Catching Up

Well once again it's been a while since I've been here. I am an awful blogger and am just in awe of all those folks who manage to post regularly. Anyway here is a review of the last month or so.


These pictures are from Sunday morning. Mary Clare loved this blue ballerina dress and just had to twirl it to church. I think she's been taking modeling lessons from her big sister.

Kid-tested. Mother-approved. And a way to teach geometry. Mary Clare enjoys making shapes on her spoon with Kix before eating them. This one's a flower. She also made a triangle, rectangle and a square.

St. Patrick's day 2009

Margaret Rose came home from school on the 16th telling us she needed some leprechaun clothes or the leprechauns would bite her!? We're a little confused over the biting thing. Maybe she got the words pinch and bite confused or maybe there's a new St. Paddy's day tradition that we don't know about. Anyway, thanks to the lesson learned from the groundhog day

debacle :-), Margaret Rose had the perfect ensemble and was a happy, happy girl. Mary Clare kept insisting that leprechauns were just fiction but changed her mind when she woke up to find a glittery green leprechaun trail that led to a shamrock colored bag of goodies. She and Margaret Rose were sitting on the floor in the kitchen looking through their treats when Mary Clare announced , "Well Margaret Rose, I guess you were right. There really are leprechauns!"

She's happier than she looks here- I promise! The flash just kept making her blink.

At school I read Jamie O'Rourk and the Irish Potato for story time and Mary Clare filled everyone in on who St. Patrick was. Remember that MC likes to share the Bible story from the night before with her class each morning so she was all too happy to extend that and tell them that St. Patrick was a good man of the church who was a priest just like her Father Lyon. Since Mary Clare has to wear a uniform at my school (she loves it) we got her some festive head gear to sport in the car on the way to and from school. Since the shamrocks blinked she christened them "glowinators".

Once home the girls did some posing and playing in the yard.

Margaret Rose's after school program is wonderful. They keep the children active and do some creative things with them. They had a talent show on Friday afternoon and taught the children who didn't want to perform an individual talent several songs and dances so that everyone could take part. Mary Clare and I had to fly up the road to get there on time but we were so glad we did. Margaret Rose's group performed the Tootie-Tot and a really funny song about peanut butter and then Margaret Rose joined the bigger kids in a line dance. She was precious!! We were all so proud especially little sister. MC kept saying, "That's my sister! Go Margaret Rose!"

Miss Margaret is hardly going to have any teeth left. She lost 2 in one week!

Here's Princess Fluffypuff the Princess of Puffs making her throne. Actually I think she's dressed her horse Lucky up as a princess too and is preparing for a coronation.

Our local Adoptive Families Group went ice skating one Sunday afternoon. The girls, who have never been before, insisted that they knew how. MC said, "I can do it! I watched Max & Ruby." Okay. I fully expected them to try for 10 minutes or so and then give up in frustration but my girls persevered and had a fabulous time. By the end they both could skate a little by themselves and had to be dragged off the ice. Margaret Rose got lots of compliments from some of the bigger girl skaters there. They said she did a wonderful job and skated better than they did their first times. They made 2 new "China girl" friends too!

We had another no-snow snow day on March 2. All weekend the forecasters predicted 3-6 inches for our area. Most districts had cancelled school by 5:00 Sunday afternoon. Around 9:00 pm dry air pushed into the area and the snow event fizzled. Luckily we'd kept the girls from hearing anything about the possibility of the white stuff so they ended up being happy just to have an extra day to play. We spent most of the snowday cooking. We made pico de gallo and guacamole and then put them in a 7 layer dip. Then we cooked onions, peppers and mushrooms and made quesadillas. The girls LOVE to cook so they had a blast. Now I have to preface the following pictures with the note that we seldom drink. Nothing against it- we just don't. We might buy a few bottles of beaujolais nouveau each year to have during the Christmas season but that's basically it and the girls rarely watch TV. So I was more than just a little surprised to come into the kitchen and find my baby girl sucking a lime and licking salt off her hand. Now unless Max & Ruby or Caillou have taken to doing tequila shots I have no idea where she got the idea but she was quick to assert , "This is sooooo GOOD!" with a huge grin. I keep imagining my wild child in college and it's a little scary :-)

My party girl looks like she's been in a brawl thanks to fall into the guinea pig cage.

Margaret Rose's class made hats to celebrate Read Across America day. I think she likes her new knot dress better. She sure got a ton of compliments on it. When we went for her IEP meeting, the school secretary just went on and on about the dress. She thought it made MR look like Heidi!

The girls are interested in so many things! Tonight they wanted to learn how to write music notes.

Even though it was still February we had some gorgeous spring-like weather and used one afternoon of it for an inaugural playground visit. The new play structure is really wonderful and the girls enjoyed themselves.

After doing some research we knew that our friend Moose the guinea pig needed a much larger cage. Lee brought home the materials and the girls and I spent a little over an hour one Sunday afternoon building the cube and coroplast cage. They worked hard and did a lot of the measuring, cutting and taping themselves. I was proud of them and Moose showed his appreciation for all the new space by entertaining them with an evening of squeals and popcorn jumps.

Mary Clare had to make sure it was comfortable enough for her little friend.

Influenza B

I hope I can catch up with some blog posts tomorrow but for now here's what's been keeping us busy. Lee and Mary Clare came down with it on Valentine's Day. We were in Boone and I thought MC probably had a sinus infection so I brought her home since Lee and Margaret Rose had an obligation that kept them in North Carolina until Monday afternoon. MC had a miserable night on Sunday with vomiting and a high fever. We were at the pediatricians office early on Monday where they did a nasal swab and diagnosed her with the flu. All of us (except Lee who can't take them) had a flu shot but the doctor said they'd not been very effective this year with the strains that turned out to be prevalent. He was great though and wrote all of us prescriptions-tamiflu for MC and relenza for the rest of us. The relenza was suppose to treat Lee since he obviously also had the flu and keep MR and me from getting it. I don't think Lee got the medicine in time to do him any good but it did help me as I only had a mild case and Margaret Rose never got it at all.
Mary Clare was in bed all week and only started to perk up on Friday afternoon. It took us almost that long to figure out that the tamiflu was giving her terrible psychological side effects. We attributed her outbursts and night terrors to the illness but as she improved physically the symptoms didn't go away. We finally realized that an hour or so after giving her the medicine she'd meltdown and lash out at us over nothing. She was inconsolable during the episodes. The same thing happened with the night dose. She'd take the medicine, go to bed and then "wake up" about an hour later totally incoherent and terrified. Hopefully there will be another medicine that she can take when she gets the flu again.
We spent last week trying to catch up on sleep, work and chores. Lee still has a cough to rival Camille and it is wearing him out. It is 64 degrees tonight and we are all ready for spring despite the fact that our forecast calls for 1-2 inches of wet snow tomorrow.

Happy Valentine's Day!

Margaret Rose got to wear the twirly skirt outfit that PoPo made for the girls to school yesterday. She said everyone LOVED it! Thanks PoPo!!!!!!!!!!

More Moose

The History of Moose

Right after Christmas Margaret Rose brought home a library book about guinea pigs. I found it in her bookbag and thought it was an odd choice. Margaret Rose likes the idea of animals but isn't usually to fond of the real things. They slobber you know and get your clothes dirty and some smell bad. We decided she must have selected the book because it had a pretty Asian girl on the front holding the guinea pig but we asked her and she said she liked that pet and wanted one. So we read that book and some more books about guinea pigs and talked about how you take care of one and what all they needed and finally said that we would seriously consider getting one a little closer to summer. Mary Clare, ever Miss Contrary, said she did not want a guinea pig but that she did want a hamster. We told her we were sorry but that we would not be getting a hamster. She sulked.

About 2 weeks ago one of the ladies that works in Margaret Rose's after school program approached Lee and asked if we would be interested in having her daughter's guinea pig as she had found out that her college housing for next year will only allow fish. Lee teaches her daugher, Megan, and thinks very highly of the girl and her family and told the mom that he would have to ask me first but that he knew what I would say. I think I was suppose to get the hint that I was not to show up with a puppy (which is what MC REALLY wants)without consulting him -point made, point taken. Well he and I talked for a second and decided that if the guinea pig wasn't too old (remember MC and her death obsession) that we would very much like to have him. Lee told Megan that whenever she decided to let him go we would take him. It would have been fine with us if she waited until the fall but Friday she asked Lee to come and get 6 month old Moose on Monday. We decided to tell the girls they were getting a surprise but not to mention the pig because, of course, MC would just fuss and say she didn't want one. I knew once she saw him she'd be smitten and she was.

Mary Clare and I had to stay in town today and do some book shopping for our school so she got to spend some time with Moose this morning. Margaret Rose was so concerned about him before going to school. She feed him his pellets and asked who would take care of him today while we were gone. She still does not want to hold him but will pet him gently. Mary Clare just wants to hold him and rock him. She croons to him and says "It's okay little guy. Nutting will hurt you." She told him she would rock him to sleep (I'm sure he was thrilled). Poor Moose doesn't know what to make of my little people but he is curious and very tame. Megan must have spent a lot of time with him. I was sure he would stay in his hidey-hole for days but he comes right out and wants to know what we're all doing and if we have any food.

Mary Clare typed his name and is trying to teach him how to read. She checked out books from the library to read to him- "He will like dese. They have guinea pig characters." We spent nearly 4 hours in the book warehouse today and MC was PERFECT. She sat on top of the roll-cart "criss-cross applesauce" and read the entire time. The ladies there were so impressed with her and kept giving her books to take home. She asked intelligent questions and would periodically spot a book we have read, identify the title and give the ladies a synopsis and review. Oh how I wish she were that well behaved all the time. At the end when she really began to get antsy (and who could blame her- I was ready to get out of there myself) I told her we could go for junk if she could hold it together for a few more minutes. As we were checking out the ladies were complimenting her and she said, "Thank you. I was good and now I am going to get junk." M&Ms are her junk of choice.

My sweeties!

Poor Margaret! Right after this picture was taken we went outside to play. The girls teeter-tottered for awhile. All of a sudden I heard MC yelling, "Margaret has hurt her butt!" Margaret was limping and said, "I need to check my butt." Well okay. You just never know with MR. She makes a big deal about little injuries fairly often but MC did come running back outside saying, "Mama! Help! Margaret's butt is bleeding." There was a little scratch and some blood and a great deal of drama. MC kept reassuring MR- "It's okay Margaret. I'll be the nurse. I'm a butt expert. You need a butt band-aid." And then I watched my little sweetie climb from the top of the toilet, on to the sink and stand on her tippy toes to reach her hand up to the top of the medicine cabinet (not the top shelf) where we keep the off limits stuff like fingernail polish and band-aids. So much for us thinking we had her fooled. I'm pleased to report that thanks to the attention of the hiney expert, Margaret Rose's butt has made a full recovery.

Mary Clare asked, "May I please take Moose's photograph?" MR is usually our picture taker and she showed MC how to use the real camera (scary). This is one of her nearly one hundred pics of Moose - he must have thought here was one heck of a lightening storm

Moose's Valentine