!

I've been looking over my posts, and I've realized something:

I! Like! Exclamation points!

Noah's new trick

Yesterday, Noah reach another milestone - he's sitting up totally on his own! He's been able to sit supported for a few weeks, but yesterday, he started doing it all on his own. To celebrate, we got some new toys out this morning.

Comming soon: solid foods and crawling!

Exceptional

Amillia was born in October at 21 6/7 weeks gestation. I heard this story on NPR last night. This is truly the very definition of exceptional. Babies born before 24 weeks gestation have a less than 1% chance of survival. And survival doesn't mean whole and healthy and normal. Evidently, this child survived with her brain intact, which is stunning. She is going home this week. Read more about Amillia here.

Lassez les bonne temps rouler!

I'm a Treonaut!

For my birthday and Valentines Day, my husband gave me a new phone: a Treo 680 Smartphone! It was a bit of a surprize - I knew I was getting a new, nicer phone, but I didn't expect a Treo. It's a phone, an organizer, an MP3 player, has internet and email access, and more stuff it will take me weeks to figure out. Thank goodness I have my very own Treo Sensei in our good friend Orin. I guess this means I have to stop teasing him about his phone now.

I really really want to use this gadget to it's potential, and not get overwhelmed and just have a really expensive cell phone. I'm exicted about the stuff I could use it for at work, especially for transporting. I'm going to explore putting reference material on there like drug info and maybe even loading our protocols up on it.

The camera is nicer. I can take short videos, and I've a couple that I've tried to upload to YouTube, but I've had no luck so far. I had hoped to put them up here, and I am still investigating how to get that accomplished. Here's a pic of me and Madeleine taken with the Treo:

(yes, I realize the pictures on the wall in the background are crooked)

So far, my favorite thing about the Treo is the qwerty keyboard. It makes texting so much faster for me. It would take me for-freakin-ever on my old phone. I will miss the automatic word suggestion feature, though. It was always interesting to see what the phone thought I was typing. But now I won't give up on my message halfway through because I'm tired of typing. The keys are tiny tiny tiny, but they are extremely well engineered. I haven't once hit a button I didn't mean to, like getting a "g" instead of an "f". It's pretty cool.

I've got to go before I get to geeky. It's probably too late, though, since I've already dedicated an entire post to the darn thing.

We Survived!

Well, it's Monday finally. This weekend, Shannon did the TEC in Camdenton (he's not home just yet) and I was scheduled to work Friday, Saturday, and Sunday. Kelly took Madeleine Friday and Saturday night, and my folks had Noah. I slept at their house to feed Noah during the day and drove home to shower, check on the house, feed Homer and give him some attention. On top of it all, it snowed Friday into Saturday and getting to and from work was tough. I was able to be off on call last night (Sunday), so I drove with Kelly and Madeleine to the Hoot in Camdenton, seriously breaking the on-call rule of being no more than an hour away. I was more like 90 minutes away. I appreciated that I could be off, but man do I hate being on call. I'm so paranoid - I always picture the unit going to hell and the charge nurse trying to get a hold of me. I checked my phone every two minutes, and my voicemail four times to make sure I hadn't missed a call. But all was well, they didn't need me, and I was able to enjoy the Hoot and see Shannon, and make it home and get some sleep last night.

Many thanks to my parents and Kelly for the huge help this weekend! You guys are are awesome.

Why is Noah smiling?

Pitchers and catchers report today in Jupiter! Go Cards!

Snow Day

On Tuesday, the 13th, we got several inches of snow. It was finally a good snow to take the girl out into for the first time. I got her bundled up in a bunch of layers and Shannon loaded her up, borrowed the sled from my folks, and headed to the park.


Madeleine loves playing outside, and Shannon said she enjoyed the snow immensely. They went down a small hill a couple of times in the sled, but it seems she liked just playing in the snow more.

Making snow angels.

Enjoying an apres-ski at home. "Hot Trockett"

Happy Valentine's Day!

I love my family.
I love my friends.
Today I thank God for all the love he has put in my life, and I pray for the lonely, those who aren't as rich in love and affection as I am.

Every trip's an adventure

It's nice to have internet access again. The Odd iBook has been in service in Houston this past weekend. I've been catching up on my favorite blogs and found this story on the Lactivist's blog. Experiences similar to this is why my last big grocery trip with both my kids was my last big grocery trip with both my kids. I even tried a quick trip to Target on Saturday; that was a disaster. Madeleine refused to continue sitting in the cart seat at one point and wanted to be held. She wiggled out of the belt, stood up, locked her legs, and grabbed around my neck. "Hold me!" "Madeleine, sit down!" "No! Hold me!" Short of beating her and breaking her legs so they fit, there was nothing I could do to get her to sit. I tried letting her walk, but it was too difficult to keep her from running away. So I carried her. I kind of perched her on the handle of the cart to help carry her and push the cart at the same time. Meanwhile, Noah is in his baby bucket in the basket, and the cart steers like it's got a ton of merchandise in it. Thankfully, he just gazes up at the lights and chews on the edge of the Bundle Me the whole time. Then, Madeleine sees the Princess bedding. It's on now. "I want Princessesses! I want Princesseses!" We left to check out at this point.

Did You Know?

On this day in 1587 Mary, Queen of Scots was executed at Fotheringhay Castle on suspicion of having been involved in the Babington Plot to murder her cousin, Queen Elizabeth I of England.

Also, I was born (In 1975, not 1587.) Cheers!

Bloody Mary

2 oz vodka
2-3 drops of Worcestershire Sauce
2-3 drops of Tabasco® Sauce
1 tsp of Horseradish (Optional)
Dash of Lime Juice
Tomato Juice or Bloody Mary Mix

Pour vodka into a salted glass with ice. Add the Worcestershire sauce, Tabasco sauce and lime juice. Fill the glass with tomato juice. Garnish with celery or lime wedge.

Catching up with Madeleine

This is a three-drawer plastic unit that she pulled the middle drawer out of and got inside of.

Cheers! Having a tea party with Daddy. We just got her that step stool and it was her favorite toy for about a week.

Chef Madeleine presents her world-famous Noddle Loaf.

Another pic with the princess clothes. This time she's got her legs through the armholes of one of the tops. That's the white thing that looks like a garter.

Once again with the step stool. We got it for her to use at the bathroom sink, but she managed to pull it into the tub while she was having a bath and sat on it.

This is our tent we made one afternoon in the living room.

Sitemeter tells me we've gone international here at Cerneka Family Adventures. For some reason, we had visitors from Egypt, China, and South Korea. Weird.

Flour Child

So, a lot of people have already heard this story, but it's worth putting up here with the pictures. I was on the phone with Shannon and Madeleine was running around as usual. At some point, I noticed I was hearing her in the kitching, and told Shannon I should let him go and see what the girl was up to. This is what I found:



Me: Oh my my my my. What are you doing?
Madeleine: I'm making!
Me: What are you making?
M: Mmmmm...a cake!
Me: A cake for who?
M: Daddy! Happy Birthday Daddy!

I bet there were six to ten cups of flour on the floor, on the rug, and on my daughter. It's a pain in the arse to clean up, because you make tiny mushroom clouds of flour no matter what you do, sweep or wipe. And if you use flour, it turns into library paste. I got the bulk of it cleaned up, and had to wash the rug twice because the first time the flour made little clay balls that stuck to the fibers. I'm still finding fine mists of flour around my kitchen in places I didn't think to clean initially. It's a good thing we're not neurotic about cleanliness, because we'd be hopsitalized by now due to our toddler's exploits.

Noah is the big 5-Mo

Finally got some pictures off the camera to post. I'll start with Noah's 5 month birthday. He's about 15 pounds, rolling easily from tummy to back and back to tummy. He's almost strong enough to sit up on his own. He loves bouncing, grabbing, and nursing, of course.

Noah at the Matt Maher concert. That white stuff sticking out of his hat is toilet paper I stuffed under the flaps to protect his ears from the sub woofers we sat directly in front of.

Taking a bath at the sink.

Hanging out with godmom Erin H. between shows for Catholic Schools Week in Columbia, IL.

Maia has XLI fever!

And evidently it's completely wiped her out.


From my sister in Chicago:

Everything else in Chicago, from the art institute lions to the
dinosaur outside the field museum, is dressed in bears rally gear,
so we figured why not our daughter. Thank you Uncle Chris and Aunt
Maggie for the bib! Have fun watching the super bowl. Go bears!