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What is an Emergency for a 4 Year Old?

dawn — Tue, 19 Feb 2008 19:56:00 +0000

So many times lately Andrew and I have looked at each other and expressed, “We are in for so much trouble.” Referring to Annabella and her carefree wonderfulness.
On Valentine’s Day, she told me that Gabriel is her special friend. She likes him in particular because he is naughty. Her words. We are in trouble.
A mom of another boy in the class told me that her son had made a huge fuss about giving his Valentine to Annabella. I asked her later if she was friends with him, she told me, “Not so much.” We are in trouble.
Annabella came down from nap today exclaiming, “Mom! Mom! I need your help quick! There’s been an emergency!”
“What kind of emergency Bel?”
“A coloring emergency, I need your help, come quick!”
Then I got close enough to see.

So I helped get her outfitted with a good washcloth, some warm water and some baby soap. Washable markers rule.

Good news? She used washable markers and only colored herself and a coloring mat. The bad news? She’s starting to do more and more of this covert stuff she knows she shouldn’t be doing.
The other day I took a shower while Redding was napping. When I came back downstairs, she had covered the entire handle of the oven in foam stickers. Not exactly a disaster. Just one of those things.
And for all the fuss we make over what Annabella is getting into, we know already that Red is going to be a much bigger handfull. He’s way more mobile at a much younger age. His curiosity and lack of impulse control will mean many more interesting mishaps in our future.
I can’t wait to see what else these two get into.

Updates and Nostalgia

dawn — Tue, 21 Aug 2007 02:05:58 +0000

Red had his 4 month appointment at the doctor today. We have good news all around. He is 15.1 lbs. He is 23.5 inches tall. His head is 16.5 inches around. For weight and head circumference he is in the 25 – 50th %ile for uncorrected age. Wahoo! For height, he’s just skimming onto the chart at 7th %ile, which isn’t super, but since it is the first time he was chartable, we’ll take it.
Along with that, he is exhibiting all but one of the developmental skills every 4 month old should have. That is, he isn’t rolling. He just doesn’t spend a lot of time on his tummy and that is 100% my fault. Guess I need to make him work a bit harder.
Today, Bella helped me run errands. She was a huge help. She is getting to be quite a great helper. In addition to that, she washed her own hair in the tub tonight. Wet it, scrubbed it up and got a little help on the rinse. What a big girl.
Days like today, when everything seems to be going right, I feel so good to be right here where we are. The sun shining, the ocean blue, the kids thriving, the pediatrician who is so superb there aren’t even words. Even my teeny tiny little beach cottage seems charming, what with over 1/3 of our belongings in a moving pod outside. A little big of empty space, a little room to breathe.
Our time here at the beach is growing short. I hate long good-bye’s.
Before one of my many moves between Minnesota and California, I was completely unhappy and stressed beyond belief. Wracked with doubts about whether or not I was making the right decision. A good friend of mine said, “Well, you can always come back.”
True enough.

Big News

dawn — Mon, 07 May 2007 15:50:05 +0000

This morning is a whole new world for our little guy. It’s almost like he’s getting ready for a hospital parole hearing…
He’s taking 2 out of 3 feedings by mouth, so his naso-gastric tube has been pulled, for good. No more tape face. If he needs a feeding and he can’t take it from the bottle or me, then they will put in a temporary OG (oral-gastric) tube, feed him and pull it right back out.
He’s in line for his hearing test.
We’ve been asked to bring in his car seat, for the “car seat challenge” either today or tomorrow. That is a funny test where they buckle him into his car seat and if he can sit in it for an hour without anything funny happening with his heart rate / his breathing / or his oxygen saturation, then he can be released from the hospital as soon as he takes 100% of his feedings by mouth.
Things can move pretty quickly at this point, or we could experience some tiny bumps in the road. He hits 37 weeks on Thursday. I still have my fingers crossed to bring him home at 37 weeks.
Yeah Redding!

Film Review – The Holiday

dawn — Sun, 25 Mar 2007 17:23:57 +0000

I really looked forward to this movie coming out on DVD. Left home alone, I am free to watch as many chick flicks as I like, so I am.
The good news is that each of the characters is interesting. They are quirky and fairly complex. Jack Black is almost charming, less hyper-kinetic than usual, very enjoyable. Kate Winslet, although a tad bleeding-heart, is caring and almost optimistic. Cameron Diaz is quirky and crazy and yes, charming. Jude Law is both sleazy and utterly not.
Sadly, the movie lopes. The most entertaining moments are outweighed by the slow plodding forward. More desperation than passion.
I liked it, I may even watch it again, some rainy afternoon, but it wasn’t the greatness I had hoped for.
At any rate, it blew doors on “Le Divorce” which was the biggest waste of my time so far.

An Anniversary of Sorts

dawn — Tue, 27 Feb 2007 20:40:07 +0000

Tomorrow is a big day. An anniverary of sorts. Tomorrow I will be 26 weeks and 6 days pregnant. It doesn’t sound like a milestone, or not any kind of a traditional one, does it?
That’s the gestational age Bella was when she was born.
I like to think I’m not freaking out about that too much. Like to think that I’m all in control of my faculties. But the fighting with Andrew, the crying jags, and the general overeating of the last two weeks say otherwise.
I gained 15 lbs. the first 24 weeks of my pregnancy. I gained 5 pounds in the last two weeks. Oopsie.
Now, I’ve had some very good news at appointments lately. My blood pressure is OK. The baby is growing, maybe even a little ahead of schedule. My blood work has come back normal. Things are looking up.
I did, however, flunk my 1 hour glucose test. By a narrow margin, I had too much sugar in my blood at 1 hour. Now I get to do the 3 hour test. Whoopie!
What would it mean if I had gestational diabetes?
1) It could contribute to having a larger baby.
BRING IT ON.
2) It could mean having a c-section.
ALREADY DOING THAT.
The only down side is that loading up a fetus with sugar, can lead to hypoglycemic infants, which is not super. So, if I do turn out to have gestational diabetes, I will behave myself.
Once the anniversary has passed, I think I’ll be able to chill out a bit. Meanwhile, here are some pictures from the walk I took to the beach with Bella on Friday. (Yes, I can do it, just not every day.)

For more pictures, go to Flickr.

Hushabye

dawn — Tue, 08 Aug 2006 19:55:17 +0000

Yesterday we had the nap tantrum extravaganza. It was surreal. Bella went down in her bed, but I heard a little thud 20 minutes later. I walk in, she’s out of her bed, climbed up onto the big bed (which is on risers!) and is swinging around a large piece of 1′ PVC pipe.
“Where did that come from?” She says nothing and looks toward the window. Aha! She’s pulled the weight out of the end of the roman shade. Very tricky, she’s obviously been monkeying around for some time. I put it back, tell her that’s not OK, and tuck her back into bed. I say, “Be a good girl, stay in your bed, and go to sleep.”
Another 20 minutes pass and she is calling me. She says, “Help Mama, put it back!” I do. She’s up on the bed. Again. I tell her in my most stern voice that I’m not pleased. I give her the choice. Sleep in your bed, sleep in the big bed (with pillows on either side so she won’t roll off, I worry, OK?) or have a time out in her bed.
Her answer? “NO!”
“No is not an option. Sleep in your bed, sleep in the big bed or time out. That’s it.”
“NO!”
So I put her in her bed for a time out. Executive decision. She throws a bit of a fit.
Once she is calm I tell her she has had her time out and can go play. Soon it is time for her medicine. In an uncharacteristic move, she wrestles me as though she is an alligator when we do her inhaler. Once I give up and put it away, she yells for 10 minutes, “I wanna do my puffer!”
After telling her no three times, I move on to the tylenol. For maybe the second time in her life, she refuses. I open her mouth and pour it in (no syringes here, unfortunately) and she spits half out. I wipe her up and try to send her on her way, but now she is screaming, “I want my tylenol!”
At this time, I move into the next room and start reading the newspaper. She fusses, quiets, rages, quiets, kicks it up another notch and then I say, as calmly as I can, “All you are doing is showing me that you should have gone to sleep at naptime.”
Amazingly she quiets herself and comes over and asks me to play with her. I do, we have a good rest of the day.
Today is another story.
It’s not a choice I’d make every day, but our girl needed her rest. And after 1/2 hour of the same monkey business we had yesterday, I said, “OK, if you can’t go to sleep on your own like a big girl, mom will stay with you.”
Every move she made to get up, open her eyes, play with the bunny, play with the crib with her feet, I was there to tell her quietly to stop. I was laying up on the bed, where she really wanted to play, my eyes were mostly closed, but I caught every move she made and thwarted it.
At long last, after I bored her into submission, she started snoring and I sneaked out.
Oy! That girl of ours! Two hours later and, you guessed it, she’s still asleep!

Update on Bellapalooza 2005

dawn — Tue, 27 Sep 2005 13:12:55 +0000

Over the weekend, I received the local March of Dimes newsletter.
It warmed my heart to see team Bellapalooza mentioned under family teams. My thanks go out again to everyone who walked, donated, or just sent us good thoughts.
We’re giving everyone the rest of 2005 off, but be prepared, we will be starting early in 2006. We want to have a bigger team, higher goals, and even more fun this year!
Yeah!!! Go team Bellapalooza!

Oblivious

dawn — Sun, 04 Sep 2005 13:31:54 +0000

I’ve no doubt that anyone who reads this blog has been inundated with information about hurricane Katrina. By now you may be aware of my active filter. We choose not to have television. No cable, no dish, no big aluminum antenna. We do not get the newspaper, because of the choice to filter but also because I hate that so many trees are cut down, only to get tossed in the landfills because so few people actually recycle.
Not that I can go entirely without being in touch with events in the world. I do catch NPR on occasion when Bella doesn’t insist on listening to her Disney music in the car. And I do read news on the web, on occasion. Living like an ostrich, with my head in the sand is hard to achieve in this day and age.
Assimilating the…

aggregious amount of information. The redundancy that is inherent in televised news programs and on the radio is very hard to stomach. I can remember during long commutes, enjoying periods of time when there was no “big story” being beaten like a dead horse, when I could hear arts news and general interest stories. Stories that were diverting and would take my mind off my road rage. Stories that made the 2 hour, 15 mile commute almost enjoyable.

It’s almost the same with the radio stations playing the same songs or artists over and over ad nauseum. Like, it’s quarter after, this must be Maroon 5. Half past? Here comes Kelly Clarkson.

If happiness is fleeting, I intend to grab every moment I’m getting of it. My favorite news source is the chalk board, at the site of the RV campground host, down at the beach. He gives the date, times for high and low tides, and a warm greeting. It changes every day, and you’re not beaten over the head with it.
My heart went out when the Mississippi jumped its banks in like 8 states in 1994. My heart went out to the people who suffered in the Loma Prieta earthquake. Hurricane Andrew in Florida and the Tsunami in Thailand. I can’t even begin to fully understand the devastation of these events. It takes about all I’ve got to acknowledge them, do my small part, and keep on going with my daily responsibilities. To not get caught in the emotional undertow of events in our world.
Maintaining a positive outlook on the world, the wrath of nature, the questionable state of human behavior, is challenging on the best of days. I say, do what you can to help the recovery process. Listen to what you can stomach. Hang on to the beautiful moments you are fortunate enough to have. You may need them some day.