Poop: Episode 2

We overslept Sunday morning and awoke to Claire's extremely high-pitch screams. We ran into her room and this is what we found:




That's right, Claire was totally butt-naked! She had mostly emptied her dirty clothes basket (by reaching through the slats in her crib) and then she somehow managed to get out of her footie pajamas and out of her poopy diaper and threw both of those onto the pile of clothes. Lucky for us she didn't smear it around like last time. She was sooooo proud of herself; she was smiling, giggling and dancing all over her crib. It was hilarious minus the poop. So Levi got Claire in the bath and I cleaned up the mess. I'm beginning to wonder what this girls fascination is with poop. And we were only 45 minutes late to church, oops!

An Ultimate Poop Story of Our Very Own!

If you easily gag/throw up please do not read this posting. I warned you! Now first off if you have not heard the Burk's (friends in our ward) ultimate poop story you need to ask Jason, it's the most hilarious thing ever! Thankfully ours is no where near that bad! It all started Wednesday morning. I had put Claire down for her nap right about 10. She's been really fighting the morning nap this last week so she was pretty upset. I went and whipped up a cheesecake, tossed it in the oven, and took a shower. After about 45 minutes she was still crying pretty hard so I decided it was probably time to go grab her. I opened the door and the worst smell I have ever laid my nose on hit me like a ton of bricks. And then I saw it. Picture a gory horror movie but exchange the blood for poop and that's what it looked like. Claire had reached through the slats of her crib, pulled her garbage can closer and then grabbed her fresh poopy diaper, unwrapped it out of a little plastic bag, opened it up and went to town. There was poo in her hair, on her face & hands, all over her clothes, her crib, sheet, blankie, stuffed puppy, dirty clothes basket and little chunks had fallen all over the floor. She had even ripped her socks off so the poo had squished between her toes. YUCK YUCK YUCK!!!!!!!!! What's worse is that she loves grapes and for those of you that don't have kids yet, I'll just warn you now-the skins stay together. And even worse than that, she was so stinkin proud of herself. She was smiling from ear to ear and laughing! After I grabbed my jaw off the floor and decided that burning the house down probably wasn't the best idea, my brain started racing a million miles a minute trying to figure out how to clean this up and not have Claire cause any secondary damage. So I grabbed her and undressed her and keeping her as far away as I could, I carried her to the bath. While dressing her I called Levi and asked him to come home and help me and he said "Ummm yeah actually I'm super busy at work but good luck!" Thanks a lot hun! ;) After dressing her I put her down in the living room with some toys, closed her bedroom door and went to work. I used yellow dishwashing gloves (and yes I threw those things in the garbage the second I was done!) and disinfecting wipes. It was so nasty! It took me a good half hour (and who knows how many wipes) but I got it all and thankfully all the stains came out of her clothes. I opened the window and sprayed air freshener but I could still smell it all night! Levi said he couldn't smell it so apparently I just had poo particles stuck in my nose. Ick! Sorry you all had to hear about that, but hey, aren't you glad I didn't take a picture!?

In other, less-disgusting news... I surprised Levi with a little trip on the Mt Hood Railroad for his b-day. He loved it! We boarded the train at 10, stopped for lunch in a little cute town called Parkdale and then got back to Hood River just after 2. It was a beautiful day. Claire was pretty good but got a little crabby toward the end. Luckily I got her to sleep a little after lunch. Levi took some amazing pics. On our way home we stopped at the Vista House, it's just past Troutdale. It had the most amazing view I have ever seen of the gorge. You have to stop next time you're driving by!

Christmas Craziness!

This last week has been absolute craziness! We finally got our tree up on Monday. Our living room is a little more squished than normal but luckily we only have to deal with it for another couple days.

Starting Wednesday I’ve been going into work after Levi gets home. I guess this is the busiest they’ve ever been. That nasty freezing we had a week or two ago has really done some damage to people’s pipes. So I just go in for like 2 hours. It’s kind of nice to get out of the house for a little bit and give Levi and Claire some Daddy-Daughter time. But it’s really hard on days that I haven’t gotten much sleep.

So Thursday I took Claire to the pediatrician. I’ll spare you all of the gory details but she’s still having a hard time going #2. When I called and spoke with the triage nurse the night before she kept asking questions implying that Claire isn’t poohing because she hasn’t gotten enough to eat and that is definitely not the problem. So she was weighed, drum roll please……. 11 lbs 15 ounces! She’s gained 3 lbs in a month! Our doctor was super impressed with her weight gain; she checked her out and said that all was well and that she is just using her food very efficiently. And just so everyone else knows this (because I had no idea) she said that it isn’t uncommon for infants to only go once a week! And she said to be prepared because it’ll be huge; great something to look forward to. ;)

When I got home from work Thursday night Levi had the best surprise ever for me. He had taken Claire to get a picture with Santa. It has got to be the cutest picture ever! I’m still so impressed that he got her all dressed and braved the mall with her. I haven’t even made it to the mall with her yet.

Last night was our little ward Christmas party. It was so wonderful. We go to church with such great people. The talent is amazing; it seems like everybody either plays an instrument or sings beautifully. Well everybody except for Levi and me. Back in the day when I was a teenager, I was dating this guy and we went to his house after our date. His family was very musically inclined and it was around Christmas time. When we got there, his sister was playing the piano and the rest of his family was singing Christmas carols. We joined in and it was really fun. Later, this guy said something along the lines of, “My sister was really impressed that you sang even though your voice isn’t very good.” Ouch, so needless to say I keep my singing to myself now.

Baby Claire loves her little jungle mat (thanks Tia!). I try to put her down on it a couple times a day for some exercise. She is so cute though, she hits the hangy-downy things (I haven’t quite figured out if that’s on accident or if she actually meant to) and then just watches as they swing back and forth. And she’s smiling at us! It is the cutest, toothless smile I have ever seen. It literally just melts my heart!

Well I had better get going, Levi’s family’s Christmas party is in just a couple hours and I’m not even finished getting ready yet.