belly, so she only rolls about 95% of the way over if she wants to grab something, or more importantly see what Payton is doing. She is getting close to sitting up, but still needs support or she falls over after a few seconds. She picks up toys and can hand them back and forth between her hands, although it's still pretty clumsy. She loves to eat, and does it a lot, still easily downing 6 bottles a day in addition to 3 meals of baby food and cereal a day. Thankfully, Parker's getting into an OK sleep schedule, going to bed between 7-8 every evening, waking in the morning around 6 for a bottle then back down for a couple hours. She's even taking a morning nap pretty consistently these days, which I didn't think would ever happen. Some mornings she'll go ahead and sleep through a little later and then she's up for just a couple hours before going back to sleep. I love nap time! Now if we could get a CONSISTENT afternoon nap I would be thrilled.

Parker's hair is hysterical. I've decide that she kind of has a Kramer do on top (think Seinfield), and is getting close to a mullet in back with a bald spot in the middle - not exactly glamorous, but it is a good opportunity for bows and barrettes and I suppose a Bam-Bam ponytail on top if I took the time. It's been suggested that I could cut it, but I just can't do that yet. After a bath it stands straight up if it's not combed down - like 4 inches straight up.

Dear Santa,

Today we decided it was time to start asking Payton what she might want to ask Santa for at Christmas, and tried to explain that she'd need to "write" a letter to him. The overall theme is apparently PINK. She started by whispering very excitedly, "pink princess" to her daddy with her eyes all aglow. We're still not 100% certain if she actually wants him to bring a princess, or a princess doll or to make her look like a princess. We're gonna go with the look like approach. From the pink princess we moved on to a pink doll. Daddy had enough of the pink talk and suggested that she might like a football, to which she replied, "Later Daddy." Guess that will have to wait for another year's list. She also added Marmar & Papa in there, but thank goodness we kind of let that one go because she gets very excited when she starts talking about them and can't understand our inability to produce them on demand.

So I thought that maybe she would have some ideas for Parker, and her suggestion was, of course, a pink doll. Jason asked if maybe Parker would like another color of doll, and she thought that Parker would like purple, and then after a moment decided that Parker would like a brown doll. Hum, not sure about where that came from, but she was very determined that Parker would in fact like to receive a brown doll. Well Parker, we'll have to see what Santa comes up with.

As always, Jason was very good about trying to ask her for more detail on her ideal dolls, but as much as she was willing to share was that her's should be pink and Parker's should be brown. Poor Parker, she better learn to talk soon or Big Sis is gonna give her all the Misfit Toys from the island!

As many conversations end these days, we had a grand finale of tears. She just couldn't understand why she couldn't have Christmas presents RIGHT NOW. Explaining that Christmas is not here yet didn't help, she demanded it get here now. How are we gonna get through the next 4 weeks!

This photo was from last weekend, Payton's fake smile but still kinda cute.

Giving Thanks

I think that maybe Payton and Grandma have been talking alot about giving thanks with the Thanksgiving Holiday coming up. Here's the quote of the day.

"Thank you mommy, thank you for wiping my bottom."

Leaving Our Girls

We're about to take our first vacation away from both of the girls and it's not a quick weekend, it's 7 nights. While I'm a mom all about getting away from the kids, this one is stressing me out for some reason. We left Payton a few times when she was about 6 months old, but she was an easy baby and loved everyone. Now she's old enough to realize we're gone, and I know that she's gonna really miss us. She freaks out when Jason leaves for work in the morning. Parker is very much a mommy's girl, and I just hope and pray that none of her grandparents drop her off on the church doorstep after she cries her little heart out just a little too long. I know of course that they are in good hands, but 7 days is really long. I'm sure that by the time we get back Payton will be dating, and Parker will be in at least 1st grade. OK, maybe not that extreme, but still.

These days Parker is such a hoot. Today she came up with a new noise that is hysterical, it's kind of a scream/ahh/happy sound that is incredibly loud. And she's super proud of it so she does it over and over. She has also discovered that fruit seriously improves the flavor of rice cereal. She's now eating 1/2 a container of fruit with 2-3 tablespoons of rice cereal all in one sitting, and usually ticked off when it's over that there's not more. She rolls over from her tummy as soon as you lay her down on it, and just grins as to say "ha, you can't make me!" She's also spending a lot of time playing with her toes, and grabbing at toys trying to hand them back and forth to herself. She's gotten really good about bedtime, and will most always go right to sleep when I put her in her crib at 8 p.m.. She still won't nap well during the day, and likes to have a quick early morning bottle around 6 a.m., but then goes back to sleep until 8 or 9. Overall, she's just becoming a happier kid, I suppose we'll see how that goes when we abandon her tomorrow night.

And then there's Payton. Oh boy! Everything is about Payton picking now. She has to pick her clothes, my clothes, and Parker's clothes. And her nightly sucker, she must pick. When I try to rush her to eat the next bite of food on her plate she opens her mouth wide, points in, and tells me that she needs to "finish it up". She's very much into brushing her teeth (finally), and tells me multiple times a day that she needs to brush her teeth. She has such emotions, the tantrums are so dramatic, at least for the 30 seconds they last. She know when she's misbehaved and will usually go into time out without argument. The other day we were at Target and she kept running away from me. I told her that when we got home she was in big trouble and would have to go into time out. She sweetened up at that point, I assumed that she was trying to get out of it, but instead when we got home she told me time out, and marched right over to her corner. How do you not laugh at that! She still has a big crush on Karl and has to give him a kiss any chance she can, although Thomas is still her phone buddy.

I suppose that's a pretty long winded update, but I needed to get some of this silly stuff down or I'd forget.

One more picture of Payton in her Halloween costume. This one is from the community party that we had last week.

Happy Birthday! Happy Halloween!

Yesterday was Halloween, and Payton TOTALLY got it this year. Well, she did after joining up with her friends. More on that below.

As is tradition in my mother's house, there MUST be Halloween cookies, probably more important than Christmas cookies really. This year I talked it up for a few days and each time Payton told me that the pumpkins should be pink. As much as I am a pink lover, I tried and tried to convince her that orange might be an option, but she was persistent and pink it was. She helped me by choosing the sprinkle color for each one, and then actually sprinkling. What a sight, my poor kitchen will never be the same!

Right before we headed out for the night we received a box of fresh Colorado leaves from Grandma & Grandpa Orr, so we spread them out on the front porch for all of the kids to enjoy. Payton and I sat out in them and played for a while until Grandma Jackie arrived to help us trick-or-treat. Once she arrived we dressed the girls up and prepared to head out on the town, but before we could we had to light our jack 'o lanterns. Well, this is the part that confused Payton a bit. Anytime she sees a lit candle she assumes it must be a birthday, so she starts singing Happy Birthday. And this carried on to the first few houses that we went to. We told her to say "Trick-or-treat" but instead, everyone got "Happy Birthday!" I'm sure that they were pretty confused, because at one point in the night we ran into a neighbor who had heard it was someone's birthday and they wanted to wish US a happy birthday. Anyway, when we caught up with Jordan & Annika they quickly straightened her out and then she was unstoppable. We became quite the crowd with the Schiering's plus a grandma, Nerney crew of 4, Steve, Rebecca (about 48 weeks pregnant), Steve's parents, Drew, and eventually grew more when the Pabst's joined us with another set of grandparents. I think that makes us 20 in total. The long and the short of it was that Payton had a GREAT time, and went to bed telling me that she wanted to go trick-or-treating tomorrow too! This morning when she woke up she and Daddy checked out the loot and she decided that the gummy shark was the prize of the night and had to eat it first. I'm sorry to say, Parker didn't get quite as much out of the whole experience. She ended up falling asleep about 30 minutes in and Grandma brought her home for the night, so no great photos of her. You'll just have to trust me that she made a darling tiger.