Friday, October 23, 2009

"She just loves babies."

Leah, who is so intent on being the focus of all attention possible.  Leah, who screams an ear-drum shattering shrill shriek to overcome any conversation not about Leah.  Leah, who can't stand a singular spotlight for fear that its bulb may burn out leaving her temporarily in the dark, so she insists on multiple spotlights, or rather, the moon and the stars and the sun and every other light emitting or reflecting heavenly body to shine upon the brilliance that is Leah.

This same, humble child "just loves babies."  This statement was uttered proudly by her care-giver on Thursday.  Sure its cute when she cradles her baby dolls. She mocks feeding them, wiping their faces, and changing their diapers.  She nurtures these bundles of joy, plastic, and cloth.  She loves them no matter how full of Chinese lead content they may be.  No one is perfect, but she loves these baby dolls, flaws and all.  This excitement translates to real babies as well.

A baby at daycare has been on the receiving end of Leah's adoration.  We're told its cute.  We have witnessed the excitement on Leah's face to see a baby.  She squeals, and says "baby" as she points at the little girl.  

Then she gets home, loses her temper at something, and those same beloved baby dolls get thrown to the floor with an inappropriate measure of force.  Mixed signals for mom and dad.

[Dan] proofread by the Mrs.

Friday, October 16, 2009

Current Stats

Leah had her 18 month checkup earlier this week. She weighs 24.2 pounds (to which Momma exclaimed, "That's all?!") and measures 33 inches tall. Her weight is in the 50-75th percentile and her height is the 75th-90th percentile. The doc says she looks great and appears to be right on track developmentally. The average vocabulary at this age is 10 words, and Leah can say about 7. If you include her animal sounds (which her pediatrician does!) then she's definitely meeting (and depending on her mood, exceeding) the 10 word mark. Yay.

Only one shot this time for the seasonal flu. She screamed and cried of course, but got over it fairly quickly once she was given a cookie. ;)

Tuesday, October 6, 2009

Bring on the Zombie Frogs!

Leah will be 18 months old on Saturday.  In the last year and a half, she has survived a housing crisis, a financial crisis, a gas shortage, a historic drought, a resulting water shortage, record unemployment, rising crime, record snowfall, a record flood, and a couple of Mavericks.  

So what's next?  Well, if you're religious, you might think that locusts are the next plague.  If so, you haven't seen the bugs in Georgia.  Have you ever heard that the south is a little behind the times?  The bug life is simply Jurassic.  The cute bugs are still cute, such as Ladybugs, the only difference is that they are the size of your thumb.  Maybe the next plague will be something like the river flowing blood.  Again, Georgia's dirt is red. We wouldn't know blood from yucky water anyhow.  This leaves us with frogs. Better yet, frogs raining from the sky. It happened in the Bible, or at least a weird Tom Cruise movie.  In honor of Halloween, they may as well be Zombie Frogs!

Leah was born over 540 days ago.  She had complications at birth, which caused an emergency C-section.  She spent the first couple days of her life in the hospital's NICU in an oxygen tent to help her breathing.  She has weathered more storms (health, weather, economic, societal) than she is even aware of.  She is a tough little kid; determined and independent.  She wouldn't have any problem with a swarm of undead amphibians.

Dodge's tail whacking her in the face is a slightly different story.

[Dan] - or is it Frog Zombies?

Sunday, October 4, 2009

My child is a . . . Super Hero!

A stand-up comic named Daniel Tosh has a bit about a real-life child who can't feel pain, and how he would make a terrible parent for someone with this condition. Mock calling his wife, he says, "Honey, I broke our daughter's arm an hour ago, and she hasn't tapped out yet.  Our child is a superhero!"  

Fortunately, Leah does not put her dad in this situation of mistaking a life-threatening disability with super strength. (He would fail that test.)  Unfortunately, Leah has a different super power.  Well, two powers, but we've exhausted the 'Blinking is all the sleep she needs' power.  Her second power is the ability to be loud. No, make that very LOUD. Leah screams.  When she's happy, she screams. Its earth-shattering.  When she's sad, she screams, but she actually builds it up.  Her mouth will hang open, and its the quiet before the storm.  Then, all that air she just sucked up, comes projectile vomiting out in a torrent of ear-splitting decibels.  Her superhero name should be Banshee or The Deafener.  Her costume should have a bullhorn on the belt buckle.

Life with Leah and two energetic dogs is a constant ballet.  When she starts her screaming, we have to tend to her, and at the same time, run to make sure that Dodge isn't filling the tub while Hud is grabbing an electric appliance to bring in the bathroom.  Their poor doggy ears.

[By Dan]-"huh? say again."