Viv's School Picture

Here's Viv's first school picture.

Viv (part 2)

Sunday evening Viv was feeling a little puny and it was obvious something was a little wrong. She walked up and gave me a hug and whined some, then puked all over the front of me. It happened again in bed last night. She seems alright this morning and doesn't have a fever, but she's staying home from school today just to be sure. (No pics in the post for obvious reasons)

Diagnosis: Foreign body in nose

This is a Polly Pocket shoe next to a dime. The shoe was part of a pair that came with a Princess Aurora (of Beauty and the Beast fame) doll. We've always been very strict with Viv's use of this doll and only let her play with it when Gus was asleep, so that he wouldn't get it and try to swallow it. Turns out we worried about the wrong child doing something foolish with it.



This is Viv with above pictured Polly Pocket shoe inserted rather deeply into her nasal cavity:




So, here's the story. Yesterday afternoon we we're planning on going to lunch with Pod and Ya-Ya at 1:30. Around 12:30 or so Gus was sleeping and Viv was playing with Princess Aurora and her tiny blue shoes when all of the sudden she started howling and grabbing at her nose. For some reason only Viv can explain, she had stuck the shoe up her left nostril then proceeded to shove it all the way up in what was probably an attempt to get it out. It was so far up that it took a flashlight to see it.

We rushed her out to the urgent care clinic in Chalmette and waited for several hours to find out that they didn't have the tools to get it out. This is Viv on (unsuccesful) attempt 1 at shoe removal:



Since they couldn't extract the shoe down here in Chalmette, we packed up Viv and headed to Children's Hospital uptown. They were really great and managed to get Viv in pretty quickly. After a second round of being strapped down to a spine board and held firmly in place, the doctors (plural) were able to insert a small balloon catheter behind the shoe and yank it out. Viv was a bit traumatized but all in all was quite brave.

I feel bad for Princess Aurora though, cause she's gonna have to go barefoot from now.

Bike Ride

Here's some pictures from Viv's first big outing on her bike. She probably rode the better part of a mile by the time it was all said and done.

Trick or Treat!

Pictures from halloween night. Viv was dressed in her mermaid costume and really went to town with the trick-or-treating. Of course, she had a great helper in Laura Youngblood, who went with her to each door. Gus the gorilla mostly got Curt the monk to chase him up and down the street. I was supposed to be Hogwarts Prof. McGonagall, but I think I look more like hamburger wizard Ronald McDonagall or some hybrid of those two characters. Oh for a deerstalker witch's hat! And that's Lucy, my awesome friend from Seattle who visted us, with the heart on her head. The alligator jack-o-lantern sculpture at the end of the pictures was darn clever, we thought. Didn't photograph too well, but you get the idea.

Boo at the Zoo

The Saturday before Halloween, we took the kids to Boo at the Zoo. They had a great time.

Making a ghost from paper and gauze.

Getting a prize for tossing bean bags.

Putting for another prize.

Bubble wrap stomping.

In the Sesame Street spacewalk.

Trick or treating at the zoo.

Face painting.

Playground fun.