Hovander Park

A few weeks ago, we revisited Hovander Park to check out the farm animals there. Clementine has been very "into" animals in general lately, pointing out every animal we see, saying their name if she knows it or making it's sound. It is extremely adorable.

We thought the farm would be an exciting trip for her.
But the thing that she was most excited about wasn't the animals...it was the park benches! There were three in a row and she spent ages climbing up one, sitting on it, climbing down. Onto the the next bench.


We finally got her to pay attention to the animals. There wasn't a lot there to see (maybe that's why she loved the benches so much), but we did like the turkeys.

She liked the turkeys so much, she decided to be one, too!

Here's my favorite turkey!

Garden Tour

When we moved into our house, we soon realized that yard work hadn't been a big priority for quite some time.
Our back yard was over run with weeds and grass. All along one side we had what we called Jurassic Park weeds; weeds that looked like they had been there for centuries and had mutated into behemoths. Some of them had roots as thick as my salt shaker! It was treacherous out there.
But in the last week, we have cleared out most of the unsightly weeds and have started putting in our own gems.
Here is the sunniest side of the house: my vegetable garden!! Look at these beautiful tomato plants!

This is our front porch. But you see this green bench? It was discovered in the backyard nearly covered by weeds. It works out perfectly on the porch holding my watering pot and geraniums.

This was the worst area of them all. I cleared out two totally full garbage bags worth of weeds from here this week. Now look at it! (I planted a lilac here today--and see where the cinder blocks are? That's where my composter is going to go.) This side of the house is opposite my vegetable garden--the shadiest part of the yard.

I planted this beautiful hydrangea last week and it's already growing like crazy and starting to produce color!!!

Can you see the little brocolli growing? I squealed with delight when I first saw it growing there! It's not quite ready to eat but you can tell what it is!!!

This spot in the yard was sort of a conundrum. So I threw in an entire packet of sunflower seeds thinking a few would take root. I now have 31 sunflower starts in this corner and 5-10 more in another corner! We're going to be drowning in sunflowers this summer!

Hello Pigtails, Goodbye Highchair!

I have waited for such a long time for this...

We have PIGTAILS!!!!!!

She finally has enough hair to get pigtails in there! This was her first set of piggies and her last meal in the highchair. She's such a big girl now, she can sit at the table in her booster seat!

Catching Up

Today we went to a new park we discovered. It was such a blast. We'll definitely go back there again.

Doesn't it look like Clementine is *glowing* in each of these pictures?? I love it!

Babies Gone Wild!

Over Mother's Day weekend Clementine had a whole new audience to perform for. She showed off her newest talent: shaking her belly!

(She calls her belly button "Belly belly" which i think is beyond adorable)

Ordeal

While I was pregnant with Clementine I noticed a ton of little changes on my body: the thicker hair(yes!!), the wider hips (boo!), the longer nails (YAY!) and one tiny little cyst that grew in my neck (huh?). It was itty bitty--the size of a lentil bean--but I pointed it out to my midwife and she gave the all-clear.

Fast forward to this spring. Dermatologist looks at my moles and lentil bean sized cyst. He also gives the all clear but says to call if anything changes.
And change that bugger did! Last Tuesday I woke up feeling like I'd been kicked in the throat. The lentil bean had at least doubled and it hurt like hell! Woke up Wednesday and it was worse; I had at least an almond in there and now it was purple and bruised looking.
I called the Dermatologist (who I will not name but plan to send angry letter to later) who wanted to see me immediately. Made an appointment for the following morning. But before I could even leave work on Wednesday, Dermatologist's nurse April (DAMN YOU APRIL!) called to tell me not to come in; they could already tell this was a slight infection and had called in some antibiotics. This made me bristle for two reasons:
1.) Why not see me? WHY APRIL???
2.) I am not a fan of antibiotics just for the sake of antibiotics

I should have raised hell right then and insisted on coming in, but I believed April's story and went along with it. I even started antibiotics that very night!
Fast forward to Mother's Day when this cyst was now the size of a mandarin orange, angry red and produced enough heat to warm the whole house. The antibiotics were making no difference and I was in excruciating pain.
Dermatologist reported that now they couldn't see me until mid/late-June. I called BS on that one and after some choice words Dr. begrudgingly booked an appointment for May 19th.

However, Monday I was in such extreme pain I drove my hot, red bumpy self to the hospital (Cam stayed home with Clem) where I spent most the night.
I had a CT scan (which I threw up inside, of course), half a dozen pokes to get an IV started, as much laughing gas as one nerdy teacher should ever have and a little procedure to get the cyst out and the gunk around it drained. The Doctors at the hospital said it was a good thing I didn't try to wait until the 19th for my Dermatologist's appointment--that this infection was looking for new areas to take over and was thisclose to getting under my breast plate into my chest. Phew! Close call!
The hospital sent me home at 1:00am and after a quick stop at the pharmacy, I was home in a percocet coma. Good times.
I've spent two days at home catching up on all the sleep I've lost in the last 18.5 months, reading and watching bits of movies. Tomorrow I'm going to see how working feels. Wish me luck!

I love this jelly faced girl

Even when she gives me the hairy eyeball: