Belated Bunny

I left my camera at my mom's on Sunday so I am a little late updating with Harper's first Easter. It's funny that Easter is the one holiday where a baby could be over one year and still be celebrating their first. I remember talking with my BFF when we were both prego how we thought it was weird that they sold clothes like "Babies first Christmas" in 18 or 24 month sizes. Well had I bought Harper a "Babies First Easter" shirt I would have needed that 18 month size.

Hunting Easter eggs was totally Harper's thing. She loves to move things from one place to another and to empty and fill. We "hid" them while she took her morning nap (code: placed them in different corners of the room and on her toy box). When she saw the fun colored eggs, she was off...scooting to each one and shaking to hear the prize inside. Once she collected them all we showed her the goldfish we had put inside and you would have thought it was gold. All in all a great holiday.

Molars are a curse from the devil

Along with hitting the wonderful milestone of turning one comes the retched blessing of one-year molars. Harper has been a bear the past three days as she works out the first of these. During the day it's not so bad, we can usually distract her with toys or trips out somewhere. Night time is whole other story. I feel like I have a newborn again. Thursday night I was up from 12 - 2:30, then Joe was up at 4:00-4:30, then finally we broke down and brought her in bed with us at 5:30. Friday night was a little better. She woke up every hour, but didn't stay awake until around 3. Then she went back to sleep around 4. It's been pretty exhausting. On Friday I relived the days of nap when she naps. Otherwise I might have pulled my hair out.




Through this I discovered the wonder of Baby orajel. We had gotten some one time use swabs of this liquid relief, but Harper hadn't needed it with any of her other 8 teeth.

These are fantastic because you just crack them open and swab on the medicine. A few minutes later it's like you have a whole new baby. Along with orajel some other remedies that seem to be working are:

• frozen strips of apple


• raz berry teething pacifier


• 

The one thing that isn't working is a teething ring. You know the kind with water inside that you put in the refrigerator. Yeah, Harper has never gotten the deal with those.

If any of you have other teething remedies, I am looking for suggestions. For those of you mommas who haven't hit the molars yet, make sure you stock up on some good pain relievers for your little ones.

One Year Stats

Harper's 1-year stats:
Height: 31 inches (97%)
Weight: 24 pounds 6 ounces (92%)

All looks good. The one year appointment was sad because she had to get three shots plus a finger prick. She cried like she'd never felt such pain before. Poor little girl.


Mom's 1-year stats:
I know I haven't updated recently on my progress toward my goal weight. That darn cold I had plus a ton of work kept me super busy. Drum Roll Please....

Goal Weight: 145
1-year weigh in: 145.6

I think I count that as reaching my goal. I am so happy that I accomplished this goal by my deadline. Now it should be pretty easy for me to maintain, if not lose a little more. Let's be honest, I really need to tone up before swim suit season.

Birthday Party photo dump

We had a music theme for Harper's party. She loves making noise and singing songs and listening to the iPod. I decided to just dump some of my faves here.

Saturday Morning Scene

My BFF Mrs. Eyecansee has been doing a fun new thing called Saturday Morning Scene that she got from Katie at Loves of Life Well today is Harper's birthday party and I got some fun pics of Harper helping me set up.

She got to lick the beaters from her birthday cake.

Crepe paper is super fun to play with. She kept ripping it down from where I was trying to hang it.

Happy Saturday and I promise party pictures soon.

NCTM

Every year the National Council of Teachers of Mathematics has a national conference. I am headed there this week. I've been once before and it is awesome. They have hundreds of workshops where other teachers share the amazing things they are doing.

Guess who one of the presenters is this year?

That's right, yours truly!

I'm super excited and also really nervous. I've never spoken at the national level before. To top it off I have a gallery presentation, which means there are 110 people, and 60 of them are at tables and participating in the presentation. So I'm not just standing up there talking, but I'm leading other professionals through some activities I do with my students in hopes that they see the value and maybe even go back and adopt some of my strategies in their classrooms. I leave Wednesday for Indianapolis and I'm gone until Friday night. I think I'm freaking out most because Harper's birthday party is Saturday. It's a good thing I have such a fantastic husband because he said he'd do all the cleaning this week and all I'll have to do is decorate and set up.

Speaking of my fabulous husband, he promised to do another guest blog while I'm away. I hope you all enjoy his wacky point of view on life. I will be back next week with birthday party pics. I'm super excited to see Harper smash into her cake.

Hints from Heloise

As I flip through the Sunday Arts section each week to get to the crossword, I always stop an read Dear Abby and Hints from Heloise. The hints always make me laugh at how stupid they are. Like this gem:

• I keep safety pins in a cup above my laundry basket and use one to pin together my socks when I take them off. That makes for easy matching when the laundry is done.

Really? Is it that hard to match your socks.

Or how about:

• For those who have expressed confusion as to how to determine which bottle is shampoo while the water from the shower is running over your face: Try putting a rubber band on the shampoo bottle. It is easy to identify the shampoo, even with your eyes closed.

Ever heard of showering with your eyes open and with your head out of the shower stream.

• When carrying a full bowl, cup or glass of water, soup, coffee or whatever, don't look at it. Keep your eyes on where you're going, and walk normally; you have a greater chance of not spilling the contents this way.

Thanks for taking the time to write that hint in reader. I haven't spilled a drop in days!

Well for all my scoffing, last week I came across a hint that I actually put into use. You know how during the winter you can buy those small cotton gloves in two packs for like a dollar. Well the hint was to use those when you're dusting. They make it easy to dust things like the rails on stairs or the backs of chairs. Last week during my major cleaning spree, I found a pack of four in my closet. I put those bad boys on and was dusting Miyagi style all over my house. I tossed them in the laundry, and now they're ready to go again the next time I need to dust.

Moral of the story: Reading something just to get a laugh might actually teach you something along the way.

I'll take another round...

of antibiotics that is. As you all know I had the cold from the devil. Well after 10 days of antibiotics and some puffs from an albuterol inhaler, I was doing better. I even made it to the gym a few times without passing out due to lack of oxygen. Well this weekend the damn cold reared its ugly head again. I was hacking up phlegm, blowing my nose constantly. I can't leave my house without a box of tissue and a spittoon. So I popped on in to the doctor's office and suggested he give it another whirl. He prescribed a z-pac. Hopefully these high powered drugs will do the trick. Otherwise I'll never again see a day where green wads of yuck aren't coming out of my head.

Appointment Update

Harper had her first visit with a physical therapist on Thursday. They decided her hips and core were weak. We've been given some exercises to do every hour for the next two weeks. We should see improvement. If not, then we have to go see a physical therapist weekly. Luckily we have an amazing daycare that was more than happy to help make sure Harper gets her exercise in. I got the results of my MRI Friday. Basically no news is good news. The muscles haven't gotten any more of the nerve signal back, but they haven't lost any density. So I just have to be patient and hopefully things will work themselves out. I go back in 3 months to check again. Spring Break is all wrapped up. I tackled almost everything on my list. It felt productive and I even had some fun. Only 46 days until Summer break!