our little lady

Going to the park with our kids has been awesome this year with so much good weather. It's been especially fun to see how much more Lila can do this spring than she could last spring (since she was only 9 months old and crawling then...). She is now a maniac at the park just like her brother, fearlessly climbing jungle gyms, catapulting down slides, jumping off everything imaginable, and gaining me the looks of nearby parents concerned I may not be watching her close enough. Sigh...so reminiscent of Van.

I can't get over the beautiful little girl she's becoming, we love her to pieces!!

airplane gazing

One of our favorite DC activities is going to Gravelly Point to watch the airplanes come in/fly out of Reagan National Airport. They're close enough to feel rumbling in your chest and hear air waves echoing after the plane has passed. Gravelly Point is where Jon first told me he loved me, it's where we've had picnics, and started bike rides to the city, and let our kids run wild in the open field. A couple weeks ago we took the kids to watch the planes and have fun in the open space, and we even took our camera to document it (we're trying to be better at doing that every now and then).

These two LOVE the up-close airplane sightings.











Gotta love Lila's she-just-woke-up-from-a-nap-and-we-didn't-bother-to-fix-her-hair look. She sports it well.


Van humoring us with his expressions again...










Lila started to do this every time she heard an airplane coming, and we absolutely adored it. This girl loves her daddy!






But what did our kids love the most? Even more than the awesome airplanes right above their heads? The dirt and rocks. Just like they have at home. In the backyard. Totally not surprised.

under the weather

We've been seeing faces like this a lot around here.



Lila's had a little bit of a rough health year so far. In February she got a terrible cough that kept her up at night, made her grumpy in the day, and stayed for 2 months. We had some scary nights when it was really hard for her to breathe while she was coughing every breath and we had to watch her really closely. Her sickness only started to fade when she got diagnosed with bronchiolitis, started a regular albuterol inhaler at home, and went in for intermittent nebulizer treatments at the doctor's office. We know many kids have it much worse, so we are happy it wasn't more serious, but the poor girl was definitely unimpressed by the inhaler and all the weekly doctor visits (and we were unimpressed by the weekly co-pay and cost of in-office treatments). Just when they were about to start her on a regular steroid nebulizer treatment at home, she seemed to clear up, and we put it on hold.

A couple weeks later she got some sort of nasty flu for 4 days that made her lose her lunch on more than one occasion and stole her appetite for about a week. It was about then that out of nowhere she started wheezing again, without any real implications of a cold (maybe allergies?). But this time it was the worst she's ever been, and for the first time ever the inhaler was doing absolutely nothing.

That night Jon stayed by her bedside trying to get her to sleep, and she finally managed to fall asleep, even though from watching her body you would think she was still wide awake. Her stomach was going up and down so quickly as she tried desperately to get enough air with each breath, she looked tense and uncomfortable, and she was wheezing so loudly that I could hear her from downstairs while she was sleeping upstairs. We were terrified to leave her, fearing that at any moment in the middle of the night she could become so exhausted she would pass out. After calling my sister who's a nurse and going over her condition, at about 11:30pm we decided it was best to take her into the hospital.

In the ER they immediately saw her oxygen levels were too low, put her on oxygen, gave her liquid steroids and antibiotics, gave her several types of medication through a nebulizer, then sent her off to get a chest x-ray. It came back showing a tiny case of pneumonia, and they decided to keep her overnight. One night turned into two, explaining to us that it was vital to treat her very aggressively during her first hospital admittance for (possible) asthma. The doctors were optimistic this would make her body more responsive to treatments in the future, and hopefully less susceptible to needing the treatments, especially avoiding more extreme cases like what had brought her there this time. Aside from hating all the monitors stuck to her little tummy, chest, and foot, and desperately wanting to run and play, Lila did really well for a little 20-month-old baby. Sweet, sweet, baby.

She's doing so much better now, and just has a couple steroid and albuterol treatments every day to keep her in check for the next month or so. All the discharge papers listed her diagnosis as "Asthma and Upper Respiratory Infection," although they never said that exactly to us, because we've learned that technically she can't be diagnosed with asthma until she's five, since chances are high it could go away by then and never develop into lifelong asthma. Asthma is something I had as a kid, and Jon's dealt with it during allergy seasons in the past, so it's not a shock to us, we're just happy there are medications to help her so she can breathe normally. It's so sad to watch her work so hard for breath, so seeing the changes they were able to make on her during those two days in the hospital was so great. She was back at the park climbing ladders and flying down slides just a few hours after getting home from the hospital—you would never know she'd ever been admitted.

Jon was with her when she got released, and he said she ran the entire way out of the hospital all the way to the car. Barefoot. In pajamas. With mangled hair. Yelling, "Home! Home! Go! Mommy! Wan! (Van)" the whole way out. Cutest thing ever.

Thank you for all your love and support while we were in the hospital with her and for all your concern since then. We're all so happy to have her home and healthy!




And this guy continues to be entertaining as ever. He sure missed his sister and he's been super helpful with her nebulizer treatments every day, trying to make her happy while she's strapped down to an oxygen mask, if that's possible :) His expressions kill us.

easter (without the bunny)

Jon and I hesitate in doing outrageous things for our kids for holidays and birthdays, mostly since they're not old enough to care that much or to remember any fabulous plans we come up with. We get somewhat stuck trying to find a balance between over-the-top gift giving and nothing at all (which seems lest wasteful to us), hoping to come up with something tasteful, simple, and meaningful, but feeling like that takes a lot of creativity and effort that we haven't struck into just yet. (If you have any tips, we'd love to hear them!) So some things may or may not go somewhat uncelebrated in the Smith home—at least compared to what we imagine many other families doing.

Easter this year was one of those. We did try to teach Van about to real meaning of Easter, and ended up kind of getting ourselves into a mess trying to explain death and realizing that to our 3-year-old, life and death all sounds like a very casual thing with no emotional implications whatsoever. So if our son happens to say anything insensitive to you regarding death or dying, we apologize in advance. We're working on that concept. :)

But when it comes to the Easter bunny and baskets and treasures, our children are virtually clueless. Our non-religious Easter celebration consisted of attending the ward Easter egg hunt on Saturday morning...and that's it. They loved it, and I saw this as no problem for now since our kids are still so little, until Sunday at church when I was dropping off Van in Primary. As Van got to his chair, one of the older kids sitting behind him (a kid Van idolizes, of course), asked Van what he got from the Easter bunny. You can imagine my embarrassment when poor Van didn't say a word and looked at me in confusion, with eyes begging me to explain what his friend was talking about. I tried to cover for Van by saying yes, he got Easter eggs with candy in his basket, but the older child called my bluff and said, "You mean just from the church party yesterday?" I must not have been very convincing, because in my attempts to make it sound like everyone else's Easter morning, the child questioned again, "Well did he get anything from the Easter bunny? Did he? Did he?!?!" Poor Van never said a word, and I learned that it seems we'll have to act on our plans to find a healthy compromise between normal holiday traditions and what we feel is appropriate sooner than I had thought.

Thankfully, for now it seems Van has been totally unaffected by the exchange and he hasn't even mentioned it since. Or maybe that means he was traumatized. Either way, we'll most likely be jumping on a more conventional Easter celebration next year. But for now, the ward Easter egg hunt seemed to be fulfilling enough for our two kiddos. :) They look happy to me! Not to mention cute as ever...

zoo day

For one of Jon's "flex days" in April (he works a schedule where he gets every other Friday off, it's the BEST) we decided to head to the National Zoo for the kids to soak up some animal sightings in person. Apparently when we go to the zoo now, though, the only animals we take pictures of are our own. The cute little blonde ones. They may not be quite as entertaining as the zebra fight we almost got to see (hearing it one exhibit down was almost as cool as seeing it firsthand), but they definitely beat out the sleeping lions and 300-feet-away-from-the-fence elephants. These kids could run after, climb on, and conquer everything in sight all. day. long. Sometimes their energy baffles me, but then Jon will tell me he and his brothers were the exact same way, so I can't be too surprised. Our kids are true Smiths!

 

slow mornings

A lazy Saturday morning, complete with library books, pajamas, and Lila's unkempt mullet...lacking her token pigtails to correct the hair funk she's in. She will someday in the distant future be embarrassed that we didn't jump on a cute bob 'do for her while the top grows in, but in the meantime, those pigtails of hers are pretty irresistible.

not my best idea ever

We've had crazy awesome weather here this year. A cold day here and there, rare bouts of rain, and a very early spring (that groundhog had no idea what he was talking about!). That's my kind of winter!

An early spring meant early cherry blossoms, probably 2 weeks earlier than we've ever seen them in the last 5 years. Almost without thinking I planned on going again this year like we always have, and I waited for a solid forecast for good weather to join the crowds. That ended up coming on an afternoon, so I figured I'd wait until Lila woke up from her nap and then head out to the District. Our evening went as follows...

3:30pm. Lila woke up.

4:00pm. Out the door. Driving into DC during peak blossoming at 4pm could be deemed less than brilliant. Especially with 2 toddlers, an almost-7-months-pregnant belly, and no husband since he was out of town for work. And let's not forget rush-hour traffic. :)

5:15pm. In the heart of the cherry blossom festival. I was confident of where I could find parking, but after driving around for nearly an hour, I started to get frustrated, tried to get creative with finding a new parking area, and conveniently ended up getting spit right onto the freeway going north (directly away from the blossoms, and further into the city). Noooooo! I took the first exit, sending myself right onto Constitution Ave with bumper to bumper traffic leaving DC. Awesome. The two little people in the back were hating life strapped in their carseats and letting me know it at max volume. I weighed my options of trying to get back to the blossom hub, or coming up with another way to get there, and opted to leave the city, park across the Potomac in VA at a place called Gravelly Point, and run in from there.

6:00pm. Park at Gravelly Point, 2 hours after leaving the house. I had worn running clothes just in case something like that happened, but when I got out of the car and eyed the distance, I realized I had seriously underestimated how far it was. Not being one to bail on a plan once I've made one, though, I put the kids in the jogging stroller, and started running on the trail. Oh wow...I must have been a sight. I googled the trail when I got home, and found out it was actually about 2 miles to the Jefferson and 2 miles back. I was DYING pushing 2 kids and carrying a baby in utero. Pretty much the worst idea ever. I think I stopped every 2 minutes to walk.

6:45pm. At the Jefferson, finally, after crossing the-bridge-that-would-not-end. Saddest 2-mile run of my life. I had about 30 mins to let the kids run rampant on the grass by the monument, blow bubbles to make them happy, try to take photos and fail miserably, refuel with snacks, let a stranger watch my children while I used a porta-potty, and head back before the sun started setting. I felt lucky just to have not lost them both—these two see open spaces and everything turns into a version of the game run-away-from-mommy-as-fast-as-you-can. I'm sure I looked completely crazy running after two insanely fast toddlers, pushing an empty double stroller with a camera around my neck that was bumping my baby belly with every step, and climbing under chains to catch my kids before they were loose in the parking lot. Motherhood at its best!

7:15pm. Leave the Jefferson. That's right, we didn't even walk around the Tidal Basin. At all. Cherry blossom cardinal sin. I tried my best to "run" (read: a slow, slow, slow jog) the full 2 miles back to our car even though it felt like my hips were going to dislocate themselves at any given moment, and the kids were good at adding drama by either trying to climb out or screaming like not getting out was the end of the world.

7:45pm. Made it back, loaded up the car, headed straight to a girl friend's birthday party, stayed for the shortest time I've ever stayed at a party but probably much longer than I should have with the babes in tow, then started to head home only to remember we were out of key grocery items that said babes would be less than pleased to not have the next day.

8:45pm. Braved the grocery store. The kids were WIRED.

9:20pm. By the time we got home, I decided we should count all the goldfish crackers, veggie fries, sliced apples, teddy grahams, and water we'd survived on as dinner, and I still didn't get out of the kids' room with the lights out until 10pm.

Jon called from out of town a few minutes later, and after I recounted my genius day trip idea, he told me just hearing about my day exhausted him. I clearly make better decisions when he's here—good thing he doesn't have to travel much!! I had to document this in order to remember not to repeat all my bad ideas next year. The blossoms were so pretty and pink this year, but I dare say they may have been better experienced from afar in our case. Or I could have just waited 18 hours and gone in the morning like someone with better judgment would have done.

But who needs good judgment when you can get a good story out of poor judgment???