Playgroup

Em and I finally got to the playgroup at the library yesterday.  We've been trying to go for a month or two now....the first time I overslept, the second time they were already full.  It was fun, it was an hour and a half, when we first got there it was open play time.  I had to fill out some paperwork since it was our first time, and Emily was very clingy to me.  So then I went and played with her for a bit.  Then they had to clean up the toys for story time and to sing a song, and then it was open play again.  Toward the end they cleaned up their toys and then had a snack.

I guess this time was a little more laid back since the director had been home sick for a few days and hadn't been to her office to bring in more stuff, so I am anxious to see what a regular day at playgroup looks like.  Emily did pretty good, like I said she wouldn't venture far from me, but that doesn't surprise me since she is starting to go through a shy phase.  When we went to story time last summer, she left me and scooted off into the middle of the kids on the carpet.  I kept looking for her to look for me, but she never did.  She seemed very content.  This time if I even got out of her sight for a few seconds I could see her scanning the room for me.

I have to say though, made me feel loved.  I hope she isn't as shy and anxious as I was as a kid, but I don't think it is a bad thing if she is a little shy.  My MIL says her dad wasn't shy at all, which he said he was surprised to hear, because he is kind of shy now.  How odd....I grew out of my shyness and he grew into it.  She kind of barged in on another kid's time playing with something.  It's ok for them to come play with something another kid is using, but it needs to be something that there is more of.  This was that toy with the different size donuts that you put on the post.  Emily kind of took it over.  The other girl looked to be a little older so she kindly let Em play with it.  But I was proud of Em that she stacked all the rings on in the correct order.  She has that toy at home but I packed it up a while ago with all of her other baby toys, and when she played with it she could never stack them right.

A little boy about Em's age or a little younger tried to take what she was playing with later, which is kind of good.  She needs to see how it feels and hopefully learn not to do that to other kids.  Other than that she did pretty good, no pushing or hitting, no other toy stealing.  This group meets every other week, so I'll try to always take her.  I think it will do her a lot of good to maybe learn some sharing, learn to pick up her toys and put them away, and sit quietly for story time.

Most weeks there is always a shorter story time session, so I could take her for that too, or just to play in the kids' section in the library.  I cannot believe how much she changes week to week.  My MIL mentioned how she seems to be talking so much more, just from a week ago, and how they had conversations all day long when she had her.  She's been saying mommy and mama and dada a lot more, actually using it in context when she wants us, rather than just saying it for no reason.  Today when my husband got home from work, he got her up and changed her and brought her into bed with me.  As soon as they came in the room she exclaimed mommy!  Like she was soooo happy to see me.  That little buggar just melts my heart.

I of course didn't have my glasses on and she said glasses, glasses.  It dawned on me that I probably look pretty strange to her without glasses.  I've had them since the 7th grade, but I was embarrassed of them, so I only put them on to see the board and then took them off right away.  I didn't start wearing them for real until I was 21, and I got contacts when I was 25 or 26.  I go through stages with the contacts.  When I was working I wore them most days, and my glasses maybe one day a week.  But that was when I had a whole routine to get ready in the morning, so putting in my contacts was part of that.

Once Emily was born, I started wearing them all the time, something I never did before....as in, I didn't take them out at night.  I did it on accident one night, and the next morning I was like hmm, it's nice to wake up being able to see.  I was also so busy taking care of her, taking my contacts in and out became something I no longer cared to take the time to do, so I typically left them in for almost a week, and gave my eyes a rest for a day or two before putting them back in.  It was really nice to be able to get up with her in the middle of the night and not have to fumble for my glasses.

But then after a few months I gave myself a nasty eye ulcer.  My eye doctor told me not to wear them to bed, especially since they aren't really marketed for overnight wear.  She said even the ones that are really shouldn't be worn continuously.  It hurt really bad, the day I finally went to the eye doc I could barely keep my eye open.  And I ended up costing myself a lot of money because I just went, forgetting to get a referral from my family doctor first.

So ever since then I barely wear my contacts.  I don't see the point of putting them in at 2pm when I am finally getting ready for the day, and then taking them back out later that night.  Plus last year I got a really cute pair of frames that I like a lot, so I don't mind wearing them.  So anyway, all that to say, I don't really think of myself as a "person who wears glasses" since I never used to, and then I used to wear my contacts more often.  But Em probably doesn't remember those few months that I always wore contacts, so to her I probably look bizarre without my glasses on.  Just like my dad, my dad has always worn glasses and he looks weird to me without them.  He's also always had a mustache since I was born, so it would be very weird if he ever shaved it.  I'm 36 years old and I have never seen him in person without a mustache.

The other day when she was at her Nana's house, I got her closet cleaned out.  She had like 8 months work of out-grown clothes stuffed in a bag in there.  So I got them all sorted and put into totes and in the basement.  I also cleared some space to put her hamper in the closet.  For some reason when it is full, she likes to pull the dirty clothes out and into her crib.  I got tired of having to take all these clothes out of her crib every morning.  Her room is pretty small, and there was no place else to put her hamper.  I also need to clean out the top shelves of her closet.  I don't even know what all is up there.  I got her a stuffed animal hammock but I didn't get time to hang it.  She has a plastic chain behind her door with clips on it that hold her smaller animals, but she's getting so many, they're taking over the house.  So hopefully tomorrow I can get the hammock hung so we can get her friends up off the floor.  I'll have to tell people for her birthday, no more stuffed animals!

So the last week I have been following that news story about Noah Chamberlain, the little boy who got lost in the woods.  Every day I kept checking for updates, but as the days passed, I knew it wasn't good.  If the story was false and something else happened to him, then he was almost certainly dead, and if he really was lost in the woods all that time, with no food or water and only a sweater on cold nights, I knew it was doubtful he could survive more than a few days.  But my heart still sank when I read the headline today that they found his body.

He was two, and Em will be two in March.  It breaks my heart to think if that was Em, in the woods all by herself, scared, hungry, thirsty and cold, no idea where mommy and daddy are.  Reading about bad things happening to children has always been hard, but now that I am a mother and I can at least imagine what the parents were going through, it's so much harder.  Especially when the kids are close to Em's age.  I know bad things just happen, and they kind of have to or you would never be able to appreciate the good things in life, but I wish children were exempt from that.  I wish just by some law or miracle, that nothing bad could happen to kids.

Bubbas and nakedness

December 28th was supposed to be Emily's last bedtime bubba.  The next night I put her down without one, attempted to read her a story to take its place (that never goes well, she just wants to flip the pages and eventually throw it on the ground) and said goodnight.  She cried and fussed for a little while but eventually went to sleep.  Ok I thought, not bad.  We can do this.  I washed them all and sterilized them to pack them away.  

The next night was a different story.  I cracked like a little girl after 2.5 hours of crying and gave her a bubba.  Within a minute of finishing it, she was asleep.  Maybe I am super weak, maybe after a few more nights she would have been fine, but I also feel like they have to be ready, and I just don't think she is.  I know doctors say to give them up at a year, so we're already well passed that, but I've known plenty of kids who never gave up the bubba until well after their 2nd birthdays and probably later.

My favorite mantra is, no kid ever went off to college doing ______, so it won't matter if she doesn't give up the bubba until 2 or 2.5, she won't go to college (or kindergarten) still drinking a bubba.  Plus, we are leaving for Disney in four weeks.  I wouldn't keep her on them just for that, but since we're having troubles letting them go, why not take advantage and keep them around for Disney?  She can have one during take off and landing to help keep her ears from popping too much and it will help calm her for bed if she is overtired any (most) nights.  

So her latest thing has been taking off her clothes and diaper.  For a while now she usually didn't make it through the night without taking her pants off if she was wearing two piece jams, but stripping down to bare butt is new.  She was napping one day and I quickly glanced at the monitor and said whoa, I see a bare butt!  She was sleeping nicely so I figured it could wait until she woke up.  When she woke, I went in and she pointed out the poo poo on her sheets.  Thankfully it wasn't a horrible mess but still.  So I stripped off her top layer, and tossed her clothes and sheets in the wash.  

The next morning I had to strip off the final layer of bedding since she once again took her diaper off when she poo'd.  So that was the end of two piece jammies, which stinks cause she has a lot of them, and she's so cute in them.  But then again I think she would be cute wearing a garbage bag.  So the next night I put her in one piece jams, but when I went in the next morning, she was naked as the day she was born, jumping up and down in her crib and laughing and singing.  Oye.  I couldn't help but laugh though, she was having so much fun.  Luckily no poo today,but she did pee so into the wash the sheets went again.

By now I figured I needed to come up with something, I don't want to wash sheets every single day.  And was this a sign that she is ready for potty training?  I think it could be, but I don't think she is quite there yet.  She does quite well with understanding instructions, but she does not tell me or exhibit any major signs that she has to poop or pee before the fact.  She'll often grab her crotch and say poo poo when all she did was pee, or she'll say it when she has done nothing at all.  And when she is telling the truth, it's always after the fact.

I think she will potty train sooner rather than later, but I don't think we're quite ready yet.  I also think it is a horrible idea to potty train right before a major vacation.  I am nervous enough about flying with a toddler for the first time, let along having to think about taking her to potty several times on the plane, and spending most of the days looking for bathrooms at the park.  And even if she does catch on fast, there is too good of a chance that being away from home and off her normal routine would cause her to regress, thus having to start all over when we get home anyway.

I also think she just likes to be naked or partially clothed and it's something new she has discovered she can do, so she does it.  So I thought, these zip up jammies only had the zipper, no button tab over the top.  Maybe she won't be able to figure those out.  It worked for a few nights, but lately she has been walking around the house with her jammies half unzipped like a 70's male porn star, showing off her chest.  So nooooowwww  we're doing a onesie under her clothes and jammies.  So far that has worked.  If it stops working, we'll resort to backward jammies.

The other thing is she has been making several attempts to climb out of her crib.  So far she has only done it when I am tucking her in and she is protesting bedtime.  I let her try, because I want to see if she can succeed.  So far she cannot get her leg up high enough to climb over.  But I think it won't be long before she will be determined enough to figure out how.  I really hope that doesn't happen for a long time, because I am not ready for her to be unrestrained in her bedroom.  We requested cribs for our hotel stays in Disney, but learning from our last stay in a hotel, we are also taking a kiddie air mattress just in case we cannot get a crib.  For whatever reason I thought it was a good idea to test it out the other day.  Why I am not sure, because if we have no crib, the air mattress is our only option so it really doesn't matter if she does ok on it now or not.

So I tucked her in on it like usual, said goodnight and shut the door.  I was able to move the camera to see her on the floor.  Once she finished her bubba she was up playing for 45 minutes.  I gave up, and tried to put her down in her crib but she wasn't having that, so she didn't get her nap that day.  So let's hope our hotels all have a crib available.  For one, so we can all have a good night's sleep, and two, so that the front desk employees don't have to face the wrath of my MIL.  I love her to death and she is an amazing, kind, loving person....but don't cross anyone she loves.  Her name is Donna, and there is a reason my husband always called her The Don growing up :)  Or....maybe I do want to see her unleash on someone, it could be entertaining.

Speaking of Em's camera, she kept unplugging it for a while.  It was plugged in right next to her crib so she could easily kick it or just unplug it.  So we got a hook and strung it across the wall, plugged it into a power strip and plugged that into an outlet on the other wall, problem solved.  Except it wasn't, because my child is always thinking, always plotting ways to get into mischief, so now she was sitting at the end of her crib, pulling the power strip up by the camera cord and either unplugging it or turning off the power strip.

The last couple mornings the monitor would beep, telling me she had unplugged it and it lost signal.  This morning I sleepily turned the monitor off and accidentally went back to sleep.  I woke up two hours later, completely confused and worried.  Where was my husband?  Is Em ok?  Is she crying for me and I can't hear her?  I walked out of our room, my husband was asleep on the couch, and I walked in Em's room and she was asleep too.  She must have gave up at a certain point and just went back to sleep.  Whew, all was ok.  But that was a weird, scary feeling to wake up to.

I figured I would have to move the camera, which I didn't want to do so I played around with the cord first.  I unhooked it from the hook we previously used to get it out of her reach, put the power strip up on a shelf, and hooked the cord around her monkey wall art.  So now the cord is well out of her reach, stretches across her crib up high and is looped around the money and then the cord goes down the wall behind the nightstand.  It looks incredibly bad, but it's out of her reach, I don't have to lose signal on the monitor anymore and I didn't have to do the annoying task of moving the camera.  Works for me.  It's funny, before the baby is born, you decorate the nursery and make it just perfect.  When they're babies, it still looks really nice.  

But now that she is mobile, her stuffed animals are strewn about, the glider cushions have stains on it, her clothes for the day often get tossed on the ottoman until I feel like putting them away and her room needs a good vacuuming.  So of course, the ugly camera cord is the least of my worries.  Why don't they make the camera cordless like the monitor is?  I wouldn't want to climb up and plug the camera in each day to charge it, but surely they could make a battery that lasts a while, right?  It hasn't been quite two years since we bought it, who knows, maybe it is obsolete now and they do make cordless cameras.  If so I'm getting one for the next baby, cause I am sure I won't be ready to stop spying on Em yet to use that camera/monitor.

Yesterday I took Em sledding with my brother and sister in law.  It was her first time, I think she had a really good time.  She seemed a little unsure on the way down the hill, but never cried, and always laughed and smiled on the way back up the hill.  It was a nice day for it too, cold enough for the snow, but warm enough that we weren't frozen.  We walked to the hill, it was a fairly short walk so my brother pulled her in her little sled both ways.  On the way there I stopped and picked up a two person sled so someone could always ride with her on the hill.  We each took turns riding down with her, it was fun for us too.  I hadn't been sledding in years.

Funny story, there is a nice sledding hill not far from our house too, and I always drove by it on my way home from work.  One day when I was pregnant with Em, I was on my way home early because I had had a doctor appointment.  I saw the hill looked great and there weren't many people on it, and I thought ooooh, I want to go sledding, maybe Ryan will want to go.  Then I thought wait a minute, I'm 8 months pregnant, I can't go sledding.  I have no idea why I thought I could go....it's not like I go often.  I was probably in my teens the last time I went.

Emmy didn't get a nap yesterday either, so between that and being out in the fresh cold air, she was zonked afterward.  I knew it was probably a bad idea to go out to dinner with them after sledding, but I hate cooking and I love to go out to eat, and she doesn't get to see them all the time, so I figured why not.  She had been in the highchair for about 5 minutes when she started looking glassy eyed and then she put her head on the table.  A second later she looked up, and held out her arms to me.  I picked her up and I swear she was asleep before her head reached my shoulder.  Luckily I ordered a salad so I was able to hold her while she slept through the whole meal as I ate.  It was tough though, 25 pounds on one arm, and she was a warm little thing.  And she wouldn't let me just set her on my lap and lean against me, I had to hold her up off my lap in my arm.  I loved the snuggles though, she doesn't snuggle with me much anymore.

Speaking of snuggles, she woke me up much earlier than usual one day last week, around 6:30.  My dad and stepmom came over that day to go have lunch and take Em to the park, so we were sitting with my dad, waiting for my stepmom to get there and within a few minutes Emily climbed in my lap and fell asleep.  When my stepmom came in, she took her from me because Em was all awkward and didn't look comfy, but she woke up and wanted mommy and not Grammy.  But then daddy walked in the room, she yelled daddy and went running to him with open arms.  He picked her up and she laid her head on his shoulder for a good 5 minutes.  It was so sweet.  She loves her daddy of course, but she had never really shown THAT much excitement to see him (or anyone really) before.  I wished I could have gotten that on camera.

So Em is really good at saying mama and dada now.  She's said both for like a year now, and in the last several months said it in the correct context, but it's like in the last month, she finally connected all the dots, and really made the connection that me, and mama is the same thing.  She'll say it now to get my attention rather than just saying it just because, or she'll say it with a smile when she is happy to see me.  My husband works for a big university, so he often wears shirts and hates with the logo, so whenever she sees the logo on anything, she points to it and says dada.  She's also starting calling me mommy too.  I love them both, but mommy really melts my heart.

An open letter to labor and delivery nurses

I read a blog post earlier today from a L&D nurse and it moved me to tears.  I will never forget the nurses that cared for me during both my daughter's stillbirth and my other daughter's live birth.  I wrote them thank you cards and participated in the thank a nurse program at my hospital, but I thought I would write something for every L&D nurse out there, just to express my gratitude.



Dear Labor & Delivery nurses,

In a black and white world, you are a virtual stranger, just another person in the workforce, getting paid to do their job.  But for me and so many other moms and loss moms, you're angels in disguise.  The world may think you just take vitals, administer medicine, and inform doctors of their patients' status, but we know better.  You held my hand when I was shaking from pain and fear while the epidural was put in, you likely knew the grim news, but you offered me reassurance when I couldn't handle the truth, you talked to me like a human being, like I was the most important person on the earth in that moment, as if you hadn't said those same words to hundreds of other laboring mothers.  You encouraged me while I pushed, and told me I was doing great when I felt like I had no clue what I was doing.  You did the job nobody would want to do, a sponge bath, because you knew in my darkest moment, even the act of being cleaned up and dry would give me some comfort.

You treated my angel with such care you would think she was made of glass.  You encouraged me to take pictures, because they would be the first and last time I would see my sweet girl.  You didn't blink an eye when I asked if my daughter could be with us overnight, and you comforted me when you found me holding her and crying early the next morning.  You promptly came to my room to turn off whatever it was in myy IV that was beeping, so I could get back to sleep, even though you probably had a million other things to do.  You showed my brother to a private room where he could grieve when you found him crying in the hall.  You showed me pictures of your six living children, and shared your own story of multiple losses to give me hope that good things can and do happen.

You called after I was home to see how I was doing.  You listened to me cry, and didn't try to fix me.  You asked my daughter's name, and asked about her funeral services.  Your heart ached for me when I heard a baby's heartbeat in another room when I came in for my post-natal appointment.

During my labor of our living daughter, you understood my tears rolling down my face, and my fears when others would think I should be overjoyed.  You understood the physical pain I was in, even though you couldn't feel it yourself.  You assured me you would be with me in the OR, because I was scared and I needed a friendly face on my side of the curtain.  You offered humor with your badge holder that said, labor and delivery nurse, at your cervix! and kindly scratched my nose for me when my arms were strapped down during my Csection.  You warmed me up when I was so cold I was trembling.  You celebrated our little girl with us, because you knew our first born was in Heaven.  Even though you weren't the same nurse that took care of me and my angel, I know you were celebrating with us, because the day or week before you were mourning the loss of someone else's angel.

Given how you cared for us and comforted us, it is evident that we are not just a job for you, that starts and ends at a certain time.  I know we, and our angels and babies stay on your minds.  But please know, your hard work and love of your job stays on our minds too.  You didn't just do your job for us because you get paid, it is obvious that you put all of your heart and soul into your job, and I could not be more thankful for you.  Whenever I think of the devastating yet magical day I met my first daughter, and the amazing day I met my second daughter, I think of my wonderful nurses too and it never ceases to amaze me how loving and caring they are to total strangers, most of which they will never see again, and how much their job isn't just a job to them.

******


The same can also be said about my doctors and OB nurses.  They are all just wonderful, to the point where I would never consider going anywhere else.  We sent our OB and RE pictures of Emily every Christmas, and my RE always sends a nice letter in return.  This year she wished us a Merry Christmas, and she said her holiday season had been made much better when she received Emily's picture and how much she enjoys getting to see the pictures of the families she helps create  :)