DQ Disaster

Riley is potty-trained, which is pretty awesome. We now get to use half the wipes, buy half the diapers and wipe half the poop... just in time for another little one to come along and bring it all back. However, when she was only semi-potty-trained, we had probably the most memorable and hilarious playdates we've ever had.

The cast of characters included Becky and the girls' dear friend, Gracie.

We headed over the Becky's place, and since the weather was actually nice (rare, being that winter lasts for 10 months here. I'm not bitter), Becky suggested that we take the 20-minute stroll to Dairy Queen. Sounded like a plan to me, and after trying, without success, to convince Riley to go potty, we set off. All was going well.

After a pleasant walk to DQ, we ordered blizzards, upon which Riley promptly informed me that she had to go pee-pees. The girl at DQ told us that a restaurant down the way would let us use their restroom, so Noelle stayed with B and G, and Riley and I walked a few doors down.

The restaurant was closed-- perhaps never to open again?-- so I asked Riley if she thought she could hold it till we got back to Gracie's house. I'm pretty sure she had no idea what I was asking, but she really does try to please, so she told me she could. I was a little anxious about the whole situation, but what was I going to do?

We went back to DQ, and two steps from the entrance, Riley tripped, scraping her knee a little. So I walked into the place with a screaming 3-year-old who hadn't been allowed to pee. Fortunately, M&M blizzards heal most, if not all, wounds.

We took our blizzards and sat at the bench outside DQ. Naturally, we got our share of blizzard on our clothes (a prospect which is always a little disconcerting to my slightly-OCD 3-year-old). I leaned over to Becky and laughed, "She's going to leave this place with a scraped knee, covered in ice cream and drenched with pee."

Not three minutes later, Riley let out a cry and a shower of pee went down through the bench slats. Perhaps this wasn't the correct response, but what's a mom to do but choke down as much of the laughter as she can while she comforts her kid? I think Riley was a little too distraught to notice my giggles anyway.

I wiped her off as best I could with napkins, and we beat a quick retreat, Becky informing me that she was pretty sure the DQ workers had witnessed everything. (Dear DQ people, sorry! I didn't mean to laugh that hard.)

Riley recovered quite well and rode on the back of the stroller till we got back to Becky's. Then she got to be thrown into Gracie's tub with Gracie's toys, get a quick rinse-off, and get to wear nothing but underwear home.

See, happy ending! :)

Becky and Gracie, thank you for such an entertaining playdate. We wouldn't have wanted to share it with anyone other than you!

My favorite 3-year-old

And now, of course, Riley needs a little showcase. She has to be one of the sweetest girls I've ever met. She loves to snuggle, make people feel better (I get lots of kisses if I'm ever sick or hurt), and just love on everyone around her.

Her sassy pose, which I think is pretty awesome.

And now, excitement!

A fun hat picture with Da-dad (aka Granddad)

The little princess in her Disney princess attire

My gorgeous girl

Happiest Baby Ever

Just a few pics to show Noelle's sparkling personality. She is just too cute. And the helmet does nothing to hurt that adorableness! :)

Moms' Day

The girls are playing together, so I have time to post Mothers' Day pics (which I absolutely INSISTED ON this year). It's hilarious, getting more than one kid to look AND smile. Love it.

Kisses for Mom. Does it get any better?

The best of the three of us... Noelle trying to escape, Riley being a goof. :)

Hello, Old Friend

Noelle is currently asleep (after a 6 am wake-up and put-back-down), and Riley is contentedly playing with her Easter eggs (fun all year round!), cars, and new plastic bugs. Well, now that I've started typing, she's come over to investigate, but I can get a somewhat complete sentence down while opening and closing eggs and commenting on how silly she is.

So, clearly, it's been awhile. Not that there's really any excuse, but here's my excuse. This pregnancy has been KICKING MY BUTT! I won't go into details, but I will say that-- praise the Lord!-- I'm finally feeling like a normal pregnant woman as opposed to an incapacitated, off-her-rocker, my-kids-are-watching-more-movies-than-I-care-to-admit-while-I-lie-in-fetal-position-on-the-couch pregnant woman. And just in time for our Disney cruise with my fam, this coming Saturday!! Could there be a better time?!

There are, obviously, more stories to relate than I possibly could at this time, so let's start with some super-cute pics of the girls. That's why you come, anyway, right?

These are from the day of the party we had for my college tennis coach (25 years! Yeah, Jane!!!). The girls were in coordinating Wheaton gear, and it was almost too cute to handle. Plus, I'm kind of a fan of the fact that they both seem to be big tennis supporters. :)

Best fans ever? Quite possibly. :)

Long-lost friends!

We had a playdate with Robbie and Ellie. Suffice it to say, we enjoyed ourselves!

The Week That Will Live in Infamy

Oftentimes, I feel like I don't have much of note to post here. Enter, this week. I won't waste any more time on deliberation. Here goes...

Monday, one of my upper back molars started hurting like the dickens. This tooth has given me problems a few times before. I actually had a root canal done on it and a crown. When I woke up on Tuesday, the pain was excruciating. I immediately sent out an email to Wheaton friends (seeing as I... uh... haven't been to the dentist in a while), asking for dentist recs. I got Dr. Beck's name twice, so I quickly made the call. I immediately fell in love with his office. The secretary was amazing sweet, and, considering my pain, she booked me an appointment for 3, that day. Later that day, she called back to make sure I could still tolerate the pain because they would do everything they could to fit me in earlier, if possible.

I toughed it out, though, and a little before 3:00, I walked in and met with Dr. Beck. They took x-rays, which nearly made me jump out of my skin. The long and the short of it-- he saw what looked to be an abscess, so he called an endodontist, Dr. Brandys, who could fit me in right away.

I left the office, the pain from my tooth now shooting up through my whole face, got in my car and turned the key. The engine revved but wouldn't turn over. I tried it a few more times. Nothing. I called Mike, asked if there were any quick fixes I could try. No. I trudged back into the dentist's.

The secretary, again, super-nice, asked if I had cables to jump it. I went out to check, and then Dr. Beck himself came out. He told me his son was driving around, but since they expected me at the endodontist now, he thought that maybe Mark could just drive me there, and we could deal with my car later. Really, talk about full-service dentistry: a check-up and chauffeur service!

So, Mark and I had a nice drive to Glen Ellyn, where he dropped me off, gave me his number-- just in case my life continued to fall apart in a uniform way and I became stranded again-- and I went to the endodontist.

I'll skip the non-exciting details, but Dr. Brandys said that I'd have to have a root canal... or, I guess, a re-root canal? He'd have to undo the old one and replace it. Now, it was 4-something, I was in Glen Ellyn, and I had no ride. Naturally, pretty much all my Wheaton friends were either sick or working, but I called THE MOST WONDERFUL WOMAN IN THE WORLD, Connie Tameling, who came to my rescue.

She drove me home, and the girls and I waited for Mike to come home.

This would be a fairly good end to the story, I think. But wait... there's more!!

We had to go check on my car, still parked at Dr. Beck's office. The battery was fine, the car couldn't be jumped, so Mike dropped all the Green girls back off at the house and went to wait for the tow truck.

Wednesday went fine. I didn't have a car, but it was gorgeous out, and I had Tylenol with codeine. I love Tylenol with codeine. :)

Thursday was my root canal day. The car still wasn't ready, so Mike worked from Wheaton and stayed with the girls after dropping me off at the doc at noon.

Root canals aren't necessarily a good time, but really, it's not all that awful either. I was numbed, and the doc put a little prop in the other side of my mouth, so I didn't have to just hold it open the whole time. Dr. B did his thing, sat my chair up and said, "Well, we have a problem." Now I don't want to sound like a defeatist or a complainer here, but my only thought was, Of course we do. He then went on to tell me that the previous guy had used three posts instead of one, which he'd seen before. What he hadn't seen before was the type of cement used. He tried every trick in his book, and he couldn't break through it. So I get to brag about being a first IN HIS CAREER! Root canal fail.

This left us with one real option: surgery in which he slices my gum, lifts up the flap, removes the infected tissue, puts a filling-type-thing on the root, closes it all up and stitched my gum back down. That's happening next Tuesday. Awesome.

I left the office, and remember, I'm car-less, so I called Mike to see if the girls were awake. Nope. Fortunately, there was a Starbucks about a block away, so I went and hung out there for about an hour. Figures that this is the day both girls set records with their napping times. At a little over an hour, I realized, Why am I just sitting here? I'll just start walking home. I called Mike, told him the plan. We were both certain the girls would be up soon, and he could intercept me.

4.2 miles later, I was finished with my post-root canal stroll down lovely Roosevelt, the girls were still sleeping, and my face was still numb.

Oh, and that night, we decided to go to the grand opening of Chik-Fil-A for dinner (because gosh darn it, we deserved it!), where Noelle puked up her entire stomach contents all over me.

The End.

Update: Our toilet broke last night, right before we had company over.