Easter Bunny or Easter Bug?

Last Sunday we enjoyed celebrating Easter and a beautiful day with my parents and the local faction of my dad’s family. Unfortunately the day ended badly when Agustín, Emilia and I took a walk later that evening and Emilia proceeded to vomit profusely all over herself multiple times. Yuck! Some major clean-up ensued, primarily of Emilia and the stroller. In the end, Agustín ended up actually cutting some of the seams of the stroller cover, pulling out the metal rods, putting the cover through two cycles in the washing machine, then putting the rods back in and sewing it back together. Where do I nominate this man for a Father of the Year award?! (And why aren't strollers made to be more easily washable?!)

Above and below: Emilia shows off two of her gifts from the Easter bunny, a little stuffed bunny and bunny pajamas. She got a big kick out of following the trail of eggs that led from her bedroom down the stairs and to her Easter basket.

Anyway, I initially blamed Emilia’s unsettled stomach on too many Easter sweets. However, the next morning she proved me wrong. We headed to the doctor (where she proved me wrong once more! Thankfully I brought an extra set of clothing), where the expert opinion was that she had “some sort of stomach bug.” Thankfully there was no more vomiting after that morning, but Emilia was totally out of sorts and didn’t eat more than a few bites of yogurt and dry toast, along with her “special medicine juice” (Gatorade to replace electrolytes) until Wednesday evening. She’s still not 100% herself, but we’re getting there.

Above: Enjoying a treat the Easter bunny left her at Yaya and Grandpa's house (which I originally thought might be the culprit for the upset stomach).

Another Easter egg hunt at Yaya and Grandpa's house out in the beautiful sunshine.

It was so nice out that Emilia made her Yaya and great grandma check out the lake with her. She's so excited for summer that she even rolled up her pants and jumped off the floating dock (into six inches of water) despite the fact that the water was freezing.

Above: This is how the poor little sicko spent most of her time this past week.

And here she is, finally feeling a little bit better, and enjoying one of her non-edible Easter treats, fun chick window stickies from "Great Micky."

Florida Revisited

I already posted about our recent vacation to Florida (see March 24 post), but I just got my mom's photos of the trip, so I wanted to post a few of my favorites.

Emilia pets a baby alligator after a tour through the Everglades.

Look, mom! I'm a turtle!

Fun, fun, and more fun at the beach!

Big Girl Transition

With the new baby on the way, it was time to move Emilia into a “big girl” bed. It’s been a work-in-progress for awhile, since we are moving her into a different bedroom and leaving the nursery basically as-is for the new baby. This involved selling two rooms full of furniture (thank goodness for Craig’s List!), moving my office from one of the bedrooms to what was formerly the “formal” living room (I love my new office!), having my uncle John (of Flannery Painting) paint the room a more fun color, and then moving the new furniture (thanks again to Craig’s List) into the new room. Although we’re still working on the final touches, Emilia finally started sleeping in her new “big girl” bedroom last weekend. She was a little hesitant the first two nights, yet did very well, only waking up a little earlier than usual. Now when I tell her it’s time to go to bed, she says, “In my big girl room?” and when I answer, “yes,” she yells, “Yay!” and claps. We’re still putting her down for naps in the crib and will probably continue to do so (or try) until next month, since I’m worried putting her down midday in the big bed will be the end of naps as we know them, which I am not ready to have happen until the end of the semester (at the earliest).

Some of the things Emilia says these days are just hilarious, and I want to share one. While in Florida, I noticed at one point that Agustín had turned his baseball cap backward for some reason (not a normal style for him; it had something to do with convenience). I commented jokingly that he looked like an American (in case anyone reading this isn’t aware, he’s Spanish). Later, when Agustín once again turned his hat backward to get the bill out of the way, Emilia said, “Papa looks like America!” We all cracked up. Then, last week, Emilia and my mom and I went shopping at REI. Emilia latched onto a cute little yellow baseball cap with a pink heart, and easily sweet-talked my mom into getting it for her (it really only takes a smile). But she had no interest in wearing the cap forward. She kept putting it on backward and saying, “I look like America!” Then she added, “Just like Papa!”

A Fish in Florida!

We just returned from a week on Sanibel Island in Florida. My spring break coincided with my mom’s, and she was dying to spend some time at the ocean with her only grandchild, so we headed south with my parents. It was nice to travel and do everything with a four-to-one adult-child ratio—made it much easier to relax, and Agustín and I were even able to go out to dinner alone one night. We took walks on the beach, biked, swam, ate (well!), and went on an airboat ride in the Everglades to see crocodiles.

Emilia makes sure she gets every last lick of ice cream!

Emilia enjoyed catching crabs (well, watching them after someone else took them out of the ocean for her to see; no worries—they were all treated very humanely and all went back to where they came from) and playing in the sand at the beach, but what she loved more than anything else was swimming in the pool. She’s always enjoyed going to the pool, but once there has usually been more interested in playing with the toys than actually swimming. Eventually she’d get in the water and enjoy it, although she didn’t love going under the water too much. But in Florida, where she was in the pool at least once a day, she was a total fish! She was jumping off the edge and going under on her own practically before someone was ready for her to do so, swimming all on her own with a noodle under her armpits, and loving every minute of it. It was so fun to see!

Our little swimmer moves on to diving (well, we still need to work on the form a bit)!


The above two pictures were taken at the house of some family friends that moved to Florida years ago, the Bresnehans.

Going to the Zoo & Going to the Chapel

Just wanted to post a few photos from a recent trip to the zoo, as well as from last Saturday, when Emilia thoroughly enjoyed shopping for a flower girl dress for Tío Jojo and Tara’s wedding.

The look on Emilia’s face (well, the reflection in the mirror) is so sweet in the picture below, although I’m sure it’s hard to see in this small size.

Unique Fashion Sense

Emilia seems to have developed her own unique sense of fashion lately and it quite opinionated when it comes to clothes. Above is an outfit she put together. What was the occasion? A trip to the grocery store….where, I might add, she wore her sunglasses the whole time (which she wanted nothing to do with during the summer sunny months).
And here she is modeling the hula skirt her grandma brought her back from a recent trip to Hawaii. She likes to pull the skirt up under her armpits and declare, “It’s like a bra!”

Again with the sunglasses on a recent trip to the park on a particularly “warm” February day.

The shoes that came with her flamenco dress (which she’s outgrown, much to her dismay) now fit just perfectly, and she can’t get enough of them. She loves the noise they make when she dances around the hardwood floor (she’s even learned to say “hardwood floor”). People sure look at you funny when you go furniture shopping with a two-year-old wearing heels!

With a favorite stuffed animal’s hat and scarf, and her favorite “shiny” purse.

Boy Parts!

It’s a boy! Here’s one of the ultrasound images from my 20-week appointment, which was almost two weeks ago now. The technician hadn’t had the probe thingy on my stomach more than two seconds when he said, “Those are boy parts.” Agustín was still getting situated under the pile that was my winter outdoor wear and purse. “Did you hear what he said?” I asked him. “No. What?” he asked innocently. “He said our baby has boy parts!” That time he got it. It was pretty funny. And sure enough, the “boy parts” were pretty darn clear in the ultrasound. In an effort to not begin embarrassing our son before he is even born though, I won’t post the ultrasound that explicitly points out these “boy parts.”

Emilia understands that mommy has a “big baby boy” (a.k.a. “big baby boy brother”) in her stomach, and she no longer insists that she has a baby in her tummy too. (I hope she’s not demonstrating some type of psychic powers or sisterly intuition with the “big” part, especially since her dad was a ten-pound baby.) Oftentimes, when we ask Emilia “What’s your name?” or “How old are you?” she responds, “I’m a sister!” (her use of the present tense demonstrates she definitely doesn’t get the whole gestational period concept yet). She’s even pointed out that the baby is “Papa’s son,” which took me by total surprise when she said it because I’d only explained this to her once. She likes blowing on my stomach to give her baby brother “zerberts.”

If anyone has baby boy name ideas (only requirement is that they work well—preferably are pronounced very similarly—in English and Spanish), please post them in a comment or e-mail!