Babysitting

Last Saturday I babysat Baby Seth for our friends and it was so cute to see JoAnn with him. She wanted to be next to him the whole time he was at our place. I was a little afraid that she might be jealous, but she did wonderful and despite Daniel's fears that she would crush him, she was great around him. However, in the middle of the night I felt like she had turned into the newborn. She woke up around 2:30 and was up until about 4. I could not figure out what was wrong. She hadn't woken up like that for a long time. The next day I figured out what I think was the problem...She was getting two new teeth. Then on Monday, I found another new tooth and on Tuesday I found yet another new tooth. That means she was getting 4 new teeth all at the same time and one of them is a molar, which makes my mouth hurt just thinking about having a molar break through for the first time. That brings the grand total of teeth to 8. She might not be toothless for the rest of her life after all.



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This is probably one of the funniest things I have seen in a long time. This morning JoAnn was giving me a horrible time while I was trying to get her to eat breakfast. She barely ate anything before she grabbed her milk and wouldn't take any food. So, I took the chance to get myself some tea and take my vitamins. I had my back to her for maybe a minute, two tops and this is how I found her when I turned around. She had totally fallen asleep. She hasn't been sleeping well at night since she started getting her teeth and I guess it started to catch up with her.

Learning how to eat

I just had to share this picture from lunch today. Recently I have been trying to help JoAnn learn how to use a spoon and fork and being her independent little self she insisted on doing it completely by herself today. It was actually quite funny once I got over the idea of having to clean up after her. She couldn't seem to understand that once she got some food on her spoon if she turned it over the food would fall off. So, she would get the food on the spoon and as she was putting it up to her mouth she would end up turning it upside down and loose everything on the spoon. After a couple attempts, she would get really frustrated and put the spoon down to use her hands for a few bites. Then she would start all over again with the spoon. It was so cute that I had to take a picture and as I turned around to get the camera, she somehow decided that she should put her foot on the table. I don't know, maybe she thought that would help her.

Computers, bananas, and termites

So none of these pictures really go together, but they are all some cute things I have seen JoAnn do in the last couple days...

If there is a will, there is a way. That is definitely the philosophy JoAnn seems to have with life. After I wouldn't let her sit on my lap and play with the computer while I was checking my email, I went to the kitchen to put something away and came out to find her playing with it all by herself. We now either have to keep the chair pushed up against the desk so she can't climb on it or move the computer in order for her to not play with it.

This one cracks me up because there is a lady who babysits JoAnn sometimes and she always talks about her eating bananas, which she NEVER does for me. Then the other day I went to visit one of our friend's new baby and while I was there JoAnn stole a banana from one of their older kids and ate the whole thing. So, being my stubborn self, I was determined I would get her to eat a banana for me. I figured out the only way to get her to eat it was with the peel on. Not sure why, but hey whatever works. I was so excited she actually was eating it that I just had to take a picture and it wasn't until after I took the picture I realized she really wasn't eating the banana, but the peel. She is just a little strange.

These two pictures were taken Tuesday night while we were kicked out of our house for a few hours. A while ago my helper was showing me an area where some termites had started eating the wood in JoAnn's room, well actually in the bathroom connected to her room. I didn't really like the fact they were there, but I had no idea how to get rid of them so I kept putting it off. Then they started moving out of the bathroom and into her room. That is when I decided I couldn't put it off any longer. So two guys came in and did a great job of getting rid of them. It was pretty impressive how fast they ripped out the bad wood, treated everything, put up the new plywood and painted it. I was totally expecting it to take a couple days, but they were in and out in less than a day and they even swept up the floors before they left! It was great. Next time I won't wait so long.

Anyway, I thought these pictures from dinner that night were pretty funny. I like Daniel's face in the first one and how JoAnn wouldn't pose for us in either of the pictures.

Insomnia

Well there really isn't much for me to write about right now, but I am a little bored since it is 5 AM and I can't sleep. I have been having trouble with insomnia lately, largely due to the fact that I have been having some strange skin problems and was put on Prednisone. In some ways the Prednisone is wonderful since I have felt like I have a jogging suit filled with itching powder on all day and the steroids seem to help a lot with that, but now I have not had a good night sleep in days. Even worse, the doctors I have been talking to don't know what is going on with me and you can't stay on Prednisone very long without some other major side effects. That means that over the next few days while I am weaning off the steroids and waiting for the next step the itch will be back. I am not sure if I am dreading the itch or looking forward to sleeping again more. I know I shouldn't really let it effect me too much, but it is just difficult to be in a good mood when you itch like that and can't do much about it. I have had allergy/eczema/asthma problems my whole life and I have always prayed that somehow God would help them not be as bad or even take them away either supernaturally or through medicine. Lately, though, I have learned that sometimes He just doesn't work like that and that there are far worse health problems I could have. So, my prayer has changed to also include asking Him to help me not to allow this to dictate my personality and to help me be the person He wants me to be bringing glory to Him dispite my circumstances, whether good, bad or just somewhere in the middle.
I have been reading a blog by one of the parents of a student I had for the first two years while I was teaching at Faith and it has definitely helped me in keeping my perspective. The girl's father has been having a lot of health problems over the last year while they were in the States and no one was able to give him an answer as to why things were happening, until they went to the Mayo Clinic a few months ago. There they found out that he has an extremely rare type of cancer, some form of lymphoma. It sounds like it is awful and they have been told that the Mayo Clinic has only seen something like 5 cases of it before him. Here is the name of the blog his wife is keeping if you would like to read more, she does a much better job of explaining the medical side of things than I could, www.garylphillips.blogspot.com. They are a neat family and have been serving as missionaries in the Philippines for many years.
The other thing I have been learning through this is that God has truly blessed Daniel and I with so much. I look at some of the Filipino people we see at the Arthur Center and know that if this were one of them having this issue, there would be no medical help since they would not be able to afford it financially. God has really used so many people to help provide for us and I could not be more thankful even just for a clean house to be able to come home to and a running shower with warm water. I can't imagine dealing with this and living in some of the conditions that are all too common here.

Amazing

Sometimes I watch JoAnn and I am just amazed at how she is turning out to be her own little person. I have been wanting kids my whole life and have wondered many times what they would turn out to be like. So watching JoAnn grow up is answering so many of my questions.

In so many ways she is exactly like me. There are little things I see, both good and bad. Things like she loves to "solve" problems. She is very curious about the way things work and what they are for. She constantly takes things apart and then puts them back together just to see if she can do it. She also very much has my temper, which I have to say is really not what I was hoping for. Once one thing doesn't go how she wants, she gets upset at everything, big or small.

There are also so many things I see that she got from Daniel as well. She definitely got his personality in which she is extremely shy and quiet everywhere execpt home and with anyone she doesn't really know. She also got his coordination. It is this that amazes me more than anything especially when you combine it with her problem solving nature. She is able to get into things and climb onto things that I never would have thought of. She has even figured out how to stack her toys in order to stand on them and reach things that she wouldn't be able to otherwise. I was checking my email just this morning and heard the chair at the table being pushed across the floor (one of her favorite things to do lately) and then it got really quiet. So of course, suspecting something was up, I turned around and found her standing on the chair that she had pulled out far enough from the table to climb up on. It was pretty cute, but I am now terrified. Once she realizes that she is able to use the chair to climb up onto other things, like she does with her toys, she will be able to reach almost anything in the house. It also terrifies me because I have found her standing on the chair many more times today and she is starting to see if she can get them to rock back and forth like the recliner we have that she has also figured out how to get up on using the foot stool. I am just waiting to hear the crash of her knocking over the chair while standing on it. I love the fact that she is so coordinated, but I am finding it difficult to explain to a 14 month-old how dangerous some of the things are that she does.