Wall O' Diplomas

Chris and I finally have all of our diplomas up on the wall in our office. We are a fairly educated duo...too bad we don't make any money!
Top left: Chris- Masters from University of Georgia
Bottom Left: Chris- Bachelors from NC State (we had to re-request a copy since he had no clue where it was)
Top Right: Jessica- Masters from Meredith
Bottom Right: Jessica- Bachelors from Meredith

Tantrum anyone?

Oh my goodness. Meredith is testing my patience to the extreme! She has started having these tantrums where she just screams like a wild animal to the point that she is almost growling at me and her voice goes hoarse. Tonight it was over getting in the bathtub. She has given me little tastes of this behavior recently, but this one was over the top. She really scared me with how crazy she was. I'm really at a loss as to how to handle her when she is like this. The other fun part is that she only does it for me. Example: Chris had picked her up from daycare today so that I could go straight to the gym from work since I am really trying to take some time to do something for myself. So, she was just fine and dandy with him until I got home. She ran to the door to greet me and it was on from there. She completely lost it about 30 seconds after I walked in the door and it didn't end until I put her to bed screaming at 8:15.

Is this what having a two year old is really like? I've always heard people say, "I have a two year old" as if it was some sort of automatic excuse or a shared understanding between parents. Do I have to go through this to join the two year old club? Help!

On a good note, I had coffee with some great friends this weekend. Kelly, Heather and Jessica. I love hanging out with them and we aren't able to do it often, but when we do we can talk for hours.

We also had Meredith's 2 year old pictures made on Sunday. She did pretty well, but the stubborness came out again, which didn't make it the best time, but they still came out with a few good ones. I'll post them soon.

Update

Well, after a long and tiring several days, Chris is on the mend. He was quite miserable for the first 48 hours for sure and then just very uncomfortable since then with the help of some good pain meds. On Monday he had his post op appointment and I won't gross you out with the details of the splints coming out of his nose, but it wasn't pretty. The doctor was just so matter of fact about the whole thing and just yanked those things out like it was no big deal. I guess my thing with doctors lately is that yes, I understand that they have done this procedure a million times or seen a croupy kid a million and one times, but don't make me feel like my situation is less than important because it is new to me even though it is old hat to you! (I'm stepping off of my soapbox now..) Anyway, since the splints came out, he is doing much better. Still very sore, but at least I feel like I have my husband back!
I pretty much had a meltdown the other morning when Meredith woke up with that nasty croupy cough again, which meant I truly had two sick children to care for! Yes, it is the same thing she JUST had at Christmas. I took her right in to the doctor for meds because I'm just not messing around with that nastiness. The doctor we saw at Christmas may have been in the room for a total of 3 minutes and basically just wrote out the script, while the doctor we saw on Monday was one of those that went into too much detail and had me scared into thinking we could be in the ER at 3am. Amazing how different they can be when diagnosing the exact same thing. Don't think I cared for either, but they have the magic pen. The cough isn't nearly as croupy as it was, but I think it's breaking up and she's actually coughing quite a bit now. Ah, the joys of passing crud back and forth at daycare.
In other major Meredith news. She is doing incredibly well with potty training. (Warning to non parents: you may want to stop reading!!). I can't even believe it, but she did #2 in the potty last night! I was kinda annoyed with her because I had just gotten her night time diaper on and gotten her into her sleeper, when she announces that she needs to go 'pahyey'. Since she quite frequently just sits up there and does nothing, I told her that if she needed to go that bad, she could figure out how to get out of her diaper. Well, she was naked in a quick minute (I also think that she uses this as a ploy to take her clothes off since that is by far much more preferable than clothing these days! Apparently, every lick of clothing needs to come off to go potty!) Anyway, the next thing I know, she has produced quite the results and I was in total shock. Now, I'm thinking this may have just been a random act of kindness from the good Lord above to keep me somewhat sane, but I'm thinking we are on our way! Yeah for my big girl!

Prayers

Well, thanks to wireless technology, I'm sitting in the waiting room of Rex Surgery Center while Chris is having a septoplasty and bilateral something. So, he's basically getting his nasal passages straightened out. He (we) has recently been really struggling with his snoring and breathing, so he finally decided to get it taken care of. Basically, one of his nostrils doesn't work. Like if he closes one side and blows, nothing comes out. It is a minor day surgery, but it still isn't fun seeing your best friend wheeled down the hall to the OR. It didn't help that they started about 3 hours late. At least the waiting room has really cleared out and it's just me, 2 guys and the lady at the desk...and a great coffee pot!
Anyway, say prayers for swift healing and good results!

Ok, the doctor just came out and said it went really well. Chris earned the title of 'really oddly shaped septum', but now it should be much better!! Yeah!

Latest Vocab

So, Meredith's words are coming more and more every day. It seems like over the last month she has really transformed from just saying lots of words to putting them together and really understanding what she is saying. She uses so many facial expressions and head tilts and is so serious about some things. Chris and I just try not to laugh and answer the question we think she just asked.
Favorite words of late:
Picca = Pizza. Still a major favorite word and food.
Beggel= Bagel. A new one that she repeats over and over, she also loves to eat them! Chris went out to Brueggers on Saturday morning and she was quite upset it took him so long to get back with her 'beggel'.
Cuppie= Cup. Awhile back she switched from saying cup to cuppie. Not sure why, but it has seriously stuck.
Pi= Paci. I think around the same time as she started with cuppie, she started calling her paci a Pi. I don't think she really called it by a name before, guess she just whined for it.
Peckel= Pretzel. This has to be one of the funniest. One of Chris' favorite things to do after school is have a beer and eat some pretzels. She cuddles up with him and nibbles on 'peckels' quite often :)
Keem= Cream, Ice Cream. Just ask Nana about this one :) Just kidding!
Poyey= Potty. Just have to say we are making progress! Apparently she does awesome at school, but not so much at home. Still a long way to go, but we're getting somewhere.

Yes, I think Chris and I are mastering the language of Meredith :) Btw, her 2nd birthday is about 2 weeks away! WOW!

Pictures!

Lots of pictures from over the holidays. Enjoy!

Hello!

It has been entirely too long since I have posted, so I'll try to get caught up without being too boring! I am lying in bed at 9:30 on Friday night (isn't wireless wonderful!) next to my husband who is sawing some serious logs! My goodness our Friday nights are wild and crazy these days!

So, Christmas has come and gone. It was wonderful, but boy am I glad to get back to boring every day life! The weekend before Christmas, we had Chris' mom, step dad, sister and brother in law stay with us for a few days. So we did our Christmas with them and also had his step brothers and their wives over. Then went into Greensboro to have the big family Christmas with his mom's family that Sunday. I have to give huge props to the white elephant this year. In years past, we have had to buy gifts for everyone and it is an utter nightmare. We have resorted to really puny giftcards for the past few years and we come home with some terrible dollar store junk. This year the powers that be in the family finalyl decided to do the white elephant gift exchange and it was fabulous. We still came home with a cheese ball talking Santa, but we will be bringing it back next year. I guess my point is that it shouldn't be ultra stressful to buy gifts since that shouldnt' be the focus of the gathering.

We went to Christmas Eve service, which was just lovely...after Chris took Meredith out and let her run wild in the nursery. I was hoping she would really love all of the music etc of the service, but she just couldn't sit still. She looked just adorable in her beautiful dress and I might even say angelic if you could have gotten her to sit still long enough. I hear this sitting still thing might happen one day....

We did a small family Christmas with just Chris, Meredith and I that morning. Her big gift was an awesome pink tricycle and she was so cute when she saw it. She jumped right on and thought it was pretty cool. Then we went to my parents house for breakfast and stockings. Then we went over to Chris's step-sisters house to have the Elliott Christmas. I thought it was going to be nuts because there are so many kids, but there is also divorce in almost every family, so most of the kids were already off to see their daddys by the time we got over there...interesting stuff on that side of the family :) Meredith got some good time with her great grandparents and her other Nana & Papaw.

Between Christmas Eve and Christmas day, Meredith seemed to develop that cough that whwn you hear it makes you say, "Oh my goodness, that kid needs to go to the doctor!" It was that nasty croupy cough that sounds just terrible. It wasn't ER worthy, so we waited until 12/26 and called our pediatrician and went to their urgent care office in Wake Forest. The doctor saw her for maybe a total of 2.5 minutes and gave us a prescription. The good thing was that Meredith never seemed very bothered by the cough and it disappeared quickly after she got the meds.

We had a short lull for about a day and a half after Christmas until my sister Elizabeth, her husand Chris and her two girls Abigail and Jessica arrived from Michigan. I was very fortunate to have the whole week of Christmas off and didn't go back to work until Jan 2. We had a great time with Elizabeth. Meredith had an even better time with her cousins. They were absolutely wild. We all went to the Angus Barn for dinner the first night and mom kept the girls (she swears she's rather babysit than go with us!). She said that Meredith kept making the other girls dance with her (dancing consists of jumping up and down and waving her arms for the most part!). If one sat down, she'd drag the other one up to dance. Mom said she was just like the energizer bunny. She did not sleep well at all that night and Mom was up with her several times, so we didn't do anymore slumber parties with her cousins after that night.

We did all kinds of fun stuff. We went to the NC Zoo in Asheboro one day. It was really quite warm and we had great views of lots of the animals. I hadn't been there in at least 10 years, if not more, and it was really nice and it wasn't crowded at all. We also did a wine tasting at this little winery right in the middle of RTP, Chatham Hill. We went to JCPenny for a cousin picture. They really do a great job there and all three girls were wonderful. We decided that we just need to stick them in front of a camera to behave! We went to Allison's boyfriend's restaurant one night, Casa Carbone. Unfortunately, restaurants just don't work with Meredith, so we left Casa Carbone early and we left our favorite Chinese restaurant (Imperial Garden) almost as soon as my food arrived. Meredith definitely had me pretty stressed out at times, but overall she just had a blast with her cousins. Side note: They did manage to bring a nasty northern stomach bug with them from Michigan that managed to work it's way through the entire family....thanks!

So, I think that at least covers Christmas. I know I forgot stuff, so I'll post more later. I have lots of new pictures from my awesome new camera that I'll post tomorrow. The camera was Chris and my present to eachother. Now I think it's time to go to sleep :)

Happy Birthday to my Dad & Joey Z!