I earned a new "mom" card in the middle of May and officially dealt with my first bout of toddler stomach flu. Rory woke up and was playing with me in our bed while Stephen got ready for work. She had barely spoken those infamous words, "My tummy feels ouchie..." when all the sudden she, my bed, and I were all covered in puke. We spent the day on the couch watching lots of Daniel Tiger (her new favorite) and cuddling in between her "hiccup" sessions. I don't know how "throwing up" became "hiccups" in her mind, but it made me laugh every time so I never corrected her. One of the only bad symptoms I've experienced this pregnancy is a sensitivity to smell, so this day truly was a labor of love. While there is nothing more sad than seeing your baby in pain, it's hard to beat the sweet docility of a sick toddler. So maybe I'm a little bit of a monster because it was a good day.
Also, it thankfully didn't last very long at all and she was all perked up and ready to head out for a library adventure by the evening. I should apologize publicly for any illness we may have spread that night, but I wasn't about to pay any overdue book fees and we both needed to get out of the house, so what's a mom to do?
I'm so glad her little bug didn't last long because the very next day was her final "Baby Ballerinas" class in which they would be doing a show for the parents, and we were not about to miss out on that! I loved watching her check herself out in the mirror, and the way she waited her turn to get each of her new accessories. I loved all the parts of the dance she remembered and all the ones she completely zoned out on. I loved when she would wave at me in the middle of performing and how happy and proud she looked the entire time. Does anyone know how hard it is not to cry when you are experiencing one of the proudest moments of your life and it just happens to be a two year old just dancing around being a two year old? Stephen was sad to miss out but probably relieved he didn't have to associate himself with the crazy emotional mom.
We celebrated by visiting a nearby bakery I had heard about but had never tried called The Great Gatsby. Rory picked a chocolate sundae cupcake and I got a birthday cake and a raspberry macaron. All the desserts were exceptionally delicious and we will find many reasons to go back I am sure.
Later that night we got to pick Madalyn up from the airport! She took some time off from work to spend a long weekend with us and it was way overdue! We watched a lot of iZombie, did a little shopping, spent some time at the zoo, the splash pad, the puppy store, and maybe ate at the Baked Bear twice in the four days that she was there. No regrets.
One of my weaknesses is being an attentive friend. I am not great at calling just to check in, or keeping people up to date on what's going on with me, but Madalyn doesn't get tired of dealing with my laziness and has no problem picking up where we left off no matter the time that has passed. She's the best and I'm really grateful for the hallway we shared for bringing us together.
The best realtor in Arizona, Bryce Henderson, spoiled us all again with a free showing of Aladdin. Last year we got to see Incredibles 2 and it was Rory's first movie going experience (minus that time I breastfed her through the entire La La Land movie) and she did surprisingly great, so we were very excited to get to see this one altogether. She LOVED it, and Stephen and I both thought the movie was so well done. I couldn't get over Jasmine's costumes and thought that Rory would be as impressed as I was, however, as soon as the movie was over all she could talk about was "the bad guy" and when he became "the bad genie". We've had lots of talks about Jafar since then.
The month of May also meant getting ready for Girls camp! It was a stake camp this year and they were handling all the food (can I get a hallelujah?). I also had the best camp director ever, Jen Reynolds, who also happened to be the Young Women's president before, so girl knows what she's doing. Basically, in comparison to how I felt preparing for camp last year, I felt like I was getting ready for a spa weekend instead of a girls camp. I had to include these pictures of the night before camp when we were packing up the trailer because this is Rory at basically every Young Women activity I have to bring her to, which is a lot. If only the poor girl could get some attention, am I right?
Stephen was able to take the week of Girls Camp off so that he could stay home with Rory (sigh, my hero, and all the heart eyes). We didn't leave until Wednesday morning so we had the beginning of the week to finally spend some time together and IT WAS AMAZING. We finally got to take him to the zoo and show him all our favorite animals there. Reba the elephant put on quite the show for us. Sadly, the monkeys in monkey village weren't quite as obliging, but it was still a good day for all of us.
Camp went so well this year, even being seven months pregnant. I invested in a camping cot and memory foam mattress and let me tell you, it was a game changer. The best part about camp was that it was actually cold this year. Cold! In Arizona! We got to wear sweatshirts during the day and had to bundle up at night to avoid freezing. The girls and other leaders were pretty miserable, but I was in heaven. After the first night some of the girls had the idea to warm rocks in the fire and put them in the end of their sleeping bags. That helped stop the complaining and we only ended up with one burnt towel and one burnt tent bottom, so all in all it could have been a lot worse. We went horseback riding, canoeing/paddle boarding, rappelling and ate lots of yummy food. The worst part was that once we get far enough north, I have no cell phone service at all. I also don't know the area at all. I was driving my new glorious minivan with a car full of girls, and every time we were in the car I had to be right on someone's tail because if we got lost we were going to be truly lost (because none of the girls had cell phones either, bless my little rule followers). We had a couple of scary moments but we came out on top!
When we were headed back home on Saturday and I finally got service again this was the one picture I had received from Stephen with the caption, "Guess who is the boss around here?"
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