Maren and Nate coming out of the temple. Maren is holding her niece who has one of my favorite names--Elise! Maren's dress was custom made and just gorgeous! I was standing off to the side because I didn't want to block any of the many family members waiting for the happy couple to exit.
Elise has started walking across rooms. She still crawls a lot, but she walks more than ever.
Her vocabulary is a very enthusiastic "Hi!", "Da'yee" (Daddy), "coo'ee" (cookie!), "Gi'yee'in" (Gideon) , and a form of mommy, "mama", but I think she has said "mommy" a few times. The easy breezy Elise phase has come to an end. Today at church she threw herself on the the floor and started to yell. A few parents turned to look at us. One of them said, "It's always funny when it's somebody else's kid." Elise wanted to go outside again and she wasn't happy about not getting her way.
She has started being more demanding the last month or two. Meal times are a guessing game. Gideon would just eat or not eat at her age. She wants 3 bites of this, a drink of water, 2 bites of that, and yes, that food I threw on the floor 2 minutes ago, I need that too!
Jace told me yesterday that he thought she "pretended" to be hurt to get Gideon in trouble. While I'm doubtful, I wouldn't be surprised. As younger sibling she has endured a great deal of wrongdoing by her brother. A few days ago Gideon brought me a little band-aid with 15 hairs stuck to it. He told me in a very pleased-with-himself toddler voice that he'd taken "Yeese's" band-aid off her forehead for her. I thought I'd heard a little yelp a few minutes earlier. I had to laugh when I saw all the little hairs on there. When Gideon is getting a band-aid off, his teeth brushed, his nails trimmed, he tells us that it needs to be done gently.
Gideon is starting a very messy phase that I thought we passed a year or two ago. He's started throwing his food on the floor--not just a few pieces, he dumps his bowl or plate on his tray, and before we can leap over to stop him, he's swishing his little arms like windshield wipers with beans and corn flying in both directions. He's laughing hysterically of course, and when we take him out of his chair and carry him to his room, he's still laughing. Jace and I joked about a feeding bubble for him when he was a baby, but now I think we're in the market for one.
Jace hurt his neck last week. Another painful episode of not being able to turn his head. It hurts to lie down, stand up, or be awake. I've never seen it this bad before. I finally convinced him to visit a doctor on Friday. They took an xray and the doctor told him his "neck is a mess." He has a curve of his spine in his upper back/neck that should be straight- it's scoliosis. He was told he had it while in college, but it's never caused him too much trouble, so we haven't spent too much time thinking about it. He's had a few episodes like this in the last few years, but never for this amount of time. The doctor didn't say if his spine is twisted as well as curved, he just said it was a mess. We're going to look into physical therapy to help prevent this from happening again. The doctor told him there's nothing he can do but take muscle relaxers and pain killers, but I'm hoping we can prove him wrong.
We're out of the worst of it with the new release. While I'm still very busy, I'm planning on getting more than 5 or 6 hours of sleep a night. Some of you might be thinking "What I wouldn't give for 5 hours of sleep a night..."
I've been experimenting with some new recipes lately. We're trying to clear up Elise's eczema, without using steroids. I took dairy out of her diet a little more than a month ago, and her skin cleared up a bit. Last week I tried cutting wheat out and haven't noticed much change. I'm hoping to get her tested soon, so that I'm not doing guesswork. We'd have to make a day long trip (in our falling apart car)* to see someone, since there's no one around here who does that. A website that I"ve visited a few times has a few good recipes: www.kidswithallergies.org. I told Jace today that feeding 2 toddlers nutritious food with variety is challenging. Throw allergies and food restrictions into the mix and it's a huge challenge. I'm on the lookout for dairy/wheat free recipes. If you have any favorites, please send them to me.
We're also starting to use a book recommended by Jace's Aunt Sandy who recovered from cancer by changing her diet to 80% raw foods and using this book: "Original Fast Food". One of the recipes we've started using is for a green smoothie. I make it for the kids. It's mostly spinach with enough fresh pineapple and apple juice to mask the spinach taste. You can add coconut and bananas too, but our blender turns the coconut to grit, so I leave it out. This is one of the first drastic things I tried doing to help Elise with her eczema. It has also produced the most drastic results. The red rough patches on her legs nearly disappeared after a week of the green juice. But she's still scratching, so I'm still looking for the rest of the solution.
*We had the radiator replaced on our geo last month b/c our engine was overheating. Well it's overheating again! Went to a friend's wedding a few weeks ago, and had to turn on the heat to cool the engine. Of course it was already warm outside, so I rolled down most of the windows. I found that if I kept the speed under 75 mph and turned the heat on going up hills, everything was just fine. Why is it, that I never imagined this as my life when I was younger. :) Jace returned home Monday and told me he'd had another sweaty drive home. (Thursday wasn't quite so bad because he had a bag of frozen peas on the back of his sore neck all the way home!) We'll need to fix it or our other broken car before one of us has heat stroke.
We took the kids to the park yesterday and got some cute pictures. Gideon has to put a hat on each time he goes outside. Early this week he was out playing in front for 10 minutes and that evening he was a bit sunburned. So now he gets his shark hat on, and thankfully, he doesn't mind it yet.
I'll try to find time to post pictures later (hahahaha).
