Sick

Little Buggy has been sick. Just look at those pink cheeks and cherry red lips. (Totally reminds me of my baby brother as his cheeks and lips do the same thing when he's sick.)

On Tuesday Layla and I both had clear, runny noses but otherwise were healthy. Tuesday night Layla went to bed without a fuss and woke up about one hour later crying. She had a slight fever and was pretty congested. She didn't sleep well that night. The next day she looked like the pic above and had a fever of 102. Thankfully her fever broke later that evening and she has been on the mend ever since.

I'm hoping this won't turn into one of those colds that lasts forever, though I'm thankful that a couple of colds is the worst we've had of illnesses at our house this winter. I also caught Layla's cold this time, but it's not bad at all and I didn't get a fever. Mitch made sure to steer clear of us, so he's not sick which is good; he seriously doesn't have time to be sick right now between work and school.

These two melt my heart.

Anytime you ask Layla if she's sick she says, "No, I'm happy." Love the positive attitude, kiddo! I try not to tell Layla things like, "Oh, poor Layla, you're soooooo sick" or over exaggerate her illness, partly because that's annoying, and partly because I think she would act more sick than she really is if I focused on it. Of course I took care of her and let her take it easy, but I think not focusing on her being sick has helped her to be happy despite not feeling well.

Starting to get over her fear of laying on her back in water.

The other night as I was putting Layla to bed I told her we were going to do a fun activity the next day, to which she immediately responded with, "Is it baseball?" Ummm, no, it's not. Totally random and made me laugh out loud. I didn't even know she knew about the game of baseball. And in all honesty, I didn't even know what the so-called activity would be at the time, I was just trying to give her something nice to think about as she was falling asleep.

She likes to take books off the bookshelf to build "towers."
And sometimes I consider cutting her hair to give her bangs
because it's always covering her eyes like in this pic.

Last night Layla was giving Mitch a "check up" with her little doctor tools she got for Christmas. He asked her, "Am I alright, Doctor?" She said, "I'm Laaayylaa. I'm just a kid. I'm not a doctor." Oh, excuse me. Ha, ha!

Not sure if I wrote about Valentine's Day on here or not. Mitch and I were able to celebrate twice. On the actual day Mitch brought home yellow roses for me and a pink teddy bear with some candy for Layla. He's the sweetest. I decorated the dinner table with a pink table cloth and some homemade Vday decor. We had homemade pizza and salad with heart shaped brownies for dessert. (I got a box of sugar-free brownie mix and I must say you could not tell one bit that they were sugar-free.) I gave Mitch some new workout clothes and Layla gave him a jar of nuts and fruit that she picked out all by herself and insisted that he would love. It was really cute.

Mitch must have been wondering all day long why I hadn't mentioned the gift he gave me, so when he got home he told me to check my email again. Sure enough he had given me a pass for a 3 hour photography workshop! I was so excited! I did receive the gift email earlier in the day but had deleted it because I thought it was junk mail. Ha, ha. It was a happy day and I loved celebrating with my little family.

I sure love her smile!

I helped (or rather I mostly did it myself) Layla make Valentine's cards to send to grandparents and great grandparents. She got several Valentine's cards in the mail in return and she was so excited every time to open the envelope. She keeps them all in her nightstand drawer so she can look at them periodically. She also got this adorable Hello Kitty night gown from Mammie and Grandpa Miles for V-day. She insists on wearing it every night (over her other jammies for now since it's still a little cold.)

That weekend Layla spent one night at mi padres house and Mitch and I went to dinner at a new Italian restaurant. It was good but slightly overpriced in our opinions. But it was nice to go on a real date with just the two of us. I love my Valentine! (And wish I had taken a pic with him to remember the day by. Such a slacker.) Oh, and on V-day I gave Mitch a package of Airheads with a note that said, "Don't be an Airhead, be my Valentine!" It made him laugh out loud so I'd say it was a success.

Also, I called my parents' house while Layla was over there and asked what they were doing. My mom was like, "Oh, Layla's just writing her name" in a really casual tone. I said, "Yeah, funny Mom." She got kind of upset that I didn't believe her and kept insisting that Layla really did write her name. Long story short, I didn't believe it at first because I have been trying to teach Layla how to write her name for a little while now. She knows how to spell it, and she knows what the letters in her name look like, but she didn't seem to have enough coordination to actually write the letters. I've helped her trace the letters of her name, but it just didn't seem like she was getting it. Well, apparently she really did get it because she seriously wrote her name all by herself a few times at my parents' house. Here's a pic of her best attempt:

Pretty good, eh? A good reminder to me that even if it seems like she's not paying attention, it really is sinking in ...

Potty training has been going pretty good lately. We took Layla to the dollar store and let her pick out 5 prizes. The deal is the first day she goes in the potty all day she can pick one prize. Then she has to go two days for the second prize, three days for the third, and so on. Well, it's been 5 days and she has yet to earn the first prize, but I must say the whole thing is going so much better that I'm okay with that. We are definitely making progress. She hardly goes in her diaper now and I'm considering putting her in underwear just to see if that seals the deal (but honestly I'm still nervous to take that step). Anyways, we've been encouraging her all week and I think we're getting closer and closer. One day it'll just happen, I'm sure.

Actually, I feel like she has grown up a lot in the last few days. She insists on doing so many new things all by herself now that she didn't care about doing before. Like getting dressed and undressed, putting on and taking off her shoes, putting things away, and just overall taking a little more responsibility for herself. She wants to do everything all by herself. It's really nice and will be great when Baby Marcus gets here.

Sometimes she'll even rinse her hair out all by herself.

Speaking of Baby Marcus, he is doing well in there. Had another dr appt and everything looked great. We couldn't see his little face because he wouldn't cooperate. Better luck next time. He moves around a lot, but only during certain times of the day. Sometimes I think he must be having a party because he seriously goes wild for 45 minutes at a time. We might have another child just as energetic as our first ...

Reading. Makes me so happy.

I feel so much better at this point in my pregnancy than I did at this point with Layla. Maybe because I'm exercising a lot more this time around, and instead of sitting at my old desk job I'm chasing an almost three year old all day? My only complaint is that I seriously have "pregnant brain." There are so many times in the day when I literally can't think straight or even speak correctly. I bet there are even typos and confusing sentences in this post. I blame the pregnant brain. But that's minor compared to what could be, so it's okay. Plus, it makes for a good laugh.