Honest Truth

The honest truth is that Felicity is kind of a jerk!  I'm sure it is part of her natural two-year-old-ness and maybe also part of being the fourth in a family of little kids who still need lots of help, but MY LORD.  Here's how it's gone today, so far (it's 10:12 a.m.).  I went in to wake her up at 7:45, I hate, hate, HATE to wake a sleeping child but I had to wake her because we have to all take Anthony to school.  I just went in her room and she popped right up, so I didn't really have to wake her but still, I don't like to do it.  I got her dressed and took her downstairs, promised her a pancake, and put her down.

I fed her pancake and pears and she ate about half of both.  In the meantime, I was getting Anthony dressed, waking him up, wrestling him to the ground to give him his medicine (I wish I was exaggerating but I'm not).  I carried Anthony on my back to the downstairs and then out to the car, asking Veronica to get in the car while I did it.  I put Anthony in and then went and got Felicity, who was standing in the house yelling, waaaaaahhhhh!  Backpack!  Baaaaackpaaaaack!  So she took Veronica's backpack and purse with her, which I wrestled out of her hands briefly so I could clip her in her seat.

She yells the entire way to drop off Anthony, and then entire way back.  I had to stop by the body shop to drop off the keyfob so they could open the van if they are ever given the go-ahead by the stupid insurance company.  Both girls were getting a little antsy so I stopped by Einstein Brothers to get a bagel.  Felicity ate almost nothing, but she drank a lot of juice and yelled at the coffee display a lot.  Hooooot!  HOTTTTTT!, she yells.  Finally, we came home and she asked me to put on some Kai Lan and by that I mean she went and got the clicker and smacked me in the hand with it, while yelling KAI LAN!, so I put some on.  Now she is watching it and I am typing this and soon we will go to Costco to pick up our Christmas cards at Costco, then we are picking up McDonald's for lunch and then take it to ballet, which Veronica has at noon.

She is awful at ballet, she has discovered the button that opens the door, so she goes out to the water fountain to take a bath in it, or she opens the door to the outside so she can go run out into the parking lot.  Usually she falls asleep on the way home and naps in the car for about 15 minutes and then that's it for the day.

I signed her up for another day at preschool, I think she likes it there and Lord knows I could use the time alone.  She is very, very clingy.  Her preschool teacher told me yesterday that she kept faking falling down and then putting her arms up to be held.  I don't know, I hope it's all a phase.  I hope she likes going to preschool two days a week, I hope we can learn to get along.

I hope it's not me, that they are so awful around two.  Maria and Veronica were total grumps too, but is it because I'm so grumpy?  I don't know.  I hope it all gets better.

There are good things too - she is incredibly cute.  She loves to walk up the sidewalk to preschool by herself.  She races in to the building and points out the animals on this big mural that's there.  TIGER!, she yells, BUTTAFLY!  Then she leaves and goes to run to her classroom.  BYE MAMA, BYE!, she yells and I go.  She is talking more and more which is of course a great relief.  She can do more by herself.  She is going through the typical Beck Girl Nakedness Phase, eschewing all clothes, which is cute.  She is a wonderful sleeper and goes to bed just fine, bye Mia!, she says, bye Ca Ca!  She's really almost perfect in every way, it's just the ways that aren't perfect that are driving me to drink.

Felicity is two!

I don't have - well, I do have pictures of Felicity's birthday but I don't have them available, I'll post them some time soon.  SURE I will!  Can you believe I haven't even done her 52 pictures yet?  Ay yi yi, poor fourth child.  Here's a picture of the back of her curly haired head tonight, so cute.

She has been the DEVIL here lately, thank God she is so cute.  She was on Fall Break last week from preschool (DO NOT ASK, SO ANNOYING) but she marched herself back in there today, waltzed into her room and waved goodbye to me.  She had a great day, she just has decided, I guess, to just be good at going to preschool.  I am curious how she'd be if I took her to the gym daycare, maybe we will find out this winter.  We have been going for a lot of walks here recently, she is reluctantly good in the stroller but she likes when I keep her moving, I can barely re-tie my shoe before she is grousing at me to get going.

Tonight I was changing her diaper, not to be gross but it was dirty and I said "ooooh-weeee! That is some poop!" and she said, nodding, "oooooh-WEEEE!".  She is super cute and getting really chatty, which always touches and relieves me.

She had been in with the girls but Mike and I have been going crazy, just CRAZY with her.  She takes forever to fall asleep in there and she cries and cries and we are always afraid she is going to wake up the girls and then she wakes up at 4:00 in the morning, screaming and crying, and she won't go back to sleep so we have to get up for the day and ugh.  UGH.  So early this morning, at 4:00 or so, Mike moved her crib back into her old room and we said GOOD NIGHT NURSE and she cried in there for like over an hour but it didn't wake up anyone else so we are taking it for a win.  Tonight she cried for a while but only like ten minutes and hopefully, HOPEFULLY, she will sleep all night.  Maybe after the first of the year I will move her from her mini crib into a toddler bed or maybe a twin bed or maybe she will be the oldest girl in town still in her mini crib, who knows?

She's doing just fine, old Felicity, so cute, talking away, curly hair, just fine.

Three Things on Thursday

Felicity has had like three more Tuesdays at preschool, maybe four, but I haven't written anything.  Can you believe she will be TWO years old next week?  Unreal.  It hasn't gone fast, really, but man it seems like a long time ago that she was born.  I can barely remember being in the hospital with her.  Remember when Maria came to visit and she was so cute?  She wore her special dressy dress?  Memories, light the corners of my mind...Ha!

Okay, three things about Old Girl for Thursday:

• She has been doing just great at preschool - beyond great, wonderful.  I was so worried after that first day when her teacher said she wasn't falling in line and that she was NOTHING like Veronica.  I thought oh Lord, what will I do if she won't every get it?  Then of course the next Tuesday she was great, and it's been wonderful ever since.  She eats all of her lunch, she takes a nap every day, she plays with the other kids, just terrific!  I am such a Gloomy Gert, I try so hard to have low expectations, and in this case they paid off, I am thrilled and proud.  I miss her on Tuesdays but I always exercise, I go to the grocery, it is wonderful.  
• She is in with the girls now and it's going okay.  She cries a little, sometimes, but never for long.  The saddest part about all of it is that she wakes up very early now.  She used to sleep until 8:00 regularly and now she is always up with those loud and noisy sisters of hers.  She is not a great napper, still, she only napped for one hour today, but overall she is doing fine, sleep wise.  
• She is talking a lot but she still refuses to say "two" or "gonna be two" when I ask her how old she'll be on her birthday.  I'm not worried about her, which is a great relief to me.  

First Day and Expectations

So yesterday was Felicity's first day at preschool.  It's really more like a Mom's Day Out, I guess, because it's just one day a week, from 9:00-2:00.  They have lunch and also take a nap there.  She did fine when I dropped her off but that's because I don't think she knew I was going anywhere, she was just playing away.  When I came back to pick her up at 2:00, the was lying on the floor crying.  Her teacher said that she woke up kind of roughly from her nap, which sometimes happens.  This teacher has had Veronica in class too, and she said to me, "she's nothing like Veronica!".  Ha, truth!  She said she really didn't want to do anything that she was told to do, and she didn't want to play with anyone else, which, um, is not surprising to me!  I mean, she is who she is, right?  She doesn't want to play with anyone else because, I bet, she thinks those people with whom she plays are going to take away all the fun toys and yell in her face.  That is, after all, what's happened to her so far here at home.  Her teacher said she got better later in the morning, and also she has a runny nose and cough (again, ugh), so I'm sure it will get better.  It better, because she is going there on Tuesdays come hell or high water.

As long as she can stay there, I will be child-free from 9-2 on Tuesdays every week.  Here's what I would like to do with that time:

• Go out to breakfast
• Go out to lunch
• Go to the gym
• Take a long walk
• Get my nails done
• Get a massage
• Go to the movies
• Take a nap 
• Go food shopping
• Read a book
• Watch a movie at home

But I knew that was unrealistic, so I decided all I really wanted to do was workout and go to the store.  I left right from dropping off Felicity and went for a long walk, for one hour, and then I went to two different stores, came home and showered and then sat on the couch and watched a movie.  Oh and I ate lunch.  It wasn't perfect, they didn't have any chicken thighs at the store (?), the girl left the lock on the bottle of whipped cream vodka that I bought, (my sister said that was probably just as well, although I hadn't intended to daytime drink), my tomato that I bought for my salad was bad, but overall it was a nice day, which I think proves that the key to happiness is low expectations.  

Here's a picture of Felicity right after I picked her up.  I read somewhere that you should bring food with you to pickup on first days and it's been working like a charm for the girls.  

Seven Things on a Sunday

Here's seven things that are true about Felicity this week:

• We went to the pool on Tuesday and Thursday and it was ROUGH.  I'm glad she's getting exposed to it, though.  
• No matter what time she gets up, she really needs a nap every day.  BUT if she misses her nap and she just crashes in the car seat for a while on the way home, that's all she gets and she'll STILL be up at night.  
• She and Anthony have been hanging out together and it's super cute.  I put this picture on his blog but I'll put it here too.  
  
• She is getting a teensy bit more verbal, but that is probably just wishful thinking.
• She starts at her mom's day out thing in a few weeks, the third week in August.  She's just going on Tuesdays but I hope it works out.  I'm nervous that she'll hate it, she is very attached to me.  It would be SO nice to have one day a week, from 9:00-2:00, where I'm responsible for no one.  I keep thinking of what I'd do.  I think I'll go to the grocery store and the gym.  THEN I'll really be LIVING!, ha!  
• She is starting to count and it's super cute. 
• She still likes Max & Ruby as much as anything but lately she is into Kai Lan, which she calls Ka! and she says it just like that - Ka!  And that's an order!  Ha!

Last but not Least

I updated all the other blogs today and I want to do Felicity's, but I was just looking at the last entry and I only have more of the same to say!

Last week we went to the pool and there was a lot of areas where Felicity could go, 6" of water, 1.5' of water, etc.  I was there with my friend Jill so she watched Maria and Veronica while I took Felicity on the lazy river.  It was so nice, just us in a tube, floating away on a magical river of beautiful water, except Felicity screamed the entire way.  At one point, we went under a rush of water and BOY was she mad!  Nooooo!, she yelled, so we got out halfway.

It's hard for her, I think.  I think she doesn't seem to like it when she's not steady on her feet.  She doesn't like to be splashed.  I think these things are true but how would I know?  I wish she talked more!  I know!  I know I complain about them not talking more until they start talking and THEN I complain that they are talking too much but what can you do?  I would just like them to talk, but not too much, and not too insistently, is that too much to ask?  Apparently.

You know, I think she's okay.  I think she seems engaged and GOD KNOWS she points at stuff but the other day she sort of popped up on her toes and Mike said, why is she walking on her toes?, we immediately panic for a second.

Anyways.  She's doing fine, she's been to the pool a lot, she doesn't nap as much as she should, she still is screeching a lot.  She's funny and cute most of the time, really.  She's a good eater, she asks for milk when she wants milk and water when she wants water, that's good, right?  I wish we could just fast forward to this time next year, I swear it.  The thought of not changing any diapers is very, very intriguing.

Magical Age

Twenty one months is NOT a magical age, in my opinion.  I don't think any of them are magical but especially this crappy stage, ugh, what a jerk she is!  I mean, she is adorable and sweet, OF COURSE, but when she is bad she is horrid.

She is sitting across from me right now, eating yogurt and it is a MESS.  She has a spoon but she is mostly using it is spoon yogurt onto her hands, or to push yogurt further into her outfit.  Here, I'll take a picture.

Mess!  But woe to the dummy who tries to HELP HER with that yogurt.  She worked hard for that yogurt, see?  She screamed and yelled and flopped around on the floor for that yogurt, until I finally said, are you hungry?  Would you like some yogurt?  She said YES!, and stormed into the kitchen.

We went to the pool yesterday and she really likes being there, it seems, at the pool if not in the water.  She was pouring water from a little watering can into a bucket and some little girls came over to pour water in it too.  She took her free hand and shoved that kids' watering can right away!  She is a real tough guy, it's awful.

I can't wait until it's just the two of us again.  Today the big girls are at their preschool camp thing and it's just us and it's nice.  I am hoping to get her down for a nap before I have to go get them, but it's hard.  I feel like that's all I say about everything!  It's hard!  But it is.  It's hard out there for a one year old, my friend Meghan said the other day and it's true.  I try and remember that so she doesn't drive me as crazy, but I don't always have the most success.

She'll be two in less than three months.  I wish she had more words, I wish she had more two words (she has zero).  I wish I didn't always have to worry about them so much.

Adenoids No More

Felicity had her adenoids removed today.  It went as well as it could, really well.  She is up in bed, she took a nap today, she had a pretty good day, considering.

We had to be at the surgery center at 6:30, which is ridiculous, right?  Especially as they didn't do the surgery until like EIGHT O'CLOCK.  It took two seconds to sign in and pay ($414, which is our 15% coinsurance, which used to be 10% when it was called a copay.  Insurance companies = scumbags), and then I went back and they weighed her - so cleverly - on her BED, isn't that smart?  When I took her to have her tubes, *I* had to weigh myself and then weigh with her, ugh.  Anyway, they weighed her and took her temperature and then we waited for like an hour.

Her doctor came in and said hi, then we waited some more and in the meantime the nurses were all chatting and saying how cute Felicity was.  Then the most charmless one came and got Felicity.  I handed her over to the Nurse Wretched and left with Felicity crying and crying.  I of course was worried that it would be the last time I ever saw her, so that was cheery.

I waited for not that long and they came and got me so I could talk to the doctor.  He said it went fine, but that he found out that she had a bifid uvula.  He explained to me what it was and said that one of the things that it can mean is that if someone has a bifid uvula, they can also have a lot of middle ear infections.  Also, he said, it is mostly concurrent with a submucous cleft palate, but he didn't see that in Felicity.  He said that the bifid uvula can make for problems drinking and NURSING.  I mentioned that she had what they called a bubble palate when she was newborn and that's why I thought she had trouble nursing and he seemed to think that was possible, although he didn't seem to care, probably because HE doesn't stay up nights thinking he failed his fourth child, ha!

Anyway, I went back to see her and she was MAD, but I held her and gave her a tiny bottle of apple juice and she drifted off a little bit and relaxed, which was a relief.  I could see her heart rate going down on the monitor, which was handy.  We had to stay for an hour, during which time she mostly slept and I mostly bit my tongue to get over the pain in my arm from holding her in this crappy chair.  They gave me a survey for this surgery center and you can BET I'm going to recommend that they give people a more comfortable place to sit, sheesh!

We were allowed to leave after one hour, the nurse walked us out and of course she threw up twice on the way home.  In the back of my mind, I was thinking, boy that's a lot of apple juice for her to have after having general anesthesia, and of course it all came back up.  She threw up again when we got home but we weren't worried, she seemed fine, really.  Mike put her down for a nap while I took Maria and Veronica out for lunch and she slept for quite a while and when she woke up, poof, new baby!

I'm eager to see how she does, I'm happy it's over, and I'm grateful that Mike could stay home and take care of the other ones so I could concentrate on sweet Felicity.

Father's Day Update

Felicity is doing fine, she's been on the antibiotic for a week and a day and although she still has a cough and a runny nose, she hasn't had a fever since last Sunday, and she is in much better spirits, for the most part.  I can't believe she's having those damned adenoids out on Thursday, already.  Lord, lord, I hope and pray it goes well.  I'm nervous but I'm excited that this could make her better.  Mike is taking off of work on Thursday so I can go and not have to worry about the girls.  So far, we have the first appointment of the morning, and I hope it stays that way because of course she's not supposed to have anything to eat or drink after midnight Wednesday night.

It's Father's Day and I'm very grateful that Mike is such a good dad.  I had a great father, and my parents had great fathers, but I swear no one could be as good as Mike is.  He has a lot of challenges, and I fear *I'm* one of them and he is patient with all his charges, which I really appreciate.  Felicity, of all the kids, is so attached to him, she loves him so much, all day she walks around the house saying "Daddy?".  I always say, "Daddy's at work, he'll be home soon", which always satisfies her for the next hour or so.  The other day, I took the girls downtown to the strawberry festival and then we went to lunch and then to the mall.  Mike texted me while we were inside and he met me right outside the mall and I thought those girls would DIE of shock and happiness.  Felicity especially, she was like, shocked and happier than she ever is to see old me.  So anyway, happy father's day to Felicity's Father, and Anthony's and Maria's and Veronica's too.  We're lucky to have you.

Our Weekend

Here's the letter I wrote to the office where Felicity's ENT is, and to the drugstore where we tried to get her prescription filled:

To Whom it May Concern,

I had a terrible experience this weekend with both Northside ENT and the pharmacy at Walgreens and
I'd like to share it with you and find out what really happened.

On Friday morning, I took my daughter Felicity, age 20 months, to see Dr. Beach.  Last month, Felicity
took a 20 day course of Cefidir and we were going to see Dr. Beach to decide how it worked and if she
should have her adenoids out or not.  As of Friday morning, Felicity had a persistent cough and a lot of
mucus and was a little grumpy.  We met with Dr. Beach and he and I talked and we decided that yes,
she should have her adenoids out, so I made an appointment for June 20.

That night when I got home from work, around 12:30 a.m., Felicity woke up and would not stop
coughing.  She had a high fever that we could not get to come down.  We gave her Tylenol and a bath,
tried compresses and anything we could think of to help her cough and fever.  Finally around 5:00, she
fell asleep.  My husband called Northside ENT at 7:30 and left a message for the doctor on call with
the service.  The doctor called back within about 30 minutes and talked to my husband, and then said
he was going to prescribe the same medicine for Felicity that she had just taken.  He said that it was
important she was healthy for her surgery, although at that point we were just concerned with getting
her medicated and trying to get her fever down.

About 30 minutes after he talked to the doctor, my husband took two of our kids with him to the
Walgreens to pick up the prescription.  He texted me from the drugstore and said that there was a
problem, but I was dealing with a sick and screaming Felicity so I wasn't able to answer him.  He came
home after about 40 minutes and said that the doctor had sent the wrong prescription, so they couldn't
fill it.  The pharmacy technician said that the doctor sent a dosage of 3.5 teaspoons per dose and they
thought that that was too much, so they had called the doctor.  We knew from one month ago that what
Dr. Beach had prescribed was 3.5 ML, and of course we assumed the prescription would be the same,
but we also understood that if that's what was sent in, they'd have to get it right.
The pharmacy technician at Walgreens told my husband that they called the doctor at Northside ENT
at 8:15 so at 9:15 we called Northside ENT and the service told me that she was trying to get a hold of
him but the doctor hadn't called back.  I told the service that we were getting sort of desperate and she
said that she would keep trying to get a hold of the doctor.

I then called Walgreens, because I wanted to be sure that I was clear that there was no way the
prescription could be filled based on the dose that my daughter had been given one month earlier.
I called and told the pharmacy technician that I'd like to speak to the pharmacist to find out.  She
connected me to someone at the Pharmacy Care Center and as soon as he knew why I was calling
he transferred me to someone from the store, since I specifically asked to speak to the pharmacist who was working.

Someone answered the phone and said something unintelligible, so I asked “is this the pharmacist
working at the Walgreens at 62nd and Keystone and he said, and I quote, "yup".  I didn't think that was
the most professional way to answer the question, but I pressed on and asked if we were clear, that the
doctor had called in the wrong dose and that until he called in the right one, I couldn't get the medicine
for my daughter.  He said yes, that the doctor had electronically sent the wrong information and until he
had the right information, he couldn't fill it.   I asked my husband to call the service again, as this was
THREE HOURS since the original prescription, and he did, while I was on the phone with Walgreens.
The service told my husband that she would have the doctor call my husband back directly.

At this point it was 11:10 and we decided that we would just take Felicity to the urgent care and try and
get her a prescription that way.  The doctor called my husband at 11:15 and said that he HAD sent in
the right dosage and he'd call again.  As you can imagine, we were very frustrated by this point.  We
had been up for almost 12 hours with our sick baby, and everyone was telling us something different.
I felt like I was dealing with my four kids, where no one will take responsibility for something that's
broken.The difference is that THEY are CHILDREN.

I called Walgreens to say check that the prescription would be ready when my husband picked it up
and I talked to the pharmacist.  I said that I was going to get to the bottom of what happened and
that I did not appreciate getting what I felt was the runaround and he said, and I quote, “I'm soooo
sorry that I care about your child's safety and her getting the right dosage”.  I asked him if he learned
smarmy sarcasm at pharmacy school, as well as learning to answer questions in the affirmative with a
“yup”.  I told him that I needed to get off the phone and I felt sure he did too, and that he should fill the
prescription and that we would not use Walgreens pharmacy ever again.  When my husband picked up
the prescription, the pharmacist gave it to him and told him “tell your wife I'm sorry”, but my husband
told him that he didn't want to talk to him, he just wanted the prescription, for which we had waited
three and a half hours.

I don't know who is telling the truth here.  I certainly hope that Northside ENT, with whom I have
entrusted my daughter for one set of tubes and am planning on entrusting with her health as she has
her adenoids removed, isn't lying to me.  Then again, I hope that Walgreens, where I go for all my
prescriptions, isn't lying either.  My husband and I are extremely disgusted with the level of care that
we received this weekend and we would like someone to explain, honestly, what happened here.  There was a ball dropped, and we would like to know where.

So far I haven't heard from anyone.  Can it really be that no one will call me back and tell me what happened?  Should I still have Felicity's adenoids out by these jerkstores?  I swear, this is the worst part of being a parent, trying to deal with all the nimrods that have such an effect on your life.  I think I care more about people that come into the restaurant where I work and want a freaking BURGER than these people care about my kids.  It's exhausting.

Five for Friday, Felicity Edition

1. It is 8:46 and that nimrod is still awake.  She napped for maybe 15 minutes today.  I do not even know what to say about that, except WHY LORD?  WHY CAN'T ANYONE SLEEP?  
2. It's probably not fair to say that - she is a pretty good sleeper, Lord KNOWS she sleeps in in the mornings.  Also, it's not her fault - today we went to almost TWO hours of ballet and then to Marta's house because it's Carlotta's birthday, so she had pizza and cake and excitement.  She was falling apart around 1:30 but it was pouring rain so I had to wait until it lightened up a little to take them to the car.  Anyways, she stayed awake the whole ride home and then I put her down for a nap but she fell asleep while I was rocking her and then just couldn't settle down.  
3. We are going back to the ENT next Friday to see about her adenoids and how the antibiotics worked.  She had no reactions from them, so that's good.  Twenty days, it's a lot, right?  I hope we get good news but I am ready for anything.  
4. She is talking more and more, today I was holding Marta's baby Rebecca and she signed and said "baby!".  
5. I think I'm going to send her to the girls' preschool, their former preschool, this fall.  Maybe she'll just go one day for kind of a Mom's day out thing.  I think Veronica is going to go to the preschool at their grade school, so now I'll be able to take Felicity to just one day at their preschool.  We'll see.  I hate to spend too much time without her but on a day like today, when we've been together all day, and she has been kind of crazy, I think maybe we could use a little break.

Five for Friday (sickness edition)

• I took Felicity to the doctor on Monday, not her regular ped but the pediatric ENT.  He gave us a prescription for Cefdinir, which is also known as Omnicef and which I just read was a Warner Lambert drug.  I and about a million members of my family worked for Warner Lambert years ago before they were bought by evil Pfizer, so whoo, Warner Lambert, yay!  She is supposed to take it for TWENTY days - FORTY doses, which, ugh.  But he said we'll try this for her sinus infection/adenoid trouble and then if it doesn't work or make her better maybe she'll have her adenoids out.  
• Ugh.  I hate to think about it, so I'm not.  After June 7, when I take her to the doctor, I'll worry, depending on what he says.  
• She has been MISERABLE this week.  MISERABLE.  Up early, extremely clingy, unable to sleep, MISERABLE.  And sadly, as Felicity goes, so goes her mother so I've been horrible too.  
• She was horrible today at Ballet, she took every lego block on the table and chucked it to the floor, five times over.  She has discovered the button to open the door and she ran outside 100 times.  I hurt my shoulder and it's been painful to pick her up, so every time of the 1,000 times that I had to do it, it hurt.  
• She is extremely lovable and sweet, even when she's sick and unhappy.  Also, she is SMART!  We pulled up to the bakery today, the bakery where she has been maybe six times in her life?  We pulled up and she said MMMMMM!  MMMMMMMM!  Genius.  

Five Things About Felicity on Friday

I stole the Five Things thing from my friend Hannah, I never write anymore and I have to so I am think of everything I can to make me do it.  I am never ever EVER left alone but maybe five things?  Maybe I can do that?  Let's try:

1.  She weighed almost 26 pounds at 18 months.  Ugh, I forget how long she was but I'll update it later.  If I check on Facebook, I'll never come back.

2.  My parents came home from FL on Saturday and came over here on Sunday and she was a tiny bit strange with them, but not for long.  And that's probably the last time she'll be even a little bit strange, right?  By the time they come home next year, assuming they don't just move there year found (that's a potshot), she'll be 2.5.

3.  I am thinking of sending her one day a week to preschool.  Right now I don't have her signed up but I just feel like she is ahead of everyone else, and maybe she'll want to go.  We'll see, I'm in no rush to decide.

4.  She has more hair, for sure!  It's not exactly long but she is not a baldy anymore.

5.  She has been waking up early.  She woke up at 5:00 on Wednesday, 6:00 yesterday and 6:45 today.  She is moving in the right direction, I guess.  She cries almost every time I lay her down now but it's really just a protest cry, it never lasts for long.

6.  (BONUS!)  She is talking more and more, she does a thing that Maria did, which is to say the second part of a word - like she'll say Pah! for Up!, it's super cute.  So's she.

Cute Things

Felicity says "mmmm!" when she tastes something she likes.  Today I gave her shells and cheese and she took some and her little eyebrows went up and she said MMMMMMM!  MMMMMMMMMMM! Then she ate an entire package of them, and this was after she already had lunch.  She would eat her weight in cheese if I let her, but as Marta and I discussed today, she doesn't have milk, hardly ever, so she can have cheese and yogurt til she busts, as far as I'm concerned.

She also says "noooo!" when you say "are you ready to take a nap?". I don't mean to ASK her anything, I should know better than that, but it's so cute I can't stand it.

Not cute:  she tears down the dvd's from the shelf all the time.  She will not stop climbing on the table.  She is getting very particular about what she wants to do, which is everything the bigger kids get to do.

But she is more fun outside, we found out last Saturday, she can be trusted a little better climbing on the playset, etc.  She is doing just fine.  Mmmmmmmm!, she is delicious!  Ha!

Isn't she something?  How we love our little Felicity, everyone does!  Maria in particular has gotten very cute with her lately, showing her how to do stuff, etc.  I wouldn't say she's the most patient teacher ever, and sometimes she is a little intense:

But overall she is nice and loves her so much, as do we all.  Felicity will be 18 months old on April 10 and she is right where she should be, I'm guessing.  She has some words, maybe 10?  They asked on her 18 Month Old Evaluation thing I am supposed to fill out for her appointment with the pediatrician.  She says Mama and Daddy, Water, Banana, Bread, Cookie, Me, No, Bee (for Max and Ruby), maybe that's it.  She points at everything, her receptive language is really good.  

God knows she climbs on stuff.  She is always, always climbing on the table, the chairs, the stairs, the beds, the furniture, everywhere.  She is everywhere all the time.  She wants to walk down the stairs like a regular person and she wants to do it while she is carrying stuff in both hands.  She terrifies me.  I don't want to hold her back but I can't have her falling down the stairs, which were built in 1963 I think maybe expressly to kill small children.  When I think about those soft, cute stairs I had in my old house I want to cry.  I should have appreciated them more!  

She is sleeping well, she has a permanent runny nose which could be there because of a cold or because she's been getting teeth.  It could also be because we've had the heat blaring in our house for the last six months or whenever this horrible winter started.  

She still drinks a little bit of water from a bottle before she takes her one nap or goes to bed.  I can't see that being a problem, so I'm not worried.  I bought her some new cloth diapers and I really like them.  For some reason, the Fuzzi Bunz weren't working for her so I bought some Bum Genius and they are great.  Also, they are SUPER cute, I'll put up some pictures.  This one is my favorite, mostly because I love  black clothes on a baby.  

So - almost 18 months, sweet as ever, perfect in every way, looking forward to spring.  

Bye!

Felicity is so funny.  Lately when I am rocking her before a nap or better, she'll stop drinking her pre-sleep water and wave at me.  "Bye!", she'll say, waving, then she shakes her head "no" over and over.  I have less than no idea what in the hell she is talking about.  I think by "bye" she means "hi" but I don't have any idea why she's shaking her head no.  Sometimes she puts her hands over her eyes and says "pah-boo!", while she's lying there.

She's great, although this week, she is really annoying me with her sleep.  She woke up two nights this week and was up from 1-5 and then from 1-4 a.m.  That, as my sister would say, is super no bueno but what can you do?  Veronica did it too, I just pray it doesn't last.

I didn't take her for her 15 month appointment, I think at this stage I'm going to skip it and catch up by her 18 month appointment.  She is doing just fine, really coming into her own and I'm bullish for the future.

Sixteen months

Felicity is 16 months old, can you believe it?  Little baby Felicity, 16 months old.  She is great, although right now she has an ear infection and what is probably Fifth's Disease.  Today is Day 21 of the work on our house, and Felicity and I are SICK OF IT!  She is the most affected, the poor thing, she can't take a nap at all, ugh, it's awful.  Today we came home after dropping off the girls and we hung out for a while while they tore up the floor and then they starting using this saw and Oh My LORD, she was like, WHAT IS THAT? So we bugged out of here, we went to Target to buy Valentine's for the kids and then we went to Mike's office and got him and went to IHOP for pancakes for Fat Tuesday.  She ate so well, sausage, eggs, pancakes, she went to TOWN on that food.  She is a good eater, although she won't drink milk anymore.  I try to make it up with cheese and yogurt, we'll see.  I haven't taken her for her fifteen month appointment yet, I have been busy and then she was sick, so we'll go soon.  I'm not worried, she seems fine.  She is pretty clingy lately, but who can tell why?  She is pretty much always tired because she can never take a damned nap.

Why are contractors such jerks, I'd like to know?  Why must they torture me and take so much longer than they say they will?  I guess if they could have a real job, where they had to show up every day and work for EIGHT HOURS in a row, they would.  But they can't, so instead they come to my house and make a mess and a lot of noise for four or five hours and then call it a day.  BIG JERKS.  Felicity and I DON'T LIKE THEM.

Magical Age

This is the worst age.  I mean, I don't even know what the worst age is but this one is pretty bad.  Felicity is 15.5 months and the climbing!  The teething!  The not great sleeping!  The SHRIEKING.  OH LORD THE SHRIEKING.  Just today I feel like it's started in earnest - like before she was shrieking sometimes, in the way that babies do when they are just discovering their voices, but now, today, she is shrieking in a very demanding and very LOUD way.  It's 8:29 and I put her to bed at around 7:40 and my ears are still kind of ringing.

I was telling her tonight when I was rocking her, I'm sorry.  I mean it, I am really sorry.  I am MUCH more wrung out by her than I was with the others.  I'm older, there are so many more of them, it's just - I am awful with her, sometimes.  We're having some work done on the kitchen so Felicity and I have had to be out of the house for the last two days and it has been ROUGH.  I feel like I've taken her in and out of that car seat 200 times in the last two days.

I took the girls out to lunch today and she was hungry, starving, like a crazy person.  I couldn't SHOVEL that applesauce in her face fast enough to stop her from screaming.  We are in public!, I kept telling her!  CUT IT OUT!

She is hilarious and adorable and also she is driving me crazy.  By the end of the day, I am so sick of her and then she is VERY cute, which helps.  She is cute in the bath and cute when I put lotion on her. Mmmmmmm, she says, which is just adorable.  She was jamming her bottle in my mouth tonight - it just has water in it, she doesn't get milk bottles anymore, which is another thing that is making her mad.  Anyways, she was jamming the bottle in my mouth, offering it to me and I said "mmmmm thank you!" and she was laughing in this super cute, barely amused way.  She kills me and she also kills me.  And she is probably killing me.  Ha!

Waaaah!  

Bottle

Ugh, Felicity is still taking a bottle!  I know she shouldn't, I guess.  I mean, I don't really know anything, I don't care.  Maria only took a bottle at the end, and never well, and Veronica was awful with the sippy cup for months and never took a bottle.  Anthony took a bottle and at 15 months, I just switched him over to a sippy cup and all was well.  But I am at a loss with Felicity.

I really don't care, I have some vague notion of getting her off the bottles by about 15 or 16 months.  She doesn't take any more formula, she takes a bottle of milk before bed and one before her nap because she is so in the habit of drinking and then going to sleep.  Normally I would tsk tsk about it, but she has a crappy life, nap and sleep wise, and she almost always has.  There are all these other people around who don't give a HOOT if she sleeps, so I try to make it work as well as I can.

Lately she has been finishing her bottle and then going to sleep.  Like today at TWO (late!) I was putting her down, I gave her a bottle and she popped up and started babbling away and I said okay go to sleep, and lay her down and she cried on and off for about 15 or 20 minutes but then napped.  So I figure soon, I'll just bring up a sippy cup and do that and then soon after that I'll start doing that at night.  We'll see.  I'm sure it will all work out, ha ha ha sure it will.

She is doing just great, she's so cute.  She babbles away, she says "Daddy!" and "Hiiiii!" and "Baby!".  I told Laura, today our friend Fillipo stepped on her hand and she said, all accusingly and through tears, "Baby!  BABY!", while shoving her hand in my face, as if to say "I am only a baby!  How dare he hurt me in this way?".  That's what I got out of it anyway.  I have to take her for her 15 month checkup here soon, I suppose.  More shots, probably, ugh.

Oh this was funny.  I have this friend who posted on Facebook that she thought it was bs that toddlers had the ability to climb so high before they had the fear that they would fall.  She said if you need me, I'll just be sitting here with my eyes glued to my son.  So I commented and said I felt for her, I thought it was crazy that they were designed to fall from their height but not their height PLUS four feet!  Some jackass friend of hers posted this CRAZY thing about - I want to copy it but I shouldn't.  But he said that children are meant to be free and try things and if you put them in a rocker seat, a stroller, a jumper, an exersaucer, and something else, it meant they would have a developmental problem or be ruined in some other way.  WTH?  What the hell?  What are you supposed to do with a fool who is 14 months old and would walk into traffic if you let them?  You can't put them in a stroller or it will give them developmental disorders?  People are insane.  INSANE.