"MY BRAIN HURTS"

P.S.: This is an obscure reference to Mr. Gumby of Monty Python Fame

Bideos

Katie go camping.  And Mommy.  And Daddy, too.

Eat marshmallows.  

Go to the beach.

Throw rocks in the water.

Sing Happy Birthday.

Eat cupcakes.

Open presents.

More.

Katie sing A, B, C's.

Silly.

Howdy

I have no idea what to talk about.  

You stop writing on these blog thingies and you kinda forget how to do it.  

Where do I come up with all the crap that fills these pages?  Man.  I have spewed a lot of crap onto these pages over the past two years.

Oh yeah.  My blog is two years old....and so is my daughter.  

Katie turned two on Friday.  We had a little birthday playdate at a local playground with all her pals.  Much fun was had.  There was sliding, swinging, sand shoveling, wagon riding and snack eating.  This was all topped off by a solid round of cupcake eating.  

Here's a shot showing Katie and two of her buddies munchin' some birthday snack.

These past two weeks have kinda been a blur.  We've taken over 400 pictures so far this month.  I've downloaded most of them to Flickr, in case you wanted to see them all.

Granma came for a visit two weeks ago.  We had a lot of fun dragging her to playgrounds, hiking to a rocky beach and visiting the zoo.  She was able to witness this Katie First:

"Ice cream fall on ground...."

Last week Huzbend had off from work.  We did an overnight camping trip at an awesome island campground.  It was really nice, except for the screaming toddler camped next door and his evil dog.  

Katie, being ever-friendly, decided that she had to go visit our neighbors.  The dog was hooked to a tree.  It wasn't big, just ugly.  It came up to about Katie's knees.  The owner warned me that the dog hadn't had a lot of exposure to kids.  Katie, of course, wanted to hug it.  She bypassed my block and the dog jumped up on her.  I put my arms out to block him and something scraped my arm and my purple "Katie" jelly bracelet (kinda like a Livestrong bracelet) fell to the ground.  The damn dog bit it in half.  Friggin' dog.  That was my FIRST EVER MOTHER'S DAY PRESENT.  Stupid dog is lucky to be alive.  If he had gotten Katie instead of my bracelet......

Annnnnnyways, we had to ride a ferry to get to the island.  Katie was so excited to be on a boat. 

Camping also means yummy all-you-can-eat pasta.

Followed by all-Mommy-can-eat marshmallows.

In total I think we toasted about a dozen marshmallows.  But, now that I think about it, if I added all her bites up Katie ate about one whole marshmallow.  Hmph.  I gotta get myself back on the treadmill.  Damn.

The rest of last week was spent relaxing.  We did a short bike ride to go eat some Indian food. Huzbend napped.  I baked cupcakes and made goodie bags for the birthday party.  

I wanted to send out thanks for the birthday gifts for Katie.  She loved them all.  Really.  That's not a lie.  She has played with every single one of them.  We ended up getting Katie play kitchen.  Here she is preparing one of her specialties.....

We did a lot more than that last week, but I just can't write about it all.

I will end with this statement: Having a two year old is awesome.  

Alright, not all the time.  Especially when she's answered "NO!" for the millionth time or when she's decided that hitting you is great fun.  Sigh.

What I mean is, she can have conversations now.  Her imagination is fantastic. She makes stuff up all the time.  She's even started making up her own songs (okay so the songs just repeat the same word over and over, but come on, it's still cool).  And, man, she does the most hilarious stuff sometimes.  Like this..... 

Yes, that IS a pillowcase and she was running just before I took this picture.

She also makes you see the world in a different way.  You get to experience the world "for the first time" right along with her.  Us grown-ups are so jaded and programmed.

A guy came to clean our furnace today.  I opened the door and the first thing he said was, "Good morning.  Well, you just don't see 'em THAT big everday," and he pointed off to the side of the door.

I was holding Katie and we leaned out to see what he was talking about......

This sucker was huge.  He could sit comfortably in my palm for cripes sake.

My gut reaction was, "Must kill it.  Will have heartattack if it moves."

Katie says, "Spider!  Spider wants to eat apple."

I think he was big enough that he might have been able to.  In, like, one bite.

Katie wanted to keep going outside to look at him.  So, I obliged.

I didn't want her to see me kill him.  She wouldn't understand.  Besides, I had no good purpose for killing him besides making myself feel better that he was no longer on the planet or the side of my house.  So, I left him alone in the hopes that if he was the spider that I think he was (I did some spider research online) he would eat the other giant spiders that were out there.

When we left for grocery shopping he was still sitting outside our front door.

When we came back, he was gone.

Gulp.

We're Still Here

Now, don't go gettin' your panties all in a bunch.

We're still here.  It's just been busy is all.

Last week, Granma came for a visit and this week Huzbend has escaped from the Evil Empire to enjoy some R&R.

I'll fill ya'll in soon.  I promise.

I will say this about these past two weeks; we've gone a lot of places, ate a bunch of marshmallows and we've taken 300 pictures since Aug. 1st.

'Nuff said.

Later, dudes.

Yes.  She's one of those kids.

You know the ones.  

They're responsible for ruining lunchtime.  They're responsible for the demise of classroom birthday cupcakes.  You can spot them by their medical ID bracelets. 

Sigh.

Katie's allergic to peanuts, AND soy, AND eggs.  We're to avoid any products containing these things as well as cashews, pistachios, sunflower, safflower and flax.  We also have to be cautious of sneaky tree nuts, menacing mangoes, and other leery legumes.

She didn't test positive for any airborne allergies though - grass, mold, trees, etc.  But, the doc checked out her nose and said that it definitely looks as if she has some sort of hay feverish thing going on.  She also has large adnoids, which causes her to snore.

So avoidance is key.  We're to limit her intake of these things as much as we can.  I guess the more exposure they get, the greater the reaction can be.  We have to go back in October for a follow-up visit and more testing.  I guess some sort of blood test to check levels on all the offenders.  Hey, did you know that there is EGG in a flu vaccine?  They have to do a special test on Katie to make sure that she won't have a reaction to next years flu vaccine.

After we left the appointment, I went searching for a whole wheat bread that had no high fructose corn syrup and no soy in it.  Um.  Yeah.  I finally found an organic loaf for like 6 bucks. I got it home and Katie ate it up.  Then I read the info. packet that the doc gave me and remembered about the sunflower/safflower thing.  The bread had both of those oils in it. Dammit!

So, I did pretty good absorbing all the info at the docs until they told me about the EpiPen.  We have to carry a set of two EpiPens with us at all times in case of a severe allergic reaction.  Then it sunk in that there is the possibility that if we didn't react fast enough that Katie could die if she ate a stupid peanut.

Stupid peanuts.