Chairs and Reading

There has never been a doubt that Miss Hadleigh Claire has loved books since the day she was born. I am guessing that most babies are similar, but she loves spending lots of time in front of her books. We have now expanded and have three places for her books because she has SO many of them. We have a basket in the living room and a basket in the library, and the book case in her room has all the books that she can only read with Dada and Mama (aka they aren't board books). She also likes to read the same books over and over again, and LOVES to make animal noises whenever possible.

Hadleigh has also recently taken a liking to chairs. A couple of weeks ago we went to my friend Stephanie's house for lunch. She has a little mini arm chair for her girls and Hadleigh crawled right over to the chair, sat down and reclined back with one leg over the arm. Hilarious! I am not sure where she learned that technique though! I was thinking about getting her a little chair and my friend Sar had found a cute one for her little Annie at Big Lots. When I went to Big Lots, the chairs were all kind of lame...sorry, but I really don't want a picture of Cinderella in my living room. But we do have a chair already that is pretty low to the ground, and Hadleigh has figured out how to get off and on the chair. She sits and reads. She pulls up all her stuffed animals and has a little party on the chair. She is hilarious.

Yesterday she was standing up, holding onto the arm of the chair and leaning over the arm to grab her stuffed animals from her basket. She managed to get the animals on top and then had to reach a little farther down into the basket for the rest. She ended up doing a header into the basket. It was hilarious! She climbed out of the basket and back onto the chair as if she meant to dive into her stuffed animals. I wish I had my camera out for that one.

A Baby Pool? I Mean, Really!

A few weeks ago I purchased a little blow-up wading pool for Hadleigh. We have had a bit of a time trying to figure out the best place to put the pool, because we have no hose spicket on the outside of the house. We decided to run a hose from the washer in the basement out the door and to the pool. The other problem is that the back of the house is no place for a baby pool, and our side yard is a bit slopped. But we finally found a decent place and everytime we want to use the pool we unhook the washer and hook up the hose and drag everything to the side yard.

I had kind of been thinking it was all a little bit inconvenient. So, my friend, Sar, suggested that I just leave the pool filled up in the side yard, instead of dumping it out everday after Hadleigh had used it. I thought that might be a might messy because of all the trees and bushes in our yard would drop stuff into the pool, so she suggested putting a tarp over the pool. Great idea!

We tried it for the first time last week. Bad news. A swarm of mosquitos decided to use the pool to breed. But in spite of the new family of mosquitos living in the yard, we decided to try again. The second time we left the tarp on, we noticed that someone had trampled through our yard, ripped the tarp off and trampled in the pool. We thought...well, maybe it was an animal, so we tried one more night. Monday morning Dave went out to find the tarp off, evidence that indeed someone had trampled through the pool and popped a hole in the bottom of the pool. I mean, really!

The whole thing is a bit creepy too. The pool is not in our front yard, and it is behind Dave's car, so not necessarily visible from the road. Someone had to be stomping through our yard to find the pool. Who does that?

Take Me Out to the Traffic Jam?

This past Saturday we thought it would be fun to head down to "The Ted" for the Braves game. They were playing at 4 and I thought that was the most perfect time to take Hadleigh, after nap and just a little past bedtime.

Unfortunately we got off to a REALLY rocky start. Despite having the MARTA connection so close we decided to drive. I know realize that I should have exerted my knowledge of MARTA and Braves games because Dave had only been to a game one other time and didn't realize how insane it can get driving.

Anyway, we set off and for some unknown reason 75/85 was clogged to almost a stopping position from Lenox Road all the way to who knows where. Did I mention that our car thermostat rang in at 101 as we sat in our car and baked on the fwy? We also don't have air, so we literally baked. We finally pulled off at Spring Street and weaved our way over to the field. Of course then we sat and baked again as we waited to park. Hadleigh was really upset, and feeling a little overdone and of course I was in a FOUL mood, so while waiting for a parking space I grabbed her and we walked to get tickets and to be out of the car.

Whenever I had gone to games in the past, unless it was with a big group, I would always buy the $5 day of the game tickets. They were standing room only, but you could always find a decent seat somewhere. Well, by the time we got there, apparently all the cheap seats were sold out, so I ended up buying a $10 SRO ticket. I mean the game was packed out like I have never seen! We roamed around for a while and finally found a couple of seats in the upper pavillion along the first base line...the problem at that point was that the seats were SO hot from sitting in the sun that they were burning my legs. We finally settled on "sitting" where you are suppose to "sit" when you have SRO tickets. We climbed to the tip top of the upper pavillion where there is a chain linked fence and a ledge that is about 3 inches wide. It was in the shade, there was a little room for Hadleigh to roam and did I mention it was in the shade. It was hard to see anything really, but at that point nobody cared.

I did stand up to see Chipper Jones hit his homer, which ended up being their only run of the game. It doesn't look good for the Braves this year...I mean who gets beat by the Detroit Tigers? Yikes! Overall Hadleigh had a great time. She kept everyone at the fence entertained, was mesmerized by the large screen and even did the tomahawk chop. I think that I have even resigned myself to root for the Braves. I mean if we are going to live here I might as well start rooting for them. Of course I will never root for the Braves over the Dodgers or even the Mets. All in all it turned out to be a decent day...I had just forgotten what Atlanta summers are like...wowee!

Fly Lady and Why Little Houses Are Better

When we first moved to Germany we happened upon our first house because another dentist in Baumholder was living there and moving back to the states. It was a perfect house. The kitchen was tiny, but welcome to Germany, we had two bedrooms upstairs along with the kitchen and a really large living/dining are. Our downstairs consisted of two additional room and a bathroom, along with a couple of large storage closets. It was really nice to arrive there and spread out a little bit (after our 6 month stint in a tiny two bedroom apartment here in the states).

After about 3 months of living in Henschtal, I was convinced we needed to move closer to Baumholder. We looked and looked for a place, but had little luck. Finally after 9 months of looking we happened upon a house in Mettweiler which was 6 km from Baumholder (which sure beat the 40km we were driving before). Actually my friend Kristen found the house in a last ditch effort to try to get us closer to post. The house was in good shape, it was cheap, the landlord was good...can't ask for much more. The house was also HUGE...as in 3000 square feet. We had 4 huge bedrooms, 2 bathrooms one of which was about the size of our current bedroom, a huge living room and a separate dining room. We also had a whole separate basement that had another large living area and bedroom and a big kitchen. It was really nice when we had guests, which was often, but other than that it was a BEAR to clean. Just mopping alone would take me over an hour to do and it needed to be mopped at least once a week.

My friend Lisa got me hooked on Fly Lady a couple months after Hadleigh was born. Fly Lady just helps all us good intentioned gals who wanna be disciplined about the house, actually have a system to be organized. I was hooked immediately. When I was able to keep up with things and kept to my little schedule cleaning went a lot faster...but mopping still took over an hour!

When we moved back here we began renting the cutest little 2 bedroom house. It is old and creaky and has horrible green carpet in the living room, but it is just perfect. There is definitely a permanency that comes with owning a home, and I do look forward to that one day, but Dave and I have talked again and again about what we would do to this house if we could stay forever. It is nice to have a large house, especially when it comes to having guests, but honestly Atlanta isn't quite as exciting as Germany, so we haven't had quite as many visitors. The thing that I love about this house is it takes me so little time to clean. I can vacuum the whole house in less than 20 minutes. Mopping takes me 10. Cleaning the bathroom is a snap, and I only have one to clean!

Sometimes I also want to stay in this house just to prove a point. Just to keep things simple and to show that a family of 4 upper-middle class white folks living in America can survive in a 2 bedroom rental house. It is kind of the same reason I don't want to buy a house in Tucker. Let's just stay different than the norm. But that is a silly reason to do anything, so I am sure eventually we will buy a house with 3 bedrooms. And who knows one day we might even buy a house in Tucker...but we will see about that.

Making Room for Baby

Ever since we discovered that our little family was expanding we have been making plans. There are always plans when a new baby is involved, but our plans for this baby are very different than our plans for Hadleigh.

This time around we are having to figure out what we are going to do with Hadleigh while I am in the hospital, do we need to get another crib, should we move Hadleigh to a big bed, etc. I remember growing up I watched this old Bob Hope movies called "The Seven Little Foys". Every time a new baby came he slept in a drawer. I have considered that.

Now that we are in the second half of the pregnancy we have answered many of those questions and have gotten just a tiny bit busy.

Since we live in a small 2 bedroom house and have no plans to move anytime in the near future, we have pondered what the sleeping arrangements should look like. Since my parents were in a similar situation when my little brother, Dan was born, I turned to Mom for some wisdom.

Our good friends, Bif and Kris, have taken us on as a charity, and regularly supply us with things they no longer need. We have their washer and dryer, an old arm chair of theirs, actually our queen guest bed is theirs, and now they are giving us their crib.

Last week we transformed our little library into a library/guest room. We brought the queen bed up from the basement and moved our little love seat out into the living room. This was handy for our visit with Brian and Elaine last weekend, and will be handy when our friends David and Eowyn and their 5 children visit in a couple weeks. It will also be nice when Mom comes out for a couple weeks after the little one is born.

We have decided that the little one and Hadleigh will share a room, so the extra crib will go in our second bedroom. Mom suggested that the little one can take her naps in the crib, but suggested we let her sleep in a bassinet in the living room until her night sleep gets organized. Worst case scenario the little one can be in our room, but I really hate sleeping near the baby because they make all these crazy noises in the middle of the night. Hadleigh slept in her pack and play in our bedroom this past weekend, and I was reminded again why I really hate sleeping with her. =)

So eventually we will pick up the crib from Bif and Kris, though I am in no major hurry to do that. I suppose that will be about the end of my planning.

This morning Hadleigh and I were playing on the bed and she touched my belly and said ba-ba. Pretty close to baby! I think she is starting to make room for the little one too. She is going to be a great big sister.

Peanut Butter and Bananas

In my last post about Hadleigh I forgot to mention some of her favorite foods. My friend Jess especially like when I add comments about what she is eating and reminded me that I left that part out of my last update. So I decided that we needed a little update on the food situation. Hadleigh is a great little eater. She still eats her super porridge in the morning- oatmeal and carrots and broccoli and an egg all mixed together. The rest of her meals are all table food. For a snack she loves all kinds of fruit, watermelon, cantelope, strawberries, grapes (these are her favorites), kiwi, etc. She also enjoys a good granola bar or some goldfish. This past week I started giving her PB sandwiches for lunch and she devours them. Yesterday I put slices of banana in the sandwich too. She has a bit of a hard time eating the sandwich, and makes a HUGE mess. But she loves wiping her face in between bits. She also loves chili, lasagna, spaghetti, macaroni and cheese, hamburgers (though she is not a fan of french fries), grilled chicken, etc. Her favorite ice cream is Dairy Queen, though this past week she enjoyed some vanilla from Brusters.

13 Years and Counting

I cannot even believe that it has been 13 years since I started my freshman year at Asbury College. But it has been, and I still enjoy keeping up some of the friendships started there so long ago. My first day of freshman orientation when I was moving into room 216 of 2nd Glide I met this crazy southern girl, Elaine, who was moving into room 218 right next door. She called her roommate Jen (who was from PA), Jin. And she thought butt was a bad word. Those are just a few of my first memories of her.


Elaine arranged my 18th birthday which was just 2 weeks after the semester began. We went to her family's house in Glasgow along with 3 other gals. Eventually they surprised me with tickets to see Steven Curtis Chapman in Nashville...and I just thought we were going to Bowling Green for dinner!

We had classes together our freshman year. We were in choir together our sophomore year. We served as RAs together our junior year. And she served as ARD, while I served as RA again our senior year. Right before we graduated she asked me to be a bridesmaid in her wedding. After my first surgery in Atlanta she drove down from Lexington to take care of me for the weekend. She helped me pick out my "Make him want a date outfit" that I wore to community group one night and later that week Dave FINALLY asked me out. And she managed to come down to Atlanta twice while Dave and I were dating, and then finally was a bridesmaid in my wedding, and even gave the toast at my reception. We have a long history of friendship and service to one another. I had always hoped that whenever I finally got married my husband would get along with Brian, and that has proved to be true which is a great blessing.

This past weekend Brian and Elaine and their little boy, Todd, came to visit. They were on their way to FL to visit family and were able to stop for a long weekend. It was so wonderful to see them.

Saturday morning we went to the Atlanta Zoo. Hadleigh barked at all the animals and Todd enjoyed the elephants and zebras. In the afternoon Elaine and I were able to continue a long tradition of getting pedicures together. Dave and Brian were able to get in 9 holes of golf on Sunday. The rest of the time we just hung out, watched the kiddos play, which was hilarious, and enjoyed being together again. It was a wonderful blessing to experience their friendship again and to know that after 13 years we are just beginning on our road to understanding one another and walking with one another.

Two Things, OK Fine...Three

1. For the first time since September 29, Dave is seeing his own patients and getting paid for seeing them. Dave has been at this practice since the beginning of April and they promised him that by the beginning of July they would fill his books with patients. They are slowly filling his books. This is wonderful news because it makes us feel like he is now permanent. Yea!

2. Yesterday Dave received confirmation that his corporation is legal. He is now McNumb Dental, PC. Dave will now be working as a contractor for this practice. It just means we have to get our own health insurance and pay all our own taxes at this point. Right now it is more of an expense than a luxury, but we hope eventually that will change. Did I also mention that I am the VP of McNumb Dental. That means that I take care of all the financials and taxes...yummy!

3. Does anyone listen to the Fish? Well, I pretty much have a hate-hate relationship with that radio station. I listen only when I am forced by knife-point. On the way to Piedmont the other day I was listening by knife-point and they had a segment called "What they don't want you to know: Dentists". Anyone??? Did you hear it? Well, Taylor starts out talking about amalgams. I can't do the dictionary pronounciation, but if I were to divide it up a-mal-gams. She pronounced it am-al-glams...it was horrendous! The whole segment was ridiculous. I sent an email of complaint later that day. I asked them to please, next time get their info from a dentist and NOT the internet, and to look up amalgam in the dictionary if you don't know how to pronounce it. OK, it wasn't that rude, but like I said...I am not a fan of the Fish...no grace here.

A Couple More Things about Hadleigh Claire

Yesterday we went to the doc for her 15 month appt. HC was a champ the whole visit and again did not even cry when she received her shot. She now weighs 21 pounds and is 30 inches long. She is just above 25% for both height and weight.

I was hoping that our doctor would not be concerned about the fact that Hadleigh is not walking yet. And I was thrilled when he told me that it was not a big deal. I feel like she is almost walking anyway, so why be worried?

After Hadleigh's nap she started playing with her little walker toy. She has been playing with it more and more and walks behind it well. The main problem is that she will stop walking when she runs into the couch or table. Yesterday she started walking around the house, which of course is rather small. Through the living room, into the hall, through the library, into the kitchen and back into the living room. Just one big circle. When she ran into objects she just picked up the walker a bit and kept going. She was even able to manage the lips of tile to carpet and carpet to hardwoods. The lip from hardwoods to tile gives her a little problem. She did flip over her walker once, but after I picked her up, she continued on her way. So, it seems that my life is about to change forever. I am crossing the threshold from baby to toddler.

15 Months

Today Miss Hadleigh Claire is 15 months old. For some reason 15 months sounds a little old, but she is still a baby to me. I think it helps that she isn't walking yet and doesn't have any hair. She still has that baby look about her.

I am not sure about her weight and height, but will post that next week after her dr. appt.

She loves animals. She loves making animal noises and playing with her toys that are animals and reading books that have animals in them. In fact her favorite commercial is when the puppies come out singing about fleas. She freaks out. I love her pig noise. It is so super cute, but can only be appreciated in person.

Another fun thing HC has been doing, is occasionally I will let her watch Sesame Street. She goes crazy for Elmo and Grover. I have also started letting her watch a baby einstein video every now and then. She really likes all the animals. Dave is still pretty adament about letting her watch TV, so we keep it to a minimum.

She is still doing the bear walk, with her back legs straight and hands on the ground, and she crawls all over the place. She will cruise the furniture and loves to stand behind toys or to walk holding onto my hands, but isn't interested in standing on her own. All babies walk eventually, so I'll just enjoy the extra time I have with her as a crawler. Once she starts walking I am sure it will be hard to keep her down.

She loves to organize. I clip coupons once a week and she love to sit on the floor by the couch. As I throw scraps of paper down on the floor she will pick it up, study it, and then make little piles. She also likes to make piles of my tupperware.

She is a cuddly little girl and loves to give lots of hugs and kisses. She still loves to be sung to at night and her favorite is "How Deep the Father's Love". She is always babbling up a storm. She will read books to herself and yesterday I caught her pretending to talk on the phone...that was hilarious.

Her bedtime is still about the same, she goes down at 6 and gets up at about 7. She is also taking two naps, her morning nap lasts about an hour and her afternoon is about 2 hours. I have really been noticing lately that she isn't necessarily a great sleeper, but that we have taught her to be one. Left to her own devices she would stay up the whole day, and the whole night. I am just thankful that we found our special miracle sleep book when we did. If not I might be dealing with a totally different sleep situation.

You'd be Neurotic Too

Last week Hadleigh was sick. This is really the first time she has had a fever that wasn't caused by an immunization. Tuesday and Wednesday it was just low grade fevers of 100 or less. It got worse in the evening, but I didn't think much about it. Thursday it jumped to 103 and she had the runs. I felt so bad for her, but it really didn't seem to bother her at all, so I figured she was feeling fine. Friday she had a high temp as well and acted tired, but still fairly normal.

Dave got her out of bed on Saturday morning and noticed that her fever was gone. Yes!!! Great news. The bad news is that she had a rash covering her entire body. Of course it would be on a Saturday. We consulted for a few minutes and then Dave consulted WebMD. Great news...both measles and chicken pox present itself in this way. Fever followed by a nasty rash. Not only that but both are harmful to a "fetus".

So we call our doctor. Here is the thing about that. I chose him because he is a single doc practice. He doesn't even have a nurse, if you call during the week with a problem, he is the one you ask the questions. He switches weekend calls with 3 other docs who are all in single practices as well. So, the idea is that when we call we talk to a doc. No offense nurses, but you will see what I mean here in a minute.

Dave callsed and I don't know exactly what happened, but a nurse from somewhere, we can only guess that it is children's healthcare of Atlanta...great...calls us back. Dave tells her about HC, and the nurse recommends we give her some benadryl. OK...what??? Excuse me, but what the hell is wrong with my baby? Oh, and as a little tidbit of info...since your wife is prego...she shouldn't have contact with the baby, just in case it is chicken pox or the measles.

I am trying to remain calm and yet understand why the benadryl? Dave is trying to reassure me and yet is having doubts of his own. Trying not to be over-neurotic I called one of our good friends who is a pediatric nurse, Angie and leave her a message. I also emailed pics to another friend who is a PA.

After many tears and much anxiety I got a call from Angie and an email from Gwen basically saying the same thing. Roseola. Yesterday Hadleigh's horrible rash was gone, and we didn't need benadryl.

If nothing else, this scare made me a full-fledged believer in the MMR and the chicken pox vaccine. Protect all those babies in the womb.

Miss Hadleigh Claire Goes to the Zoo

She petted the goats with Dada and barked at them because she thought they were dogs.

Yesterday we took Hadleigh to the Atlanta Zoo. She wasn't feeling the greatest, but we thought seeing all the animals would cheer her up. She sat in her stroller and quietly looked at everything, but wasn't really impressed. I think that if we take her when she is feeling better she will enjoy the time more.

Here are some pictures.

You smell like a monkey...

Our ti-ti baby.