July 2007 Archives

Sophie has been learning lots of fun new sayings, and creating some of her own.

Over Fourth of July weekend, we taught her how to tell her Uncle Anthony "I will take you down! I will take you down to Chinatown!" Unfortunately, she wants to tell everyone. I actually just heard her telling our babysitter... Maybe not the most polite thing to teach her but it sure is funny at parties.

We were getting ready for a trip to Ithaca with some friends and Jake and I were busy packing up. Sophie became bored quickly and said "I'm ready to get in the car and drive to Africa.".

Sophie and I were waiting to head up to the surgeon's office when she was getting her incision checked and as we entered the elevator she announced "I'm going on the alligator!".

When you tell her you can't do something or she's mad about something she'll tell you "I'm just infusterated!"

She sings along with Prince's Kiss song and her version of the lyrics go something like this, "You don't have to be a witch to be my girl."

Another lyric that she loves singing is the theme song for Wonder Pets, a cute tv show that Reed turnes us on to. Her version is like this, "We're not to big and we're not too tough but when we work together we've got the right size. GoooOOO Wonder Pets. Yay!"

Before we had kids, Jake and I made a list in the spring of all the things we wanted to do that summer. We called it The Summer of Fun. Unfortunately, we didn't save the list but here are some items I can drag up from memory.

1. Buy rainbow soled flip flops and see what color you end up on at the last day of summer.
2. Buy squirt guns, water balloons and have a water fight.
3. Go canoeing.
4. Sleep out on our deck.
5. Have a kegger.
6. Go to the beach every weekend.

I think the actual list was like 20 items long. Anyhow, we ended up doing about half of them which did indeed make our summer fun.

This summer, we have no list but we have been having a Summer of Fun none the less.

1. Binghamton Air Show - I think the Coast Guard guys got a kick out of Sophie sitting in the helicopter. They cleared the copter for her and then snapped some pictures of her with their cell phones.
2. Lovely weekend in the Adirondacks thanks to Kim and Kevin and Kate and Phil. Get this, it was the weekend before the 4th of July and there wasn't any traffic!
3. Montrose Fourth of July Parade - Sophie learned that they throw candy from the floats. Her cousins collected for her. :)
4. Watched the fireworks from our back deck.
5. Attended a great graduation party for Jake's nephew Corey. Congrats Corey!
6. Tried our first Car Bombs thanks to Lauren and Drew.
7. Mommy/Daddy and Me swim classes for both girls at the outdoor pool near our house four days a week.
8. Ice Cream Social at the local fire station.
9. Free concert in the park with Grandma and Grandpa performed by the Vestal Community Band.
10. Swimming at the falls in Robert H. Treman park in Ithaca.

I hope the list reaches at least 20! For as much complaining as I do about this area, I am coming to realize there is a lot of stuff to do, you just have to put out a little effort. I have become addicted to the events calendar of our local paper. They have it online and I can just check each day what is going on near me. There's always something!

Give me a double scoop of summer because I am going to eat it all up!

Tinyeranch's namesake has returned from his 6 month stay at Chez Humen. We are all very excited to see him again (well, everyone but Eula). His girth has become quite impressive, no doubt from trying to eat all of his roommates food before she could get to it. The photo above is from his earlier days in California.

It's actually strange having him around while we are home all day. He pretty much sleeps most of the day and then comes about an hour before the kids go to bed. So they get to chase him around the house for one blissful hour. Both girls adore him and have yet to be scratched.

Our Tiny-e is again, Big-e and ruling the house.

Thank you so much to Katina, Mike, Nicholas, Maria and Bianca for being such a great foster family.

Wishing all the best to my cousin Tim (seen here with Brandie, we need to get an engagement picture from him) and his fiancee Rhonda: they were married this weekend! The blessed event took place in St. Pete's Beach, Florida.

I was honored to be asked to be Tim's Best Man, but given the circumstances with Sophie's medical issues both he and Rhonda showed a very large amount of understanding and found a stand-in for me at the last minute.

Our heartfelt congratulations and thanks go to them, and to my cousin Emily for covering me!

Today we took Sophie to the Syracuse University Medical Center to see a pediatric specialist about her repeated MRSA infections. The visit went pretty well, we saw three different doctors and all of them checked Sophie out thoroughly and walked us through a barrage of questions.

The good news is they don't think it's an indication of any larger immune system issues, just a recurring infection. Since she hasn't had any deep-tissue infections they don't want to do anything more invasive unless she has more than two additional positives over the next two months, but we all have to go through a "decolonization" (showers with special soap, ointment in the nose, washing towels and sheets daily) phase to try and get rid of the virus (it's likely we're all carriers at this point, not just Sophie).

That sounds pretty scary, but we were told not to live in a bubble - many people are carriers and don't realize it, but Sophie's excema makes her more susceptible to outbreaks. Swimming in chlorinated pools is actually good for treating it (they even recommended putting Clorox in her baths), which is great because we start family swim lessons on Monday. As if we needed another excuse to get in the pool!

We're just home from a weekend with family and friends in the Adirondacks, to a place we used to visit when I was in high school but haven't been back to since. I'm happy to say not much has changed, except some small people call Bridie "Mom" now. Weird.

We had a fantastic time, thanks to Katie & Phil for hosting and everyone else for sharing their weekend with us! Follow the link on the thumbnail to see more pics.