Zula Patrol Quotes Uncle Jim

Though it's not Mom or Dad's favorite, Layla sometimes enjoys watching Zula Patrol on PBS...you know.....way, way out where the planets do the hula! Ok, so maybe you didn't know :).

On tonight's episode, one alien stated to the other that they were in the middle of nowhere. The second alien responded by explaining that everywhere is somewhere. Clearly, the writers of the show were eavesdropping on our family vacation back in the late 80s (?). I can't recall where we were or where we were headed, but Jim (and Mere, obviously) were quite young. When one of my parents stated that WE were in the middle of nowhere, Jim, the young philosopher, insisted that this was not possible because, as the aliens repeated, everywhere is SOMEwhere! It must have been adorable at the time because that story has been told many times since that vacation in the Adirondacks, or the midwest, or New England, or wherever we were!

Hey Jim, it's a good thing the aliens weren't having ice cream floats or I'd have another story to tell :).

Words

Layla's expressive language is really picking up. Her latest acquisition is the word "shoe" and she likes to practice it daily while taking off her shoes and socks on the way to day care. Here are some of her other words:

Hi
Dada
Mama
Doggy
This
Yeah!
Kitty (she said this a lot in GA when she was seeing lots of cats, but hasn't said it much since)
Turtle
Elly (the name of her elephant blanket)
Ball, Apple, Bubble (these three are somewhat indistinguishable and seemingly interchangeable)
Choo-choo

There might be a few more, but these are the most common. Many more on their way soon, I'm sure!

Welcome, Spring!

What a beautiful weekend, in so many ways! The weather was amazing, Layla was healthy, and Grandmommy and Granddaddy were here to visit. Pics of the visit are on their way, once Grandpaparazzi has time to recover from the grandparents' overnight with Layla, while Mommy and Daddy enjoyed their first night away from baby. And by the way, Layla is now 16 months old!

We journeyed to Lexington Center and Layla had some fun playing soccer.



Sadly, all good things must come to an end. Grandmommy and Granddaddy are back home in PA, the warm weather is gone, and Layla has a runny nose once again. But...Layla and I will be traveling to PA in just a few weeks, so we'll keep looking forward to that!

Baby on the Move

So for a while now (weeks, perhaps?) I've thought that I could feel those now familiar flutters in my tummy that suggest baby #2 is on the move. Now today I'm more sure than ever. Even though my belly's been growing, to me, this is the truest sign that there's a life in there. I love it! 14 weeks and counting.

Sea Life

By the way Layla reacted to the sea life on tv today, something tells me we are due for a trip to the aquarium soon!

Portland

We made a long overdue visit to Portland yesterday to see friends Joe and Natalie and their kids. Another friend, Paul, who we hadn't seen since our wedding, came by to visit, too.

Layla had an absolute blast playing with Mia, Owen, Mongo, and all of their toys. It's easy to take care of her when she has such great entertainment! We were so happy that Layla warmed up so nicely to the dog. Halfway through the day she was going out of her way to find the dog and try to pet it.


Here she is hanging out with Paul.


And here she is sharing some Cheerios with Owen. Mongo might have snagged a couple, too.

Warm Weekend

We had fun at a new playground on Sunday. Layla LOVED the little tunnel.

Update

Friday was Layla's 15 month check-up. It was quite eventful because last Sunday she came down with another bad cold. I hesitated to take her in to the doc when I knew we had Friday's appointment coming up. Plus, she was still finishing up a course of amoxicillin that had been prescribed for the illness before this one. Long story short, by the time we showed up there on Friday, her cough was horrendous and she was wheezing quite a bit. Plus there was still some fluid in her ear. We had to do an albuterol treatment while we were there, which is never fun. I started to feel quite guilty that I hadn't followed through at home with the nebulizer as the doc had originally recommended. It's really hard to fit 3-6 nebulizer treatments into the work day, especially when the patient thinks it's fun to continuously turn the machine off and on! The appointment was at the end of a long work week, at the end of a long winter, and seeing the doc so concerned about my sick girl kind of put me over the edge. So we started on a new antibiotic and we are following directions this time and have increased neb treatments. Layla started to feel better right away, even though she still sounds kind of "junky". I'm feeling much better now, too, helped in no small way by the fact that Layla slept until past 6:30 both yesterday and today. In fact, today she woke up chatting instead of crying and when I went into her room she was reading a book in her crib. Getting sleep and not waking up at 5 am to play has me thinking that maybe one day I will feel human again! Not for a while....but one day :).

Layla couldn't get her immunizations, so we'll go back in about 10 days for a re-check of her symptoms plus her two shots. Good times!

Below is a video that shows Layla playing with her new, favorite toy...her neb! She likes to take her wooden people or her shapes and put them on the neb to see how they move while it vibrates. She got a little distracted this time by the fun of dumping the shapes where she couldn't get at them. At least all this nebbing hasn't made her super scared of the thing!

Sunday pics

Pretty girl, talking on her (actually, Mommy's) phone


Sometimes you regret doing something that seems *cute* at the time. Putting Layla in her toybox was a bad idea. Now she wants to be in there all the time!