What's different?

The living room in 90% complete!  New furniture, an ottoman that I waited 12 weeks for and after 5 years with brown - a new paint color, too!  Here is the complete transformation - 

The before:

The during:

The after:

90% done because I have no idea what to do with this big wall!

(that is not a great picture of the color in the den... it is really much more subtle than it looks here)

And I know I need lamps, but since we are 0/3 for lamps thanks to Tessa, I think I will wait 10 more years to buy another.

I feel like the space is much brighter than before, and since our house is surrounded by 2 stories, we need all the light we can get.  

The pillow with the kite on it is from Istanbul, Turkey.  This is the box it came it.  I thought it was picture worthy.

Happy Valentine's Day!

We I made an area in the kitchen for Tessa's artwork (instead of just on the fridge).  This month her inspiration was Valentine's Day :)

FYI - This is a real Tessa smile.  It is elusive... and beautiful.

Something's different...

Under Lock and Key

If you didn't notice Tessa's hair in the dominos post, it was several months ago, and she has worked her way up to more difficult things, including buckles (on her car seat, booster seat).  So I thought she would enjoy working with a small lock and key.  It was difficult for her, but she was able to put the key in the lock after a lot of wiggling around.

Reading A fly went by on a cold day.

DIY Imbucare

So I don't want to see T's poor broken face at the top of the blog anymore, so I will post some of the great work she has been doing the past several months -

I made my own little Imbucare Box out of an old Quaker Oats container using dominos.  She had a great time with this activity and it only took a couple of days to realize she had to turn them just the right way to fit them in.  Too bad it took even less time to figure out she could take the top off with her teeth.  Now we need to eat more oatmeal to make another!

"I fell"

The glue came off Tessa's eye today, and it looks really good underneath.  About 1 week ago, she was climbing up onto the stool at the breakfast bar and fell, and all I can assume was that the corner of her eye hit the edge of the counter.  I was in the other room.  I felt horrible.  She was crying, and bleeding.  After some ice and loving with the boo boo bunny, I knew she needed some medical attention to help keep it closed.  It wasn't that deep, but it would look a lot better if it wasn't gapping so much.

(a photo sent to Daddy)

Since we were home alone, I brought her into my clinic to have someone help hold her head.  She did amazing!  I wrapped her up so her arms would stay down, and my nurse held her head and she laid there as calm as could be, didn't move once and never even made a peep while I applied glue (dermabond) to her eye.  And having done this a few times, most kids scream and cry as soon as it hits their wound (I think it must burn), so I was amazed how well she did.

I have been second guessing myself since gluing it because I thought I could have gotten a smaller wound by suturing it.  But today, when everything was revealed and there is just a small red line, I am happy I didn't.  I am happy I didn't cause Tessa even more pain by having to numb it up to suture.  I am happy that she trusted me and lay still when I was gluing her face, and know that Mommy was helping her, and not hurting her.  

She is still trying to milk her injury though, recalling the incident and saying "I fell" in her little girl voice, pointing to her eye.  I knew she would be okay when she started to point to the other eye a couple days ago.  Silly girl!  And here she is yesterday, a little more in her element (warmth wise) riding her bike in a t-shirt and sandals. 

Slow down dare devil... we don't want any more "ER" trips for a very long time!