Learn2Draw

I posted the first Learn2Draw post. Thanks to everyone involved. I am going to work on new layout and design that fits the project a bit more. If anyone has any ideas or wants to get more involved let me know. I appreciate any comments and I am hoping to post once a month but once a week would be way cooler. If you guys know anyone who wants to join let me know!

http://learn2draw.blogspot.com/

The Patch

Emma dealt surprisingly well with the patch and having to wear it really showed me just how much that kid understands about herself and the world.

She woke up at 7:30 or so on Monday. I was dragging and that is earlier than normal for her but she was ready for the day. I also had a pretty nasty cold/upper resp/sinus thing going all weekend which I'm still not over so hopping out of bed that early sent my head reeling. The bright spot in the day(other than the sunrise) was that we could get the patch over and done with before noon. I was pretty sure I was going to be calling in sick to work at that point so I was banking on a good nap. This was all that kept me going. We have some pretty good looking adhesive eye patches that are designed with munchkins in mind. Hers was camoflauge. Pink of course. She was excited to wear it which I took as a good sign. This excitement wore off about 0.8 seconds after I covered her good eye. She started with "Don't like it. Don't like it." and quickly advanced to "Daddy take it off!" Once I had her glasses on over it she was threw herself onto the couch and wrapped herself in her very soft and fuzzy "pink blanket Grandma bought me" as she calls it. I tried to rub her back and tell her that it will be ok or that she looked pretty but she waved me off. I had to stop her from trying to take the patch off so she grabbed her blanket and ran to the stairs. She laid burrying her face in the blanked so I couldn't see her. It's really sad to see your own child so embarrassed they don;t even want you to see them. She didn't want to move so I decided I would just let her stay there. Then I decided it would be boring so I would grab a book. She looked like she was going to sleep and I couldn't just let her sleep on the stairs. I figured a less selfish choice would be to read her a book instead so we went through Richard Scary's bedtime stories and Curious George's ABC's. Eventually she decided to come down and spend the rest of the day as normal as possible. That was Monday. Tuesday was easier but there was another development. I'll post it soon.

This is why you don't sleep with pigtails in your hair

Check out that wing hair! On the way back from her eye appointment Emma pulled out her hair bands and this is what happened. She hammed it up saying "wild hair" and "Chewbacca!"
I really think that her glasses have been helping but she still relies too much on her good eye so starting today (Friday) she has to wear an eye patch for 3-4 hours per day. We might put it off just until we have enough time to order some more patches but we will at least try it this weekend to see how she reacts. I don't think I will be taking or posting any pictures unless she is comfortable with it and it will be a while until we think about having her out in public with her patch. I expect she will be pretty disoriented for the first couple days. I'll let you all know how things go.

Posted new pictures on Flickr.

Including photos from Easter, potty training, and her bike. The Learn2Draw stuff is coming along nicely. I have two of them circulating and there are only 3 or 4 more people to hit so I am hoping to post withing two weeks.

It's potty time!

I posted that last post from a Firefox addon and I don't think I'll be using it again. I haven't checked my blog until now and it is full of null space holders that were inserted and meant to be blank space. Instead I have a messed up post that is oddly formatted. Sorry.

Today we finally got Emma to go to the bathroom on her potty. She loves it and everything I try to take her off she say "A little more potty." I have to get a photo because she was sitting on her little potty with a blanket on her lap, and a TV remote, juice cup, and a book. I put her in front of the TV because she has yet to actually go potty on the potty. We have had her on it for up to 20 minutes straight only to have her ask for a diaper and then pee in it once we put it on her. This time I decided she is going to sit on it until she goes. I had to be in the kitchen to get her some breakfast and do some dishes so I couldn't just leave her in the bathroom alone. Anyway we are well on the way to potty training and let me tell you it is way overdue.

I wrote this on Monday

I finished my experiment this week on Easter. I had originally
wanted to go until next week. My family was celebrating my brother's
birthday as well as Easter and there had been talk of doing it next
week but that fell through. I decided I would celebrate along with
everyone. 5 weeks or 35 days isn't bad. I went about 10% of a year
without caffeine. Right now I get pretty sick if I over indulge in
anything. I have been eating 4-6 times per day but those "meals" can be
as small as 100-200 calories, sometimes just a banana or other bit of
fruit. I was up to 15 pounds lost at one point but total as of today is
11 pounds lost over 5 weeks. I am having no problem keeping that off
and I'll be continually losing over the Spring and Summer. I am at a
total of 28 pounds lost since I had my surgery almost 2 years ago.
Definitely slower than I had hoped but definitely heading in the right
direction. I have reclaimed a couple shirts that were fitting pretty
snug and I am going to have to buy new jeans, pants, shorts and belts
if I lose ten more pounds or risk shedding them mid step.

 

I had been looking forward to a cold Coke (I prefer Pepsi but
after 5 weeks any sugar and caffeine would do and it was available). I
couldn't choke it all down. It was WAYY to sweet and was making me
pucker and gag. I had a Starbucks Iced Coffee with
my dinner but I got pretty sick to my stomach and felt like I was going
to puke. I was dizzy for about 10 minutes afterwards. There was Easter
candy and cake at work as well today. I had 3-4 small chocolate eggs
throughout the day but I avoided the cake. I still haven't tried fast
food and I am in no rush to. I have a feeling the first time I do I
would be wise to stick to something very small like a regular
cheeseburger and even then I am afraid that it will just shoot right
through me on a slick of grease. Quite a pretty picture I know. I think
I'll be avoiding caffeine at this point as well. I am going to try and
go with a "no sugar outside of my house" lifestyle. I don't have much
of a sweet tooth and other than this week(Easter) we don't have candy
or cookies in our house so if I can just say no at work, which I proved
I can, I'll be fine avoiding excess sweets. I have found a new love for
all things fruits but it will be nice to eat things I have avoided like
yogurt, and graham crackers.

 

The kind of unnecessary crappy we force on our bodies is pretty
disgusting and I have been a model of what not to do. I am paying for
it now. I watched the movie "Super Size Me" for the first time while I
was doing all this and if you haven't seen it yet I highly recommend it.
Along with Cigarette companies fast food companies have done an AMAZING
job of not only selling us junk that is killing us but convincing us
that we need it and can't be happy without it. The other day I got a
lot of weird looks because I was kneeling down and shuffling along a
couple grocery store aisles. I wanted to see what the world looks like
from my daughter's point of view. I am interested at what companies are
trying to sell to my daughter. Let me tell you there are a lot of high
fructose corn syrup filled cartoon shaped fat builders down there but
don't take my word for it. Look below your knees sometime and check it
out for yourself. She knows Shrek, Spiderman, The Disney Princesses,
Vegetales, Curious George, Winnie the Pooh, Sesame Street, Foster's
Home for Imaginary Friends, Happy Feet, Gilmore Girls, Dora the
Explorer, and Chewbacca on sight and she is only two. I am positive
that we allow her to watch less TV than the average family and I know
that we control the content tighter than most yet the amount of stuff
she is exposed to is amazing. As far as TV goes she only watches PBS
and the occasional on demand Cartoon Network show with me. The rest
comes from movies or books. I'll step down off my soap box now. This is
all stuff that came out of my experiences of the past couple weeks.
I'll have some more stories about Emma soon and as requested a picutre
of her bike.

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Where a kid can be a kid.

I took Emma to Chuckie Cheese's for the first time on Thursday. She had a great time. We went with Emma's babysitter and her kids. We ended up with over 1100 tickets to buy Emma prizes. She came away with a pink Tinkerbell purse, a Disney princess pencil, two Disney princess coloring sets, and some glittering lip gloss.

This week she loves using her lip gloss and playing outside because the weather has been so nice. She has been riding her new bike, playing in the park, and picking flowers every chance she gets. It's pretty weird but I can barely remember her being a baby and I don't know how she got to be so grown up or exactly when it happened.