Where No Hedgie Has Gone Before

I put a hedgehog in the bathtub with my daughter last night. I took Hurley out to clean his cage, and it occured to me that I'd given him a Severely Unappreciated Bath before (he doesn't even like the sound of running water now), but it was not water deep enough to swim in. I wanted to see him swim, so in he went! It was very funny to watch those little legs propelling his round body through the water. He didn't really care for the activity and he smelled rather odd when he got wet, but the rest of us enjoyed it. I think I will wait a couple of weeks and do it again, but use some pet shampoo on his little belly and feet. For those who might be concerned that I am being unkind to my pointy little pet, don't worry - baths are recommended for hedgies. Besides, I've seen the kind of thing that gets stuck between those tiny little toes...!

The photo you see here is of Hurley investigating one of our kitchen windowsills. I plopped him on the kitchen counter while I did something else (don't worry - i clean up the path where the aforementioned dirty little feet tread) and when I turned around he had climbed up onto the sill. I actually got quite a few good pictures of him. He usually refuses to do anything remotely cute and/or hides when I get the camera out, but he was having too much fun this time. I just let him climb around and kept snapping photos until he started showing a bit too much interest in my plant.

I know that the devoted fans of my daughter will be disappointed in this post, but I haven't talked about Hurley in a very long time and I wanted to show off one of my cute pictures!

Departure and Illness

Well, Jessica went back home today. We're really going to miss her around here! It's amazing how quickly you can get used to having someone around, especially someone as good-natured and affectionate as Jessica. I think it's going to take a few days for Lila to get used to her being gone. She hasn't said much about her absence yet, but I suspect that she'll be asking for "Ge-ge-kuh" tomorrow.

Poor Dougie is not feeling well this evening. His tummy is all messed up, so I made him some ginger tea and then sent him to bed early. He definitely didn't complain about that. Besides not feeling well, the poor guy hasn't gotten to bed on time in at least two weeks! I just hope that his healing rest isn't sabotaged by any early morning insomnia...

The three of us went to Bed Bath & Beyond this afternoon to get a few things we needed for the house. Specifically, we were looking for a new bedspread for the guest room, a drain rack for the kitchen sink, and a "shower caddy" for the shower stall in our bathroom. Did you know that you can use up to five of those '20% off any one item' coupons at one time?!? We used three and I left feeling Quite Thrifty.

No Boys

Lila had her 2 year check-up with the pediatrician today. Everything looked great and her stats are as follows:

Weight: 24 lbs 10 oz (30th %ile)
Height: 33 in. (25th %ile)
Head Circumference: 48 cm. (70th %ile)

Tonight it will be just the girls and I because Doug is going to small group. Maybe I'll just take a shower with Lila instead of doing a normal bath for her. Is it terrible that I don't enjoy doing bath time? (that's a rhetorical question - please don't answer it) It's such a bummer that Doug and I don't get to go to small group together anymore! Besides the obvious effect of each of us only getting to hang out with the group every other week, it means I only get to see Doug for about an hour and a half all day (including breakfast). Oh well, I'm still hoping to find a regular Wednesday night babysitter so we can both go every week... Actually, it would be more accurate to say that I'm hoping a regular Wednesday night babysitter will fall into our laps. [tee hee]

House full of crazy people...

Lila, as I speak, is laying in wait (literally) for her Daddy to get home. One of her birthday gifts was a big bag of plastic balls, like the ones you see in the ball pits. We cleaned and inflated her wading pool and poured all the balls in and that's where she's sitting. In the wading pool full of balls. According to my spy, Jessica, she's picking the balls up, one at a time, and talking to them. Weird kid.

I am so tired! I think the situation is this: I didn't sleep well at all for the first week we were here. Between being in a new place and all the stress that was happening, I slept horribly! Now, I have finally settled down and chilled out and I'm sleeping much better. Since I'm sleeing well, I don't want to wake up in the morning. Whatever the cause, I'm tired.

I'm also finding it difficult to concentrate on anything; like typing a blog post, for instance. Jessica, I've found, is much more difficult to ignore than Lila. That's not to say that I spend a lot of time ignoring the kids, but there are some things that cannot get done unless I tune them out. I currently have Jessica drawing a picture nearby and asking me every ten seconds if I can guess what it is...

When Snoopy Attacks

I am busy busy busy with preparations for Lila's birthday tomorrow. I think I'm more excited than she is. In fact, I know that I am because she is asleep and I'm the one who's up, wrapping things and making plans. I'm more excited than Doug at the moment too. He's a very sleepy boy. :)

Sick Girls Everywhere

Poor Lila has been running a fever since yesterday morning. It got up to 103 degrees yesterday afternoon, so we took her to the doctor who, of course, could find nothing wrong with her. She has no other symptoms, so they said to watch her and bring her back if the fever spikes to over 103 degrees or continues for five days. She'll be going back to the doctor tomorrow because her fever got up to 103.8 this evening.

I woke up this morning not feeling well myself. Nothing I can put a name to, just general ickiness. My head hurt and my body was aching. Doug worked from home for most of the day (apparently he also built a fort with Jessica and they hunted buffalo in our hallway - all the exciting stuff happens when i'm asleep!). Anyway, I still feel a little icky, but I have no fever and I'll get over it.

This evening, Jessica was complaining a bit of not feeling well. I thought maybe she was looking to bank off of Lila's sickness attention, but I checked her temperature and she's got a fever too! It's not nearly as high, but a fever nonetheless. I went out and bought some Children's Tylenol (all we had was infant's and extra strength) and hopefully she will feel better tomorrow!

Sheesh!

Moving Day Approaches

Well, we're moving tomorrow. Kinda crazy! I'm a little sad to leave this house. Not because I love the house itself - I don't, really - but because all of my wife and mommy memories have been formed while I've lived here. I wonder how long it will be before the new place really feels like home.

My second cousin (i think that's right - i'm not sure how all that works) is staying with us for a few weeks. We invited her to come and I'm glad to have her here. It's been a little difficult, adjusting to suddenly having a second child around in the midst of all this other craziness. We're having fun though, and I'm sure we'll settle into a new routine soon enough. You know me - as long as I've got a routine, life is good. :o)~

I think Lila is tired of how much of our time goes into this "packing" business, but she's doing alright. She's totally diggin' the fact that Jessica is around and she wants to follow her and do whatever she is doing. Jessica told me a couple of days ago that it's tiring having a toddler around all day. I just laughed out loud. Tell me about it...

No Time!

I don't have much time to write because Lila just woke up from a nap, but I wanted to check in. We spent four solid days of last week/weekend painting at the new house. What you see in this photo is the color of Lila's new room. Purple is her favorite color these days, so she got a purple room! There are those who seem to feel that our choice of wall colors reflects some sort of character flaw, but frankly my dear... TAKE A HIKE!

And now I must go. Things around here are NUTS!

Paperwork

We couldn't find a babysitter on Monday, so we had to take Lila to the closing with us. This is her helping us with paperwork. She was taking her job very seriously!

It was hilarious, actually, because she was totally studying the actions of the lady from the title company and then copying them. The lady would make marks on papers, hand them to us to sign, put them upside down on another stack, flip through the them, etc. Lila was doing all the same things and totally looked like she knew what she was doing. I told Doug it was a good thing we had her with us because we never would have gotten through all that paperwork without her!

By the way, Grandad Dorsey was in the hospital for a couple of nights because he needed a blood transfusion, but he is back home now and doing alright. You keep praying and I'll keep you updated!

Disregard this Photo