Crazy Busy

This week has flown by in a frenzy of activities. Seems like I look up and another week has flown by and I have nothing to show for it except a little more tiredness and days missing on the calendar.

This week I look back at our calendar and wonder if there is anything reputable to "report" and find ... nothing.

We've spent a little time at the ballpark practicing as there were no games this week. We've spent some time at pitching lessons where Josh is making good progress. He loves hitting the batting cages while we are there and is hitting the 70 mph balls and hitting them well.

I spent time travelling one day for work. It was a pretty day and a nice time to be out in the field. I got to listen to a book on tape and I always enjoy that luxury. It makes my day go a little faster and I feel like I'm "multi-tasking".

Ellie's language skills are developing at an amazing pace all of a sudden. People are actually saying to us, "I didn't know she could talk" as she has actually started talking in front of people. She repeats things well and can now tell us what sounds cows, horses, sheep and ducks make. She likes to sing but when I try to sing to her, she points her index finger at me and says, "Stop!" We have at least managed to teach her to say, "Stop, please." Seems a little less rude.

She has developed a sense of bashfulness around people that she has always been fond/familiar with. At the park she doesn't seem to want to interact with people she normally interacts with and will cling to me and hide her face. She has begun to show what I think are signs of night terrors. EVERY night around 2-3 a.m., she awakens crying and kicking and saying "NO" to whatever you ask her if she wants. It is a very definite process we go through that runs about 30 minutes - a hour with her crying so hard that she ends up with hiccuping type sobs when we can finally hold her and get her calmed down and back to sleep. It's very reminiscent of the times we experienced when she first came home, and I am wondering if, combined with her apparently bashfulness at the park, if she isn't feeling overstimulated as of late. We are going to work on "pulling her back" from so much over stimulation for a while to see if that helps.

As for her perioral dermatitis, we have found that the Balmex is working well and it is almost gone. We've also switched to Burt's Bees products for her bath/shampoo/hand washing to eliminate Sodium Lauryl Sulfate, (SLS) as well as Ammonium Lauryl Sulfate (ALS). While it is expensive, I was pleased to find coupons in last weeks' paper so that I saved $1. *smile* The stuff smells amazing!!

It has been cooler here this week, so we've stayed inside more in the afternoons. I am hopeful for a warmer week, but Tennessee is currently experiencing huge levels of rainfall and flooding so I suspect we'll be "stuck" inside for a few days. Lord help us!

Here are a few sweet pix from this week.

I simply LOVE this picture of my quickly growing up way too fast boy. He has the most beautiful eyes -- but then, I'm a bit prejudiced.







Remember Kacy from football season -- she took care of Ellie for us every Saturday during football games. She is in our Sunday School class now and is SUCH a sweet young lady. She and Ellie caught back up at the ball park last night and played together for a while. Aren't they sweet together?