Nip and Tuck

On Thursday, Alina had surgery on her nose. It was a secondary repair of her cleft lip. The cartilage on the cleft side of her nose was collapsed. They went in and tried to pull up and reshape it in an effort to make the nose appear more symmetrical and to open up her airway a little more on that side. I can't tell how successful it was since everything is still covered with packing and bandages. I had a fleeting thought of posting a picture, but quickly reconsidered. Last night she looked at herself in the mirror and said, "Mommy, I can't go to school like this." My daughter is beautiful inside and out, but her poor little nose is not a pretty sight at the moment. Neither is her disposition. She is ticked off that her nose hurts and she has to breath through her mouth all the time...and we are all suffering as a result. Cause if NiNi ain't happy, then nobody's happy. We pretty much have been giving her whatever she wants for the past 48 hours...chocolate pudding for breakfast, movies non-stop, etc. In fact, she has been firmly planted in front of Nick Jr. since 6:00 this morning. I'm sure we'll have to do some major behavior deprogramming once all of this is over.

In other news, I started a new job. I am still working at the nursing home, but am also now doing First Steps (in home therapy for kids 0-3). It is a new adventure since I am out of my element a little bit. Also, as with any government run program, the paperwork is a major headache...and I have to buy my own materials. I haven't acutally MADE any money yet with all the cash I've been shelling out for cool toys. All things considered, it's a pretty sweet gig to play with toys for an hour and get paid for it.

Here are a few funnies from the girls..

Alina: "Ms. Brenda says if we don't be good she's gonna nix the Christmas party...that means she's gonna hansel it" (she had no idea what "nix" or "hansel" means, only that it sounded very ominous)

Chris and I were in the bedroom with the door closed trying to have a romantic moment when we heard a knock on the door.
Meagan: "Mom, I really want to come in there. It's like you're having a party and I'm not invited."

Alina has become obsessed with obeying stoplights. Here was our conversation the other day:
NiNi: "Mommy, why did you go on the red?"
Me: "It was almost yellow."
NiNi: "That's crazy. You have to obey 'cause if you go on the red you will get stuck in the polar bear tunnel"
(Hmmmm...could 'polar bear tunnel' be a euphemism for jail?)

NiNi: "If I play in the play in the playroom, will I get a piece of candy?" (I sometimes bribe my children to either clean the playroom or play quietly in there...now it's coming back to bite me)

Meagan has a severe phobia of shots. In order to avoid serious drama, I usually delay the bad news until right before we head into the doctor's office. The other day I needed to take her to CVS to get a flu shot
Me: "Come on Meagan, we're going to CVS"
Meagan: "Why?"
Me: "We just need to run an errand"
Meagan: "What kind of errand?"
Me: "Just get in the car"
Meagan: "But what for?"
Finally, NiNi could tolerate the nonsense no longer and shouted, "YOU'RE GOING TO GET YOUR FLU SHOT"

NiNi is continually trying to come up with effective yet original ways to insult us when we fall out of favor with her. First it was, "You are mean" or "You are not my friend." Then it evolved to "You're not coming to my birthday party." (To which I would secretly wonder who would actually PLAN the party if I did not attend) Her latest dig is "You are not getting any Christmas presents"

Nashville get-away

Chris and I took a 4 day trip (sans kiddos) to Nashville, TN to celebrate our 10 year anniversary. Hard to believe that we have been married 10 years...and that we have been friends for almost 20! It was a superbly relaxing vacation...cabin in the Smokies, hot tub, fireplace, tacky tourist shops, and lots of deep-fried food. Met all of my love languages. I say all because according to Chris, I don't have just one love language...I actually have an entire matrix of love languages. Poor guy.

Halloween

The expression on Meagan's face is called "I hate my life because I have an annoying little sister"

Squishy eyeballs

Meagan blew her entire allowance on a bag of 20 squishy eyeballs. Because I was in a hurry, I decided to forego the "why don't you SAVE your money and buy something you really like" lecture. Besides, these eyeball are what she really likes and I have to admit they've been worth at least $3.99 in entertainment value






We took our annual trip to Brown County over the weekend....winter coats and all. It warmed up decently enough in the afternoon to torture the kids the taking family pictures in the park.

Ballerina

I took some shots of NiNi in her ballet "get-up" and then played around with them in photo shop. The picture above is with a filter called "cutout" and the one below is in film grain.


I don't know that I have documented on NiNi's clothing fetish lately. I know that most 3-year-old girls to like play dress-up, but she is WAY into clothes...and shoes, and accessories and jewelry. In fact she goes through about 5 different outfits a day which are then deposited over the house. Most days I can fine her in her favorite dress which is a blue and white polka-dot halter dress (she likes to see her back in the mirror) with her rain boots and 4-5 ponytail holders around her wrists and ankles. Never mind that it is getting a little chilly for halter dresses...and when I wash it, she says accusingly, "Hey! I was looking for dat dwess!" The other day she wore it to get our flu shots and it happened to be about 50 degrees outside. The nurse said, "Aren't you cold, honey?" all the while giving me the "why don't you have her dressed appropriately for the weather" evil eye. The way I see it, I have a lot of battles to fight, and I don't think clothing should be one of them. She's old enough to complain if she gets too cold. She certainly complains about other things.

Reunion

Just now getting around to posting pictures from the little get together that the Fullers have each year. My uncle Herbie has some great property in the middle of nowhere near Ft. Wayne. I remember climbing trees and playing there when I was little. Now my girls get to play there too. They call it the "house with the black walnuts" since this must be the ONLY black walnut tree in Indiana and last year they rubbed them all over their skin which stained their hands for weeks. Also stopped by the cemetery to visit my dad's grave. It was a very good day for the soul, if you know what I mean.











Some recent quotes:

Meagan: "I asked daddy why God makes tornadoes. He doesn't know. He won't admit it, though"

Meagan: "If daddy were a girl, I think he would be pretty...except for his feet"

NiNi: "When I get taller and go to college, can I get a puppy?"

Meagan and I had planned an early morning breakfast date. Unfortunately as we were getting ready, NiNi woke up. Meagan whispered to her, "If you get back into bed, I'll give you a Tootsie Roll." I was a little disturbed that she had no Tootsie Roll, nor any intention of giving her a Tootsie Roll. Gee, I wonder where she learned the art of bribery?

Meagan: "I've been thinking about what I want to be when I grow up. I can't decide....either an actress or a substitute teacher" (Hmmm...glamorous, high paying job where you travel the world, or get verbally abused by 8th graders for $67.50 a day . A tough choice indeed.)

Hou-nini

We are testing the limits of our 3-year-old's clever resourcefulness. After the cayenne pepper solution didn't work, we went back to the drawing board. There seemed to be a glimmer of hope with using the gloves to keep her fingers out of her mouth, but the challenge was getting her to keep them on. I snipped off the tips to keep it from being too hot and tried loosely duck taping it to the sleeve of her pj's. She figured out a way to get the tape off...besides, I thought grandma might call CPS on me (I think, "You will NOT put duck tape on that baby" were her exact words). My next idea was to SEW the glove to the sleeve of an old shirt. It took about 3 1/2 minutes before she realized that all she had to do was pull her arm out of the sleeve (duh, mom). Having the glove sewn onto her sleeper proved to be more of a challenge for our little Houdini, but soon I found her naked in her bed, having shucked the whole darn contraption...glove, sleeper and all. Ok, now this is war. I am 36 and she is 3. I better figure out a way to win this one. So, I pinned a safety pin across the zipper track and eureka...





She can't get it off and she's very unhappy about it. Chris likes to call it her "straight jacket." (As in, "Time for bed, honey, go get your straight jacket on")I think that's a little harsh. I prefer to call it a "night-suit." Whatever you call it, I'm quite proud of myself. I just might market it to exasperated parents of finger and thumb suckers all over the world.

Oh, and credit goes to my nephew, Kyle, for coining the phrase "Hounini". I love it!