Strange little moment

I had a crazy day... The kind of day when you wake up you don't want to get up but if you don't everything will just get crazier. Jordan had a meeting at our house that was followed by an appointment for both dogs at the vet that was followed by a gathering where I was helping set up a computer system. I had no time to go from one place to the other let alone get Jordan to school!

So Jordan "helped" me take the dogs to the vet. I've avoided taking the dogs together for a number of years. I had no choice since we're in the middle of what I'm now fondly calling "Flea Drama 2008." I'll just say I've never had to vacuum so much and I've never combed out our fuzzy dog Dudley as much as I have during all of this. Anyway, when we first got there, a young boy (older than Cameron) jumped up and seemed to be staring at the dogs. I figured he wanted to pet them, but I was concerned about controlling the dogs and keeping him safe (you never know) so I moved past him quickly. But later as I was rescheduling ANOTHER flea check appointment, the boy walked up to me. I expected him to ask to pet the dogs. But instead he asked what happened "to that little girl's arm." He pointed at Jordan who was trying to "walk" our pug Bubba around the hallway (she was doing pretty well for a small kid and a strong 23 pound dog). The boy was obviously developmentally delayed in some way... It didn't really matter. He was just curious. He was obviously confused when I told him that's how Jordan was born. Just another of those moments when you're just going about your day and forget there's something a little different about Jordan.

By the way, Jordan has named Bubba "Bubby." She loves to walk around and pat him gently, but Bubba is a little unsure about the love. She's always so proud when she can give him attention.

Really busy

I'm so behind on pictures and life stories about Jordan. We got back into town yesterday morning at 3am after spending a long weekend with my Aunt. She's been battling cancer and we were able to get into town in between chemo treatments. My Aunt is amazing and it was SO great to be with her while she felt pretty good. Miss Jordan was awesome. She dealt with the horrible travel schedule, danced around and sang. She fell in love with my Aunt and Uncle's dog and their friend's dog who was visiting for the weekend.

I'm exhausted and I haven't gotten to updating all of the pictures and stories about Jordan.

Let's say this: She LOVES planes. She's so excited about "flying in the sky." She had to brag about it to everyone at school yesterday. She also had to show off a new pair of shoes we bought at the Disney Store. I have allowed my daughter to totally buy into the Disney mystique. I'm totally okay with it. My husband wants to shoot me. I've never been a princess type, but if my daughter likes it, I'll play. (I can't believe I just wrote that since I swore my daughter would never wear pink and we'd avoid all gender-assigning games and toys)

Oh! And Jordan was dry the entire trip. She even went potty on the plane! Incredible!

I promise to write more, but I'm working late tonight and I want to enjoy a nice day outside and read a book for a little while. It's one of the first times I've been alone in a long time. It's also really nice out and I don't want to miss sitting under a tree for a little while!

Sweet video of my girl

Here's Jordan reading to little Murphy dog. Sweet stuff. It's kind of long, but fun.

By the way, I've been preaching the glories of Motionbox and now I'm kind of sad... The company just suddenly put a size limit on accounts. You have to pay a yearly fee for an unlimited amount of space. I'm sad and not sure what I'm going to do. I totally understand the need to keep the company going. I don't want them to die because I don't want to lose my online video... But I'm unsure I'm ready to pay $30 just to keep my embedded video working.

It isn't every day when...

...You can say you went to a dog wedding. Yup. A dog wedding.

Last night we took the kids to a dog wedding. Lucky and River got hitched. They had bridesmaids and groomsmen, there was a three month old puppy that was the flower girl. The bride and groom were all dressed up. They got to say their "bow wows" instead of vows. It was SOOO funny.

Instead of throwing flowers, they threw dog biscuits. There was even a two tiered liver wedding cake for all of the dogs to enjoy. There was an acapella group that sang "How much is that doggie in the window?" after the bride and groom exchanged decorative "rings" they wore around their necks. It was flat out silly. We brought our pug, Bubba, to the occasion. Bubba made sure he ate every treat that was on the ground. That poor fat dog got MUCH fatter yesterday.

But it was fun. And it was even for a good cause. Instead of gifts for the dogs, the owners of the bride, Lucky, asked for donations for a group called The PET Project. It's a wonderful organization that builds Personal Energy Transportation for disabled people who live in third-world countries. So as we enjoyed fun with our pets, the PET project benefited. Very cool stuff.

Another strange thing we did... Today I spent quite a while in the backyard digging up sand. Yeah. Sand that heavy rain washed out of our homemade sandbox and washed down our backyard lawn. We lost so much sand that you could see the "stream" in the lawn. So I sifted through the grass and filled a bunch of sand buckets for the sand box. The things I do for my kids. It's pretty funny.

Poor baby

I didn't have the heart to take a picture. But this afternoon, I was helping Jordan walk around in the backyard when Dudley came up and started licking Jordan's face. Then he rolled onto his back and scraped her face. It's minor. But it made me sad. My poor baby got her first scratch on that beautiful skin. I'm a total dork. I just feel bad that I didn't shoo the dog away.

Anyway. The family took Jordan's big brother, the birthday boy to the movies this afternoon. I figured it would be worth the try to try to get all four of us in the theater to enjoy a little popcorn and big screen action. A little more than half-way through, Jordan was done. She had no interest in staying on my lap, eating any type of snack foot, drinking water or walking between Daddy and I. She started peeking into the row in front of us and waving hello. Then she just started getting angry. We hung out in the entry way and waited. It's a bummer, but I know Cam appreciated us all being at the movie with him for as long as we did.

I'm exhausted... And I have a really long week ahead. I should stop blogging and focus. It was a long weekend, and I don't really want to work until 2am (which has become a Sunday night tradition).

How she grows

I've been drowning in work, child care and travel. I haven't been posting about my world enough lately. But I have to say life with my girl is getting more and more interesting. For a couple of days, the boys of the family were out of town enjoying basketball. So I got to enjoy Jordan time to myself. She and I played outside and enjoyed some good giggles and talking about the dogs. She loves saying: "Hi Bubba!" Bubba is our little black pug dog. She ADORES our dogs.

Jordan got to enjoy her brother's performance in "Curious George and the Puppies." She was more interested in the fact that there was someone sitting in front of us and could kick.

Then we went off to enjoy a little basketball fun with family and friends. It was really my first time with Jordan away from home since she's gotten a bit more adventurous and mobile. She was climbing up steps, scooting and pulling up on a bunch of furniture. I was tired!

To make the past week more exhausting, I agreed to analyze 60 different news websites for a national contest. 60 websites is a lot of work... Especially since more broadcast companies use similar content management systems. I was trying really hard to find the elements where each station was trying to (get ready for this one) break outside of the content manager box. (yeah, I'm talking like I'm teaching my class) This hard work has been pretty exhausting. I'm happy to be done.

So here's a little blast from the past:

powered by ODEO

I'm tinkering with an embeddable audio player for my work web page. I have a reporter who is working on a story with images and audio... and I'd like to use our standard content manager to post the items.

While I was out of town with Jordan, we got her new, expensive shoes. It turns out her feet were an entire size bigger!! That's kind of surprising. The shoes are cute. I did buy little bells that you put over the shoe tie to keep Jordan from undoing the shoes. It's kind of cute, but tricky to get on in the morning if Jordan isn't in a good mood. Hopefully better fitting shoes will help her with moving around!

Oh... Best part of last week: I took Jordan and Cam to the children's museum that we love to visit. This was the first time Jordan was old enough to really love it there. She stood up and enjoyed so many different experiences: blocks, water, sand... toys. It was wonderful. I'll try to get pics uploaded to Flickr soon.

Another rash

A day "airing out" Jordan's little arm didn't really help get rid of her heat rash. So I put some cream on it before bed time and I hope it helps. I've been obsessively cleaning the prosthetic, so I know that's not the reason behind her rash this time around.

The day ended with Jordan seeming more like herself. I can't see any teeth poking, but I may not be looking in the right place. I do know that she's madly in love with her brother and the dogs... They make her giggle the most. And honestly, she could sit outside all day and giggle manically and say "dog" again and again and again. I have to get video of the laugh. She has two kinds: hysterical laughter (from tickles and outright silliness) or mischievous laugher (from seeing things she likes or doing something she's proud of).

Oh and one other thing. Without her prosthetic, my girl climbed up 5 stairs all by herself. It's cool and scary all at the same time.

She can taunt

This morning I watched Jordan joyfully taunt the pug with a Cheerio. She held it out from her high chair and lured the dog closer. Then she pulled the Cheerio away while giggling. She did it again. He got closer. She pulled pack. She taunted him until he jumped up onto the high chair, sniffed the Cheerio and she pulled back, giggled and ate it.

She taunts!

Apparently a teacher watched her do the same thing to a younger baby with a goldfish cracker.

I didn't teach her that skill. I think it's pretty funny... Until she starts taunting Cam. Then things will get challenging.

Jordan was iced into home with weekend while her parents had to work a bit. She didn't seem to mind it a bit. She was content to scoot all over the house and play. Her favorite item to play with: Shoes.

There wasn't a lot of talking for Miss Jordan this weekend. She spent the majority of the time dripping and coughing. I think she has at least two more teeth coming through. So she was more interested in getting hugs, playing with toys and sleeping. The one thing I'm noticing is how she just doesn't use her arm when she wears her prosthetic. She's still holding it behind her shoulder. The one thing she is using it is to help push herself up from her belly. And she's in that position a lot these days: If she's unhappy, she'll fold up and bonk her head on the floor, fall onto her back and then she rolls onto her belly crying. By the time she pushes herself up, she usually calms down.

So gross story of the weekend has nothing to do with Jordan. Big fluffy dog Dudley discovered that an ice storm is the only way he can catch an animal in the backyard. A rabbit got into the yard and just couldn't get out fast enough. I watched Dudley prance by the back door with the rabbit hanging from his mouth. Gross. Gross. Gross.