Peas in a Pod

We have dug ourselves out of the sick house, thrown away tooth brushes, and sanitized every surface in sight.  It is nice to be reporting from a house full of well pdeople!  It's even nicer to be sitting out on the front porch again (this time not with a glass of milk!) enjoying the gorgeous weather and browsing through some hysterical photos from this past weekend.  Molly & Bella made the trip down to Charlotte this past weekend for a few days packed with fun - we had SUCH a blast.  Emerson had so much fun with Bella, it warmed my heart countless times to see how they already love each other.  It also gave me some serious mother's guilt that she doesn't get more time playing with other little kids, but hopefully I'll get over that part soon.  I'll try to do pictures in synopsis here of our weekend.

As always, the girls had a blast together in the bathtub.  I don't know why we didn't take video of this; probably because we were all busy laughing too hard at them.  It is so funny how they get each other so cracked up and they are both belly laughing so hard as they doused themselves, us, and the entire bathroom in water splashing around like crazy. 

The girls think it is a trip to wear the same clothes, so they wore their matching pjs to bed that night and snuggled in for story time and were up in the morning eager to see what was going on outside so that they could go get in on the fun. 

We played hard at the playground and let them share a stroller on the way there.  We laughed at how submissive Emerson is and she so willingly does whatever anyone asks of her/does to her - her younger siblings will luck out on this some day! 

The girls dressed alike on Saturday for their train ride and Em even was eager to wear a hairbow (miracle of miracles!) because Bella wore one like she always does.  When her bow would fall out, she would take it to Bella and wait while Bella tugged on her hair and tried to put it back in for her.  Truly hysterical.  (Sidenote: The train and Uptown were packed because of the NCAA tournament and a St Patricks Day parade - we had great 'views' of the parade with horses, leprauchans, cheerleaders and beyond during lunch!)  Bella also taught Emerson ring around the rosy ...(rosey?) while they waited for the train which everyone enjoyed watching.

Bella was great at helping get Emerson undressed when it was time for the bath - such a good helper [check out Emerson's face, maybe she's catching on that she is like B's little pet here]! 

Molly and I got to go on a date Saturday night to our favorite restaurant and for (of course) some frozen yogurt afterwards thanks, hugely, to my fabulous and adoring husband who stayed home with the girls and watched Barney & Sesame Street (lucky man!) with Bella until she fell sound asleep on his chest - precious. 

We will get to see Bella & Molly again at the end of April for another intern wedding, but we aren't taking Emerson with us on that trip, so we had to be sure to maximize play time to store up until our next get together!  Clearly, and as always, we had a blast and were sad to see them leave - they were just what the doctor ordered to get our house back up and running and feeling well again! 

While we tried to push Em's bedtime back when the time changed so that she got to stay up until 7:00 (late night!) with us, we gave it a go for 2 weeks, and it just wasn't working well and she was not adjusting very well, so we have been back to getting in the bath at 6:00 and she's been sound asleep by 6:30 for the past three nights and seemingly very happy about it!  I'll try not to feel so sad or guilty about the little amount of time that we get together during the week and instead soak up how glorious our Monday afternoons and weekends are together!

On our way...

(Pardon how unkept the girls in our family look - we are sick and busy watching the Tarheels here.)  Sickness has taken over our house for the past two weeks and it just keeps knocking us down!  Apparently Emerson and I keep passing the same resistant strain of strep throat and some nasty virus back and forth - let's just hope that's all it is.  The day she finished her antibiotics, she ended up with a scarlatina rash meaning that her antibiotics probably didn't kick the strep out and we'll be going back to the doctor for another super exciting throat swab.  And I'll be going back because we still can't figure out what's going on with me and I'm far from better.  Gotta love co-pays...

If we could stretch ourselves and say that any good has come out of these few weeks of being sick, the pros to the long list of cons here include: I've lost several stubborn pounds, Emerson naturally gave up her pacifiers because it hurt too much to suck on it - they are packed up and gone and she hasn't looked back, hallelujah!, we have come well within our food budget for the month because neither Emerson or I have been eating much!  However, if she is any indication of what I will be like once I'm well, we better have stockpiled some extra cash into that budget because the girl is playing serious catch up now that she's up to eating again!  Back to the pacifiers; I'd been thinking for awhile about giving them up as she only uses them at naptime and bedtime and planned on doing it a few weekends ago but Aunt Rebecca was coming into town that weekend and said Emerson wasn't allowed to associate such a traumatic event with her being in town - probably a good call :)  I didn't think it would be too hard for her to give them up because she has no problem only having them in her bed and easily puts them in her bed most mornings when we got her up (most of the time), but you know - change is still always a little nervewracking.  And if I'm honest I kind of miss the way she sucked on her paci at night as we snuggled and sang because she would randomly take it out of her mouth to kiss me and then put it back in.  But on the bright side, now she can kiss me whenever she wants, and she has been sgining with me at night - cutest thing ever.  I've even caught Terry a few nights recently standing outside the door to listen.  I sure do love him and the way he loves his girls.

The weather has been so gorgeous this weekend and we were all so desperate to get out of the house and we enjoyed a glorious trip downtown on the train (choo choo! says Emerson) [click on choo choo to watch a video of her on the train - she seems super out of it, I think she didn't know at all what to think and mostly likes to stand at the platform and watch them come by - I swear she isn't ever this 'calm'....] and ate at Jason's Deli where Emerson ate her weight in the salad bar, and lots of time watching basketball.  A sad ending today for the Tarheels, but still overall fun for us to spend some time watching games together - Emerson's first 'real' "screen time," we figured that the ACC tournament would be a good way to start! 

I am thankful to say that now we are ending the weekend one of my favorite ways - Terry and I are sitting on the porch - he with a beer and me, sadly, with a glass of milk because that's about all I can drink or eat (how lame) - but all the same enjoying the air, each other, and some great music to accompany the crickets.  Oh spring, how I love you.

GO TARHEELS!  NCAA tournament, here we come - boo Duke!

Strep Throat

After several days of thinking that Emerson was running a fever from her most recent set of vaccines (and wanting to hop on the delayed vaccination bandwagon despite all my education...), she kept getting worse and worse.  She had the smelliest breath ever and wouldn't eat or drink anything for two days.  She was pretty traumatized to have her throat swabbed at the doctor's office and immediately started waving bye to the nurse because she wanted her to get the heck away!  Her strep test immediately came back positive - very rare for her age.  Her gums are swollen and bleeding and she has sores all over her tongue, it is so sad!  She has been so pitiful, snuggly and sad since Thursday.  When she woke up this morning I thought maybe she had turned the corner because she ate for the first time, but by 11:00 she was very puny again.  Poor kid.  While my heart has been breaking for her, I have also been loving all of the snuggle time that I have gotten with her morning, noon and night - she is such a cuddle bug.  Normally she is so busy that she will come over for the occasional hug and/or kiss, and will sit in my lap to read her favorite books; but mostly likes to be running, dancing and climbing all around. 


Since pictures of sick babies are pitiful [though I did snap one of her on the table at the doctor's office in her diaper crying and snuggled in our bed drinking a milkshake in her pajamas at 9:30pm!!!], all of the pictures here are from earlier this past week before she got sick when we played at the park and around the house.  The sky was about to open up with rain this afternoon while we were at the park and it was super windy - Emerson loves when the wind blows in her hair (see below) - it totally cracks her up.  I cannot say enough how ready I am for spring and at the same time how much I dread that it means summer is coming sooner.  I need a summer getaway home.  Hopefully it will be in Stowe, Vermont since I registered 852 times to win the HGTV home!  Keep your fingers crossed...you can all come and stay! 

Once it started raining, we headed home and snuggled in with our favorite books - just more proof that she really will sit and do this for so long, and she definitely has her favorite books.  I'd put the "First 100 Words" book (on the right) in her top 3 favorites - she can name/make the sound for/act out probably 95/100 of the things in this book and she likes to read it over and over...and over again.



Hopefully her delicious pink medicine that she's living for right now will kick in completely soon and she'll be back to herself.  Until then, we'll be busy snuggling for the rest of this rainy weekend before we have to head back to work and start the week again!