The thought never occurred to me for the past 6 years of mothering little girls that we’d end up getting sucked into the American Girl world. Not even when I saw other families with little girls knee deep in it. I didn’t look negatively at those people; I honestly just didn’t think about it. My childhood was filled with Barbie Dolls and Cabbage Patch babies, and the fact that these products are still on the market and popular only allowed my brain to rest upon visions of my little girls playing with those toys. Man, was I way off, or what?

Grandma Indiana had been wanting to take the girls to the American Girl store since she moved to Chicago this summer, but I thought it made more since to wait to go until they actually owned dolls. Annie was all geared up to visit the store as soon as we got home from NC, but Grandma decided to take a trip down to FL putting off the much anticipated visit to the store until yesterday. Let me tell you, it was worth the wait. My mom and I decided to make a day of it including brunch there. The girls were beyond excited and couldn’t stop talking about it until we finally arrived. Rather than keep rambling on about it, I’ll just start with the pictures.

We started the day with brunch. As you can see the cafe allows the dolls to attend the brunch as well with their own seats and tea cups and saucers.

Since Mimi’s birthday is this week we decided it would be appropriate to celebrate it during our meal. They even brought out her own cake with a candle.

Violet was a good sport throughout the entire trip with only one or two fussy spells. She eventually fell asleep in the stroller.

It is amazing how much these American Girl doll creators have put into the whole concept. The outfits, accessories, hobbies, books, movies, and even furniture. You can find just about anything for a doll in this place.

Does your doll need to get her hair done? Apparently, the 20-something people in line needed a new do’ for their dolls.

Has your doll got a boo or boo or other physical problem? Well, the doll hospital has got you covered even dressing your doll in a hospital gown during her visit.

Head on over to the shoe section, if you feel your doll is in need of some new footwear.

Have you found that your doll has bad vision? Well, the spectacles section has got you covered. Plus, pick up a pair or 2 of earrings while you’re there.

Of course, we had to get a picture of all of us in front of the Kit and Ruthie section. It’s not that great of a picture because we asked a passerby to take the picture, and she seemed to be in a hurry to hand the camera back to me.

Each historical doll had an entire section dedicated to her. Just to give you an idea, here’s what they had for Kit Kittridge.

As you can see, someone could easily go bankrupt if they purchased even a fraction of what’s offered in this store. I tried my best to keep the girls from wanting everything in the place, but we did let them pick out a couple of outfits for their dolls (including ice skates) and t-shirts for the girls. I figured this will probably be our only visit to the store, so we might as well splurge a little. I am glad that the girls finally got their wish of going to the store. Thank you, Grandma, for making that dream come true for them. It was a wonderful and dreamy day.

Another interesting thing happened on the way to the store. I was warned by the AG operator while making brunch reservations that some kind of construction would be going on from 7 to noon and would cause some noise and the parking garage to be closed. I didn’t think much about it until we tried to get close to the store for parking and discovered that several blocks surrounding the store were closed. It wasn’t until we were driving around the back a few blocks away that we saw a helicopter loading up what looked like a large, stainless steel box with windows and lifting it up that we figured out what was going on. After finally finding a parking space a couple of blocks away and walking up to the store we were told by a police officer that we couldn’t cross the street for a few minutes (even though we could see the entrance to the store). The police officer looked up to point out the helicopter and said they were lifting new elevators up to the top of a building dozens of stories high. I wasn’t able to get a picture of the helicopter in action lifting one of those monstrosities, but here’s a quick snap I got of the helicopter afterward.

I know I’ve been remiss in updating lately. This week has been frenzied with just about everyone sick all week. Mike and Annie both caught Mimi’s stomach bug. Mike didn’t actually get barfy, but he’s not been able to eat much all week since last Saturday. He’s still not feeling great after almost a whole week. Annie got sick Sunday night and provided me with lots more loads of laundry to do. Good times. Annie and Mike also got a bad cough. Annie even had a fever and was out of school pretty much all week. She went back to school yesterday, but then today the school was closed for the end of the quarter. So that means that she went to school one day this week.

On top of all that Mike finally had his surgery for making it so that we get no more Annies, Mimis, or Violets. It’s been a mixed bag of feelings for us, but we decided 3 kids is plenty for our family. Mike’s been having to stay in bed since the surgery, and it’s driving him nuts. But it caught up with him today (also because of his cold), so he’s back in bed taking a snooze right now. I’m sure he’ll be feeling better by the end of the weekend.

Violet is getting better about eating her vittles, but she still isn’t real thrilled about taking the cereal. She’s figured out how to spit it out which was cute at first, but not so cute after 2 days of it. Have a look for yourself and tell me that this is not cute in the least.

In other news, we apparently have a monkey living with us. Mimi has quite a fascination for grooming her little sister. The old-fashioned, monkey way. Mimi especially likes to pick out Violet’s “ewwies” from her toes while I nurse her. Weird kid.

Yesterday brought on some real drama. It all started with Mimi telling me she was struggling with going #2. I could hear her working so hard to get things moving, but she wasn’t having any success. It was right around lunchtime, so I told her to just try to eat and that it might help soften things up down there. I gave her oranges and water as well in hopes of doing just that. She took a few bites but soon made her way back to the bathroom to do another grunting session with no success. All of a sudden she came out to the living room and leaned onto the leather ottoman and proceeded to barf up what seemed like 2 days of meals. Apparently, she was confusing the feeling she was having in her belly with needing to go #2. Thinking back I realized that Mimi has never really been sick to her stomach, so it must have been a completely new feeling for her. Poor thing!

I was hoping that maybe she just ate some bad food and that this would be the only vomiting with which I’d have to deal. Boy, was I wrong. I won’t go into any gross details, but let’s just say that 3 loads of laundry later and a lot of hand sanitizing/washing made for an exhausting day yesterday and all of last night. The good news though is that Mimi is back to her old self today and ate breakfast with the same gusto as usual. Now let’s just pray and keep our fingers crossed that the rest of the household won’t get pukey:\

Annie came home yesterday from school and declared that I need hearing aides. Apparently, I ask her to repeat what she and her sister are saying too much and must have a hearing problem requiring medical assistance. She’s probably right to an extent because I do find myself having a hard time understanding what people are saying to me most of the time, but I don’t know if I’d go as far as to say I need hearing aides. Later in the car ride home from the eye doctor to pick up my glasses (I guess I’m just a mess) Mimi was asking me something from the way back of the van and while music was playing, I might add. Of course, I couldn’t hear her, and I said so. Annie then interjected and uttered to Mimi but audible enough for me to hear, “Remember, you need to talk loud because Mama doesn’t hear so well.” There you have it. Now I’m off to make the ear doctor appointment.

After coming to terms with my deafness I decided I’d try again to feed Violet her rice cereal. I mentioned in my comments on the previous post that I attempted to use formula in the cereal, and Violet would have nothing to do with it. Someone said it would be sufficient to use water, so I decided to go that route. I’m pretty sure that’s all I did with Annie and Mimi, but I couldn’t remember seeing as it was so many years ago. Apparently, Violet has had a change of heart because this feeding session was no more successful than the attempt with formula. See for yourself.

“What are you doing with that thing.”

“You think you’re going to put that in my mouth.”

“Get that away from me.”

“Blech.”

“I can’t believe you actually tried to get me to eat that vile, detestable substance.”

Annie, being the budding photographer that she is, asked if she could take over the camera after she saw me snapping pictures of the cereal session with Violet. I agreed to her request.

She wanted to first document my other disability, that being my blindness. I’ve worn contacts for many years but have been an eyeglass wearer on-and-off (mostly off) since grade school because the glasses usually give me headaches. At Mike’s insistence I decided to go to the eye doctor after not going for about 8-10 years to acquire a new pair of spectacles.

Then a picture of Mimi with dinner still on her face.

This horse is on loan from a lady from church that Mimi and I visited earlier that day. She lives way out in the country out by a lot of horse farms. Mimi and I got into a conversation about she really wants a pet horse. We ended the talk with agreeing that she could get a horse for herself when she’s a grown-up. The lady we visited got wind of this and revealed to us quite a collection of horse figurines that her son used to collect as a child. Mimi chose this one, and Annie was there to document it.

And we’ll end with a picture of the little photographer.

Violet is growing up way too fast. Therefore, I’ve been trying to put off starting her on solids as much as possible. However, the hourly wake-up calls with 30-minute feedings from Violet on Monday night made me realize that it’s probably time to get her going with the rice cereal. Sniff, sniff. Last night was her first night to try it out, and I must say Violet seemed quite pleased with the new stuff being introduced to her. She was even reaching for the spoon and putting it into her mouth each time. I pumped some milk to use as the liquid for the cereal, but it kind of threw off my body for the next feeding. This morning I thought using formula might be an easier way to juice it up. Boy, was I wrong! Violet wouldn’t have anything to do with it. She prefers Mama’s sweet stuff.