Getting Better

I keep forgetting to mention that we weighed the kids on the fancy scale in the lab at Jordan's work on Monday! Serena was 24.6 pounds. I measured her today and she's 32 inches. At 21 months, that puts her in the 35th and 25th percentiles respectively. Bret was 12.8 pounds and I have no idea how long he is right now. So for weight he's at about the 40th percentile. Just fun little Horak baby trivia for anyone interested! ;)

Serena slept all through the night last night, which felt wonderful for both her and I! It was nice not to have to get up and change 6 dirty diapers! :P She does seem to be doing better today. Her #2 has changed from dark green to light brown and is not nearly as frequent. Her rash is still raging, though. I'm caking on the diaper rash ointment, and gave her a bath with baking soda in it. HOPING to see an improvement tomorrow! Also, hoping we get to go to church tomorrow. I'm in a bit of a quandary. She's obviously improved a lot, and tomorrow could be almost back to normal. BUT. Her diaper rash will almost certainly still be an issue. And what if she has a poo while she's in nursery? I don't like the idea of some poor nursery worker having to deal with Serena and her rash. She's really not liking having her diaper changed right now. Poor baby! :( So, do we go to church tomorrow or not? We decided to wait and see how tonight goes.

Gotta love the weekend, though!! It's beautiful outside and Jordan's home! :) We went into Denton this afternoon for fun. I got to walk around Target for a while and let Serena walk around too. She felt so big walking around the store! People thought she was so cute and would say hi to her and they loved it when she said hi back! One lady blew kisses and to her delight, Serena returned the gesture without any hesitation! We saw a baby in a carseat sound asleep. Serena got my attention and pointed at him. When I acknowledged that I saw the baby, she made her "go sleepy" sign with a very solemn face. I tried to match her attitude as I affirmed that the baby had indeed gone sleepy, but inside I just wanted to laugh and scoop her up and squeeze her! I love getting a glimpse into the world as she sees it!

Serena's entered a new stage this week where she LOVES having her activities 'narrated' (i.e., "You're going to drink from your sippy" or "You're going to sit in the Bumbo" or "You're going to bounce Bret")! It's so funny, but she gets frustrated if I don't guess the right thing sometimes. :P I'm learning how to work through it with her. I think the problem is that she just has such a good grasp on language in her head, but just hasn't figured out how to speak it yet and the lag is frustrating her. We have made great strides in this area this week, though. I'm learning to use her desire to have things narrated to help her through those frustrating times. For example, if she expresses to me her desire to eat, but I tell her she has to wait until I'm done cooking the food, she will probably melt. I figured out that she gets so upset because she thinks I don't understand what she wants. So, I get down on her level and put her desire into words (narrate it!). "Serena, you want something to eat right now, don't you?" This stops the tears every time! She shuts off the drama and gives me an affirmative "Huh." Now that she feels understood, she's much more reasonable. I tell her that Mommy is going to finish cooking the food and then we will eat; then I suggest another food or another activity that she could eat/do instead. About 95% of the time, this tactic works like a charm and she moves on. It's amazing! Every day I pray that God would give me wisdom with the kids, so I'm always so thankful to Him when I have breakthroughs like this! As Serena matures, I feel like I never know what's around the corner, let alone how I'll deal with each new scenario she presents me with. Parenthood is hard in that way, I think.

This afternoon, Serena sat in the crock like this. I'm not even sure how she managed to do it! Obviously, she couldn't get out without help! Jordan said he had a 'bowlful of Serena,' but Serena didn't think it was very funny! ;)