Springtime Fun Time

First let me start by saying that I dropped the camera (again) and now I can't get it to properly turn on. Oops! So we might have a slight hiatus from photos for a while... I did take some Easter videos though, so as soon as I can find the cables to download those off the video camera, we might be cooking with gas! Sigh.

Shae had a Saturday morning play date with her daycare BFF, Quinlin. The girls enjoyed playing together at the park, feeding the ducks, then sitting down together for a refreshing snack. Have you ever tried to get two two-year-olds to look at the camera at the same time? It's not as easy as you might think!

As long as the sun is shining, Shae is outside playing. She's all about bubbles right now. All. About. Bubbles.

Taking a break from the bubbles for a moment to do some dancing. As she often tells me: shake it! Shake your bootie!

Back to the bubbles.

We took a family walk to our neighborhood park. Shae has become a maniac on the park, and nothing is too tall, too steep or to scary for her to try at least once. What a big girl!

It really was an all-family outing -- Zoey got to go play at the park, too!

You'll have to keep an eye on Facebook for photos for a little bit -- at least there I can upload the low-quality ones from my phone.

Hope everyone had a wonderful Easter!

Update, and a turkey

Knee update: so it turns out I have a complete ACL tear and a partial MCL tear. Doh! Gonna have to keep on keeping on in the short-term, as repair isn't an option until the blood clot is done and gone -- and the current coumadin treatment will run until at least July, if all goes well. Soooo... that's all of that.


On to The Shae!


I really do not move fast enough for her these days -- she's always a step ahead of me (which isn't hard to do right now considering my malfunctioning left leg) and telling me "c'mon, mama!"

On a rainy Sunday, we invited Gram and Baba to go bowling with us.

Great fun was had by all.

Dancing helps the ball roll straight. Not sure if you knew that.

Despite having leftover mac 'n cheese on her face, I can't help but love these photos -- I think she looks like such a little girl here.

Shae thinks that making silly faces is h.i.l.a.r.i.o.u.s. It's her favorite mealtime activity right now! (Sorry for the creepy red eye -- I uploaded the photos and then corrected them on my home computer... but uploading takes so darn long I decided against re-uploading.)

A non-Shae update (can you imagine?!)

I promise to get back to the Shae photos soon, but I have a non-Shae update in the meantime. (**gasp**)


Last month Tim and Chris Conlin (with Cate and Henry) came to Colorado to ski. Having not had a lot of opportunities in the last couple years to do much skiing, I decided to head up with Brian, Chris, Keeley and Taylor to do some schussing at Copper Mountain.


A lovely day it was, albeit a bit chilly. (I can gripe -- I live here! Locals don't ski when conditions are less than perfect.) Everyone had great fun and the snow was ideal.


Mid-afternoon, Brian, Keeley and I headed up to the tippy-top to take a dip into Spaulding Bowl. The plan was to ski down, meet up with Tim and Chris W. (who were dropping Taylor off at the bottom to join Chris C. and Henry) and then drop into the bowls again.


All was well and good... until half-way down Spaulding Bowl my skis decided to stick in one spot under the pillowy ankle-deep snow while my body went in an entirely different trajectory. It wasn't even a very good fall!


There was some immediate pain. There was -- I think (I can't be entirely sure) -- a !pop! in the middle area of my left leg. Then there was a few moments of total quiet while I tried to figure out what was going on, where the pain I knew was in my body was located, how to answer Brian's question "are you okay?" and what was going to happen next.


What did happen next was quite a lot of swearing (sorry Keeley!), me trying to relocate myself from my perch on the mountainside to a more level area down below, and an eventual call from Brian to ski patrol asking them to get me down the mountain after I realized that I wasn't going to be able to do that on my own -- a realization that came to me with a jolt when I put weight back on my leg and the knee joint "shimmied" laterally. Ouch.


Also ouch, but only to my pride: a ski patrol sled. In 30+ years of skiing, this was my first ride. The upside of that ego check was the very good-looking New Zealander named Jimbo who pulled that sled. Yes, Jimbo.


Anyhoo, there's actually not a lot more to report since that February day. Having knowledge from when Jody fell and hurt his knee in Crested Butte a few years ago that the mountain clinic won't do much more than take x-rays and then refer you back to your primary care physician in town -- and charge you mightily to do so -- Brian helped me walk (er, hobble) out of the clinic without seeing a doctor; I instead self-medicated the pain at the Dam Brewery with the Conlin and Wrabetz clans over dinner.


The next day I went to see Dr. Chris who, after a thorough examination, assured me that all my ligaments (ACL, MCL, those types of ligaments) were, indeed, still attached. So yay! I chalked it up to personal melodrama and a bad sprain; nothing wrong with lots of ibuprofen, ice packs and a subtle (okay, very noticeable) limp.


Fast forward four weeks: I still can't straighten my leg, nor can I completely bend it, it still hurts and I still limp. So last week I caved in and went to the CU Sports Medicine clinic in Boulder, had some x-rays and talked to the orthopedist. She ordered an MRI which I had last Friday; I'll have the results read on April 4 (the next opening at the clinic). Her suspicion is a torn meniscus. If that's what the MRI confirms, I'm told the solution is a very easy surgery with a very short (like as in hours, possibly) recovery time.


Oh, and I should add that at the end of my conversation with the nice doctor about my knee I mentioned that my ankle has been very pouffy and my shin/calf/ankle has been very tender since the fall. Her light bulb went off and she immediately sent me to the hospital down the street for an ultrasound on my leg. Well what do you know: I have a blood clot in my calf! So I'm currently taking a blood thinner (Coumadin) to evict Scott the Clot (yes, I named it) as soon as possible.


As mentioned this blog will return to its regularly scheduled programming of Shae photos, videos and antics soon -- I just thought I'd use this medium to update any readers (are there really any readers?) who I haven't talked to personally or who have only seen my cryptic Facebook posts alluding to issues with my knee.


Happy spring one and all!

Spring is springing!

C'mon, mom. Get a move on. I'm waiting.

Happy St. Patrick's day!

Saturday morning at Washington Park. There truly is nothing better.

A massive playground that requires Shae's undivided attention.

Shae's newest favorite hobby is jumping. I dared her to jump off the relatively high step on the playground. She accepted the dare. (See the video at the end of this post.)

What do we do after a bike ride and playground time at the park? We have lunch alfresco, of course.

Jumping video. Sorry it's all the way down here -- blogger is touchy.

Delayed update

Geez louise... what kind of blog is this that doesn't get updated in more than a month?! It's like the kid gets big and all of a sudden she's not worthy of multiple-times-per-week photo updates?!

Not so. It's just been a busy little while here in the Bennigsdorf house. Jaime got a new job, Jody has been very busy getting clients to sell and buy homes with -- in addition to working on a flip house with his brothers, Jody's mom succombed to her long battle with Alzheimer's, and Shae has been VERY busy growing from a baby to a toddler to a little girl.

We are knee-deep (pun intended) in potty training, and little missy's vocabulary knocks the socks off anyone who comes in contact with her -- even my very good (and not entirely child-loving) friend told me the other day, "It's bizarre! You can actually understand everything she says!"

Busy is good, right? I just don't know where the time goes; our little girl will be two-and-a-half years old in a few weeks. Now THAT is bizarre!

On to the photos. Since we're playing catch-up, let's go back aways. Super Bowl party! Shae practiced her "go Pack, go!" and "Steelers are stinky P-U!" for days. And all was well and good until her Dad and Uncle Brian started coaching her otherwise. She's very easily persuaded...

Packer green. (Fact: Tinker Bell is a Packers fan.)
Shae helped make yellow cupcakes with green frosting for our Packers party.

Le artist hard at work.

Skipping ahead... (I fully admit I've been REALLY bad about taking photos lately!) Dr. Seuss Week at daycare included one crazy hair/crazy clothes day. I think Shae fulfilled her obligations on that one. And then some.

There does seem to be a recurring theme with our girl these days (or perhaps it's just the photos I snap): she eats a LOT. Which a kid is supposed to do!

What's the saying? Don't look a gift horse in the mouth? Well, as it is when Shae *finally* got some hair (and it's been a long haul!) it really grew in the back... but we're still working on the top and the sides. In common vernacular, that's known as a mullet. (Sigh.) The back is really doing well, though, so we've taken to trying out ponytails (vs. piggy tails) once in a while. Can you see the eventual teenager in these photos? I can. And it's terrifying.

My Lenten sacrifice is not forgetting to update the blog. (Um, that's like a triple negative... but you know what I mean.) See y'all again soon!