Birthdays in Heaven

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

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.

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!   

The big 5 coming up

It is mid-January, so the crazy planner in me is starting to think about Emily's 4th birthday party two months from now.  If I am being honest, I have been thinking about it since around October. 

And of course, it gets me thinking about Kayla's birthday too.  I'm also thinking of her today because our happy announcement about her anticipated arrival popped up in my memories on facebook today.  Five years ago today, I was still pregnant with her, and so happy to announce.  Though I did fear it, I had no real reason to doubt that she wouldn't arrive when she was supposed to, safe and sound.  I had just entered 2nd tri, happy to breathe a sigh of relief that we had made it that far, thinking the worst was behind us.  There are a lot of fun things about having kids, and finding out you're pregnant, but I still think getting to announce your exciting news is hands down one of the best parts about pregnancy.

I was dying to announce, counting down the days, and I got so excited and happy every time my phone pinged with a new like or comment about our news.  I do not always enjoy a lot of attention, or being the center of it, but as a proud mama-to-be, I was reveling in it.  I wanted to tell every single person I came across, whether they would care or not.

I remember one time I was shopping at Trader Joe's when Emily was a baby, and this young woman that worked there helped me with something, I think I asked if they carried something in particular.  I cannot even remember how it came up, but she told me she was pregnant, and had just found out.  It wasn't completely out of the blue, I think maybe she asked how old Emily was and that's when she told me.  Some might think it was weird, I literally just asked where something was, and she shared this big, personal new with me, a complete stranger.  But I got it...she was so happy, she had to tell someone, anyone.  Plus since I am a mother myself, she probably thought I was a better person to tell her news to than say, a big burly motorcycle guy.  I thought it was sweet though, I was happy for her, despite not knowing her at all.

So Kayla would have been 5 this March, the first big milestone birthday after the first, and she would have been starting the big K in the fall, Kindergarten.  The year we lost her, we met with close family and friends at the cemetery, our friend Dan said a few words and then we all released balloons that everyone wrote messages on up to heaven.  We did this on July 26th, her would-be due date.  I needed to have something to do that day, and being with the ones I love most in this world was what I needed.  Afterward we went back to our house and had a bbq.  I still think of her on July 26th....I think of her every day, but that day will always be special to me, and I always have a bit of a heart flutter if something is going on where a date is mentioned and it's that date.  But, since then, it's her birthday that we always celebrate, the day she came into this world, albeit sleeping, and we said hello for the first and last time.

Since that first year, we've celebrated her birthday quietly among the three of us....we usually go out for a nice lunch or dinner, and release balloons at her grave...sometimes we have a cake, or get cupcakes or stop for ice cream on the way home.  Being her fifth this year, I'd like to do something with family again, but I don't know what...or when for that matter.  Emily's birthday is the 19th, so we'll have her party on the Saturday before, but with Kayla's being the very next weekend, I don't really want to ask that our family put aside time again to come back over for a celebration for Kayla....and while I have always been adamant about teaching Emily about her sister, I don't ever want Em to feel like she is living in her shadow, or like we had her as a "consolation prize" or to replace Kayla.  So I really am not comfortable with the idea of doing something for Kayla during Emily's birthday party.  I always had to share my birthday party with my cousin who was 2 years younger than me since her birthday was 6 days after mine.  I hated it, I wanted my own day, so my children will have their own days as well. 

Doing something the following weekend doesn't really work out anyway since Kayla was born on my nephew's birthday, so my sister-in-law will likely be having his party that day, and March in Michigan does not always make for such nice weather to gather at the cemetery.  So far to release the balloons on her birthday, we have had two years when it was so cold we basically ran out, said happy birthday and sent them off, and one year it was raining so hard, just opening the car door drenched everyone and everything inside.  So then I thought maybe we can do something in April or May when it is nicer out....but who knows if it will be, thanks Michigan.

Ok so even if we do that then...what do we do?  I'd like to think of something other than a balloon release.  I thought about butterflies, but I've looked into it before, it doesn't seem like a great idea.  With my luck, they would all be dead on arrival.  "Oh happy birthday Kayla, here are some beautiful butterf.....oh crap, they're all dead".  I've been wracking my brain, thinking of something we could all do together, but I've also thought well maybe it can just be something people can do on their own, like a random act of kindness in her honor, or donate to a charity of their choice in her name...and while those are very very nice things to do, is it going to make me feel the love and unity from my family if we're all off doing things on our own?  Plus I don't like asking people to do things, especially when it comes to spending their money, like donating to a charity. 

I feel like I am just a couple of firing neurons away from this really awesome idea, but so far, nada!  I did have one thought, which is something I've always meant to do for her birthday anyway, and that is adopting a grave.  The basic idea is to go to the cemetery and find a grave that is really old, or just looks like it hadn't had a visitor in a while, and clean it up.  Trim the grass around the stone, wash off the stone, leave flowers, etc....But again, I am not sure how comfortable I feel about asking people to come work on some stranger's gravestone on their day off. 

We planted a memorial garden for her last spring, and to our sadness, it did not survive.  We had a lot of hot, dry days and I didn't get out there and water it enough, and once the weeds took over, it was a goner.  I was very sad about it, especially because it was mostly just due to laziness.  BUT, the dog did eventually find a way in over the small fence we had, so maybe it wouldn't have lasted long anyway.  But we plan to replant this year, and get a much higher and better fence to go around...so the only thing I can really think of is to invite our family over to plant their own contribution to it.  Whatever they choose, a flower, plant, or maybe a garden decoration like a stone or a spinner.  And then we could have a bbq or something.  I think out of all the basic ideas I've had, which is basically nothing, that this is the best one.

But, my husband, the former landscaper, might be irritated by that.  I know he likes to design all of our landscape, and it may bug him to have random, non matching plants and flowers.  I don't know, I'll run it by him. 

Car seats, bedtime and Christmas

So I took a very big step about a month ago; I turned Emily's car seat forward facing.  I'm mostly ok with it now, but it was hard to do it at the time, and I struggled a lot with whether or not I should.  I know the law says they can turn at 2 years old, but I find that a lot of advice like that is “bare minimum”.  The law is to turn them no earlier than 2, because statistically it’s amazing if the majority of people have their children buckled in correctly, let alone not turning them too early.  So I think the overall consensus is yeah, they’re safer rear facing past two, but if you made it to 2 before turning them, then yay.

I’ve thought about turning her twice before.  Once was this time last year, I even did turn her for one night to go see Christmas lights so she could actually see them, and that turned into a week of keeping her FF and I considered just leaving her that way, but then my husband got into a bad accident and totaled his truck.  I was horrified to think of the what ifs...what if she had been with him, and FF?  My MIL came over to pick her up so I could go get my husband from the hospital (he was ok, just some bumps and bruises) but she didn’t have her car seat with her, so we had to trade cars.  I thought about turning it back RF right then and there before she left with her, but she promised me they were going straight to their house and would drive super slow.  But I did turn her back around the very first chance I got before she rode in the car again.

Then I thought about it again about 6 months ago when I was noticing how hard it was to get her in and out.  But that very night I read an article about a woman who lost her son because she unknowingly had him in a booster before he was ready, and he died in a car crash.  Not quite the same thing, but it was possibly (at least in her mind with the inevitable guilt all parents face in that tragedy) a preventable death and a crazy easy way to still have him here had she just known to keep him in a 5 point harness car seat.  So that was that, not turning her.

I had intended on keeping her RF until she maxed out the weight limit RF in that seat, which is 40lbs.  She has held steady at around 33-34 pounds forevvvvver and even took a long time to get to that.  My guess is she won’t hit 40lbs till she’s at least 5 or around then….she’ll be 4 in March.  My thought process was, even if I am still not jazzed about her being turned around then, we HAVE to because it would no longer be safe to keep her RF past 40lbs in that seat.  So I would have had no choice and the decision would have been out of my hands, therefore I would not stress about it.

But, I started thinking about it again.  It’s been hard getting her in and out for a while now, but especially now with it being winter, she’s got at least heavier layers on, if not a winter coat.  With her legs bunched up, it was a real fight every day to get her buckled over the bulky layers.  And that is one area that I do not agree with the pros, about winter coats in car seats.  Maybe I could get on board with avoiding coats that looks like it has literally been inflated and the kid looks like the stay puff marshmallow man.  But for the average slightly puffy coat, I just don’t believe that the material compresses THAT much to make them slip out of the straps.  I’m just not buying it.
 

When I strap her in with a coat on, her straps are tight and secure.  Yes, I know about the “test” of buckling them in with the coat, taking the coat off and then seeing how loose the straps are.  But again, unless the coat is literally many inches of fluff, it’s not going to compress that much.  Of course the straps are extended more for the coat and too big without the coat…because the material that is making it necessary to make the straps longer to fit, is now gone.  That’s like saying, if you normally wear a medium sweatshirt, you should buy a large or XL if you want to wear several layers underneath it.  But then being shocked when the sweatshirt is too big without the extra layers.

And yeah, I am not a physicist, so I acknowledge that my argument of “it doesn’t seem like a coat would compress that much” isn’t the most solid one.  But that is why there are tests to prove or disprove the theory: aka the crash test dummy.  If you haven’t noticed by now, I take car seat safety very seriously.  There are so many horrible things that can harm and even kill your child, why wouldn’t you take simple measures if it means making your kids so much safer in at least one way?  But, I’ve scoured the internet, looking for crash test dummy videos that show the two tests as being equal, and I have not found a single one.  Not one.

 

Every video I have ever seen, the dummy wearing the puffy coat is not strapped in correctly.  The chest clip (if there even is one) is down at his belly, the straps are often twisted and even slightly off the shoulders and loose, or the video is shown from the side view of the dummy so you cannot really see how the straps are done and if they are correct.  Then surprise surprise, the dummy with the puffy coat comes flying out of the seat during the crash.

But then, the test with the dummy not wearing a coat, is a nice clear shot from the front view, and little dummy kid has his straps tight, on his shoulders like they’re supposed to be and his chest clip is nice and high at his armpits.  Then the crash happens and aww, look at that, he stays put in his seat.  Well no shit, you strap the kid in properly, coat or no coat, and he won’t go flying. 

I can’t even begin to guess why they would want to falsely tell everyone that coats are unsafe in car seats, if they are indeed perfectly safe.  I admit, my stance does sound like a conspiracy theory a little, but again, show me a test where both crashes are completely equal and I'll change my mind.  I thought about the coats (Cozywoggle, which I was a sucker and did buy one….pain in the ass thing, my daughter hated having it shrugged up around her head while in the car, so she’d fling it off, which could have been done from the start using a regular coat that did not cost $150…and the Road Coat) that are specially made (and expensive) that supposedly keep your kid warm while ensuring safety in the car seat, but to my knowledge there are only two companies that I mentioned above and the Cozywoggle just announced the end of their business.  Surely doctors and car seat specialists and news people aren’t jumping on this bandwagon just to help a few entrepreneurs sell more coats.

My best guess is, there have been a few accidents where children were seriously injured who were wearing puffier coats and panic and mass hysteria set in.  But, who knows the conditions of the accident, whether or not the child was strapped in correctly to begin with, or if the car seat itself was faulty somehow.  But the fact of the matter is, if coats were not safe in a car seat and the kid really could be ejected, then there should be a crystal clear video showing the crash test dummy properly strapped in with the coat on, the chest clip where it is supposed to be, and shot from the front angle, showing the puffy coat kid still flying, and the only difference between the two videos is a puffy coat vs no coat.  AND, puffy coats are not the only winter coat available to children.  My daughter has four (yay for grandmas and second hand stores)....a thin but warm Columbia, a pea coat type coat, a thin layered (so the look of puffy without the puff I guess) coat, and then what I could call a true puffy coat, but still not the marshmallow man type puffy coat.  So why say no coats in car seats, why not just advocate against puffy coats?

So anyway, that’s my long winded explanation as to why I think the whole thing is bunk.  And, Michigan winters are coooold.  It's not all or every winter, but it's certainly not unheard of to have many days of below 20 temps and even some below zero temps like we have had for the past week or more.  I would not want to have to take my coat off and get into a cold car…yeah yeah, I have auto start, but in reality, the new factory auto starts are shit and do not really run long enough to warm up the car, and it's just blasting cold air when you get in.  And you can't autostart it from far away inside a store or someplace.  Is being cold less of a concern when the alternative could be serious injury or death?  Absolutely, but not when the theory cannot be proven to be true without seriously altering the test crash conditions.

So anyway, the options were to struggle every day to get her buckled in RF, or turn her around, not struggle and fight with her, and know that I kept her safer for much much longer than most anyone else I know with small kids.  Yep, that’s the winner.  She LOVES her new view.  She was just squealing and laughing with delight the whole car ride that first day she was turned.  She can now see things as it’s coming, rather than as they go away, and she can completely get in and out of the car seat and car without my help, which is nice some days, but not others….think rain or cold wind that feels like instant frostbite, and having to stand there in the rain or cold, waiting for the little sloth to slowly climb up into her seat so I can buckle her in.   I made this decision just in time, since we went to see Christmas lights the very next night.

 

So, something else I’ve been struggling with lately is bed time.   I had a small TV in my office so that I could put a movie on for her and I could get some work done if I needed to start working prior to her going down for quiet time.  Months ago, my husband decided a fun treat would be to put it in her room for one night and she could watch a movie in bed.  Well, I’m pretty sure that was in early summer (or possibly earlier) and it is now January and the TV is still in there.  Oh wait, it gets better.  Since we cut the cord with cable, she needed a DVD player so she could actually watch something on it since our local channels suck, so I took the small one out of my home gym.  And last summer we bought a Roku express (we have a Roku of some sort on all of our other TV’s since cancelling cable) to take to the camper.  It’s tiny, and does absolutely no good at the camper when we’re not there, so we bring it home with us each time, so yes, she also has Roku on her tv.  She’s 3 years old, and has her own TV with a DVD player and Roku.  Can you say spoiled?

But, I could take it out of there any time, I know….so I can’t complain about her being spoiled in that sense.  But I just dread the fight (and the peaceful quiet time I get while she’s in her room watching TV) of taking it away.  So there for a while we were cool with her watching a show or movie during quiet time.  She rarely naps anymore, but I do expect her to go to her room and stay in bed and be relatively quiet, for a couple hours a day so I can work and recharge myself, and so she is in the quieter environment to sleep if she decided to.  Most days she sits in bed and plays, and/or watches a movie, but there are plenty of times she either curls up willingly, or sleep takes over and we get in a successful nap.  I am totally fine with her watching TV during quiet time.

But I didn’t want her watching a movie at bed time.  I felt it was bad enough that our 3 year old has her own entertainment center set up in her room, but to let her watch a movie every night before bed too?  Oye.  So for a while, we were pretty strict with a movie at quiet time, but not at bed time.  Then on the occasional night when I really had to get to work, and we had gotten home late from a grandparents' house, I’d cave and let her watch something because it meant an easy bed time, and I could either get to work sooner, or I could enjoy my limited time to myself sooner.  But like a good drug, I became addicted to the easy bedtime.  No fights, no tears, no begging me to lay with her or snuggle her or read her just one more story.  No more asking for water, or saying she has to potty just so she can sit on the pot for 15 minutes, never really having to go in the first place.

But I struggled with it at the same time.  Am I creating a monster?  Is she going to be so spoiled rotten she makes Veruca Salt look like a choir girl?  Am I giving up all power and control by allowing this?  I was embarrassed to admit to other moms that I let her watch tv at bedtime, without feeling the need to hang my head in shame as I told them.  Then finally I decided ya know what, not every battle is worth fighting.  Bed time used to take anywhere from 15 to 45 minutes.  I would get angry, I’d yell, I’d be stressed because I’d be looking at the clock, knowing that every minute that went by meant I would have to work that much later into the night.

Finally I said screw it.  I’m a mom, its in my job description to be unfairly judged for a whole list of things I am “doing wrong” with my child.  So if I am going to be judged anyway, why not make bed time easier and more peaceful?  Now, we get ready for bed (which she still somewhat protests on occasion, so it must not be that wonderful) I turn on a movie for her, I read her a couple books, I turn on her nightlights, give a hug and kiss and say goodnight….then I do not hear another peep out of her all night.  Prior to the TV, she’d often take up to an hour to fall asleep, sometimes even longer, and that sometimes included crying for me so she could beg for something else that would delay bedtime. 

But now, I’d say she regularly falls asleep within a half an hour, but sometimes more like within 10-15 minutes.  The TV being on never disrupts her sleep, and if it plays in a loop like it often does, she has something to do when she wakes up before me, because for some reason she refuses to get out of bed and come get me.  I still occasionally question if it’s a good idea or not, but I feel so much better once I decided I did not give a shit what everyone else thought (or maybe more importantly, the bad things I was thinking about myself) and just enjoy our new hassle-free easy bed time. 

Maybe it will come back to bite me one day, but oh well.  I am sure lots of things will.  I never had a TV or any kind of noise in my room when I was a kid, but here I am, every night whether I am freezing at night or not, I have to turn on my fan next to my bed for the white noise.  So crutches can and often do come up later in life, despite not needing or having one earlier. 

So, Christmas.  My kid was fucking nuts about Christmas.  She was 10 months old for her first Christmas, so definitely one of the older points for a first Christmas, but obviously she still didn't know what was really going on.  For her second, I think she liked the lights, and getting the toys, but she didn't have much interest in opening the presents, nor did she even seem to understand that presents were in there.  Her third Christmas she was definitely more into it, and I thought it was a lot of fun, but this year she was full blown into Christmas, and it was so much fun to watch.

I loved Christmas as a kid, I still do.  But ya know, there for a while it got pretty sucky.  I remember one bad year in particular, I had just woken up at like 1pm on Christmas day, had no one to celebrate with until I went to my dad's later in the day, and I was still moping about a break up a few months prior when my best friend called to announce her engagement.  Yay!  Not a good moment for me.  Of course once I met my husband it got a little better, but there was still something very anti-climatic about two adults sitting around the tree, opening presents....especially when I had to basically threaten to leave him every year when he refused to go shopping until Christmas Eve.  I'll bet, as sucky as it is to work retail on Christmas Eve, it's got to be somewhat entertaining to watch all the clueless men stumbling around, trying to figure out what to get their wives at the very last minute.

Sorry guys, but I know most women are done shopping in June.  Actually this year I was way off my game.  I bought the last present I needed to buy a few days before Christmas, and I put off wrapping until the weekend of.  But Ryan was even worse this year, it's January 5th and I still don't have a present.  Haha, but he didn't forget...well he kind of did, but it was well intentioned at first.  We had first decided that our new recliner was going to be our gift to each other.  A friend who works at a furniture store had two 50% off coupons that she could give out, and we got one.  It's a rather high-end store too, so I was really excited to go pick out a nice chair that might actually last more than a few years.

So we went one day after a matinee date while the kid was at Nana's, and picked out this nice leather one with power recline and had a usb outlet built into the chair.  Sweet, no more digging behind the chair to plug the phone charger back in when the dog runs through there and unplugs it.  It wasn't one of the top top chairs, but it was nicer than some.  But like an idiot, I forgot about the fine print.  The 50% off was to be applied to original price only.  Plus sales tax isn't part of the coupon which I knew, but the store makes you take delivery, which is $100 and also not eligible for the discount.  So this chair that was on sale for $849 would be $1200 with the "coupon".  Are you fucking kidding me?  Why even bother, and make it out like you're this wonderful company giving away these awesome deals to employees' friends and family.  So by then I was too pissed off to even consider getting it at the sale price without the coupon, because that still would have been close to $1000 when I briefly thought we could get that chair for around $575 after tax and delivery.  

So now we had no gift for each other, so we decided on getting each other just something small.  I got him some beard pomade since he had been trying to grow his beard out but gave up when it got too itchy, and a graphic tee he had posted on facebook that he said he liked months ago.  To my surprise, the shirt, which was not expected to make it till after Christmas, arrived even a couple days early.  So he comes to me a few days before Chrismtas and tells me that he can't get my gift at the store nearby, and would have to go to another store about 45 minutes away.  I said in Christmas shopping traffic?  No, I can wait till it's back at our store.  Then I asked if he could order it online....he said he could, but when I saw the bank statement I would know exactly what it was.  So on Christmas eve we "exchanged gifts", I gave him his and he told me what mine was.  He's getting me a palm tree charm for my Pandora bracelet to commemorate our Hawaii trip.  Nice.  Although now I think he has forgotten.  So the dilemma....do I mention it, or at this point do I just say eh, we might as well save the money?  I don't know.

So anyway, now that Em is old enough to really love Christmas, it's like ten million times better than when I was a kid and loved Christmas.  Seeing her face light up when she heard Santa bells on the radio, telling me she wanted something and then said ok, I'll tell Santa!  Every morning she got up and excitedly ran around the house, looking for her elf,  Mixi.  I never wanted to do Elf on the Shelf...not because of the creepy aspect, and I am so not above using fictional elves to try to get my kid to behave.  But I just cannot stand jumping on the bandwagon of whatever big thing everyone is doing.  I've even not done something that I've kind of wanted to do, just because everyone else is doing it.  I HATE trendy stuff, and I hate even more that I think a lot of sheep do some of these things just because it is trendy.  I swear you could probably get people to walk around with dog shit on their head as long as a few top fashion magazines and someone like Kim Kardashian said it is the latest hot thing.  

But, my husband, the big child, insisted on getting an elf last year.  Fine, whatever, he took care of moving it every night last year, so I didn't care.  She did seem to like it, so that's cool.  But this year, on the nights that he didn't move her before work, I did it.  But I got really into it, and it was fun.  I took to pinterest for some cool ideas.  One night Mixi got in Em's book wagon and hooked up her my little pony's and went for a ride....another night she was roasting some marshmallows over a candle flame.  That one was fun to do, I took some mini marshmallows and put them over a lighter flame long enough for them to brown a little bit, and I burned a few on purpose.  Em has this tiny little Beauty and the Beast tea set....the tea cups are so tiny, like smaller than a penny, so I set them out and had the marshmallows on the saucers and put the tea cups out like she was drinking tea with her marshmallows.

One morning she found Mixi in the fridge with a washcloth wrapped around her to try to keep warm, and one day she found her "asleep" on my printer after a wild night of photocopying herself.  I swear I had more fun with that damn elf than she did, and that's saying a lot because she loves her.

So Christmas was great.  On Christmas eve we went to church and then to my brother and sister-in-laws for dinner and to open presents with my family.  Emily had a blast having her uncle at her beck and call all night, and she loved playing with their new-ish kittens, who are now both full grown and so big.  She got a Leapstart from my dad and stepmom, the one that has books that you put in it and a special pen for interactive learning.  My stepmom had originally wanted to get her a tablet type one, but she already has a Kindle Fire.  Even though the Leapfrog one would be more educational, I was worried the two devices would be too similar and she would neglect one for the other.  She got some new clothes, a koala crate, and a wearable blanket with a cat head for the hood.

We got home late, and told her that we thought we might have seen Santa landing on a roof a few blocks away, so she had better get to bed so he didn't pass our house.  I didn't hear much from her once we tucked her in, so I don't think the dreaded Christmas eve insomnia has hit her yet.  So once she was in bed we ate the cookies she put out for Santa and we put her presents under the tree.  This was the one time I am so grateful for a child who refuses to get out bed and come out of her room on her own.  We were pretty much in the clear to go get her presents as soon as we said goodnight and shut the door.  We didn't have to worry about being caught mid-present delivery. 

So Ryan and I stayed up a little later, drank some eggnog out of our Marty Moose glasses and watched some TV.  Christmas morning I think we woke up around 10 or 10:30 and we had to actually wake Emily up.  Haha, I know all parents hate us.  My SIL said their kids had them up at 6:30am, and even that was after telling them to get their butts back to bed earlier.  Emily is just a really mellow kid for the most part.  I mean, she's loud and a bull in a china shop when she wants to be, but stuff that riles other kids up doesn't seem to faze her.  Even next year and the year after I can see her just casually waking up on Christmas morning, not being in a huge rush.

I hated to do it because half the fun of Christmas is not knowing what you got, and tearing the wrapping paper off.  But her Barbie Camper was just too big for any boxes we had, and since I got it second hand, it obviously didn't come in a box.  So that was the only gift I didn't wrap, I left it sitting out in front of all the presents with a big pretty bow tied around it.  So when she came out in the morning it was the first thing she saw.  I think she was kind of in awe over it all.  She loves her camper, she's played with it every day since.  We also got her the Happy Helpers' Headquarters, which she lit up when she opened it and even hugged the box.  That child is wild for her Minnie Mouse.  She's loved Minnie since she was a little baby, and I love that Minnie hasn't been a phase so far. 

So also got the Seapony lagoon from the latest My Little Pony movie.  She got the game Pie Face, and some Little Golden Sheriff Callie books (which have put her back on a Sheriff Callie kick, we watched her all day today), two seaponies to go with her lagoon and the one that it came with, and in her stocking she got some candy, a Minnie Mouse play dough set, a can of slime (that farts when you put it back in the can, oh good), a Shimmer and Shine "make up" set, a flower magnet from Hawaii that she loved, oh and she got the mama and baby turtle she asked Santa for.  She was excited for sure, but I was hoping for some recognition that she got the one gift she asked him for, but she either didn't make that connection or just didn't express it.  I think she got a couple other things as well...I went a little overboard with her stocking.  We have a stocking for Kayla too of course, and we always buy her a new stuffed animal for Christmas to put at her grave, so the stuffy goes in her stocking so it's not empty.  But I bought so much damn stuff for Emily's stocking, I had to use Kayla's too.

I definitely went overboard with her regular gifts too.  I stayed within budget, but I'm a good shopper and got a lot of good deals so I got a lot for the set amount, which she of course does not need.  But, it was technically her first Christmas that she was really really into...I'll go easier next year.  So we relaxed for a bit and then got ready to go to Christmas dinner at Ryan's parents'.  Dinner was great and she had fun playing with her cousins, and she got great gifts from all of them too.  Some more clothes, and her aunt accidentally got the seapony lagoon for her too, but when Em opened it she jumped up and exclaimed another one!!!  She was so excited.  So also got her a duplicate of one of the seaponies we got her, to which Em was very excited about too.  We kept the pony because it doesn't hurt to have two, but she'll take the lagoon back and get something else, there is really no need to have two of those. 

So now hopefully we can get the basement cleaned up soon and get some of the toys down there.  My gym is in one corner of the basement, and Ryan's mancave is in the other.  But we've decided to move his mancave into the center of the basement and basically make it a family room (but I did give him permission to decorate as he likes as long as it's tasteful).  We were going to make his old mancave into a playroom for Em, but it just makes more sense to have her playroom where my gym is, which is right next to where the family room will be, it's really just an extension of the space. 

So right now my gym is full of my equipment, some of her toys, and a ton of laundry that Ryan just never does.  So we've got to clean out the mancave so we can move my gym over there, and then spruce up that space for her playroom.  Then when I go down there to work out, she can play, or when we're down there hanging out once we get the family room done, she has her own space to play in.  I wish we could have it all done right now.  I'm dying to get some of these toys out of the living room, and I am also having to work out in the living room which isn't fun.  Some day.  

One of those nights

It's been almost 5 years since we said goodbye to our angel.  Most days, I do ok.  Nowadays I really only get very emotional when I visit her grave, or if I let myself get too far inside my own head, thinking about how unfair it all is, and letting myself relive the emotions I felt that night.  I went on to have the sweetest little girl, and I know I will see Kayla again one day.  So most days I am ok.  Today is not one of them.

I've always said that if I have to, I can find a silver lining in losing Kayla.  It doesn't make it ok, it doesn't erase the pain, but sometimes you've just got to find that silver lining.  You just have to or you'll go insane.  My silver lining is that I've been given a unique gift that only parents of angels know, and that's the ability to appreciate and love your living children every hour of every single day.

Don't get me wrong, I am human like everyone else, and there are plenty of times that she drives me insane.  But I am content in knowing I can love my child more than life itself, but still want to sell her at times when she's being impossible.  But I feel like when you've been on the other side, when you've heard those crushing words, "your daughter will not survive", it makes it possible to set aside daily stress, and really appreciate what you do have, and to know how very lucky you are.

But with that knowledge and appreciation comes the curse, and that is knowing that it is far too easy to lose them and it can happen in the blink of an eye.  I don't sit around shaking and hugging myself, I don't lay in bed all day, unable to accomplish anything due to the fear.  I live my life and most of the time I can keep it at bay, and if you were standing right next to me you'd never know I'm experiencing it, but it's always there.  That fear of something happening to your child, that worry that you've been too lucky, you've been happy for too long and the happy police is going to come take it away.  For the most part I have my shit together, but those moments are always there, lurking....it's the waiting for Emily to get home when one of her grandparents drives her.  It's that silent sigh of relief when she walks in the door, safe and sound.  It's those first noises you hear in the morning over the monitor, telling you she is awake, and indeed ok. 

But some nights the fear rears its ugly head more than usual.  I was reading a post on facebook where parents were invited to say the names of their children that they are missing this Christmas, and I just sat there reading the names, crying.  Crying for them, crying that they were all so young when their lives ended...crying for their parents who will never ever be the same.  But selfishly, I'm crying for myself, and feeling that, even if only for a few minutes, that debilitating fear of something happening to the precious little life you would literally do anything for.  I am not this shattered person, it doesn't consume my life.  But I am still, and I think I will always, be waiting for the other shoe to drop. 

Having lost a child gives you this blessing of super human ability to appreciate the good, even when you're screaming mad.  But it's also a curse, giving you the knowledge of how easily that good can turn bad.   

Oh toddlers

Whoever coined the term "terrible twos" ought to be shot.  There is nothing terrible about the twos.  Ok sure, she had a tantrum now and again, she used to bang her head on the floor when she was really mad, but that was not bad.  I know, at the time I probably thought it was, and I probably thought man, two year olds.  But I knew nothing.  NOTHING!

After hearing all your life that the twos are terrible, you get through them and they're not so bad, you think ha, I got this.  I got this parenting thing.  Why does everyone say it's the hardest job in the world, I can do this.  And then, right then is when your kids can smell your over-confidence, and that's when they strike, and break you down.

Even this whole last year, I thought wow, threes are so much harder than twos.  She'd have a tantrum, she'd be mad and cry, she'd refuse to do something I told her to do.  But then it was over and we'd be good.  The bad meltdowns didn't happen all that often, it was really more the whining and the lack of listening that got to me.  But nothing can compare to these last two weeks....not even the rage peeing.

It's like she went to bed one Friday night my sweet little, mostly even tempered girl, and woke up some hairy beast who does nothing but whine, and complain, and defy and do everything except listen.  That day we decided to take her to see The Star....the whole time before we left for the movie she was being so whiney.  So we get to the movie and it's sold out, the next one isn't for 2.5 hours.  We didn't want to wait that long, so we decided to go to the theater closer to our house (but didn't have the nice leather recliners, booo) that had a slightly earlier show time.  So we were trying to figure out what to do to kill the time, and I was trying to order tickets on my phone and she's in the backseat just talking non-stop, question after question after question.  She was like Donkey from Shrek when they were driving to the Kingdom of Far Far Away.  She just would.not.stop.talking.

I think in order to not go insane, my mind has blocked out some of the day's events, I just know she was uber whiney and complainy all day, despite having a very nice day at the movies and going to lunch and then to the mall to run some errands.  It was either that day or the next that she peed her pants TWICE, after not having had an accident in months.  So long ago I cannot even remember.  Every single day since the day we went to the movies, she's been insane with her tantrums and behavior.  A few days later we went to Target.  I try not to always let her get something, but she saw these really cute tiny snowglobes and they were only $3 so I thought why not.  I told her if she was good we could walk around the toy section when we were done.  So as we're going through, she sees some toy, aqua beads or something like that and she said she wanted it.  I said no, ask Santa.  That's been my answer for the last six months.  I dread January when it'll be harder to convince her to ask Santa...next year.  Oh but her birthday will be coming up soon.  Is it too early in April to start telling her to ask Santa for the toys she wants (which is all of them).

But ask Santa didn't cut it this time.  Please mommy, please.  It was $20, which I try not to let price be a known factor to her, because it doesn't matter what the price is, if I say she's not getting it, she's not getting it, but if I've already decided she can get something, it's going to be something that costs next to nothing.  So then she says, I don't want the snowglobe.  I said ok, but not getting the snowglobe doesn't mean you get the aqua beads.  She says no, I don't want it.

I said alright, let's go take it back then.  So we walk back across the store and put it back on the shelf.  I asked if she was sure, and she said yeah.  I said ok bye snowglobe.  We get two aisles away and it's "whaaaaa, I want the snowglobe"!  I knew she would do that, I was trying to figure out how to make it look like I was putting it back but really hang onto it so we didn't have to go back to get it once she decided she wanted it.  So we go back, and by now I'm pissed.  I cannot stand these games.  I want it, I don't want it, wha wha wha.  I know, all the non-parents and parents whose kids are grown and cannot remember how their kids were as toddlers are collectively shaking their heads saying, "oh she played you, you did exactly what she wanted".

Yeah well, you gotta pick your battles.  I seriously could not deal with her screaming all through Target because I wouldn't let her have the snowglobe again.  Being the fourth day in a row of this sudden "new Emily" I just couldn't take it.  Besides, I do the tough love lesson of "well you should have thought about that before" thing plenty of times.  Yeah, it doesn't work.  I can do that 60 times in a row, but the very next day she's going to try it again.  Like I said, break.you.down.  I mean, I'm sure if I do it consistently and often enough, eventually she will grow into a kid who doesn't thrive on drama and learn she cannot get her way just by screaming, but she's not going to learn that today, so I chose to avoid that war.

Then at the check out the cashier asked if she wanted a sticker,  and she put her head down and said no.  I told the cashier, she's the only kid in the world who pouts even when they get their way.  Before we made it out to the car, "whaaaaa, I wanted a sticker".  That's when she got the, "well too bad, you should have told her yes", speech.

Then last Friday, oooooh last Friday was bad.  She and I met my sister-in-law for a couple hours of shopping.  She is usually a great shopper, she has always been content on going pretty much anywhere as long as it's with me.  She loves to hang with me.  She did pretty well at the first store, and with her aunt being there I figured she would be good the whole time out.  She doesn't too often act up in front of other people, which leads people to think I am insane when I complain about a tough day with her.  "Oh stop, she's an angel", they say.  *Eyeroll*.

So at the second store, I had to run and get something and when I came back she had a puppy dog christmas ornament.  My SIL said she wanted to hold it and carry it around the store.  A few minutes later she handed it to me and asked me to put it in the cart, so I started to and she says no no no, I want to do it.  Through clenched teeth I said, well do it then!  I think she went to throw it and I said ok, you're done and I grabbed it from her and put it on the shelf.  She starts crying so loud and yelling, mommy pleeeeeaaaaaase.  I started to push her in the cart and she kicks me.  I grabbed her leg and said do not kick me.  So she kicks me again.  This time I grabbed her arm and repeated it, which caused even louder crying and claiming that I hurt her arm.  Oh my God, I barely squeezed it, I was just trying to get her attention.  So by now she is crying and yelling so loud; full-on toddler meltdown in the store.

I used to proudly say I never got embarrased when Emily acted up in public, but I have to say, that time, I was embarrased.  It was easier when she was little because she was still a baby.  If anyone wanted to judge me, I didn't give a shit, she was a baby, baby's get tired and they get upset.  But now she's at the age where people see "crazy brat having a tantrum in a store".  Plus she wasn't calming down after a minute or two like she normally would, so I grabbed her and told my SIL that we'd be outside for a minute.  So I take her out front and I knelt down and I told her what she needed to do, what she needed to stop doing, and she needed to stop hitting and kicking me.  What does she do?  Kicks me again!

Time out works really well at home, often times just the threat of time out will squash bad behavior.  So there were some brick pillars on front of the store that formed a corner, so I told her to go stand in the corner.  Just then I realized I had left her coat in the cart.  It wasn't insanely cold, but chilly enough to need a coat.  So we're standing there, people are walking in and out of the store and my kid's standing there screaming and crying with no coat on, yelling "I'm scared I'm scared I'm scared"!  I'm surprised the Novi police didn't come knocking on my door later on.

So I knelt down and told her if she could stop crying, we'd go back inside but she is not to yell and scream, she is not to kick me or hit me again, or we were leaving.  She said ok.....we went back in and I was on pins and needles.  I had just threatened something that I had to stick to, or risk showing her that she had all the power.  I may occasionally give in to the I want it/I don't want it games, but I try very hard not to make threats that I don't intend to make good on if need be.  Thankfully it wasn't a long shopping day, my SIL had an appointment so we would be leaving soon anyway, but I wasn't ready to leave right that minute, so I was praying I didn't have to follow through with my threat if she continued to misbehave.

She was pretty good for the rest of the time, and then as we were checking out, she asked if we could get McDonalds on the way home.  Ordinarily I wouldn't reward her for being so bad, but I was thinking about getting it before she asked, and we had nothing for lunch at home.  And, I really wanted McDonalds.  So I had to make her think it was all dependent on her behavior on the way home, and I was really hoping she would be good, because I wanted McDonalds too.  She said I'll be good, see...and she flashed a big corny smile.  Ugh, toddlers.  One minute they drive you to the edge of insanity, and the next they break your heart with their charm and cuteness.

So luckily she was pretty good on the way home, so we got lunch.  Then I had to work for a bit, and I was really hoping she would take a nap during quiet time.  So I sent her to go potty while I cleaned up lunch, and when I came in the bathroom she had her panties on and everything....I asked if she went and she said yeah, I did.  It seemed fishy, but she had never lied about going before, so I believed her.  Dumb!  Not even five minutes after I closed her door, she starts crying.  I go back in and she said, oh no I peed!  Her sheets were soaked, so there is no way she actually went potty before like she said she did.

So I had to put her in the shower and clean her off, get fresh panties and pants and strip her bed.  Luckily I still follow the tip my friend gave me when I was pregnant with her....always make the bed in at least two layers.  So all I had to do was strip off the top sheet and mattress pad and toss them in the laundry room and she had nice dry sheets to lay back down on.  God Bless the waterproof mattress pad!  Once I was done working and she got up, Ryan helped her write a letter to Santa, and we went out to dinner, intending to mail her letter afterward.  A woman in the next city over announced on the neighborhood website that she had put a mailbox to the North Pole on her lawn, and kids were welcome to come mail their letters.  She even promised to write back to the kids from Santa.  I can't wait for Em to get her letter!

So we went to dinner, and it was not good at all.  She misbehaved the whole time, wouldn't eat her food, kept waving her crayons in my face, wasn't listening.  Ryan was grumpy too, I think he just didn't feel good, so it was overall a very crappy dinner.  After mailing the letter, we were going to go drive through the christmas lights that we go see every year, but she was doing such a bad job of listening, I felt like we probably should cancel.  But I didn't want to, I was looking forward to going to mail her letter and seeing the lights, so I made her work for it and told her she had to be very good from that moment on or we were going home.  So she actually was good, for the most part.  We mailed her letter and then drove through the lights.

Last year was really her first year being super into Christmas, seeming to know what it meant and the idea of Santa.  But this year she is really into it, she gets excited over everything.  So it was a lot of fun listening to her exclaim over all the lights and be amazed at every new one she saw.  But I swear, the second we pulled out of the park, the whining and complaining started right back up again.  I lasted a couple of minutes and then I just lost my shit.  I had been annoyed with her all week, but I hadn't really yelled a whole lot or got overly mad, but now it was boiling up and I was about to explode.  I yelled at her so loud, I threw my phone on the floor of the car and I hit the door with my fist.  I was just so angry and fed up, I thought I was going to self-destruct.  I think I scared the shit out of her, cause there wasn't a peep from the backseat for a while.  We all rode in silence, and then my husband quietly put his hand over mine, and I just broke down and quietly cried.  Em has always been such a sweetheart when I am upset about something, so even though it was at her, I know she was still concerned.  We stopped at the gas station and Ryan ran in to get something, and after a minute or two, in her tiny little voice she said, mommy?

Despite still being so mad and frustrated and exhausted, just her saying that one word made me want to swoop her up in my arms and tell her how much I love her.  I'm a pretty even-keeled person (ok, except in traffic) until I am pushed too far, but then I unleash my wrath and I am pretty sure my head sometimes spins around and I vomit pea soup.  It's a bad habit of mine, I hold in my anger until I cannot take it anymore and then I blow up.  I had gotten frustrated that whole week, but that night my limit was reached and I couldn't take it anymore.  As soon as we got home I sent her to her room because I just needed her to not be in my sight right then.  My husband came over to me and hugged me and I just sobbed into his shoulder for a few minutes, and when I had calmed down, I went in to tuck her in and talk to her.  I explained to her that mommy just gets mad when she doesn't listen and doesn't behave, but no matter how mad I get and no matter how much I yell, I will always always love her.

I don't want to be her friend, I want to be her parent and teach her right from wrong and raise her to be a decent person.  But every now and again when I lose my shit like that, I worry that each time, it's chipping away a little bit of love and trust that she has for me, and that terrifies me.  So far I have not seen any evidence of it, she still crawls into my lap on a daily (and sometimes multiple times a day) basis to tell me how much she loves me and that I am her best friend.  But still, I wish I could get my point across without having to yell like that.

I know as a parent I cannot be perfect, no parent is.  And I know it's normal that once you're pushed past your limit, it's not uncommon to lose it and just go berserk.  But still, I feel very bad about yelling like that, and I just don't want to be that kind of parent.  She has continued to be a challenge over the days since then, and I have lost my cool a little bit a couple times, but for the most part, I am doing much better at being firm, but remaining calm.  It's so hard to not get sucked in, and expect behavior from your child that they are simply not capable of yet.  It's too easy to get mad and think they are acting this way just to make your life miserable, and they are trying to ruin your day.  But when I think about the fact that she is still so little, and trying to figure out her emotions and her actions, testing us to see what she can get away with and what she cannot, it's so much easier to be empathetic, yet firm, to teach her what is expected and what is not allowed, but to do it in a way that will help her learn, rather than scare her into behaving well.  I love the quote, "When little ones are struggling with big emotions, it is our job to share our calm, not join their chaos:.

Still, it's so much easier said than done.  But, all I can do is keep trying, and keep learning from my mistakes.  I may mess up sometimes and lose my temper and yell, but I think it's only human, and let's face it, adults aren't all that much better than toddlers at handling their emotions.  We're both learning as we go, and discovering what works and what doesn't.  I know it is all normal, I know she is not doing anything that every other toddler has done since the beginning of time.  But it's so hard because it's like overnight she went from being this relatively easy kid who had tantrums here and there, but quickly corrected herself with some guidance....to this crazy monster who has acting badly every single day for almost two weeks solid.  She has been napping much more than usual.  For the last several months, she would nap one, maybe two times a week during quiet time.  But last week she napped almost every single day and even this week she's napped more than usual.  So my only guess is she is going through a major growth spurt, which is requiring more energy, which makes her more tired, and therefore more crazy.  At least I hope that's what it is...a phase.  A phase that will hopefully end very very soon.

So, I wrote all of the above a few days ago, and I am happy to report that the crazy fog seems to be lifting and she has been doing much much better.  She's back to normal toddler behavior that I can handle, and now seems like a walk in the park compared to before.  My step-mom is convinced it was because of the full moons.  I am not sure I believe in that stuff, but after the time I've had with Em lately, I am beginning to.