Sophie Gets Her Ears Done

In early March, Sophie joined Georgia in the ranks of little girls with tubes in their ears. Here's hoping this prevents the numerous ear infections she's suffered since August!

Soph was a model patient, despite not eating since midnight. She loved the playroom in the children's surgery center. Particularly the chairs.

roo

Unlike Georgia, when Sophie came out of the anesthesia, she was cuddly and sleepy and huggy. When they brought me back to get her, the nurse she was snuggling said, in a deadpan voice, "I suppose you want your baby back." Darn right.

 

She was none the worse for wear and even accompanied mommy and daddy to a restaurant for lunch that day. What? We take our date opportunities where we can get them.

Nicknames

In light of our recent Mouse House Adventures, Georgia has seen fit to offer some rules about appropriate nicknames. Here are some of her acceptable pseudonyms:

• Monkey
• Monkerson
• Monk
• Goofball
• Goofball Monkey
• Flower-Dower
• Honey Bunny

She no longer accepts the following:

• Monkey Butt
• Sugar
• Sweet Sweet

She particular abhors these:

• Sophie 
• Cece

Ballet Videos

This took a LONG LONG TIME to download, so please enjoy it :)

Ballet Baby

At long last, we were invited into Georgia's dance class for a 15-minute "visitation" during which the little lovelies showed off their talents. That's G in the middle in her pink leotard.

She kept grinning over at us the whole time, it was awesome.

Sophie loved it. Oh and it was St. Patrick's Day to boot.

Georgia and Abigail were so proud of themselves!

Georgia's Day at the Museum

Last week, G-Daddy signed up as parent chaperone for Georgia's class trip to a big museum about natural history. He has generously offered to narrate the following photos.

First she and her classmates put on their official school safety vests.  

 Then everyone headed to the bus stop. Daddy was assigned to watch Georgia and her friend Jemima, a very sweet, quiet girl who made a perfect counter-personality to G.

 Riding the city bus for your school field trip -- now that's urban schooling!

 First they headed to the famous Butterfly Pavilion.  While they waited for their appointed time, they watched  a museum guide get ready to feed a tarantula.  Her material was a bit mature for the crowd, aside from a couple of 8-year-old boys up front who from all the answers they knew to her questions, appeared to be serious bug fanatics.  They instruction lasted too long for us to actually get to see the feeding.   

Then, on to the Butterfly Pavilion, a special room with an air-lock entrance and exit to keep scores of live butterflies inside.  Georgia was not as impressed as Daddy.

 Things improved in the dinosaur hall:

The Ocean Exhibits were also pretty neat.

Here a museum guide tells G and Jemima that the giant whale hanging above her had recently given birth. 

 Lunch was bring your own brown bag, a fun departure from the usual school menu.  G and Daddy had identical lunches: ham sandwiches, cheese sticks, yogurt, grapes, and applesauce.  Here G puts on her best pleading face asking if she has been good enough to get dessert (she had).

Then the obligatory shot in front of the giant elephant . . . 

Before long, we had been all over the place, were tired enough to sit down, and had only a half hour left before our bus ride back.  What to do last?

Go and see the Hope Diamond, of course.  As G told Mommy later, "It was a princess necklace."

And then the official school conclusion to every field trip -- sitting down outside for a snack. 

Happy bus ride back . . .

Editor's note: Upon finishing his narrative, Daddy said "I now have more respect for you" because dealing with blogger and its nuances (margins, fonts, alignment bugs) proved a lot more challenging than he had thought it might :)

Brown Eyed Baby

I overheard Georgia telling her new babysitter that "mommy got one like her and daddy got me!" True, true.

She still has just six teeth - four on top, two on bottom. It's the right combo for eating anything her sister eats.

She just started at sign language class at school. It takes place every week and daddy can even stop in to be there with her. Not sure about the logic of starting sign language just as she's really supposed to be starting to talk, but it's an activity.

The Mouse House

Georgia had been having a few rough days at school. Her name was "in the circle" on the board a few days in a row, meaning she wasn't using "nice hands" or listening to her teachers. We connected the dots to it being about her not feeling like she was getting much attention at home. Sophie was just starting to show signs of being interested in walking, plus she was about to go into the hospital to have tubes put in her ears. We decided to reorganize some of our at home procedures - basically having daddy take over some more of Sophie's care, and mommy making more "special time" with Georgia. Then I had a stroke of genius: the Mouse House.

We built a tent house in our living room and dubbed it the Mouse House. Georgia became Mouse Mouse (from a favorite book of ours) and I was Mommy Mouse. We named Sophie, "Bumble Mouse" and daddy was "The Cheese Man."

Things immediately got better at school and now she's been named the classroom "Superstar" for the last two weeks.

We read books in the Mouse House. I've had to give up my dreams of a clean living room, but it's really helping everyone's morale, so I'm ok with it.

Sophie particularly enjoys the tunnel entryway.