The bad news? Katie threw up all over the couch.
The good news? At least it wasn’t at Sam’s Club or in the car (we had just got home).
The bad news? It was the one morning I wasn’t sitting out there with them and Mr. Tattletale—who normally gives me a play-by-play of everything—didn’t feel the need to tell me. 😐
The good news? We have a leather couch.
The bad news? It has A LOT of button holes and stitching.
Ugh. Teething sucks. (Especially when she’s never acted like this before.) Poor kid.
Katie: 1
My Pants: 0
Subtitled: No our kids aren’t drunk.
It started off innocently enough with Katie crawling up to see what Tom was doing.
Then she has to sidle up next to him.
Waiting for Owen’s potty break:
I definitely see Uncle Rob in these next two pics (she’s definitely a Hudson):
And just like that, all the fun ended when Katie spit up on me. Katie and Owen had apparently just played and laughed so hard for so long that Katie spit up milk chunks all over me. And not just your run-of-the-mill spit up…but horrid smelling curdled nastiness that required a quick shower to get the stench off my skin.
But overall…a good time!
I discovered today that she likes garbanzo beans!
And eating out of a bowl still needs work.
Someone was a little messy with his ice cream.
Today was the big day of our Deckwarming party (and Tom’s going away party) as well as a mini celebration of Katie’s first birthday (technically her third first birthday as we already celebrated in Michigan, then she had her actual birthday on the 10th, and then today’s gathering). It was a long, hot, tiring—yet fun—day.
Party-prep is so much work—it never seems like stuff will take that long…but it always does. I was VERY thankful to have hired Virginia to come watch the kids while we did the prep because then I didn’t have to listen to Katie screaming because I wasn’t paying attention to her…and I was actually able to get stuff done! I loved what Virginia posted on Facebook—it’s classic Owen:
As usual, we had too much food (or maybe just not enough people?!) but then, I’m a Len and we apparently don’t know how to cook for less than 40 people (or are paranoid about not having enough food regardless of the number of people). 🙂 But everything was delicious.
The weather actually held out—it was touch and go for awhile with intermittent thunderstorms pretty much all morning and early afternoon—but it cleared up about 4 and was sunny and gorgeous (though the humidity was right at about 99%).
We had a good blend of old (Mitchells and Trimbles) and new friends (from my mommy group) and the kids had a blast in the playroom and in the pool.
Then it was time for the birthday cake. I had wanted to do something special for Katie so she didn’t fall into that “second kid gets squat compared to the first kid” thing PLUS after Owen’s Lego cake debacle I had decided I was never attempting to bake a cake again…so I asked our friend Ursula to make a cake. She has recently started making and decorating cakes and she’s ABSOLUTELY AMAZING (as opposed to my first attempt—see above Lego debacle post). Here’s the picture I sent her (that I found on Pinterest) along with her version on the right (I asked for the 1 on top instead of the ladybug and only two layers):
Amazing, right?
Also a big thanks to mommy-group friend Jacqueline who helped with my last-minute ice cream request (Doh! How could we have forgotten ice cream on our three trips to town?!) and pre-party kitchen cleanup (she arrived during the last 15-minute rush to get everything done, saw I was a bit overwhelmed, and jumped in to wash the sink full of dishes).
Some of the kids playing dress up:
Having a blast in the pool:
Wandering:
She made such a mess that we had to hose off the deck (thanks, Roger!) and give her a quick bath in the sink with Dawn detergent (I hadn’t planned ahead to have baby soap downstairs). Here she is somewhat cleaned up, back with Virginia again.
Since Owen was having so much fun in the pool and with the kids, we let him stay up late. This is about 9:30 right before he finally went to bed.
Thanks to everyone who shared the day with me and Tom!! And you can tell we’re all getting older…everyone had gone home by 10:15!! 🙂
So, any tips to make sure kids chew their food? And to impress upon them the importance of chewing so they don’t choke and vomit all over the place?
😐
Yes, Tom is cleaning the current multi-spew fest (through the dining room and kitchen—at least nothing on carpet so he got off easy) thanks to Owen apparently trying to swallow a whole cashew.
😐
I told him if he can’t chew his food he’ll get milk and baby food…but seriously, we may implement a new rule about the number of times you need to chew food before swallowing. Because this is ridiculous.
It doesn’t happen all the time, but it should be a rarity. But I guess I’d rather have him vomit than actually choke, right?
Katie still has diarreah…and this morning was a bit worse than normal with three full diapers before her morning nap (it’s been maybe once per day up until now). This, of course, necessitated two outfit changes as well.
Then.
THEN.
I was standing in the kitchen talking to my mom when I look up to see Owen in the hallway just standing there but looking kinda…strange…and quiet. It didn’t register. Then he threw up as only Owen could do—basically just opened his mouth and it comes spewing out. That’s when I noticed the PILES of puke in the living room. Ugh.
Well, I immediately pulled him onto the linoleum, knowing that he likely wasn’t done because when he pukes, it’s not just once or twice—it’s usually at least 3-4 times. And if you try to move him, he’ll puke the entire way and you’ll have a bigger area to clean up. And yep, he puked three more times.
Luckily Katie was down for her nap.
Unluckily Tom was out getting his hair cut.
Luckily my mom was there.
Unluckily she wasn’t feeling well, either.
I stripped Owen and gave him a quick bath then started the cleanup. During which I discovered he also puked on the couch and iPad.
😐
At least we had brought carpet and upholstery cleaner with us (something I’ve learned to do with two kids and a dog). So I was on my hands and knees scrubbing for 20 minutes and of course Tom walked in right as I was finishing. 🙂 Them I had to change clothes because I had puke splatter plus wet knees from cleaning the carpet.
As usual, Owen didn’t appear to be sick (before or after)…so who knows why he puked.
Then when Katie got up from her nap, she was sitting in my lap…and let’s just say I had to change clothes again. 😐
Then at dinner, Owen was eating too fast while simultaneously eating like a horse and not chewing well enough and he started coughing HARD…which—yep, you guessed it—leads to vomiting! At least he puked onto his plate and we had nothing to clean.
It’s rare he pukes at all, so to have him do it twice in one day? We wondered if he really might be sick (both Tom and my mom had a day of the icks) but he had no other symptoms and we knew the second time was from coughing. I think everything was just a big coincidence.
Katie has never really had diarrhea.
Until today.
When I took her to visit my mom and her friends at someone else’s house.
Without a diaper bag because we were only going to be there for 20-30 minutes.
😐
Needless to say my mom had to run me home, I sent her back with carpet cleaner, I had to give Katie a bath (first one by myself!), and then put all of our clothes in the laundry.
We didn’t attempt to go back because with my luck it would happen all over again—or worse. At least all the people there have had kids of their own (or had enough experience with kids) that it wasn’t really a big deal to anyone.
Her second first birthday onesie!
Her birthday balloon and bib at the hotel for her party!
Making faces with Papa.
Amazingly, she didn’t dive into the cake.
Singing Happy Birthday and big brother helping blow out the candle! (Yes, it’s a little blurry. I have a FAIL every now and again.)
Also amazingly, she didn’t make much of a mess. Yes, SHE got messy, but she ate the whole piece and none hit the floor!
Her new suit and coverup from Grauntie Rose!
Up and out completely on her own!
She would have dove in had Tom let her.
It was impossible to get all three looking at me at the same time.
She kept trying to drink the water!
She loved playing with Papa’s toes!
Drying off with Grandma Marsha.
Waiting to open presents!
A fun game Katie had with some grandparents…
I swear it takes me just as long (or longer) to clean her and the high chair up as it does for her to eat it. But she loves it…
She seems to like to try and lick the tray.
But she loves them!
Owen told me “Happy Mother’s Day” when I woke up—and I got a hug! Then, Tom gave me this…Owen actually colored some of it (!) and signed his name.
Then Tom made my breakfast request: Bisquick pancakes (they aren’t his favorite so we don’t have them all the time) with sausage links.
Then Owen decided to give me a very special mother’s day present by pooping in his underwear. 😐 He has been SOOOOO good with pooping in the potty…letting us know when he has to go, coming in from playing to go poop, not even needing the balloon, etc…so we’re not exactly sure what happened today. And then it happened again, later. GRRRR.
Then we ended up having friends over for dinner, so half of my day was spent cleaning up and making dinner…but it ended with a good time with friends.
So overall it was a nice mother’s day!
This was her first dinner at 4:30. She ate a second dinner with us about 6:30.
Normally I feed her when it’s messy food (and she lets me), but today she was more interested in feeding herself…so I let her go crazy.
So the things I expected yesterday that didn’t happen…happened this morning as I was prepping to host play group.
Yeah, while I wasn’t looking, Owen was laying on the floor trying not to poop…and left a nice puddle of diarrhea on the carpet because it overflowed the pull-up. 😐
Then he was so messy he needed a quick wash and rinse, which meant Katie had to go to her crib and MY GOD you would have thought I set her in hot lava for all the screaming.
Wow. Owen could not have been more awesome at the dentist today!!
Full cleaning.
Full flossing.
Full X-rays.
No whining.
No refusals.
No stubbornness.
Such a difference six months makes.
Then when they put his X-rays on the monitor he says “Awesome!” And he thanked the hygienist. And he agreed to share his ice cream (treat) with the dentist!
So I was just planning on giving him ice cream at home but he said he wanted a cone…so I pulled into McDonalds. They took so long with the car in front of me that the cone was dripping by the time I got it. So I cleaned it up and handed it back to Owen. Well, a mile down the road after waiting in traffic the cone was dripping all over Owen.
So I had to take a quick detour into the Best Buy parking lot to clean up the melty cone, wipe down Owen, take the paper off the cone, and clean up the drips on the car seat. :/
Dressed for the occasion (thanks, Grannie Lin)!
Enjoying her first actual teething biscuit!
Today Katie had her first peas at lunch! And she did REALLY well—eating almost a whole jar!
Owen just lost all privileges of playing out of my sight.
He was upstairs and I assumed he was playing nicely. Ha.
Well, at first I heard some loud noises, but it sounded like his golf balls rolling around in the tub so I figured he was just playing in the tub which was fine. Then it got quiet and I got a little worried…but Katie was sleeping on me so I let him be and kept my fingers crossed.
Then he came down the stairs and I see he had taken off his pants and underwear—which worried me because that’s what he’s been doing when he has to poop. So I put Katie down (which wakes her up, of course) and go over to him…and notice poop hanging from his butt.
Ugh.
So I make him stand there until I can go grab a wipe to take care of that so it doesn’t end up in the carpet. Then we head up to the bathroom and OH MY.
Where to start? I couldn’t take it all in at once.
UGH.
Needless to say he got a time out…and he lost TV privileges for the day.
Overall I know it could have been worse, but I was still livid. This is the kind of stuff I just do NOT have the patience for…and what I worried about long before having kids. And I have to say that if Owen was acting like this earlier (at a younger age, like the Terrible Twos that we missed) I would have seriously debated having a second.
Tom fed Owen tonight while I was working on dinner. I was amazed, because he went through a 3.5oz veggie, then a 6oz veggie, and then during the last bit of a yogurt, I asked Tom if Owen had burped at all…and just as he was saying no, Owen barfed.
Yeah, I thought it had been too much food too fast, but I didn’t make a big deal about it because it’s rare that Tom feeds him so I didn’t want to criticize anything (love you, babe!). We just cleaned him off and put him in the bath.
Then, since he had barfed up most everything, I made a big bottle, which he sucked down crazy fast. Before I put him down, I wanted to make sure he burped…and boy did he. I heard it coming, but it wasn’t just a burp.
That’s right, folks. He vomited all over me. Then turned to the other side and barfed some more, which got in my hair. I immediately yelled out — HELP! HELP NOW! — and Tom rushed up to see me and the boy covered in barf. He took the boy to get changed. I hopped in the shower. Then Tom got out the Rug Doctor and cleaned the green bean vomit (first in, last out!) while I played with the VERY HAPPY boy.
I was scared to try another bottle, but he needed something before bed—so Tom took a turn (he called me a wuss for not wanting to try again) with a 6oz bottle but I don’t think he even ate 2oz.
Poor baby.
Poor mom.
Wonderful dad for rushing to my aid.