Sunday, April 15, 2012

18 Month Milestone!

Our big girl went to the Nursery today! Ryan dropped her off and picked her up and there was NO crying, I was shocked. Look at her beautiful little necklace that she made. She seems so grown-up to me to be able to stay and play happily in nursery for two whole hours. I do also want to commend Ryan. I was at Ward Council and he did an admirable job of dressing Willa, doing her hair with a bow, and picking out the most adorable matching shoes that also happened to squeak when she walked. She was one cute little girl at church today and Ryan is a heckuva husband and dad.

Thursday, April 12, 2012

Easter Egg Hunt!

A local mega church put on a huge Easter egg hunt at a local high school. 75,000 eggs, pony rides, petting zoo, face painting. The sky was the limit! They had the lawn sectioned off by ages, here is Willa trying to duck under the tape early in the 1-2 year old section. 

Willa knew exactly what to do! She had some practice in Utah with a cousin egg hunt, but I think it's probably more due to the fact that she is developmentally right in the middle of the picking up and gathering stage.


No need to sneak in early, there were PLENTY of eggs everywhere. After gathering 41 1/2 eggs, I suggested to Willa that we retire and let some other children gather eggs. We were one of the last children out and Ryan accusatorially asked if we had left eggs for other, slower children. I bade him to look back at the field where a hundred plus eggs still laid there untouched with only two or three children left walking around.

She got quite possessive of her booty and spent some time pulling the eggs out and putting them back in. It was different because all the eggs were empty. There were special "prize" eggs that you could take to a prize booth. Otherwise, once you hunted the eggs you were asked to count them up and turn them back in, and then as you left they handed you a large and well-stocked bag of candy. A little anti-climactic, but perfect for us. Willa had no idea that there was supposed to be anything in the eggs anyway, the fun was in the hunt. Without having to stuff every egg by hand, they were able to have a whole lot more eggs out there. I feel like this could morph into some type of Socialist metaphor, but the synapses in my brain aren't firing presently.

We took advantage of the petting zoo and then headed home because it was getting toasty outside.

As Ryan and I quickly started in on Willa's bag of candy, we decided that she may as well share in the spoils. My smart smart girl sucking on her dum dum.
On an unrelated note, I babysat a little 9 month-old baby the other day. Willa acted very important as she showed her the bubbles and some of her favorite toys. Most hilarious was over-concern whenever the baby spit out her pacifier. Is this an example of baby empathy - Willa knows how sad it is to be without her paci? Whenever the baby would spit it out, she would run over from wherever she was to try to put it back in. She was VERY concerned about it.

Tuesday, April 10, 2012

Cutest Saddest Thing, Part II

Willa and Ryan went to the Orthopedist yesterday and everything looks good. They were about to cast the arm, but Ryan said, "Ah man, a cast? Really? Come on dudes, the baby loves to swim and take baths. Can't you at least give her a waterproof cast?"

They were about to give her a waterproof cast, but one of the nurses said that they slipped off kind of easily and that once it slipped off you couldn't put it back on. Then, they decided that they might as well just give her another splint. As you can see, it looks very much like a cast and is a lot less obtrusive than the other one. Her fingers are free and she can use the arm a lot more. The nurses said that it is more like she bent the bone and the cast doesn't actually fix or prevent damage. It is basically to make it not hurt as badly for Willa.

I have mixed feelings - I wanted a splint that had velcro. Wrapping the ace bandage is a big pain and the main reason that I didn't like the other one. A cast would have been a lot easier to maintain in that respect. On the other hand, by the end of the day I am sooo ready to give this girl a bath! Plus, we have friends coming over to swim this afternoon. It's only two weeks until we see the doctor again - we can survive until then!
You can see that her eye is still red and swollen from the mosquito bite. I also noticed that she is cutting four new teeth.

Saturday, April 7, 2012

The Cutest Saddest Thing Ever

On Wednesday morning Willa broke her wrist. She was outside walking around and having fun when she walked on a drainage grate. Her little foot fell right through one of the slats and she came down hard. Ryan was with her and administered comfort, but she stayed extremely fussy until I got home from teaching. 

We called the doctor and got in for an appointment that afternoon. We thought she had done something to her leg or hip because when she would move to stand up, she would start crying really hard. The doctor couldn't find anything - and she was walking around without crying - so he thought it was probably a sprain and sent us home with instructions to call him if anything changed. Once we got home, we both noticed that she was actually favoring her left wrist. We thought it was the leg, but she was actually crying whenever she put pressure on that little wrist. We called the doctor and he set up an x-ray for the following morning.  And.... it was a broken wrist, poor baby! 

It's called a buckle fracture and is really common and heals really quickly, thank goodness! There is no need to set the bone and in older kids sometimes they don't even treat it. Unfortunately, Willa is so little that they are nervous about her falling again and making it worse. The doctor's office didn't have a small enough splint for such a little girl, so they put a temporary one on her until the Orthopedic can see her on Monday. If that doctor doesn't have a small enough splint, they will probably have to cast the arm.

Willa has been so good throughout everything! She doesn't play with the splint or try to take it off. She doesn't even get frustrated when having two hands would be easier. Here she is trying to pick up both her cell phone and Lamb Chops with only one hand.
It took some work, but she finally got them both!
And she made it with both of them over to her favorite chair and nesting spot. She needed help getting up into her favorite pink chair now that she can't use that arm. Cutest, best baby ever.

Tuesday, April 3, 2012

The morning after...

No toddler fisticuffs over a disputed toy here, just the overnight swelling from the mosquito bite. Poor thing, her eye was basically swelled shut. Thankfully, as the morning and day went on, the swelling went down. Now it's only about half it's normal size.

Texas Size Mosquito Bites

 Everything's bigger in Texas - including mosquitos and Willa's reactions to them. Despite constant vigilance, she got two bites over her eye yesterday. This photo is a couple of hours after her first dose of Benadryl, it's so sad to see her rub at it and cry.


A happier time, pre-mosquito, enjoying a cardboard box. It says "Packed With Happiness", which Willa certainly is. She loved to close the flaps and then play peekaboo.

Sunday, April 1, 2012

Houston Rodeo Drive

I promised a Rodeo post, and now it's time to deliver. Our friends Robbie, Maura, and baby Molly invited us to go to the Houston Rodeo with them. We picked them up and were all able to fit in the Explorer with the use of the handy third seat!

There was this petting zoo where the animals walked around untethered and out in the open; it was both terrifying and exhilarating for Willa. Mainly terrifying because the goats were extremely aggressive and would nearly knock her over in their quest to grub food from someone or to chew on our shirts. Not my favorite animal, goats.

Eventually, we got her near some sweet lambs and other animals who were just laying around to be petted and she chippered up.


If you notice, Ryan, Willa, and I all wore cowboy boots in an act of solidarity and festiveness. It was the wrong idea because it was HOT and we were very jealous of Maura's shorts and t-shirt.

Here is the best photo we got of the Moehlmanns, but they are very fun and we had a great time were glad they invited us. Maura and I met at the library a few months ago and love to get together. Molly is a very adorable baby and will be a big one year old this month!

Exhausted Willa sleeps on my shoulder on the tram back to the parking lot. It was a more interesting trip for her this year than last year, but I still think she was a little young. There were a lot of cool exhibits inside that 4-5 year-olds would love. She mainly wanted to push the stroller... which is all she ever wants to do these days.