Welcome home!

Last night, Sasha and her dad returned home from their Montana trip. They had a layover flight in Denver. Apparently she slept their first leg of their airplane trip. She made a little friend on the second flight with a little girl that was about the same age.
I was scheduled to work during the night, so my husband arranged for a taxi to take them home from the airport. But fortunately the guys at work let me come back home to see my family, and I am very grateful.
I waited in front of the house for their taxi to arrive. When it did, my husband did not see me because he was busy paying the fare, however Sasha noticed me. The moment she saw me, she started chanting "MAMA! MAMA! MAMA!" and got louder and louder. She was squirming in her car seat, trying to get out. My husband let her out of her seat and she nearly jumped out of his arms into mine. She gave me the biggest hug ever. It was such a big hug and she didn't stop for several minutes. She stayed in my arms and let me carry her upstairs.
As we walked inside, Sasha kept looking around at everything. I could tell she remembered everything but she was still examining everything like it was all new again. She had to run around the house and rediscover everything. Re-examine. For some reason, she took great fascination in her little potty chair. She sat on it several times, grunted, wiped herself with toilet paper, and carried her toilet around the house everywhere.
I had purchased her a new bed. Well, the bed itself wouldn't fit in the car, but I got the mattress and all the bedding, so I set the mattress up on the floor for her, and sometime later I can figure out how to get the bed frame home. She investigated that and gave it her approval.

At Grandma's house, Sasha had a well established routine for the past few months. Now her routine was interrupted with new people and new surroundings. Bedtime was difficult for her. She cried herself to sleep while laying on her dad's chest, and then transitioned into her new bed. She slept soundly the whole night. She usually does a lot of night waking but strangely she didn't wake up for her usual drink of water/milk/juice at all.

Weight Gain! Finally!

I thought I'd report that Sasha is doing much better with the eating recently and has gained much weight! 2 extra pounds in the last month, which is major. She hasn't had that kind of growth since she was 9 months old. She's even starting to get some chubby thighs again.
Lately especially, she's been eating a lot. When there is rice on the table, she gladly has many helpings. She always did like rice.
She hasn't put on much height but so long as she's getting the calories and nutrition she needs, I'm sure that'll come along with time. From what I can see on the WHO.org child growth charts, she is definitely climbing her way back up the weight charts.
I do put caution in the fact that she was weighed on a home scale, but she's been weighed consistantly on that same scale, and that scale has slowly recorded a 2lb increase. Small victories.
Her grandma has also discovered that Sasha has a weakness for prime rib. She has, on multiple occasions, put away an adult sized portion of prime rib in one sitting.

Virgo Tales

It seems that Virgo children are very particular about how thing should be. I thought I'd share some recent Virgo child stories.

My mother-in-law, Carol, and Sasha share the same birthday. Therefore they are both Virgos, and the two of them share more personality traits with each other than with anyone else. My mother-in-law told me a story about how particular she was when she was a young virgo child, about Sasha's age. Little Carol went to an aunt's house to visit, and at her aunt's house, they had a wall that you could run in circles around. There were some throw rugs on the floor around this wall. Her aunt thought it was funny that if they flipped the corner of the rug up, it would drive little Carol nuts and she had to flip it back to normal. So the aunt would keep going from rug to rug, flipping the corners up, and little Carol would run around fixing them.
This week, the family went to visit the same aunt at the same house. This time, when they flipped the corners of the rug up, it was Sasha who was driven nuts by the improper corner placement of the rugs. Sasha ran around, just like her grandmother had 50 years earlier, from rug to rug, putting all the rug corners back in their place. So picky!

Another cute example. Sasha was playing in the kitchen of her grandma's restauraunt, and her grandma gave her a bucket of water to play with, thinking she'd probably stir the water with a spoon or maybe splash around in it. Nope. Sasha ran to the clean dishrags, grabbed a rag, and used the bucket of water and rag to wash windows.
She just loves to cook and clean.

I think I've already mentioned in a previous post about how particular Sasha was when she got her new little toddler bed. She spent hours arranging the pillows and blankets just so. She knew it was her bed and she wanted it just right. She had no problems sleeping in it even from the first night.

A little more time

Today, Sasha and her Daddy would have been arriving home this evening. However, Sasha and my husband are doing so well out by his mother's house that they decided they wanted to stay out there a little longer.
So in a week, after Cassie is done with school and her birthday party, Cassie and I will head out that way to meet them. Then we'll have a two week vacation all together. And we will return home together. We were planning on having a family vacation together out west anyways so we just bumped it up a bit. That gives Sasha and my husband three more weeks to visit with his family and take care of family matters.
Sasha and my husband have both had chronic troubles with eating, weight, and lack of appetite. They both have increased appetites and have gained necessary weight while they've been gone. The trip has been good for their health. Therefore it's for their best interest that they stay out there a little longer. Although I know the environment has a lot to do with it, perhaps I can pick up a few tips and tricks on how to keep those two picky eaters fed.

I have missed my daughter and husband terribly. I know I should be trying to relax and maybe enjoy some down time, but I can't. I yearn to hold my baby again and can not relax until I am reunited with her. She is in my every thought and even in my dreams.

Fussy girl

Today, my husband reports that Sasha was a fussy little wookie all day. She didn't sleep well last night and kept waking him up. I know she still has another tooth coming in soon so I have asked him to check her gums where her next tooth should be coming in to see if it's swollen or red.
Grandma offered to close her restauraunt to help my husband with the fussy toddler, but fortunately he was able to talk her out of it. It was sweet that she offered. Sasha was crying and yelling all day, and it did wear on my husband. Once Grandma came home, she relieved my husband and patiently cared for Sasha. My husband and mother-in-law are so very patient with Sasha.
Even when Sasha was sick, she was in good spirits until today. Fortunately, everyone out there has seen how good tempered Sasha normally is and understand that she isn't normally like this without reason.

All Better

Sasha is better today. My husband says she has shaken whatever it was that was making her sick and is mostly back to normal. She ate about 1/2 cup of cheerios. She was begging her grandma for some cheese out of the refridgerator when she got a glimpse of it. And she's been drinking her milk. My husband was nervous giving her dairy so soon after her illness, but she insisted.

She was being very cute. Apparently on a car ride back from town, she wanted out of her car seat, so she kept asking my husband "up? up?". He told her that she could get up as soon as they were back home. When they were driving up the driveway, my husband pointed out the three horses. He asked her "What do horses say?". She looked him dead in the eye and calmly told him, "up". Either horses say "up", or she was making a point, but either way she wasn't messing around.
When I called, Sasha was sitting in her grandma's lap, playing with a telephone. She did come on the line to chat with me on the telephone for a bit.

Years of carrying a growing baby around has taken it's toll on my husband's back, so fortunately he saw a chiropractor today. I am glad for that as he says he did get some relief.

Sick on vacation

Sasha got sick. Fortunately she is in good hands.
From what I am told, she was fine all day yesterday. My husband, Sasha, and his family went out to the city to a restauraunt and she ate some macaroni and cheese. But afterwards, she started throwing up. She spent most of the night sick and vomiting.
By the morning, they decided to be cautious and take her to the hospital to be checked out. She did have a fever but it did not seem to be anything very serious.
She has been very cuddly and sleepy. So long as my husband keeps holding and snuggling with her, she has been okay. My husband says she grabs his hand and puts it to her face, then hugs his hand to keep it there securely. She also pets him behind his neck to reassure him. She also cuddles with her grandma when she can.

My husband thinks that she will be back to normal by tomorrow morning, so perhaps it's a 24 hour stomach bug. She seems to be showing signs of getting better. They have been giving her pedialyte, and she has actually been drinking good quantities of it. He gave her some carmel popcorn and she nibbled on a piece and kept it down. Tomorrow he will see if she can tolerate some mild foods.

I am worried for her, but like I said, she is in good hands and I know she is being taken care of. I wish I could be there for her.

Fun at Grandma's

One of the myriad of reasons my husband and Sasha had to go out west to see his family was the high school graduation of my husband's cousin, Sarah. Sarah lives with my husband's mother and is like a daughter to my mother in-law. The high school graduation was yesterday. My mother in law does catering so she catered about 50-some people afterwards for the graduation party.
In all that activity, Sasha had a great time. Things out in the rural lands are much different than the big city. For starters, people actually say hi to her. And when she does cute things for strangers, the strangers pay attention to her. So she is just eating up all the attention she is getting from so many people. Unlike the cold city where everyone is so self absorbed that they don't pay any mind to cute little babies who are trying to smile, wave, and be cute to get attention.
Sasha and her grandma's dog, Jack, are getting along great. She's already saying his name very clearly.
She's been eating well and sleeping well. Grandma stopped at a Costco before Sasha arrived and purchased Sasha's required chocolate milk boxes, since she is so addicted to those. That helped the transition. So long as Sasha has a parent and her chocolate milk boxes, she's fine.

Sasha's doing great. It's mama that's worried.
I miss Sasha terribly. The house feels so empty without her.
Sometimes, the silence gets to me, and I forget that Sasha is gone. I think to myself, "It's too quiet! I bet Sasha's into some trouble," and I turn around to look for her, expecting her to be coloring on the walls or into my knitting. But then I remember she's not here. Other times, I think to myself, "I should go wake Sasha up from her nap", again forgetting that no, Sasha is not just in the other room napping, but she is not home. My mind is having troubles grasping the concept.
I can put sharp pointy objects down on tables, and a toddler won't come right behind me to play with it. But I forget that I can do this now. If I have some scissors in my hand, I still think to myself that I had better set them down somewhere high up so that little hands can't reach them. I suppose it's alright to keep that habit. She won't be gone forever.

I've been way to oversensitive about everything. I tried to watch the television to keep my mind off of things. Coincidentally, the worst news stories pop up and make me cry. I saw a horrible news story about the earthquake in China. A couple had a 22 month old baby boy that the mother had just left at home with her inlaws to babysit while she went to work, when the earthquake struck. The couple had toiled for two days to try to get excavation equipment to their high-rise apartment building for a rescue attempt. They had lived on the fourth floor so their apartment was buried. They were hoping to find their child and parents alive, but alas after 8 hours of digging, they found their bodies. I was a mess the rest of the day crying over that. I just kept thinking about Sasha and how that would absolutely devastate me if anything like that happened. Ugh, it's horrible.
But no matter what channel I changed to, there was some horrible story on that made me think about or worry about my daughter. So I've had to limit my television exposure to the weather channel. Apparently it was in the 90s where Sasha is, but it was only in the 40s and 50s here :)

Vacation

Airport Bye-bye

Sasha and my husband have left for their vacation. They will be visiting Sasha's grandma for two whole weeks. I just spoke with my husband, and their plane just landed safely, thank goodness. I was so nervous for them.

My husband said she did amazingly well on her plane trips. They had a three hour layover in Minneapolis and spent most of that going back and forth on those moving sidewalk thingies. Sasha is now a pro at hopping on and off those things. They'd hop on a moving sidewalk going one way, then after they got off, they'd turn around and go the other way.

Sasha should have a great time on her trip. She'll have so much attention! There are so many people that love her out there, and there are lots of things to see and do. Horses and doggies and lots of gorgeous open land to run around in and explore. Plus she'll get to go work at my mil's restauraunt, where she'll make an excellent waitress.


In addition to Sasha and my husband's trip, Cassie had a little adventure planned for today also. There was an anime convention that she and her friends went to. I was very nervous about letting her to to that without us. She and her friends were chaperoned by one of her friend's fathers but I guess I'm just an anxious mother sometimes. I have a hard time letting her go and do things with her friends without me. I gave Cassie way to many instructions. "Don't respond to men who might hit on you, Be sure to thank your friend's father for taking you to the convention, Stay with your friends at all time and never go separate ways".
Anyways she had a blast! She wore a costume, as did pretty much everyone else that went. She made lots of new friends, was very social. She got lots of autographs. There was a rave with music so loud she couldn't hear herself, and strobe lights that made it all look like "stop motion photography" to her, so she got into that and danced her little head off. All in all, she behaved herself and had a lot of fun.

I'm just glad my family all got to their destinations safely today.