Easter Morning

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Hippity Hoppity

I went to the fridge for a little snack, and found this.

 Then I found this!

Ready for the Bunny

First, she put out every veggie in the fridge.

Then she decided to sleep on the floor in her sleeping bag, no books, no nursing, me lying in her bed til she went to sleep. That lasted 10 minutes, while she asked "Is he coming yet" and told me she was asleep, and whispered to herself "I think he's coming now, I think he's coming now...." Then she got in bed and nursed to sleep.

Dying Eggs

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Fifty-Three Months

Dear Peeper:
You were fifty-three months old a few days ago; one month shy of four-and-a-half, but I'm already starting to refer to you that way.

We've made a lot of progress on your cough over the past month. Right after we got home from Texas, you were tested for allergies, and turned out to have none! I was really surprised at that, given that Mommy and I  are both allergic to outside stuff (she takes Sudafed daily), so I figured that when we all "get sick" at once, we were just reacting to the same stuff in the air. Guess not. I guess we're actually sick.

I am, by the way, taking total credit for my goody milk protecting you from Mommy's allergy genes.

So, after ruling out allergies, that doctor said that he still thinks it's cough-variant asthma, and that you need a maintenance inhaler, not a rescue inhaler just when you're coughing. So, we started on Flovent, two puffs each morning and evening.

And your cough pretty much disappeared within a few days!

And then  you got really, really cranky. You've told me almost every day, "I'm cranky!" and boy, are you.

You argue with us, and collapse into tears at the smallest disappointment and just are not being your usual easy-going kid, at all.

We were thinking "What the hell is going on? Is this some four-and-a-half thing that nobody warned us about?" and then Mommy said, "I wonder if the inhaler could be making her act this way.

So, I google it and asked some pharmacist friends, and it seems that this sort of thing is a not-uncommon side effect of Flovent, as it's a steriod.

By that point, I'd already gotten really bad about getting the morning dose in you, so I just declared that we weren't doing it anymore, and last night I just gave you one puff, and nothing tonight. We go back to the asthma doctor on Tuesday, and we'll see how your behavior - and your cough - is between now and then.

In other news this month, we found out that you've been accepted to the Montessori Academy for next year, but we've not told you yet (we haven't actually told you that we were applying, either) because we're waiting to find out whether we are getting financial aid to pay for it. Fingers crossed!

And, this month's greatest hits:

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You told me your panda "Has bad breath . . . like Teddy."
I figured out you meant he has asthma, like young Teddy Roosevelt.

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In a public restroom, you coughed while you were on the potty.
You said, "Oh! When I cough it makes my pee-pee come out faster!"
I said, "Yeah, Mama has that problem, too."
From a couple of stalls over, a woman's voice says, "Most mamas have that problem."

---

You found one of your president flash cards that had been missed when we put them away. You told me that we needed to put it with the others, then she leaned over real close to it and said, "John Quincy Adams, we'll find your father. I know we will!"

---

And if Facebook weren't hiding most of the past month from me, I'd have a lot more to share. Grrrr.

Happy almost-Easter, little bunny!

I love you!


Love,
Mama

Easter Egg Hunt

This morning was our annual MOMS Club Easter egg hunt. I didn't get a lot of photos, but we had a lot of fun.

It didn't take Peeper any time at all to find her alloted twelve eggs, so I had to work fast to get any photos of her actually hunting!

When Peeper started this little sand-on-the-slide project, using a soup ladel, I asked what she was doing (and suggested that she let kids slide if they wanted to) and she told me, "I'm making the national bird, the bald eagle." Then she clarified that "I'm making it out of sand."

Eventually, she had a whole crew of assistants and they brought in the big guns, dumping buckets-full at a time. When we left, it was full of sand. As were her panties.

Here Comes Peep and Cottontail

Eyes Front

As of a couple of days ago, our bathroom scale is telling us that Peeper is a full forty pounds (the rear-facing limit of a Graco MyRide 65 carseat) wearing nothing but panties, and we need to get a carseat installed in Shrike's tiny car (more on that in a bit) so I sucked it up and turned her carseat around forward-facing.

I had planned to get a photo of her in it, but my phone battery was dead when I picked her up from school, so that didn't happen today. I'll try again tomorrow.

In addition to turning it around, I moved it to the passenger side of the car, because if she's going to be putting her feet up on a front seat, I don't want it to be mine. (Shrike rides in back with her, so it won't be hers either.)

Speaking of Shrike, I'm thinking I should stop somewhere with a car vac before she needs to go somewhere with us.

Long story short, I dropped off a form at the pediatrician's office yesterday (yeah, that was a big nevermind, but I'll explain later) so I asked if I could have a carseat tech help me with installation, or at least inspect my installation, when I picked it up. I figured that would be around the end of the week, but they said, "Sure, can you come in tomorrow morning?"

So, I talked to Peeper about it last night and again this morning, and after I dropped her off at school, I went over and took care of that before I went to work.

This morning, she expressed concern about where to put her feet, but I assured her that she'd be able to put them on the seat back.

When I picked her up from school, I reminded her again that it would be turned around, and when we got out to the car, she flipped out.

Flipped. The. Fuck. Out.

She did not like this new arrangement at all.

"I'm not ready to ride like this! I'm still little!"

I tried explaining that "Most of your friends probably ride like this. G rides like this, and C rides like this, and J rides like this," but she wasn't buying it.

I did happy her up a bit  when I played up the fact that we can now see each other, and I had her "show me signs" (most of which are just numbers of fingers, these days) and told her what they were, and vice versa. It didn't last very long, though.

I also tried pointing out all the new things that she can see now, and that she can see where we're going, and not just where we've been, but this is definitely going to take some time for her to get used to.

So much for those anti-extended-rear-facing arguments about kids being uncomfortable because of the lack of leg room, and about how they prefer to ride forward, and don't like being made to ride backward "like a baby."

Panda Pic: 53 Months

How to save the day when you forget to take a panda photo:

Things that Happened Today

Notice that the shorts are on backwards.

There was a whole 'nother outfit that I didn't get photos of: Red "Snow Much Fun" shirt with purplish patch-work pants and her pink cowboy boots. We had to ditch those pants after they played in the mud.

And a marker pedicure. I got one, too.