Chicago Trip

Last weekend we traveled to Chicago for a wedding and were excited to stop and see some relatives on the way home!

Mike and Megan's wedding was just beautiful, taking place in Lake Forest (a very wealthy suburb of Chicago), where Erik also got us a room at the Hilton! The reception was held in a mansion at a country club and was the perfect spot for old friends to mix and mingle. Maida really enjoyed dancing and was the last one on the dance floor! She was pooped when we got back to the hotel... and did I mention that Erik got us a room at the Hilton??!!! It was a great vacation for all three (or four!) of us.


On the way home from Chicago, we stopped at Erik's cousin Hilary and husband David's house to meet the newest member of the family, Kaitlin, and have a great home-cooked breakfast. Kaitlin was born a month ago and is the second great-grandchild in the Scharrer family. Maida was pretty crazy the entire time we were there, but enjoyed meeting Kaitlin (and playing with all of her baby stuff!). Hilary and David gave Maida some presents and even had some for Skogen too! After stopping at Hilary's house we then stopped and Erik's Aunt Ranee and Uncle Hugh's house. They treated us to some ice cream and cookies, and even had some more presents for Maida and Skogen!

We were so thankful for the time we had with all of our friends and family in the Chicago area and for the safe trip we had over and back.

Dermatologist Appointment

Finally a doctor that listened.

Today we saw the dermatologist and I went in expecting him to tell us that there was nothing he could do for Maida's rash, but to my surprise, he seemed a bit in awe of how her MC had spread and multiplied. Apparently after 10 months of having MC, it usually starts to clear up, but hers has done the opposite. I think he was even surprised at how bad her eczema was (and that's probably because I stopped treating it a few days ago to make the rash look even worse-!). He actually came into the room, saw the rash, and immediately started discussing treatment options. Erik was able to come with us to see the dermatologist and it was nice to have him there, not only to have his medical knowledge, but to be able to decide together on a treatment plan.

Our treatment plan: Every two weeks we will go to the dermatologist and he will put an ointment on as many of the MC that he can. Today he put the first dose on and even though the ointment doesn't hurt, Maida still screamed bloody murder, which is typical of her when anyone even touches the rash. When I asked her, while she was screaming, if it hurt, she said "no," but when I asked her if it tickled, she said, "yes." And I think that is the main reason why she doesn't like us touching it, she is just a really ticklish child! As I was holding her down to the exam table, kicking and screaming, it was at least a little comforting to hear that she wasn't in pain.

The second step in the treatment, after the ointment is applied, is letting it set. Medical tape is applied over the treated MC and has to stay on for three or four hours (or as long as the child can tolerate it, but probably not more than five hours). She then is put in the bath to soak, rip off the tape, and wash off the skin. Our first experience with ripping off the tape was not pleasant and she appeared to be in a lot of pain as the tape not only irritated her eczema, but when we ripped it off, it tore some of the treated MC off with it too. We felt so bad having to do this to her.

In the next two weeks, we should see the MC that were treated dry up, blister over, or just plain fall off. I guess that if it works this time around, she'll be treated every two weeks until it's pretty much gone. I don't think they will ever get all of them, though, because there are so many. There will probably just be a stopping point at which we'll decide that we've done enough. The only downside to the treatment is that it could leave scarring, kind of like chicken pox scars, and there is a small chance that the treatment won't work.... I'll keep you all updated on that.

As far as the eczema goes, we were still just instructed to use the prescription steroid on it twice a day and take Zyrtec at night. If anyone knows of any good products for eczema, let me know. I've tried everything... Eucerin, Vaseline, Soothing Naturals, California Baby, Burts Bees, Aveeno Baby... and just can't find anything that seems to calm down the eczema. I wanted to ask the dermatologist what he reccomended, but I forgot!

Well, after such a long battle with these rashes, I finally feel like we're getting some where. I can see that it's going to be a long road, but I've got confidence that we're finally on the right path. Send lots of praise for our answers today and please pray that her body will respond to the treatment and we'll get it under control soon. Thank you to everyone who have emailed or called with encouragement or advice. We know that you all hated seeing Maida suffer too. She's such trooper!

No More Computer

My computer crashed again! What was meant to be a "Mommy will you read me this book?" throw, turned into a book slamming into my computer and crashing my hard drive. Nice! Right now I'm stealing time on Erik's computer while he's at school taking a final (prayers for him!).

This week has been filled with many funny stories about Maida and millions of things that I want to remember about this time in her life. She is such a big girl and I can't believe how fast she is growing. Here are some highlights of our week...

- Maida started wearing big girl panties! She doesn't always like them (because she'd just rather be naked, or wear them on her head!) but has done a great job of not having an accident in them. She's now mastered the poop and potty in the toilet/potty chair.
- Maida started calling me "Mimi Kar-kar" for Mommy Kara. Sometimes she just calls me Kara! It's so funny to us to hear her call me by my first name. I have no idea where she heard it or why she calls me Kara! Just one more thing that makes her seem very grown up!
- Sometimes Maida takes showers with me (well, okay, most of the time - let's face it, I'm married to a medical student and I don't get a whole lot of alone time!). She usually just plays with her toys in the bath while I shower. She also wears a shower visor, which keeps the water and soap from running in her eyes. Sometimes she likes to take the visor off, which is okay, but soon she gets soap in her eyes and screams. Well, this particular morning she was sitting at the bottom of the shower between my legs, visor on, and holding perfectly still. I assumed that she was just enjoying the hot water after a cold night, but after about 10 minutes of her not moving, I started to wonder what was prompting her to hold so still, keeping her visor on and everything! About three minutes after me wondering what was going on, "KLUNK!" she fell over and her head hit the side of the tub! I quickly bent over to see why she had fallen over and found her asleep!!! She had fallen asleep in the shower! I took her out, dried her off, and put her in bed for a nap! So funny!
- We bought Maida a toddler bed mattress! It was my first buy on Craigslist and I was a bit nervous about it (I didn't want to get ripped off or murdered or anything like that), but turns out that we got a great mattress for only $5.00, and I lived through the pickup to tell about it!
- Thursday night was Maida's last night of swimming for a while. She didn't pass to the next level, mostly because she hates male teachers and wouldn't d0 anything for Mycael, her swim teacher. On Tuesday night, he was testing the children to see what they could do and he asked her to do some kicks and scoops for him. She shouted, "NO!" and splashed him in the face! I was so embarrassed!
- One day this week Maida was playing quietly in her room. She had her favorite baby doll with her and I could hear her saying, "Rock rock, rock rock," so I figured that she was rocking her baby in the rocking chair. Then I heard a bunch of grunting and "Mimi Kar-kar! Mimi Kar-kar," so I ran in there. She had climbed up on the rocking chair and flipped herself into her crib. Wow, I was just glad that she didn't flip herself out of her crib!
- Maida started combining two words together this week! She can say phrases like, "Dada sool," for dad's at school or "Boo-boo home," for Boo-boo (her friend) is at home! It's pretty cool that she's communicating more! She can also say, "Barbie" for Barkley!, which we've been working on for a long time, along with many other two syllable words, as she's not very good at speech yet, but getting there slowly but surely.

... it seemed as though I had a lot more to say about Maida this week, but that's probably because I had a ton of pictures and videos that were on my computer who's hard drive crashed. I really hope that there is some way to get that stuff off of my hard drive, so hopefully if we can, I'll post them soon.

This weekend we're back to Park Rapids for some more deer hunting, then we'll be headed to Chicago for a wedding! Then back to Park Rapids for 50's party themed Thanksgiving with the family. Busy busy couple weeks.

Update on Maida's Rash

We're just on our way to ECFE, or "sool" (for school) as Maida calls it, but I wanted to quick update everyone on Maida...

I called another dermatologist yesterday who we got a second opinion from in June. He is a younger guy than our regular dermatologist and, personally, I liked him a lot better than our regular guy. I had to leave a message and stated in the message that I had been waiting for Dr. Holm (our reg derm) to call me back for three weeks. Dr. Evanson (the new guy)'s nurse called me right back and said that they could see us in a week! I am so excited about this because usually the wait to get into a dermatologist is just horrendous. Prayers were answered!

To update you on what we know about Maida's rash right now... Maida actually has a series of rashes. The rash that you see in the picture and video from last post is Molluscum Contagiosm. It is a virus and usually isn't treated in children because the treatments are painful and can cause scaring. There are less painful options of treatment out there, but they aren't as successful. Usually doctors chose to not treat Molluscum because it will go away on its own, however that can take from two to five years to go away. In the meantime, the rash is VERY contagious and also causes a lower immune system, which causes eczema to set in. So, Maida has eczema too. She has also been diagnosed with Atpoic Dermatitis, which I believe is why she was potty trained at 16 months! She gets bad rashes from her diapers and from the potty or poopy touching her bottom. Maida also has an unexplainable rash that comes and goes every so often and no body has been able to put a finger on what it might be. She had some allergy testing done and isn't allergic to anything, however, I don't think that doesn't mean she can't be sensitive to certain things, like fragrances. Even when she was baby, we'd notice that if someone with a lot of perfume on would hold her, she would rash up right away. Since switching to fragrance free laundry detergent, wipes, and diapers, that rash has gone down significantly (we love Seventh Generation!!!).

Our dermatologist appointment is next Thursday and our main goal then is going to be the treatment of the Molluscum Contagiosum. I believe that this will solve some of our problems, as hopefully it will take some of the eczema away, but mostly it will settle our worries about Skogen getting the Molluscum when he comes! I know it will make her a lot more comfortable too. Thanks for all the prayers! I will update more on her rash after the appointment.

What Do We Do?

Does this break your heart?

It does mine too.

Everyday.

But this guy:

won't return my phone calls.

He is Maida's dermatologist and despite my frantic mother-panicked worries, he still insists that there is "nothing we can do for Maida's rash." Drugging her up on Zyrtec and Benadryl plus a little steroid cream here and there, doesn't quite seem right. I've been waiting for him to return my phone calls for three weeks now, but for some reason I don't think he's going to call me back.

What do we do when...

1) Our dermatologist doesn't seem concerned.

2) Our family doctor doesn't seem concerned.

--BUT--

3) Our child is miserable?!!

Toga Party!

On Friday night the medical school had a toga party! Despite my pleas of not making me dress up in a toga while pregnant, in fear of actually becoming a big blimp, Erik talked me into it and we went. To my surprise, I felt super cute in a toga that our friend and babysitter Christine loaned me! It was also a lot of fun to see everyone else dressed up in their togas. The medical school provided free pizza and buffalo wings, which were sooooo good! Erik and I had a great date night away from Maida, and I really enjoyed seeing and talking with Erik's classmates. The only complaint I have about the night is having to run to and from our car in the freezing rain dressed in our togas. But, I can't complain too much because that freezing rain turned into our first snow of the year, which made me really happy!

When Maida saw us getting all dressed up in our togas, she wanted to wear one too! Our babysitter, Christine, had some extra material along (which she made my toga out of) and so she made a toga for Maida too!

Doctor Appointments

Maida:
- 50th percentile height and weight (31 1/2 inches, 26 pounds)
- Got two shots today (DTAP and Influenza)
- Great on her development!
- Great on eating!
- Needs to work on more words/speech

Skogen:
- Belly measuring 29 weeks
- Heart sounds good
- Still breech! Doc is giving me six more weeks to get him to turn. If he doesn't turn by that point, I'll have another ultrasound to determine exact position and then it will be an automatic c-section if he hasn't turned. She was concerned, but said that it can be done.
- Next appointment scheduled for 32 weeks

I voted! ... well, almost.

I have never voted. I am 25 years old and have never taken advantage of my voting privilege. I just really have never gotten into the elections. I let friends' comments, door knockers, commercials, and political emails go right in one ear and out the other. I'm not the type of person to complain about our government, economy, or US leaders. I just live in whatever circumstances that I'm given, which has played into my hesitancy to vote in the past.

As election day approached this year, I definitely didn't educate myself as much as I should have, but I was seriously considering voting (despite my lack of interest in the election), not that I knew exactly every issue that each candidate stood for, but I almost felt like it was my American duty to vote. That's until I read something that a good friend said about Obama. She said that she truly believed that if you voted for Obama, you would be held accountable [by God] for killing innocent lives (since Obama was for abortion). This struck me rather hard and scared me quite a bit. If that was true for Obama, wouldn't that be true about McCain (because not everything he stood for was Biblical), or any other candidate on the ballot? Could I potentially be held accountable for voting for someone if they didn't stand exactly for what God would?! It was at that point when I realized that I could not vote, not at all, not for anyone. I was scared.

I expressed my fears last night to Erik before he went to vote because I was still scared that if I voted, I was going to hell... and if he voted, he was going to hell... we talked about it for a little bit, but he really didn't see it that way. He still felt obligated (and honored) to vote in this election and was confident that he was voting for people who upheld more christian values than their opponent. He encouraged me to go with him to the polls and if I was scared to vote, I wouldn't have to vote at all, or I could just abstain from voting for a certain position. I thought that was a good idea, so with 20 minutes left until the polls closed in Minnesota, we were off!

I have to admit that I was a little nervous, yet excited to finally be participating in my first election! We were not registered voters, so before leaving the house we gathered anything we could find for proof of address. We had health insurance bills, car insurance, bank statements, and student loans. As I approached the older gentleman at the door of the polls, I was shaking as I handed over our proof of address (Was I doing something that I could go to hell for? By voting, was I turning my back on God because I was supporting a worldly person? I tried to tell myself that I was doing my best just by supporting the candidates who I felt best represented God and that none of the candidates were perfect people - in fact, none of us are!) As all my doubts and fears were racing through my head, the older gentleman was flipping through our papers and asked me if we had brought any utility bills. Utility bills? We don't pay utilities because they are included in our rent and utility bills were the only thing that they could accept for proof of address. He apologized and we walked out the door as fast as we had come in. All my fear, all my anxiety, and we weren't even able to vote.

Honestly, I feel good about trying. I also feel good about the election finally coming to a close. I know there were a lot of different emotions last night as Obama was announced the winner, but I have confidence that God will take care of our country, no matter who is in the presidency. God bless America! (I feel cheesy saying that, but I really do mean it.)

November 2, 2008

November 2nd: the long-awaited surprise date day.

I had been eagerly waiting for November 2nd to come around for about a month, and as the day finally approached, I had bitter-sweet feelings. I was VERY excited to leave Maida for a full day (for the first time ever!!!) and go on a surprise date with Erik... but, I was also very nervous about how Maida would behave for the babysitters and I hoped that she would be okay without us.

Well, it turns out that as the day unfolded, our three babysitters were AWESOME and took great care of Maida while we were in Minneapolis where Erik surprised me with Vikings tickets! Our tickets were on the 50 yard line, 3 rows up from the field, closer than I ever dreamed of watching a Vikings game. I could not believe it! We had the best time at the game with our friends Chad and Katie, and followed it up by dinner at Bennihana's, a Japanese steak house. It was such a blessing to get away and spend some quality time with Erik. We did miss Maida a lot and we talked about her several times throughout the day, but over all it was good for us to be away from her and enjoy some time by ourselves. Honestly, I don't even think she missed us!

Thank you, Erik, for our awesome date! Thank you for Chad and Katie for bringing us with you! And thank you to our babysitters who divided up the day... Kathy (and her family), Cameron (and her family), and Christine.

I posted the pictures from the trip here: http://scharrerfamily.shutterfly.com/

Adventures at Jay Cooke State Park

On Saturday we headed to Jay Cooke State Park with the Dickinsons. Soon after arriving, Erik tripped on a rock while carrying Maida in the backpack and Maida came flying out of the backpack, over Erik's shoulder. She was headed face-first,with high velocity, for a rock. Erik was actually (and miraculously) able to catch her enough to break her fall, but at the same time he went sliding down the incline that he had been walking on and went right into the water. He was able to hold Maida out of the water, but had to try to balance on a really slimy rock under the water until the rest of us heard him calling for help. Ryan was able to pull Maida up, but by this time Erik was getting numb from the cold water (there was a thin layer of ice in places) and he couldn't get any leverage on the slimy rock he was balancing on to pull himself out. After a few tries, Ryan was able to help pull Erik out too. Thank goodness Ryan was there to help because there is no way I would have been able to balance with my big belly on the incline to pull Maida or Erik out of the water. I'm also thankful that Andrea was there to help me carry Maida back to the car.

Erik stripped down to his underwear after we got back to the car and we headed to the Sunnarborg's, who live close to Jay Cooke, to get Erik some dry clothes. While we were there, we got to see all of their animals! Maida had a blast petting and feeding the elk, bunnies, ducks, geese, turkeys, chickens, and dogs.


Here's a video of Erik eventually getting out of the water. Avery was crying in the background because she wanted to get in the water too! Haha, how cute! She didn't understand that it was VERY cold!

Halloween Day

I seriously have not had this fun on Halloween since I was a little kid. Here is a recap of our Halloween day...


We started off the morning by going on a walk with our neighbors to a little cafe and having a smoothie. The girls loved riding in the stroller together.


After lunch and a nap, we started getting the costume on and met up again with our neighbors for a Halloween picture, similar to the one last year that we took on Halloween. Maida was a tiger and "Boo-boo" was Piglet. We also took a picture with Boo-boo's mom, me, and our girls (we took this picture last year too!).



Erik really wanted to dress up for Halloween, but Wallmart was all sold out of the giant whoopee cushion costume that he's had his eye on. So he decided to be a flower instead (it was the only thing we had lying around the house). He had a green shirt on for the stem and brown pants on for the dirt.


Here are some pictures of Maida on our front porch before we headed to the Halloween party...

(The last picture was taken last year. I thought it was cool to see how much she's changed in one year.)

After taking some pictures and putting some finishing touches on Maida's costume, he headed to the church building for a pot luck and some trick-or-treating around the neighborhood...

When asked to say "trick-or-treat," Maida said "tutu," and always said, "thank you," after she got the candy. She surprisingly never tried to eat any of the candy until we were on the way home and Erik told her that she had to wait until we got home before eating it- he didn't want the car to get sticky. But we let her hold a sucker and before we even got three blocks down the road, my very keen pregnancy nose smelled a red tootsie pop, and sure enough, she had opened the sucker all by herself and was eating it! Soooo cute!

On the way home we stopped by Ryan, Andrea, and Avery's house. We stayed and played for a little while and the girls helped Ryan hand out candy to other trick-or-treaters...

After getting home and looking at all of Maida's candy (and eating a few pieces too!) Maida was just wired! So we let her stay up and help clean up the house with all of her extra energy! Erik took these pictures of her wearing his hat and helping mom with the recycling. She actually is a big help these days, now that I'm getting bigger and more immobile!

After a poop job on the floor and a long soak in the bath, Maida finally gave in and went to sleep. What a great end to a wonderful day. Happy Halloween! We hope you all had a great holiday too.

Maida's First Pumpkin Carve

Maida was daddy's little helper. She was really interested in what he was doing.

We asked Maida what she wanted to carve in the pumpkin. She shrugged her shoulders. So we started naming animals and cartoon characters. Then I mentioned doing a "face" and Maida looked at me and said, "eyes." She wanted to carve eyes in the pumpkin! So Erik made some really cool looking eyes for her!


The finished product.



Maida "posing" by the pumpkin (and sucking on a fingernail polish bottle!).


Our pumpkin throwing up??! I have no idea what Erik was trying to achieve here. It must be a boy thing...

Maida's First Day of School

Waking Maida up for the first day of school was difficult!

Today was Maida's first day of "school". She really didn't want to get up this morning, but eventually she got out of bed and we made it just in time to check in and meet all of Maida's teachers before all of the other kids got there. Ms. Pat and Ms. Vicky are her teachers and she has a few assistants in the classroom too.

When we walked into the classroom, Maida immediately took off and started playing with all of the toys. When the other kids arrived, she wasn't one bit afraid to go up and say "hi" to or play with any of them. All of the children in her class are one-year-olds too. It was so interesting to see the differences in development between all these one-year-olds! Maida was the only one that was potty trained! Haha! Many of the others had better speech and a bigger vocabulary than Maida does. Hopefully by being around them, she'll pick up on a lot more.

When it came time for all the moms and dads to go to their own class, leaving the toddlers in their own class, everyone had their eyes on Maid's and I. Since we were new to this (and all the others have been coming for seven weeks already), I think they all thought we'd have a tough time. However, Maida didn't even want to say goodbye to me. She told me to "go" and took off to play. I was surprised at how clingy a lot of the other children were in her class and how they cried and cried when mom left, even after they have been doing this for seven weeks already. I'm so glad that Maida is Ms. Independent because it looked like it was really hard on the moms and dads, to leave their crying babes behind.

The parent class was really good. We discussed some sleeping problems that some of the kids are having lately and I was relieved to hear that we're not the only one going through a bit of a transition with bedtime. It sounds like it's an age-appropriate thing. I was surprised, though, at how many of the families co-sleep. Most of them did, and most of the moms that I go to prenatal yoga with co-sleep with their kids too. I guess that I see nothing wrong with it, I was just always encouraged not to do it by doctors, friends, and relatives. I can see how it would be a lot easier to wake up with your kids at night, but I also see how it would be hard.

After the parent class was done, I went to pick up Maida from her class and when she saw me coming she took off running in the opposite direction! Most of the other children were very happy to see mom or dad come back. But Maida didn't want me at all. It was very embarrassing (and a bit sad!). When I tried to go to her and hug her or ask her what she did in class, she said, "No, go!" and wouldn't get close to me. She's never been like that before. Usually she's very happy to see me. However, she's never been in a room with that many toys before either! Eventually I got her out of the classroom and into the car.

Next week we don't have class because it's conferences. We will still have a conference with Maida's teachers, even though we were only there one week. They had me fill out a questionnaire on Maida today that tests her social and emotional development. We'll be going over the results of that at conferences to make sure that she's age-appropriate in these categories. If she's not, we'll be able to be referred for further help, but I'm sure she's probably pretty normal!

After school she was so worn out!

We put name tags on the kids' backs for the teachers.

Halloween Week

[Maida after church on Sunday]

I have discovered that having a child, definitely makes holidays more fun. Even last year, it seemed like every holiday was a big deal because it was Maida's first. Now this year the holidays seem to be a big deal because she's actually able to participate in the festivities! This year Halloween started on Sunday when she wore her pretty Halloween dress from Nana to church. And every day this week we are doing something different to celebrate. Monday we made Halloween cards and tonight we made cookies while Erik studied in his new office. Speaking of new office...

We changed around our house! We turned our dining room into our bedroom and our bedroom into Erik's office. It's working just perfectly and makes it feel so much bigger in here. We just can't have company for dinner because we don't have a dining room table! I'm really enjoying having Erik around the house all the time. It's so nice not to have to be alone and to be able to depend on him for help with Maida, or whatever, whenever I need him. It's also nice because I can tell that he really enjoys being home with us too. The only thing is, he says that he's going to get fat studying at home because he just keeps eating! Maida has been very happy the past couple days with Erik being home so much. At first it was an adjustment, trying to understand that Daddy shuts himself in the bedroom and then we have to leave him alone. Now she is getting pretty good at leaving him alone. She'll walk by the "office" door every once-in-a-while, knock on it, and yell "Da-Da!"

[Erik studying in his new office]

Having Erik home has also encouraged me to be a little better at things around the house than I have been. It seems like ever since I got pregnant with Skogen and was sick, I got lazy! I haven't hardly cooked a meal or even gotten up to make Erik his lunch in the mornings. I barely keep up with the laundry and at times it seems like just caring for Maida is all the energy I've got for the day. However, Erik really encouraged me this week to step it up as a housewife. If this is my dream job and my dream life, I should live in it, not mope in it. So, I have started staying on top of things this week and I have to admit that I'm feeling a lot better. I have a lot more energy, even though I'm working harder!

This afternoon Erik and I took Maida up to the medical school so that she could be a pediatric patient for the first year medical students to practice on. I went into the room with her and a medical doctor was with a group of about 10 students, walking them though an entire Well Baby check up. It was neat to hear how and why they do everything they do. It also gave me a whole different appreciation for Erik and all the things he has to learn in school. Not only does he have to learn body anatomy, but he has to know every function of the anatomy, why it does that, when it does that, and then he also has to know all the mathematical equations behind everything too (you should see how many he's got memorized!). Wow! On top of knowing about where, when, how, and why things function they way they do, he has to know how to check for abnormalities of these functions, how to treat these abnormalities, and so so so much more (Can you imagine even trying to know all the different antibiotics out there and how or when to use them? I can't even pronounce half of their names!) I just can't believe how much work it is to be a doctor. No wonder they get paid so much when they get out of school. I can't even imagine the brainpower that goes into specialties, either. Like brain surgeons or heart surgeons. Uffda!

[Erik stays up and studies all night the night before a test. Here are pictures of Erik staying up all night to study *in his new office* and a page of his notes with too many different equations for me to even try to understand. I think it's cute how he color coordinates notes.]


Well, I better close for now and get to bed. Tomorrow morning Maida and I start ECFE bright and early! I have to admit that I am a little nervous. It's like starting the first day of a school year! Maida seems to be really excited and says "school" and "teacher" when we talk about going. I really hope that Maida enjoys it and that I don't have to talk in front of a whole lot of people. I have such anxiety about being the center of attention! It's hard enough going to my prenatal yoga class on Monday nights when we all take turns talking about a certain topic. I usually start sweating and shaking long before it's even my turn. Hopefully our children will all take after Erik... not only his public speaking skills, but his smarts too!

Thank you Nana for the pretty Halloween dress!!!