Saturday, October 27, 2012

1 Year Old

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The caboose turned one last month. 

She started walking right before her birthday. She was able to move herself from one end of the room to another by walking, but each step was cautious and careful and often resulted in a fall that ended up in a crawl.  With each passing day she was a little more confident and a little more sturdy until by her birthday, she mostly walked.  She only walks now and actually completed an entire walk around the block with Ivy and Kristi the other day.  I can only imagine how tired her little legs were. 

She is obsessed with her coat and her shoes, insisting that both stay on all the time (she is asleep right now wearing both).  She seems to suddenly understand English and while she doesn’t talk (other than the occasional momma and dadda), she understands everything.  She knows her name as well as her nicknames, specifically Ferbie, Autty, and today the kids named her Trussels to which she responded to as well. 

There is something just so cute about a baby who is now a little person.  A person with ideas and solutions.  I absolutely adore her to find something in the cupboard, decide she wants it, and bring it to me to open.  Or to have her carry her shoes over to me and then sit down and lift up her legs.  I love that she knows I am her person and I will help her solve those pressing problems of her life. 

She loves her pink blanket and drags it all over the house as well as her binky.  We call both of them her “stuff”. 

She coughs when she wants a drink, clicks her tongue when she wants something to eat, and pants when she wants me to nurse her.  Awesome, I know.  Eating is still a challenge and if we aren’t careful she has scratchy eczema on her feet, gets hives up her leg, and flare ups  of hives on her bum.  We still don’t feed her corn products or dairy and I am totally ok with that.  She doesn’t eat a lot of different foods, but what she does eat she likes with flavor and seasoning.  She mostly likes to eat off of my plate rather than her own. 

Her new favorite past time is to throw everything down the stairs.  Right now at the bottom there is a pile of shoes, balls, toys, clothes, a diaper and a toothbrush. 

She is our teeny thing and makes a perfect caboose!

STATS:

Height – 27 in = 3%

Weight – 16 1/2 lbs = 1%

Head – 45.2 cm = 54%

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Her smile.

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Tuesday, October 23, 2012

I hope we make it

7:23 - Ivy awakes and immediately starts crying, repeatedly saying "mommy, mommy".

8:15 - the crying continues but then changes to "my tummy hurts, my tummy hurts". Over and over and over.

8:50 - still crying about a tummy ache, I inform her that she has a fever and a tummy ache and she is going to stay home with me and rest today.

8:51 - the crying changes to "mommy, I do want to go to cool, I do want to go to cool".

9:25 - still crying

9:27 -I am going crazy.

We are in for a long day. I already asked Greg to come home early.

Wednesday, October 17, 2012

Fragile beast

I had that worst week a few weeks back. I am here to report that things are better, except I experience the worst week once a day!

Where is the line between typical three year old behavior and the realization that your child is a poster child for a behavioral disorder?

Today, I am pretty sure we crossed the line and moved into disorder. I picked her up from school and saw the all too familiar hands in her mouth and tilted head with something in her eyes. Most days she can't wait to leave, not the case today. She decided she didn't want to leave (heaven only knows why) and hooked herself to the fence. Mind you, this is the same fence that all the other children have to exit from and with Ivy hanging on to it, well, that just wasn't going to work.

With fear growing inside me and totally knowing where we were headed, I begged her to tell me what was wrong, to use words, to see Autumn, anything!

All I got - girl holding on tighter to the exit fence.

I knew what had to be done and I knew what was going to come from it. I picked her up while holding Autumn, peeled her from the fence and carried her kicking, screaming self to the car. She collapsed on the floor and refused to move her feet out of the way of the door.

So not only is she crying in front of the playground with all the moms walking by, but doing that with the door wide open!!

It only got worse. I tried to put her in her seat and could not get in her in. I had no choice but to tell her we were going to drive home without her in her seat and I hoped I would not see a policeman cause I would go to jail and be gone forever. She forced me to do that.

A beast entered my child, she attacked me, bit my seat, and then got in.

About 40 minutes after this all started, it ended. It wasn't a bad day it was an episode.

She is very fragile and making me fragile!! We both need therapy.

Thursday, October 11, 2012

The truth has been documented

Greg and Owen love to push each other's buttons. I can't think of a time yet when I have left them home alone and not received a call like this:

"Hello"

"Mom?" (Spoken in hushed tones, hiding from Greg no doubt)

"Yes Owen."

"Mom, dad is being mean. He says I have to clean the playroom before i play with my friends."

"I am sorry dear, try to work it out and I will be there soon."

You could really insert any problem or event, mean or not mean, above in Owen's very anti-climatic description of why Greg is mean.

I loved the call the other day while I was at work and Greg stayed home with the kids:

"Hello."

"Mom?"

"Yes Owen."

"I don't like when dad is home from work and here after school. He doesn't even know our schedule and how things work. "

"Why do you say that, what happened?"

"I usually get home from school and you ask me how my day went and I say fine then I ask if I can play and you say yes. Dad didn't do that. I got home and he said play the piano. He didn't even ask about my day. When are you coming home?"

I laughed my head off inside and told Owen that must have been horrible and I was heading home then.

Tonight however, the drama got better. I got home from boot camp and Owen said, "dad was mean tonight". Then he got a big smile on his face and ran away. He brought back a black notebook and explained it was his notebook where he writes down things about Greg being mean (I totally just laughed out loud when I typed that while lying in bed with sleeping kids).

It is appropriately titled "Dad being mean book".

He explained that he goes off in a corner and writes in it. It had two entries.

Page 1- autumn is nice dad is mean mom is gone ivy is good.

Page 2- dad is not letting me ride cars I want to ride my car.

I just totally laughed out loud again.

It was bad enough for Greg to be told on for everything that happened and now it will be documented in a book. (And quite honestly, I cannot wait to read the next entry. )

My son says he is going to be a policeman when he grows up, he totally is.

Thursday, October 4, 2012

Her amazing smile

Autumn is a natural and has perfected her smile for the camera. When she sees my phone pointed at her face or we ask to see her smile, I am met with this amazingly awesome smile.

Wednesday, October 3, 2012

The worst week

It all started two weeks ago, Ivy got a mysterious fever, threw up once and slept all day and night. The next day she seemed like herself and I thought we were through the worst of it. Not the case.

There was no more throwing up or strange fevers but there was an evil child. I sort of wanted that fever back.

I will summarize the evilness of the week with oh how about Wednesday.

We woke up and that ended the good part of the day. She didn't want to get dressed, she didn't want to eat, she only wanted to cry and cry and cry. I took her to school and she kept crying and rubbed her eyes and said mommy over and over. I left with her crying and to be honest, I can't even remember how I got out of there.

Within an hour the phone rang with an update that she had been crying since I left, they tried everything, and she eventually laid on the mat and fell asleep whimpering and she may need to be picked up early. We said goodbyes and within ten minutes Autumn and I were on our way to get her.

I picked her up crying and she went home crying. She stopped for a minute to change into her gymnastics clothes and to tell me she wanted to bring her brush to gymnastics. And then the world ended and we left without the brush. She screamed all the way there and we would have missed her class if we came back for it.

Once at gymnastics a horrible chain of events occurred. I told her we were not going, she said she was done crying and cried all the way in. I told her we were leaving, she said she was done crying and stood behind a plant in the gym that had all of 5 people in it, screaming that she was not leaving and wanted her brush. I picked her up to leave and carried her kicking, screaming, clawing self outside.

Thank heavens for boot camp and strong arms, if she would have escaped I would have died.

I took her outside and asked her to stop crying so we could go back in. She screamed for her brush, leaving me no choice but to pick her up, put her in the car and forcefully shove her and trap her in her seat.

We drove away while she screamed to go back. With the promise she would stop crying I turned around only to turn around again and head home.

It was about then I almost lost my mind. Good thing I didn't, I needed to be on my best behavior for the policeman who said I was going 41 in a 25. Luckily Ivy was still screaming and I must have looked like I was going to go crazy and start crying like that myself cause he let me go with a warning to have a better day and go slower.( At least she kept crying during that event. I would have gone mad if she suddenly stopped and sat back there quietly).

She fell asleep before we got home and trust me I left her that way. I treated her sleeping self sort of like a sleeping lion.

This was the whole week. I almost even took her out of school forever cause i thought school was traumatizing her and I almost gave her away twice.

Somehow we made it and now looking back I think she was sick (or possessed). This week she has smiley eyes, she ate salmon again, and said goodbye to me at school with a brave little face and no tears.

Myself, the teachers at school, probably most of the kids at school, for sure the people at gymnastics, and the policeman hope she really was ill and we don't do that again.