Nitpicking

Literally.

Yep, you heard right. Yesterday I got The Call from the school nurse. Apparently Emily and Nan had been itching their heads like crazy. Nan didn't have lice, just dry scalp. But Emily.... she had nits. No live bugs yet, although if there are eggs, there should be at least one live bug, right? I had the nurse check Charlotte too, and Charlotte doesn't have lice, just cradle cap. Matt checked up and I'm clear, so it's just Emily.

So I brought her home (20 minutes after school started!) and bought the treatment (LiceMD) and spent the next few hours treating her hair, shampooing, nit picking, rinse, repeat. Today I'm vacuuming and laundering EVERYTHING. Tomorrow all of us girls (except Lydia) will get treated just in case, and every few days Emily will have to be retreated and her sheets laundered.

It really is the best case scenario here. But my head still feels super itchy now....

Words At Our House

-- Nathalie wouldn't stop talking at dinner one night and she kept interrupting every one over and over. Finally Matt said, "Nan, we need you to stop talking so we can hear your sisters! Why are you talking so much?" And Nathalie replied, "Because I like to talk Dad!"

--Also Nathalie. She has some really funny phrases that she says. When someone scribbles on a piece of paper, she says they "scribble scrabble". She calls all of the kids in her class "classmates" and she calls Lydia "goopy gupp" (I have no idea where she came up with that!) She was also singing the theme song to "Mickey Mouse Club" the other day (another thing I don't know where she learned it) and she was saying, "M-U-C-K-E-Y-L-O-U-S-E!" It took a little convincing before she understood what she was actually spelling!

--Lydia has been talking up a storm. She's really cute because she combines signs with words. At this point she can say: home, mama, mimi, daddy, doggy, goose, cow, cat, ow, up, uh-oh, help, done, down, uh-uh, go, ball, truck, car, duck, mine, and some things I can't remember. She can sign: more, all done, milk, juice, water, beautiful, please and she's learning cookie. She knows the animals sounds for: owl, goose, duck, cow, horse, donkey, doggy, fish, monkey, lion, tiger, elephant, bear, snake, bee. She points a lot and understands everything we're saying and will follow through when we ask her to do things (unless she doesn't want to, which is when she says, "uh-uh", shakes her head and runs away).

--Emily has been showing a lot of independence and awareness lately. A few nights ago we had friends over and she got in trouble for playing too rough with Lydia. She ran over to a chair and buried her face in it and said, "I'm so ashamed when I get in trouble in front of friends." It made me laugh because she was close, but not quite using the right word! So I taught her the difference between ashamed and embarrassed.

--Emily also loves to talk and explain things now. After church on Sunday, I asked her if she'd be willing to give a talk in Primary this next week. She looked at me and said, "Yes, but you have to give me the topic. Because I need to have time to prepare my talk." Such an adult statement coming from a little girl!

-- Charlotte is an absolute sassafrass right now. She has so much personality and likes to be in charge. (This seems to be a running theme with the women in our families....) But my favorite is that she will be playing with her sisters and then she'll say something like, "You're not listening to me! I'm not little! You need to make good choices!" (I talk about choices all the time!)

-- The other day Charlotte was running around the house with Nathalie and Emily. I don't remember what they were playing but Charlotte got very upset. Nan and Em tried to comfort her by saying, "It's okay Charlotte-- you're not as fast as us because you're smaller." And she replied, "I'm not smaller! It's not fair that you're winning all the time! When I get bigger I will beat you!"

These girls make my heart rejoice.

Outside Time

Winter here is wonderful. Most days it is in the high 50s, which is perfect hoodie weather. It does throw me off a bit because I'm so used to this kind of weather happening in April! The last few days have been in the 70s! I've gotten some good yard work in and prepped our yard and garden for growing things this year. I actually got hot this morning while I was raking and had to take off my jacket.

Anyway, we play outside a lot in the winter. These two videos are actually from November, when it was about 80 degrees, but we do most of our playing in the winter. During the summer it gets too hot, so we only go outside to go swimming.

We took a walk with friends who had a little puppy and she got tired, so Matt ended up carrying her.

And we play outside after school every day. Usually they ride bikes or draw with chalk, but sometimes it's making up stories and acting them out in the backyard or playing on a friend's trampoline. Today we're going to the park!

Bookworms

Okay, so this isn't a picture of reading books. Lydia was hungry in the car and unbeknownst to me, one of the girls gave her a container of yogurt so she'd stop crying...and this is how I found her!

My girls love to read. Matt and I both love to read, so do our parents and grandparents. We went to the library almost every week in Ohio and got a few books. Now that the girls are older, we go less frequently but instead of getting 5 books at a time like we did when they were little, we now get about 20 books.

Charlotte's favorites right now are Fancy Nancy, and anything with princesses. She loves to just look at pictures, although her favorite is when we cuddle and read while Lydia is napping.

Emily is a voracious reader. I can't keep up with her. She reads way above her grade level. We're about to start her on Harry Potter because she reads so well. Her favorites are Magic Tree House and Ivy and Bean.

Lydia loves (LOVES) to read. Any time we're sitting down and many times we're not, she will bring a book to us and wait for us to read to her. She loves anything with animals.

Nathalie is a great reader too. She has been reading on her own for about 8 months now. She doesn't like to read out loud, but I think she's reading the pages when she looks at books. She could just be looking at pictures, but I think she's actually reading. She reads well when we ask her. She loves any book, basically, and really loves it when we read Junie B Jones or Magic Tree House to her. We're still waiting for that aha! moment when she realizes she can read those longer books on her own!

First Time At The Nutritionist

Lydia and I went to the visit her nutritionist for the first time ever. Lydia has some restrictions to her diet because of MCADD and now that she is completely off formula, we needed to talk about what she can and can't eat and her nutritional requirements.

The nutritionist is a much happier place than the geneticists because she didn't have any blood drawn! There is such a beautiful view overlooking some kind of river or bay.

She was really happy to see all the seagulls.

The nutritionist appointment went really, really well. The nutritionist was really happy to see how well Lydia has done. Because of MCADD, Lydia cannot process a number of fats. If she has too many fats in her system, it can overload her metabolism and precipitate a metabolic crisis. Because of this, Lydia will always have to be a on low-fat, high-carb diet. Even though she's only 20 months, she can't drink whole milk, because it's too fatty.

Lydia also needs to avoid things with medium chain triglycerides (since she's missing the enzyme to convert MCTs into energy) and so there are some food restrictions. She can't have anything with coconut, or coconut flour or coconut oil, etc. We also have to avoid processed foods and things like protein shakes because all of those contain a lot of MCTs. As an adult, she won't be able to use diet products for the same reason.

Luckily, we already avoid processed foods, protein shakes and diet products. I think that the Lord was preparing us many years ago when we started changing the way we eat. We don't have to change our diet hardly at all, just to use more olive oil or applesauce instead of vegetable oil. That's pretty easy!

The best part was that the nutritionist said we didn't have to come back unless Lydia started having problems!! We still have to see her geneticist every few months, but that's one appointment we don't have to worry about!

Finally, a boy for Matt!!!!!!!

Well, sort of....he is neutered.

So we got a dog. It's a rather long story, but we felt like it might be time for us to get a dog. And that even sounds silly because Matt's in grad school and we don't have tons of extra money and I'm super busy, etc, etc. But we couldn't get the thought out of our heads. We tried putting it off. I hesitate to say prompted because I'm not sure we felt prompted, but I know we thought and thought about it.

Until one day, I looked on craigslist and saw this dog. Big, beautiful, yellow lab. 9 months old. Raised around children. So Matt and I went to see him at lunch and we brought Charlotte and Lydia with us. If he was okay about Charlotte and Lydia, he'd be fine around Emily and Nan. And even though he occasionally knocked them over due to sheer size, he was kind and gentle and didn't mind if they sat on him or played with his paws. (He does mind when Lydia pinches his nose and tries to walk away while still holding his nose. But I mind too!)

So we talked it over and prayed. And decided that we did want him. And the owners wanted us to have him, which was our prayer's answer. We told the girls to hop in the van (didn't tell them where they were going) and when we pulled up, the owners had him playing in the yard. After introducing the girls to him, I asked if they'd like to keep him. Big, big smiles all around!

We brought him home and he's the biggest, goofiest, sweetest galumph there is. 75 lbs of love and cuddles. We named him Odin. He is beautiful, absolutely beautiful. And he loves to cuddle which is fine, as long as he's not sitting directly on you because then you feel squished.

He and Emily adore each other. They play tug-of-war together, chase each other and cuddle. Well, he cuddles with all of us. Charlotte's favorite thing to do is use him as a pillow and when Lydia wakes up in the morning, the first thing she does is go up to Odin and say, "Hi!" with a big smile on her face. He has helped Lydia calm down when she's upset, helped Emily get some of her excess energy and frustration out, helped Nathalie be goofy and run around, and helped Charlotte get even more cuddles than she already does.

We have had him 2 1/2 months now. He runs with me at night and can go 6 miles with no problem (and he's making me go faster too!). He was already house trained and crate trained, and we are working on obedience training. He does fairly well off the leash too, and we're working on that. He's sweet and so soft.

Hello Mr. Odin. We love your furry face.