Sixth Sense

It's bath night, and I've gotten both girls washed. I've taken Abby out to dress her while Emily plays a little longer in the tub. The door to the bathroom is mostly shut to keep the air in there warmer. In Abby's room across the hall, I've got a diaper halfway on her when I leap up. I go flying across the hallway and fling open the door to the bathroom. "I KNOW you are NOT standing up in that tub, young lady!" I bellow, as Emily drops to her seat.

Mark looks up from his laptop. "How did you know she was standing?!"

Forty-Four Months

Dear Emily,

Happy forty-four months. I have some excerpts from daily life to share with you this month...

Me: I can't remember what all I needed to get at the grocery store. I can only remember two of three things.
You: Can you tell me what they are?
Me: Well, okay... Paper plates and facial soap...
You: PULL UPS! PULL UPS! PULL UPS!
Me: Oh yeah, that's it. I did tell you that last night. Good memory!

This morning, your teacher at school told us that you are a trendsetter. Apparently your best friend at your new school wanted bangs just like yours, so she had her mom cut her hair over the weekend. Next we'll have them all wearing skull shoes and corduroys too. And taking prunes for lunch, heh.

I sang "Row Your Boat" to you last night for the first time, and when I'd finished, you hauled yourself up off of your pillow to look me in the eye and say, "That's not how they sing it on the video at school!"
"What do they say, then?" I asked.
"Life is about a piece of cake! And then they all wave their shovels in the air!"
I laughed at the thought of you believing that people row boats with shovels. And then I explained oars to you.

You had a great Halloween. First we trick-or-treated in the dorms at the local Christian college ("Very different from my dorm days," Daddy said) on Thursday. On Friday, you spent the night at Grandma and Grandpa's and handed out candy to trick-or-treaters. You tell us that you weren't a bit afraid of anyone that came to the door. On Saturday, you were in a Halloween parade and you and Abby won first place in your category, nursery rhymes. You were Mary and Abby was your little lamb. You have a blue ribbon and ten dollars to show for it.

You haven't been feeling all that hot for the last few days. You're coughing and snotty and a little warm, but you refuse to nap. We watched The Little Mermaid after Abby went to bed this evening, curled up on the couch together. The part you found most upsetting was when King Triton smashes all of Ariel's collection of human stuff. You cried and cried that her daddy could be so mean. And you were upset that Ariel married Prince Eric and couldn't go back home. I explained the smashing scene as best I could, reminded you that Triton gave Ariel legs in the first place and could probably make her and Eric into merpeople if they wanted to visit, and made you laugh by repeating Ursula's phrase, "My Poopsies!" Which, there isn't much funnier to you right now than bodily functions and for me to say 'poopsies' had you collapsing in giggles.

I love you,
-Mommy

Happy One Year!

Dear Abby,

Last week, you turned one year old.

Whoa. Wow.

It's very hard to think of you as a year old, for several different reasons. You don't crawl, cruise, or walk. You're not even that big of a roller. So it's easy to think of you still as a seven or eight month old. Also, your mouth is still pretty empty. Your bottom two teeth have been around for a while, but your top two middle ones aren't very far out of your gums yet, and I just noticed on your birthday that you have two more teeth coming - the top ones to either side of the middle ones. So you barely have any teeth still. And you're not talking at all, not "dat!" or "mama". You do say "DA DA DA", usually when you're angry, though sometimes when you see me or Daddy.

You do a lot of obnoxious whining. I think it's still related to the fact that you are largely stuck in whatever spot you are set and you get tired of it, but you could also be getting ready to communicate and are frustrated by your lack of words.

Really, though, I think you communicate pretty well. I know what your different whines mean usually. When you do not want something (to be fed, to be given a toy, etc.) you either shake your head no or swat with your hands. If there is food on your tray and you are tired of eating it, you sweep it off with large sideways motions, making me think that it would be very easy to teach you the sign for "all done". You do wave "hi" in the mornings when I come in to get you up. You wave hi when you see someone that you haven't seen for a while (like Emily after a nap, Daddy when he gets home). The other night at dinner, you were sitting in your chair while we were eating. I happened to be in the way of your line of sight with Daddy. When I leaned back after eating, you peeped around me and waved HI as hard as you could to him, causing both of us to laugh.

I think I will try to teach you some basic signing. I doubt very much that there's a mommy and me signing class around here. The ASL books that I have ought to do the trick.

I'm still up in the air over trying to get you to move to more solids and wean you off of the bottle. I would like to, don't get me wrong. It's just that you don't seem interested in feeding yourself much really, so I've been up several times this week in the middle of the night, giving you a bottle to make up for the meals that you missed during the day. And you know I'd rather not be up in the middle of the night for anything. Also, you will not learn to take a sippy or a straw. We're going to the store soon to see if I can find some of those sippy cups with a nipple. Getting you to hold a cup for yourself will be a big step.

So, your birthday! We actually didn't do much of anything on the 16th. Daddy had to work, I had to work... We kept the celebration for your party. Lots of people came to see you. We decided to have your party from 11-1 because that's a good time for you usually. We served chili and cider since it was a cool fall day. You didn't have any, but you did have cake!

The bakery where I bought your birthday cake also makes complimentary first year cupcakes, so you were able to have your very own. You were tentative at first, sticking your fingers in the whipped topping and examining it. Poke, look, poke, look. There's a picture with your daddy's hand, pointing to tell you to go ahead and eat it. Finally, you did. You were uncertain that you liked the taste at first, but in just a few seconds you were ready for another handful. We let your sister step up and share after a bit too, because it was very hard for her to wait and watch you eat your cake without her having any.

I have a sad confession to make here. Uncle Mike videotaped you as we sang Happy Birthday and blew out your candle and you sampled your cake, but you'll never get to see it. Daddy had the camera out that evening, watching the party with you and Emily, and when he set the recorder down to charge it, he didn't forward past the part with your birthday celebrations on it. Then the other day, you and Emily were playing and laughing and I picked the recorder up and started recording without checking it. And I recorded right over that part of your party. I'm sorry. As your daddy said, at least we have the stills.

We let you open your first gift, but your sister helped with the rest. You got a lot of nice things - clothes and toys. You received some duplicates that we're going to take and try to exchange. All in all, you had a very fun little party.

Abby, it's a good thing you're not ready to be a toddler. When you were first born, I had a very fatalistic thought in the back of my mind that you were not going to be here long. I was afraid I would lose you before I ever got to know you. I don't know why I felt this way; just that I was enamored with your baby self and didn't want you to go. It's hard to believe you've been here a year already. Most kids your age aren't babies anymore; they're crawling and toddling and causing all kinds of mischief. Even though I do want for you to crawl and cruise and do things that normal kids your age are doing, I have to admit that I'm also secretly happy we've been able to prolong the sweet sitting and babbling phase. I'm not ready for you to toddle away just yet either.

Love,
Mommy

Em says:

(Em and Ab are playing in Em's room. Ab's blowing raspberries.)

"Abby has the spits!"

Sweet

I just set my ring tone to this. Because I'm an extreme Jason Bourne fan right now. No matter that the last movie is two years old and the next one isn't tentatively coming out until the summer of 2011.

Does that fit my persona? Probably not.

Swine Free

I don't have the swine, hooray.

Fairlywell, they test for swine flu by taking a culture from your nasal passages. It's basically like having someone poke around the inside of your nostril with a sharp stick. I made the nurse laugh when I said, "You know, I don't really care for this..." and I kept backing away. "I can tell," she chuckled. Finally I had to put my hand on the back of my head to keep from inching backwards from her and her instrument of torture.

Bonus: Everyone who worked with me had to wear surgical masks until we got the negative result (in-office). So that was kind of cool. I felt like I was in a sci-fi movie. They saw me coming and snapped their masks in place.

---
Forgot to mention that I told the doctor I'd read conflicting information about when the results would be back: in-office or in one to two days? My doctor's from Nigeria, so in his deep African accent he said, quite seriously, "We are waiting for you to start snorting."

Wee, wee, wee

Mark convinced me to call the doctor's office this afternoon. I go in tomorrow at 9:15 to get tested for THE SWINE.

Sick and tired

Two weeks ago, I had the flu... or a cold with a fever... or something. It seems to be back, a very similar feeling - aches, chills, coughing just enough to make the tops of my lungs burn. I sweat all night last night (happened for several nights in a row last time). I'm cold and I can't get warm, which is something that has happened very few times since I had Emily. I'm usually always hot.

Mark's calling me his sweet swine. Once again, I'm hoping to hurry through it. Last time, I wanted to feel better for a very special wedding. This time, it's for a very special birthday.

Em says:

Mark: Now, you had a really good day, didn't you?
Em: Yeah....
Mark: It was a better day than a lot of girls had, I bet.
Em: AND it was better than THAT!
Mark: Better than what?
Em: Better than hanging upside down on the couch!

A couple of things

Abby's finally able to roll when she wants to. She can go from back to front and from front to back. It seems silly to be so excited about something she should have done ages ago, and I'm a little embarrassed for her, but I am proud of her too.

Abby has also learned to wave hi and bye. She does a little princess/beauty queen style of wave, hand in the air, swiveling on her wrist. I'll try to get a video of it sometime.

Emily has been coming home from preschool needing to pee so badly that she sometimes has an accident on the way to the bathroom. On Wednesday, she climbed into the truck and looked pretty upset, like she'd been crying.

"What's up, Em?" I asked her. "You look like you've been crying."
"I needed to go to the bathroom and I couldn't," she said.
"Did you ask your teachers for help?"
"Yeah, but they said no."
"Your teachers said they wouldn't help you when you asked them for help?" I repeated.
"Yeah."

Hm.

Getting down to the story, there are two toilets at the school that are kid-sized, which Em is comfortable using on her own. The other toilets are adult-sized (including the ones at the gym and cafeteria). The teachers will not help Em up onto the toilet if she needs to use the bathroom while the group is away from the kid-sized toilets.

So I called and spoke with the director yesterday. She told me that the teachers are not allowed to assist children in the restrooms. She told me that I need to practice with Emily here at home. I told her that Emily uses the toilet by herself at home, but she needs a step stool to get up there because she's so small. "Well, we have children here who are just as small as Emily and they manage to use the toilets by themselves," she responded. "Or they have their little friends help them."

"Okay, then. Thank you for sharing your perspective on the situation," I said, and hung up because I was so irritated. I know this woman has no idea of the effing struggles we've had with the toilet, but the last thing I want is to see it all undone because of the stick she has up her rear end. Plus I do not think it's a good idea to have four year olds helping three year olds in the bathroom. Sounds like a lawsuit waiting to happen.

Mark and I talked it over and came to the decision that we don't want to be helicopter parents, always hovering, but we do want to be sure that our children have help when they ask for it. We want to be sure that their basic human needs are being fulfilled. Today was picture ordering day at Emily's school, so I was able to catch Rhea and speak to her face to face. And either I've totally misread her or she doesn't have the balls to be a bitch in person, because she was almost nice to me. She doesn't seem very bright, so maybe her attitude is a way to hide that. I cleared it up with her that I want Emily to be reminded to use the toilet when their group is in the area of a small toilet. I told her that Emily has always been very, very cautious when it comes to balancing or climbing.

I told her that Abby (who was with me) has gross motor skills issues and receives therapy for them. Her response was, "Oh, she has such beautiful eyelashes though!"

Huh? Oookaaayyy... "So it's possible that our kids just aren't as quick to develop as other kids in that area," I said.

I also asked her whether not allowing the teachers to assist the children was a school mandate or a government one. She told me government, but Mark has never heard of any such ruling (he's in education, if you don't remember). He pointed out that there are aides who change diapers and the school nurse even has to catheter some kids. I suspect he will do a little looking today to be sure of his facts.

Hopefully we can get this worked out.