The Culprit...

That would be the tailpipe of my car. I know what you're thinking, yup, so what? About as interesting as that close up of those new tires a few months back. Unless you're two, because hey, who knows where that hole leads! Katherine stuck her hand into that hot tailpipe right after we arrived home yesterday. One minute she was out on the driveway waving at Daddy mowing the lawn as I was getting the bags out of the car. The next minute she was madly crying at the back of the car. At first I had no clue what had happened and why is her hand all sooty? Then I looked down at the tailpipe. "Did you stick your hand in here?" I got a tearful nod in reply. One touch of the tailpipe with my finger (ouch that's hot!) and we were racing into the house to run that hand under cold water. Lots of cold compresses, paci, noggin, blankie, lots of love and the tears subsided.

I called the pediatrician to find out what to do next. They said we were fine to bring her in in the morning as long as the skin was not broken (it wasn't), just make her comfortable and keep pressure off the blisters. She was upset off and on during the evening but slept soundly through the night. I was lucky enough to snag the 8:30 appointment at the office right next to her daycare. So after the doctor's visit (pretty uneventful, checked the blister, gave us some cream to prevent infection in case it breaks and sent us on our way...oh and she weighs 31 lbs now) we stopped in to say hello and drop off some goodies for Teacher Appreciation Week. Within a few short hours of my phone call news of her injury had spread, the whole place knew and was ready to give the patient some attention. The common question was "what made her think to stick her hand there?" Beats me! Clearly not a common occurance.

So now we're home for the rest of the day. I thought it was best to keep her home to prevent the chance of infection. Katherine is always the first to start digging in the dirt, I can keep a better eye on her here. The blister has started to ooze just a bit so I went ahead and applied the cream and wrapped it up. Miss K. is quite please with the bandage.All in all, she seems to have recovered just fine. And compared to the tooth incident, this one was a breeze. Now its on to my to do list for work, last minute laundry and packing for our flight tomorrow morning. Nothing like an airplane ride to see Papa and Gram to distract a girl from her new boo boo!

Sniffle, sniffle

We had a good run around here of being illness free. Unfortunately on Sunday night I had that all too familiar feeling in the back of my throat…here comes the cold. The fam went home early from work/school yesterday to rest and recuperate. That would be the adult members of the family, as usual Miss K was perfectly healthy. After an evening and night of sleep I feel a bit better today.

So, how was the weekend you are asking? Nice! Thursday night I made fresh strawberry bars (recipe from Better Homes and Gardens). Strawberries are by far my favorite fruit so I was eager to give this a try. It was pretty tasty although next time it needs a touch more flour (Dad you will LOVE it). I also proved I have absolutely no willpower when it comes to goodies like that as it was my main food group for the rest of the weekend. In spite of her love of PB&J Katherine was not all that impressed, especially with the strawberries.

Katherine went in her pool Friday and Saturday. She helped me set it up Friday morning, I figured we could fill it up and play for a bit before lunch and then after nap she could put on her suit and go all out. Well we got the pool out, unwound the hose and turned on the water. Once Katherine saw what was happening she stripped down butt naked and proceeded to climb in the pool. There was no stopping her. Thank goodness we were in the backyard this time. I made a mad dash inside for her bathing suit and the camera. I was able to get a few cute shots of that little tush filling up the pool. Those of you who get the Kodak albums are in for a special treat (I’ll refrain from posting pictures of my daughter’s naked backside on the Internet).

Saturday evening brought a round of storms which knocked out power for the rest of the night. The two year old was pretty much entertained by the flashlight although we had to explain multiple times why she couldn’t “watch my Noggin”.

Mother’s Day was spent relaxing at home. I had bought some annuals for around the house and Katherine “helped” me plant them (see picture in the previous post!). Really she spent most of the time digging around in the dirt but she had a blast doing it.

Tonight I need to start packing for the weekend. I’ve told Katherine a few times that she gets to ride on an airplane on Friday but I don’t think she really gets what I’m saying. I think the only thing she does understand is that she and I are headed to “Papa’s House!”

Mothers Day Pictures

Fingerpainting

Thank goodness for washable fingerpaints...believe it or not the shirt, table and the kid are now spotless!

Ssssssss...

Ok, so I keep forgetting about that little painting video...I promise tonight I will post it.

While I was still pregnant with Katherine, I think even BEFORE I got pregnant I laid down the law. At no time will fake snakes, spiders and the like be allowed in our house. Not only that it is not a funny prank to surprise Mommy with one either. I can't stand the stuff. So yesterday when we picked her up from daycare, what were they doing? Digging around in a bin of various types of rubber snakes, bugs, frogs, etc... Katherine came running up to me with a handful of snakes..."Look Mommy snakes! SSSSSSSS!" Ewwww, I didn't even want to touch them (and yes I am shuddering just at the though right now). K. however was fascinated, pulling her away took a little bit of time.

Speaking of snakes, they are more common around these parts. Although I have been truly lucky never to have encountered one in our yard or out on walks etc...that is a live one (yes I have once or twice driven by a big black one slithering down the road....ewwww). Two days ago my coworker Stephanie and I were out for our lunchtime run when she spotted a dead (very dead) snake in our path. Not huge but bigger than this Yankee is used to, about the width and length of a broom handle. I, of course, when to the other side of the road, dead or not I wasn't going near it. Stephanie, on the other hand, being a native, wanted to check it out to see what kind of snake it was, i.e. whether it was a "good" snake or a "bad" snake (really, is there any other type but bad?). She grabbed a stick to poke at it a little, turns out "just" a black snake (as opposed to it having some color on it, meaning not only was it a snake but a poisonous snake to boot). I stayed a good 10 feet away. I'm told that the reason we haven't seen any snakes around our yard is because we have a cat, our neighbor has 4 cats and our other neighbor has 3 dogs. Supposedly they hate cats and the dogs just add an extra layer of protection (not to mention the highway just past the back of our property). Plus the cats keep the mice away so there's no food. If that's the case, trust me, I will always be surrounded by furry little felines as long as I'm living here.

Price Inflation

We had great plans to get out and about this weekend and they pretty much stayed plans. Since neither of us felt like driving the 3 hours each way to the Aquarium that got quickly vetoed Saturday morning. It turned into an arts and crafts type weekend instead. Katherine got to paint, color, and play with glue. A cute little video is coming later today, check back for it if you don’t see it here yet. The Internet seems to be doing better so we’ll keep our fingers crossed for some video uploading tonight.

I was lucky enough to score a 30% off your entire purchase coupon for Ann Taylor Loft from Adrienne. I haven’t been in the mall in ages but hey who’s gonna let a coupon like that go to waste? Surely not I, I’ll at least have a quick look-see. First I was smart and took a look at the website where I spotted this little number. OK, I said to myself, there’s what you’re going for, stay on budget and stick to it! I’m happy to report I did but of course there are interesting details between viewing the item online and actually walking out of the store with it. I mean I couldn’t possible go in the store at not try on multiple things could I? Nope. So with my arms heavy with shirts and pants I entered the fitting room. Surprisingly there were only a couple of things that I really liked (which affirms my belief that you really do need to try on things before you buy them, hence my limited amount of online shopping for clothes AND the What Not to Wear mantra that you need to be open to trying on A LOT of clothes to find stuff that you really like). So anyways there I was in the fitting room debating between 3 choices (remember the budget!!), one of which was a very cute white t-shirt. For $29.50. Number one, I had an issue with paying $29.50 for a t-shirt, even at 30% off. Number two, when I looked closer at the price tag, I noticed that they had pasted the $29.50 over the original price. This thing used to be more than $29.50??? Wait, is that a 24 I see under there? So I did what any sane person would have done, I peeled off the price tag, to find that the shirt had once cost $24.50. What???? Huh???? Let me get this straight Ann Taylor Loft, you RAISED the price of the t-shirt $5????? WHO DOES THAT? Obviously Ann Taylor Loft does. Isn’t there some state law about that, which they have to honor to lowest price on the tag? I did think of walking up to a salesperson and saying “Are you serious that this was once $24.50 and you raised the price on it?” but thought better of myself (remember I wasn’t there to buy the T-shirt even if it did look darn cute on me, size M if anyone is wondering, you know Mother’s Day coming up at all, he he). Better to just put the shirt down and walk away. I got what I came for and left. Sort of. I bought a pair of pants, walked out of the store, 10 minutes later realized I made a mistake and really the sweater would be much more versatile for me (budget!), walked back in, exchanged the pants for the sweater and THEN left.

But, But, Butt...

I did not plan for almost an entire week to go by between posts. Our internet at home seems to be running a bit slow. Ok, its running very slow. So each time I sat down to do some browsing and do a quick update I'd get right back up in frustration as I waited for the hamster in the wheel to start running JUST A BIT FASTER. We're not entirely sure what the problem is but we think its the router which allows us to have the computer AND the XBox 360 hooked up to the Internet. We had Time Warner out a couple of months ago when our Internet would freeze up completely and the guy quickly diagnosed that it was the beginning of the end for the router. After that visit things improved momentarily and now we find ourselves in our current pickle. So while we figure out what to do I'll have to use lunchtime for a good majority of my posts.

Its was a fairly usual week around here. Yesterday was Spring picture day for Katherine at school and I put her the adorable outfit she wore for Easter (with of course a back up outfit just in case we had an accident right before the big moment). Katherine's big realization this week is that everybody has a butt. Yup. She's actually been doing this for a bit with various body parts, nose, eyes, etc... She'll point out "That's your nose, that's my nose, that's the bear's nose...etc." Well this week it was..."That's your butt, that's my butt, that's Daddy's butt, that's Reeses' butt." Yup we all have a butt kiddo. Next step is to teach her that it is not appropriate behavior to point out other's butts, especially in public places. Otherwise, I'm afraid I'm going to be strolling in the mall with her and she'll exclaim "That's your butt!" to some random unsuspecting soul and heaven forbid it be someone whose behind was rather, shall we say, on the large size?

I went out last night to spread the last of the pine straw in the bed in the middle of the backyard. I should have remember the camera because Katherine had a ball literally rolling in the patches of pinks that are in full bloom. I guess I should have stopped her from squishing the flowers but it was too cute..."This tickles Mommy." We're trying to decide on a weekend activity, possibly a drive to the NC Aquarium or maybe the observation park at RDU where she might get a kick out of watching the planes take off and land. Any other ideas?