We're Home Already!

It's 10 am and we've already been home from surgery for a half an hour. I couldn't believe how fast it was. I made Daddy go back with her while they put her under and I had only read two paragraphs in my book when he came back. We were in the waiting room long enough for me to go to the bathroom and read two pages before Dr. Bauer was out telling us that she was done.

She was a little fussy waking up, but other than that, she's been fine ever since! The outpatient clinic has bottles, so they gave her some apple juice while she was waking up and she chugged the whole bottle. She was groggy the whole ride home, but now she's running around playing. They said she was supposed to take it easy today - easier said than done!

Dare Devil

Yesterday, when Andy picked up Audrey at daycare, Miss Tammy said that Audrey has been causing her to have mini heart attacks all day. Apparently her new game is to climb on top of toys (castles, rocking chairs, whatever is around) and jumping off!

She sent Audrey down to the 1-2 yr old room to see how she'd do, and I guess she didn't like it very much. I thought she would since there are new, big kids to watch and new toys, but she's just so used to the people and stuff in the baby room.

She has learned the word "no" and will answer any question you ask with a little "no." I can't wait until she really knows what it means! Daddy has also taught her how to answer "What does Mommy say" with "Blah, blah, blah!"

We have surgery at 8 am tomorrow, so keep Miss Audrey in your thoughts and prayers that everything goes smoothly and she doesn't have much discomfort afterwards.

Busy Girl

We've had a busy week this past week. Audrey spent Sunday night with Grandma H and they went over and played with the cousins on Monday while I was at work. There is a rumor going around that Audrey was a bully to Jack - she took his pacifier out of his mouth and made him cry. She just walked around the house with it while he followed her, crying all the way. He's too much of a gentleman to take it back from her!

You know how on the commercials, the Maytag repair man doesn't have anything to do? Well, he had to come here on Tuesday because our convection oven wasn't cooking properly and the fan was really loud. The fan motor ended up being bad; he said it's the first convection fan unit he's ever had to replace. It figures that it happens to us. Right after we bought our refrigerator, the thermostat broke and it froze all of our food. We have bad luck with appliances.

Papa was in town last night, so I put some beef stew in the crock pot and had everyone up for dinner. Audrey insisted on sitting at the counter with the twins. Notice who the cheese ball is who is always looking at the camera and smiling!

We think Audrey has been saying random words here and there. She'll say something that sounds like a word, but she won't repeat it on command. Among the words we think she says are ball, doggie, duck, baby, Hazel, which sounds like "ah-dah", fish, peek-a-boo or just boo, and of course, Da Da.

She also loves to spin in circles. I have her trained now to start spinning when I sing the cheesy 80's song "You Spin Me Round (Like A Record)." She's kind of like Pavlov's dog! (That's my nerdy science reference for Aunt Tina!) I have a video of it, but it keeps posting sideways. I'll try again another day.

We finally got around to purchasing and installing her big girl car seat. When Andy put her in it, she got a big grin and kicked her legs around. The poor little thing has to scrunch her legs up in the infant seat. This seat is nice and roomy and it has a cup holder!

We have her tube surgery on Wednesday, so I'll let you know how things go that night.

Little Snowflake Part 2

Here are our obligatory "child playing in the snow" pictures. Audrey wasn't super impressed. I set her down on the sidewalk and she stepped into the snow, looked down at her shoes, then stepped back onto the sidewalk. She's my girl! Surprisingly, she didn't try to eat the snow. She put one little finger in some slush on the driveway.

We didn't stay out very long because I didn't have any mittens on her and her nose and cheeks were starting to get pink. She cried when we came back in - maybe she's not my girl!

When we got up this morning (after sleeping in the Lazy Boy), it was 4 degrees outside with the windchill. We are going to try to make it out today to buy her big girl car seat. I'm hoping it will be easier to get her in and out of that than her infant seat, plus she may enjoy facing forward in the car.

Our Little Snowflake

We are in the midst of the second snow fall of the week. I was a bad mommy and didn't get any pictures of Audrey in the snow on Wednesday (mostly because I didn't take her out to play in it - it was too cold and dark). We had about an inch and a half on the ground. I planned on taking her outside to play Thursday morning, but the snow turned to slush and melted pretty quickly.

It started snowing this morning around 9 am and we took Audrey out to see it before her nap. We are supposed to get up to a couple of inches by tonight, so I should have some cute pictures to post tomorrow. And I'll be sure to have her in a coat and hat!

Here is a video of Audrey pointing at the snowflakes. She was also talking to them.

The top photo is the yard at about 12:30 and it's still snowing. :)

More Evidence

Uncle Ronny sent this picture of me when I was about Audrey's age. He thinks it shows that she looks like me, I think that it proves that she looks more like Andy. What do you think?

Baby Niki:

Baby Audrey:

Here is Grandma H. when she was about 2. I can see some Audrey in this photo:

Cute, Happy Stuff!

The past two posts have been all about Audrey's various illnesses, so I figured I'd do a happy post about all of the cute, new stuff she does.

- She will blow two quick puffs of air on her food when you stick it on her tray. You never know when Mommy is going to stick something scalding hot on your plate!

- Last night she picked up her dirty diaper and stuck it in her diaper pail all on her own. Of course she also sticks her hair brush and various toys in there.

- Speaking of hair brush, she tries to brush her hair and also holds the phone up to her head. If there is someone actually on the phone, she wants nothing to do with it though.

- When I got home from work yesterday, I was greeted with a very enthusiastic "Hi Da Da!" She also said "Hi Da Da" to the lobsters in the tank at Red Lobster later, so I don't know if that makes me feel better or worse.

- When she wants up on something (the couch or the bed), she stands next to it and makes a grunting noise like she's trying to pull herself up. But she's not actually trying to pull up, she's just making the appropriate noise.

It was beautiful outside today, so we went out and played in the yard after a whirl wind trip to McDonalds with the cousins.

I tried to get a picture of Audrey and Roscoe, but the best I could get was them walking near each other.

This is Roscoe pretending to point at something.

More Late Night Fun

No, not that kind of fun! When I got home from work yesterday, Pete said that Audrey had been really fussy and sleepy all day. He gave her some Tylenol, which helped a little bit, but when I got home, she was laying on him with red ringed eyes. I picked her up and the poor thing was on fire. I took her temperature - 103.8!

We gave her some more Tylenol, put her in a cool bath and headed down to the Urgent Care Clinic. Grandma H met us there because Daddy was at work - they had an overnight study to do.

The nurse practitioner looked in her ears and said one looked like an infection was starting, but it wasn't bad enough to cause the high fever. She wanted to take a urine sample to rule out a urinary tract infection. Audrey took one look at the tube headed for her and peed all over the exam table. Luckily they were able to catch some and she got to bypass the catheter.

That came back with a little bit of bacteria, but not enough to cause the high fever. So, she sends in Tyrone, the biggest man I've ever seen with even bigger hands, to take blood from Audrey's tiny arm. One blown vain and two sparkly band-aids later, the blood work comes back perfect.

So, basically she gave us an antibiotic for the not-so-bad ear infection and not-so-bad UTI and said to go to our doctor Friday if the fever doesn't break. Needless to say, I'm pretty annoyed at the lack of a real diagnosis, but hopefully the antibiotics will help. I'm kind of looking forward to having the tubes in her ears to curb some of these late night clinic trips!

Naturally, she didn't sleep well and neither did I, but she hasn't had any Tylenol since 2 am and seems to be feeling better already. I put her in her crib 30 minutes ago to take a nap and she's still up there talking to her puppy. Keep your fingers cross that we get some sleep at some point!

We're Going Tubin'

We had our ENT appointment today. Audrey's ear situation isn't too bad, but the doctor (who I think is, like, 15 years old) said that we are at a point where we have to make a choice. The other option is to keep putting her on stronger antibiotics, which may lead to ear damage/hearing problems/speech problems if she keeps getting really bad infections. So, I decided to go with the tubes.

She saw an audiologist before we saw the doctor and because she has noninfected fluid in her ears right now, her hearing range is slightly below normal. She said that Audrey can hear everything we are saying, but it sounds muffled to her. Audrey had her laughing because she was talking to the stuffed animals in the room throughout the whole ear test!

It was quickly approaching nap time by the time we saw Doogie Howser, but she was a little angel for him. He thought she was very mature for her age (he has obviously never seen her throw a tantrum in the middle of Babies R Us).

So, now I'm waiting for the surgery coordinator to call me back to get everything set up. Keep Audrey in your prayers that everything goes okay. Her mommy is a wee bit nervous about putting her under anesthesia.

Girl's Week

Andy went on his first business trip this past week to lovely, snowy Ohio, so Audrey and Mommy had a girl's week. Luckily for me, the only night I had to sleep in the Lazy Boy was on Wednesday so I didn't have to worry about not getting any sleep on a work night. Audrey had her flu shot booster on Thursday morning. It was about 17 degrees that day and I never bought her a really heavy coat, so we went to Babies R Us after her appointment. I think our days of shopping with just the two of us are about over! She wanted nothing to do with the cart, so I let her walk around. She was good for about 5 minutes, then she just started running across the store. I'd drag her back towards the cart only to have her take off running again. I finally just grabbed a coat, threw her in the cart and checked out. We are now the proud owners of a pink camo coat because it's the first one I could find in her size!

It's not a very good picture, but I got all of my hair chopped off today. It's really short, like it used to be in college. I think Brandon cut off a little too much, but it's hair and it will grow.



Here are a couple of pictures of Audrey in her cute sock monkey jammies from Aunt Steph and Uncle Alex. She was sitting around being sweet with her baby doll before bed tonight.





The princess has her ENT appointment on Tuesday, so I'll post then and let you know the status of the tubes.

Happy New Year!

I can't believe it is 2008 already. We had a good time last night at Tim and Amanda's, although we are now a little worried that Audrey is hyperactive! Emma watched on with amazement/horror as Audrey ran around with her toys, climbed on her toys, yelled as loud as she could, played Peek A Boo in the play room closet, etc.





Audrey went to bed late (10pm) only to wake up again at 11:45. I guess she wanted to ring the new year in with Mommy. I fell asleep in her Lazy Boy only to be awoken again at 1 am to her screaming in pain. Andy and I couldn't calm her down and were at the point where we were debating whether to take her to the emergency room, then after about 20 minutes she had some big burps and toots. I let her have some of our tacos for dinner (nothing spicy), but I guess the Mexican food gave her painful gas. Poor little thing! I didn't get her back to sleep until close to 4 and she still woke up at 8, so Mommy is very tired today.

I hope our first day of the year isn't any indication of how the rest of the year is going to go! Anyway, the princess is now down for a nap and I have a big pot of Brunswick Stew in the crock pot, so I am going to go relax now too.