A Birthday and Good Grammar

**Be sure to scroll down to the Elvis post. It's a classic.**


Abby turned 2 on July 3. It is hard for me to believe that she is indeed two. I decided the week after her birthday was potty training week. That proved to be an abysmal failure. On Friday, her birthday, we gave her a potty seat, big girl panties, the works. On Monday, we went to the potty every few minutes, cried and then wet our pants. Well, I didn't wet MY pants, but I did almost pull my hair out.

I decided that on Tuesday, I would only take her if she asked. She asked a few times, but never did anything in the potty. After Tuesday, things got chaotic, and we put it on hold. Maybe I'll try again in a few weeks. Who knows?!?

Let me give you a quick physical update before I continue on to the birthday party. At her two year checkup, Abby weighed 22lbs 14oz. I'm not sure that it was completely accurate because they didn't make her take her clothes off nor did they ask me to change her diaper, but regardless, she's above 20lbs! Ahhhmaaazing! For her weight, she in the 7th percentile, a place I never thought we would be. The more amazing part is that she is 33in tall, and in the 30th percentile for her height. Crazy, huh?

The thought is that she has probably fit into the growth charts where she's going to fit in, and that's okay.



Now, on to the birthday party. It was CRAZY! I've never been particularly fond of birthday parties, and I'm not exactly great at planning them either. I really tried to exercise restraint in the guest list, but when you've got family and church and friends, it adds up pretty quickly. On our best count, there were over 50 people and about 20 kids running around the house (or hanging onto me while we were opening presents).



We truly enjoyed having all our friends together, but man am I glad we only have to do it once a year!



Here's the good grammar part. At Abby's party, she got a goldfish named Dorothy or Dorfothy as Abby calls her. If you're a parent and you watch Sesame Street, you immediately recognize that this the name of Elmo's fish. A coincidence, of course not.

On Sunday morning, when she got up, Abby walked up to Dorothy's bowl and said, "Good morning, Dorfothy. I slept well." I can't tell you how my heart swelled at the fact that my two year old knows to use the adverb well after the action verb slept. She may not be potty-trained, but she can speak properly.

Hallelujah!

You'll forgive me for being a little behind.

To say that the past few weeks have been busy would be a definite understatement. We've had birthday parties and family gatherings and I've been working some. It has been chaotic.

First: Abby's Nana and Papa went to Memphis to deliver some rocking chairs. And as we all know, a trip to Memphis would not be complete without a stop at Graceland. I made sure to tell Abby to let her grandparents know that she needed a t-shirt. We were not disappointed.



Some of you may remember the story of my mom's Elvis mug. She went on a mission to find another cup to replace her current, faded pink one. Unfortunately Graceland doesn't sell such things anymore, so my mom had to settle for one of those hard plastic cups with the huge flexible straw coming out of the top. I could tell she was disappointed, but I'm sure that given a few months, she'll have worn the writing off this new one, and it will be like old times.

If I had access to my mom's camera, I'd show you a few of the many pictures she took of Elvis's grave and the grounds of Graceland. Unfortunately, you can't take pictures inside the building unless you turn the flash off your camera, and my mom couldn't figure that one out, so we had a to settle for looking through the tour book she bought.

All that to say, we're trying to instill in Abby a love for the King of Rock and Roll (not to be mistaken with the King of Pop; although, Jason did teach Abby to moonwalk after MJ died).

I think I know how those contestants on American Idol feel...

Some of you know and some of you don't that Jason and I have been trying to get pregnant for about 9 months. It's been a long process, and every month that passed added to my uncertainty that God would actually provide us with another child. I told one of my friends at school that every time I took a home pregnancy test and it was negative, it felt like I was a contestant on American Idol coming out of the audition room shaking my head no.

Well, about 5 weeks ago, I got my golden ticket so to speak. WE'RE PREGNANT! It was an amazing mix of emotions: relief, joy, excitement, a touch of sadness when I thought about telling friends who have been trying longer than we have, fear that things wouldn't go so well this time around.

We've been really good about keeping the news to ourselves, waiting to make sure that nothing was going to go wrong. I'm now 9 weeks and feeling pretty good.

I went to the doctor two weeks ago, saw baby Looper's heart beating, got the okay that so far so good.

I think that I may need to just go ahead and rent a room in Greenville since it seems that I'll be spending a lot of time there. My OB said that they would do LOTS of ultrasounds to make sure everything was okay with this little one; they'll even do an ultrasound around 28 weeks on this baby's thyroid since I have serious thyroid issues. It's crazy, I know!

Speaking of thyroid, that's another reason I need to rent a room, I'm going to see that doctor every 10 days and have blood drawn almost every week. I wish they could just put a port in and be done with it. They have to make sure that all the levels are okay and that I maintain a correct thyroid balance.

The baby makes no thyroid hormone the first trimester, so he/she is completely dependent on me for that hormone. Since I make NO thyroid hormone, they've got to keep up, up, upping my levels to keep it in the correct range. Sounds fun, right?

Anyway, all of that to ask for your prayers and to officially release it to the world that sometime around February 2 (hopefully no sooner) we'll have one more human in the world.

More Sunshine

We captured Abby tonight dancing and singing to "Walking on Sunshine." I know we're Southern Baptist, but the girl's got moves. Please forgive us if she looks a little rough; we had just gotten home from swimming. Look closely; I know it's dark.

Just Thought I'd Share

There's nothing earth-shattering here. I just thought I'd post a couple of sweet pictures that you might enjoy.


It must be tough being little and getting to sleep in the car instead of drive it.


Abby loves Leia and Mommy loves that Leia now lives with Kenny and Debbie.


This is just too cute for words. Abby with her cousin Colby Memorial Day.


And finally....Mommy and Abby. Awwwwww....

I'm Gonna Rock and Roll All Night...

And then nap all day!

No, really, with an almost two year old, napping is a thing in my distant memory somewhere - college I think.

Last night was one of those kinds of nights that parents hate the most. I knew it was going to be bad when Abby fell asleep on her daddy's shoulder at 7:00. She had been acting puny all day, and that's never a good sign for the nighttime.

We loaded her up with ibuprofen, laid her down, and all was peaceful until midnight. I think it really is the witching hour when you have sick kids. They must somehow know that you have crossed from one day to the next. It's always midnight when she screams.

We got her up, gave her more medicine, changed her diaper and laid her back down. Nothing doing. She wanted us.

Jason did the noble thing and got her. He laid with her on the couch and then I hear it, "Alicia, COME HERE!" When you're asleep and it's 1:00 a.m., something about those words scare the everloving life out of you. I jumped up, and knew before I got in the living room, vomit was in my future. That's right, all over Jason, the couch, the blanket and strangely enough, not on Abby.

It is amazing to me that she can throw up bucket-fulls and never get any on herself. Anyway, I got a wet rag, cleaned her up (what little there was to clean) and traded places with Jason on the couch, praying I wouldn't be the next victim of Abby's sickness.

About 2:00 a.m., she wanted to "lay down, Mommy", so I took her to her room where she slept until 6:00.

So, here it is, 3:45 p.m., the day after. I snoozed on the couch a little after Abby got up from her nap, but I sure wish she'd go down for about 2 hours.

Oh, the joys. But seriously, I wouldn't trade this face for all the naps in the world!

What's Been Going On

What's been going on is that we've been B-U-S-Y!

Here's a quick recap:

**Jason and I went on the marriage retreat while Abby and Leia stayed with Aunt Debbie and Uncle Kenny.

**Jason bungee jumped on said marriage retreat. We're all thankful that (1) he has a good life insurance policy in place and (2) that he survived.

**We gave Leia to a good home. She is now living with Kenny and Debbie, a place that is far better suited to her than our home. I think I need to accept the fact that I'm not, as my friend Katie would say, a dog person.


**I started teaching a summer school session. (No pictures for this one. It's just another class).

**We booked plane tickets for Austin, Texas. It was quite a hassle working with Northwest, trying to use air miles, etc. We finally got the entire family on ONE flight AND we are sitting beside Abby, a pretty good thing if you ask me.

**We had Awana Awards last night at church. Abby is a Puggle (a little penguin, how ironic since she LOVES birds!). She got a certificate and an award. I'm still not exactly sure what she did to earn such a thing, but whatever, she's almost two.

This one deserves two pictures.


**Abby went to her first MMO gathering this morning. Of course, I had to go with her. We ventured to Partee Time (doesn't that sound fun!) She jumped on the bouncy toys and tried to run away from me. It's probably personal.


That's it for the Loopers so far this month. There are other things going on, but I'm too tired to remember them.