27

Yesterday was my birthday. Contrary to what Annabelle thinks, I am not one and a half. It was such a nice day. For various reasons my last birthday was not great. This year more than made up for it.

We went spent the first part of the day at a state park. Annabelle was VERY disappointed that we weren't going to her definition of a park aka a playground. Then she saw a frog and said she was "habing so much fun!"

 

We called it a hike but in reality it was a drive with a few stops to walk around. 

 Too bad we didn't see much of a view.

Do not be deceived by her sweet face. She was airing her grievances about wanting lunch and still wondering why we weren't at the playground.

We went to PF Changs for dinner. Normally Christopher makes my birthday meal but I was craving dumplings and nobody makes them better than PF. After studying dumplings for many years I consider myself an expert on the matter. Christopher and Sesame made me strawberry shortcake. Annabelle helped by laying on the kitchen floor while wearing an apron.

Hello, sugar high and late bedtime.

Here's to a year with less gray hair and more dumplings.

I sound like a grandmother pulling out her brag book

Heard from the backseat
"You want to borrow my fingers, Mom?''

Best friends with Mr. Lion since 2014.

AB: "I wanna see picture of me and Jesus."
Me: "I don't have a picture of you and Jesus."
AB: ''I wanna to see picture of Jesus on phone!"
Me: "But I don't have any pictures of Jesus on my phone. I've never taken a picture of him."
AB: "I wanna see me and Jesus!"
Me: "I don't---"
AB: "I WANNA SEE PICTURE OF JESUS!"
Sorry, girlfriend. If I could google a picture of you and Jesus I would. If you and Jesus ever are visibly in the same room together I'll take a million pictures.

It's a real shame she doesn't have any bath toys.

"Happy cat! Happy mouse! Cat eat da mouse. Happy cat!!"

Before bedtime prayers
Me: "Think about all the nice things you have, like your bed and your toys, and thank God for them."
AB: "Dear Yord. Thank you for da door."

Me: "Do you love Baby Ivy?"
AB: "I love fried rice."
 

"I holdin baby I-bee (Ivy)."
This is said when she's holding anything that can be wrapped in a blanket. Her sippy cup, pretend egg, monkey and rabbit from Easter have all been Baby Ibee at one point or another. She's in for a real treat when she meets Ivy and discovers she's not a plastic turtle that plays music.

AB: "It taste yike butterscotch!"

Me: "What does?"

AB: "Da bubbles! They so yummy! You want some?"

some say it's baseball, some say it's football

We took Annabelle to her first baseball game today. We really went to the game for me though. I grew up going to Pawsox (the Red Sox minor league team) every summer until I got married. Not much about our current town is fabulous but they do have a minor league team which gives them a few points in the positive column. They're playing the Pawsox this weekend so we packed our snacks (we don't go anywhere without snacks) and headed to the ball field.

I took the role of AB's baseball instructor Very Seriously. I walked her through the whole thing and was really quite proud of myself for such excellent play by play. Then she called it a "football game." So I really got through! She picked up on something because she started telling me a detailed story about "the man hit the ball and mumble mumble the bat, and, and, cinnamon mumble mumble catch it. How old is he, Mama?"

We invited our friends from Bible study to go with us. Their little girls are two of Annabelle's best friends here. She recently discovered she can held hands with someone other than me and she's been grabbing onto any hands available. It was so sweet.

I've heard huddles on the mound are for planning strategies or whatnot, but I've always believed they're more for planning where the team will eat after they win the game. The Pawsox pulled through for me Annabelle and won the game. God bless America.

Texas Roundup

Once AB's Texas plague let up we brought her to the zoo. She was in her happy place feeding deer and goats. 

Sesame rode a bike for the first time. For all that I enjoy about children, teaching them to ride a bike is in my top 10 biggest dislikes of all time. I CANNOT stand it. I have patience for a lot but I have little to no patience for taking a child from a tricycle to a two wheeler. It takes a while for the child to catch on and once you take the operation on the road it takes fo.ev.er to get anywhere. I've always said that if Christopher is deployed when a child of ours wants to learn how to ride, they'll have to wait until he got home or find themselves a tutor. This mama is not available. (But let me tell you how I really feel.) Thank goodness for grandparents who will happily push learners around the yard.

We got home on Saturday and were greeted with drizzling rain and balmy 44* temperatures. It was nice to see that the bad weather didn't put a damper on my flowers.

She spilled a lot of yogurt

Remember the time we visited Texas when I was pregnant and everyone in the family got the 24 hour bug?

Then we visited last year and Annabelle had a terrible, awful, no good, very bad weeklong sickness that sent her to urgent care four times? And she passed it on to me and Christopher?

Surely sickness during one visit was a mere coincidence. Sickness during the second visit was unbelievable. To get sick on a third visit would be a cruel, cruel joke.

Jokes on us because guess who spent an hour at urgent care yesterday?

I swear we are allergic to this state. Every. Single. Time. we're here someone throws up. We drove all around the country within the last month and got nary a sniffle. We spend four hours on a plane (aka germ heaven) and Annabelle ends up with the flu and strep throat. The rest of us aren't far behind. Texas is a huge state with huge germs.

Annabelle had a tough few days. When she got the stomach bug a few months ago it was immediately after she ate yogurt so she thinks throwing up is called "spilling her yogurt." It's sounds more ladylike but the result is still just as gross when you hear someone say, "I spilled my yogurt on my bed!" 

Thanks to a steady diet of three prescriptions life is starting to look up in AB's little world. She has a 

bad cough which I've self diagnosed as bronchitis but I'm not too surprised about any new disease. Maybe we'll catch yellow fever while we're here. I hear zika virus is going around.

I'm praying Christopher and I are spared from spilling our yogurt, especially on the flight home.

trailer parks and anniversaries

Friday was our anniversary. Every year I've gotten progressively worse at documenting it. I wrote a whole post for our first anniversary and it's been downhill ever since. I couldn't even remember what we did last year until I found a tiny blurb about it at the bottom of post. This year I didn't get around to writing about it until five days later. It may go totally unmentioned next year.

As per the usual/to be expected, Christopher had to work on our anniversary. Autumn and I had been trying to go out for months and the timing finally worked so I spent my anniversary with her instead of my husband. I have a few criteria for going out- I don't want to stand the whole night, I don't want to go anywhere very sticky and I want good French fries. Bonus points for a waiter. Basically I want Applebees. I got Ollie's Trailer Park instead. It was standing room only, the food was subpar and I almost lost my voice from having to shout all evening. Despite the sticky menus I enjoyed the time with Autumn. She's a good people watcher and that can be hard to find. I need people in my life who don't think people watching is too nosy.

The groom finally showed up at lunch time on Saturday. Our first stop on the anniversary tour was a visit to Daniel and Erika's. It was funny to be holding Ivy on the very day her baby shower was supposed to happen. That girl didn't want to miss out on anything.

Next stop was the church where we were married. I certainly had less wrinkles and more sleep on my wedding day five years ago.

Daniel and Erika got us a night at a hotel as an anniversary gift. We drove to the hotel, ready to begin our childfree getaway. We hit a bump in the road when the man at the desk couldn't find our reservation. I gave him three different last names it might be under but he kept coming up dry. After 27 texts with Daniel, we discovered we were at the wrong hotel. It was only then we realized no one had actually said the name of the hotel. Erika told me the town it was in and I assumed I knew which one she meant. I assumed wrong. It reminded me of when we got lost driving the 10 minutes between the church and our reception. Christopher went into a convenience store in his uniform to ask for directions and I sat in the car in my wedding dress avoiding all eye contact with strangers. Getting lost is a great way to start off a marriage.

I had visions of sleeping for hours on end but again, I assumed wrong. I was slapped with insomnia and didn't fall asleep until SIX A.M. I wanted to wake Christopher up to keep me company but I didn't, even though misery loves company and I was MISERABLE. Nonetheless, the few hours of quiet meals with no one asking for more cheerios or dropping their cup on the floor (Christopher is so hard to control) were brief but so nice.

The next day we packed all our belongings back into the car and drove home. Christopher was in his car and AB and I were in mine. One of us got to relax in the back watching Frozen on repeat while the other needed qtips to prop her eyes open. 

We have five days to recover before hitting the open road again and going to Texas. Both times I've been to Texas I've gotten a horrid stomach virus so I'm preparing myself to be hit again.  If you need me I'll be over here popping Vitamin C and drinking all the immune system building drinks. 

Unrelated picture of Sesame talking to a duck statue. As one does.