As my hubby likes to say 'almost only counts in horseshoes and hand grenades' so here are a few of my least favorite almosts that I encountered on a trip to the grocery store last night...

• almost moving the shopping cart enough for people to pass you in the aisle
• almost putting the shopping cart away
• almost holding the door open
• almost stopping for someone to cross the parking lot
• almost putting the blinker on before you're mid-turn
• almost getting into the turning lane
• almost making it in the house before the bag breaks

I just wanted to make a note of a few things since Ada turned 16 months old today. As the prior post stated, she got tubes in her ears yesterday, so we're anxious to see how that's going to help. She woke up for the day at 4:40 am today, so that was a little disheartening, but to be expected. She's also getting her bottom molars and an incisor or two as well. They look very painful, so I'm guessing the teeth are what's causing the pain right now. Other than that, she's such a sweetheart. Not to brag, but we find ourselves marveling in her beauty daily  :)  I'd say her favorite thing in the world is music, and she loves to dance. She says a few words including baby, hi, cheese, mama, daddy, grandpa, and uh oh.

Well Ada's tympanostomy tube surgery went well this morning, with no complications. They took her back to the OR at 7:30am and at 7:36am Dr. Nissen was talking to my dad and me about how it went. A few minutes later they called us back to see Ada. She was a little out of it, looked sleepy, and was flailing and screaming for about ten minutes. After she calmed down, she had a few handfuls of lucky charms and we were on our way. My good friend, Sarah, was her nurse in the OR so that was comforting to know that Ada was well taken care of. Ada seems to be feeling a little better today and is enjoying the balloons she received. We'll see how things go at night...

Ivy woke up complaining of ear pain this morning, so I took her into urgent care around 1pm. He said she had an ear infection in her left ear so we got her on some amoxicillin. Later on after Ada's nap, I noticed that she was breathing faster than normal and had a 103 degree temp. I took her in around 4:30 thinking maybe she had RSV or pneumonia. He said her lungs sounded crystal clear, but that her right ear was infected! You've got to be kidding me! She just got off her last antibiotic yesterday, which apparently didn't do the trick. He put her on Zithromax which she hasn't been on before, maybe it will actually work...but I won't hold my breath. Just counting down the days until we get her tubes!

So I was just singing about how nice it was to see the snow melting yesterday, it almost instantly put me in a good mood. I imagined how wonderful it's going to be when we can spend time outside again, barefoot, playing. Something about finally seeing a little bit more of that dead grass yesterday really made me think we were on our way to spring. Cut to this morning with another couple of inches of snow on the ground, talk about discouraging...

I took Ada to an ENT doc today to check out our options for her recurring ear infections. It was fairly quick and painless, except for the part where I had to hold Ada down in the chair while he stuck what looked like an ice pick in her ear. That part had me a bit perturbed. He just used it to get a little wax out of the way, yet I couldn't help but think to myself 'mister, if my daughter bucks or moves slightly, that ice pick will pierce her brain'. Thankfully with the nurse holding her head down, we were safe. He recommended that we put tubes in her ears since she's had 6 infections in the last 5 months, so we'll do that on the 3rd of March. Hopefully that will help...

Well, it's that time again...I took Ada to the doctor this morning because she's been acting like she has another ear infection. Sure enough her right ear is infected so she's on Omnicef again. She has her well baby checkup in 10 days so he'll see her then and if it's not better we're going to see an ENT specialist to talk about whether or not she might benefit from getting tubes. I'm all for it, if it means uninterrupted sleep for all of us again! I've heard mixed reviews on tubes, so I'm not totally confident that they would take care of things, but it'd be nice to try something besides the army of antibiotics that she's been on in the last few months.

Sometimes I think of little things that I want to write about, while I'm at work, but they wouldn't necessarily deserve an entire post. This one goes out to them...

• Now I know I work in an office with like 900 people or something, so I don't expect to know everyone's name or anything. But if you're walking down the hall alone, and you meet someone, wouldn't the polite thing to do be to say hello, or at least smile? You wouldn't believe the people that look at the ground when I smile at them, or just keep walking when I say hello. At times, I've thought of just throwing in the towel and not doing either, but that feels so awkward...
• Why does it have to be like 50 degrees in our suite of this building? I mean the rest of the building seems to be toasty warm, but seriously, as I type this, my fingers feel like they're halfway to hypothermia. The silver lining is that I've been able to wear a lot of my "hot" (think temperature) stuff, that I usually can't stand because I hate being hot (much more than being cold). So I've gotten a lot of usage out of those fleece sweatshirts, and wool sweaters, so I guess that's alright.
• I've been bringing pretty much the same thing to work for lunch every day since we moved to this new building, some sort of microwave soup or beef stew, some yogurt, chips and a coke. How is it that the people that make these soup and yogurt containers can't figure out how to make a top that doesn't splatter everywhere when you remove it? I've learned that I need to put the soup on the counter and hold it as far away from me as possible, but it still seems to make it somewhere on my shirt, and undeniably on the counter...same with the yogurt. They must be the same people that think the "press here to open" notches actually work on the shells 'n cheese boxes. (has anyone ever really pressed those open using only their fingers?)
• We have to use badges to get into the building or into a specific suite and I totally get that, I think it's a great thing. But, what happens when you're walking out of the building and someone else is walking in. They didn't bother to get their badge out because they see you coming. So am I supposed to walk out and close the door behind behind me, in their face (can you imagine how rude and kind of funny that would be)? I always hold it open for them, but as I walk away I hope that I don't hear the faint sound of gun shots and screaming. They'd look back at the security tapes to find me practically inviting this gun-wielding stranger into our building.

Well that's all I can think of for now, feel free to add your own in the comments...

So as you may know, Ivy has quite the imagination. A while back, she started pretending she was a tiger, growling and crawling around. Eric bought her a little beanie baby tiger  to add to the fun. Sometimes she wants Eric or me to play the tiger and "get her". Now Is it wrong that we exploit that to get her ready in the morning, or at night? If we pretend that the tiger's coming to "get her" and she needs to put her clothes on so he can't see her? When I say it out loud, it sounds so reprehensible, but it's so effective. I just worry that she might develop a fear of wild animals...which, when I say that out loud...doesn't seem all that bad. I mean who wouldn't be afraid of a wild tiger? I mainly just wanted to blog about this because I don't want to forget some of these ridiculous things that we do to accomplish what should be the simplest of tasks.

I just had to post this story about something Ivy said tonight because it was so cute and so innocent. We were driving through McDonald's (gimme a break) and she said she wanted ice cream. I told her she needed to eat food first and then maybe we'd have ice cream at home. She started crying and wanted me to open the window so she could tell the guy that she wanted ice cream. I didn't let her, which now that I think about it, I should have. haha. I digress. So as we're waiting for our food, she calmed down a little bit, and she says something about being sad. Then she says it again, and again and I finally listened to what she was saying. She said 'mommy, I licked my sad'. I was thinking to myself, 'what the hell is she talking about?'. Then I turned around and she was licking her face where her tears were running. OMG, I was like 'that's the cutest thing I've ever heard'. You just don't think about how you'd describe something if you didn't know what it was called. I think she did a pretty good job...