It's after midnight, today is Kayla's 5th heavenly birthday. I thought with 5 being kind of a milestone, it would be harder this year. And I did know it was coming up of course, but even over the last few days, I hadn't really thought about it. I just can't win. Either I am sad and crying, or I am living my life and feel like a shit mom for not really thinking about her birthday as it approaches.
But then again, 5 years in heaven doesn't really have the same meanings as it would on earth. If she were alive, we would be planning her start of Kindergarten this fall, her first step as a big girl, moving toward independence away from mom and dad. But in heaven, I suppose every year is just like the last. But I did notice when it hit midnight tonight. Five years ago tonight, I was laying in the dark hospital room, alone (my husband was in the room, but asleep on the couch, haha much like he is right now), and praying so hard for my baby girl. Begging God, or fate, or mother nature or anyone who would listen to just let her stay in for a couple more weeks. I wasn't asking for term, I just wanted her to have a chance.
I wonder who she would have been. What she would have looked like by now. Even in the womb, during the 3D ultrasound, I could tell Emily looked like Kayla. When she was born I saw it right away. One night, when Emily was just a few days old, I stood beside her crib, watching her sleep, and I could have sworn I was looking at Kayla. Her name didn't even seem to fit her at first. Maybe it's because we never called her Emily until she was safe in my arms, so it was still new. But sometimes in that first week I'd look at her and think Emily, and it was like trying to call someone you'd known for years by a different name...but when I would think Kayla, it fit. It didn't take long of course, and I never considered changing it to Kayla. Within a week or so she looked like an Emily to me, but still, it kind of freaked me out.
But I wonder, if Kayla were alive today, would she look like Emily does now, or would her looks have changed as she grew? Would she have been shy or outgoing? Would she be a mama's girl like Emily is or a daddy's girl? How would our relationship with her be different than it is with Emily, if we hadn't experienced losing her? It's such a hard road to walk down. I'm thankful that much of the time I can be happy. I suspect that losing an already living child does not allow much happiness in a parents' life. The idea of losing Emily just....I just don't even know how anyone goes on living.
But having lost Kayla when we did....it's just so hard to describe. I loved her, I still do, so much. I loved her from the second that second pink line showed up. But knowing your child in the womb, while real, is so very different from knowing your child once they're born. I know Emily better than I know myself. I know what she likes, what she doesn't, I know when something is going to bother her. She's very particular and has her own set of rules, and God help you if you break one of her rules. She misses nothing. The other day I was sitting on the end of my dad's sectional, and she left the room for a few and I moved to the other end because the sun was in my eyes. I told my dad watch, she'll notice that I moved and be annoyed by it. She came back in and it took her all of three seconds to say hey, why did you sit over there?
Her beloved Minnie pillow that she carries around, she is blank on one side and has Minnie's face on the other. She refers to Minnie as if she is a living being, and if I pick her up, she'll often tell me when I am holding her "upside down". The edge that her face is on, is her feet when you flip her over to the blank side, and the other end is her head, according to Em. I bought her a new Minnie Mouse bathing suit yesterday, and to mess with her when she went potty, Ryan put the Minnie swimsuit on Minnie pillow. I told him, you've got it upside down, the neck of the swimsuit was on Minnie's feet. He looked at me like I was nuts. She came back in the room and said hey, wha? She started laughing about Minnie pillow wearing her swimsuit. Then she says hey, it's upside down, this is her head. I looked at Ryan...told you so.
I know her cries...I know when she is whining, and when she is just tired. I know when she's really hurt, or scared. I know which foods she'll likely try, and which she'll turn her nose up at without a moment's hesitation. But you never get a chance to know your angel like that, when you only carried them, but never got to know them outside of your body. I constantly feel like I need to educate people on the fact that she is my baby, my daughter whom I love and miss, and that she was not "just" a miscarriage or a lost pregnancy, and that I will never stop missing her and that I think of her every single day, all the while trying to convey the fact that I miss her and love her, but for the most part I am happy and ok. I'm sitting here on her birthday in tears, thinking about what could have been, but most days there are no tears. Most days I feel happy and ok, and I am so thankful for Emily and that she brought me back to life.
I hate that she died, and I am so angry that this happened to us, to her. I am so mad at the senselessness of it, that she died before she even got to start her life and it wasn't even because of anything wrong with her. But now, after the fact with what I know now, her living would mean Emily wouldn't be here. Emily was conceived in June, and my due date with Kayla wasn't until July 26th. Even if Kayla was born early, before the end of June but survived, I know there is still no way possible Emily would have been conceived. With a new preemie, and feeling like shit and stressed out and being postpartum, yeah, there is no way Emily could have still been conceived, there is no way for both of my daughters to be on this earth at the same time. So as much as I wish it hadn't happened in theory, there is no way I can truly wish for that because then I wouldn't have Emily. I know if Kayla had lived, and I never knew Em, I would feel the way about Kayla as I do Em. I wouldn't know what I was missing....but that's like trying to imagine going through life without an arm or a leg. It's just impossible to do.
I feel guilty when I feel content with how things worked out. How could I? Just because things turned out ok in the end, doesn't mean I didn't feel like my heart had been ripped out for all those months. And even now, even if I do not always feel the grief as intensely as I once did, I can still dissolve into tears over the unfairness of it all. Wondering and trying to make sense of it all. I feel stupid for saying I wish I were still in more pain over Kayla. But somedays I am not sure which is worse, the pain of missing her, or the guilt of being happy with Emmy.
I can't be the only one who feels this way, this push-pull of guilt and love and grief and sadness all balled into one big crying mess. But pregnancy loss isn't even talked about as much as it should be, much less the fucked up feelings 5 years later when you've had another child and you cannot seem to just be content with missing and loving your lost child, at the same time as being so in love with and thankful for your living child.
I just hope she knows how much I love her, and that I think of her every single day. Happy 5th birthday my beautiful angel <3
Friday, March 23, 2018
Doctor woes
My baby is 4! We had a good day on her birthday. When Ryan got home from work, we set up a balloon avalanche on the ceiling in the hallway outside of her room. The hope was when she came out, we could pull a string and they would all fall down. It didn't work quite as smoothly, but she enjoyed having all these balloons to play with,
Last year we tried the Pinterest thing where you criss-cross streamers across their closed door, stuff balloons in between the door and streamers and when they open the door, the balloons all fall onto them. But my weirdo child will not come out of her room on her own. Every morning and every day after quiet time, I have to go in to get her. I remember when we first took the front railing off her crib to make it into a toddler bed. I was thinking here we go, the beast is free. I envisioned waking up every day to find her trashing the living room, or coming in and jumping on my bed at 6am. Never did I think she would never ever come out of her room on her own.
Which causes a dilemma with night potty training. Even if she does wake up dry, she will not come out of her room to go to the bathroom. So if she wakes up before I do, she will just pee in her pull up. Ok more on that later.
So once she was up she opened her presents from us. We got her a dream tent for her bed (which she LOVES. I have to admit, it looks quite cozy, I may need to sneak a nap in there one day when she's not home), a giant TY big eye unicorn, two Llama Llama books (Mad at mama and Misses mama), a cloud bath toy, and a little Llama Llama stuffie. He's so cute, he's wearing his red pajamas. Oh we also got her a Melissa and Doug puzzle spelling thing. It's a bunch of wooden plates with a picture on each one and the word is carved in the wood, so she has to pick through the wooden letters it comes with to fill in the correct letters to spell the word. She loved all of her gifts.
After that, we just had a lazy day at home, and she went down for quiet time in the afternoon while I worked. When she got up, we had a programmed call through Nick Jr. to have the Bubble Guppies call her to wish her a happy birthday. I wasn't sure how it worked, so as soon as I answered I scrambled to put it on speaker so she could hear it, and the first minute is just an automated thing saying to bring your child to the phone and if they're not ready yet to push a button. I wish I had known that so she didn't hear all that. Oh well, she was still pretty excited to hear Molly and Gil wish her a happy birthday. That was the first show she ever loved. I remember her sitting in her bouncer when she was a few months old and she'd be playing and bouncing, and then Bubble Guppies would come on and she'd stop what she was doing and just watch it.
Once she was old enough to sit up on her own, I can remember it would come on while she was napping, so I would DVR it. So whenever I brought up the DVR menu, she knew that meant it was coming on...when the music started she'd get a big smile on her face and clap.
After dinner, we had some cupcakes and she blew out her candles. They were pretty good for just being ones I got last minute from the grocery store. It was a good day. She went to her annual well-child visit yesterday. I don't know, I normally love her doctor, but this visit was just weird. Before the doctor came in, a male medical student came in and said he had some questions for us. Emily is very shy, especially around men she doesn't know. She does much better with female strangers. I am not sure why that is....she is very close to her Baba (my dad) and of course she has her daddy...unlike maybe a child who doesn't have a father-figure or any male relatives that they spend time with. Anyway, she wouldn't answer any of his questions, and anytime he tried to ask her some, she would scrunch her eyes closed tight and scrunch up her body and scoot closer and closer to me.
I'd say that's fairly normal for a young child to not be very comfortable with someone she's never met before, and I know med students have to start somewhere, but I was a bit annoyed by him. I don't know how it works...since he is interning or doing a practicum or whatever it's called, in a pediatrician's office, does that necessarily mean he is going to school to be a pediatrician? I don't know, maybe they have to do so much time in many different fields, so maybe he's not really good with kids...or maybe he just chose the wrong field, thinking it would be easy, or maybe it was his first day in the office. Who knows, but I could tell he was not comfortable at all, and her shyness of him made him uncomfortable and therefore didn't seem super professional. Like, he asked if he could ask me some questions, and then he said well....is it ok if I ask the kid the questions. The kid? Call me a stickler, but that just isn't really how a doctor, med student or not, should talk. Maybe I am being too hard on him, but he would fair better in his career if he could somehow force himself to fake confidence until he actually has it.
I didn't mind that he kept trying to ask her questions, but you could tell it bothered him that she wouldn't talk to him, so he kept trying to force her, and it made her want even less and less to do with him. Like, he'd reach out and playfully try to pinch her leg, or he'd make the same face she was making and he'd say "this is what you look like when you make that face". I don't know, it was just awkward. I'm kind of annoyed at myself that I didn't say something like ya know, if you back off a bit and stop trying to make her like you, she might loosen up a little.
Anyways....so he was asking me questions about her diet and her bathroom habits, what she eats and how often. I said how up until a few weeks ago, she quite regularly barely ate anything. I jokingly said I sometimes wondered how she even stayed alive with how little she eats. Everything I said about it, he seemed to react like it was alarming. He asked how long this has been going on and I said um, pretty much since she started eating solid foods, so when she was a year old. He seemed concerned by that. Um newsflash guy, she's a kid. Kids don't like to eat, or most of them anyway. She is picky, and aside from continually offering them food and making sure what she's eating is nutritious and healthy, I cannot force feed her. As long as she does eat, and is not underweight (which she is not, she's in the 68th percentile for her weight) then stop reacting like I am neglecting my child. I know I know, I'm probably reading too far into it, most of his reaction was probably just due to inexperience and not knowing much about kids, but still, it annoyed me.
So when the doctor finally came in, he came back in with her. Since he was there too, Emily wouldn't talk to her doctor either. Not that she's really familiar with her doctor either....she's an exceptionally healthy child, she doesn't get sick much (knock on wood) and the last time she did even go to the doctor for an illness was in January and she didn't even get to see her regular doctor). But still, during past visits, she's never been this shy with her. It was because of him. So she too asked some questions....I felt a little judgment from the both of them over the fact that she is not in daycare and we are not putting her in pre-school until this fall.
Um, I specifically made sacrifices and chose to stay home, and then found a work from home job so that I would NOT have to put her in daycare. Not that those who do are bad parents, not in the slightest, but her not going to daycare was not happenstance, I specifically did not want her to go to daycare. And as far as pre-school goes, I don't think there is anything at all wrong with just one year of it once they are 4. I think 4 is pretty young as it is to have to start the whole process of starting formal education and basically the responsibilities you'll have for the rest of your life, so I saw nothing wrong with keeping her home one final year before starting the whole rat race. Especially since I do think she is very on target or even above average regarding some things, and since Kindergarten is now full days instead of half, I feel that it is plenty.
When I told the med student she doesn't go to daycare or pre-school yet, he was like so she basically just hangs out at home. Uh yeah, that's what kids do before they start school. And it's not like I lock her in a dungeon room with no daylight and keep her away from other human beings. She spends time with her grandparents, she plays with her cousins and neighbors and my friends' kids; over a year ago she started going to the daycare for an hour or two here and there at the gym, so she was exposed to other kids and adults without mom or dad right nearby, and since June I think it was, she's been involved in a sport of activity....first ballet, then gymnastics, now swimming. I get that the doctor, and especially the med student don't know every facet of our life, but I felt like they assumed the opposit of daycare and preschool is sitting at home all day doing nothing.
The doctor asked if she knows her name and could say it. I said yeah and she asked her what her name was but she wouldn't say it. Again, I know the doctor only knows what we tell her and she observes, but Em's been saying her full name for a long time now....I would say her vocabulary is excellent and even way above her age level because I have always talked to her, even as a little baby I would just chat with her all day long so she could get exposed to a lot of words, especially because she wouldn't be in a setting with a lot of people every day. And I don't shy away from using big words in front of her because even if she doesn't understand at the time or be able to define it, she eventually learns how to use it in a sentence. I don't know exactly what the strict criteria is for her age, but I am pretty sure being able to pick up two pens and tell someone that these things are similar is pretty good for a 4-year-old.
The doctor asked if she can draw a circle and a stick figure. Maybe for silly stuff as long as you know your child is developing ok, you should just fib, but I honestly don't know if she can. She doesn't draw a lot...and if she does, I'm sorry but I am busy and I do have a job, so I cannot always examine all of the stuff she does. When we do stuff like that, she mostly colors rather than draws, and she likes to build things like she loves playing with playdoh, and she loves imaginative play with her toys. She also loves physical play....she loves to play outside and run and jump and climb. I know it's important to know where she is at with her fine motor skills and to know if she CAN do something, but not every kid likes to draw, and I think there are just tons of other things she prefers to do. I just felt like I got a weird reaction when I said I didn't know if she can do those things, and then she wouldn't do them when they asked her to.
The doctor also said something like, you might want to make sure she's prepared for her doctor's visit next time. I felt like that statement was very judgey and condescending....well she's 4, this was not her first visit with her, and we've never ever had a med student come in before. Maybe if they informed us ahead of time, or even asked if it was ok that he be in there, maybe my daughter would have been "prepared". I guess in retrospect I should have asked if he could leave the room for a bit and see if she would open up to the doctor more. But I'm still learning that not everyone is in a power position over me, just because they are doctors does not mean I have no say in anything, and she is my child and they work for me after all. But part of me, despite my age and having a kid and all that, I still feel like a kid myself sometimes, and just go along with whatever other people say, as if a doctor has some kind of authority over me. I think sometimes I can be too confrontational with certain people, but other times I am not confrontational enough. And maybe I am being far too sensitive, and reading way too far into this and making this into a bigger deal than it was. Maybe they don't think anything is wrong, and maybe the doctor had just had a rough day. But still, in the past I've always left there feeling good and knowing the appt went well, whereas yesterday I left feeling kind of angry and annoyed like they assumed my kid is dumb and that I'm a bad mom.
Ugh, anyway. So I asked about the fact that she is still in pull-ups at night. This was the one conversation that was helpful and I didn't feel bad about anything she said. She assured me that it is actually totally normal to take up to 7 to 9 years old for a child to stop wetting at night, and it's not until age 11 that they consider medicine (not that I was thinking that route). So, that's good to know. I guess I just always knew kids are potty-trained around 2-4 years old and that they must be trained by the time they go to pre-school, and since most acquaintances or distant friends don't get into it, you never really hear that the night time dryness doesn't always follow day-time dryness. Em's been day-time trained since she was a few months past two, and this past year she has done really well with drastically reducing the number of accidents she has and often tells me when she has to go, rather than waiting till I make her go....so I was worried that there was something wrong since she is still in pull-ups at night and still wakes up wet anywhere from 2-6 mornings a week.
I asked if I should keep using the pull-ups...I wasn't sure if they were hindering her progress, but she said yeah unless I want to do laundry every single day that she wakes up wet. Haha, that's a big no. She didn't have much advice for the fact that she will sometimes pee in her pull up once she is awake, and the fact that she won't come out of her room. I think she said to just keep working on it, but today as I was leaving her room for quiet time, Emily said no pee, the doctor says no peeing. And yesterday she mentioned going with Minnie pillow (she's like her woobie) to come out of her room and come wake me up if she has to go in the morning....so maybe just hearing it from the doctor will be enough to urge her to stop peeing when she's awake. We'll see.
Last year we tried the Pinterest thing where you criss-cross streamers across their closed door, stuff balloons in between the door and streamers and when they open the door, the balloons all fall onto them. But my weirdo child will not come out of her room on her own. Every morning and every day after quiet time, I have to go in to get her. I remember when we first took the front railing off her crib to make it into a toddler bed. I was thinking here we go, the beast is free. I envisioned waking up every day to find her trashing the living room, or coming in and jumping on my bed at 6am. Never did I think she would never ever come out of her room on her own.
Which causes a dilemma with night potty training. Even if she does wake up dry, she will not come out of her room to go to the bathroom. So if she wakes up before I do, she will just pee in her pull up. Ok more on that later.
So once she was up she opened her presents from us. We got her a dream tent for her bed (which she LOVES. I have to admit, it looks quite cozy, I may need to sneak a nap in there one day when she's not home), a giant TY big eye unicorn, two Llama Llama books (Mad at mama and Misses mama), a cloud bath toy, and a little Llama Llama stuffie. He's so cute, he's wearing his red pajamas. Oh we also got her a Melissa and Doug puzzle spelling thing. It's a bunch of wooden plates with a picture on each one and the word is carved in the wood, so she has to pick through the wooden letters it comes with to fill in the correct letters to spell the word. She loved all of her gifts.
After that, we just had a lazy day at home, and she went down for quiet time in the afternoon while I worked. When she got up, we had a programmed call through Nick Jr. to have the Bubble Guppies call her to wish her a happy birthday. I wasn't sure how it worked, so as soon as I answered I scrambled to put it on speaker so she could hear it, and the first minute is just an automated thing saying to bring your child to the phone and if they're not ready yet to push a button. I wish I had known that so she didn't hear all that. Oh well, she was still pretty excited to hear Molly and Gil wish her a happy birthday. That was the first show she ever loved. I remember her sitting in her bouncer when she was a few months old and she'd be playing and bouncing, and then Bubble Guppies would come on and she'd stop what she was doing and just watch it.
Once she was old enough to sit up on her own, I can remember it would come on while she was napping, so I would DVR it. So whenever I brought up the DVR menu, she knew that meant it was coming on...when the music started she'd get a big smile on her face and clap.
After dinner, we had some cupcakes and she blew out her candles. They were pretty good for just being ones I got last minute from the grocery store. It was a good day. She went to her annual well-child visit yesterday. I don't know, I normally love her doctor, but this visit was just weird. Before the doctor came in, a male medical student came in and said he had some questions for us. Emily is very shy, especially around men she doesn't know. She does much better with female strangers. I am not sure why that is....she is very close to her Baba (my dad) and of course she has her daddy...unlike maybe a child who doesn't have a father-figure or any male relatives that they spend time with. Anyway, she wouldn't answer any of his questions, and anytime he tried to ask her some, she would scrunch her eyes closed tight and scrunch up her body and scoot closer and closer to me.
I'd say that's fairly normal for a young child to not be very comfortable with someone she's never met before, and I know med students have to start somewhere, but I was a bit annoyed by him. I don't know how it works...since he is interning or doing a practicum or whatever it's called, in a pediatrician's office, does that necessarily mean he is going to school to be a pediatrician? I don't know, maybe they have to do so much time in many different fields, so maybe he's not really good with kids...or maybe he just chose the wrong field, thinking it would be easy, or maybe it was his first day in the office. Who knows, but I could tell he was not comfortable at all, and her shyness of him made him uncomfortable and therefore didn't seem super professional. Like, he asked if he could ask me some questions, and then he said well....is it ok if I ask the kid the questions. The kid? Call me a stickler, but that just isn't really how a doctor, med student or not, should talk. Maybe I am being too hard on him, but he would fair better in his career if he could somehow force himself to fake confidence until he actually has it.
I didn't mind that he kept trying to ask her questions, but you could tell it bothered him that she wouldn't talk to him, so he kept trying to force her, and it made her want even less and less to do with him. Like, he'd reach out and playfully try to pinch her leg, or he'd make the same face she was making and he'd say "this is what you look like when you make that face". I don't know, it was just awkward. I'm kind of annoyed at myself that I didn't say something like ya know, if you back off a bit and stop trying to make her like you, she might loosen up a little.
Anyways....so he was asking me questions about her diet and her bathroom habits, what she eats and how often. I said how up until a few weeks ago, she quite regularly barely ate anything. I jokingly said I sometimes wondered how she even stayed alive with how little she eats. Everything I said about it, he seemed to react like it was alarming. He asked how long this has been going on and I said um, pretty much since she started eating solid foods, so when she was a year old. He seemed concerned by that. Um newsflash guy, she's a kid. Kids don't like to eat, or most of them anyway. She is picky, and aside from continually offering them food and making sure what she's eating is nutritious and healthy, I cannot force feed her. As long as she does eat, and is not underweight (which she is not, she's in the 68th percentile for her weight) then stop reacting like I am neglecting my child. I know I know, I'm probably reading too far into it, most of his reaction was probably just due to inexperience and not knowing much about kids, but still, it annoyed me.
So when the doctor finally came in, he came back in with her. Since he was there too, Emily wouldn't talk to her doctor either. Not that she's really familiar with her doctor either....she's an exceptionally healthy child, she doesn't get sick much (knock on wood) and the last time she did even go to the doctor for an illness was in January and she didn't even get to see her regular doctor). But still, during past visits, she's never been this shy with her. It was because of him. So she too asked some questions....I felt a little judgment from the both of them over the fact that she is not in daycare and we are not putting her in pre-school until this fall.
Um, I specifically made sacrifices and chose to stay home, and then found a work from home job so that I would NOT have to put her in daycare. Not that those who do are bad parents, not in the slightest, but her not going to daycare was not happenstance, I specifically did not want her to go to daycare. And as far as pre-school goes, I don't think there is anything at all wrong with just one year of it once they are 4. I think 4 is pretty young as it is to have to start the whole process of starting formal education and basically the responsibilities you'll have for the rest of your life, so I saw nothing wrong with keeping her home one final year before starting the whole rat race. Especially since I do think she is very on target or even above average regarding some things, and since Kindergarten is now full days instead of half, I feel that it is plenty.
When I told the med student she doesn't go to daycare or pre-school yet, he was like so she basically just hangs out at home. Uh yeah, that's what kids do before they start school. And it's not like I lock her in a dungeon room with no daylight and keep her away from other human beings. She spends time with her grandparents, she plays with her cousins and neighbors and my friends' kids; over a year ago she started going to the daycare for an hour or two here and there at the gym, so she was exposed to other kids and adults without mom or dad right nearby, and since June I think it was, she's been involved in a sport of activity....first ballet, then gymnastics, now swimming. I get that the doctor, and especially the med student don't know every facet of our life, but I felt like they assumed the opposit of daycare and preschool is sitting at home all day doing nothing.
The doctor asked if she knows her name and could say it. I said yeah and she asked her what her name was but she wouldn't say it. Again, I know the doctor only knows what we tell her and she observes, but Em's been saying her full name for a long time now....I would say her vocabulary is excellent and even way above her age level because I have always talked to her, even as a little baby I would just chat with her all day long so she could get exposed to a lot of words, especially because she wouldn't be in a setting with a lot of people every day. And I don't shy away from using big words in front of her because even if she doesn't understand at the time or be able to define it, she eventually learns how to use it in a sentence. I don't know exactly what the strict criteria is for her age, but I am pretty sure being able to pick up two pens and tell someone that these things are similar is pretty good for a 4-year-old.
The doctor asked if she can draw a circle and a stick figure. Maybe for silly stuff as long as you know your child is developing ok, you should just fib, but I honestly don't know if she can. She doesn't draw a lot...and if she does, I'm sorry but I am busy and I do have a job, so I cannot always examine all of the stuff she does. When we do stuff like that, she mostly colors rather than draws, and she likes to build things like she loves playing with playdoh, and she loves imaginative play with her toys. She also loves physical play....she loves to play outside and run and jump and climb. I know it's important to know where she is at with her fine motor skills and to know if she CAN do something, but not every kid likes to draw, and I think there are just tons of other things she prefers to do. I just felt like I got a weird reaction when I said I didn't know if she can do those things, and then she wouldn't do them when they asked her to.
The doctor also said something like, you might want to make sure she's prepared for her doctor's visit next time. I felt like that statement was very judgey and condescending....well she's 4, this was not her first visit with her, and we've never ever had a med student come in before. Maybe if they informed us ahead of time, or even asked if it was ok that he be in there, maybe my daughter would have been "prepared". I guess in retrospect I should have asked if he could leave the room for a bit and see if she would open up to the doctor more. But I'm still learning that not everyone is in a power position over me, just because they are doctors does not mean I have no say in anything, and she is my child and they work for me after all. But part of me, despite my age and having a kid and all that, I still feel like a kid myself sometimes, and just go along with whatever other people say, as if a doctor has some kind of authority over me. I think sometimes I can be too confrontational with certain people, but other times I am not confrontational enough. And maybe I am being far too sensitive, and reading way too far into this and making this into a bigger deal than it was. Maybe they don't think anything is wrong, and maybe the doctor had just had a rough day. But still, in the past I've always left there feeling good and knowing the appt went well, whereas yesterday I left feeling kind of angry and annoyed like they assumed my kid is dumb and that I'm a bad mom.
Ugh, anyway. So I asked about the fact that she is still in pull-ups at night. This was the one conversation that was helpful and I didn't feel bad about anything she said. She assured me that it is actually totally normal to take up to 7 to 9 years old for a child to stop wetting at night, and it's not until age 11 that they consider medicine (not that I was thinking that route). So, that's good to know. I guess I just always knew kids are potty-trained around 2-4 years old and that they must be trained by the time they go to pre-school, and since most acquaintances or distant friends don't get into it, you never really hear that the night time dryness doesn't always follow day-time dryness. Em's been day-time trained since she was a few months past two, and this past year she has done really well with drastically reducing the number of accidents she has and often tells me when she has to go, rather than waiting till I make her go....so I was worried that there was something wrong since she is still in pull-ups at night and still wakes up wet anywhere from 2-6 mornings a week.
I asked if I should keep using the pull-ups...I wasn't sure if they were hindering her progress, but she said yeah unless I want to do laundry every single day that she wakes up wet. Haha, that's a big no. She didn't have much advice for the fact that she will sometimes pee in her pull up once she is awake, and the fact that she won't come out of her room. I think she said to just keep working on it, but today as I was leaving her room for quiet time, Emily said no pee, the doctor says no peeing. And yesterday she mentioned going with Minnie pillow (she's like her woobie) to come out of her room and come wake me up if she has to go in the morning....so maybe just hearing it from the doctor will be enough to urge her to stop peeing when she's awake. We'll see.
Monday, March 12, 2018
Big birthday fun
Due to some scheduling conflicts, we had Emily's birthday party this past Saturday, even though her birthday is still a week away. It went well....bummed though that my dad and stepmom couldn't make it. She just had surgery on her shoulder not even a week prior, and my dad was sick. But at least it opened up a little more room in our house, lol. Our house is perfect for us, but for get-togethers, it is too damn small. I looked around and see people eating standing up, balancing their plates on counter tops and shelves.
We have plans to get the basement finished one day which I am excited about, but as far as for more room for parties, that's not a great solution. I don't really want half the people upstairs and have downstairs. We have a deck off our kitchen which I do like, but we really don't use it that much. I think we should tear that out and build a four seasons room. Make sure there are enough windows that we can open and in the summertime, it will still be like having a deck, except you're shaded from the sun and bugs. For parties, people could flow between the living room, the kitchen and the four seasons room. Hmmm, maybe one day.
So Em's party theme was Minnie Mouse. I let her pick this year...usually, I just pick for her, but since she's getting older I figured she should be able to pick her theme. I kept decorations to a minimum...we had a few balloons, a Minnie mouse pinata, cheap Minnie invites from Target, and I bought some black paper plates and black cake plates from the dollar store. I cut out the center of the cake plates for ears, and attached them, along with a pink bow I printed off the computer to make Minnie plates. They turned out pretty cute. It was a lot of work, but they got a lot of compliments.
I found on Pinterest a template to print the ears and the bow in one piece, but I don't pay for my print cartridges, my boss does, and that would have taken a TON of ink to print the ears, so I went the cheaper but more labor-intensive route. I also got a bucket (I think it's actually a laundry basket) from $5 Below, filled it with beer and ice and put a sign on it that said We've got beers, say cheers!
One day I was cleaning out Em's closet and came across her Minnie Mouse dress she wore to Chef Mickey's in Disney World. She wanted to try it on so I humored her. I couldn't believe it fit! She wore that when she was 2 and she will be 4 next week. The top is very stretchy, and the skirt part did look a bit short because of how poofy it was, but it covered to her knees and didn't show her butt or anything, so I let her wear it for her party.
I usually try to alternate doing her "cake" each year....one year I make it, the next I buy it. I was up till 5am last year doing her little mermaid cake pops, so I was going to buy her cake this year. But then I found this cute idea for a Minnie silhouette on good 'ole Pinterest so I decided to give it a try. But to make things easier, we had lunch catered by Tubby's subs, and I figured next year for her 5th I'll want her cake to be professionally done so I gave it a go this year. We did well with keeping the house in order all week, so Saturday morning all I had to do was bake the cake and do a few random last minute things here and there. It was the first cake I'd ever made, so I was a little nervous. I apparently filled the cake pan too high for the first layer...it kind of rose up a little higher than the top of the pan and created a muffin-like top, and it took a million years to bake. But the lightbulb finally came on and I put the cakes outside in the grill to cool faster once they were done baking so I could frost them so that sped things up a little.
So basically I had a two-layer round cake for her face, and then I used two small pyrex bowls to bake the ears, and just set them on the cake board above the face....Em requested strawberry cake, so I used white frosting. I had a purple frosting writer, so I was going to use that edible spray stuff to give the white frosting a purple haze, but people would be arriving any minute so I skipped that I just wrote happy birthday on it. The writer should have been in the fridge because within a minute the letters began to bleed and run together. I got a picture while it was still somewhat legible, but by the time we served it, you could barely read it. Oh well, everyone said the cake looked good and it tasted good. Win win in my book.
So all the usual peeps came, Em's cousins and aunt and uncle, another cousin, my best friend, and her two boys, my inlaws, my brother and sister-in-law, and this year we invited my stepmom's nephew and his family....they get Emily and his daughter Annabella together now and again to play, so this was her first birthday party where we invited a friend.
They didn't get to stay long, her mom is pregnant and is due in like a week, so she felt like crap. I was amazed she came at all. I remember how awful that week to two weeks was. I constantly felt like I was sitting on a bike with no seat. So anyway, the party was good, food was great, the kids loved the pinata. I wasn't sure Emily would want to beat Minnie Mouse to death, but apparently knowing there was candy was enough incentive.
She got a lot of great presents....another My Little Pony figure, a Barbie car (to go with her Barbie camper, yay), Hungry Hungry Hippos game, a karaoke machine....I think that's about it. Good stuff. Today she went to my dad's as usual, and since they couldn't come to her party, they had brownies for her and she got to open presents from them. My stepmom got her a Minnie Mouse guitar and a Crayola stamp set, and my dad got her a Big Wheel. She loved that, he had it sitting out when I dropped her off and she was riding it all over the house. I foresee that getting a lot of use this spring and summer. She's going to be so spoiled this year....on Friday we're taking her out to celebrate her birthday, and then Monday on her actual birthday she'll get to open her presents from us. She'll think every year consists of several celebrations.
So she's all signed up for preschool in the fall...it's official, my baby is a big girl and will be leaving me 3 mornings a week :( It's really no different than what she does now....she'll go MWF for 2.5 hours I think. I'm hoping once I drop her off on Mondays and Wednesdays, my dad and MIL can just pick her up from preschool on their respective days and take her for the day like they do now so I can work....and then Friday will just be 2.5 hours away from me, that's no biggie. But still, starting preschool is the official start of being a big girl. She'll make friends, and learn a ton. Like I said, she almost always goes to a grandparents house on Mondays and Wednesdays, but if for some reason we didn't feel like going, or whatever, we just wouldn't. Back when she went to the daycare at the gym, she just went for the hour or a little more on whatever days I felt like going to the gym.
But preschool is going to be 3 set days that we pretty much have to go...we have to get into a morning routine. No more lazy days around the house, sometimes leaving the house, sometimes not. Then the following year is the real deal with kindergarten. Oh man, if I am feeling unsure about her being gone for preschool, I don't know how I am going to handle her being gone all day for kindergarten. I wish K was still half days. I'm sure she can handle it, but I am not sure I can!
Her preschool is really cute. It was my top pick, so I am glad she got into that one. We went to another open house before and got on the waitlist...that one was fine too, very nice teacher, nice looking program. But of the two, I liked the one she got into the best. She went to the open houses and she was so excited looking around at all the toys and stuff. I hope she loves it. I am so thankful that she does not appear to have the anxiety I had as a child. Occasionally she'll say she doesn't want to go somewhere, or she'll be extra clingy with me, but for the most part, she gets so excited about preschool whenever I talk about it, and she has loved her extracurriculars. Right now she is in swim lessons; she is doing really well.
I just cannot figure out how she is going to be 4 years old already, and where the time has gone. Aside from the two months I went back to work after maternity leave, I have spent nearly every day with her since she was born. She wouldn't nap in her crib till she was at least 6 months old, if not closer to 8 or 9, she would only nap on my chest....so every day for months once I became a stay at home mom, she and I would lie on the couch together and I'd put her paci in and I'd either rub her back or gently pat her on the butt....not sure why the butt things works, but it does, and after a few minutes she would fall asleep.
Sometimes I would lay there and just watch her, taking her all in. Listening to every little coo she made, staring at her face, memorizing the details. Most days I would also fall asleep too, and that was what we did every single day till she was almost a year old. We'd snuggle up on the couch together and nap. I occasionally felt guilty, thinking I should be using her nap time as a chance to get laundry done or other housework....I argued the point with my husband that being a stay at home mom wasn't being lazy, I was taking care of the house and our daughter...despite him coming home to a messy house because I had spent a couple hours on the couch with her every day, haha. But I finally decided that she would be a baby for such a short period of time, and I would never get that time back. The laundry and dishes and dirt would still be there tomorrow, but my chance to spend time with her as a baby would not.
No mom ever looks back on their kid's younger years and say, I should have spent more time doing housework. So for at least 14 hours a week I did nothing but snuggle her, and hold her, and watch her sleep, I appreciated the time. I made sure to take it all in and try to burn the memories in my brain. I didn't take for granted any of it, but here I am...I still feel like these last 4 years have gone by in a blur, and sometimes it seems difficult to remember her as a baby. I look forward every morning to my "on this day" post on facebook of what I posted that day other years, and I am always surprised at how little she was and how cute. She's still cute of course, but I am always shocked to see how babyish she still looked at 2 years old, and now she looks so much more grown up.
Sigh, it's every mother's dilemma, the joy, and pride in seeing their children grow up and become self-sufficient, happy people....all the while crying inside about how quickly they grew up, and how much they miss their little baby. I am sure in another couple years I'll think back to now and think, at 4 she was still so little. How could I think she is so grown up compared to ______fill in the blank age. The quote "the days are long but the years are short" is so very very true. Please slow down time!
We have plans to get the basement finished one day which I am excited about, but as far as for more room for parties, that's not a great solution. I don't really want half the people upstairs and have downstairs. We have a deck off our kitchen which I do like, but we really don't use it that much. I think we should tear that out and build a four seasons room. Make sure there are enough windows that we can open and in the summertime, it will still be like having a deck, except you're shaded from the sun and bugs. For parties, people could flow between the living room, the kitchen and the four seasons room. Hmmm, maybe one day.
So Em's party theme was Minnie Mouse. I let her pick this year...usually, I just pick for her, but since she's getting older I figured she should be able to pick her theme. I kept decorations to a minimum...we had a few balloons, a Minnie mouse pinata, cheap Minnie invites from Target, and I bought some black paper plates and black cake plates from the dollar store. I cut out the center of the cake plates for ears, and attached them, along with a pink bow I printed off the computer to make Minnie plates. They turned out pretty cute. It was a lot of work, but they got a lot of compliments.
I found on Pinterest a template to print the ears and the bow in one piece, but I don't pay for my print cartridges, my boss does, and that would have taken a TON of ink to print the ears, so I went the cheaper but more labor-intensive route. I also got a bucket (I think it's actually a laundry basket) from $5 Below, filled it with beer and ice and put a sign on it that said We've got beers, say cheers!
One day I was cleaning out Em's closet and came across her Minnie Mouse dress she wore to Chef Mickey's in Disney World. She wanted to try it on so I humored her. I couldn't believe it fit! She wore that when she was 2 and she will be 4 next week. The top is very stretchy, and the skirt part did look a bit short because of how poofy it was, but it covered to her knees and didn't show her butt or anything, so I let her wear it for her party.
I usually try to alternate doing her "cake" each year....one year I make it, the next I buy it. I was up till 5am last year doing her little mermaid cake pops, so I was going to buy her cake this year. But then I found this cute idea for a Minnie silhouette on good 'ole Pinterest so I decided to give it a try. But to make things easier, we had lunch catered by Tubby's subs, and I figured next year for her 5th I'll want her cake to be professionally done so I gave it a go this year. We did well with keeping the house in order all week, so Saturday morning all I had to do was bake the cake and do a few random last minute things here and there. It was the first cake I'd ever made, so I was a little nervous. I apparently filled the cake pan too high for the first layer...it kind of rose up a little higher than the top of the pan and created a muffin-like top, and it took a million years to bake. But the lightbulb finally came on and I put the cakes outside in the grill to cool faster once they were done baking so I could frost them so that sped things up a little.
So basically I had a two-layer round cake for her face, and then I used two small pyrex bowls to bake the ears, and just set them on the cake board above the face....Em requested strawberry cake, so I used white frosting. I had a purple frosting writer, so I was going to use that edible spray stuff to give the white frosting a purple haze, but people would be arriving any minute so I skipped that I just wrote happy birthday on it. The writer should have been in the fridge because within a minute the letters began to bleed and run together. I got a picture while it was still somewhat legible, but by the time we served it, you could barely read it. Oh well, everyone said the cake looked good and it tasted good. Win win in my book.
So all the usual peeps came, Em's cousins and aunt and uncle, another cousin, my best friend, and her two boys, my inlaws, my brother and sister-in-law, and this year we invited my stepmom's nephew and his family....they get Emily and his daughter Annabella together now and again to play, so this was her first birthday party where we invited a friend.
They didn't get to stay long, her mom is pregnant and is due in like a week, so she felt like crap. I was amazed she came at all. I remember how awful that week to two weeks was. I constantly felt like I was sitting on a bike with no seat. So anyway, the party was good, food was great, the kids loved the pinata. I wasn't sure Emily would want to beat Minnie Mouse to death, but apparently knowing there was candy was enough incentive.
She got a lot of great presents....another My Little Pony figure, a Barbie car (to go with her Barbie camper, yay), Hungry Hungry Hippos game, a karaoke machine....I think that's about it. Good stuff. Today she went to my dad's as usual, and since they couldn't come to her party, they had brownies for her and she got to open presents from them. My stepmom got her a Minnie Mouse guitar and a Crayola stamp set, and my dad got her a Big Wheel. She loved that, he had it sitting out when I dropped her off and she was riding it all over the house. I foresee that getting a lot of use this spring and summer. She's going to be so spoiled this year....on Friday we're taking her out to celebrate her birthday, and then Monday on her actual birthday she'll get to open her presents from us. She'll think every year consists of several celebrations.
So she's all signed up for preschool in the fall...it's official, my baby is a big girl and will be leaving me 3 mornings a week :( It's really no different than what she does now....she'll go MWF for 2.5 hours I think. I'm hoping once I drop her off on Mondays and Wednesdays, my dad and MIL can just pick her up from preschool on their respective days and take her for the day like they do now so I can work....and then Friday will just be 2.5 hours away from me, that's no biggie. But still, starting preschool is the official start of being a big girl. She'll make friends, and learn a ton. Like I said, she almost always goes to a grandparents house on Mondays and Wednesdays, but if for some reason we didn't feel like going, or whatever, we just wouldn't. Back when she went to the daycare at the gym, she just went for the hour or a little more on whatever days I felt like going to the gym.
But preschool is going to be 3 set days that we pretty much have to go...we have to get into a morning routine. No more lazy days around the house, sometimes leaving the house, sometimes not. Then the following year is the real deal with kindergarten. Oh man, if I am feeling unsure about her being gone for preschool, I don't know how I am going to handle her being gone all day for kindergarten. I wish K was still half days. I'm sure she can handle it, but I am not sure I can!
Her preschool is really cute. It was my top pick, so I am glad she got into that one. We went to another open house before and got on the waitlist...that one was fine too, very nice teacher, nice looking program. But of the two, I liked the one she got into the best. She went to the open houses and she was so excited looking around at all the toys and stuff. I hope she loves it. I am so thankful that she does not appear to have the anxiety I had as a child. Occasionally she'll say she doesn't want to go somewhere, or she'll be extra clingy with me, but for the most part, she gets so excited about preschool whenever I talk about it, and she has loved her extracurriculars. Right now she is in swim lessons; she is doing really well.
I just cannot figure out how she is going to be 4 years old already, and where the time has gone. Aside from the two months I went back to work after maternity leave, I have spent nearly every day with her since she was born. She wouldn't nap in her crib till she was at least 6 months old, if not closer to 8 or 9, she would only nap on my chest....so every day for months once I became a stay at home mom, she and I would lie on the couch together and I'd put her paci in and I'd either rub her back or gently pat her on the butt....not sure why the butt things works, but it does, and after a few minutes she would fall asleep.
Sometimes I would lay there and just watch her, taking her all in. Listening to every little coo she made, staring at her face, memorizing the details. Most days I would also fall asleep too, and that was what we did every single day till she was almost a year old. We'd snuggle up on the couch together and nap. I occasionally felt guilty, thinking I should be using her nap time as a chance to get laundry done or other housework....I argued the point with my husband that being a stay at home mom wasn't being lazy, I was taking care of the house and our daughter...despite him coming home to a messy house because I had spent a couple hours on the couch with her every day, haha. But I finally decided that she would be a baby for such a short period of time, and I would never get that time back. The laundry and dishes and dirt would still be there tomorrow, but my chance to spend time with her as a baby would not.
No mom ever looks back on their kid's younger years and say, I should have spent more time doing housework. So for at least 14 hours a week I did nothing but snuggle her, and hold her, and watch her sleep, I appreciated the time. I made sure to take it all in and try to burn the memories in my brain. I didn't take for granted any of it, but here I am...I still feel like these last 4 years have gone by in a blur, and sometimes it seems difficult to remember her as a baby. I look forward every morning to my "on this day" post on facebook of what I posted that day other years, and I am always surprised at how little she was and how cute. She's still cute of course, but I am always shocked to see how babyish she still looked at 2 years old, and now she looks so much more grown up.
Sigh, it's every mother's dilemma, the joy, and pride in seeing their children grow up and become self-sufficient, happy people....all the while crying inside about how quickly they grew up, and how much they miss their little baby. I am sure in another couple years I'll think back to now and think, at 4 she was still so little. How could I think she is so grown up compared to ______fill in the blank age. The quote "the days are long but the years are short" is so very very true. Please slow down time!
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