Monday, July 27, 2009

Katie's School of Hard Knocks

"It's a hard knock life for me..."

This week, life has been full of lessons learned the hard way.

Some of which, I refuse to learn.

For example, I hate mouth sweeps to remove foreign objects. But I refuse to see any connection between the mouth sweep and putting hairballs in my mouth.

Baby Amelia came this week, and we went to visit her in Spring two times. The first time, I wasn't allowed to see her (hospital rules). The second time, on the way there, I dropped my pacifier over the edge of my carseat right as we hit a cruising speed of 70 mph. Mommy said she couldn't stop on I10, Beltway 8, or I45 just to get a paci, so I was forced to cry the whole way to Spring. Sister Tenderheart didn't like it when I cried, so she screeched and screamed along with me. Out of sympathy. Mommy's ears are still ringing. (Mommy says there's a lesson in there about not dropping pacis over the edge. I say there's a lesson in there about giving the baby what she asks for...)

And would you believe, when we showed up in Spring, that baby got just as much attention as me. A middle child already!

AND, at my 9 month check up today, the doc ordered some tests to be run to make sure everything checks out ok. Apparently tiny children like me are a bit rare. I'm so small for my age that there isn't even a percentile to compare me with - they stop giving out numbers at 3% and I'm just "less than 3%".

So, they put a urine collector on me, sent me away to another whole office to give blood (4 vials!), and then expected me to pee. I wasn't gonna do it. So, Mommy drove around a while, waiting on my teetee. When I finally went, Mommy grabbed me out of the car, took me into the doctor's office, and told the lady she was ready to have my urine collected. Well, I wiggle and they take a long time, and the combination, despite Mommy's best efforts, meant no teetee in the bag by the time they brought me back. It was like a comedy of errors. The nurse, who could see Mommy's exasperation, squeezed urine droplets from the sponge part of the urine collector and every last drop from the bag, and made just enough teetee to be tested. With a huge sigh of relief, we were dismissed to go get Sister.

The doc says he suspects everything is A-OK, but needs to be thourough since I'm so small. We'll hear that everything is fine on Wednesday and I'll keep eating everything in sight. I bet if Mommy would stop mouth sweeping the hairballs, paper, and other things out of my mouth, I'd gain weight better.

Thank goodness Sister had her date night this week so I had an oasis of Nana and DD attention in the middle of my rough week. :)

CLICK HERE FOR PICTURES FROM THE WEEK


Love,
Katie "It's not as bad as I make it sound" McClinton

Saturday, July 25, 2009

Our 15 Minutes

We were recently interviewed for an article in this Sunday's Houston Chronicle, and the online version of the story has just become available. The print edition will have more pictures and may be slightly different, but HERE is the online version.

Special thanks to Dottie and Oscar for somehow worming their way into a story about our family and love. I swear that happened on accident. Haha!

Tuesday, July 21, 2009

Aunt Angela!

Amelia Nicole is here!

Amanda and David welcomed their little lady today at 3:18 pm. Amelia was in no hurry to get here, and Amanda had to be induced at 41 weeks. Everything went well and Amelia is a beauty! Can't wait to share more pics, but for now...


Stats: 7 lbs 10 oz, 19.75 inches long

Congrats, Amanda and David! Thanks for making me an aunt and honoring me with Amelia's middle name! What an honor!

Monday, July 20, 2009

Accomplishments, a wedding, and Camp Nana


This week I spent a lot of time at Camp Nana since my mommy was in her friend's wedding and Mommy and Daddy ran a race and celebrated an anniversary.

Camp Nana's house is always such fun; we are growing a sweet potato plant as a science experiment, we made brownies, we painted a bird house, we made art projects using food, we swam... Nana and DD even were super brave and took Katie and I to the Rainforest Cafe!

I got really mad at Mommy this week, though. She sure was leaving me a lot and I don't like it. I tried to show her: I cried, I pouted, I "acted out" (smearing my poop on the bed and floor somehow didn't get the message across...)

But Mommy and Daddy had a wonderful time at Miss Charlotte's beautiful wedding. Then, on Saturday, they ran in the Lunar Rendezvous Run at Space Center Houston (Mommy's first ever race!). After they ran, they stayed and enjoyed the day. It was 13 years ago this week that Mommy and Daddy went on their first date to Space Center Houston and ate star french fries (which apparently no longer exist). A race and 13 years - 2 accomplishments!

July 22, 1996

July 2009

Katie's crawling is unbelievable, she scales stairs at alarming rates, grew a new tooth this week, and says, "dada", "baba" (bye, bye), and mouths "Mama." So many changes!

CLICK HERE FOR PICTURES OF THE WEEK

Love,
Avery Llama, Mad at Mama

Sunday, July 12, 2009

Love


Katie Loves...
(among other things...)
Beans! (and eggs, and chicken, and meat and PROTEIN)

Daddy on the guitar

Visits from Nanny

Swimming!

Uncle David...

and Summer...

and Alyssa...

Stair Climbing

Pulling up on things to get what used to be out of my reach

Sister!! (perhaps more than anything else in the whole world)

Dog water bowls



Avery Loves...
(among other things...)
Swimming

Volcano!



Fruit pizza and the Fourth of July

Dancing with DD

Doo-dah (Zelda, Amanda and David's dog)

Chuck E. Cheese's: Skee Ball and SUGAR!

(Pop Pop and Monkey Juice; now all I need is an IV sugar drip...)

Pop Pop Parties

Dancing along with So You Think You Can Dance

Mommy Loves..
30 minutes of alone time every day while jogging
Meeting a new goal: 3 miles!
Having the family join me for a jog on occasion


Mitzi Loves...
Pacifiers!


Doo-dah Loves...
Helping to put the Care Bears to bed

Thursday, July 2, 2009

Avery-isms, Florida Edition

(We're all mixed up on our usual Monday morning posts. Hope to get back on schedule soon! In the meantime...)

Avery-isms, Florida Edition

Upon landing in Florida and stopping by the grocery store on our way to the beach:
"DD, grocery shopping makes my tummy hurt. And taking a nap is bad for my life."

When being put to bed early due to lack of a nap:
"This bed is not good for my life!"

Tasting the ocean water for the first time:
"This water tastes so good, I don't even need ketchup!"

After purchasing a new plastic dolphin toy:
Nana: "What is his name?"
Avery: "Fwashee"
Nana: "Flashy or Splashy?"
Avery: "Fwashee!"
Nana: "OK, so Splashy?"
Avery: "FWASHEE!"
Nana: "So is his name Splashy?"
Avery: "Fah-whash-ee!"

Every morning before getting out of bed:
"Nana! DD! Yook! The ocean is still here!"

And, after eating dinner at Fudpucker's (a 10 minute drive up the beach):
"Can we go back to Fworida now?"


It was an amazing vacation! Thank you, Nana and DD, for such a wonderful trip!
Love,
Avery-ism McClinton