Camping

Lily and I went camping last night at Umstead park. The good news is that the park is only about 15 minutes from our house. It was nice to have that exit plan just in case things didn't go well.

I don't know how things could have gone much better. We had hot dogs for dinner. We had s'mores with Nutella for dessert, though Lily didn't want marshmallow. We played a little checkers, but Lily decided she didn't like it. We played some dominoes. We also played a few rounds of War. Lily didn't have it in her to keep going until one of us had all the cards.

We went to bed around 9. I decided against bringing the air mattress, which was a mistake for me but not a problem for Lily. I found that I couldn't sleep on my side. Basically my night was a series of naps. I still feel pretty good today. The airplanes from RDU stopped around 10:00 or so and didn't start back up until about 5:30.

My main miscalculation was this morning's weather. It was pretty chilly, so I ended up having Lily in the car with the heat going while I packed us up. We got some donuts on the way home and saw Amanda at 8:30. Overall, it was a good time.

Good News!

Lily had no fever yesterday. She doesn't quite have her full appetite back yet, but at least she isn't feverish anymore. It seems that every time she gets really sick we get to the point of saying, "If she's still sick tomorrow we'll go to the doctor" and she gets better that next day. We're very thankful for that.

I have an idea to take Lily camping tonight. We'll have a campfire, cook some hotdogs, and I'm sure she'll play with some rocks. It should be a fun time if we do it. I am, however, a bit concerned about the 30% chance of rain tonight. Fortunately, the place where we'd camp is very close and we can make a gametime decision.

Fever

Poor Lily has been battling a fever since early Monday morning. She will feel boiling hot and then we'll give her some Motrin and she'll be OK for a while. What's incredible is that her temperature was nearly 103 tonight, yet she was still pretty perky.

If she's still feeling low tomorrow we'll take her to the doctor.

Memory

Lily and I play Memory almost every night now. As those of you who read this blog know (since you're probably family or good friends), I have a fairly sharp memory. I may not be able to play sports, sing, or do a lot of physical things, but I can remember some arcane stuff. It would seem that the apple doesn't fall far from the tree.

Last night Lily beat me either 21-15 or 22-14 (I'm not sure which). The point is that she beat me pretty soundly. When she concentrates she doesn't miss much. Imagine that one of us turns over a pair of cards that don't match (train and banana, for example). We could go through a few turns without matching, but if I turn up the matching banana for my second mismatched card, she will often turn that banana over as well as the one that we saw several turns ago.

I'm not keeping close statistics, but I'd say that in the past week it has been pretty even. I really thumped her on Sunday night (I think it was 27-9), but generally we're pretty close. We have had one tie. I also beat her 19-17 one time.

She is a sharp one. We've got to keep an eye on her!

Airshow

I posted this story on my regular blog. It was a good time!

Picking up the Mannerisms

This morning Lily made the statement, "You can just forget it!" She clearly got that one from mommy.

Amanda decorated a cookie cake last night. Apparently Lily provided a running commentary on each of Amanda's actions. As Amanda did each little star Lily would say something like, "Oh, that's a good one!" or "That doesn't look so good." Amanda realizes that there is some justice to this as she knows how she was as a little kid.

Tomorrow is the airshow. I hope the weather holds.

Gag Order

Lily has had some problems with eating over the past few months. She has developed a knack for gagging and vomiting her food when she doesn't like what she's eating. Last night we had leftover pork chops for dinner and she didn't really want to eat hers. She was on the last bite, but we could tell she got the gleam in her eye that told us she was getting ready to toss her chops. We warned her that if she gagged or spit out her food she would have to go right to bed. Despite our warnings she did spit a bunch out. It wasn't a full-fledged vomit, but it was still gross.

Lily ended up going to bed around 6:00 last night instead of her usual 7:30-8:00. We read the two sections out of her "Bible" and then knelt down to pray. First, through tears she asked me to say what I was thankful for before she said anything. Then when we got to "Lily, what do you want to tell God you're sorry for?" she started to break down. Her bottom lip curled as she cried and said, "For gagging on my food." I said her prayers for her and put her to bed.

We ended up having to do two spankings before I got downstairs. For some reason this week she has started getting up in the middle of the night and opening her door a crack. I was going to start trying to work on that, but last night I made a concession that she could do it "after mommy and daddy go to bed." Somehow it eventually "clicked" with her and she went to sleep around 6:30. She actually slept until 7:00 this morning.

Going through this was not very much fun. However, we know that in the end she will benefit from our consistency.