Abby’s Saturday // One Hundred Fifty-Nine

Highlight of the Week

It’s been a week.

But let’s start with what this section is titled as, and that’s the “highlight”.
Actually, I have 2 “highlights” of this past week!

1. I was contacted a few months ago by Kennywood Park, after they stumbled across my blog post that I wrote titled “5 Things To Do At Kennywood In The Rain“. They wanted to know if they could repost that blog to their blog (crediting me as the author) and also wanted to extend an invitation to come photograph the park behind-the-scenes. Last summer, they invited a group of photographers in to photograph the park (the images to be used on social media) and they were planning another day this summer to do the same. Of course, we jumped up & down and giggled like little kids in a candy-store and said YES. Fast forward to this past Sunday, when Derrick & I went to Kennywood, armed with our cameras!! We had a blast. So much fun! They took us behind-the-scenes on every roller coaster and we were able to spend a few hours shooting the park. After shooting numerous parks (and Kennywood twice now) for Derrick’s Instagram, it was so much fun to be able to walk around & take pictures from new places! It felt strangely reminiscent to my Disney days when I would take my camera & just walk around the park taking pictures. Seriously – amazing.
2. Then, this past Wednesday was the 85th Annual Norwin Community Picnic at Idlewild Park! So, yes! Two Pittsburgh amusement parks in the same week! It was the perfect day & we had such a wonderful time. I already wrote all about our day (and shared lots of pictures) on Thursday’s blog – find it here if you missed it!

Yes, This Happened

• Poor Abby. Our poor pup hasn’t had the best week. If you follow me on Instagram, and saw my InstaStory post from earlier this week, you know that we ended up at the vet on Monday afternoon.
  On Friday night, while Derrick was playing with Abby in the backyard, she suddenly started limping & not wanting to walk on her front right paw. She’s done this a few times in the past. She’ll limp around on a paw for about 24 hours and then she goes back to normal. We’ve always just assumed that she strains a muscle & simply doesn’t want to walk on it for a little while. This time around, instead of lasting the usual 24 hours, she was still limping/not walking on that paw when Braelynn & I got home on Sunday. Then, when we woke up on Monday morning, instead of being greeted by our normally happy & energetic pup, she refused to move. She was completely lethargic & even shaking a little bit. That freaked me out & a vet appointment was made. We were pretty positive her paw wasn’t broken, as we could touch it & move it around and she wouldn’t complain. We were thinking maybe something had gotten lodged in her paw & was getting infected? So, to the vet we went. And after a quick test, Abby was diagnosed with Lymes Disease. We’ve pulled several ticks off of her in the past few years & the vet said it could have been laying dormant in her system for a long time and just now decided to surface. Thankfully, it’s a pretty simple cure. She’s on an anti-inflammatory/pain med for the first week & on antibiotics for a month. After just the first dose, we already noticed a difference in her, and after 2-3 doses she’s pretty much back to our normal happy pup!
• I hate bees. And I’ve been stung twice in the last week. How does that happen?!
• My babysitter is back! Starting at the beginning of this summer, my sister Ruby has been coming over to hang with Braelynn twice a week while I get some dedicated work time in. Unfortunately, she has been away for the last two weeks!! It’s been rough. But she’s back now! And I suddenly feel so much more productive!
• Braelynn went to see her 2nd movie in a movie theater this week! This was the one I have been planning on taking her to see for months now – The Secret Life of Pets. It’s her absolute FAVORITE movie. She watches it every single time we are on the road traveling (even though we have a lot of other movies she can choose from – she always picks: “Max!”) It was so much fun!
• Bath time is one of Braelynn’s favorite times of the day. We tend to go all out: bubbles, toys (you know, typical only-child stuff) and let her play and have fun to wind down before bed. All of her bath toys are big & chunky and there’s no way any of them could go down the drain. That is, until she brought a new toy into the tub with her: a mini whale. He was fine for a few days & then he disappeared. Around the same time, our drain mysteriously got super slow at draining. Go figure. Needless to say, “Operation Whale” ensued and let’s just say: all drains lead to the ocean (Finding Nemo anyone?) and he’s now free.
• I saw Courtney at Virginia & Jesse’s wedding on Saturday! She was helping them out & working as their bartender for the evening. I didn’t realize she was there until she snuck up behind me while I was taking some detail photos! It was so fun to see her & catch up (and have someone familiar to eat dinner with!)
  PS: if you missed it, the highlights of Virginia & Jesse’s wedding, they are posted here!

Feeling Blessed

This week’s post is already pretty long, but I have 2 more stories to tell. And I’m putting them here, because I’m feeling blessed that both of these stories are behind me & that I can laugh at them now!

On Tuesday, I was doing a few things downstairs while Braelynn was playing upstairs. Recipe for disaster: I know! Usually, she’s super good though. She loves to sit in her bedroom & read books & play with her stuffed animals – no problem. After a bit of time had gone by, I decided to go upstairs to check on her. As I was going up the stairs, I heard the water turn on in the bathroom. This can’t be good. So, as I’m walking up, I asked: “Braelynn, what are you doing?” She responds: “It’s okay Mommy, I’m just messy. I’m washing my hands.” I round the corner to find Braelynn, standing at the sink, “washing” her hands that are covered in diaper cream.

I was instantly taken back to the day I was babysitting and one of the little girls got into the diaper cream. And not just “into” it, she was literally covered from head to toe with it. Thankfully, the Mom was home (I was just helping her at home that day) and she laughed at the whole situation. Fast forward to Tuesday, thankfully Braelynn was not covered head to toe, it was only all over her hands, smeared on her legs, and a little was on some of her books.

I’m proud of myself (am I allowed to say that?) I kept calm. I didn’t freak out. Ruby had just come in to help watch Braelynn for a little while, so I had her get the dish soap and we cleaned it all up. (Did you know that diaper cream is water resistant? It also doesn’t react to normal hand soap. You have to use a strong “grease-cutting” dish soap like Dawn.)

So, that was mess incident #1. Then, on Wednesday, as we were getting ready to leave for Idlewild – round two hit. This time, I was upstairs getting a shower, while Braelynn was downstairs. I had set her up with a show (Sarah & Duck of course), peanut butter toast, and her smoothie. She was supposed to sit there, eat her breakfast, and watch her show, while Mama got a shower. Typically, there are no problems with this arrangement.

As I was getting out of the shower, I hear little feet padding up the stairs. And Braelynn arrives at the bathroom door (with half a roll of toilet paper in her hands): “Mommy, I’m messy. I need to get cleaned up.” I look down at her legs, and it looks like she’s smeared peanut butter all over. Really?

But then I realize: it’s not peanut butter. It’s poop.

I’ve thought & pondered & debated how this even happened. I have no idea. My best guess is that she realized she needed to go potty, went behind the couch (oh, we’re getting to that part), pooped, then realized what she’d done, pulled her little pants down to see how bad it was, realized it was bad, scurried upstairs to snag some TP (while I was in the shower), came back down to attempt to clean it up, realized she couldn’t, and that’s when she came up to see me. There was poop everywhere guys, all over her clothes, her legs, everywhere. So, I dumped her in the shower, hosed her down, got her new clothes, and then headed downstairs to assess the situation there.

There was poop on the floor. Smeared in (because she’d tried to clean it up) poop behind the couch. Toilet paper (big & small pieces) all over the place. It was a huge mess. Needless to say, Mama did not react quite so wonderfully this time around. We got it all cleaned up though, right in time to leave for Idlewild, but not without a quick stop for some coffee, because Mama needed a little caffeine “pat-on-the-back” for making it thru the morning.

Thankfully, there hasn’t been a “round 3” mess – but I’m waiting for it! These things always seem to come in threes!!