The Foot Saga

So, last night around 10:15, Sophie woke up screaming. It was a bad scream. The kind you do not want to hear coming out of your kid, ever. She screams alot, most of the time, its in anger, or its letting us know that she can't stand her brother, or strawberries, or sitting in a confined seat, or wearing a seatbelt, etc. But, this was the kind of scream that said, "you better find what hurts me fast, or I am gonna make you pay." She randomly would say "shoe ouch, ouch shoe". Her cast was still sopping wet from her 3 o'clock shower. It hasn't been drying recently, so we had decided to stop bathing it, and tried to avoid water. But, you forgot who my daughter is. She is the girl that hears you say you won't bathe her, and then pulls off her diaper and pees in her cast. Yeah, you read that right, bath could NOT be avoided.

Back to the story. After almost three hours of insanity, us trying to blow dry, get the air compressor to blow air in there ) did I mention that I was waiting for the swat to show up on our door step after hearing our kid scream bloody murder and then hearing the loudest air compressor you have ever heard at midnight? They never showed, and I am not sure I am not thankful. Anything would have been a relief from hearing her cry. So, we finally debated taking her to the ER to have the thing cutoff. We knew something was wrong in there, just not what. We had heard horror stories of rocks and such getting trapped in there, then causing a nasty infection.

So, in our genius, its 2 am, my kid's been screaming in pain for 3 hours, I am delirius, minds, we decided to cut the thing off. Or, to try. Sullivan was sleeping, and we weren't sure the ER wouldn't laugh at us. Thinking back, it probably was the wiser move to make. Aaron gets an array of pliers from his tool box and proceeds. After about ten minutes, the cast comes off looking like this:

But, Sophie's foot looks like this:

I swear, I think her little toe was really close to falling off. Her foot looked horrendous. The pictures don't do it justice. Apparently it was way too wet in there, and her skin was rotting. I wish you could have smelled it, wait a minute, no I don't. Its one of those things you just want to take my word on, TRUST ME. So, I got up the nerve to call her doctor's office this morning and am waiting to hear what they want me to do.

Untitled

There is no possible title that I could put on our lives right now. Seriously, this last month has been rather insane!

My kids have enjoyed the water and the summer. Their favorite thing to do is go to the splashpad, although now Sullivan wants to live at our neighborhood pool. He is tall enough to finally reach, and brave enough to run and jump in. Last week, we went to the circus in Houston. The kids had such a good time. Sophie roared and said "wow" for about two hours straight. Sullivan pointed out everything that was unsafe. By the way, riding on an elephant, running in a ring with tigers, and getting thrown across the room in a cannon are all very unsafe things. He likes to point out when I do something safely, and driving the other day, he yells out: "Mom,. way to go, looking both ways before pulling out into traffic is definitely safe! " Wow!

My best friend Tiffini officially closed on there house here and a new one in Beaumont. Sullivan and Thomas have been best friends for forever, and this is so hard!!! I know you are supposed to be happy for someone, but honestly!!! Sophie is enamored with Tiff's 8 year old daughter Lauren. I wish I had a video camera rolling the other day when they were playing babies together. They were pushing them all around the house and taking care of them. It was so precious. Sullivan has begun being rather mischievious. He loves bathing things in the sink, giving them a thorough cleaning, and testing my cleaning skills in the process. He makes a huge mess, but his cars all sparkle.

In other news, we have taken our house off of the market. It sold this past weekend, and we had to look at other houses to buy. We eventually decided we liked ours more than anything else we saw. So, we have a few kitchen and bathroom renovations to do, but we are staying! That's about it for us right now :)

First Curse Word

It was bound to happen, I guess. I suppose all kids will do it. But, at 19 months, Sophie has learned her first curse word. She says it all day long. She says it when you least want to hear it. What word? Its four letters. Yeah, her first four letter bad word. MINE. We hear it all of the time. Mine, Mine Mine. Everything is MINE. I don't know how she learned it, but its SOOOOO annoying. This is MINE, that is MINE, give me MINE. UGGGGHHHHHH! It doesn't help that she is really cute when she says it.
First picture we have ever caught of the dare devil actually looking scared. Sadly, I don't think she is scared, but trying to tell us that the slide is hot. BTW- she is now on her second cast. The first one tore (because she is walking, running, swimming, etc. way more than they thought she would and she won't wear the special shoe designed to protect it). Monday, we went in, had the cast cut off, and a new one put on. Oh the joys :)
Perhaps he will be a heavy equipment operator? He is controlling the huge boat at the Children's Museum in New Orleans, and at the bottom, he is checking out his figure.

A Picture is worth a thousand ?

Ever had a picture that totally summed someone up? I have lots of pictures to catch you up on our lives over the past month, but I have these few that I just love. My dad took the first two on our trip, and I must say, they each sum my kids' personalities exactly up.

My mom got a huge set of Lincoln Logs for Sullivan to build with. He was finally at the perfect age to really get it. He built lots of forts, castles, and the such on his visit. Check out the tongue action. The sign of a true engineer is that he uses his tongue when he is concentrating hard.

Pink

So, long time no blog! We went to New Orleans for the week to have a FUN family vacation. It was so much fun. Aaron and I had date nights every night while my parents watched the kids. It was wonderful. We have seen all the movies out, which is amazing for us who have never had a babysitter!

But, the real news of the trip happened in Baton Rouge, when we stopped to let the kids run around the mall and stretch their legs out. The intention was to let them get some energy out. They did. They played for about an hour during which I kept telling people that Sophie was

fine, just a crazy daredevil. I know she climbs high, I can see her. I know she jumps from high places, she is insane! I swear the kid is missing a screw! So, when she tripped while WALKING, I didn't think much of it. She does it 100 times a day. But, when she wouldn't quit crying, I knew something had to be wrong. Then, she wouldn't put any pressure on her foot, and would go INSANE if we tried to get her to stand. So, I headed to the ER with her. Xrays and lots of money later (apparently our insurance CLOSES at 5 and you can't check eligibility, so we had to pay out of pocket), we find a broken bone in her foot. Supposedly she'll stay off of it long enough to heal. For real? NO, so when we got back to town, we saw our pediatrician who sent us to a pediatric orthopedist who reset it and casted it. Yesterday was her first day, and last night she cried all night "shoe off!" I felt so bad for her! Its waterproof, so she can shower, bathe, and swim. We go back in 4 weeks to see if the bone healed right and hopefully get the cast off. Its the tiniest thing you've ever seen, but super cute.

We have to keep a sock on it to keep it clean because Sophie won't wear the shoe that is supposed to go over it.

She just woke up from a 5 hour nap (after not sleeping last night). She is in an excellent mood and has an excellent hair do wouldn't you say?

PS- the specialist yesterday said it would probably be a few days before she'd walk on it. We left the office to go to McDonalds where she walked, ran, climbed, danced, and wrestled her brother and a few other boys in the place!

Soooo....

Life is progressing quite fine over here. Unfortunately, I haven't discovered the anti aging pill, and the kids are still growing. They are growing so fast!

Sullivan is now a total dare devil in the pool. We went to visit my family at Charlie's new fabulous apartment this weekend for the Fourth. Sullivan was getting braver and braver getting people to catch him as he jumped from higher and higher places into the pool. Sophie on the other hand, had lots of fun modeling her new swimsuit with matching tutu. She pranced around like a princess the WHOLE day. She definitely knew she was cute! Her newest word is "trouble". So, she likes to do something just so she can tell you she's in trouble. She climbs onto things she isn't supposed to, turns around to make sure she has an audience, then says "trouble?" Yes, Sophie, you ARE trouble!!! She has also been singing alot. She loves "Row Row Row Your Boat." She has learned to tickle this week. So, she pecks all over you saying "tickle tickle tickle" in this high pitched voice. Your obligation is to pretend to laugh uncontrollably even though it really doesn't tickle. If you don't, the pecks get harder. If you are smart, you laugh.

The naughty girl chair has consumed alot of our time recently too. We got a really sweet pink princess chair (very ironic, but we wanted something portable so there was a naughty girl spot everywhere we went), and told her all about how naughty girls have to sit in it. Everytime she pinches, slaps, bites, or screams at us (or invents something new that is bad), she goes straight to the naughty girl chair. Its actually working quite well. Just the threat of the chair now makes her stop in her tracks. Of course, she prefers when we all clap when she does something right. For those of you thinking the chair sounds horrible. We make this big scene when she listens and have a "good girl parade." She LOVES it, then usually repeats the offense just so she can listen and get applause. For example, last night she kept climbing on the coffee table, waiting for someone to tell her to get down, then reveling in the "HOORAY" clapping parade that we had for her listening. For us, it got old after the third time, it took 14 times before she got tired of it!

Picture Time Picture Time

Future Plumber?
Sullivan's new favorite place to go. Its a local fun spot in town where Aaron had his end of the year party. There are bowling alleys, laser tag, glow in the dark putt putt, and lots of video games. Sullivan calls it the "train at Daddy's work."

At the beginning of June, we had a potluck lunch at my house for our playgroup. Now, normally about 5 moms show up. But, since life is supposed to be crazy, over 50 people (counting kids) ended up coming!!! Check out Sophie having fun with all of the babies (I blurred out their faces with my excellent photoshop skills for their privacy since I forgot to ask their mommies if they could be on here). Oh, and yes, the two babies in carseats are THOROUGHLY enjoying it- we train them young in our group!!!

Here's Sophie showing off how wonderful Miss Stacy's banana pudding was!