This past Sunday MD participated in a service at a Baptist church that is a couple blocks away from our house. The children’s’ part was to each memorize a sentence that went along with her assigned letter and then to say it when her time came. MD did great, and said hers loud and clear enough for everyone to hear. The grandparents were able to come too, and that made it extra special.
Last week CDF and I went to D.C. so I could attend the Datatel Users Group conference at the Wardman Park Mariott hotel. The girls went to stay with their grandparents for the three nights that we were gone. We drove up Sunday, stopping to drop off the girls, and then drove back on Wednesday.
While we were up there we had time to visit the National mall. We rode the metro from the hotel to a central station, and then walked around for a few hours. One thing I thought was neat is that the station at Wardman Park is rather deep underground and requires two escalators, one which takes at least three minutes to ride, to reach. We took a couple of pictures of it from the bottom, but they still don’t capture the feeling of standing at either end and looking at the long stretch of moving steps.
We did a lot more walking, and another day we rode the metro down to Dupont Circle to visit the shops there. In particular to visit Filene’s Basement and find out why so many of the other conference attendees went there. We also were a few blocks away from the National Zoo, but after so much walking we decided to drive there (regretting it after seeing how much it cost to park).
On Thursday, March 6, the girls went to get their hair cut. CE got hers cut for the first time. She was ready, in fact, she wanted to climb in the chair on Monday when I was getting my hair cut. So she was first and climbed right into the chair and sat down.
We mostly wanted her bangs trimmed to get the hair out of her eyes. I think it turned out just right.
CDF and MD went to another birthday party at the skating rink in Wallace. As usual it was loud. But they both were able to skate and had a good time.
MD spent more time skating, while CDF took pictures and talked to the other parents.
A month after (!) I finally sat down to write my thoughts about the wedding. It was a very nice ceremony, even though there was a last minute change from the beach to a Bed and Breakfast (due to cold and rain). The Bed and Breakfast was in downtown Wilmington along 3rd street south of Market Street. I’m not sure what style the house was, but in one of the sitting rooms they had a whole cabinet with old cameras. But back to the wedding…
The groom was in military dress, as was his best man, and groomsmen wore tuxes. The bride’s entourage wore red dresses and looked very fetching (in fact they fetched quite a few comments from the groomsmen [pardon the pun]).
This past weekend I was able to get a good picture of MD in her Sunday dress, with her hair done up (actually the picture was too dark, but I fixed it… mostly).
And the previous Sunday, CE stopped to pose too.
After I wrote about what CE could say she started saying more.
MD gets a kick out of it just as much as CDF or I do. It’s nice that she’s trying, especially as she tends to get quite frustrated when we don’t understand what she wants (and she can’t tell us).
Every so often I like to record how and what the girls can say, especially as they’re learning to talk. CE is taking her time (at least compared to MD) and has not developed a big vocabulary yet. She is using sign language well though.
So far she can say:
MD has also asked about how she used to say things. I got out the humidifier yesterday and we were talking about how she used to call it “menufier” and that piqued her curiosity about what else she might have said.
This past weekend I took off Friday and had a holiday Monday (MLK) so ended up with a four-day weekend. Originally we had “big” plans to go to a park with the girls, or have some other outing. But that changed when CE got strep-related tonsillitis on Wednesday.
So with the baby sick, we decided it was best to keep our plans low-key. Then Thursday afternoon she had a fever and broke out with a rash. The doctor said it was probably a reaction to the antibiotics and to not give her anymore. Also we had an appointment Friday morning at 8:30 AM.
That night CE slept fitfully and would wake up every hour or so. Giving her Tylenol like the doctor directed didn’t help much. Also it must have disturbed MD, because whenever I would just be getting back to sleep after soothing CE, I’d feel a tapping on my shoulder and it was the other daughter wanting water, or her CD player turned on, or something.
Finally by Sunday CE was on her new antibiotics and was feeling, and sleeping, better. We were able to rest Sunday afternoon and she was up to playing with her aunts G and H when they came over for a visit.
Monday we were back to the regular routine. We were talking about what to do when MD got invited over to Mackenzie’s house to play for the day. So CE had us to herself and MD had a great time playing with a friend she hadn’t visited for a while. At home CE helped me bake oatmeal raisin cookies (mostly by being the batter taster) and spent time playing and reading with CDF.
We took a bunch of pictures over the Christmas holiday. These are mostly of CE who was quite pleased to pose — as long as she got to see afterwards. MD wasn’t feeling well as she was still recovering from a stomach “flu.”
