My Little Liliana

The kids have been developing quickly. Liliana grows more every day it seems.

Liliana now likes to put large sentences together, and is starting to show her ability to assimilate more complex and abstract concepts. I can now carry on a full conversation with her, included witty remarks, which she returns with just as much wit:
“So if we take black and white, and mix them, we get gray. So what happens if we take white and black, and mix them? What do we get?”
“White… and Black, I don’t know!”

She’s said some other interesting stuff. On Tuesday, while going to our other house to work on some small stuff, Mercy told Liliana, “We’re going to the other house.” Liliana replied while I was buckling her in, “The other house? 2 houses?!” I was surprised, and still am. Not only did she assimilate the knowledge we gave her, but applied the knowledge to create a new conclusion of her own. She has two houses! How new is this!

Damien is also growing quickly. Liliana and Damien are starting quite a friendship. Liliana said today that she wanted to go pick up damien from day care. Mercy said, “Do you miss Dami?” And Liliana nodded, which is her new thing. Damien’s current thing, which is appropriate for his age, is that he has different sounds for different animals. His grin is quite infectious.

Damien is looking more and more like popo (chinese name for paternal grandmother). That’s a good thing, because he’s quite popular. Once, while leaving daycare, we had three young girls all chasing him and saying “Bye Damien!” while we walked/rode slowly away in his little red car. He was cool all the way out. Didn’t smile or wave or anything. Only way he would’ve been cooler is with a poop-eating grin and a pair of oversized sunglasses.

Sorry we haven’t updated in awhile, as you can imagine, the house is keeping us busy. Seems like everyone’s buying houses right now! We’ll hopefully have more pictures to provide later.

This was right after Liliana had asked to go pick Damien up because she missed him.

And here's an awful picture of our front garden. We haven't put mulch down, but the azalea's and blueberry plants look great. I just dug this area out this past weekend.

Things have been super busy! Liliana contracted tonsillitis and an ear infection last week, so things with her hadn’t been very well. She’s on antibiotics (which has its own set of problems for her!) and is definitely doing better.

I don’t have much energy now to do a full-blown post on what we did last week, so I’m just going to throw some photos in here.

Things have been really crazy in the Tapscott household!

I don’t have much time to write, so here are a few pictures that I took of the kids this Easter that really stood out:

Outside the restaurant where we had brunch

A gust of wind!

Poor Damien!

Liliana showing off an Easter egg

Probably inspecting her eggs for dirt so Mommy can wipe the dirt off with her pants

Sean and his dad have spent a good deal of time these past 2 weeks pulling up the carpet in our used mobile home (I even helped by scraping carpet pad! Expertly, I may add…) and using enzymatic cleaner in “trouble” spots. As if the trouble spots weren’t bad enough, there were several areas of sub-floor that were destroyed by water damage and/or mold. Sean, his dad, and a family friend spent all day Saturday cutting out the parts of sub-floor that we need to replace, while I primed the wood paneling in the living room and half the kitchen. I was able to snap a few pics with my cellphone while the guys were out at Lowe’s:

Primed wall on left, original wood paneling on right. Through that hallway is where all the sub-floor cutting happened.

Halfway in kitchen, looking out towards living room.

It is definitely not pretty now, but this upcoming weekend will be a dizzying schedule of renovations, deliveries, and a brief respite (which I’m keeping a secret for now!). Okay, I have to go back to earning money!

~ Mercy

Edited to add: A few more Easter pics here.

I am so glad that winter is over, but today seemed like a reprise of winter’s weather! It had actually warmed up considerably over the past week, and then we were hit with very powerful gusts of wind…they blew the house’s welcome mat off!

Both Damien and Liliana have been doing well, though they’ve both developed runny noses. I gave both kids haircuts on Sunday, and I think Liliana’s hair is particularly cute:

Damien, Sean, and Liliana

Her hair is still long enough to do pigtails, so she doesn’t have to be limited to the bob hairstyle. Damien just had his hair trimmed on the sides and in the back. I still don’t know much about how to cut boys’ hair, and while I’d like to use some hair trimmers on him, it just seems too much of a fuss to get all of that ready.

I guess I’ll break the other news…

some BIG news…

Sean and I are getting our own place to live! Granted, it’s a (used) mobile home, but it’s in good shape and in a decent community. We’re paying for it in cash so we won’t have to worry about a mortgage, just the lot rent (less than $400! Includes water, sewer and trash!). It’s 2 bedrooms, so the kids will still have to share a room, but we can always try buying a house or a larger mobile home once we eliminate more of our debt.

We’re closing this Friday. While the place is technically move-in ready, we’re going to spend a few weeks doing some improvements so we won’t move in until the place is fixed up. I’m looking forward to decorating and showing the place off!

Today, we have for you a gallery of our pictures from yesterday.  Mercy was able to take a couple of pictures before her battery went dead.

Nobody was sick this week and we got to meet a dog.  Liliana smiled at the dog that was taller than her, but didn’t like it when she got too close.  She was afraid to pet the dog.  Maggie, the neighbors across the street’s dog, was very very friendly.  Damien really liked the dog, and smiled broadly when he pet her.  He also was being held by mommy, so not much reason there to be scared.

In other news, Liliana hasn’t thrown up this week and has had regular bowel movements.  Mercy and I are very stressed out though while waiting for word on approval to rent a land lot.  More info later on that.  If you have any other questions about how we’re doing, please email us or comment on the post. :)  Hope you have a great week!

I wrote this last Sunday night, totally thinking I was going to post it:

I don’t think much has happened this week, but Liliana’s been much sicker since Friday.

She just had her ears checked on Tuesday and again on Wednesday at the GI doctor, so I’d be a bit surprised if she developed an ear infection within two-three days. She has been rubbing her cheeks and her ears a lot, and she’s been so uncomfortable/whiny/in pain that we’ve had to alternate ibuprofen and tylenol.

She’s also been throwing up throughout the night, meaning that she’s not tolerating her feedings. We’re a bit worried that she’s dehydrating herself with all the throwing up, so we’ve been giving her boluses of water, juice, or formula when we can. For Liliana’s overnight feed tonight, I’m trying a mix of applesauce with the formula that’s less dense. Sean says applesauce helps his stomach (it is part of the BRAT diet, after all), so we’ll see if it helps Liliana at all.

We have an ear check scheduled for Liliana on Wednesday simply because of all the ear infections she’s gotten, but I’ll probably call on Monday to see if they want to see her sooner. I’ll probably keep her home Monday to try to keep her hydrated anyhow.

Damien has been doing well. He’s finished his antibiotics without any problems. However, he busted his lip on the edge of Liliana’s eating table, so he now has a huge bump on his bottom lip.

So the update is that Liliana was actually sick with strep throat. She’s recovering very well from it already, and started eating things again on Tuesday. Her appetite seems perfectly normal now.

Damien seems to be getting smarter every day and isn’t being such a baby anymore. We can put him in his crib for the night without him throwing a fit/crying to sleep, and daycare is probably helping with that. He’s starting to not eat any of the veggies I put on his plate, though. I think he’ll eat pureed veggies, but I would like him to advance to eating solid veggies. He had his first fish sticks this past week, and he seemed to like them. Liliana even ate some: half a fish stick at dinner, and then half a fish stick for lunch the next day.

The weather is warming up a bit. It will be nice to be able to go outside with the kids and take some pictures! Sean said all of these were bad:

Yep, they’re pretty awful. Until next time!

I missed a week! So sorry.

Last week Damien came home with pinkeye. At first I thought Damien had scratched his eye; the pediatrician, though, noticed his other eye was turning pink as well, so the diagnosis became pinkeye and we got some eye drops. Damien also had a slight infection in one ear, so we got a paper script for amoxicillin if it got any worse. He stayed home from daycare Thursday and Friday.

This past Monday, Damien went back to daycare, but started having a fever after his afternoon nap. We filled his script for antibiotics, and got him started Monday night. His fever hadn’t gone away until Thursday or Friday, so he stayed home from daycare the rest of the week…

…and I think he got me sick. I started having a sore throat and high fever on Tuesday, progressing into a burning throat and painful swallowing–strep throat! Also, I have double ear infections…I don’t think I’ve ever had this many ear infections in one year before. Kids in daycare will do that to you, I guess.

Liliana seems to be doing okay, but her appetite has been very low. She’s also had a cough since last week, so she may just be suffering from a cold.

Okay, I have laundry and work to do, so here are some pictures I took today.

Liliana got to go outside today

Strike a pose

Damien’s face is actually kind of dirty, so I’ll leave it at that.

Diaper changes to do. Bye!

If you hadn’t noticed, I’m super late with the photos. Excuses…I have tons of them.

In any case, Damien is getting several of his molars in at once (along with maybe a few other teeth?) and he’s been having a wretched cold…one that’s spread to his eyes. So he now has pink eye, and also a mild ear infection. He’s on eye drops, which I hate administering, and we’re waiting to see if he gets any crankier before subjecting him to more antibiotics.

After all, we wouldn’t want this happening to Damien after it happened to Liliana:

Oh, Liliana’s ear infections came back last week, worse than ever. She got put onto zithromax, which worked beautifully. Only 5 doses to give, and along with some probiotics, her BMs became normal almost immediately.

She’s doing a lot better now, and I think she’s actually starting to eat more. We’ve started giving her breakfast, and I’ve been alternating her between Nutella pancakes and an Eggo waffle each day, which should be followed up by a little yogurt cup. The nurses at her daycare are saying that Liliana’s eating all of her yogurt at breakfast and yesterday she ate 8 bites of her waffle. Last night, she ate a few pieces of strawberry that I put with her dinner (she refused the rest of the dinner), but ate a bunch of cereal puffs and multi-grain Cheerios later.

I think she still has problems with drinking, as if she sips too much at a time. She’ll take a few sips of Banana Pediasure (or Vanilla if I have it) or juice, but the most success we’ve had is with these weird fruit pouches that we call Fruities. It’s like baby food in a drinkable pouch, so it’s a lot less messy than a spoon and a jar of baby food. The downside is that I can never tell if the seal’s been broken on them, and I think we’ve had a few that weren’t as full as they should have been. Both the kids love them though. And Sean. He likes drinking Liliana’s leftover juice, so of course he drinks the rest of Liliana’s Fruities if she doesn’t finish.

It’s about time I start on dinner, so I’ll post this collage I made on Photovisi for free. I did it quickly–my composition could have been better for sure if I had tried harder. You can click on the image below for the full 1024×768 version.

Maybe I’ll post this next Sunday’s photos on time if I can get enough work done, but it’s probably not likely to happen because Damien’s staying home for the rest of the week. Okay, I’m going! Bye!

Haven’t had time to do a proper post so we’ve done a video blog:

Watch video on Youtube

I think Liliana may be getting the stomach flu as well; she’s woken up several times already because she was getting sick…I don’t know. I’m tired.

Liliana stretching with Sean earlier in the week

Damien sporting some new shoes that Grandma got him (his feet were getting too big for his old shoes)

Liliana hamming it up to the camera

CHOMP.

The duck face that Damien makes ALL the time. He has cinnamon sugar between his eyebrows.

Still happy!

Okay, now I’m going to crash from my all-nighter. Bye!