Boo-Boos, Bites, Band-Aids and Banter

It's been a full-filled and hairy week. Matt left town early Tuesday morning. When Lila woke up a few hours later, she was very cranky. I noticed that she was limping. Knowing she had had no recent trauma, I called the doctor and got her in immediately. He sensed Transient Synovitis (hip pain and internal swelling caused by a virus) and scheduled an ultrasound for the first thing the next morning. Sure enough, she had fluid surrounding her left hip (right hip is fine). Since she had a cold a few weeks ago, it makes the most sense that this is what she has. It usually heals in about 10-days. If it is not better by next week, she'll undergo further testing. Until the other day, I had never heard of this virus and, of course, reading about it online makes me bit nervous. However, worrying won't help the situation. So, we'll just have to wait it out. She's definitely a bit better than Tuesday, so I'm hopeful.

We've spent a couple days this week swimming at a local pool. Olivia's swimming lessons are paying off. Yesterday, when it was time to leave and I asked her to get out of the pool, she replied, "I'm going to dive down under the water and swim so I can't hear you."

Sure enough, that's what she did! She put her head under water, moved her hands and lightly kicked her feet across the kiddie pool. She's been jumping into the pool on her own and going down the slide and right under the water. I'm so excited about this! Lila starts swimming lessons next week, every day, for a week. Olivia has swimming lessons twice a week, ongoing. Lila's getting a little jipped. I'm just too unwilling to give up my Saturday mornings to take Lila to swimming lessons. For her age group, local pools only offer swimming lessons on Saturday's or Sunday's.

At any rate, before we left the pool area, Olivia fell off a Little Tykes slide and smacked the back of her head on the pavement. Ouch! She screamed for quite a long time. So, Lila has a sore hip and Olivia a nasty bump on her head and mosquito bites galore (notice the bite on her face in the pool picture and Dora band aid covering one on her arm). I've only seen a few mosquitoes here or there and they, apparently, have found their way to my daughter. I'm going to have to order some chemical-free, kid-safe bug spray. The poor kid is violently allergic to the nasty buggers! Needless to say, both kids have been a little cranky this week.

The girls watching a little bit of TV, early one morning, this past weekend. Each girl has on- hand her ever present taggie and stuffed toy.

Since Olivia got a bit too much sun yesterday (I applied sunscreen - but didn't pay attention to how often she was drying herself off with a towel), we opted out of a invite to the zoo and stayed home, out of the sun. Olivia spent the morning bossing around our housekeeper. She quickly pulled clothes out of drawers and out of closets mere minutes after Louisa picked up. I've been growing increasingly frustrated as to how quickly the girls can make messes. I've been trying to teach them that they have to pick up what they were playing with before they take out something else. They are a bit young, Lila especially, to understand this, obviously. I shed frequent tears of frustration and disbelief because as I finish cleaning one room, I enter another room, only to find it a disaster. I only have two kids and I can't keep up! For all of you parents who spaced out your children further apart than I (less than two years apart), you are smart!! Seriously, both girls will be in school full-time before our third and final child is born. I don't think I can do it any other way! I'm going crazy as it is!

Daddy returns from Italy in a of couple hours with boo-boo gifts for the girls. They've certainly had a rough week of it! Daddy makes it a point not to bring gifts back for the girls every time he goes away. He's gone far too often for that and he doesn't want the girls to get used to trip-gifts. But, this week, they deserve gifts. Especially after falls, insect bites, doctors appointments and so on.

Olivia is sure to be disappointed when daddy does NOT arrive with a car for her dollhouse. She specifically asked for a doll house car with a car seat and seat belt in it. Daddy told her that that was a tall order. I'm interested to see what he got instead!