Spamming my own blog

Dave is still gone, I'm still getting used to working again and dammit, I'm tired. Too tired to blog. Well, either I'm too tired or too lazy, take your pick, but I just can't get it together to write a whole entry about something interesting. Or even something not so interesting. Instead I will SPAM my own blog with pictures. It's the lazy girl's guide to blogging!

Here's Blaine on the USS Wasp, doing an interpretive dance I call "ode to a big ass helicopter":

Here's the boy again on the USS Wasp. I call this one "I'm the coolest dude on this ship":

Here's Kyra on Halloween. Now, I know you might be asking yourself "I know she says she is tired, but couldn't she at least have gotten her kid a costume?" Well, I did. My girl was supposed to be Wonder Woman. I ordered it early, had to have it shipped to my parent's house and then they reshipped it to me. I jumped through hoops to get her this costume and she was going to look awesome. Then she refused to wear it. And here I'm using "refused" as a euphemism to mean "Screamed bloody murder, grabbed costume from my hands, wadded it up in a ball and threw it in the garbage can." Yes. She hated the costume that much. Instead, I put a striped dress on her and if anyone asked I said "Oh, she's a gypsy!"

Here are Blaine and Kyra at yet another Halloween party. Blaine is decked out in his Spider Man costume (now with extra muscles! I love that the super hero Halloween costumes come with built in muscles now. It cracks me up.) Kyra, once again, refused to wear her costume. The gypsy dress was dirty so this time I put on a froofy, frilly dress and told everyone she was a princess. Hey, a mom's gotta do what's she gotta do.

Blaine started swimming lessons today. Well, actually, he started swim lessons about 4 weeks ago as part of his PE class at school. Today he started a recreational swim class. Held at his school. Taught by the same teacher who teaches his PE swim class. He is in the beginner class, but by the end of the 30 minute session today, he was doing awesome. He will even put his face in the water now without goggles on. I never thought it would happen:

See? Look, he's totally under the water. Swimming like a fish! Of course he only stays under for about 5 seconds, but everyone has to start somewhere, right?

And we can't have a picture blog without at least one cheeze face. I blame Blaine for teaching her this. It's hard to get a non-cheeze picture of either of my kids now. Sigh.

And this is how exciting my life is

David got on a plane yesterday for a business trip. Of course, this means that I ended up in the ER with one of the kids yesterday. These things always happen when David is away. Always. Without fail. If it's not one of the kids, it's something with the house or car. Sigh.

I have been working at Blaine's school for the past 2 weeks. Because of the Ramadan holiday, the Muslim workers leave by 2 PM, so they need people to help out. I am working in the school library (ah, a library - my favorite place to be!). Yesterday I get to school and I stopped in the cafeteria to buy some lunch tickets for Blaine and on my way out, I run into Blaine's class on their way back from recess. The teacher's assistant says "hey, glad I ran into you! I just dropped Blaine off in the nurse's office. He fell on the playground and bumped his head and is bleeding and we can't tell if it's his nose or his lip". I run to the nurse's office and there is my poor boy, standing at the sink with the nurse, covered in sand and blood and crying. He fell off the rope ladder and did a face plant in the sand. We get him cleaned up and determine that he had a bloody nose, not lip, and we ice his head and all seems fine. Once he is calm, I walk him to class and tell him I will come and get him as soon as school is over and he can hang out with me in the library and we will ride home together.

45 minutes later, I head down to his class to get him and, as we are walking back to the library, he tells me that his hand hurts. I look and don't see anything wrong. No swelling or bruising. During the 30 minutes we are in the library while I finish my work, Blaine complains again and again about his right wrist. He's holding it with his left hand and keeps saying "It hurrrrrrrrts". So, we head out and instead of going home we head to the local ER to get it looked at. The doctor orders x-rays. Blaine is excited at the prospect of having pictures taken of his skeleton.

5 x-rays later (3 of his hand, two of his head because of the size of the lump on it) we determine that he is ok. No break, just a slight sprain.

Blaine is now more concerned about the absence his brain on his head x-rays. "Where's my brain? It's in my head! Where is it?" All complaints about his wrist cease because of the new missing brain dilemma.

Ah, my life. One excitement after the next.

In other news, I have posted some new videos of Kyra talking and signing. I am trying to keep track of her progress as we work with her so that I can gauge her improvement. She's doing pretty good, picking up new signs every day. In the videos she only does one sign "please". She also repeats her latest favorite word "spiderman". David and I didn't teach her that one. Guess who did? Oh, and she also looks at me like "what? I don't know that" when I ask her to say "Love you!". Yeah, like we never, ever say that to her.

The Girl

If anyone had tried to tell me 2 years ago that my second child would be so absolutely different from my first child, I would have laughed. Really, they are just kids. Babies. How different can an infant/toddler/young child be? Sure, when they get older, when they are teenagers, there will be differences, but when they are young? No different. That's just crazy talk!

Then Kyra joined our family. And I learned just how different 2 kids can be.

Blaine was a difficult baby. Not colicky difficult. More like "oh my God why won't he sleep and why does he eat all the time" difficult. He wasn't unhappy - he was a happy, happy baby. He was just always hungry and never sleepy (or so it seemed). Kyra was the exact opposite. From the moment she was born she was a good sleeper. By the time she was 3 or 4 months old, she would only get up once a night. By 6 or 7 months, she slept through the night (unless she was teething). She had her own feeding schedule and she stuck to it. So easy. I felt like I had paid my dues with Blaine and was rewarded for my sacrifices with Kyra.

Blaine walked at 10 months - never crawled. He fell quite often and usually was sporting road rash on his face or knees. But, he never got into stuff. Well, not much anyway - and usually only if it was completely accessible - right in front of him begging him to mess with it. He didn't climb nor did he open every cabinet, closet or door he could. I never needed baby gates with him. Kyra is the exact opposite. She didn't walk until she was 1, but from the moment she could move, she has climbed. And climbed. But she's so careful that she rarely falls. Oh, and does she ever get into things. Childproofing has reached a whole new level in our home since Kyra has been able to move.

But man, I would not trade her for the world. She is awesome. I am so lucky to be her mom. She's sweet and funny and she laughs and laughs and loves and just makes my world a better place every single day. She loves to say hello to everyone she sees - waving furiously and repeating "hewooo" until the person she is waving at waves back. She loves to say "buhbuh" and wave again before moving on to the next person she wants to say "hewooo" too.

She doesn't talk much. We had a preliminary speech evaluation done with her, since she is 19 months old and likes to scream and point as her primary means of communication. Her hearing is fine. Her receptive language is top-notch. Her expressive language? Not so great. She babbles a lot but she doesn't have many words. We have gone back to basics and we are teaching her sign language. She's picking it up quickly - please, eat, more - and man it's making our life so much easier. The screaming is less because, without words, she can tell us what she wants. Hopefully in the next few months her language will improve, but if not, we will have a full speech evaluation done and start therapy.

The most important person in her life is her brother. Her dad and I are in the top 5, but I don't know that we will ever replace Blaine - "Ba" - as the center of her universe. She does what he does, loves what he loves, and wants to be with him all the time. The first day he rode the bus to school she cried and cried because she wanted to go too. But when he got home, she looked like this:

She's perfected the Blaine Cheese Face. And I love it. And I love her.