I've Got a Dream

On any given car ride (and by that I mean, every given car ride) Zeke calls out from the backseat "I want listen to 'Punzel songs please!" Then as usual I skip the first sixteen songs on our cd mix and together we belt out things like "though I do like breakin' femurs" at top vocal capacity.  Zeke has all the lyrics down pat.  And now every other reference to somebody having a dream catches his attention.  We read a Martin Luther King Jr. book, "Mommy, he had a dream too! Just like 'Punzel!" Listening to a little Les Miserables, "She had a dream too?"  This focus on dreams necessitated a conversation one day about what these type of references to dreams mean and how they are different from sleeping dreams. 

Then Zeke was curious, "What is your dream Mommy?"

"My dream was to marry a good man and have some great kids.  My dream already came true."

Zeke thinks for a second.  "Am I a good man?"

"Well, you are a really great boy and when you grow up you will be a great man too, just like daddy."

"Then you will marry me?"

"Well, no.  I am already married to Daddy."

"Ashlynn will marry me?"

"Oh, um, no." How do I explain this? "Ashlynn will marry somebody else."

"Then who I will marry?"

Good question little buddy, but one let's postpone for awhile, eh?

The latest

Since the kids wake up time has shifted to the 6 o'clock time frame, nap times have become more hit and miss and graduating has finally become a real priority, I have no time to blog anymore.  So Here is a crammed in summary of little stories and some of my favorite pictures from the last month.

Zeke:

• Zeke's imagination is still running wild although it typically circulates around movie characters.  Almost every evening (and morning) for a full week Zeke wanted all of us to run around in circles as The Incredibles (as the dizziness kicks in, we realized our backyard isn't as big as we had supposed.  Zeke insisted on us only using our official super names. He was Dash, Ashlynn was Violet, I was Elastagirl and Trustin was himself, Mr. Incredible. We run around and around and occasionally had to battle raptors and tyrannosauruses.
• Zeke is learning to master his big boy bike with training wheels now that he can reach the pedals.  He is doing awesome, except for the brakes.  Last week he started pedaling down the sidewalk at the park and suddenly picked up speed on a slight downgrade, flew straight off the curb into the parking lot (as I frantically run after him) and then conveniently up the handicap accessible sidewalk that was adjacent to his launching pad. 
• Last night at 2 a.m. I hear "Mommy! Mommy!" So naturally I rushed in.  He was lying there, mostly asleep and when I sat down on his bed he requests "Can I sleep with more library books please Mommy?"

Ashlynn:

• Ashlynn took her first step this week.  Just one.  But she is on her way!  
• She also said her first word...I think.  "Doddi" (doggie)  Hard to be certain, but we are counting it.  She will sometimes say Mama or Dada, but only if she is repeating us.  She also loves to make elephant sounds and monkey sounds.
• She has started throwing tantrums and I have to admit it, they are adorable.  She belly flops on the floor, throwing her arms and legs out to the side in frustration.  

This is all I can think of off the top of my head, so here are my cuties in action:

Hamming it up!

Handymen

Trustin installed a new sink yesterday.  It took him longer than he expected.

I can't imagine why.

Water

When you live in Vegas, you realize just how necessary water is to life.  We live in the water.  Ashlynn's second favorite thing (second only to her hobby of eating dirt) is playing in water.  Splash parks, swimming pools, puddles, bathtubs.  If it is wet, she wants in.  So here is the last month or so of our life, which at least as far as photoworthy moments goes, can be summed up as water. (and its only May)

 ironically, the first picture isn't of water... things got shuffled in blogger...I'm not an expert at this.

 One of my favorite pictures of Ashlynn ever!  LOVE that face!

 We turned the pool upside down one day to drain the water and then next afternoon Ashlynn crawled up to it and discovered that it was full of water from the sprinklers. So of course she had to get in.

 And Zeke came to join.  Swimming suits are quite overrated.

 This is another really common sight.  She is constantly trying to drink whatever water source she is in or near.  Zeke made some "dirt soup" last week and Ashlynn was anxious for a taste.  After all, it combined her two favorite ingredients.  She only managed to get one taste before I intervened.  Today she found a dirty puddle and bent down for a sip.  Really?  My cooking really must be on the decline.

 Zeke is still a huge fan of water too and no longer takes a moment to warm up to the idea of splashing.  We get to the parks and he runs ahead and straight into the water. 

Try as we might, we can not seem to get a good picture of Ashlynn's face while she is splashing.  Suffice it so say, she is a fan.

 Can't get enough of that scrunch nose grin!

Build a Boat

Zeke was in charge of Family Home Evening last night.  He wanted to teach us about Nephi building a boat.  Then we got some tools and prentended to build our baot before going on a boat ride around the neighborhood.  Zeke gave us all our roles: Zeke was Nephi, Trustin was Lehi, I was Sariah and Ashlynn was Baby Sariah.  The kids loved the boat ride.  Thanks Zeke for a great FHE!

I can't quite put my finger on it...

...but something is telling me that I may have another climbing monkey on my hands.

Easter, Updates, and the ER

Our two crazy nuts have been cranking up the fun levels these days.  They are rather good at that.  Typically we don't have much to say about what is going on in our lives these days, because life is pretty mellow right now.  It mostly consists of playing with these guys:

We certainly aren't complaining!

Ashlynn is 9 months old today, and as she usually likes to hit a big landmark right before I post, she decided to achieve something we would rather she hadn't.  Her first trip to the ER.

We went up to Utah for a quick weekend visit and on Saturday afternoon she suddenly had a very high fever. 103.3 was the highest I ever read on the thermometer, but possibly higher since armpit thermometers and 9 month old infants tend to combine in a fit of tears that makes waiting for the final temperature seem like an impossibility.  We gave her some medicine and had a family member who is also a pediatrician look at her ears.  Nothing there.  So our plan was to keep monitoring her and try to keep her fever down.  She woke up that night with a fever again but after some medication it broke and she was fine most of Sunday morning.  After dinnertime we hit the road to make the drive back to Vegas.  Ashlynn still had a fever but seemed pretty fine.  I sat in the backseat next to her and spent much of the drive holding my hands on her cheeks and kissing her forehead gently over and over again.  This is kind of a trigger for her to relax at nap or bedtime and it kept her relatively happy for most of the drive.  At around 8:50 she was feeling really hot to me (but we didn't have a thermometer) and it had a been a while so I woke her up to give her some more medicine.  Ten minutes later I was leaning in close to her and I couldn't tell if her eyes were open or closed because of the darkness and I was curious if she had fallen back asleep.  As I looked closer I realized her eyes were rolled back and fluttering and she was unresponsive.  Immedietely I told Trustin that something was wrong and we screeched off to the side of the interstate onto an offramp.  I unbuckled Ashlynn and carefully but quickly pulled her out of the seat and held her to me.  She was limp and unresponsive and her eyes were still rolling.  I handed her to Trustin who began giving her a blessing while I called 911.  Those were the scariest minutes of my life thus far.  We felt so helpless and scared.  After what seemed like forever, but was probably about five minutes, the ambulance showed up and I rode with Ashlynn to the hospital while Trustin and Zeke followed behind in the car.  Ashlynn was just fine.  It was, as both Trustin and I suspected, a fibrile seizure.  Although I didn't know this at the time, this type of seizure, while terrifying in the moment really causes no damage (yay).  At the hospital they gave Ashlynn some tylenol and the doctor declared that she had an ear infection.  I was a little bit skeptical of this because we'd had her ears looked at the day before and plus the hospital staff was really not impressing me.  They hardly communicated with me at all, would just check her temperature and then leave the room and not come back for twenty minutes, while I could hear the whole bunch of them sitting our around the front desk chatting.  True, they understood that Ashlynn was fine, but after standing on the side of the highway in my bare feet, holding my unresponsive baby and crying to the 911 operater, and now sitting here while my two year old is sleeping in the waiting room and my husband hasn't been allowed back to see Ashlynn at all, and we still have another hour and half of driving until we get home, I would have appreciated it if they could have given us a little more concern.  Plus I was already a bit grumpy because the paramedic on the ambulance didn't know how to use his thermometer (really??).  But truly, I shouldn't be grumpy about the night because it was full of blessings.  How grateful we are that I was riding in the backseat which allowed me to see what was happening.  How blessed that we were that out of all the miles of that drive Ashlynn's seizure happened as we were approaching the exit in Mesquite that was only minutes from the hospital. And how blessed we are that Ashlynn is fine and happy and healthy. 

Just to finish up that story. We took Ashlynn in to our regular pediatrician for a follow up appointment and guess what.  No ear infection.  Hmm.  She actually had roseola which often has high spiking fevers but is hard to diagnose until the fever breaks and a rash appears. 

Of course, a hospital visit is not all that our sweet Ashlynn is up to.  She has learned to wave, but it looks more like she is beckoning to us to come because she just pumps her little fingers closed towards herself. She loves the ABCs.  Often when she cries and is unconsolable, Zeke starts singing it and without fail, she cheers up.

She has taken a liking to being upside down and will throw her head back until we hold her upside down.  She also loves to be outside and cries when we bring her inside.

She is full of smiles and makes all of us smile too! 


Updates on the Zekester: Still a silly great kid.  He has learned the secrets to Mommy's heart.  One day he said to me "Can I give you kiss?" I was happy to oblige.  Then he immediately said, "I want candy from my pumpkin!"  The next day this scene repeated, verbatim.  This week he has taken to saying, "Can I have ___ because I love you?"  It is hard to say no to that.

His all time favorite activity right now is hide and seek.  Known to Zeke as "Hide and Zeke" or "Hide and this guy"[points to self].



And now the last few weeks in photos:

The pictures all got shuffled. But this is one of Zeke when we were feeding the ducks this week.  An activity both kids loved.

While I was studying Ashlynn found the bag of cheerios in the diaper bag and decided it was time for a snack.

Zeke really liked the geese...

...until they charged.  Then he needed to be picked up.  Can you blame the kid?  Those birds are as tall as him and not timid.

Cracker for the ducks, cracker for Ashlynn.

Chillin' in the grass.

Having a snack.  Yes, Ashlynn is as gifted a floor and lawn cleaner as ever.  Clay remains her favorite food.

Happy Easter!  My beautiful, but sad and sick little lady.

And a Happy Easter from Zeke!