Catch-Up

Okay... so I'm behind. Quite a bit. We've had a busy few days. Abby and Olivia had a great time with Great Grandma Jennie and Grandpa Steve and Great Aunt Ruth. Abby even let Aunt Ruth stay in her room without putting up a fuss, so we were pretty proud of our little lady.

Olivia had her first trip to church Sunday morning. She did great. Abby did not do so great in the nursery. She had a little bit of a breakdown over being left, but she did make it the whole service without us being called back to collect her, so that's not bad after 5 weeks of missing church. I'm sure after a few weeks she'll be back into the routine and not freaking out when I leave her. Or then again...

Olivia also had her first stay with our babysitter Kitty. She and Abby did great - Kitty still had all her hair and was smiling when I got back. It's nice to have a baby sitter who can handle Abby and still think having Olivia around is a bonus (she called the night before to make sure I knew she was totally okay with having both girls since I had been considering taking Olivia with me to the service for Uncle Jeff's dad Bud Mansfield). Since both girls did so well I guess Steve and I will be taking a date night soon.

So all of that gets you through Sunday and Monday. Then we got to today... play group day. Abby and I were excited to get back to playgroup and to get outside at the park to play. We packed Olivia up for her first trip to playgroup and the park. We got into the car, which Abby has lovingly dubbed "Big Black" and took off. Then we got rear ended by a college kid who was running late for class. He got to be a lot later by the time I called the police out to make a report since my bumper now has two big cracks in it. Luckily no one was hurt and since he was going less than 5 miles per hour and I was parked the damage was pretty minimal and the air bags didn't deploy. Olivia slept through the whole incident and Abby didn't really care although she kept saying "that kid knocked down Big Black." She has a funny way of expressing herself sometimes. So we finally made it to the park after all that excitement. Abby had a great time and played all over the playground without being clingy. She was really excited to see all her friends and I enjoyed visiting with the other moms. I'm hoping our next trip out is much less eventful.

Blueberry Baby

Abby was wonderful in Wal-Mart today, mostly because Abby spent the cart ride eating blueberries. Letting her eat in the cart has made all the difference in our shopping experience for the last couple of weeks. I should have figured this out months ago. We can even get through the toy department without whining when there is food going into her little mouth.

Abby had a great time this weekend. She was wonderful again when we visited Dr. Anderson and his mother on St. Joseph Island. She even ate dinner sitting in a big person chair between Mrs. Anderson and I and made Bev's week since she has no grandchildren of her own. Abby even got comfortable enough to chat away with them and to give Mrs. Anderson a hug on her way out. I have a feeling Abby will be invited back again after such a good performance.

I'm starting to feel better during the afternoons, but I'm still pretty much nauseous all morning and after dinner. I'm hoping that I don't have too many more weeks of this to deal with. Between feeling icky and spending too much time in the bathroom I feel like I'm losing my "Jen" time because of how much time I'm spending taking care of Abby and keeping up with the house. I'm going to have to get that rectified ASAP!

Abby learned a new trick yesterday (a bad trick!). She wanted to head back to the church nursery, which is more of a cry room because the parents have to stay and supervise their own children up to age two. So Abby did what any resourceful little girl would do and quickly and rather silently climbed under the pew to escape. I, of course, watched this all go down and followed her back there, but she sure thought she had pulled off a great victory in the war against listening to mommy.