Rough Two Weeks

Two weeks ago Evie had her 15 month check up which included two vaccines.  Both vaccines included common (1/3) side effects of a low grade fever, or rare but normal (1/20) side effects of a high fever.

Evie was one of the lucky one-in-twenty who got a 102 fever for almost two full days..  If you recall from my Epic Thanksgiving, Evie doesn't do well with oral Tylenol.  Thankfully I had some of the other kind of Tylenol on hand.   She was miserable even with the medicine. She just laid on me for two days. Crying. Not eating. Moaning. Ugh. Breaks a mamas heart!

Because she was laid up on me, she didn't really get to work out the tender spots on her leg from the shots. On the third day when she was feeling well enough to run around she was doing so with a bit of a limp.  That night she got a bit excited and tripped and fell head first on to the corner of the tv credenza .

It swelled up to the size of half a ping pong ball and was bleeding ever so slightly.  Ice pack, boo-boo bunny, Delaney...nothing would calm the hysterics until we took this selfie with the iPad!  Poor thing was so exhausted as it was and this, of course, happened at bed time.  I didn't want to put her down for bed until we could rule out concussion.  Thankfully (?) I had just called the doctor about toddler concussions the week before when Evie fell face first out of a play tree house onto wood floors, so I knew the signs already.

Finally, we got our Little Bee snuggled in bed.  But that next morning she woke up and her overnight diaper had exploded. Not the contents but the actual diaper. The little gel beads were stuck all over her from her armpits down to her toes.  She was shivering from the cold.  Off to the bath!  And then off to the sitters.

The weekend went along as usual and things were back to normal until Evie's little babysitting buddy, K, got sick and then the babysitter got sick and then Miss Evie was down for the count.  All three of them were out for a full week with a cough and runny nose. Evie's never turned into infection, thank God, but she was still pretty miserable.

Somewhere in there she dropped my camera on the ground cracking my 50mm lens and jamming it into the mount.  And moments later she pulled a dining room chair on to herself.  Tough life being a toddler. So many bumps and bruises!

Now she's transitioning to one nap and cutting a few more teeth.  The afternoons are a fight and struggle, but at least we're back to the baby sitter / work routine.  I was going crazy!

Thankfully this is all behind us and we're moving forward again. As my grandmother used to say, "It's the bitter than makes the sweet taste good"

Evie: Fifteen Months

Measurements:

Weight: 28lbs 13oz (>97%)

Length/Height: 32.5 inches (96%)

Eats: 3 full meals, 1-2 snacks, 15-20oz cow's milk, 10-15oz of water

Diapers: skipped size fours, straight to fives

Clothes: wearing a few 18-24mos in generous fits (Gap, Old Navy), 24 mos (Carters) and buying 2T in anything new for Spring

 Evie finally started walking on January 11. One night after dinner she was determined not to crawl again. She walked about 10-20 steps and would get frustrated but try again. The next morning she got down from the breakfast table, took off walking and never crawled again. Refuses to crawl even on the landing of the stairs or other places it would be convenient.

Evie has mastered climbing the stairs, even while holding Delaney or a bottle.  We put a gate at the bottom of the stairs because she would just start climbing and I couldn't find her until I heard her crying at the top of the stairs.

 Evie usually takes 2 naps a day still, though usually one is about 1.5-2 hours and the other 20minutes-1.5 hours.  If she sleeps past 8 am then we just give her one nap in the afternoon.

We transitioned Evie to cow's milk from formula around 13-14 months. We were moving when she turned a year and I didn't want to stress her little body out too much with a move and new milk.  I'm glad I did because as it was she had a lot of constipation issues.

 Evie's growth rate has been off the charts and her health impecable. The pediatrician said we can eliminate the last of grains from her diet and cut her dairy intake to just cheese and yogurt.  She even wants me to cut the little bit of prune juice from her diet in favor of real prunes!   I love that her doctor promotes the same eating habits and lifestyle that Eric and I eat!  We're going to continue with diluted milk though for naps and bedtime, so we're actively cutting down to a max of 15 oz a day.

 Evie has been exploring all sorts of new things. She loves to reach on to the counters to see what she can find. She opens drawers, the toilet seat, and any cabinet I let her.  Some days I'll find her completely sitting in the Tupperware cabinets just playing.  She recently pulled my camera off my desk breaking my 50mm lens, and pulled a chair over onto her self.  I am SO fearful she's going to pull a bookshelf or something on to herself.

 Evie loves bath time. It's her time one-on-one with Daddy.   She would sit and splash in there for a good hour if we let her.  She's getting rather handy with the wash cloth too.

She likes to give hugs and kisses and wave bye-bye. She is quite the snuggler.  Such a sweet, sweet girl.

Evie didn't seem to get the hang of feeding herself with a spoon, which I guess comes before fork skills? But she does great with the fork. Sometimes she'll cry until we give her one. We'll get back to the spoon.

 Evie's favorite foods are blueberries, eggs, bananas, bacon and tortilla chips.

She likes to put things on: sunglasses, headbands, hairbows, clothes

And take things off: hairbows, shoes, socks.

She is trying so hard to be a big girl!

She is still a fairly neat eater unless the food itself is messy.  However, when she's done with her meal she treats it like finger paints.

Right around the time she started walking her vocabulary and sign language seemed to click too.  She finally started signing "all done" which has thankfully replaced her pterodactyl scream.

She's also learning new words and sounds.  She can say: mama (and mommy), dada, nana, peez (please), dank ou (thank you), day-be (Delaney), dal-done (all done), dogh (dog), she-ooz (shoes). She can also bark, baa, bock, and moo.

 Evie has taken to singing.  Eric and I (mostly Eric) sing to her every night. We sing the Hail Mary and Ave (per Life Teen tradition), I Love You, Lord, and occasionally chant the Our Father.  Many days she just sings nonsense but she has started singing Ave Maria. I cannot tell you how much I love this! She sings it in her high chair, in the car, or trying to sooth herself to sleep.   If you can get past my singing and my messy kitchen, here's a great video of it.

Evie Singing Ave from Elizabeth Buergler on Vimeo.

 Delaney continues to be a mainstay in the Buergler house.  Evie takes to other dolls, but Delaney is her go-to girl. Delaney is the only doll that will really distract or cheer up Evie.

Happy Valentine's Day

Happy Valentine's Day

Love,

Evie and Delaney

And afterwards He was hungry.

This past Sunday I was blessed and honored to give a talk to the youth group at our parish regarding Lent and prayer, fasting and almsgiving. We discussed Matthew 4:1-11. Then I shared with them a few examples of each of these things...

Here is an excerpt of my talk notes:

Prayer, Fasting and Almsgiving

Fasting is probably the most popular ---  fasting is to abstain from something for a long period of time.  
Often we find ourselves indulging in things of this world, instead of in God.

aka too much time on Facebook, over eating, gossiping, complaining, etc

So unless you have a real dependence on cookies or coke, I challenge you to give up something more difficult to really stretch you.

FOR EXAMPLE:  
**give up trashy music for only Christian music
**give up all the apps on your phone except meaningful email and calling
**refrain from gossiping but instead try to say something nice about that person

Prayer is usually what people mean when they say they’re going to DO something for Lent.

Lent is a great time to really push yourself in your prayer life by making daily commitments to prayer.  Lent is a great time to start a new prayer routine...ya know they say 30 days to make a habit.  Oh, and perfect, Lent is 40 for us remedial learners.

EXAMPLE:
**daily Mass
**get to Mass 15 minutes early
**pray the daily readings
**decade of the rosary on weekdays

ALMSGIVING...

What is it?

Giving assistance to the needy, be in money, time or talent.  But not in a show-off kind of way.  These sacrifices remind us of the physical sacrifice Christ made of us, and also reminds us of the Universal church!

EXAMPLE:
**give up Starbucks and donate that money to SVdP
**start tithing -- giving 10% of your income (which you should be do anyway!!!)
**go to the soup kitchen once

Previous years I have done extraordinary things like fasting from all drinks except water and saving that $40 a week to buy sandwiches for the soup kitchen.  Or last year where I did Project Simplify and cleaned out each room of the house purging a minimum of two brown bags from each room.

This year I've discerned that screen time: computer, phone, iPad, tv has become a sin for me.  Not so much that I watch or do sinful things, but that screen time prevents me from doing GOOD.  That good includes: prayer time, quality family time, good conversations with Eric, and neglecting house hold duties.

So for Lent 2013 I am completely fasting from Facebook and eliminating screen time while Eric is home.  This doesn't seem like much compared to previous years, but I've started a new prayer regime with Spiritual Direction, and Eric and I have started a new food lifestyle.  Since these things are a lot to take on already, I did not want to overwhelm myself this year.  Our priest told us that our Lenten sacrifice shouldn't be daunting or impossible, just something to stretch us.

I share these things not to be Holier Than Thou but simply to give ideas.  Some of my best Lenten fasts have been ideas from friends (like project simplify inspired by Kat's 40 days - 40 bags).  And since Fr James Martin lets his friends pick his fast I thought I'd at least let my friends in on mine to help call me to holiness or in hopes to encourage others to go that extra mile!

Happy Fasting (is that such a thing?!?)

Last Fling Before the Ring! Girls' Weekend in Savannah!

This weekend I had the pleasure of honoring my sister, Katie, with a bachelorette weekend in Savannah.  Katie chose Savannah since she went to college nearby, it has great weather this time of year, and it's casual.

Fourteen girls were able to make it from all over the country, and even Canada-eh?  I rented a house on one of the squares, which is the thing to do if you're ever in Savannah with a large group.  Since most of the houses have a 3 night minimum, a few of the girls took an extra day off work to take advantage of the required Thursday night stay.

It's always risky getting away with 14 girls, but this was an exceptionally drama-free girl's weekend. Thank you, Jesus!

Everyone arrived in stages on Friday, so we decided to have dinner at the house. Katie's sisters-in-law made a huge taco bar.  We spent the evening in our jammies playing games and drinking wine and sangria.

Saturday morning was leisurely and very welcomed by the mommies in the group.  Rosemary and I walked to the grocery store for brunch fixings  but the girls did all sorts of things including run a 5k! Way to go Cat!

Saturday afternoon Rosemary coordinated a "honeymoon shower" bruncheon (I'm working on single handedly bringing back the word luncheon, and this extends to the portmanteau brunch).  She had a few games for Katie to play.  First she had to answer questions about her and Sam's relationship with answers supplied by Sam.  Next she had to guess who brought each of the "honeymoon" items that we hung around the room.  Finally, each of the married girls took a minute to share a bit of advice. It was great to hear from girls married 4 months to 6 years.

The rest of the day the crew divided up. Everyone did a little something different from mani/pedis, boutique shopping, to sweet shops on River Street.

We gathered back at the house Saturday night to get ready for a night on the town.  My sister-in-law Paige is from Savannah so she made arrangements for a private dining room for dinner, tables near the band when we went dancing, and a waived cover charge for the dueling piano bar.  She also coordinated petti cabs to drive us around town that night.  The best $6 I've ever spent.

After dancing our booties off at the rooftop bar, we went to the dueling piano bar where Katie was called up on stage to participate in a few songs / dances with two other brides-to-be.  She loved every minute of it.

Sunday was a whirlwind cleaning and packing to be out of the house by 10. But we made it.

Such a great weekend. I was so blessed to spend time with Katie's new sisters, her roommates, and her long time best friends.  I hope Katie felt the love as much as I did!!

Just 55 days to go until Katie is a MRS!

Miscellany Monday #12

I love linking up for Miscellany Monday.  I get to write about all sorts of things that are too short for an entire post.  Here are some fun things going on at the Buergler Haus, courtesy of my unedited phone photos.

Eric and I have each started going to spiritual direction with the parochial vicar at our parish.  It's been a challenge for me to get in a new prayer routine.  But I am enjoying it so far.  Same for Eric.

Evie started walking about three weeks ago. Life in our house has changed. It's so much easier to do things with her now, but there is no such thing as sacred space anymore. She follows me everywhere and is into everything.  I felt like there was a lull during the crawling phase where she wasn't changing a whole lot, but now that she's walking I see so many changes. And her language skills are exploding!

Eric and I have gone off the rails on the crazy train. Okay, we've been on it for a while. We've been slowly going more and more Primal in our diet and lifestyle. During November and December we decided that come January we'd made the leap to cut out all grains 80% of the time.  Basically, I allow myself one serving of grains a day.  But I want to get that down to one serving 2-3x a week.  Baby steps are the way to go, for me at least. We've made some awesome meals....like Eggs Benedict salad and coconut flour donuts! Benefits so far: better sleep, fewer headaches, weight loss, more energy, less brain fog, less need for caffeine (though the want remains!)

My sister is getting married....in SIX WEEKS, y'all!  Her invitations arrived in style.  She used the same calligrapher that Eric and I did, and Eric's sister and her husband used, but she chose a more elaborate font than either of us did. It's so beautiful. If you're in Atlanta, check out Faith's website. Her work is stunning.

Evie is loving the new house.  WE are loving the new house. So many small details, like parking in a garage, not sharing walls with strangers, and natural light!  We're slowing getting the house together now that Christmas is over and Katie and Sam's party is over. Finally, we have time to put up actual decorations.

If you follow me on twitter with any such stalkerness, you'll see that I tweeted that I was going to start a series on organization tips using smartphone apps, but I reread the prewritten posts and I decided I want to rewrite them. They're too verbose (as are all my posts), thus not finding the proper balance of broad advice and detailed orientation. I'll get to this soon.

Other little things:  we switched Evie's carseat to front facing. please don't call the cops. also, we started buying raw milk. again, don't call the cops.  I found a new midwife practice. no I'm not pregnant but I needed a check up and wanted to establish myself before I get pregnant. I got to go out twice this weekend. once to drinks and dinner with girlfriends from work and the other time to a wedding/reception and to the bar after with my husband and friends from church. I NEEDED THIS so badly. I've lost about 8 pounds since Christmas. I'm so, so close to my pre-pregnancy jeans.

That is all.