Today was a wonderful day! I got to sleep in until about 9:00. I got up and got ready while L.C. helped prep Pheoby for her day. Pheoby and I went to Weight Watchers (for the record, she is not a member!) then to deposit a check at the ATM, clothes shopping at JC Penney and picked up some pressure washing detergent for the house and some seeds from Lowes. When we went to the bank we drove right up to the ATM, but when we were leaving JC Penney there were about 6-8 cars lined up. I am so glad we did that first! And I must say I have a serious issue with whoever stocks the infant boys clothing at the Easley JC Penney. They have about 4 things in the infant section. We bought 3 of them. They have tons of infant girl stuff (so cute!!) and lots of toddler boy stuff. I guess in another year we will shop there, but for now we will have to look elsewhere.
When we got home Pheoby and I planted our Zinnias out back near the woods. Trey was sleeping and L.C. was pressure washing the house. It seemed like the perfect Spring day that childhood memories are made of. Pheoby seemed to love watering the soil, the seeds and then the entire bed after the seeds were covered. She had a little watering can that is normally a bath toy that literally sprinkled water out, so it kept her quite busy. The smart girl must have told me about 5 or 6 times the process of growing flowers and the ingredients needed (soil, water, sunshine).
Here are a few more topics I wanted to post on in the past week....
--Dr. LaBar recommends reading this parenting article from Slate. It was a great reminder to me as I struggle through the terrible-fours! I promise... four has been the hardest age so far. ;o)
--I was shocked to hear about the earthquake last week in the Midwest since that is where I am from (well, that general area of the country) and often remind people how safe it is... there is not much risk of natural disaster, no poisonous spiders and snakes to be concerned about and no worries about bears on your back porch. Here is my friend Deborah's account of the experience.
--We will be taking Pheoby to the ENT (ear, nose & throat doctor) on Tuesday. She was born with a tiny hole above her right ear. It looks almost like a Barbie earring hole. We noticed it when she was first born. Her first pediatritian, Dr. Barnes, explained it very quickly in a way that satisfied our curiosity. When we moved to South Carolina Dr. Feiste once again brought our attention to it and stated there was no reason to be concerned. He drew a little diagram on the paper that covers the exam table in his famous Feiste way that calmed any fears that may have existed and we were on our way. The understanding always was that if it began to drain stuff or if it changes or if it starts to hurt her then we will look at fixing it. Well, a couple weeks ago it got infected. It was pretty much over night. There was no problem with it and then when she woke up one day she mentioned that her ear hurt. It was all puffed up and red. We treated it with peroxide and neosporen and it did get better, but also her exema began to break out on the backs of her ears. So we took her in. Dr. Feiste quickly got to drawing on the exam table paper again and was thrilled with his ability to find the diagnostic code for the 4-5 word term for the little hole. He states that this is something that didn't close up very early in her development as a fetus. Most times they close up completely. Sometimes they still have a little depth to them, but in cases like Pheoby's there is a open channel to some other part of her head. More than likely it leads to her sinus cavity. So he referred us to an ENT to determine what needs to happen next. We are expecting that they will do some sort of simple surgery to determine where it goes and then close it up. I don't believe that it is anything too serious and I haven't talked with Pheoby too much about it because I don't want her to worry. I guess we will talk about it more on Tuesday when she asks where we are going, huh? Or maybe Monday night.(This link provides a basic medical explaination. This is how I found the link.)
--Ok... so... when I first moved to SC for college I learned that people in SC are very proud of their state. Everyone had cups, shirts, hats, car decals, rugs, pocket books (that's purse for my Michigan friends who are reading this) and even jewelry that had a palmetto tree with the crescent moon which is on the SC state flag. Another very popular thing is to have this "logo" on items with the words "Carolina Girl" on them. Here is a sample. These items are everywhere as well. And they are cute! But what concerns me is that there is no tag or pamphlet on these items to explain the membership requirements. I mean... I live in SC and I am a girl and I love SC and I think the shirt is cute, but...
- Would I make a mockery of the whole idea if I were to buy the shirt let alone wear it outside of my house?
- And if that isn't ok... can my Michigan-born daughter be a part of this prestigous club since she has lived here longer than she lived in Michigan?
- If either of us were to wear this shirt would it in some way arbitrarily terminate our membership in the Michigan Pride club?
- Would our Michigan family and friends disown us?
- Would our SC friends scoff at us when we turned and walked away? Or worse... to our faces?
These are all questions I have been having for years and the urge to ask them has gotten stronger as the years pass and as my length of residency in this state has increased. If you have any insight on this matter please speak up! This is a very serious matter and I can only hope that even one life would be affected by your willingness to share your views!
**After finally writing out my thoughts I googled "Carolina Girl" to find some images to share with you and found a link to the Urban Dictionary's definition of Carolina Girl. There were several entries there which make it clear that we won't be picking out our shirts any time soon!
--Trey has started eating baby food! He wasn't a pro the first time like his sister was, but that doesn't bother me as much as I thought it would. This isn't the greatest messy-eater pic. I am sure I will have plenty of those to add later on! We didn't have too many of these with Phoeby. She did not like messes... even this young. That was fine with me! I am glad that my boy is my second baby! So far he is loving sweet potatos, bananas and peaches. And... while we are on the topic of this baby growing up too fast.... Trey will be graduating from his infant car seat soon. I weighed him the other day and he was 19 pounds! Our infant car seat only goes up to 22 pounds. I can't believe that this boy who (it seems) just came home from the hospital a few minutes ago is already getting too big for his baby seat! Ugh.
Funny thing is that I held two new babies at girl's night on Friday and felt the baby itch for a minute! The good news is I felt that way when Pheoby was tiny, too, but thankfully it took 3 years for the timing to work out. (Shhhh!!! Don't tell our Moms about this part of the post!!!)
