Shot Day...

This week we got to experience what all of you Mom's already have gone through and might empathize with (hopefully) and you Mom's to be will realize soon enough.  First off I have to say I have one of the most amazing children.  She is always smiling, talking and just living her little life as enjoyable as she can.  We really have not had to ward off bad moods or the 'what is wrong with my child, she will not stop crying' scenario.  

Let me give you a play by play of how our day went.  We head to the immunization clinic both happy, smiley and ready to get her shots.  One piece of advice though, do not plan to go get your child's shots the week before school starts as EVERY child on base in waiting in line to get there's as well.  Anywhoo, we get in the room and the very nice nurse starts to talk to Addison about how she is the bad guy, not Mom, it will be over really quick, what a nice day it is outside, etc.... BUT who is the child looking at while the nice nurse lady is pricking her....MOM, so who do you think she is thinking is the bad guy!  Anyway, this is a quick preview of how you can go from happy to sad in the matter of two seconds. Addison is in mid smile looking at me, to a open mouth, closed eyed, red faced SCREAM! Although it took about five seconds for the scream to get out of her mouth, it still made it out. All I can think is to grab my child off the table and comfort her, but the nice nurse lady is still pricking my child as she is screaming like someone is twisting her arm off. So it is finally over (in reality it only took about 30 seconds for the shots) and I get to pick up Addison while she is still red faced and mad.  I start to soothe her and walk around the room we are in when I get the look from the nurse like...'did you not see ALL of the children I need to prick today, you are done, now please leave'.   So, I grab all of our things while Addison is crying at this point, no longer screaming thankfully.  As soon as I get in the hallway I see about 10 sad pale faces of the school aged children, and then I look at the parents faces and they are fuming as I am sure they just got done telling their children 'it won't hurt, you will not feel a thing!'  

After about five minutes Addison is calmed down and hanging out in her car seat like the sweet happy girl I know she is.  On the drive home, I thought, o.k. we got past that hurdle, now onto the rest of the day...ohh boy how naive I am right!  We get home, Addison gets fed and falls asleep.   While she is sleeping I am getting things done around the house and then from the crib I hear the WORST high pitched scream I think any parent should hear and then it gets higher and faster.  I run over scoop her up thinking....bad dream? Wet diaper?  NO the SHOTS!  I try shushing her, bouncing her, walking with her, feeding her, changing her diaper, ALL while she is continuing to scream.  Finally I remember I bought tylenol just for this occasion, let me tell you, I do not think I cursed at a bottle of medicine more than I did at this bottle.  I am all for child proofing medicine, but COME ON!  Do they not realize some parents might be in a state of stress while trying to open the package.  In the middle of this scenario, if you already have a mental picture, the phone rings.  For some crazy reason I answer it just knowing it was going to be Dad, sure enough it was Dad (thankfully, because I can not image what someone else would think with a child screaming in the background and a stressed sounding Mom on the other line).  I have to tell you too, Brad was gone on a TDY this week, so no quick run home to help with Addison, I asked him to call back in a few minutes. I finally get the package open and the instructions say under 2 years of age, consult doctor , so I look on the many papers the nurse gave me and they have a picture of a dropper and all is says is half dropper full.  O.k, for a NEW Mom, FIRST time shots AND use of medicine for the first time, ALL they are going to give me is a picture and say 'half a dropper'.  All of these questions start shooting through my mind, while my child is still screaming mind you, what if this dropper is bigger than what the dropper in the picture is, what if I give her too much, I need amounts people, AMOUNTS, ml, tblsp, tsp, ya know....something other than 'Half a dropper full'!!  After realizing I was thinking WAY too hard on this, I finally gave her some tylenol and after about ten minutes she started to calm down and was asleep in my arms.  WOW is all I can say for that.  

Brad called back, I can not image what was going through his mind.  All I can say is he is amazing even from Korea. He talked me through all what had happened and helped me realize, no I did not overdose our child, no she is not going to remember what had just happened, etc.  Thanks Brad, even from far away you know what to do!

So, if any of you have fun first shot stories, or even just 'crazy freak out Mom stories',  I would love to hear about them! Mostly so I can realize I am not the only one this happens to and I am very normal in my reactions to my child screaming her cute little head off!  

Enjoy a picture of the happy, smiley girl we know and love!  Addison, we are glad you are feeling better!    

A Day at the Beach

This weekend we ventured out for a day in the sand and sun.  Our first attempt was to board a ferry boat to the Kerama Islands with our car in tow.  Low and behold our forgetfulness of living on the island of Okinawa and the fact we do not speak Japanese was in full effect.  After trying to call in to reserve a spot for our car and all the gentlemen on the other line would say was "Moshi Moshi" which means 'hello' I knew we would not be getting a reservation over the phone.  Strike ONE!  We head to the port thinking we could just go up to the counter to get our tickets, sounds simple enough....nope...same situation, no English speaking staff (which is something I know I have taken for granted everywhere we go).  So we did not end up getting on the ferry. Strike TWO!  Since we were packed for a full day out we decided to continue to drive to the Southern part of the island to one of the local beaches.  As we were pulling up to the gates, they were all closed up and no one in site. Strike THREE!  This was a little odd being as it was summer and a beautiful day, but then I remembered the locals were celebrating what they call Oban.  This is where they have festivals and music to celebrate the spirits of the dead and to call off the bad spirits.  On most beaches, the Japanese stay away from the water during this festival because they believe that bad spirits try to come out from the water.  So us being the Americans that we are head to another site that is open and set up camp.  There were local nationals that were at the beach having fun so we were not crushing any 'spirits' enjoying the beautiful day.   Addison enjoyed the day, or so we think,  I mean what better excuse to be naked all day than at the beach!  As you can tell by the last photo she could not keep her eyes open and kept passing out on Dads lap.  All in all a successful day out and we hope to enjoy a few more as our time here is on count down. 

My Room

     

            

 

                          

Here are some pictures of my room requested by my Grandma.  As you can see Mom was prepared for both a boy or a girl.  I am super excited that my bookshelf is getting so full.  Mom has already been reading me my books and I love to listen to her, although I am not all interested in looking at the pictures quite yet.  I do enjoy sleeping in my crib, it is so quiet and comfy.  Now, Mom wanted me to let you know that the walls in our house are all cement.  To put a hole in the wall you need a fancy tool called a hammer drill, which while she was pregnant with me she was not able to use, so putting things up on the walls stood for a challenge.  Thank goodness for velcro!  As you can see, she made these cool panels with fabric that I can stick all of my future artwork on to display proudly.  She hung my shelves with some fun fabric and decorated some numbers to help me start to learn to count.  I do love my room.  I will be sad to leave it, but can not wait to see what we can do with a little more pink at our next house. Thankfully my Aunt Becca, Uncle Matt and cousins Morganne and Jack started me off right with my door hangar which I display proudly.  

That's what She said.....

So here she is, at it again. She is a morning person, thankfully Mom is too.  Here she is telling us all about how life is for her in her own little world.  Don't you just want to know what she is saying!  I love every jabber!

Enjoy it as much as we do~

Rookie Diaper Day

Well, now that we're officially past 1 month of life, one might think I'd have figured out at least one of the basics of being a dad.  Turns out Saturday was my rookie diaper day...  

Ever wonder why baby poop is neon yellow/brown? My belief is it's so I can see all the places I've managed to wipe it like random places on Addison, my white T-shirt, the changing pad (you get the picture).  Clearly I've got some techniques I need to work on in the poo-management area.  I also re-taught myself why you have to have the fresh diaper in place before you throw away the old one.  As I turned away to the trash can, I looked back at Addison and noticed the bum I had so methodically cleaned was not quite as clean as I had left it - somehow in less than 2 seconds, urine now covered my child, the back of her outfit, and the changing pad...  I guess that's why there's laundry though eh?  

In other news, although Ang has done a great job updating the blog, a few of you have noticed she hasn't posted many pictures of herself.  Here's a few to enjoy:

    

Play Date

                                      

                                          

Meet our friend Luke Williams. He belongs to our good friends Jacqi and Andy.   Luke is 3 months older than Addison and she has a lot to learn from him.  He can already hold his head up as you can see, he is starting to roll over, and he is a master at drooling.  Addison was trying to tell Luke all about how things were on her end the whole time, just jabbering away while as you can see from the look on Luke's face,... it is o.k. Luke, we do not understand her either!