Fun Miscellany

Okay, I'm still on my Holy Week/Confirmation/Easter hangover (of the sober variety, of course), so there will not likely be any rhyme or reason to this post (and you'll be lucky if you get complete sentences), but there's a lot going on to mention here.  So, in no particular order:

Easter!  Thanks to Grandma and Granddaddy Speas, Becca got to come to church for the first part of the Easter service!  Mom was worried about bringing her even for that part - because she tends to be noisy - but I assured her that there was no way that she would be heard over the band.  Am I right, Bethpagers?  We've got some serious volume on Sunday mornings - at least at 8:30.  So mom and dad brought her a little before the service started so that folks could see our adorable little curiosity and then took her home before the sermon so that she could nap.  We're trying to teach her that napping during the sermon is impolite.  ;)  And thanks to Nana Dana, Becca was all dolled up, complete with matching bloomers and bonnet.  I love that the hat barely fits her when everything else is big because her head is nearly a full size ahead of her body.  Too funny.   Here she is:



And here's all three of us.  Please ignore the circles under our eyes.  It was a long week.  ;)  By the way, this was my second Easter outfit.  The first one got soaked when I baptized 5 youth - by immersion!



Becca got her LAST Synagis shot today!  Hooray!  These are the wicked-expensive shots that are supposed to minimize the danger of an RSV infection if she were to get the virus, but so far, we haven't had to put them to the test, thank goodness.  RSV season runs October through April here, so she's home free until next fall, when she will likely qualify for the shots (and the RSV house arrest that goes with them) for another year.  I say she's home free until the fall, but I just mean that she's free of the Synagis shots.  While the RSV risk decreases dramatically here in the summer, it doesn't go away, as my sweet nephew Taylor knows (he caught it in August!), so we'll still be vigilant about the hand-washing and (when in public) hand-swatting-awaying, but she is getting to go out a little bit.  We actually went out to dinner on Sunday night even though we were still full from the yummy meal that my mom had made because I love to eat out and we figured the crowds would be pretty nonexistent on Easter night.  We were right, and even though I didn't like my food, John and I had a great time playing trivia at BW-3's, and Becca loved staring at all of the many, many t.v.'s they had on.  But back to the shot.  The nurse who came to the house today was the same nurse who gave Becca the first Synagis shot she got at home in November.  This particular nurse hadn't been back since, and we figured out that at 11 pounds, 6 ounces, Becca was fully twice as big as she was the last time Kathy saw her.  Wow! 

We had some crazy Tennessee weather this weekend.  For those of you who aren't local, Tennessee actually gets quite a few tornados this time of year, and sometimes they can be really bad.  I remember the week before we moved to Brentwood, when I was in 3rd grade, tornados came through on Christmas Eve, I think.  I say I remember, but I didn't live here and was only in 3rd grade anyway, so go with my fuzzy recollections of the stories.  Then when I was a senior in high school - and this one I remember - tornadoes ripped through downtown Nashville, doing quite a bit of damage.  Ron got us youth together, and we helped clean up Tulip Street UMC.  And somebody brought us amazing cheesecake from the Fatherland Street Bakery.  Good times.  And then last year (again, before I moved here), there were some terrible tornadoes that hit our little community, though most of the damage was to the neighboring communities.  Our church was a disaster relief distribution/organization site.  I'm sorry that I missed seeing our church in action like that!  But we probably had enough drama of our own this time last year.  Okay, I know we did.  So, anyway, we get tornadoes and they can be pretty bad.  Well, some hit on Friday (which made for very cool ambiance at the Good Friday service), and mom and Becca crawled into the bathtub to wait them out.  They missed us, thankfully, but thank goodness mom is as concerned as I am and had my little one tucked in the tub with her!  Dad was on dog and weather tracking patrol, so they had the situation under control.  Here's what I came home to:



Becca is not a fan of having the sun in her eyes, and she's going to the beach this summer (and she just has a mom who thinks kids should be outside as much as possible), so I found these adorable sunglasses for her.  They came with the headband and some hairbows.  I'm not sure what I think about the headband, as I've always been opposed to them, but it may not be an issue much longer - check out the second picture below.  She really seemed to like the glasses - she took them off a couple of times to chew on them, but then she left them on and just kept playing.  Too cute.



[caption id="attachment_273" align="aligncenter" width="500" caption="She's getting hair!"][/caption]

One positive thing about being the mother of a micro-preemie is that you don't take anything with your baby for granted.  I mean, yes, I whine some days when she doesn't nap and all, but in general, there are a lot of things that are just h0-hum and expected for "regular" babies that are way more exciting for Becca.  (More on this another day.)  I almost cried when I caught this picture:



Do you see her left hand?  On the little spinny wheel?  Doesn't it make you cry, too?  This exersaucer came from our wonderful, fabulous EI teacher, Cindy.  One of the challenges that we've been running into is that Becca doesn't fit the toys that are developmentally appropriate for her.  For example, she wasn't able to reach the dangley things (wow, I'm eloquent tonight) on her bouncy even though she was able to focus and intentionally reach for and bat at things.  So we've had to adapt.  But here is proof that she has finally grown into her exersaucer!  (Well, kind of.  She can only reach about half the things, but it's progress.)  She LOVES spinning this little wheel.  It made me so happy to see something cooperating for her when she's been trying so hard!  Thanks, Cindy!

Okay, just a few more quick ones:

Here's Becca doing her Daddy impression, complete with sweet potato red beard:



Twins, right?  The great news is that we finally got some of those sweet potatoes IN her!  And she's eaten nearly a jar of pears today!  This is a HUGE step!  We've been struggling with solid food for over 3 months now, and she's finally getting the hang of it!   Can't wait to give her chocolate ice cream!

Here's an example of our passing on our issues to our children.  Thus begins Becca's addiction to board games:



She was very interested in Daddy's cards, but refused to tell me what they were.

And just to prove that I do exist (because all the pictures seem to be Becca and John!):



And to compare her size to her early tub pictures:

 

 



 See, she's a "tubby" girl! HAHAHAHAHAHA!!!

Wow.  On that note, I'm going to bed.  G'night!

Oh!  It's not too late to contribute to Becca's Team's March for Babies!  Visist www.marchforbabies.org/BeccaHill !