The Apocalypse

Yeah, so I haven't blogged in awhile.  Obviously.  I just haven't really felt like it.  If you didn't know (which, I'm assuming at this point that the only people who are reading my blog are people who know me, in which case you have known for about 4 months now), I'm pregnant again!  Yay!  We are super excited!  We are having another girl, which I am EXTREMELY excited about!  Mostly for three reasons: we already have 95% of what we need, Alexa will have a sister, I don't know what to do with boys.  Nick says that he didn't care either way, boy or girl, but I think that secretly he kind of wanted it to be a boy.  Oh well, that's his fault, not mine.  Anyway, my lack of blogging mostly centers around my complete lack of interest in just about anything recently.  Do you know how people have postpartum depression?  Well I have antepartum bitchiness. Seriously. I joke that I've been in a bad mood for about 27 weeks now, but it's the truth.  Just ask Nick.  Or Hayley.  Poor Hayley, I think she's been on the receiving end of a lot of my bitchiness.  Pretty much, at all times I either want to punch someone in the face or crawl into a dark (quiet) hole.  And apparently this is a real thing (well, maybe not the name "antepartum bitchiness", but the concept).  I have talked to my OB about it and he said that there's medicine I can take but I opted out of that option.  It's gradually getting better (hence the blogging) and my Dr. said that in the third trimester it should stay on that general "getting better" track.  Plus, I didn't want my unborn child to be drugged up.  I'm taking one for the team.  Although, it's the people around me who are probably suffering more than I am.  Ha!  Sucks for you!  Which is the main reason why I have also been staying away from people for the past 27 weeks.  I choose to shield you from my bitchiness.  It's not you, it's me. 

Onto the apocalypse.  Last Friday, while we were waiting for the world to end, Alexa and I dropped off Christmas presents to her teachers.  One of her teachers, Ms. Haley, works part time at a sandwich shop so we brought her present to her there.  Well, that is when part of our little world ended.  Ms. Haley told us that she got her old job back at the state (which she left 4 years ago to have her daughter) and that she's going to be leaving the day care.  We are devastated.  Well, mostly I am devastated.  Alexa hasn't been back to school without Ms. Haley and she didn't quite understand why Ms. Haley was giving her extra hugs and kisses (and crying) at the sandwich shop.  It made me cry too, I'm not gonna lie.  Haley has been one of her teachers since Alexa has been in daycare.  She was the person that Lexi formed an attachment to.  Whenever Alexa was having a bad day or not feeling well, they gave her to Ms. Haley, even if she wasn't in her room at the time.  And, not that the other teachers don't care about Alexa, but I feel like Lexi holds a special place in Haley's heart.  She is one of the few people who Lexi will eagerly leave my side to go to.  And last week, Haley told me that the new baby is going to have a lot to live up to because Alexa is perfect.  So, needless to say, we are mourning.  And there is a distinct possibility that we may become Ms. Haley stalkers (I'm already her friend on facebook). 

On a lighter note, I just spellchecked my post so far and the computer doesn't like the word "antepartum".  It's suggested fix is "underparts".  Hehehe.  Also, Alexa has a new way of getting out of her pull up or underwear.  She pulls them down to her ankles and does a forward roll out of them.  It's awesome.  I want to be just like her.

A Whole Lot of Crazy - part 2

Since Alexa has had the bumpers off of her crib, she has been having a little problem at night keeping her pacis.  She doesn't realize it, but when she's sleeping she throws them on the floor.  The phrase 'active sleeper' just doesn't even begin to describe her.  You have to see it to believe it.  So, on to my story:

I got up for work one morning and everything seemed to be how it should be.  After showering and getting dressed, I was in the kitchen making my oatmeal when I heard a whimpering noise.  It sounded just like Wolfie.  Wait.  I think I should first tell you that about two days before this happened I swear I saw Wolfie in my family room.  Alexa and I were playing in her room and when I looked out her door I know I saw him walk by the couches.  At first I assumed I was crazy, that it must have been one of the girls but then I realized that both girls were sitting right next to me.  This is not even the crazy that I'm going to talk about, either.  I swear that I see people all the time.  Like the ghost at Dance Explosion (that many people have seen) who I know is my grandpa Nettina.  Oh and another time, when I was vacuming, I was positive that I saw grandpa Natwick sitting on my couch.  And the obvious time when grandma Natwick stopped by on her way to heaven to tell me about her chair.  Are you telling me that it is a coincidence that I woke up at the exact time she passed and could think of nothing else but that chair?  OK, I'm getting off track.  Anyway, so it's 5:30 in the morning and I hear a whimpering noise.  First, I dismiss it, thinking that I'm hearing something from the microwave or something outside.  Then it happens again.  And again.  And again.  Enough times that now I know I am hearing something and that it is in the house.  Oh yeah, and it sounds EXACTLY like how Wolfie used to whimper.  Do I think that I have a small child in the other room?  No, of course not.  I immediately jump to the conclusion that my dog has come down from doggie heaven to say hello.  Trying to be sane, I turned on the lights in my room to check on the girls and make sure it wasn't them (Nick was sleeping in the guest bedroom that night - with the monitor.  But that's a whole other story that will take up much too much time).  So anyway, I turn on the lights and Glynnis and Minnie are passed out sleeping.  I'm pretty sure Minnie was snoring, and I'm positive that neither of them were whimpering.  'Great', I think, now I'm just one step closer to crazy.  So what do I do?  I go back out to the kitchen/family room and I'm sneaking around whispering Wolfie's name.  And then I hear it again.  Now I'm sure I'm crazy.  Thoughts of schitzophrenia are running through my head.  Here's the crazy girl who doesn't hear voices.  Oh no, she hears her deceased dog crying for her.  I decide that I need to go wake up Nick because he needs to have me admitted somewhere, he needs to take me to the crazy house and OH MY GOD, why won't that dog stop crying?!?!  It is at this point, when I am about five steps away from the guest room door, that I remember that I have a child.  I walk up to Alexa's door and slowly creep inside her room to find her sitting up, kind of slumped in the corner of her crib.  She looked at me, made her little Wolfie-like whimper and I silently said a small prayer of thanks for the last bit of my sanity.  Apparently, I'm not quite as crazy as I once thought.  When I walked up to Alexa and asked if she was ok, she nodded yes.  And then in a completely big girl and whimper free voice she said "paci fall on floor". 

A Whole Lot of Crazy - Part 1

Alexa has always been great going to bed (when I'm home).  She's one of those kids who you put in the bed, she picks up her paci and bunny, turns on her music, lays down and goes to sleep.  It's a big part of what makes her so incredibly awesome.  So, a few weeks ago (I know, I've been a little too distracted with other things to keep up with the blog lately) we were all doing our usual bedtime routine and for some reason Lexi wanted her paci early.  We are hopefully going to be getting rid of the paci soon, so she only gets it when she is physically in her bed.  So after lots of screaming, we finally put her in the crib, gave her the paci and said good night.  Well, she did not like that at all.  She kept on screaming that she was "all done night night" and after lots of hugs and kisses I just told her it was time to go to sleep and left her in the crib to scream by herself.  No big deal.  I assumed she would just lay down and go to sleep like she always does.  About two minutes later, as I was doing dishes, I looked up to see her door slightly open.  My first thought was 'why did Nick go in there?  She finally quieted down and she needs to just put herself to sleep.'  Then I saw a little 2.5 foot creature in her pink footie pajamas creep around the door, grab the handle and slowly pull it closed.  She turned around to look at me with an expression of equal parts awe, excitement and pure terror.  And then she said "hi".  Crazy girl had climbed out of her crib, somehow (thank God) landed on her feet and decided to come hang out with the grown ups.  We scooped her up and I read her some books as Nick took the bumpers off of her crib.  I know it's something we should have done months ago but she likes her crib so much, I never thought she'd try to climb out of it.  Plus, she's so short the side rails on the crib come up to her armpits.  Even if she used the bumpers to stand on, I thought it'd be impossible for her to actually get out.  Well apparently I have been proven wrong.  As usual.  And after laying on the floor next to her crib pretending to sleep and watching her crawl out not one but two more times that night without the help of the bumpers, I have come to the conclusion that my child has super human upper body strength.  She goes to the front right corner of her crib, grabs onto the outside of the rail and pulls herself up until she can get her right leg up onto the right side rail.  Then she uses her leg to help pull herself up so that she's laying on top of the side rail on her belly and I assume then she swings her legs around to drop and land on her feet (I 'woke up' and stopped her when she got to her belly).  I guess that its a good thing that we drilled into her head to get down from the couch or our bed feet first.  At least maybe that helped her from landing on her head.  Needless to say, we went out and got another video monitor after that night (our first one had broken months ago and we've just been using an audio monitor).  And, so far, she hasn't tried to climb out again.  Which I'm very happy about.  Alexa really does love her crib and, the way that she sleeps, I wouldn't trust her to be in a toddler bed.  Plus, I like knowing that when we put her to bed at night she has to stay there until we get her in the morning.  No night time strolls around the house or midnight play time in her room.  I'm not ready for that yet.

Music Class

It's been awhile, I know.  I finally moved to day shift (yay!) which is fantastic for my life but not so great for my blog, since I do most of my blogging from work.  Oh well, I suppose I have to find a new (maybe slightly more appropriate) time to write.  Also, the switch from night to day shift has been a little less smooth than I anticipated.  I want to sleep all the time.  Like, even on my days off, I put Alexa to bed and then get in bed myself.  I end up falling asleep around 9:00, just to wake up at 4am ready to go.  It's only been 2 weeks so I'm still adjusting.  My first week of day shift was OK, there are a lot more people here during the day which is exactly what I don't like.  More people to have to talk to is not my idea of fun.  And on top of all the doctors and case workers, etc. there are also tons of med students getting all up in everyone's business.  Which brings me to my next story.

Alexa and I went to music class, as usual, last Friday.  She was having one of those kind of days where she's just a little more crazy then usual.  She insisted on wearing her 4th of July fireworks shirt and then on the way to music class she pulled out her pig tails and lost one of the stretchies.  She ended up having this crazy pony tail with a center part that was left over from the pig tails plus wearing this ridiculous shirt that is too big on her anyways.  She looked just about as crazy as she was acting.  So we were sitting in music class and it was time for the drums.  Lexi would not stop putting her drum mallet in her mouth so I ended up taking it away from her.  I was in the process of shaking it at her and threatening to beat her with it (joking, of course...mostly) when who walks by but one of the doctors I work with accompanied by the slew of med students who had been hanging around the PICU all week.  Of course he came up to me to talk for a minute and asked how day shift was (blah, blah, blah).  Meanwhile I told Alexa to say 'hi' and handed the mallet back to her (in the most gentle, non-threatening way I knew how).  The whole time with 10 med students just standing there watching us.  Perfect.  So then I suppose Alexa thought that she already hit crazy, she might as well just go with it.  (After the small entourage of doctors left - thank God)  She started pulling her shirt over her head and walking around with the front of it over her face, laughing.  Then, she took off the whole shirt, put her hands on her hips and walked around the room saying "I'm naked!  I'm naked!".  Imagine about 15 mothers, plus the teacher, sitting in a circle singing songs while their babies are either on their laps or playing in the center of the circle.  And then there's my kid.  Half naked strutting around proclaiming and celebrating her nudity.  After two attempts to put her shirt back on (it quickly came off again), and tucking it into her pants (that didn't work either), I picked her up and we had a little discussion in the hallway about how if she doesn't act like a big girl, we aren't coming back to music class again.  She nodded and said "Shexa big girl'.  The other mothers were smiling and chuckling at her but I know that they were thinking 'Oh, thank God my kid isn't acting like that'.  Alexa did act like a big girl for what was left of the class (about 5 minutes) and we had another talk this past Friday before leaving for our class.  Oh, and this week, she wore a onesie.

Russia

OK, so obviously I haven't been writing on my blog for awhile.  In fact, this is the first time I've even looked at it since the last post.  First I noticed that there were still no comments, which makes me look like a loser.  And then I noticed that my blog had 26 views from Russia today.  What's up with that?  Russians, I don't know you.  Please stay away from my blog.  I made it public so that people who were asking to find it could find it easier, not for Russians to read it.  If you are Russian and you can read English, stay away from my blog please!  Unless you like me, then by all means stay.  Nope.  I changed my mind, don't read, you make me nervous.  Is there any way to block Russia from a blog?  Just wondering.

The Beach and 4th of July

We have had a lot going on in the past month or so, hence the lack of blogging.  Also, I was going to put up some super cute pictures that I took at the end of June but kodakgallery.com closed and did not transfer over my files yet (as they implied they would).  Very annoying.  So we will have to start with family vacation to the beach:

 Getting ready to go to the beach!!!

 The first day we were at the beach the waves were huge!  Alexa went up to the ocean and got splashed a couple of times.  She did pretty well considering she had never seen waves like that before.

 She totally enjoyed all the fun beach activities like collecting shells to put in Nick's pocket and she loved stepping in "Daddy's feet".

 OK, so Nick got an ipad. Which is a story I would really rather not get into right now.  The short version is that he finally convinced me that he needed it for the masters program that he's in.  I still think it's a complete waste of money - although it was the cheapest of many computer options - but I was playing with the iphoto app on our way back home and look at how pretty my picture is!!!  I guess the ipad is growing on me a little bit because I named her Susanne.  You see, my itouch is named Susie, so I thought it was appropriate.

 Our parents met us at the beach and Alexa had lots of fun hanging out with her grandmas and grandpas.

 The beach that we went to just happened to be down the street from my aunt and uncle.  So of course they came over one day with their grand kids to play in the sand.  This is one of the only pictures that actually has all of them in it (plus my dad...obviously).

 After the first day at the beach, it kind of lost it's magic and apparently the pool was the place to be.  Alexa constantly asked to go to the pool.  After she got tired of everyone telling her that we weren't going to the pool right now, she changed her tactics.  Instead she would go up to someone and say "walk?"  then when that person would say "Sure, Alexa, we can go on a walk" she would grab their finger and lead them up to the stairs to the pool.  Crafty little thing.  This picture is her pointing to the pool when, after a day of misled walks, Nick asked her where she wanted to walk to.

 Finally, we gave in.  She really did love the pool.

 And she loved swinging from the railing...

 ...and giving Uncle Nicky high fives...

...and the occasional economics lesson from Uncle Ricky. 

 We got home just in time for the 4th of July and Alexa walked (rode) in her first parade!  As you can see, she was thrilled.

 After nap time we went over to Aunt Kim's house for hot dogs, hamburgers and pulled pork.  Nick's other sister, Dani, was in town with her two kids and Alexa had lots of fun playing with them (especially Sami).  This picture is of Alexa trying to be slick.  We told her she was not allowed to touch the cable outlet so she snuck up on it and did this instead.  Apparently if she isn't looking at me, she thinks that I can't see her.

 Silly girl.

 Alexa and Sami playing on Chase's bed.

 Alexa loved ALL the food (and I love Sami's face).

 Yummy, cupcakes!

 The next day, the cousins came over.  Alexa and Sami played in the little pool, with the water table and with bubbles while the boys played in the big pool and on the super long (and lubed up with dish detergent) slip-n-slide that nick put together.

Pee pee in the potty

I promise to write an actual post in the next few days but I just had to announce something spectacular. Somebody in the Weaver house went pee pee in the potty!!!! You know, in addition to myself and Nick. Everyone knows how Alexa likes to be naked. So she was running around the house naked on Thursday and we had been sitting on the potty every few minutes. When it was time for dinner I told her that she had to put a diaper on. When she was laying on the changing table, she looked at me and said "pee pee? Potty?". I put her down and she ran into the bathroom, sat on her potty, and by the time I got in there she said "all done!". Well, she stood up and when I looked into her potty there was pee in it! It was exciting. We celebrated. And of course she hasn't done again since then. But that's ok because she did it once and only a few days after she turned 21 months old. That's right mom, that's right! ;)

The Tooth Demon

This past weekend we met a new side of Alexa.  The crazy side.  I'm not kidding.  And I'm pretty sure it came in the form of a tooth.  On Friday night she started getting a little fussy, had a fever and was chewing on stuff.  No problem, she got some Tylenol and for the most part felt better.  We went to bed Friday night thinking that everything was fine, not realizing that crazy girl was about to come out.  Sometime between Friday night and Saturday morning, some demon or something got a hold of my sweet little baby.  What?  Are you going to say that I'm exaggerating and it couldn't have been that bad?  Well, you're wrong.  I seriously considered calling my local priest to inquire about the cost of an excercism.  Seriously.  If she would have started projectile vomiting green pea soup, with her head rotating and the words 'help me' appearing on her abdomen (Katie, that word was just for you), I would not have been surprised at all.  (OK, maybe mildly surprised)  If she wasn't screaming, she was pissed.  If she wasn't pissed, she was following us around crying "up please?  up please?".  I swear she made it her life goal on Saturday for her feet to not touch the ground.  She probably woke up Saturday morning and thought to herself:  'Self, I believe I will try to stay at least three feet above the floor all day long.'  Well, good job Lexi, because you pretty much met your goal.  We tried to do everything for our screaming, drooling child.  She got Motrin around the clock, she chewed on teething rings, we played, we read books, we watched Abby Cadaby on TV.  All of her favorite things and she continued to be pissed.  I can not even count the number of times she got put in time out.  I'm sorry, but hurting or not, there is no hitting or throwing toys.  At the end of the day I ended up sitting in time out with her and muttering "Let's just take a break, Lex, let's just take a break".  She was pathetic.  She went to bed Saturday night, woke up and fussed a couple of times (we ended up sleeping in our sick bed) and woke up Sunday morning a new person.

So, I now have a theory about all of this.  Everyone knows about the tooth fairy.  I feel that we need to raise awareness about the tooth demon.  Who is obviously the tooth fairy's estranged relative...perhaps an uncle?...who finds glee in causing children (and sometimes adults who refuse to have their wisdom teeth out  for fear of the dentist.  What?  I don't like people touching my teeth.) horrible pain, drooling and temporary psychosis.  Hopefully, you will only be visited by the tooth demon when you have teeth coming in, although, he does enjoy the occasional cavity.  It's incentive to brush your teeth.  Oh my God.  I could write a children's book!  Plus, added bonus for you for reading this far down the page...there is actually a moral to this story!  Brush your teeth or the tooth demon will come and get you!  Raise the awareness, people!  Raise the awareness!

Recital/Bridal Shower Weekend

 My parents and Katie came up the other weekend for recital and Jenifer's shower.  I haven't talked about Jenifer that much but she's my best friend since Kindergarten.  (Hi Jen!)  I mean, my best friend other then my mom and Katie.  (Hi Mom and Katie!)  Anyway, Jenifer and I went to UF together and then we both  (coincidently) ended up moving to Tallahassee around the same time.  She is getting married in July and I'm her matron of honor!!!  I was pretty excited (and still am) until I realized that I would have to make a speech in front of a whole lot of people.  My mom said that I wouldn't have a problem writing the speech, it's the public speeking part that would be difficult.  Great, thanks for the vote of confidence, mom!  ;)  Back to Jenifer.  She just moved to Crawfordville, which is exciting, especially since the house that she is renting has a bad ass swing set in the back yard.  And it's exciting because what are the chances that Jenifer was going to move to Crawfordville?  I mean, seriously.  Who do you know, other than me, that just up and moved to Crawfordville?  No one.  Exactly.

See?  It really is a pretty bad ass swing set.  And that was Alexa's first time on a big girl swing!!!  She was obviously thrilled.  Can't you tell by the look on her face?  OK, back to recital weekend.  Nick met Alexa and I at dress rehearsal and the stage is now Lexi's new favorite place to be.  Every time she saw me, she asked "back?".  Meaning, 'Mommy, will you please take me backstage with you so that I can watch the dancers?!'.  (Wow, she sure is polite!)  Apparently, even during the actual recital she liked watching the dances and was really good.  Or so my parents, Katie and Jenifer say. 

 Me and my Lexi Lynn after the show.  Can we all please notice how light her hair is getting?!  Maybe she will have some red in her hair after all.  That would make my mom happy because you know, those red heads are going to become extinct.

 Baye and Alexa checking out the stage.

 We had our first missing baby scare.  Well, it would have been a scare had we realized Rachel was gone before we saw her sitting on the lost and found table.

 Bath time after the recital.

 We had Jen's shower at my house on Sunday.  Do you like her sash?  Mom and I made it.  You can't tell from the picture but it says 'Future Mrs. Fortenberry'.  How jealous are you? 

 Jenifer, myself and our moms before the shower.

 We had a lot of fun, played games, typical shower stuff.  (Although, I think our games were pretty awesome!)  The reason why I put this picture up is to illustrate Alexa's need to act like a fool when surrounded by strangers.  She felt it necessary to throw herself around, roll on the floor, arch her back, etc.  All in a happy, kind of drunk looking way.   Which, I know is much better then her acting like a screaming, crying crazy, but still strange.  It makes me very worried for what's going to happen at Jenifer's wedding where Alexa will be a flower girl and expected to walk down the aisle.  Maybe she'll roll down the aisle.  Or dance down the aisle.  She can do summersaults now...I can totally see her summersaulting down the aisle. 

Oh yes, and somebody (named Alexa) is obcessed with Abby Cadabby which means that somebody else (named Janeth) feels the need to buy Abby socks, a wand and an Abby potty book.  Which Alexa loved, of course.  I'm really enjoying the crossed ankles while sitting on the toilet but not so much the sickled feet.  We are going to have to work on that.

Pictures of Wolfie



Maybe Next Week

I know I haven't written anything in awhile but we have had a very exhausting week. Dance rehearsal and recital and a bridal shower for Jenifer among other things. Then on Monday morning we had to put down our buddy, Wolfie. He had a stroke and had progressively gotten worse over the weekend. Maybe I'll write something next week.

toothbrush

Oh, that moment when you just realized you did a superb, top notch tooth brushing with...your husband's toothbrush.  And even though you have known him for more than half your life and you've been married for 7 years, you're pretty grossed out.  :/

That, together with the bath I just had to give Glyniss because she had diarrhea stuck to her butt really makes me want to go back to bed and start today over.  Oh well, off to work (hopefully to witness some more miracles like last night!).

Ballerina Roach

You know how I hate roaches? No? Well, I do. They're horrible and are on my list of the top three things which should become extinct (along with alligators and toads). For my whole life they have been out to get me. I am not kidding. I have distinct memories of playing in the living room at my parents house right after we moved in (I was 5) and pulling a dead roach out of the shag carpeting. (I realize that one was dead and could not possibly be out to get me, but still) They have crawled across my arm when I was working at my dad's shop in Miami. They have tried to attack me in my house. I have even witnessed a flying roach fly down my mom's shirt (which, I'm not gonna lie, was half terrifying and half hilarious). Usually, when I see them, I run for cover and scream at someone else to go kill it. Once, I was laying in my bed, saw a roach on the opposite wall, and instead of killing it, I pulled the blanket over my head and called Nick (who was in the other room) on my phone to come and get rid of it. I think I have made my point.

So, a couple of weeks ago (it has actually taken that long for me to talk about this) I was at work giving report to the oncoming nurse. Now, let's remember that it was 7am, I had been at work for 12 hours and I was pretty much delirious with no filter. OK, so we were standing outside the patient's room when the day shift nurse, let's call her Betsy, casually said to me "oh, look at that little roach running". What?! How can you even speak that sentence no nonchalantly?! And, little roach? Oh no, that thing was a freaking monster! And you bet your ass it was running...right toward me! Plus, it was running and barely touching the floor! It's like the thing was running on pointe. It was freaking ballerina roach in attack mode coming to get me!!! What do I do? Of course I jump around screaming "kill it, Betsy, kill it!!!!" (Which is what every PICU patient and family want to hear at 7am, I'm sure.) I tried to move laterally and what does the roach do? Turn toward me. It can sense my fear. Finally, after 3 stomps (3 stomps!!!) Betsy killed the roach and then kicked it under the counter thing of the nurses station (where, I'm sure it was regenerating and planning it's next move). Meanwhile, all the other night and day shift nurses are at the nurses station either looking at me like I'm crazy or hysterically laughing at me. I, of course, announce that I'm having palpitations and that I needed to finish giving report on the other side of the unit because I really feel that the roach is going to come back from the dead and attack me again. Seriously.

I know that I live in Florida and that means that there are roaches everywhere. I also realize (in the rational part of my brain) that the roach really can't hurt me and that my fear would be better placed on even something like a bee or a wasp where there is a small but real potential for harm. But I don't care. Bees and wasps don't freak me out. I have no problem killing spiders or any other kind of bug that gets into the house, and I'll pick up lizards and put them back outside without even squirming. But for some reason, I can't handle a roach. I think we should kill them all.

A Talking Fool

Do you know how Alexa hadn't been saying many words?  Did I even write about that?  She always understood and followed directions, and when she started talking she had a pretty long list of words... and then she lost them.  Her list went from 10 words to 3 words and stayed there for months.  Our pediatrician said it was OK but it still made me a little nervous.  Well, I guess she has been saving it all up or something because now she is a talking fool!  I thought about writing down a list of all the words she says but I don't know that I could remember them all.  Maybe I'll follow her around with a pad of paper and a pen one day just to catch everything that she says.  She's even putting words together and she said a three word sentence the other day!  (I know what your thinking: "I say three word sentences all the time, what's the big deal?!"  Well, congratulations, but unfortunately you aren't my kid so I really don't care.)  When my in-laws were over two weekends ago she said "I see you!"  So cute.

So my mom came up last weekend and I was pretty excited for her to hear Alexa talking.  We were in a store with Alexa in the cart and all of a sudden Lexi says (very loudly) "I go poopy!"  She had farted.  So her first official sentence was "I see you" (common, typical toddler talk) and her second official sentence was "I go poopy" (common, typical Kristin talk).  Perfect. Oh, and she still doesn't say 'Mommy' or 'mama' or 'ma' or 'mom' or anything remotely close to any of that.  To Alexa, I am known as "ugh".  And she says plenty of other things that start with M so that's not the problem either.  If you ask her where mommy is she will (usually) point to me, which, I'm not gonna lie, I'm pretty excited about.  She just started that a month or two ago.  Before she would either point to Nick or sit there looking confused.  And if you ask her to say the word 'mommy' she will say "omie" and then walk away.  No worries, Alexa.  I'm just the one who birthed you and all that.  I'm just the crazy curly haired chick who dances and sings around the house and won't leave you alone.  It's cool.  You know, she says 'Daddy' with no problem (and 'dada' and 'dad' too).  I bet they practice on the nights that I work.  It's a conspiracy.  Anyway, my mom thinks that this whole not saying mommy thing is hilarious so what does she do this past weekend?  Oh, I'm glad you asked.  She taught my daughter that my name was not 'Mommy'...it's 'Kristin'.  The whole weekend she was asking Alexa where Kristin is and to bring  this to Kristin.  Lexi hasn't called me Kristin yet, but I'm sure it's coming.  Although I suppose 'Kristin' is better then 'ugh' or 'hey you' (which, I'm sure is coming up).  Oh well, she will say mommy eventually, I suppose.  She can't live her whole life calling me 'ugh', right?

Oh!  Want more evidence that Alexa is my little clone baby?  (in an awkward, we do weird things and think it's hilarious kind of a way)  This is a picture of our new way to kiss:

It's pretty much an open mouthed touching of the top lips.  

We think it's hilarious. (Please excuse the chin fat.  I need chin-o-suction.  It's lipo for the chin - in case you didn't get that.  Oh, and an extraction of my extra eye skin.  It was really full force this day.  Obviously.)

Update

So after searching through all of mine and my mom's pictures on Kodakgallery, I found this one:

 Which was taken four years ago.  And yes, it's the most recent picture of me.  Can we also all appreciate the beach scene?!?!?!  Although this one is a much more accurate representation of that weekend (you totally wish you were part of my family):