Where did the last month go?

I can't believe it's been almost a month since the last post. There doesn't seem to be much "free" time anymore now that Ben's in school and then last weekend when I thought I finally had time to do a post, my computer died. It's fixed now, Ben's downstairs studying for a big test and Georgia is napping so I'll try to get caught up on the past month. I'll start with an update on Ben. The past 3 weeks he's had a LOT of tests and has 2 more this week. He studies from the time he gets home till he falls asleep and wakes up at 4:30 a.m. to study a couple more hours before he has to get ready to leave for class. All that work has really paid off. Every night he comes home and tells me he got a 92%, 94%, 98%, etc on his test from the day before. He's aced all of them and each time there's only 2-3 people who scored higher than him or the same as him so I think that puts him in the top 5 of his class or somewhere around there. He's made a lot of friends and is really enjoying what he's learning. Even though he's taking 36 hours of very intensive classes, surprisingly he's not stressed at all...a nice change from the construction business.

Trying to give an update on Georgia is a little harder b/c it's tough to remember what all has happened in the past month. I'll start with the past 2 weeks since those are fresher in my mind. I was thinking the other day that when she was little and she had a "first", it was an exciting, proud moment...first smile, first tooth, first word. Now that we're past all those milestones, her "firsts" aren't exactly proud and exciting. In the last 2 weeks she's had 3 "firsts"...first time to put corn up her nose (2 pieces in one nostril), first time to bite a kid at daycare, and first time to vomit in mommy's car.

Now that I'm VERY familiar with the warning signs of her ear infections, I'm quick to react. Last weekend Georgia spent some time outside enjoying the nice weather and, like most people would, got a little bit of a runny nose the next day. I instantly thought I better keep an eye on her because the slightest runny nose always turns into an ear infection. That night she didn't want to go to bed and woke up 3 times crying. I took her to the doctor the next day and sure enough, she already had an ear infection. On the drive there she was coughing and I figured it was just from drainage and didn't worry much. When I parked the car at the doctor's office I turned around just in time to see her cough and vomit bright orange drink, completely soaking her shirt and pants and car seat. I grabbed a clean diaper to try to clean her off and she started vomiting more so I opened the diaper and caught the next 3 rounds that came out of her. Now normally I'm not a litter-er but I must admit that I did something I wasn't too proud of. I left an orange vomit filled diaper and multiple orange stained baby wipes in the parking lot of the doctor's office. I didn't want to lay them in my car and I couldn't leave Georgia alone to run them to a trash can. I called the office and told them what happened and they said to clean her up and bring her in so I stripped all her clothes off and put her cousin's size 3 shirt on that I fortunately had in the car. She was so happy to have a dry, warm shirt on. She never threw up again so I guess it was just the drainage. The lesson I've learned from this is to always keep a towel, trash bag and an extra set of clothes in the car....just in case.

Georgia's vocabulary keeps growing. After next week when she turns 18 months, I probably will stop keeping track of her new words. It's too hard to remember because they're more frequent now. The lady from Parents as Teachers said to keep a record of them and how many words she has at each month so we know how she's doing developmentally but now she's at the age where it doesn't matter so much. What I've been fascinated with recently is how she's starting to sing and remember parts of songs. Whenever she tells me "up-a high" this means she wants to sing Twinkle, twinkle, little star because she likes the part that goes "up above the world so high" or when she says "hoorah, hoorah" she wants to sing The Ants go Marching One by One (hoorah, hoorah). She also chimes in on Away in a Manger. She gets so proud of herself when she's able to sing with me. She really loves music, all kinds. But her "happy song" is an oldie by REO Speedwagon, "Roll with the Changes". At daycare there's a boy in 1st grade who goes to the daycare to wait for the school bus and Georgia sits in the truck with him and the daycare lady. Every morning they listen to this song and Georgia gets SOOOO happy. If she doesn't get to hear her song she gets grumpy and tells them no, no, no until they put her song on and then she instantly snaps into her happy mode.

Georgia loves to pretend to read. She uses the same inflection in her voice that we do when we read to her. Her favorite book is Mr. Brown Can Moo Can You? She knows the sounds on all the pages...Moo, tick tock, Boom Boom, Splat, Bzzz, and on the page where Mr. Brown can sound like a cork, she puts her finger in her cheek and tries to make the "pop" sound, like a cork.