Walk This Way....(Talk This Way)

After a miserable night with Lexi last night, and after she woke up from her nap this afternoon coughing and then puking all over me (don't you just love the smell of puke....not), I decided to bring her to the doctor's office to have her ears checked. Sure enough, her right ear has an infection. Wonderful. Not 2 weeks after we stopped giving her the preventative antibiotic she comes down with an ear infection. This is not a particularly good sign.

In much more exciting news, Lexi decided to start walking today. And she doesn't fool around. Most kids (I think - at least both boys) will pull themselves up to a standing position, and then may let go and take a few tentative steps toward mom (or dad or whoever/whatever). Not Lexi. No siree. That's too easy. She decides that it is much better to be sitting in the middle of the room, with nothing to grab onto and get to a standing position from there. She is soooo proud of herself - she immediately starts giggling. Stands there and giggles like a maniac. Once she did it the first time she was determined to practice, practice, practice for the next hour or so, even after I could tell she was getting tired.

She even attempted a few steps - and got up to 4 steps before falling down. We are so proud of her and she is all smiles as she is doing it, clearly quite proud of herself as well (as she should be!).

And yet a teeny tiny part of me is a little sad as this is such a significant milestone - our baby is growing up so quickly right in front of our eyes.

The Great Escape

Fearing the worst, I made an appointment to have Lexi's ears checked with the doctor on call today. Luckily, there is no ear infection, but unfortunately there is fluid in her ears. Which, based on past history with her, will most likely turn into an ear infection over the next few days.

Today we went to a party for one of the kids in Jackson's Preschool class. He was in the same class with him in Toddlers and often tells us stories of what he did at school with Maxwell. The party was at The Great Escape which is an indoor playscape/arcade type of place. It is in our town, although I had never been before.

It took a little while for the kids to "warm up" and be comfortable enough to stop clinging to either Luis or I, but once they got going it was hard to get them to stop! After quickly eating some pizza and cake, all the kids headed out to the playscape area. It was pretty cool, with lots of slides/tunnels, ladders, ramps, and various other climbing apparatus. Lots of ball pits as well, which I asked the boys to avoid if possible - they make me nervous (like, how often do they get sanitized, etc.). Even Lexi had fun climbing up a mat ramp and sliding town a tunnel slide. After running around for a while, the kids moved over to the "arcade" area. They had lots of arcade-type games that were age-appropriate and gave out tickets at the end. By 7, Lexi was ready for bed, so we headed home, but not before stopping at the "gadgets" counter to turn in all our tickets for some cheap toys. Great. Just what we need. More cheap toys in the house, like we aren't already overrun with toys. Sigh. The kids had fun picking out their treasures, though.

We've Got Tickets to Ride (and ride, and ride)

We continued our tradition of attending the Hebron Harvest Fair every year by heading over there today. Hard to pass up when it is only about 6 miles down the very road we live on! The boys were looking forward to the truck pull, but I realized last night that the schedule had changed and the tractor and truck pulls were both yesterday. Today they were having some motorcross stunt stuff, which is new.

We arrived around 10:30 which is later than usual, but I didn't want to wake Lexi up from her morning nap since I figured she wouldn't be getting an afternoon nap and the motorcross didn't start until noon. The kids had fun checking out the family area - Nicolas got to pet a baby chick and the boys tried milking a pretend cow (they had water or something in it, so they actually could squirt something out of the udders). After a quick bite to eat, Luis took the boys over to the Motorcross event and Lexi and I stood in a VERY LONG line to buy tickets for the kiddie rides. Each ride was 3 tickets and so we needed 6 tickets (3 for each of the boys) for each of the rides. I counted close to 10 rides, so decided to buy 60 tickets. Holy crap - 60 tickets were $51. Or, I could get all day ride bracelets for $25 each. So, I went that route, but still, $50 seems like an insane price for a bunch of kiddie rides. I though Luis was going to fall over when I told him the cost. Luckily, the boys got into the actual fairgrounds for free and then spent most of the day on the rides, but good god that is a lot of money. Or maybe I'm just cheap or nuts or not centered in reality.

At any rate, the boys had a blast on the rides, Lexi was FABULOUS and stayed in her stroller without any significant fussing for most of the 5 hours we were there. She even caught a small catnap while the boys were busy on the rides. The boys were so busy on the rides that they never made it down to the animal barns. I took Lexi down there and she was fascinated by the pigs, cows and sheep. Or maybe she was just embarrassed by her mom making all the animal noises.

In our rush to leave the house this morning, we only grabbed the 'big" stroller for Lexi and didn't think to bring one of the umbrella strollers for Jackson. Luis got quite the workout holding/carrying Jackson for a good portion of the day, especially later on in the afternoon. Live and learn I suppose.

On Your Mark, Get Set.......GO!

The boys have a game that they call "puppy races". They each have a stuffed dog ("the puppy") that has velcro on the paws - and in theory are supposed to "hug" each other with the arms wrapped around and velcroed (is that a word?) together. However, what the boys like to do is wrap the dogs around their bodies (usually waist area) and run/race from one end of the hallway upstairs to the other. Hence the "puppy races".

Last night they did puppy races right before jumping into the bath, so they happened to be naked. Amusing sight as you can imagine.

Tonight when we said it was time to get ready for bed, they raced up the stairs to do some puppy races before going to bed. I finished up downstairs and carried Lexi up to get on her pjs and nurse her before bed. And came upon the boys doing the puppy races (which I knew were going on based on the pounding feet running back and forth).

What I did not expect was that they decided that puppy races need to be done while nude. Which, I must add, was news to me. In fact, I know they have done puppy races fully clothed before - many, many times. So tiny naked bums with fairly large stuffed dogs wrapped around the boys' midsections is what greeted me at the top of the stairs. And I couldn't help but bust out in laughter.

Ain't kids grand??

Light dawns on marble head

On Sunday we were busy unpacking, etc. and picking up some groceries. I walked across the street to the farm stand with Nicolas to get some fresh fruit and veggies. He complained that his legs hurt and that he was tired. It is literally across the street, so I assumed he was just being a little difficult.

Monday morning he was still complaining that his legs were sore and he had 2 canker sores on his tongue. I asked him if he had bitten his tongue and he said yes, so I didn't think anything more of it. However, when I picked him up from daycare at 4:30 he was running a fever of 103 and was generally miserable. Didn't eat any of his lunch and kept complaining that his legs still hurt. I did call the doctor and they thought that he was just probably coming down with a cold.

Tuesday he seemed better - the fever was gone, although he still wouldn't eat and had even more canker sores in his mouth. He did take a 2 hour nap which is very unusual as well.

I had a regular appointment at the dermatologist this morning for a skin check and sent him to school, with the assumption that I would check back with them on my way home from the appointment and take him home if he wasn't doing well. They actually called me while I was in the waiting room and said he was feverish again and refusing to eat anything. So I called the pediatrician while I was waiting to be seen and the nurse said it sounded like coxsackie virus (hand, foot and mouth disease) and that it is quite contagious. She also suggested 1 tsp of Benedryl mixed with 2 tsp of Maalox to gargle with. Luckily, that seemed to help a little and Nicolas would at least eat some yogurt. He also took a 2 hour nap (totally unlike him) so I knew he still was not feeling well.

I'm hoping he starts feeling better soon and that neither of the other kids (or us) catch it.

Ogunquit

We got out of the house early today to take a drive up to Ogunquit. Lexi fell asleep on the way so we hung out in the car for a bit once we arrived so she could get a little extra shut-eye. I figured that was better than having a cranky baby. It was perfect weather for walking the Marginal Way, so we started in Perkins Cove and walked to the center of town. Although it was a tight squeeze in a couple of places with the double stroller, it was a lifesaver and I will forever be indebted to the Shafmans for letting us borrow it.



After we finished walking the Marginal Way, we headed down to the public beach so the boys could check out the giant sandbar. I ran into the parents of one of the girls I played volleyball with back in my high school days (which sadly I admit was almost 20 years ago - yikes). Her mom looks exactly like she did when I was in high school - which is probably why I recognized her right away.


The kids were getting cranky, so we hopped on a trolley back to where the car was and headed back to the condo. I was able to escape for a little while when Jackson and Lexi went down for naps and got some shopping at the outlets in Kittery done. It was a little slow-going as Nicolas decided to come with me, but it was nice to have the company.

We decided that we will be heading home tomorrow instead of Sunday since it is supposed to be a very rainy day and we might as well head home to do laundry, etc. if we are going to be stuck in the house all day.

The Obligatory ER Trip

So, after a very busy day yesterday, Jackson woke up screaming about 9pm holding his ear and saying it hurt. He had mentioned that his ear hurt around dinnertime, but since he hadn't mentioned it all day previously I didn't think too much of it. Duh.

After taking some Motrin, he fell asleep sitting in the recliner with Luis. But when Luis brought him upstairs to put him in bed, all hell broke loose again. I told Luis to take Jackson to the ER at York Hospital since I didn't think we had many other options at 10pm. I stayed with the sleeping kids, sure that Lexi would wake in the middle of the night (she didn't - slept until 4:30am, go figure). Both Luis and Jackson slept late (to make up being awake half the night), so we decided to have a fairly low-key day.

After breakfast, we headed down to the Fun-O-Rama for some mini golf. Luis and the two boys played while Lexi (in the sling) and I looked on and explored the buoys hanging on the wall.

The boys did pretty well golfing. We walked next door for some lunch (chaotic as usual) and then headed back to the condo for naps.

Of course, after nap we headed straight for the playground, which I am convinced, is the boys' favorite part of York! Tomorrow we are hoping to check out Ogunquit for the day.