Two Year Old Chatter

So Little Miss has had a few cute conversations the last day or so. (By the way, these are in absolutely no order what-so-ever. Just what I remember as I'm typing. lol)

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Frances (with a little tin pie pan in hand): Have some Mama.

Mama: Mmmmmm. What are we eating?

Frances: Cheerios.

Mama (trying not to giggle): Cheerios?

Frances: Cheerios. And strawberries. YUUUUUUMMY......!

(Of course, everytime she approaches you with the little pie plates, you have to ask her what you're imagining you're eating -- it changes by the moment: tarts, cookies, pies, cereal, cake, different varieties of fruit, pizza, you name it!)

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Mama (as I was talking to Daddy on the cellphone): Frances, you want to talk to Daddy?

Frances: Yes!

(I can't hear Rob's side of the conversation - he's in China, so this is the only way we'll be talking to him until the 21st - but Frances's side went something like this.)

Frances: Hi Daddy! (pause while he said something then,) Oh yes. (another pause) I love you.

Then she pulled away to "talk to Daddy" on her own cellphone rather than talk to him for real! lol

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Mama (to Daddy, who had hung up before I finished talking to him): Turd. Brat.

Frances: Daddy is a turd-brat.

Don't ask me where I get the silly names I call people (especially when I'm not mad... those, like this one, are the silliest), but I suppose that "turd-brat" is better than SOME of the things that she could repeat. lol And, luckily for me, she usually forgets the one-off comments like that. I'd be in SO much trouble otherwise.

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Desse (to Frances): Do you want to go with me? (heading to the grocery store)

Frances: Yes!

Desse: Go ask Mama.

Frances (running into the familyroom): I'm going with Desse!

Desse: I said "ASK" not "tell".

Frances (to me): I'll be right back, Mama. (She then proceeded to grab Desse's hand and pull him out the door. lol)

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Desse (to Frances): Come in here and you can have a bite of my icecream.

Frances: YAY! (Then she ran into the kitchen, grabbed her little bowl and headed over to Desse.)

Presumptuous isn't she?

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Grandma: You're a great big helper.

Frances: No. I'm Frances Audrey.

lol

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Frances (talking about a little stuffed cat): This is Audrey's kitty.

Mama: It is? What color is it?

Frances: Pink. (Then holding up another stuffed cat:) But this one is Marshie's.

Mama (thinking they all belong to Frances): Why is that?

Frances: Because it's brown. I like pretty.

Ooookkkkk... I guess brown kitties aren't as pretty as pink kitties. lol Wait until she grows up and finds out there aren't any pink kitties in this world!

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She was sitting on my bed earlier playing with a tiny babydoll and a bag full of Glamour Girl doll clothes. She kept putting the baby (Marshie -- she calls all babies Marshie) on the pillow and telling her, "Go to sleep." Then she'd cover "Marshie" with a "blanket" (which was actually a terrycloth robe for the bigger doll), and turn her on her side. Then she'd snore for "Marshie" for a second. After a minute or two she'd start shaking "Marshie's" head telling her, "Wake up! Wake up now! Wake up!" ((That's how she gets Desse up in the mornings. LOL))

Honestly, the list goes on. She's so smart and getting so big. I love watching her learn and play. She's gotten so creative too. Her imagination has really kicked in during this last week or so.

Here's a picture of her from this afternoon. She was trying to be helpful. Desse was breaking down boxes after helping Grandma unpack, and she was telling me how "heavy" the empty box was. Probably was too -- it was as big as her! lol

Uuuuh-Huh...

Well Ms. Cheryl at Twinfatuation posted this little test about blogging.

Your Blogging Type is Unique and Avant-Garde

You're a bit ... unusual. And so is your blog. You're impulsive, and you'll often post the first thing that pops in your head. Completely uncensored, you blog tends to shock... even though that's not your intent. You tend to change your blog often, experimenting with new designs and content.

Now it's your turn... What's" Your Blogging Personality?

Can't say I completely agree with it, but I can't say I completely disagree either. LOL I'm definitely unusual (I mean, who else do you know that would have a baby, twins 14 months later, another sington 15 months after that, and STILL say that if she's blessed with more children it's ok? lol), and I definitely write whatever comes to mind, but I don't think there's anything in my blog that's a real shock. Well, ok - Maybe that last revelation, but I'm not sure that counts!

Trying new flavors

And for Friday, we have two little ones trying Dill flavored chips. (Well ok, Frances tried them too, but she loved them. No cool picutres of her. *giggles*)

Frankie didn't seem to mind too much. They were a little weird, but...


Marshie was the one startled by the first bite. lol

It didn't deter her though. She kept right on eating.

All three kiddos liked the dill chips. Mommy won't be buying THAT many of them for snack time, but I suppose once in a while it's good to have a change. Yes?

This TRYING week.... Chaos!

Just the ramblings (whinings) of an expectant mother - only 8 weeks to go!

As I mentioned a few times my mother-in-law, Frances, moved in with us Tuesday a week ago. Well this week on Monday not only did her things arrive, but she told me she had not been taking some of her medication for five days because she was "out". I was frustrated she hadn't told me earlier, but I got on the phone, called around and found her an internal med doctor that works only with elderly patients. (He came highly recommended by one of my doctors.) They were kind and managed to get her scheduled for the very next day. And this was after dealing with the guys moving her stuff down from Virginia, returning our rented U-Haul trailer, dropping off Rob's shirts at the cleaners, and a few other assorted errands -- all in the rain of course. But then, I think the rain was the BEST part of the day. (I SO love rain! *giggles*)

So we come to Tuesday. I managed to get all my running around (office stuff for Rob) done early, got back here to get Mom and we went to the doc's office. She refused to let me go with her into the office, so like an idiot, I agreed to go and let her wait by herself. I SHOULD have known better (and probably would have put up more of a fight if I hadn't needed to get an anniversary gift for Rob for the next day lol). The receptionist was VERY ugly to her, told her that she had been scheduled the day before, and that she wouldn't be able to come back to the office until 10/13. So I rushed back over there, had a LONG fight with her, got the head nurse/administrator involved and guess what.... we got to see the P.A. They were concerned about Mom being out of her pills, until she revealed that she'd "found" her pills but wasn't taking them. *Side note* I could have killed her right about that moment!!!! *end side note* But in the process of examining her, the nice lady P.A. discovered Mom had pneumonia. (Apparently flying is not good for older people... she said almost all of their patients get sick when they fly.) She couldn't decide if she should send Mom home or straight to the hospital, but opted for antibiotics, home and an appointment for 1pm on Wednesday with a chest x-ray scheduled 1 hour prior. Later that evening, Rob came home from California, bawled me out for not knowing better than to leave Mom on her own at her doctor's appointment, bawled Mom out for not taking her pills and we all went to bed.

Wednesday: Rob left on an 8ish flight to Washington, DC. I came home from the airport and tried to lie down for a little while... I hate it when I don't sleep at night.... but ended up having to get up about 1/2 hour later when the guy from Verizon showed up to install the cable. (Yes, we were a family living without cable believe it or not. We don't watch television except what we get on DVD anyway. We're doing this for Mom.) Needless to say, he left 2-1/2 hours later saying he didn't have a CLUE why it wouldn't work but that I needed to call and reschedule with a different tech because he was at wits end. Great. So off we go to the doctor's office. (Mind you, Mom can barely walk anyway, so she uses a walker, a cane and/or a wheelchair to get around. Getting in and out of the truck is a bit time consuming too. Poor thing.) I'll spare y'all (and my poor tortured memory) most of the details, but suffice it to say nothing went right. The x-ray people didn't have their orders to do the work, so after an hour I walked the VERY long walk to the doc's office to force them to send the orders, back to the x-ray office, get Mom, back to the doc's (which we're 50 minutes late to our appointment by then) only to be told (by said NASTY receptionist) that they have other patients and it'll be nearly another 45 minutes before they see us. Did I mention that Tammy and the babies went with us? So yeah, we have three weary toddlers along as well. (Though I warned Tammy about that before we left and she still wanted to get out of the house and come along. lol) After they FINALLY called us back, the nice P.A. did a very thorough job of taking care of Mom, doing an EKG, giving her a breathing treatment, chewed her out (kindly, but firmly) for not having all her meds along like she'd been told the day before, and finally decided that it was ok not to have her in the hospital. They did schedule her for a return visit on Tuesday afternoon though to check up on her. Then we were off. It was just after 4 pm, I still had to make it to the bank to get money for Rob (to take with him to China this morning), pick up his dry cleaning, pick up the gifts at the office that he purchased for clients and friends in China, get his prescriptions, AND get home in time to finish laundry and get his bags packed before his plane arrived back from DC at 7:45pm. Well I screwed that up too. He came in at 6:45. lol We got home at 6:20. Guess what? He took a taxi home from the airport last night! (And needless to say, I was SO tired from pushing a 230 pound woman around in a wheelchair that I was totally exhausted and could barely drag myself out of bed to even give him a hello kiss. I felt terrible about that.... well, I still do actually.)

For the second night in a row, I didn't sleep much at all. I was awake by 2 am and out of bed by 4 something this morning trying to finish up the minor things in Rob's packing and get him going. We left the house at 5:10 am to get him to the airport. (There is definitely an advantage to living 15/20 minutes from DFW - depending on traffic. lol) I came home, everyone was back in bed (Mom), still in bed (Frances, Frankie and Marshie), or gone to school (Desse), so I laid back down. BIG mistake! I knew I had to get the babies ready to have flu shots at 9:30, and was planning on having them up and fed before Tammy got her at 8. Rob called me at 6:34 am to tell me he was on the plane and shutting his phone down (yeah, I like getting one last "I love you" in. I'm schmoopy I'm told. But I still make him call me lol) and asked if I'd been asleep. Nope. But between that phone call and 7:50 when Tammy arrived, I apparently DID fall asleep. We did, somehow, manage to get out of the house (with fed AND dressed toddlers) and to the doc's office on time. I give ALL the credit to Tammy. All three babies did great with their shots. Marshie cried for several minutes. Frances wrinkled up her face, cried for a couple of seconds. Frankie whined for a second, then totally stopped. That was the extent of the shots today. Frankie did get on the scale though. He weighs 23 pounds 2 ounces. YAY!!! He's been eating like CRAZY the last couple of weeks, so I asked them to weigh him today. He and Marshie are 14 months old today. : )

Needless to say, I came home from that - well ok, we went grocery shopping on the way home first - and fell into bed. I slept until 4 pm this afternoon! I NEVER sleep 4 hours during the day. lol I feel really guilty, but after hurting yesterday and being so exhausted I couldn't sleep, I was thankful for the sleep I did get today.

And just in case anyone wonders... this is what our dining room (the very first room you walk into from the front door) looks like - and has since Monday:

View from the front door -


View from the familyroom doorway -

Luckily I have a VERY nice lady (our house cleaning and office cleaning lady) coming to help Mom unpack on Saturday. Not only will I pay her well for all her help, I just might have to kiss her too if she gets some/all of this crap out of my dining room!!!! rotflmao

Rob will be gone to China for two weeks. I already miss him SO much, but that's because he's been gone a lot leading up to this trip. I told him he couldn't go ANYWHERE else once he gets back. lol Well, ok, maybe to DC. I know he has to go to the patent office every couple of weeks.

Tomorrow I have nothing definite scheduled. Tammy and I want to take the kids to the Pumpkin Patch which opened about 6 miles north of us. That's it - that's the extent of my planning. I figure I'll take anything else as it comes.

I'm still thankful today that everyone is relatively well or mending, that my kids are happy and healthy, that my family all loves one another enough to put up with all this chaos, and that I have a wonderful nanny who doesn't mind putting up with an 84 year old Grandma that talks all the time. She's a true lifesaver.

And of course, I'm also praying for Rob to have a safe trip to/from/in China.

I also really appreciate anyone who made it to the end of this post without a) wanting to kill me for all the whining or b) thinking I should be committed.

Baby Picture Sunday - It's a Birthday Party!

In honor of Emma and Will's birthday, Mama Debi over at Who Says 8 is Enough? asked us all to post birthday pictures. Hop on over there and see who else is playing.

Today we have Frances from June of this year.... her 2nd birthday. She didn't get messy at all!

My Mouth Runneth Over....

Or maybe I should say "runneth on," I really just don't know. I DO know that my mouth got away from my brain this morning and embarrassed our nanny, Tammy.

HOW you might be wondering? Well, Mr. Frankie-boy had stuck his hand into his Daddy's coffee cup (yes he's Mr. Mischievious too lol) and when Tammy walked back into the room I told her, "Frankie needs a hand job." Now, what I MEANT to say was, "Frankie needs a hand CLEANING," but it didn't come out that way.

Tammy was quite embarrassed, but I was more so. I played it down and everybody laughed, but darn I STILL feel so stupid! lol

And here's my new favorite photo of my sweet boy. I just love his pretty blue eyes..... So much like his daddy's. : )

Thankful Thursday - My Frances Scare

So my mother-in-law (the original Frances) who is 84 moved in with us officially on Tuesday. Yesterday we had our first 'official' scare and it only partially involved her.

Since Mom's things are still in transit, we called a medical equipment rental company to rent her a bed while we're waiting on her furniture to come down from Virginia. Well, it didn't arrive until Wednesday. So on Tuesday night, Mom slept in my 2 year old, Frances', bed. The little one didn't sleep well that night, finally passing out around 2:30 am on the couch, but that was only because she isn't used to any bed but her own.

Unbeknownst to Mom (and to us!) one of Mom's pill strips fell out of her bag in Frances' bed. When Tammy (our nanny) put Frances down for a nap yesterday, she didn't see that strip. About 45 minutes into her nap, Frances fell out of bed -- hitting her head rather hard I might add -- and when Tammy went to get her, she found Frances rather unresponsive clutching that pill strip.

Yes, I admit it, I freaked just a bit. We've tried to be SO careful with pills around our babies. We rushed her to the hospital (which is less than 2 miles from our house) and they took her in the ER immediately.

I'll spare the long drawn out ER visit details (everyone's had them), but I will say that the people at Lewisville hospital were VERY kind to us. They not only took care of Frances, they worried about me being preggo so they made sure I had food and made me sit as much as possible, while reassuring me that the sleeping pills that Frances got a hold of were not going to kill her.

My poor Rob was in Houston on business and ended up cutting things short to take an earlier flight home. I didn't want him to, but I knew it was out of concern. I don't know though who he was more worried about - Frances or me. (I tend to "overtax" myself when I'm worried. I just can't seem to stop myself. And he knows it better than anyone. Ssshhhh... that's not something I actually like to admit, but I do notice it every now and then. lol)

We were transfered to another hospital within an hour or so, only because this hospital doesn't have the facilities to monitor pediatrics closely enough. We stayed overnight at Med City last night for observation, but Frances had good vitals all night long. She slept off the effects of the pill she took in the afternoon. Praise God, it looks as if she only took one.

Frances did stay up until 1:30 am this morning though. lol So.... two sleepless nights in a row for a rather tired Mama, but at least my little darling is ok.

So what I'm most thankful for today: That for everything that "could have" happened, nothing did. We spent a night in the hospital, Frances was poked, prodded, monitored, and generally hassled, and I slept (hahahahahaha) on the MOST uncomfortable bed in the world, but.... truly God is good.

And here's the lastest picture I have of Frances. It was actually from Tuesday shortly after "Grandma" arrived: