Dear Abby - You're Two

(Idea stolen from dozens of people, sorry.)

Dear Abby,

Today you turn two years old!  You've grown so much since we first brought you home on June 12, 2007.  Your mom and I wanted for a long, long time to have you in our lives, and we could not feel more blessed than we do when we are with you.

You are the light of my life, and of moms, too.  Everything we do now goes through a filter of "how will this work for Abby" without even thinking it on purpose.  I sometimes think that you are the reason your mom likes me so much, but don't tell her I said that.

In the past year you have learned so much that it blows my mind.  On your first birthday you could not walk, and today you are running, literally in circles, wherever you please.  You could only say a few words, and sign a few others.  Now you are very good with both, and even when you babble it is wonderment to me.

Last night you even sang us a song, which I assume is titled "La La" and I am sure that I could never reproduce it, but you were sure it was a song and told us so.

Your bigger family loves you, as well.  All of the locals will be here for your party, and we will see everyone else over the summer.  You diligently learned everyone's names from their pictures, and do really well at matching pictures with real faces.  That still amazes me, since I struggle sometimes with that.

You love your friends, teachers and babies (your three categories, not mine) at school.  You recite their names as if to remind us who they are, even when we are at home.  Always when we are at home, come to think of it.  I hope you never lose track of your friends, and they of you.

You are tentative in a new place, but only for a few moments.  Once you have judged something (or someone) safe, you're off and we have to pull you away.  I'm grateful for your happiness around strangers and friends alike.

We are lucky that you are willing to try new foods, and always just a little disappointed when you call too quickly for "chicken" if you don't like a new food.  I am persistent, though, and will get you to like asparagus soon enough!

I am looking forward to the next year of your life as much as I have the last year, and the one before that.  I am ready to be amazed by what you come up with, what you do, and how you grow.

Abby, we love you more every day.  I hope you always know that.
-Dad

Abby Update at 23 months, 3 Weeks

I do not have official 24 month statistics just yet, we will have that appointment the week after school lets out, but last night I got Abby to stand on a scale and she came out at 29 pounds.  Why would I do such a thing?  Anny and I had just done it, and Abby wanted a turn. 

As the end of the school year draws close we have gotten a detailed progress report on Abby's growth in abilities, from coloring to talking and from eating to dressing.  It is fascinating to see that she has mastered almost everything for her age range, and that the next set of boxes had more checks than blanks.  We're truly blessed with a child that loves to learn and try new things.  (as long as there are chicken nuggets as backup, that is!)

Unfortunately, "dip" still pervades every meal that it can.  If there is no ketchup for dipping around, Abby will make due with jelly of any flavor.  She even sampled mint jelly when we were in Wyoming this spring!

Abby has mastered counting to ten, and on occasion will count to 11.  We are using this as a tool for things already, as in "count to ten and your diaper change will be over" or "once we get to five you need to be in your" fill in the blank.  She knows that if I get to five she is either in her place, or I will put her there.  I think it's a hybrid of "classic" parenting and "hippie" parenting.  We'll see how long it works.

Finally, Abby's ABC's are adorable.  Aside from skipping everything from C to G, she always has a N-A-N-O-P.  The funnier part, though, is that she knows there is a "double" something (W) at the end, and that often changes.  I have heard everything from "double m" to "double c," though most often it's "double v."   I'm proud of her for trying - it's a good potty time song, and can be used much in the same way as doing her numbers when needed.

As we gear up for her birthday weekend, which I believe began with a cake yesterday with the Wendy's Bunch from church, I will be reflecting on things.  I hope to be blogging on those, but in reality I have a house to clean, orange cakes to help bake and a wonderful daughter and wife that are fun to hang out with.  :o)

Oh, I almost forgot to mention that Abby is currently teething, and has been for the last three weeks or so. She does not just have crankiness symptoms, but she has also slept longer on a couple of occasions and her diapers are... let's just say that if you want details you'll have to email me. I don't blog about gross stuff like that! We are hoping that she is through this soon for her sake, and ours!

Pretend Play

As you can guess since Abby will be two in less than two weeks she is a handful. I swear it's a good handful 98% of the time and we're elated to be having the handfuls that we have compared to other parents out there.

One of the times that Abby is most stubborn is at lunch or dinner time.  (For the record, she's an angel in the morning at breakfast...)  We often find ourselves reminding her that it's time to eat, not time to throw things on the floor or watch Elmo or Signing Time on the computer.  Meal time is for meals.

On Monday while Anny and I were in the kitchen cleaning up and getting things ready for dinner prep we could hear Abby quietly playing in the living room.  She was playing with her castle toy, complete with people and a huge dining table.

The one-sided, aimed-at-toys conversation we overheard was:

"Sit down."
"Dinner, sit down."
"Sit, Eat."
"SIT."
"SitSitSitSit!"

I'm not quite sure where she has heard that before...

All of her meal time troubles go away if you give her a cookie:

Skype is Ruining TV

I have Skype - do you?  (If you do, look me up if we know each other.  If you just stumbled here, please don't look me up on Skype, that's just weird.)  We have used the service only a small handful of times, but hope to expand our use and get the larger family in on it.  (P&S - we need to talk about that!)

If you don't know what Skype is - it's a freely downloaded program that you can use for audio and/or video calls with other people that have the service - for FREE.  I meant to use it when my sister was in Ireland last fall, but never did.  You can also pay to use the service if you want to line it up with your cell phone or want to do other special feature types of things, but we use the basic version and are happy with it.

While I love it for personal use, it appears that Oprah, and other TV programs, are using Skype.  I think I've even seen it on CNN for interviews with "common folks" like me.  My problem is that it used to mean something to be on Oprah.  They would fly you to Chicago to see the show and be a part of a real interview.  The episode that drove me the most crazy - understanding that I only catch Oprah twice a month or so - was the one with Steve Harvey.  (He's brilliant by the way)  They had eight or nine screens set up in the audience and they got to ask Steve questions. 

Do you mean to tell me that no woman in the (all woman) audience had good questions to ask?  Could the questions not have been asked through email? 

I get even more annoyed with CNN does it.  They used to send real reporters out to places for a reason - Anderson Cooper (is he on CNN?  I just know he is cute and toying with people about his sexuality.  Good for him I say.)  knows how to report on a story with facts.  That's much better than any report I could ever give.

I guess I'm a purist when it comes to my junk TV, that's all.

Oprah and CNN - you're on notice.  Knock off the Skyping and just bring people in or interview them for real.  Technology is supposed to be fun, but you're taking something fun and making it seem like you're really lazy.

Unless you want to talk with me - my username is armonroe.  :o)

Gluten-Free, Two Weeks In

So my sister moved in two weeks ago and things are going really well, I would say.  (She might say differently to her friends, but seems to be happy, too.)

As I have mentioned before, our biggest hurdle this summer will be the food we eat:

• Michelle is Gluten Free and not a huge fan of veggies, but willing to try new things
• Anny is supposed to cut out sugar and eat lots of veggies and meats, but does not like meat
  
• I am not supposed to have potassium, and should not go crazy with protein. (i.e. no Atkins)
• Abby eats whatever she wants, but is very willing to taste new things.  Last night she ate a piece of onion straight up, much to the disgust of Michelle.  :o)
  

We are trying new recipes, and will be keeping some of them to use even when Michelle is back at school.  There is a recipe for Gluten Free Brownies that we have adapted from Emeril that are great - bananas and applesauce make it really moist - and we each taste them differently.  (Since I have not had a banana in about seven years, that is the taste that stands out to me.  Anny tastes the applesauce.  I think Michelle just tastes brownies that don't give her migraines.)

We have asked Michelle to be honest with what she does and does not like, because for as much as we try new things in our house, we settle into routines that last about six weeks or so.  For a period of almost three weeks this spring we did pizza or calzones for three nights a week.  Yeah, that was good eating, but probably really bad for us in the long run.

As we plan for Abby's birthday, which is coming up way too quickly if you ask me, we are even planning on an GF cake so that all can enjoy.  Yes, we are those "make everyone happy" folks that you dread talking to sometimes.


Michelle has shared with us a few of her recent GF finds, too.  Turns out that chips and salsa are just fine for her, and I can not say no to that!

Michelle also wants to do a bit more cooking, so we're on the hunt for easy to learn, Gluten Free recipes that are appealing outside of the GF world.  If you have links to easy stuff like that, let me know!

(Now I am going to go write another post and tell it to show up tomorrow - two blog posts from Rob in less than a month should be interesting.  I think I'm going to attack Oprah next.)

(And how is that for a teaser?)

Happy Mother's Day

While I have neglected my duties just a little bit for Anny's special day*, I wish all of you mom's out there a Happy Mother's Day.  It is hard work no matter what the age of your children, or of yourself.  I pray today that you have peace and quiet, a cooked meal that someone else had made, and a feeling that you are loved. 

As I know the struggle that many people have, I am pasting my favorite (if that's the right word) Mother's Day prayer from a few years back written by my friend Jan Edmiston.  She wrote this the MD before Anny and I were parents and we were struggling mightily with our situation.  This brought me peace:

I'm thinking about and praying for all those for whom tomorrow will be a rough day: those with mean mothers, sick mothers, absent mothers, disappointing mothers. Those who would love to be mothers but are not. For mothers who have lost their children and children who have lost their mothers.

 *Due to a heavy work load this week I was not able to pick up a gift certificate, but the intent is there and that's all I can say right now due to the readership of this blog.  It's not dirty, there just might be other mom's involved.  If I keep typing, I'll spill the beans...

Wordless Wednesday - Where is Abby?

327/365 Where is Abby?
Originally uploaded by armonroe

More Wordless Wednesday at http://wordlesswednesday.com

Summertime in Spring

This weekend was pretty much a whirlwind of fun and activity for us!  With temperatures in the upper 80's and low 90's it could have been miserable, but it was great!

Saturday -
We started the day at Maryland Day, which is annual open house that the University of Maryland puts on.  It was hot and crowded, but a heck of a lot of fun!  Abby had a blast playing with the bubbles when we first got there.  There were plastic ducks in the main fountain on campus, and all three girls had fun retrieving them and throwing them back into the water.

(No pictures from Maryland Day - I left my camera and phone at the house on accident.  It was really weird for me to not be connected!)

After grabbing lunch and a nap, we went up to celebrate Luke's second birthday!  Lots of family and tons of presents, but mostly it was fun to watch the children together.  Evan and Luke are constantly in motion, which is awesome to watch.  I think that Abby did not believe Luke was up to the challenge of opening his gifts on his own, so she helped a little:



We left their house way too late, but Abby did not notice too much.

Sunday:
We realized on Saturday night that our regular church service on Sunday was not going to be "normal" but rather was the Easter Choral Cantata.  I love music, don't get me wrong, but I don't love Latin.  We decided to head up to the National Aquarium in Baltimore for the morning.  Last summer we got a membership for the family as a good, indoor play place for Anny and Abby for hot summer days.  Abby has never really been a huge fan, so we wanted to go this spring to help decide if we wanted to renew our membership.  The answer is "no" but we had a fun time.

We have not been to the dolphin show with Abby, mostly because we paid for the membership and I'm too cheap to tack on extra money while I'm there!  This time they gave us tickets to the show for free, so we were not going to pass that up.  Anny went in and found seats while Abby and I walked up and down stairs a few times and looked at the dolphin tank from below.  Very cool.  When we got in and sat down it took Abby a minute to figure out what was about to happen, but when she figured it out it was hard to wipe the grin off of her face!



We had lunch at the Inner Harbor - nice big salads really hit the spot for Anny and I.  Abby went to sleep in the car, but not quite enough.  I hate when that happens.

After having folks over to watch the Capitals game, we went out and played in the yard and the street for a while.  Yes, I am a bad parent and let my daughter walk in the street without holding my hand, but she seems to be pretty clear about when that is and is not allowed.  We walk down the street with her in her wagon, or on her new bike, and sometimes we let her push her baby stroller:



Overall we had an incredible weekend and can only hope the whole summer is this fun!

Wyoming for Easter!

FINALLY! We have been home for two weeks now and I'm just now finding time to sit down and blog about our awesome trip to Wyoming. I will not bore with every little detail that I'm remembering, but will share a few things.  A little background would be that Anny's parents live in Casper, and her brother's family drove out from Saint Louis.

Flights
Abby was incredible on all four of our flights to and from Casper!  We pulled out the stops, but it was worth it.  We had and used:
1 sucker
Many songs
Madagascar on my iPod
Several books

We made friends with everyone around us just to be safe, but Abby only even whined once that I can remember.  A funny note here is that on our flight into Casper, on a little jet, Abby was blissfully happy until the plane touched the ground.  It was then, and only then, that she fell asleep in my arms!  Too cute.

Weather!

The weather was absolutely incredible.  There was snow on the ground, of course, but we were outside every day in short sleeves playing on the swing set!  We had a few well intentioned snowball fights, but nobody got too hurt.  (Sorry again, Anny.  I love you and did not mean to cream you in the face with a ball made of snow.  Funny?  Yes.  Intentional?  Not exactly!)  Really the only time that I even wore a coat on our trip was the morning we went up ON the mountain.


Schedules
Our biggest challenge turned out to be schedules.  Abby is an Eastern Time girl, her cousins are Central Time girls and we were visiting the Mountain Time Zone.  Abby napped before her cousins and was awake way too early every day.  The grandparents were good sports about all of it and extremely accommodating to our craziness! 

FUN! 
The bottom line is that we had a blast and wish we could be together more often with that part of the family but indeed the miles are vast between us, for now at least.

Finally
Of course I took lots and lots of pictures and they are available HERE and HERE.

Once again I made a trip to Wyoming and saw FEET of snow on the ground but none fall from the sky.  As my Mother-In-Law said, that's okay!  It's that I was there to see the snow that matters!

Kidney Check Up!

On Tuesday, about 15 hours after I landed at BWI from our trip to Casper, Wyoming, which I really want/need to blog about but have yet to find the time to.  Maybe this weekend.

After being weighed, I had to immediately blame my Mother-In-Law's cooking and baking habit for the three added pounds since my last visit in the fall.  The doctor was very understanding, and did not question it.  I may have left out that I did more exercise over those few days than I am used to doing over the course of three weeks, but that's for me to know, not him.

While I'm on the weight - I think there needs to be a change in the way that ALL doctors offices that I've ever been to do their practice.  Stop weighing me and THEN taking my blood pressure reading.  I'm fatter than I thought, of course my blood is racing. 

He said that my protein is a little high, but I explained the problems I had with getting my meds and he agreed that was probably the cause.  Nothing to be too concerned about.  My creatinine was at 1.3 somethings, and just about right for me.

Great news is that my cholesterol level is 134 and I won't have to fill a prescription for meds to keep that in check! It was a bit high the last time I saw him, but now we seem to be okay. Phew.

That's it - I go back in six months unless something happens, and here's hoping nothing happens to necessitate a visit!