I now feel sworn in as a mom...

So, today started like any normal day. Sloane wakes up at 5:30am, I get her up, bring her downstairs, give her a bottle (I know, I know - we're working on that) and doze until she's done. We play for awhile, and Paige makes an appearance around 6:30am. This is usually when my day starts to get "dramatic". Anyway. Around 7:15am Sloane decides to try and poke her sister's eye out and almost succeeds. Paige starts crying - I reprimand Sloane and comfort Paige. 30 minutes later she is STILL sobbing. Oh, and Sloane has decided to join in. Around 8am I called the eye doctor because she is still crying and says she can't open her eye. They tell me to put a cold compress on it and wait until 11am. They probably figured she might be doing an attention-getting scheme (I honestly thought that, as well). She asks to go back to bed (!) and sleeps for almost an hour. She wakes up around 9am screaming her bloody head off. Evidently, her eye was not feeling better. So I call the eye doc and tell them I'm bringing her in. Of course, they don't have an appointment until 10. So I show up at 9:30. :) Paige was sobbing and I felt horrible for her.

So, the eye doctor puts those numbing drop in (tease) and Paige feels fine for the exam. Turns out the surface is scratched (ugh) and the doc turns to me and says "hmm, looks like you're in for a long day". Gee, thanks. The drops are wearing off and Paige starts sobbing again. Thankfully, Sloane is being an angel in her stroller. Right now, anyway. We walk out with a hug and a prescription from the doc.

I drive to Safeway to get the med filled...and of course they don't have it. They call next door, and thankfully, they do have it in stock. So, we walk next door. I couldn't get to the pharmacy down the first aisle I walked down because it was blocked at the end. This is when I start to get stressed out. I make it to the pharmacy. I've never filled anything there, so of course it takes forever to do the insurance crap. Paige and Sloane are now both screaming. It's 10:40am. The lady tells me it will be about 30 minutes. OK, so I lose it a little. I won't quote myself. So we walk around Rite Aid for a minute, but Sloane just wants to grab everything. So, I decided we'd just sit in the waiting chairs and they could listen to my children wail. So we did. And they did. Surprisingly, I had her medicine within 10 minutes :)

We somehow make it back to the car - Paige still screaming. We make it home, she goes straight to bed. I somehow get the eye drops in her eye and give her Tylenol Cold to get her to sleep. Oh come on, you've done it at least once. Then, I cheated and gave Sloane another bottle and made her go to bed, too. *sigh* Today has royally sucked, and it's not even lunchtime.

Oh, and I was supposed to be "kidless" today - Sheena was going to watch them for about 4 hours.

But you know what, I still wonder what I'd ever do without my kids.

Sloane's 1st 4th :)

We had a great 4th of July. It wasn't too hot, and the thunderstorms came and went quickly. We joined our friends for a tailgating, "fair" type celebration in The Plains, Virginia. Sloane was a trooper...slept for maybe an hour all day and still stayed up until 8pm or so. I don't have pictures of Paige at the moment, but my friend took some and I'll post those when I can.

Belated Fair Pictures

The whole family went to the Fairfax Fair a couple of weekends ago. We figured we go for a couple of hours...ended up staying 5! Only got to stay that long because Sloane is a little trooper. She even took a nap! Paige had a great time. She went on a "roaster-coaster" all by herself. Since this, Paige spent several days at Busch Gardens with Poppy and Grammy. She ran them ragged...and had a blast. Thank goodness we have a roller-coaster girl! :)

New pics

Sloane's getting quite the personality... and ADORES Paige.

Paige's new "do"

Her summer cut :) It's just like Katie's...so it's ok.

Cute Sloane Video

Hopefully this shows up... at dinner last night, Paige had Sloane cracking up. I had a cute video of that, too, but thought this one of her talking and shaking her head was cuter. She's getting quite the personality! Hope everyone is well!

New pics...

Just posting some pics from April. Sloane and Paige are doing very well. Sloane is growing like a weed...she may catch up to Paige yet! She prefers any table food over baby food. Last night she had pork chops, black beans, corn and potatoes for dinner! Paige is doing well in school and enjoying her gymnastics class. Keep your eyes peeled for a possible ending to the Cowan Housing Journey. :)
Oh - a brief explanation of pictures. Doug & Paige going to the store for breakfast in pajamas; Paige wearing a hat on our Claude Moore Colonial Farm day; Paige in her new dress going to school; Paige mauling Sloane...again

Toofs and stuff :)

Just some new pics...mostly of Sloane. I think I feel guilty for not taking pictures of her, that now I ONLY take pictures of her! Poor Paige :) Yea, right.

Sloane is crawling!

The child started crawling just before 5 months. She's now EVERYWHERE and climbing EVERYTHING. It's hilarious to watch her. Here are some pics...I also threw in some cute ones from this month.

PAIGE

Thought I'd devote an entry to our eldest. This is Paige and Daddy playing in our first snow! The other picture is of Katie and Paige...evidently during playdates they like to pretend they live an entire day. Which includes dressing in pajamas and going to sleep. Whatever :)

Three pictures way too cute to pass up posting...

Sloane in her Guns 'n Roses onesie one of Doug's colleagues gave us. And Sloane finally enjoying some sweet taters! And another cute one in Daddy's hat just for fun...

Be prepared...many Christmas pictures to follow!!

Wow, what a wonderful Christmas weekend! So many nice things happened. Erika and her baby Abigail came over for a visit...that's the baby with Sloane below. We had a yummy Christmas Eve dinner with mom, dad, Carrie, Kofi and us...I made lamb for the first time and I thought it turned out great! Paige had a blast Christmas morning. We were at our house in the morning and then went to Grandma Carrie's in the afternoon. Paige got to open Sloane's gifts, too, so it was doubly fun. I'm sure next year will be even more exciting with Sloane moving around! Thank you everyone for all the spectacular gifts. I will send notes and pictures to each of you...at least in the next month :) Hope everyone had a Merry Christmas!!!!

Sloane & Cereal

She hasn't quite gotten the hang of it...but she laughed the whole time :)

Turkeys, tonsilitis and teeth...

We had a very nice Thanksgiving at the beach. Sloane and I left early Wednesday morning (after I went to the emergency care to get drops for the 'red eye' that I woke up with) and had zero traffic. We only had to detour for about 30 minutes to get around flooding at the beach. Doug, Grandma Carrie and Paige were supposed to follow a couple of hours later, but were detained by flooding (I told them to wait) and 95 S traffic. They arrived around 1am and everyone was happy. However, Wednesday night I started feeling really sick. I made it out of bed to eat some turkey (mom made a fabulous Tday dinner) and talk to my brother (thanks for calling, Tim!) and was back in bed until I was taken to the doctor on Friday morning (thanks, Dad). After waiting three hours (one doctor on duty) he didn't know if I had an infection or a virus - so he gave me a zpac to try and cover all of the bases. Oh, and some painkillers that worked like a champ. I remained in bed until Saturday morning when Doug drove his girls home. My 104 fever raged on until sometime in the night and so far I'm feeling better. I'm supposed to meet a girlfriend in Atlanta this weekend (without kids!) so keep your fingers crossed that my health does not deteriorate. We've been planning this since May! Anyway, I'm rambling. Here are some pics. Mom probably has some from T-day...I didn't take any. Hope everyone is well. Thanks to mom and dad for hosting a sick daughter and a teething baby...oh, did I forget to mention that Sloane is cutting her two front teeth!?!?!? And she also rolled over this weekend. Such a big girl.

Daddy & Daughter

Some cute pics of Doug with the girls. Yes, I know, I need to take some with them, too. Also a cute pic of Paige reading to Sloane.