Whew!

(Yes, this is the toughest toddler photo ever. The others just seemed sad to us.)

Okay, first thing's first. Dalia fell, again. This time she just tripped over her feet running into the kitchen to see what Daddy was doing. She tumbled into a metal kitchen cart and cut her eyebrow. After eating dinner and waiting for the on-call doc to call back, we decided to take her to ER (again). Though this time it was much less stressful. It was obvious what had happened and she didn't seem to be in much pain.

I was out teaching when it happened and Mark took Dalia to the resident mom on the block. She told him she thought Dalia would need stitches or at least some glue. After looking at the cut for about 10 seconds the doctor decided she needed 7 stitches. She actually came away with 8. She was absolutely amazing. They gave her some baby strength Valium, which indeed made her silly. It was cute albeit stressful to be giving our child drugs like that. But it helped her stay perfectly still and calm while the doc sewed her up. She thoroughly enjoyed sticking the stickers she got afterwards on our travel wipes container. In fact, I don't know if we've ever seen her "play" so intently and focused for such a long time. I'm not anxious to do any of that again, but it was another look into how well she (and I guess we) operate in stressful situations. I think Mark and I did a good job creating continuity between regular old life and what was happening. The most insane I got all night was trying to keep her away from a little boy in the ER waiting room who had been vomiting all day. I'd rather take the stitches than the GI infection for sure.


On to other things...before the drama we had a visitor or two. First, this most wonderful photo of Dalia reading with Amy and Archer prior to our friends from Chicago showing up. It's amazing to me how they suddenly just look big. Not babies anymore at all. This is so far my favorite photo of her with them. She loves them so much. Recently, she learned how to say "hang out" and whenever we're just sitting around she says, "hanging out with Amy and Archer?" When we went to the hospital last night she even asked if I was going to call Amy. She has a weirdly vivid memory of her last trip to ER.



Our dear friends Rachel, Adele and Richard came to visit. The pictures say it all. Though Dalia was ready for some quiet time when they left, we all had such a great time hangin' out.
Oh, and just in case you were wondering, yes, Dalia does have a helmet that she does indeed like to wear. She put it on again today and I was in no hurry to remove it. She wore it for about an hour, indoors and out, and even on a visit to the neighbor's house. She puts it on backwards herself. If I can intervene I do, but really, why? She's so dang cute and silly.

House Guests

We've just finished our first round of summer house guests. Thank you for waiting until the heatwave was over. We had the rare pleasure of hosting our friend Kandi Lou all the way from Australia. It's been a short 19 years since I saw her. I was just entering high school when she was finishing up her exchange program. Thanks to Facebook, we've been in touch and she planned a stop in Portland to see us and Thom and Steph when visiting the states this time around. Dalia loved saying her name. We had such a fun time with her!


Halfway through her visit, Oralea arrived so she could look at possible wedding sites. We had a slumber party here at Hotel Vermeys for a night. But then we said goodbye to Kandi Lou. Dalia and I loved driving around the Gorge with Oralea (or as Dalia calls her, "Orlo"). She had her first ice cream cone at Multnomah Falls (which she didn't spill at all - she used this little spoon to scoop it out. I don't think she had any idea she could eat the cone until I started stealing bites from it.)







While we were driving in the Gorge my car started to suffer (again) and the next day the check engine light came on for the 60000th time. It was driving pretty poorly for a few days and yesterday when I left for yoga in the morning, the car really just wouldn't go. So, rather than dealing with fixing it again, we decided to find a new car. We did some online research and found (to our surprise and excitement) a used Prius. We went and test drove it and loved it, so here we are with our very own hybrid! We are so excited to have been able to trade in our old car (which did not qualify for the cash for clunkers program - too bad it isn't cash for lemons) for a hybrid. Amazing to think we won't have to get gas for a couple of months now. Dalia is very excited about our "new car".


Now we await our friends from Chicago who arrive on Wednesday. . .

Mommy's Birthday

I had an amazing birthday. Thank you friends and family. Especially Dalia and Mark. I'm so blessed.

boyfriends

Dalia has a lot of girlfriends. I mean a lot. But she also has a couple of awesome boyfriends. We got to see two of them yesterday. Lucky us! I got to see their mamas! We went to the park with Leo, Francis and Julie in the morning and ate Julie's handmade granola. In the afternoon we had Amy and Archer over to play in the pool. We have some awesome photos of them playing in the pool, but alas, they are without clothes, so I won't post them. But we did get some fun close up shots of the two of them.

Art

Jen gave me the great idea to take photos of Dalia's drawings so I could get rid of the big pieces of paper, but keep track of her art. Thought it would be fun to share some. It's totally amazing to watch children find their "style". Dalia makes big sweeping circles and then hones in to scratch scratch scratch. You've seen the video...currently she is way into play doh. She even chose it over nursing the other morning. The easel is slightly neglected. Surely not for long.

This is one of her play doh creations:

Neva's birthday...the start of a very strange week

We had the pleasure of celebrating our dear little friend, Neva last weekend for her second birthday. This was all before the horrible heat wave. Seriously, folks, it was 107 in Portland, Oregon. Not right.

On Tuesday we went to a friend's house to get cooled off in her air conditioning and Dalia found some steep attic steps when I wasn't looking. She typically would be able to get up or down from stairs, but these were really steep/small steps. I went to investigate her whimpering and calling for help just as she fell hard down the steps and onto her head. While I am feeling like I wasn't there for her, she insists that I caught her (tear). Needless to say, we had our first experience with the paramedics. We didn't have them transport us, but we did take a trip to the emergency room to make sure the gigantic bump on her head (like the size of my hand) wasn't a sign of something much more serious, like a skull fracture. We opted out on the CT scan (yet another in a long line of too many choices for parents these days - apparently, CT scans can cause as much trouble as a skull fracture in kids this age due to radiation), and brought her home to wake her up every two hours that night to be sure she was okay. Dalia was so brave. She was such a big girl letting the nurses take her blood pressure, pulse and temperature. She had fun looking at the fish painted on the walls in the hospital room and when we left it was dark so she got to see the stars, which never happens anymore. We got a round of "Tinkle, Tinkle, witto, stow" out of her.

Sadly, Mark was out of town for this whole event (thanks, Mom for filling in)! But, luckily for us he was in an air conditioned hotel room just an hour and forty-five minutes away, so the next day as the heat rose to at least 85 in our very cool basement, Dalia and I hit the road sleep deprived, but glad to get away! I'm still watching her even though they said I could stop worrying. It was such an intense week/experience, I can't yet tell which had more traumatic impact, the heat or her fall. I'm glad to have reunited with Mark to care for her and even more glad to have had the respite of a cool, comfortable hotel room. We found an awesome park one morning before it got hot and loved playing in the pool (much less crowded than our neighborhood pool). Dalia showed us that she has her father's spatial orientation as she always knew which way to go out of the elevator. Seriously, I never know which way I'm going out of an elevator.

A side note about this subject: on the way to the hospital we drove on the freeway (something we rarely do unless we are going to visit Amy and Archer) and she started talking about Amy, thinking that's where we were going. I'm amazed. Anyway, she complains about her head hurting mostly in the morning, but seems to be unphased by the whole thing. Kids are remarkable. I could learn a lot about letting go from her.

It is a cool 78 in our house this morning. Even though it's going to be in the 90's today, I think we're almost out of the "event" that rivals Arctic Blast 2008.