The Season of Lights

This weekend officially kicked off Bella's favorite season, you know, the one with all the lights.

On Saturday night we headed over to the Overland Park Aboretum, where for two weekends a year they do a light and luminary display

 The weather was just right for bundling up and walking a 1.5 mile lighted trail.

 Bella seemed to enjoy the trip, and we lucked out by going right at dusk to beat the crowds.  If you are in the area, it is definitely something to see.

St. Louis Day 2

 Day 2 was the reason we were in St. Louis, and that was to attend my cousin's wedding and reception.

We had time that morning to run to a nearby mall.  Can you believe this was actually the first time Bella had been in a mall?  Not shopping.....just in a mall.  And it didn't go very well.  We were only able to get through 2 stores before Bella was fussing so much we had to leave.

I had decided that it would probably be in our best interest if Bella stayed back at the hotel with Jesse to take a nap instead of attending the actual wedding ceremony.  She was able to get in a 45 minute nap and was wide awake by the time we made it back to the hotel.  We had 3 hours to kill between the wedding and the reception, so all the extending family was supposed to be up in the parents of the bride's hotel room, for drinks and appetizers.  Bella was not having it, and wasn't happy regardless of being held, being feed, being able to lay out on a mat, etc.  So Jesse and I went back to our room to trouble shoot Bella's condition.  We knew she was basically teething again, seemed to be hungry all the time, and probably a little constipated (I know you all wanted to know that last part).  We also knew the reception was not going to go well, but at 6:25pm we headed off to give it a try anyways.

 I forgot to mention that at one point earlier that day Bella coughed/choked on her meal and popped all the blood vessels around her eyes, so she basically looked like she had been beaten up.
Bella actually did well at the reception.  She wasn't happy, can you tell?  But she did let us hold her for two hours as we had cocktails and dinner.  We were hoping she would make it long enough so we could dance with her, but unfortunately she broke down and was ready to go at 8:30pm (dancing hadn't started yet).

So as soon as Jesse took his last bite of dinner, and I mean literally, we whisked her off and headed back to the hotel.  She went to bed fairly easily, but had a horrible night's sleep, waking up and fussing again and again.  The next morning she was also very irritable, so we were very excited for our 4 hour drive home.  She of course did not sleep, even though she desperately needed to, but made it most of the trip in a content mood.
We have still been teething since we made it home, but we seem to be getting better (I'm currently knocking on wood), and thinking that this won't turn into the horrible coughing episode we had last time.

St. Louis Day 1

This past weekend we took a trip down I-70 to St. Louis.  Both Jesse and I had been there as children, but didn't really remember being there.  And this was our first real road trip to another town with Bella.  Yes we travel all the time to Nebraska, so the duration wasn't longer than we have done before.  But the whole staying in a hotel with her was a little different.

We started off our afternoon with a trip to the St. Louis Arch.  It was a great day for late November.  If you have never done the arch before, you ride up in this tiny white pods.  Bella thought this was great and laughed the whole way up.

 My sister came along with us, as her husband, David, watched Bella's cart.  Something about him being afraid of heights.

 Of course every time we tried to get a picture of Bella laughing, she would put her arm in front of her face.

 Once you get up top, its pretty crowded and they have all these little windows to look through.

 Bella loved being up there, although I really have no idea why.

 That evening we headed downtown to a recommended Mexican restaurant.  It worked out really well, as they gave us this huge booth and Bella could lay down beside us.  If you can see, Bella's legs are behind me.

 And we ended the night with our first taste of Gelato.  Bella really liked it!  I'm guessing the cold gets to her though, as she will normally only eat about 10 bites of ice cream, custard, gelato, and then she is done.

It was a great day.  Bella liked being out while it was dark out and all the lights of downtown.  It's not often we take her out during the night.  Usually it's too late and during the winter it's too cold.  Hopefully we can get out more with her this year.  Especially during the Christmas light season.

Well Day 2 will be coming up tomorrow, it was a completely different day from the first.

Micky Mouse's Birthday

Thursday was Mickey Mouse's Birthday and Bella's preschool class celebrated by making Mickey ears and having a parade.  I just had to post this picture, since Bella actually had her head up.

Rehab Clinic

We did have an interesting time at our rehab clinic appointment a couple of weeks ago.
The clinics at Children's Mercy are always long.  If it isn't a really long wait because of the number of people, then it's just a long wait because everything seems to take forever.  But needless to say an appointment that would take a normal person less than an hour can take us up to 4 hours.  And I am not exaggerating.  And this appointment was one of them.
In the waiting room there were two other families.  One of the families had 3 young girls with them.  Right at the start the mom started asking me questions about Bella's cart and if I minded answering questions about Bella herself.  I didn't mind, and in fact I would rather have people ask me questions about Bella.   I don't mind talking about what makes Bella - Bella.  The hard part for me is when I'm not with Bella and people ask me if I have any kids. And ask how old they are.  I will say I have a three year old.  And then they go on and on about what a three year old is like.  How it might be worse than the terrible twos, how they hold such interesting conversations, and run around everywhere.  I usually don't want to insult them, so I just nod my head and smile.  Not really saying anything to add to their conversation, but also not saying that my child can't do any of those things.
As we were still waiting in the room, the 3 little girls came over.  They were also very curious about Bella and asking questions.  Again the mother asked if I minded.  The first question was "Why is she like that?"  To which I answered that she was born that way.  Then she asked me "How was she born?"  To which I laughed and said I would let her mom cover that one.  They touched her cart and her hair, claiming she had beautiful curly hair.  It's always interesting to see how kids react to Bella.  I think in general most kids are curious and I think it's good to let them be curious and ask questions.  The more they know about things now, the less likely they will be scared or prejudice later in life.

See Below

Appropriate titles for this post could be:

We're Pathetic
I hate when it gets dark outside before you get home from work
Too tired to get anything done

I'm not going to talk about how we aren't getting sleep anymore and how Bella is up all the time, because this week we have actually been doing okay in that department.  In fact last night Bella pretty much slept through the night.
So how do you explain the fact that nothing is getting done around our house, because as soon as we get Bella put down for bed, we usually turn to each other and complain about how exhausted we are, and then decide to go to bed ourselves.  And sometimes that is as early as 7:30pm.  Yes, I know, that's why we are pathetic.  And our house is one huge mess because of it.  I don't know if I can blame it on the time change, but it's really hard to convince myself to do anything once the sun has gone down.  And since it's down before I get home, well then, that might explain the huge messes in every room, and the piles of laundry that need to get done.
Well I always have my Friday's to get things done around the house.  Except this Friday Bella and I will be running around to different appointments.  And then her therapists called from Children's TLC and they want Bella to come stay with them that evening for a Parents Night Out.  So Jesse and I will get to go out for a dinner date, or maybe some shopping on the Plaza.  And maybe just maybe, stay up past 8pm!!

Busy Catching Up on Sleep

Things are slowly getting better around our house.  Bella is still coughing, but it's not very often during the day, and at night we are still getting up 2 or 3 times, but the duration of coughing has lessoned.  So I take that as progress.

Of course I had to come down with a cold this weekend, so I'm not doing so great.  We are all busy trying to catch up on sleep.  In fact Bella slept from 3pm on Saturday afternoon till 9am the next morning.  That's one tired child!