An afternoon with the butterflies

We went to see the butterflies this afternoon. First, we stopped to see the live butterflies in the outdoor rainforest. We don't have any pictures of that because, you know, you've seen a gazillion posts of that before. Besides, Mami was so busy complaining about how hot it was that she didn't manage to get any good shots off.

But then we went inside to see a special exhibit about the life of a butterfly. Daddy escorted me through the display, which was pretty much a big maze.

We got to walk like caterpillars and

hang out on leaves like caterpillars.

As a short aside, Mami would like to present this photo as Exhibit A regarding why there are not more pictures of me and my sister together: we don't cooperate.

Anyway, back to the butterflies.We walked through creepy-caterpillar-eating-plants,

and sat in cocoons,

and climbed up a spider web.

A WHAT? A SPIDER WEB?!? EEW!

The we danced around and showed off our butterfly colors,

and even got to fly like butterflies!

How fun! You can check Resli's blog if you want to find out more about what all these things meant in terms of the life cycle of a butterfly, I just enjoyed the fun!

"Oh my word!" and other cuteness

I think I got my newest expression, "Oh my word!" either from Grandma or from a new TV show I've been watching, Word World. Either way, it's cute!

And I'm such a ham, no?

What's YOUR favorite dinner?

Mine varies, but tonight we had blackberries and boy did I get in to them!


But then again, there's always piggies!



*By the way, did you notice that I lost my shirt between those series of pictures? Wonder how that happened? Here's how:

Father's Day Heat

We had a Father's Day cookout today, the hottest day of the year (heat index in the 100s). We're crazy, but it was fun spending time with Grandma, Granddaddy, Aunt Lizzie and Uncle Brian.

I watched Daddy cook, and pretty much all I could do all day was lounge back and think, "Whew, it's a scorcher!"

Surgery day!

As you all are aware, I've been sick a lot lately - ear infections, chest infections, general snottiness, you name it. So, today we set out to fix the problem! I wasn't sure what was going on but I knew something was up when we got up super early and got in the car in our pajamas before eating breakfast even...

We got to the hospital which is right next to my pediatrician's office and where I love to see the ducks. No ducks here, but at least Daddy was with me.

Once inside, I was still my usual happy self,

and I took the opportunity to do some reading from their waiting room library.

Then we got called back to the kids' waiting room, where I saw some other boys and girls and some toys.

Mami and I colored a little. I was getting nervous, but still doing ok.

Then the doctor came and I got a little clingy.

He was very nice, and wanted to make sure Baby was ok,

but then he took me back to the operating room. I was very sad to leave Mami and Daddy and very scared. They were too.

Luckily, I then got some yummy medicine that put me to sleep and I had no idea what was going on. Mami and Daddy, on the other hand, were left awake and alert in the waiting room.

I had an adenoidectomy and a myringotomy, both of which will help prevent ear infections and all those colds. The doctor said my adenoids were blocking 70% of my nasal airways, so no wonder I was snoring and stuff. And if they were that big they must have been pretty darn infected and yucky. I had puss and fluid in both ears as well. Poor me!

Then Mami and Daddy were allowed to come back to the recovery room as I was waking up.

It was a bit rough, but I was glad they were there.

When we came home I had a snack of a banana and a couple of the graham crackers they gave me at the hospital. (There are no restrictions on what I can eat, it's not really in my throat where they did the surgery stuff. It does, however, make me cry every time I burp or hiccup...)

I'm well on my way to feeling better I think, and hopefully to a much healthier existence! Currently, I'm sleeping and have been for three hours - a little Tylenol with codeine goes a long way I guess!

Quick health update (no pix, sorry)

We saw the ophthamologist today because the pediatrician had been concerned about how her pupils didn't seem to dilate even in the dark. We totally love and trust our pediatrician, and even though we'd never noticed any problem, if she said it was worth looking in to, we thought it was.

It was a loooong trip since the doc had been called out to emergency surgery just before we got there, but Lela was a trooper. Everyone commented on how beautiful her eyes were, how verbal she was, how smart she was, and how well she can see (outstandingly for a 19 month old apparently, at better than 20/25). (Proud mommy moment...) They had a neat eye exam thing on a flat screen TV with pictures of things (horse, hand, house, sun, flower, etc.). She named everything, some of them in Spanish. She kept saying casa for 'house', and I finally had to explain to the nurse that that's what she was saying since she wasn't sure if Lela was actually seeing it! One time when it was a horse for the second time Lela said, "More horsie. Horsie. I said it!" as in, "Duh, I already TOLD you!" :) She was great.

Then they dilated her pupils (or as my friend Alfredo says, dilactated her poopils), which she hated. The drops combined with the fact that it was verging on nap-time resulted in much eye rubbing and crying and she finally fell asleep in my lap while waiting for full dilation/dilactation. Boy was she mad at the light shining in her eyes when the doc came back! But the doc said everything looked fabulous, good vision, good muscle, good nerves. So no worries there.

Unfortunately, in the mean time she has developed another icky chest thing, wheezing and breathing heavy/hard. So since we're scheduled for surgery on Thursday I took her to the pediatrician later today just to make sure she was good to go ahead with that. You know, that whole breathing during anesthesia thing is probably really important. They gave her a super duper breathing treatment there (no steroids because that would suppress her immune system and we CERTAINLY don't want that prior to surgery). She's on breathing treatments at home every 4-6 hours but is otherwise fine. Or as fine as she can be sounding like a hippopotamus running a marathon.

That's all for now... Send us happy healthy thoughts, and please cross your fingers for a quick and successful adenoidectomy/tube insertion on Thursday!

Splish splash!

Resli's been having such a blast at her swimming lessons at the public pool down the street that we decided to go there for a few hours this morning. I was super psyched to wear my new bathing suit - it has butterflies on it!

Resli was downright giddy with excitement. There was much hugging in anticipation of all the fun we'd have.

When we got there, I got a life jacket so that I wouldn't need to, you know, tread water the whole time.

Resli showed Daddy how good she's gotten at jumping in, climbing out, kicking, etc.

But for the most part, we all just hung out, splashing and jumping and having a great time!

I can't wait to go back. Maybe Resli will teach me how to swim some day!

The fruits of summer

One of the great things about summer is the huge variety of fruits and vegetables that are available to us. You may be surprised by this, but I like a lot of them!
I discovered cherries the other day. Mami pitted them and cut them and gave them to me.

Yum! I really liked them!

Likewise, THIS may surprise you, but my sister did not like them. Or so she said. She didn't bother trying them, just claimed that she wouldn't like them. She ate around them and chose the melon instead.

So the question is, is life really just a bowl of cherries?!?!

"Ring ring rosy, popop posey"

(I'm not singing in this one but I usually do!)

Greatest technological invention ever

Mami isn't a big fan of sitting us in front of the TV, but when there's a long wait at a restaurant, she's found the perfect solution: a little iPhone action! Her iPod contans mostly Backyardigans and SuperWhy episodes, and when desperate she breaks it out to distract us.

Works like a charm. We rarely get through a whole episode (and if we do we know we'll never go back to that restaurant!), but it sure does keep us quiet for a while. Except of course that I keep yelling "Pablo! Pablo!" He's my favorite...

18-month well visit

I'm already (over) 19-months old, but I had my 18-month well-visit with Dr. Grooms today. I'm a month late because I haven't been well enough for a check up in weeks! 

Except for some major drooling (teething, we're thinking, or a sore throat kind of thing), I was pretty darn happy! I really like Dr. Grooms, I got ver excited on the car ride over and kept saying "Docta Gooms!"

And I did great through the exam. (Until the immunization, that is...) I remain at 75th %ile for height and weight, and slighter higher than that for head circumference. I'm a healthy girl!

The best part, even better than Dr. Grooms (sorry, Dr. Grooms) were the duckies. That's the other thing I kept shouting in the car: "Duckies see! Quack quack!" 

[I'm not sure where this postposed verb thing comes from, but she consistently uses object-verb order... weird!]

I was ecstatic when we saw them!

They let me get close enough to really see. Look at the babies! They're more like teens now, but when we were here a month or so ago with one of my various illnesses, they were tiny.
  

I kept trying to talk to the duckies, but they didn't respond.

The ducks make any doctor's visit fun!

Thank you Grandpa!

When Resli and I got up from our naps today we found presents from Grandpa! They were these really cool shirts from the musueum in New York.

Resli's has a 4,000 year old blue hippopotomus on it.

Mine says POW! 

They're a little big, but we can wear them as night shirts for now. We think they're great, thank you, Grandpa!

A trip to the ENT

I went to see the ENT specialist last week. I've had sooo many ear infections and am resistant to all the antibiotics I'm not allergic to, so we decided to see what we could do. Beba came with me to keep me company.

It was kind of scary, but I was a big girl, even when they looked in my ears and my mouth.

End result: I'm having tubes put in my ears and my adenoids removed on June 18th. Send me happy healthy thoughts!