Lexie in her prettiest dress!

Here is my darling girl offering me a Christmas ornament:

Missing Sleep

Boy, do I miss a full night's sleep. That is the hardest part about having a baby for me. About a month ago, Lexie had started sleeping 6-8 hours at a time at night, which was very nice.

Now though, the past couple of weeks that the kids have been sick, Lexie has been up 2-3 times and Luke once a night. So I've been getting my sleep in 2-4 hour increments. Yuck!

Luke usually takes one nap for 2-3 hours around 1:30 each day. He didn't sleep well last night and was so grumpy this morning. I decided to put him back to bed at 10:30 and it paid off. It is now 2 hours later and he's still sleeping. What a relief! There's not much worse than a whiny grumpy toddler.

Luke has bypassed the Duct Tape

Well, the duct tape is no longer working as a way to keep Luke's diaper on. He pulls off his pants, then carefully pushes his entire diaper down his legs and simply steps out of it like it's a pair of underpants, with the duct tape still intact.

The only thing I can think of now is putting some one-piece jammies on him backwards so that they zip in the back. Then he can't unzip them, right? Do they make these for 2-year-olds without feet?

What should I try now?

Luke's Leggos

Luke loves his leggo table! We're grateful for it, too, since he'll play quietly by himself for as much as 20 minutes at a time!

Lexie's First Christmas Tree

Here's Lexie hanging out in her bouncy seat under the Christmas tree. She's fascinated with all the lights and just loves to stare at it!

Keeping Luke out of trouble

We had to put the baby gate up again between the kitchen and dining room, and keep Luke out of the kitchen completely. The final straw was when he got into the fridge, managed to get the childproof cap off Lexie's antibiotic, and dumped the entire bottle onto the kitchen floor. What a sticky, pink mess. Thank God he didn't drink it!

He is able to bypass a lot of security and baby-proofing techniques; he is too smart for his own good! He reaches his hands inside the kitchen cabinet and unhooks the latch to open the door to the pantry.

We need to install a hook and eye on the outside of the bathroom door as well as the inside. We like to keep Luke out when we're in there; sometimes it's nice to have a small amount of privacy in the bathroom. We also need to keep him out when we're NOT in there. He loves getting into my makeup, hairspray and feminine products.

He really loves the Christmas tree, too. He helped us decorate, and enjoys taking the ornaments down and putting them back on again. When he has trouble hanging them back up he just throws them on the floor. There's about 9 ornaments all over our living room. Oh well...

Where's the Snow?

We went to the Spring Valley Tree Farm last weekend to cut down our Christmas tree. Here we are in front of the tree we selected.

What's missing here? Yup... no snow. Marty had a really rough time pulling us all through the grass. Just kidding. He only pulled Luke; but even he thought it was lame and decided to walk instead!

We had a lot of fun. Luke absolutely loves being outside. I wore the baby in the front carrier and she was talking and kicking and very excited to be outside in the cold!

Uh oh... please pray...

I just took Luke's temperature and it's up to 103.6. Please pray for it to go down and for him to get better quickly.

I'm getting ready to call the pediatrician. It seems we don't have to worry unless it goes over 104....

The nurse said that a rectal temperature reads 1 degree higher than it really is, so it's 102.6, which is still high. She recommended a tepid bath which brought it down initially, but it's slowly climbing back up. I need to keep giving him lots of water and juice and cut back on the milk which may upset his stomach.

Thank goodness Nikki is lending me her temporal artery thermometer which will make it easier to monitor Luke.

He's just lying here on the couch watching videos. He's so lethargic that it's kind of scary. The nurse said I didn't need to worry unless it hit 105. Please keep praying, though!

Sick Kids

Yesterday we had to take Luke back to the doctor since he wasn't getting better. His cold has developed into an ear infection and his fever has been fluctuating around 100-101. The good thing about the fever is that he is very mellow and just wants to lay around and snuggle. I can handle that! At least he's not bouncing off the walls.

Lexie went to the doctor on Friday and has a double ear infection. She's doing better and only has a low-grade fever. She just keeps waking up twice a night needing medicine, and Luke at least once. I'm tired but hanging in there.

The tylenol definitely helps with the fever; and benadryl has helped dry up all the mucus and runny noses, not to mention helping them sleep. (We should probably buy stock in tylenol, benadryl and amoxicillin!)

After a second round of antibiotics, my bronchitis is almost gone. I guess I had it pretty bad since it's lasted 3 weeks now. Marty is coughing now, so we're praying he doesn't need antibiotics, too. Please pray that we can all be healthy soon, especially in time for Christmas!

Solutions for Luke

We've tried a couple of solutions to the diaper dilemma. The most successful one being the duct tape. Even our pediatrician said his daughter uses it every day to keep her 2-year-old's diaper on him! Another good solution that was recommended is putting his diaper on backwards so he can't fiddle with the tapes.

We thought about pull-ups, but then he'd just push them right down. He just wants it off... he doesn't necessarily want to go potty regularly yet.

The backwards diaper is easier to put on than messing with the duct tape, but the duct tape is way more secure. I had a heck of a time getting it back off. But after Luke taking off a poopy diaper in his crib the day before yesterday and getting poop all over, and then him handing me another one yesterday afternoon, I realized we had to go with the most secure solution.

He doesn't quite tell me before he has to go, so we keep trying the potty; but it's very irregular and usually after the fact. Oh well.

Thanks everyone for all your helpful solutions and tips!

Diapers. Who Needs 'Em?

I forget to mention another little mishap that Luke enjoys... taking off his diaper. Twice now after I've put him in for a nap, he gets really quiet. Then after about 10 minutes I hear "Uh oh, Mommy. Uh oh!" The first time I ignored him thinking it was a ploy to get up, but I know better now. Sure enough, when I went in there everything from his bed, including his pants and diaper, was on the floor. All that was left was the sheet. When I asked him why he did that, he said "Wet."

I suppose it's a good thing that he's beginning to dislike being wet so he'll go more on the potty. Who knows how long he was half naked in there, though, because after he took off his diaper he had peed on the bed! Thank God I have 5 crib sheets, and he does like to sit on the big potty. He's been asking to go potty about once or twice a day up to this point, so hopefully we can encourage him to go before he goes in his diaper.

After baths Luke likes to take off and run naked around the house. He just laughs and laughs. And sometimes he just stands in the middle of the living room and takes off his clothes.

Sooo.... how do I keep a diaper on my 2-year-old?

Who needs a calendar when I have Luke?

If I may say so myself, Luke is a little darling. We went to Wal-Mart this morning to pick up some groceries and get Lexie's medication. (She has a double ear infection, poor thing.) We were almost done and Luke said "Home." I told him yes, after we paid for our stuff that we were going home. Then I corrected myself and told him we had to go to the bank. So I asked him to say "Bank" once we were in the car so I wouldn't forget. About 5 minutes later as we were in the check-out line, I said "Let's go home." And Luke said, "Bank!" I said "Your right. We can't forget to go to the bank. Thank you!" Then, the entire drive home, he kept saying "Bank" every few minutes to make sure I was indeed going to stop there. He cracked me up! It's amazing how a 2-year-old remembers absolutely everything he hears!

He wants me to name things for him now so he'll know what they're called. He just points to something and asks "This?". It's great! We talk about all the stuff we see when we're in the car.

Silly 2-year-old Mishaps

You have to laugh at all the ways Luke manages to cause mishaps.

When Luke took a bath the other day, in only about 2 inches of water, I went in the other room for a minute. In that small amount of time, Luke managed to use his little bucket to dump over half the water in the tub onto the bathroom floor. He flooded it so well that it soaked into the hall carpet and dripped into the basement!

Yesterday he helped himself to the toilet paper. He unrolled about 1/3 of the roll and shredded it into tiny pieces all over the bathroom floor. Earlier today he stuffed half the roll into the toilet. I managed to pull most of it out before he tried to flush it.

He got into my makeup the other day. The funny thing is that he tried to apply it just like I do. He used the makeup sponge and smeared foundation all over his cheeks and chin. He actually did a decent job and didn't waste very much at all!

He loves to get into the refrigerator and help himself to whatever looks good, even if he doesn't know what it is. He hands me salad dressing all the time. In the past 2 days he has dumped 2 containers of yogurt all over the kitchen floor. Today he brought me the jar of dill pickles. We even have a 'child proof' latch on the door. Right... He just yanks hard until the door pops open!

He certainly keeps us on our toes!

New Computer

You gotta' love eBay. I got a 3-year-old Mac laptop for $390! Thank God for small blessings! It will come in very handy for teaching at Clark State.

I've been having fun updating all the system preferences and setting it up. Now I just need some design software... cheap!

Still Sick

We're still sick, but hanging in there. Luke has a cold with a nasty cough. Lexie is congested, has a runny nose and is teething. They're both is fairly good spirits with some occasional fussing. At least they're both sleeping pretty good. Luke usually sleeps 11 hours and Lexie is now doing 8 hours. I just wish that instead of 8 - 4, it was 10 - 6 or something like that. 4:00 am is rough for me!

I have a cold on top of bronchitis that just won't go away. The cough wears me down, but I've been fortunate in getting both kids in for an afternoon nap at the same time so I can rest or just take it easy. Definitely a blessing!

Lexie Reads While Waiting at the Hospital

When we first got to Children's Hospital, they gave Lexie a book. She decided to take advantage of the downtime while we answered the nurse's questions. (She's a genius already!)

Lexie's Swollen Eye

They gave us a vanilla flavored soothie pacifier for Lexie. Since she wasn't able to eat after midnight, we used this to trick her into thinking she was getting something fulfilling. And it actually worked; she loved it and settled right down!

Here's Lexie's red and swollen eye. You can see a little bit of the bloodshot areas, but the cut isn't visible since it is above her pupil.

Lexie in Her Hospital Gown

We put the tiniest hospital gown they had on Lexie. Doesn't she look cute?

Lexie Sleeping after Anesthesia

When they wheeled Lexie back into her hospital room, she was sleeping so peacefully. She was cuddling her juice bottle and her pink monkey.

Lexie is Doing Fine!

Thanks so much for all your prayers. They definitely worked!

We discovered that what the doctor thought was something in her eye was just dried blood from the cut. So he just cleaned it out; and there was no need for stitches or anything else, Thank God!

The doctor said there was no way to know for sure how bad her eye was without knocking her out so the doctor could carefully examine Lexie's eye. You can't ask an 8-month old baby to hold still so we can look in her eye.

Right now she's groggy and should sleep a lot for the next 12-24 hours. We have antibiotic ointment to apply 3 times a day, and she has a follow-up exam on Saturday. We'll be taking it easy today.

Lexie having eye surgery

Please keep Lexie in your prayers Wednesday morning. She's had something wrong with her eye and we just thought she had scratched it. At first we thought it was healing, but it's actually gotten worse.

Today we were sent to an opthalmologist at Children's and discovered she has something lodged in the white of her eye. (We're still not sure how it happened.) They need to put her under anesthesia to get it removed and she may need stitches depending upon how deeply it's lodged. Yikes! Poor baby.

We first noticed some burst blood vessels on Thanksgiving, but didn't see the cut until the weekend. It didn't seem to bother her until the last couple of days. It's high up on the white of her eye above the pupil. Last night she cried for a couple of hours and wouldn't stop rubbing it. I'm not sure how well she'll sleep tonight. She can't eat, including formula, after midnight. And she's only allowed clear fluids from midnight to 6 am.

Please keep her in your prayers during the procedure at 10:30 am. We're praying for no complications, an easy removal, no infection and little or no pain afterwards. Thank you!

Sick Again

Yup, we're all sick again. I have bronchitis and I'm thinking that maybe Luke does, too. He's had a nasty cough for several days now so I may need to have him checked. I took Lexie to the doctor today and the poor girl is in terrible shape. She has a cold, thrush (a fungal infection) in her mouth, and a cut on her eye.

Apparently, when she fell on a toy while trying to sit up a few days ago she cut the white of her eye. We had no idea how bad it was until today when her eye was really red and swollen and wouldn't stop watering. We'd thought she just scratched it since she didn't seem to be in any pain before today. The good thing is that it's not infected. We'll just have to keep a close watch to make sure it doesn't get any worse.

At least Marty isn't sick, too. Thank God for that, because he's staying home tomorrow to help take care of the rest of the family!