testing, testing, 1 2 3...

So, I couldn't think of any clever or funny way at the moment to intro this bit of news, but I'd figure I'd let all 3 of you that read this in on the most recent developments in our quest to get Sophia to gain weight. Sophia is growing! Hooray, right? Sort of hooray. Apparently she's getting taller even faster than kids normally do at this age, so she's up to the 50th percentile in height. Hot dog! And she's gaining weight, but it's still on the same little curve that she's made below the chart (Is that a negative percentile? Is there such a thing as the zero-eth percentile? What's below that?) So while she's definitely growing, the height/weight ratio is getting bigger, which according to the gastroenterologist, means 'worse.' Her appetite is still fairly non-existent too. (You would not believe how many people have told me how much they would kill to have this problem, and I got to tell you, it's sort of a comfort to hear that...but...not really.)

She's still on meds to treat her reflux (we think it's working?), but the erythromycin never really made her hungry. And that's the best option to treat poor appetite, as far as side effects go. So...Sophia gets to have a sweat test and upper GI endoscopy w/biopsy to see if there are any underlying reasons for the DGE - food allergies, bacterial infections, or still-high acid levels etc.

The sweat test isn't a huge procedure, but the endoscopy does involve total anesthesia. :( Fortunately, she won't remember a bit of it, and she'll have little if any side effects from the procedures. The sweat test is tomorrow, and the endoscopy is Tuesday, so we'd love your prayers! Most of all, that God's will would be done in all this, but especially that we might get some answers, and that we would be calm and flexible while dealing with all the doctors and waiting rooms!

breakfast butz

Since northern Delaware in functionally considered a suburb of Philly, football season has brought new Eagles cereal to our local Acme grocery stores. Unfortunately the all-caps font they chose for the box makes the title a bit ambiguous looking. I couldn't help snickering to myself like a middle-schooler for a few minutes after I finally figured out that it was supposed to be "Breakfast Blitz." Finding a pic was more difficult than I had the time/energy for, so here's the Fox Philly news clip

Is it just me? ;) I think not.

still alive....

Yes, world, I'm still here! The busyness/travel/lack of routine of the summertime morphed into a molehill-turned-mountain of pictures and adventures, and the thought of blogging, even when the free time presented itself, felt overwhelming. Then I remembered....this is not graded. Ha! There still lurks a little bit of 'if you can't do it thoroughly and well, don't even attempt it' bit of twisted perfectionist in me that comes out in the strangest ways sometimes. So...pictures are on Facebook, traveling and visiting with dear friends and family was marvelous, and we are now back in the comfortable routine of fall - complete with cooler weather and much raking (stupid tree next door).

My friend Jennifer had a funny online experiment on her blog, and I've decided to give it a go. Here are her instructions: Go to Google, search for "(insert your name) needs," and then laugh at the hilarious things that come up. Read below to enjoy some of the things that I apparently need:

1. Erin needs another miracle.
2. Erin needs to wear shirts that have straps. (uhhh...think I got that one covered. (no pun intended!)
3. Erin needs another cable access show.
4. Erin needs a Harley.
5. Erin needs a friend.
6. Erin needs a liver transplant.
7. Erin needs advice.
8. Erin needs your prayers!
9. Erin needs to do the dishes.
10. Erin needs a place to live.
11. Erin needs a makeover.
11. Erin need help.
12. Erin needs some posse love and support.
13. Erin needs some of her own medicine.
14. Erin needs a nap. (always!)

Some of these are definitely true, others, thankfully not. Let me know what your name turns up!

fun recipes

In the neverending quest to find new things that Sophia will either eat or be entertained by (sometimes the two aren't so far apart!), I came across two great recipes in the last few days that were moderate successes - so here they are!

Play-Doh

2 c. flour
1 c. salt
4 tsp. cream of tartar
2 c. water
2 Tbsp. oil
food coloring

Mix dry ingredients. Add wet ingredients and whisk until well blended. In a heavy skillet or saucepan, cook on med. low for 2-3 minutes until thick. Knead until smooth.

Mine needed exactly 13 minutes of cooking to get to play-doh consistency, so I'm not sure how 2-3 minutes is possible, but that's what the original calls for. I'm actually not sure where I got this recipe - I remember finding it online when I taught at Magnolia, and it was a big hit with the kiddos. I had forgotten about it until I made an awful play-doh recipe my pediatrician gave me the other day (half a cup of oil! you can imagine the mess...), and thankfully I still had a copy of the recipe for the good stuff. Of course, Sophia was totally sketched out by the feel of it, but I bet your little bitties (and you! you know you love the stuff. :) ) will have a grand ole time with it. She has been completely enamored with the plastic spoons and straws we dug out to use with the play-doh, so that's been a nice plus for this afternoon! :D

Loafer's Loaf

(from Feed Me, I'm Yours, a cookbook from the 70's lovingly passed along from Julia)

1 lb. ground beef
1 1/4 cup oatmeal, uncooked
1/2 tsp. celery salt
1 cup milk
2/3 cup chopped tomatoes
1/4 cup minced onion
1 egg, beaten
1/4 cup grated American cheese

Combine all ingredients. Pack into a greased loaf pan. Bake at 350 degrees for 1 hr. 10 min.

I actually followed a suggestion the cookbook had on a different page - make mini-loaves in a muffin tin! I have no idea how long I baked them (20-30 min? It was a bit bonkers that particular night, and I was just peeking and checking til they looked done.) I also didn't have celery salt (who does?), so I just used regular old salt. Bonus? Josh loved these!! He spread ketchup on them and asked that they be added to our dinner rotation. :) Sophia liked the few bites she took (yes, only a few bites....the meds aren't doing jack at this point), but today she's rejected them outright. Ahh, toddlerhood.

I've been to Richmond and back since the last post, and I'll see if I can get some pictures up of Jonathan and Joel's graduation. (Mine came out sadly blurry.) I also had a fabulous, short, and slightly chaotic visit with Julia - needless to say, neither of us had any free hands for picture-taking! Other than that, our summer routine has been just that - fairly routine! We're in the midst of transitioning from two naps to one....whew! That's another post entirely - I'll probably wait til I can put a good positive "hindsight is 20/20" kind of slant on that. ;)

lifestyle changes

Well, after many months (almost 6!) of trying to figure out why our otherwise healthy toddler generally isn't interested in eating or gaining any kind of weight, we finally have some answers. Hallelujah! May 23rd was Sophia's gastric emptying scan, which we had been dreading/praying about for some months, mainly because it involved her drinking a couple ounces out of a sippy cup in 10 minutes (which she usually was not interested in) and lying totally still for an hour, unsedated (umm...is that even possible for anyone under the age of 12?).

But sure enough, she gulped the 3 oz. of milk mixed with something radioactive, so it must have been as tasteless as they promised. (It definitely helped that she hadn't had anything to eat or drink yet since she had gotten up a few hours earlier.) She was pretty upset at the nurse who taped her torso down to the scanning table, but after a few minutes, she was chill as could be. Know why? They dimmed the lights, rolled up a little TV cart, and popped in some Blue's Clues. Sophia was MESMERIZED. She's not really a TV watcher yet, and this must have been the coolest thing she'd ever seen. It was nice too - the scanning was being done from underneath her, so we could sit on either side of her, reach over top of her - whatever needed to be done. It was more painless than getting her weighed or measured at the pediatrician!! I mean, the child did not move a muscle for the straight hour. I think she might have twitched a finger in the last ten minutes, but that was it. The nurses were flabbergasted - they'd definitely never seen any kid her age be that still for the whole time. Miraculous!!

And...they called us a few days later (also miraculous) to let us know that she's got moderate reflux and delayed gastric emptying (which means food hangs out in her stomach too long making her not hungry). Some morning Prevacid for the reflux and 3x daily low dose erythromyacin to make her stomach empty out, and we might see some results in the nearish future! She ate like a horse the first night we started the meds, and I got all excited about it, but she hasn't done that since, so I think that was just a fluke. (Darn!) She doesn't love getting the meds squirted in her mouth, but we manage to get them down without too much drama. I'll keep you posted if she suddenly chunks up! :)

The other lifestyle change? Daily SPF 30 now goes on Josh's head. Yep, a visit to our dermatologist this morning confirmed that the two spots on his head that seemed like they were always in process of healing were actually precancerous! Whoa. Fortunately, Dr. Webster froze them off right then and there. So if you have any spots/moles/anything that make you nervous at all, don't hesitate to get them checked out! (PSA over now. :D )

not as rich as we'd hoped - ha!

yard sale profits: 12 dollars (oh well)

yard sale purchases from others in the community yard sale: 9 dollars (all things we needed! promise!)

going through every inch of our house and clearing out what we don't need/use, plus meeting many many more of our neighbors: priceless!!

and she speaks!

I just realized that it's been at least four weeks now since Sophia ventured into the realm of first words, and I had yet to post about it! *tsk tsk* Being a linguist and a former teacher of language-disordered kiddos, it's been such fun in a mama way and a nerdly way to watch the process unfold. :D She had never really imitated any sounds we had made - definitely babbled all kinds of strings of different sounds, but never in direct imitation of what we were doing. She could mimic intonation perfectly - 'jibberish' that sounded like adult conversations in some strange language, and strings of tones that sounded exactly like exaggerated things we said to her. ("mmmmm," tones going up then down when she ate something she liked, "mmhmmm?" when she picked up a toy phone, sounding just like when I answer the phone with, "Hello?" and so on)

Then....(April 4th to be exact)...Josh asked her, "Can you say 'Dada?' And out of her mouth came the sweetest little 'dada' that you have ever heard. Just like she had been doing it her whole short little life or something. Ha! "Can you say 'Mama?'" Sure enough...."Mama!" And then the best part...."Where's Dada?" She points...."Dada!" "Where's Mama?" She points again. "Mama!" Later that day, when we were out shopping as a family, she would point to whichever of us wasn't strolling/carrying her and 'label' us with a smile. I've never been so happy to be labeled! :D

Since then, she's added an occasional 'bye-bye' (more often than not, she blows a kiss), ball (baaaah or baaaaow), baby (behBEH), more (moe or meh meh MEH!), a whole host of animal sounds (including 'lalala' for pigs, thanks to the Sandra Boynton classic Moo Baa LaLaLa), and shaking her head yes and no. She's even doing "AH-hmm!" for 'open,' although I think she uses this for 'please,' 'yes,' 'more,' 'I want that," etc. We'll see what she comes up with next! No walking yet, but she does cruise the furniture like nobody's business, so I'll keep you posted. :)

rarity of rarities...

Fabulous customer service, that is! Here is the recent email exchange that made me love this Canadian company forever and ever:

To Whom it May Concern:

I recently purchased a spray bottle of Linen Water Spray in Blue Lavender from World Market. When I got home, I realized that, not only was the water rather cloudy, but there was a fair amount of white sediment/pieces floating in the bottle. The spray does not smell 'off'; in fact, it smells fantastic! Should I be concerned about the cloudiness/sediment? (I'm not sure how I missed it in the store.) It was on clearance in a branch of World Market that was going out of business, and is therefore nonreturnable. Thank you for your time and response!

Hello,

Thank you for contacting Fruits & Passion!

Please provide us with your address and we will send you a replacement.

Have a nice day,

Amélie Brault -

Customer Service Coordinator / Coordinatrice, Service à la Clientèle
Fruits & Passion
Tel:1-866-638-8417 x 3049
Direct: 450-633-3049

Fax: 1-866-880-6060

Please visit our web site: www.fruits-passion.com

Wow!! I sent that email Saturday, and I got the response this morning. I really wasn't asking for a freebie, but how very generous of them! They definitely deserve a free blog plug. ;)

thoughts on possessions

I just finished a fabulous read, called It's All Too Much. It's by Peter Walsh, the guy on "Clean Sweep" who helps people get rid of their clutter. (I haven't seen the show, but maybe some out there in the blogosphere know who I'm talking about?) Anywho, I saw a two-part documentary on a woman who had a severe struggle with hoarding, and the rescue/help/tips he was giving her as he dug her out was very different from the usual organize-your-life-with-color-coded-bins kind of wisdom. And joy of all joys, our local library had his new book! (So nice not to have to drop money on something you can borrow. Though..now that I think about it, I might actually add this to our library.)

The first chunk of the book is on why we have clutter....if you don't address that, then it will just come back. Turns out Josh and I have very different reasons! I'm much more of a sentimental clutter person....I can have a tough time letting go of things that connect to memories, events, people, etc. On the other hand, I am ruthless with trash. Car gets cleaned right away after a trip. Junk mail is sorted over the recycling bin before even hitting the kitchen table. Josh is the opposite - great at understanding that mementos don't necessarily equal memories, especially if they're in a box in the basement instead of in a place where they're displayed to enjoy them. I won't rewrite the whole book here (ha!), but let's just say - spring cleaning, here I come! Once we get the car settled, that is.....

Speaking of possessions....a big 'un is a goner. Yep, the lovely little black Honda was officially totaled. I had a good time thinking of the memories attached to it (see a pattern? heh heh), like taking it on some college saran-wrapping capers, driving away from our wedding in it, learning to do some serious snow driving in it in Grove City, and doing many a cross-country trip in it in seminary. The memories will remain though, even if it now rests in a salvage yard somewhere. *sniff sniff* Why are cars so personal, huh?

One last story about possessions, and then I'll end this novel of a post! Earlier this week, I went ...duh duh DUHHH... bathing suit shopping at Target. Blah. I don't care who you are, if you are female, this is not the highlight of your week. I'm really not sure who they're making them for, but clearly the mannequins aren't buying them, so the designers should adjust their proportions a little bit. I'm fine with how I'm created, but something about bathing suit shopping can really drive a person to almost have a dressing room screaming fit. Suit one...nope. Suit two...definitely nope! Suit three....even worse then the other two. *sigh* Alright, dressing room lady, please...I really really really don't want any of these. And then, out of the corner of my eye, I spied one hanging on the rack in the dressing room that someone else had rejected. Try it on...deep breath...hmmm...alright, not bad! I didn't do a happy dance or anything, but it was doable. Whew! Check the price tag.....$8.74!! As a lady in my church says, ''At'll do ya, hallelujah!!! Now it was time for the happy dance. :)

a sad day

Yes, a sad day indeed. Thankfully, no one was hurt, and Josh had decided to keep Sophia at home while I went to a Women in the Church meeting that morning, so I was by myself. And hooray - it wasn't my fault. (whew!)
I had slowed down to make a right turn into church (no turn lane) and a guy behind me (not sure if he was directly behind - I think he was a few cars back actually) thought I was turning left into the daycare (obviously not seeing my blinker). So...he decided that he was not willing to wait or slow down and would make the brilliant decision to OFFROAD IT ON THE RIGHT SHOULDER AND DIRT/GRASS AROUND ME. uhhh...yeah. And, seeing as I don't usually check my mirrors to see if someone is in the shoulder while I'm making a right turn, I slammed right into him as he was on my right. He ended up way up on the embankment, with very little damage, and he jumped out right away, apologizing, knowing that he had just done something really stupid and reckless. Fortunately, he admitted fault right away when the cops got there, and I had plenty of witnesses from church, so we won't have to deal with the hassle of a court date or anything like that. Sheesh - what a mess!

It doesn't look so much like it from the pic, but the doors are fairly dinged and dented, and the whole right front side of the engine is pretty mangled, so we'll see if the damage is more than the worth of the car.

Ha ha...and irony of ironies, we had just put four new tires on the day before! Isn't that just the way? Much to be thankful for though, that's for sure.

cause for celebration

one whole year!! a year of infanthood and a year of parenthood - there is no way to express how unbelievably quickly it's flown. here are a few pics...we mostly took videos, so I'll see if I can get some stills to share down the road. (the 'official' party with grandparents and uncles is in a week - these are from our mommy/daddy party on Sophia's actual birthday.)

playing with the ribbons...the wrapping is just as fun as the presents!

her little cake, complete with flowers and a duck (her favorite things at the moment)

reading a birthday card from Kathy Wargo, while eating some green beans. (She was so happy, relieved even, to be eating veggies instead of the cake!)

odds and ends II

more random thoughts and observations....

-I decided I would be extra adventurous and cook some Indian food a few weeks ago. Not just curry thrown in with some chicken and rice...oh, no. This was straight-up authentic, go out and buy some garam masala for my spice cabinet, this is the real deal kind of Indian food. The finished product was fairly decent, but I discovered something sneaky about one the spices! Beware if you use turmeric in any of your cooking endeavours - it will turn any white utensils (such as nice spatulas and immersible blenders) bright Easter egg yellow! There could be a fun crafty use for that if it didn't have such a potent smell. :D

-Ever flipped past QVC when watching TV? (I won't ask anyone to admit to watching, or even *gasp* buying something. heh heh) They were selling something (I forget what) for about 20 bucks, and you could use the easy pay plan with four easy payments of 5 bucks if you wanted. Seriously folks - if you need to use the easy pay plan of four easy payments of 5 bucks, you probably shouldn't be buying anything on QVC!

-Sophia's first birthday was yesterday (the official b-day post with pictures is coming soon!), and I decided to make her a 'healthy' cake, as this was her first foray into honest-to-goodness sweets. The recipe called for carrots simmered in juice concentrate pureed to a pulp with some raisins, along with wheat germ, whole wheat flour, eggs, oil, and some other non-sugary ingredients. The batter looked HORRENDOUS (anything with ground raisins cannot be a pleasant color), but the finished mini-cakes and muffins smelled pretty tasty. Sophia gobbled up the little tester crumbles I gave her, so I figured we were set. But as they cooled completely, they definitely developed....crusts. Not bad crusts, just healthy quick bread crusts. Not something cake-like that she could mush her hands in, and definitely not something you would put frosting on. So...into the oven went mini-cakes and cupcakes, round 2. (Fortunately I had bought a back-up box of yellow cake mix in case the nature-baby-all-natural cakes tanked.) Her finished mini-cake was so cute, if I do say so myself, when all was said and done and decorated. And do you know which one she would not eat? Yep, the cake mix one. Four or five licks of frosting for the camera, one or two test nibbles of cake that we broke off for her, and she pushed that sucker away from her. Even after we cleaned her off and offered her a few more bites of plain old cake....nothing. I guess she is a nature baby after all. Or maybe a salt-lover instead? (considering her passion for deli-chicken slices, string cheese, and olives) How the heck a salt-lover came from two die-hard sweet-tooths (sweet teeth?) is beyond me. xD

-

odds and ends

Sometimes my posts are longer than others, and sometimes they just end up being random lists of things that have recently caught my attention. This is definitely one of the second sort. :)



1. The other day, I ended up behind this SUV that was some sort of mobile veterinarian unit. It's hard to tell from the cell phone pic (don't worry - we were stopped at a light!), but not only does it have "no narcotics on board" painted on the back, but it has one of those little oval decals on the back, this one with the letters "SN" printed on it. What did it stand for? "Spay and neuter." I am officially sick of the little oval decals.

2. Sophia's food tastes are ever changing! She loves finger foods, but the ones she loves make no sense to me! She enjoys some of the typical ones (cheerios, cheese, deli chicken, anything breadlike, bananas), but she must have some serious texture issues going on. She adores pureed fruits and veggies, but she won't touch them if they're in chunk form, not even if they're steamed to the level of softness known as "mush." Know what she likes? Hummus. Yep, my homemade over-the-top-with-garlic-and-cayenne hummus...and peeled and diced olives. heh heh...my little Greek baby.

3. I saw the American Idol guy when I was at the grocery store a few days ago. (see earlier post) I thought about getting someone to take a cell pic of us, remembered what he had actually done on American Idol, and decided against it. :)

4. I've had several other little epiphanies/random trains of thought that I thought would be worth sharing over the past few days, and of course, they've all escaped somewhere now that I have a moment to sit and blog. I guess this means there'll be a part 2!

Pastor Mark Driscoll's take on health and wealth teaching

" 'Prosperity theology' is that God is a pinata, that faith is a whacking stick, and if you 'claim the promises', then an Escalade with rims, and a flat screen tv, and a summer home, and a grill for your teeth just fall out of heaven...and then you can walk around praising God." Ha!

-from his sermon, "The Rebel's Guide to Joy in Poverty"

oh no

How many people saw this guy on American Idol last week? We were so dismayed to see that he was from here. The worst? Apparently he works at the customer service desk at our grocery store. *sigh* Ah, Delaware.

in the middle of the night....

...at 1:00 a.m, precisely...

Me: "I just had the saddest dream! I was sitting on a swingset underneath a big spreading tree, playing my new guitar. I noticed a flock of little black birds sitting above me, and as soon as I realized what might happen, sure enough...they pooped on my guitar! Twice!"

(I didn't wake Josh up to tell him this. We were both stirring in our sleep for some reason, half-way awake. Matching sleep cycles?)

Josh: "Hmm... I was just dreaming that I was sitting in the living room with your parents, and we figured out that we could get to Narnia. So....I'm going to go back to that and follow it."


What???!! I laid there for about half an hour, watching Josh go back to sleep and presumably to Narnia. I never have cool dreams like that! (I asked him about it the next day, and he said that he was able to go back, but he didn't remember anything after that.)

So do any of you have cool dreams like Josh, or are you all like me, dreaming only of old schools you went to, lateness, missing the bus, faking your way through show choir performances, etc.?

now i'm not a phone person....

...but i had to call julia, even though we'd had a nice long chat the day before. ('course, i'm always a phone person with julia. :) ) as soon as i felt that little sharp nub in the top of sophia's gums, i knew that she could seriously appreciate that there was a reason for the whining and whining and whining had been happening yesterday. sheesh, sophia should have produced a tusk after all that! no not really - ha, poor little love. an icky cold and a tooth coming through - no wonder she was a wreck!

christmas in virginia was a whirlwind, but it was a sweet time with friends and all sides of the family. pictures are coming soon!

it occured to me as i looked at the archive list at the side that i've had this blog for two years now! i was teaching in mississippi when i started, and my blog was filled with witty commentary and cute quotes from the kiddos in my class. my blog is decidedly less witty these days, and the kiddo i'm around all day isn't quite coming out with hilarious soundbites. (though her giggles are awesome) but i have to say...i'm pretty sure this season of life the Lord has us in is full of blessings all its own!