Creativity and Questionable Influences

Yesterday, Gaz said a number of things that had me laughing and/or scratching my head.

First, she had a little plastic Stitch (you know, from Lilo and Stitch) who had been playing with her little plastic Sue (you know, the big ass T-Rex at the Field Museum). She brought both of them over to talk with me, and upon seeing the numbers on my keyboard, Stitch remarked "I can't count all the way up to zero because my nose isn't as good as T-Rex's." I still don't know what that's supposed to mean, but if I had to guess, I'd say it's a mixed metaphor.

Then at bedtime I heard some singing coming from what I thought was a sleeping Gaz. It turns out she was singing "Hush Little Baby" to Stitch, only she made up some new words. I listened quietly as she quietly sang:
"Hush little baby, don't say a word
Mama's gonna buy you a mocking bird
And if that mockingbird don't sing
Mama's gonna buy you a diamond ring
And if that diamond ring turns brass
Mama's gonna buy you a looking glass
And if that looking glass gets broke
Mama's gonna buy you a lollypop
And if that lollypop makes you sick
Mama's gonna buy you a poke in the eye
And if that poke in the eye starts to hurt
Mama's gonna buy you a billy goat. . ."
Somehow I managed not to howl with laughter during her performance. I checked with her this afternoon (in the presence of Auntie Aaaiiieeeee), and Gaz confirmed that she had indeed sung about the lollypop and the eye poke. We were both amused and confused.

At dinner she sang again, this time with Mark listening in, and he confessed that the poke in the eye thing was his fault. No one can remember all the original words to the song, so he made some up a couple of weeks ago when he was on bedtime duty. Lucky for us all, that's the line that stuck. The lollypop one was all hers, though, and at dinner she also created some more verses based on items found on the dinner table. My favorite was ketchup, but I can no longer remember what the ketchup was supposed to do. That is probably for the best.

I haven't taken pictures of Gaz in her full Thorn get-up, but stay tuned. There's a nice black and red wig involved now, and as soon as I figure out how to restrain all the blond hair, she will look so much like a goth rock chick, you won't recognize her. Unless you've watched that Scooby-Doo movie as much as we have.

Mark it on the calendar

This evening, Gaz has been reading. A whole pile of animal names, a few verbs, and even an article. Tonight in addition to reading *to* her, we're going to try having her read a bit to us in one of her "pre-reader" books. I think she's technically read other words before now, but I didn't make a note anywhere as to what she read or when, so I could be misremembering. But I'm pretty sure she read something while we were out in recent days.

All was well until she tried to write the letter K. But we've got a plan to get up early in the morning and work on that.

Five days remain until she starts Pre-K. She's very antsy for the schooling to commence. I hope her enthusiasm continues!

I know, I know

It's been AGES! And I have no good excuse now that we're all reasonably healthy. I still have this nagging cough, but that's nothing a little Delsym can't handle.

So what's up with us? First, let me direct you to the Flicker link o'er yonder, which I have just this second updated to go to the set for this Gaz year. Whee! There's not a whole lot there yet (we left our battery down in Evansville during the last trip), but there's her birthday party and assorted madness.

Gaz has been feeling fine, but unfortunately her follow-up urinalysis showed bacteria again. We pumped her full of antibiotics before she had a chance to get really sick again (woohoo!) but it looks like she has some imaging tests in her future. We're just waiting on word from the doctor as to when she wants them done. In the meantime, we've got a little collection of empty specimen jars to facilitate the process of keeping tabs on how much bacteria she's growing. On the up side, she's back in the land of the toilet trained and has been having no problems remembering to get to the bathroom in time. We've had only one nighttime accident (apart from the one when she was sick, which doesn't count IMO), and she's quite pleased with herself over her progress.

School has started through MidWestWorld, but we languish on waiting lists. Things may be looking up, though, so Gaz might yet make it into preschool this year. Keep your fingers crossed.

Let's see. . . Gaz can write her name, though she sometimes gets the letters out of order or runs out of space on the page with her giant letters. We do a lot of pre-reading workbook activities, and she follows directions from books much better than she does for me (isn't that always the way?). She's covered in stickers that didn't come off in the bath as well as I had hoped. Which is to say that some of the picture parts came off, but the sticky stuff lingers and is covered with fuzz from her blanket.

This weekend we went to the Milwaukee Art Museum and discovered that she doesn't like art, because it's boring. She did like watching the "wings" close on the building and the little markers and watercolors I got her at the gift shop, though. She was mildly impressed with her first visit to The Safe House. I expect that will change as she gets older.

So that's the general update. More news as it happens (and I remember to blog).

Family Bleh

Just after my last post I came down with a raging sinus infection. Just as I got in to the doctor and got myself squared away for some casual recouperation, Gaz got sick. Not just a little sniffle, there were 104-degree temperatures and hallucinations at one point.

So there was an ER visit (we like the nearby hospital) and a visit to our normal doctor's office, and many lab tests and phone calls later we find out that Gaz has a urinary tract infection and we get her her own prescription for a bit of amoxicillin. So much for that casual recouperation.

Since Wednesday we've had fevers, chills, vomiting, and tantrums over taking any sort of oral medication. Even the easy to chew stuff that tastes like Smarties. I've gotten little sleep, but at least my medicine has taken care of my infection just as well as it's working on hers. She's already looking a lot better (though still vomiting every now and again) and acting more like herself. We're back to diapers for the moment because she's having a hard time being awake/energetic enough to get to the bathroom in time for anything, but I know she would like nothing more than to get back to normal.

And we will, but it's probably going to take a little while yet.

Birthday and groveling

Gaz is now four and seems to be loving it. I think she hit the annual growth spurt early this year, so she's been a bit grumpier than usual and a bit more ravenous. Her appetite has returned to normal, but she's still a little more whiney than normal. I'm hoping that will be decreasing any minute now.

We had the birthday party on August 1st out in the park near our house. We had a few kids attend, and everyone seemed to have a good time. Gaz requested a red velvet cake decorated with a rainbow and sprinkles, and that's what I made. She even helped with the sprinkles and the rainbow, but mostly she ate sprinkles and begged for icing.

By now you're probably wondering where the pictures of this merry event are. It turns out that after years of playing with the camera, she's finally figured out how to delete every single picture from the camera all at once. You can imagine my glee. Now I don't have a picture of her from her birthday morning, etc. etc. Fortunately for you all, the party was documented by the fabulous Auntie Darci, so you all will get to see pictures that are probably a lot nicer than I would have taken with my crappy old one that sometimes like to zoom all the way in for no good reason.

Anyway, the birthday was had, the presents were all deemed acceptable by Her Majesty, and cake and ice cream were shared by all. We had a fine time, despite the incredible winds that threatened to blow food and everything into the river.