Peas and Carrots?

Good day.

Today was a good, actually great, day. Why, you may ask? Three reasons....

First, as it turns out, the camera battery charger I ordered does in fact work, I just couldn't figure it out a few days ago...whoops!! Anyway, we are back in business! No more grainy cell phone pictures.

The second reason for this great day; Katherine came running into the kitchen this morning as I was making breakfast, urging me to come quick and see what Charlotte was doing. "Mom!" she said, "Charlotte is sitting and I didn't even touch her!" Yes, my friends, Charlotte can now go from her belly/hands & knees to a sitting position. I am so proud of my little peanut.

Finally, to finish off this great day, the realtor called to schedule a second showing for tomorrow night; someone who has been through the house before and needs to see it one more time. Fingers crossed that something comes out of this; I am kind of sick of cleaning my house!

A few additional things to catch up on...these pictures were on camera the day is died and I never got to post them. Katherine and Will were super excited to sign Charlotte's cast.

Charlotte's hand is healing nicely. We no longer have to bandage it, however, because it is impossible to keep her hand out of her mouth, we do still have to keep her sock contraption on to prevent her from sucking on it.

 

**I just want to point out what an awesome "healer" Charlotte is; notice how you can barely see her heart surgery scar? Every doctor we see comments on how good her scar looks, not that it matters to us, the important thing is the healthy heart underneath that scar, however it amazes me that it looks so good. **

One last thing before I hit "post" and head to bed (up with the birds to start the cleaning marathon while entertaining four kiddos...), notice the book Katherine has chosen to read....

Weekend Update

This is going to be quick, as I am in the midst of an awesome "me" night. Boys are at the Bucks game, girls are in bed, and I am in the middle of a pretty awful, yet mindless romantic comedy. However, I did want to share a few things.

Biggest accomplishment of today:
Charlotte learned how to use a straw cup! I finally found a straw cup with handles, and it took her about two minutes to figure it out. It is important for babies with DS to use a straw cup over a traditional sippy cup because it helps develop their oral tone, which in turn helps with things like speech. Once again, Charlotte proves that she is a rock star.

Biggest disappointment of the day:
The battery charger for the camera came in the mail. It was the wrong one. I screwed up. Damn.

Best purchase of the day:
These adorably cute, matching hats for the girls. And of course, an apology once again for the crappy cell phone pictures.

3rd child

It is true (at least for me), the more children you have, the more lax you become. Tonight after dinner, we made ice cream sundaes for dessert. Charlotte got to experience a little sweetness as well...

 

Yep, that is what you think it is. A big, whipped cream "C" on her high chair tray. 

Despite being pretty tired tonight, she thought it was pretty awesome.

I rationalized it by reminding myself that the PT recommended letting Charlotte "play" in baby food, whipped cream, or pudding in order to "desensitize" her before surgery. Of course, her surgery was last week, so we are a little late on this one. 

Oh well, my third child thoroughly enjoyed her treat. Five years ago, I never would have dreamed giving Katherine a tray full of whipped cream!

Another apology for the quality of the pics; once again they are cell phone pictures. I broke down and bought a new battery charger for our other camera, I figured it was easier than digging through a huge storage shed only to discover it may not even be there. 

We are hoping for a good night's sleep once again. From the pictures, you can probably tell sleep hasn't been a priority for my almost 10-month old lately. 

Alterations

Who would have thought that once Charlotte's cast came off, surgery recovery would get harder?!?

It is next to impossible to keep a bandage on Charlotte's hand/arm. We have tried it all; tape, extra layers of ace wrap, a glove, baby leg on the arm....

This morning, after getting up at 5AM to re-wrap her arm yet again (the dang thing comes off all the time while she sleeps, and then she wakes up screaming), I headed to my aunt's with the kids so she could help me figure out how the heck to keep this dang thing on her arm.

 

The solution? A onsie with a babyleg (for those in the dark about babylegs, they are basically baby leg warmers; super cute!) attached to it with velcro (with the gauze wrapping underneath of course!). She also had to put velcro on the opposite end in order to keep it from sliding down. 

 So far so good. I'll let you know how tonight goes. Fingers crossed for a good night's sleep.

David Copperfield

"And this must be David Copperfield?" ...were the words spoken by the on-call Plastic Surgeon in the ER at Children's Hospital today. Why? Because little Ms. Charlotte decided to wriggle her way out of her full-arm plaster cast during lunch.

Let me back up for a minute. We had quite the crazy morning; started bright and early with a whirlwind house cleaning in an attempt to get ready for a showing. The five of us, plus Soph, headed out the door just before ten to the older kid's last swimming lesson. After swimming, we dropped Katherine off with Christine and MaryAnn for a playdate, and headed to Emperor's Kitchen for a quick lunch with the younger two.

Charlotte loves Chinese food. Rice, little bits of noodles, peapods, and her first saltine cracker. Doesn't get much better than that.

 

Soon after our food came, I looked over and noticed I could see Charlotte's elbow. Upon closer inspection I saw her cast was almost completely off and sitting next to her in the highchair.  We have no idea how she managed to get it off, but this started a whirlwind of activity; calling the doctor, boxing up and paying for lunch, packing up both kids and heading to the car, all well holding onto Charlotte's hand so she wouldn't put it in her mouth or play with the stitches. 

The on-call doc was most concerned about her skin graft. It is really important that it adheres to her fingers before being "messed" with. Fortunately, once in the ER, we found out all was well, and instead of putting on another cast that she would probably get out of again, he wrapped it with a few layers of gauze and a stretchy bandage. Amazingly, we were in and out of the ER in about an hour. 

Once home, I put Charlotte on the floor to play while I heated up the lunch I hadn't had a chance to eat earlier. Within five minutes, she had gotten her new bandage off. Luckily this time we were prepared with lots of new supplies, and were able to wrap her up a bit tighter and a bit higher up on her arm. So far so good,  as she is now snug in her bed, bandage and all. We are scheduled to see the Plastic Surgeon on Monday; I am not sure how long we will need to keep her hand bandaged. Fingers crossed that it heals quickly because I know she wants nothing more than to suck on those fingers again! 

A couple other unrelated tidbits....first, we have had a couple of really good showings in the past few days. Two different parties have expressed interest in our house, fingers crossed that they put in a good offer! Also, tomorrow I plan to tear the house apart looking for that dang camera battery charger, as I realize these posts aren't nearly as nice without good pictures of my girl! 

Enjoy the rest of the weekend everyone!

Tragic

I took some pretty great pictures of Charlotte this afternoon, in hopes of posting them tonight. Then the camera died....and, the battery charger is lost. My house is pretty dang clean and organized right now, which is the up side of having your house on the market. However, a few months ago when we were organizing, I am pretty sure that charger got thrown in a bin, which is now in storage, in a barn at my aunt and uncle's house. Not cool and very tragic because I am pretty sure the pictures I took were adorable. For now, you're going to have to take my word for it.

I have had a ton of blog topics go through my head the past few days, but frankly I have not had the time or energy to sit down and pound them out. It has been a busy week! Charlotte continues to do really well after her surgery. We have an appointment on Monday to get her cast off; though I gotta tell ya, it has not been nearly as bad as I thought it would be. She truly doesn't seem bothered by the clunker and we haven't had to give her anything for pain in at least two days. 

Most of the craziness of our lives lately has come from this whole home selling thing. We knew it would be crazy, we knew it would be stressful, but man! I am ready for it to be over. Each showing takes us about 4-5 hours to get ready for...the constant cleaning is exhausting, and we are so thankful for the help of family and friends. No bites yet, but some positive feedback, so we keep chugging along. It will be worth it in the end.

I forgot that we had an old point and shoot camera laying around, so I quickly just snapped a pic of Charlotte before Mike put her to bed. This would be a pretty boring post without a picture....

 

*Does the black and white effect hide the prunes all over her face?! I hope so! 

Good night everyone, most exciting posts to come soon, I promise.