Life on Perry Street

Addison's adventures on Perry Street has been changed to Life on Perry Street. I didn't realize how long it has been since my last post, essentially a year. Yikes! I thought i'd give this blogging stuff a whirl again. Addison is now just over 3.5 years old and anxiously awaiting her 4th birthday in September.  Many of her preschool friends have turned four recently so this must be the talk around the snack table. Since my last post, she has accomplished a great deal including:

• Writing her name (thought the d's look like little cherries)
• Flying 100mph down Grandview on her Dora the Explorer bike (with training wheels of course)
• Mastering the art of the back flip on the hanging bar on the swingset (much to the heart attack she gave me)
• Mastering the art of the monkey bars (again see comment related to above accomplishment)
• And so, so, so much more!

Most of all she has been very focused on having a little brother or sister these days. She regularly checks my belly and tells strangers that she's going to be a big sister. This too of course is likely as a result of her preschool friends also recently having little sibs join their families. Also, though we've spent the past almost three years trying to give her one and she knows this. She has accompanied us to ultrasounds to check things out as well as procedures to get "knocked up". With no such luck with our local doctors, we made the trek to Iowa City to meet with the specialists there and are now in our first and hopefully only cycle of In Vitro Fertilization. The easiest way to describe this process is they pump me full of loads of medications (shots) to make eggs grow (fun!), they then take them out of me (i'm asleep for this, whew!) and put them in a petri dish (very science fiction), insert the swimmers into them and hopefully 5 days later we have a couple of rock star embryos.

We are hopeful as the doctors can't seem to see why we wouldn't be pregnant already and it will be nice to finally know what the deal is. There is always of course the chance for multiples but our goal right now is getting pregnant and we'll handle whatever is thrown our way beyond that.

My bad, Bummer, Duh

What mother wouldn't be proud of the addition of these three sayings to their 3.5 year olds vocabulary. Yes indeed, the power of pre-school conversations is evident in our household. Life on Perry Street is buzzing these days as we are wrapping up her first year of preschool, in the throws of in vitro fertilization, and have a now 7 month old cockapoo that has a love/hate relationship with Addison. Life isn't good, it's AWESOME. Clearly i've failed to stay on top of this blog in the past year and as I started a new blog about our experience going through IVF, I of course had motherly guilt that I hadn't updated my first born's blog. Oh man, it's already started and #2 isn't even conceived yet. I better make sure I commit to taking equal numbers of pictures for both kids. Everyone knows someone who's parent has tons of pics of their first kid and very few of the second. :-)
Back to Addison. She is amazing. She wows us daily with her lovely, LOUD, singing voice and dance moves. She just finished another year of tap, ballet and gymnastics. She's quite coordinated and strong. It's amusing to watch her dance all around the house and demonstrate what she's learned and then get on stage for a recital and freeze.
She is rocking the swimming scene, taking private lessons now so that she can ride the "big" slide at Flora this summer. Little does she know there's not a chance in hell I'm sending her down a waterslide by herself any time before she's 10. :-) But really, she's taken to the water and can swim 3/4 of the way across the little pool at the Y. It's hilarious. These little arms coming flying out of the water in windmill form. This past lesson she finally gave up the fight about swimming on her back and did the back float for 10 seconds. It was awesome. Up until now, she has fought every teacher who has tried to get her to float on her bag. Even pulling out lines from Tangled, such as "oh great, now i'm the bad guy", when a teacher scolded her for not cooperating. As a former lifeguard, teacher and college swimmer, i'm so excited to watch her little body in motion and see the smile on her face when she is in the pool.
Addison is also starting Tee Ball this summer which should be quite entertaining. Mommy Deb bought her a bat and her first glove. She proceeded to run around the backyard chasing the previously mentioned Cockapoo. See what I mean, love/hate. Eventually we got her to understand it's original use and in no time, she was hitting line drives back at Deb.
We are excited for all of the fun adventures to come this summer and I promise to keep the blog updated. I'll also update our IVF blog so if you are interested, check it out at:
http://micanddebivfjourney.blogspot.com/
Cheers,

Mic

Not quite up for mother of the year award!

I can't believe it has been 5 months since my last post hence the not going to win mother of the year award. I keep telling myself I need to update this so we'll have something to remind us of all of the silly things but then life catchs hold of me and i'm off wiping a nose, getting cheerios out of Lucy's water bowl, etc.

Let's see, Addie was just over 2 years old the last time I wrote, exploring her world, saying new words each day, etc. These days, she is a running, dancing, jumping 2.5 year old with the vocabulary of a 5 year old. Her curls contine to get curlier as does her independence and love for being outside. Thankfully the weather is cooperating and we have spent a great deal of time out in the backyard scheming up her very own backyard park with swingset, Little Tikes climber, sandbox and picnic table. You might be thinking that might be a wee bit much but she is loving it and we intend to spend a ton of time out there this spring and summer. I'll be sure to post pictures once we get it framed out and the wood chips down. :-)

Other than that, life is toodling along. Addie is registered for preschool in the fall and will officially start on September 19th, her 3rd birthday. We are still not quite believing that she is almost 3. She's mastered the art of potty training in 3 days, yep you read that right, 3 days. We took a trip to Des Moines in early March to see Madagascar Live at the Civic Center which she loved and also saw Barney Live at Five Flags here in Dubuque.

She is going on her 3rd set of tubes in her ears on March 25th and we're hoping that these ones do the trick. Their 99% guaranteed to stay in because they are a different type and will have to be removed by her ENT in 2 years. She also got a 2 thumbs up for her heart murmur. She still has a small leak but they are not concerned and will check it again in 4 years.

Well, off i go to get cupcakes ready for her playdate this afternoon with her best friend, Payton.

Cheers,
Mic

Long overdue

Well I didn't realized it had been so long since I've updated Addie's blog. A LOT has changed since last January. She is now a full fledged 2 year old with the energy of 10 weimeraners. She spends more time talking and singing than anything. Right now she's very fixated on identifying where things are such as "right here" or "over there" when referring to things. It's quite funny. She had her 2nd birthday party where she received a bounce house and lots of other gifts. The bounce house is a highlight as we have been able to bring it out on a number of occasions and each time she seems to get bouncier and bouncier.

The weather is beginning to feel more like fall and she loves helping Mommy rake the leaves up, well she loves jumping in them more than raking them but regardless she has fun. Grandma Sue made her a mouse costume for Halloween which she is so cute in.

We made our annual trip to Winona for Homecoming at Winona State. Addie had a blast with her buddy, Kellen at the parade and on our adventure walk.

A firm understanding of the term Wild Child

It's been a while since our last post and we've been very busy with an incredibly mobile 15 month old. When I say mobile I mean she's practically running from one thing to the next. She's an absolute blast and we love watching her explore. Christmas was quite fun as she opened presents, with help she didn't quite get the tearing part, and her favorite presents were a stuffed mouse with a cheese cart and a laughing lion (it actually rolls all over the floor laughing). We were able to spend 2 whole weeks home with her which was quite fun. We explored the public library, took a trip to Minneapolis to visit family, went to the Minnesota Children's Museum (which we give 5 stars!) watched a variety of children's shows and read a gazillion books.
We also welcomed a new member to our family. Huxley, is a black lab mix that we rescued from the Humane Society. He's around a year old and has settled in very nicely to our family. He's only about 1/2 the size of Lucy but the two of them combined can sure cover Addie's face with kisses in no time. He's very gentle with Addie and his only bad habit is stealing her toys which we're working on. With all of this canine influence in the house, it's no wonder Addie has started trying to drink from the dog bowl. SERIOUSLY! She waits for Lucy or Huxley to finish drinking and then goes over to the bowl, gets down on her knees and blows bubbles in the bowl. SERIOUSLY! So, we've been watching her like a hawk when she gets near the bowl and picking it up on multiple occasions.
Other than the ever growing 15 month old in our house and the addition of Huxley, nothing much has changed. I am back to work and Deb is home with Addie for 1/2 days until the spring semester starts in February.

Pictures to come soon!
Cheers,
Mic

Walking on my own

Well it's been over a month since our last post. It's been quite a busy month for everyone in our house. I having been busy with work, Deb has been busy with her doctoral classes and work, and Addison has been busy turning into a full fledge toddler. The biggest development in our house has been the fact that she is now totally walking around on her own and sometimes seems to be running. She's so fast! The days of putting her on the floor next to you while you complete a quick task are over. She's quite good on her little legs and is very entertaining to watch as she "mobiles" all around the house.
A few other developments are:
the increase of teeth in her mouth, 12 to be exact with two more pushing through this week.
the increase in her vocabulary from mama to ball, puppy, papa, bob, uh oh, hi, and bye. Of course one might need to have a baby trained ear to understand her but her vocabulary just seems to be taking off these days. She loves to mimic and has learned to appropriately identify things such as her nose, her curls,her toes, her belly, Lucy, etc.
She started her 2nd round of swimming lessons at the Y and is loving them. We know we're biased but she's quite the little fish. She's also quite the little dancer. A few of her favorite songs.....I'm a little teapot, the farmer and the dell and of course every 1 year old's favorite.....Miley Cyrus....Party in the USA. :-)


Cheers,
Mic, Deb and Addison

One Year Old

Well, it's finally set in, we have a one year old TODDLER in our house. It's amazing to think back to a year ago and how different our lives our. Over the past year we've changed in so many ways:

• Our sleep habits cannot be called habits any longer because there is nothing habitual about them aside from the fact that sleep has become something to be treasured.






• We have seen and discussed far too many poopy diapers amongst lots of other conversations about eating, sleeping, vaccinations, nap schedules, snacks, toys, etc






• Our stairs are guarded with gates and each drawer lock and cabinet lock is a reminder of the things a little one can get into






• Every day we learn something new about this little person that runs our household and learn what it means to love someone beyond what you could have ever imagined, even when she's thrown her sippy cup on the floor 10 times or fed half of her lunch to Lucy

Over the past year Addison has changed in so many ways.....

• She went from 7lbs, 2 oz to 21lbs, 3 oz






• She went from 20 inches to 30.5 inches






• She went from a mouth full of gums to 8 teeth and more pushing through (see sleep habits)






• She is moments away from walking entirely on her own






• She gives hugs and kisses (Lucy included on these), waves hello and goodbye, says Mama and tons of other words we struggle to decipher






• She eats anything and everything but still struggles to take in fluids (she's just not a big fan and this will probably be a good thing in college! :-)






• Most importantly, she laughs all the time, at herself and her mommies which in turn, makes our house and life with her the best thing in the world.

Her 1st birthday party was great! We invited family and friends over for cake and ice cream and she loved every minute of it. Especially when we sang Happy Birthday to her. She loved that so much we had to sing it a 2nd time.

She does have a dairy allergy which means she is rocking the soy milk scene and we are just finding other ways to get her the nutrition she needs. We see a pediatric dietician this week to help us with this. Her ear infections are a thing of the past and now we just await this year's flu season to see how she fares.

Overall, the past year has been one that included lots of excitement, lots of learning, lots of worrying and lots of loving which to me seems like a job description for being a parent!

Cheers,

Mic, Deb and Addison