Today Rachel pooped in the toilet for the first time.
Sorry. No picture.
I remember asking somebody how they could tell if their kid was ready to be potty trained. I think climbing onto the toilet and pooping is a pretty good sign.
YAY Rachel!!!!
What an INSANE afternoon. As I was changing Rachel's diaper before her nap, I noticed something that caused me some concern. I called her pediatrician, and the suggested I bring her in. So we scheduled her an appointment at 3:40 p.m. At about 2:45 it started to rain. And when I say rain, I mean torrential, Noah's Ark style rain. It was raining so hard I thought it would rain itself out, but I was wrong. I had to wake Rachel up in order to get her to her appointment on time. So in the middle of the torrential downpour I packed up Rachel and Gabi and put them in the car. In the very short distance between the back door and the car, all three of us were soaked through to the skin. I don't think I can adequately explain how hard it was raining. It was beyond belief.
It rained hard all the way to the doctor's office, then continued to rain as I brought them into the office. I must have been a sight to behold. There was an umbrella in the car, so I used it, but try to visualize, if you can, me with the umbrella, extracting Rachel, then Gabi from the car, and trying to carry the umbrella, Rachel and Gabi into the office. By the time we got into the office we must have looked like quite a sight. Three drowned rats if you will (note the title of the post).
Turns out my concern for Rachel was legitimate, and we are treating it. When it was time to go I was unwilling to put Rachel's drenched clothes back on her. By then the rain had stopped and it was quite sunny. You would have never believed the rain had been there at all. Anyway, instead of putting her clothes back on, the nurse practitioner who treated Rachel gave her a little surgical robe to wear home.
When we got home it was past time to feed Gabi, so I left Rachel to play while I fed Gabi. Feeding Gabi is generally a rather long process, it takes an hour, and just as I was finishing Jeff got home from work. He took over Rachel and Gabi while I fixed dinner. I was very glad to see him!
I took Rachel and Gabi to the home of Sister Nixon (who made both of their dresses when they were blessed). Rachel's dress still fits her after more than a year, but Gabi is rapidly outgrowing her dress, so we wanted to get some pictures before it was too late.
Here are several of the pictures.
Last Christmas Rachel got a Argentina National Team Fútbol (soccer) jersey from her Aunt Michelle who is currently serving a mission there. At some point during my three months of bed rest the shirt was misplaced. There was much sorrow (mostly from me).
Fast forward to last night. I got home late with Gabi from rehearsal. Jeff was changing Gabi's diaper on our bed in preparation for putting her to bed. He neglected to take certain precautions, and Gabi peed on our bed. Well that was unfortunate, or so it seemed.
We have two sets of sheets for our bed, but again during my bed rest, one of the fitted sheets was misplaced. Normally that is no big deal. When I wash the sheets I do it in the morning so that by bedtime I can make the bed again. But this time it was already quite late, so we kind of had to find the sheet. It actually didn't take very long, and lo and behold, under the sheet was the lost fútbol (soccer) jersey. And we all rejoiced (mostly me).
And the moral to this story is that a baby peeing on your bed isn't necessarily a bad thing.
I can't believe it. In one more month Rachel will be two years old. Wow! Time has really flown by. That is it flies when it's not dragging.
Rachel is wearing fingernail and toenail polish. And guess who painted her nails. Me. That's right. I painted Rachel's fingernails and toenails. Back when I was in the hospital, Holly came from Idaho to visit me. She was charged to paint my toenails by Marlene, who provided the polish. I resisted, and Holly relented. A few weeks later Marlene came to visit. She tried to paint my nails too. I resisted again. I think Marlene was ticked off with me, but I hope she is happy to know that the fingernail polish that she provided was put to good use.
Yesterday I went to Wal Mart. As I walked in some guy came up to me and said "Has anyone ever told you that you look like Nancy McKeon?" I told him that actually I have been told that before. He said, "I didn't know you had a baby." I wonder if he thought I actually am Nancy McKeon. I'm not.
I took Rachel for a walk tonight. Jeff stayed home with Gabi, feeding her the supplement bottle. Rachel started out in her dress-up shoes and baby doll stroller. After a while she took off the shoes. (I imagine they are not too comfortable for a long walk.) Then she stopped pushing the stroller, but still kept on walking. Rachel came across some stones, and really liked them, so she held on to two of them. After a short while she didn't want to hold them anymore, so she handed them to me. I didn't particularly want to hold them either, so I showed her how to put them in her pocket. She really liked that. The bad news is that from now on I probably will have to check her pockets every time I do laundry. Finally Rachel got tired of walking too, so I put her on my shoulders, and we came home.
Rachel has a really bad diaper rash. It's not the first time, but until this one, I have always been able to keep them under control. This one, though, has been quite a doozy. I finally gave up and decided I couldn't take care of it by myself, so I took her to see her doctor today. She was a super patient. The doctor, when she saw it, was amazed that she didn't cry bloody murder when her diaper was changed.
So they gave me a prescription to fill, as well as an over-the-counter ointment to use. I went to the pharmacy to fill the prescription, and they told me it would be 35-40 minutes. Okay, so we went to Burger King for lunch and to wait for the prescription to be filled. Finally we returned to the pharmacy where the girl told us that she made a mistake. Because the prescription was a compound and needed to be mixed it would take a lot longer, and would be ready around 2:30 or 3:00. So we went home and Rachel went down for a nap. (I washed the dishes.)
After Rachel's nap we returned to the pharmacy where we were told that the insurance would not cover it. I called the pharmacy to find out why, but the guy I talked to said he needed to talk to the pharmacist. The pharmacist called, but was stuck on hold for 20 minutes. Finally he just overrode the price and charged us what he believed the co-pay would be.
Rachel was uncomfortable the whole time, but she behaved like a real trooper. I was very glad to get home with the prescription where I could treat her. The doctor said it would take 10 days to 2 weeks to clear up, but she should get some relief within 48 hours.
I hope Rachel doesn't get mad at me for posting such personal information about her on this blog. Don't tell her I did it.
Today Gabi is three months old. She has reached some pretty important milestones. For example, this week she has achieved Rachel's birth weight (9 lbs. 12.5 oz.). Another really fun one is that she is smiling quite a lot now. It is beautiful to behold. A few days ago I took some pictures of Gabi in her blessing dress. It was the first time I was able to capture her smile on camera.
It's Official
Jeff has a scale he uses to weigh packages. I put a cookie sheet on it, and put Gabi on the cookie sheet, and it's official, Gabi now weighs (at almost 3 months old) what Rachel weighed when she was born. 9 lbs. 12 oz. Gabi was being pretty wiggly, so an exact weight could not be established, but she was right in the same neighborhood.
My Bold Adventure
I have been pretty nervous about taking both girls out by myself. Rachel is a good girl, but she can be a handful at times. Last Friday I bought a double stroller. It is actually a "Sit and Stand" stroller. There is a real stroller in the front, and in the back is a bench where Rachel can either sit, or stand on the foot rest. It might be just a tiny bit big for Rachel, but she seems to do okay with it. She sits on the bench, and there is a safety restraint for her to wear. Well yesterday I did what I was too chicken to do before. We went to the zoo, just the three of us. The front of the stroller has an attachment so that I can put a car seat in it, so Gabi rode there in style, and Rachel on the bench in the back. I mostly wanted to go to the water park, so we started there, and when Rachel was done playing there, we walked around and saw some of the animals. I was very pleased with the stroller. It made my adventure at the zoo much more pleasant.
Rachel and Gabi
Rachel is the sweetest and best big sister. She has always been so nice and (kind of) gentle with her baby sister. She gives her hugs and kisses, when Gabi cries, Rachel is willing to help out by getting Gabi her pacifier. I caught a sweet moment of the girls together on the camera.
Starting the first Sunday of August our church schedule changed. We used to meet from 9:00 to 12:00, but now we meet from 1:00 to 4:00. Last Sunday was the first week of the new schedule, but because we had family in town we went to the last 2 hours of the ward before us, and the first hour of our own ward so that we could spend the afternoon with the family.
So today was our first week with the new schedule. We slept in until 9:00. Actually Gabi and I got up early to eat, but we went back to bed. We had sweet rolls and fried eggs for breakfast, took showers, got dressed, got the diaper bag ready for the day, had lunch, then rushed off to church so that we wouldn't be late. Funny how the more time you have, the more time you use.
I was kind of worried about Rachel because we would be at the church during Rachel's regular nap time, but she was really pretty good.
Both Rachel and Gabi fell asleep on the short ride home from church, but Rachel woke up when I got her out of her car seat.
I started fixing dinner, but Rachel, rather hungry, I guess, found and went to work on the remaining sweet rolls from breakfast.
Gabi stayed asleep in her car seat for a while.
Ordinarily I prefer morning church, but to be honest, right now I'm glad we have afternoon church. Prior to today I had not gotten to church on time since Gabi was born. Hopefully by the time our schedule changes again next year, I will be capable of getting the girls (and myself) ready for early church again.
I would like to welcome Gabi to the exciting world of Poopie Stories. So far, Rachel has pretty much had a monopoly on poop stories. Gabi's only story prior to today was a no poopie story. Well, she jumped in with both feet today.
In case you couldn't tell, this post will focus on poop. If you find this topic objectionable, I would suggest that you stop reading now.
I had a feeling that Gabi would poop today. She doesn't usually poop every day, but I thought that today would be the day. Sure enough, she pooped. I waited for a while to make sure she was finished, then got down to work. Due to laziness I chose to change her diaper on the couch. I opened her diaper, but left it underneath her to catch any possible residual waste. It's a good thing too, becuse sure enough, she wasn't done. In fact she saved the best for last. Have you ever seen projectile spit up? This was projectile poop. In fact it overshot the diaper and got on the couch. Now I had to remove the diaper to have a chance to clean everything up. But she still wasn't done. This time she peed. I didn't really have anything on hand to catch it, although I tried to with a wipe. It didn't really work. Now my couch had poop and pee. I'm only glad that Jeff was on hand to keep Rachel from investigating too closely. Finally I got Gabi cleaned up and a new diaper on. If you happen to come over to my house any time, I think you can feel comfortable sitting on my couch. I cleaned up the mess.
Ah, the joys of motherhood!
Today Gabi was blessed. She was beautiful in her long white dress. In the circle was Jeff, my Dad who came from Utah, my brother-in-law Wayne who came from Texas, Jeff's brother Paul who came from Utah, Jeff's Dad, brother Brian, brother-in-law Jarrod, Uncle Larry, and his Grandfather and my friend Brother Gálvez, as well as Bishop Hicks. Afterward we took pictures in front of the temple.
In the afternoon we went to Jeff's parents house for a nice family dinner and get together. Since all of the Gosnell grandkids were present, we took advantage of the opportunity and took some pictures of them.
My sister Ladawn came to visit with her husband Wayne, and two of her kids, Rhett and Chelsea. They came to be here for Gabi's baby blessing. So far I am really enjoying their visit. They arrived yesterday evening. We had pizza, then Ladawn went to work cleaning and organizing my kitchen. She also cut my hair and Rachel's hair. Rachel's hair doesn't really look any shorter. It is layered so it is easier to get out the tangles in the back. Most importantly, I think I can replecate Ladawn's technique so I can do it myself in the future.
