Our Fearless Wonder Isn't So Fearless After All

On Tuesday, July 24, we all piled into the van and headed to Langhorne, PA. We were taking Sarah to Sesame Place. Adam and Jackson went a few years ago, and now Sarah is way into Sesame Street, so we just knew she would love seeing Elmo and Abby Cadabby. She was quite excited to be going to "Elmo's House" asking for about a week if we were headed to "Elmo's House" every time we got in the car. All was well until we actually arrived at "Elmo's House". 

I expected Sarah to be timid around the characters as she always kept her distance from the Chick-fil-a cow. What I didn't expect was that she didn't want to do anything. Nothing. Nada. Zippo. She wouldn't even ride the carousel. The same little girl who has no fear of jumping into any depth of water wouldn't even go in the ankle deep water until we dragged her kicking and screaming. Of course, once she was in, she was happy. There is one place where water sprays from all directions all over you. Kevin said she said, "It's raining!" as she walked through finally with a smile on her face.

 Adam and Jackson's favorite place- the nets.

 Here we tried to get the three of them to stand in front of the "Elmo Bush". As you can see, Adam and Jackson were happy to stand and pose to have their picture taken...

 Sarah, on the other hand, ran the other way and hid on my lap.

 Again, we found Cookie Monster on the street and Adam and Jackson ran up to give him hugs...

Sarah had the death grip on me just standing near him.

 She wouldn't even get close enough to the boys for a picture on the front steps of Sesame Street. At this point, we were wondering if it was too late to cancel our breakfast with the characters for the next morning.

After some swimming and avoiding Abby Cadabby who was right across the street from this fire truck, Sarah climbed up and was happy to "drive" the fire truck. We headed back across Sesame Street to save us a spot for the parade. Sarah promptly fell asleep 45 minutes before the parade began. She did wake up to some monsters dancing in front of her and was actually mesmerized by the whole thing.

The next day... We had reserved breakfast with Cookie Monster since Abby would be there. We saw Ernie, Bert, and Big Bird, too. Sarah again had the death grip on me.

 From this distance she was always excited to see the characters.

 But don't get any closer...

 This was as good as it was going to get for a picture with a character.

 Adam and Jackson had a blast. I think they rode everything, especially the water slides, twice!

 Sarah finally enjoying the sprinklers after being coaxed to go in.

I was very surprised at how well they all three behaved during the drive up. It took us 8 1/2 hours and it actually went by pretty fast. I think I feared the worst so it couldn't get any worse than what I had imagined! Sarah did love driving through the tunnel and Adam was excited to stay in a hotel. Who needs Sesame Place when we have tunnels and hotels?

Toilet Aversion

I am sure you are thinking what in the world is this post about. It was going to be about how much I love my boys but how different it is to have a girl. She is such a care-taker. She cleans up and makes sure everything is in its place (most of the time). But then it happened again...


Kevin came in the door with handfuls of stuff he'd bought at Sam's. I started putting it away while he and Jackson ran off to Scouts. Sarah got excited when she saw the box of Pop-Tarts. (Yes, I feed my children Pop-Tarts for breakfast and popcorn for dinner.) She decided that she was going to put them away. She was too cute. I ran to find the camera. While I was looking, I heard, "Mommy, come here! Mommy!" She had some urgency in her voice. While she was putting the Pop-tarts so nicely in their basket, she proceeded to pee on the floor.


I swear, people, she does not like our toilets! She stays clean and dry all day at school. She stays dry when we are out and about and uses the potty whenever we take her. At home she will sit on the potty for forever, get right up, and pee somewhere in my house! Luckily we don't have much carpet and she does enjoy cleaning up. She wipes her pee up, puts her wet clothes in the washing machine, and then runs off to re-dress herself. We won't even talk about the #2's. 


I hate potty training. I wish there were people out there who you could just send your kids off to, and they would bring them back to you all potty-trained. It is the only thing I haven't liked about parenting so far. At this point I am thinking that she is going to be in kindergarten still wetting her pants.

I know you can't see it, but there is a big puddle of pee in between her and the basket. No, it didn't get the rug or any of the food. Just so you know, when I took the picture, I didn't really know what I was taking a picture of.

Here is how the picture was supposed to turn out. Of course, she has now had a bath and gotten all cleaned up.

Coach Mom

Kevin had the camera. I had Adam. I can't even remember what made me call him over. I am sure he was misbehaving. Adam is trying to work on being nicer to people, so I am sure I was reminding him that he needs to be nice. We probably weren't saying a thing about basketball but it sure looks like I am giving him some good pointers.

The Basketball Finale

After the whole get the stitches out and get some ice cream incident we headed over to the YMCA to watch Adam's last basketball "practice". They had a cute little ceremony at the end.

 They always start off with some stretches. I think sticking the tongue out must help in stretching the muscles.

 Then they huddle up around the coach to find out how they will be grouped and what skills they will be working on.

 Adam practices some dribbling. They had to dribble their ball around the edge of half the court. I was surprised at how well he was controlling the ball.

 He's taking a shot. Look at that face of concentration.

After their little basketball exercises, they lined them all up and gave them a chance to "cut" the net and take a piece of the net with them.

 Adam chooses just the right piece.

 I still can't figure out why they didn't let these three and four year olds actually cut the net. What were they thinking? They can use scissors, right?

 Coach Mark places a medal around Adam's neck and gives him his certificate.

 Adam was so proud of his medal. He wanted to take it to school the next day to show his friends.

 We can't leave without a big group high five.

Oh, in case you are wondering. Yes, Adam is wearing the wrong color shirt. They give them a shirt every year they participate. The shirts look alike but the colors change each year. Adam has quite the collection of YMCA Family Hoops Shirts because he has his two and Jackson's two. Kevin accidentally grabbed his shirt from last year which was burgundy instead of this year's green shirt. Oops!

The Removal

The big removal of the stitches was last Tuesday. Sarah, Jackson, and I walked into Mebane Pediatrics bracing ourselves. Well, I was anyway. There in the waiting room was one of my students. He looked at Jackson and asked, "What's wrong with him?" "Nothing", I said and proceeded to show him Sarah's boo boo. I told him he would probably hear her screaming. The next day at school Kaleb came up to me and said "I heard your little girl." "I am so not surprised", I replied.
It was awful, horrible. I don't know what was worse- getting the stitches or taking them out. Dr. Bailey tried to sit her in my lap and have me hold her still. Yeah, right. I could have told him that that wasn't going to work before we even started. He called in reinforcements, and our favorite nurse, Jan, came in to help. She wrapped Sarah up like a cocoon. She papoosed her. It did keep her from wriggling so much, but I felt sorry for her. She couldn't move. The whole time Dr. Bailey was "working" on her she was screaming, "Stop it!" "No! Don't do that!" She has finally learned that she has a voice, and she is going to use it by golly! I asked her if she wanted to get some ice cream and she immediately started telling Dr. Bailey that he was all done and that she wanted ice cream. She refused Mrs. Jan's offers of trips to the prize box because she was getting ice cream. When Dr. Bailey finally did finish. She said, "All done. Thank you." How nice. My daughter remembers her manners even during the most traumatic moments of life. I guess I am doing something right. 

This is the only picture I have of her after her stitches came out. It was Friday night and I had just taken off the butterfly band-aid thing they put on it. Dr. Bailey was afraid he had split the cut open because the stitches were so tight- which was why Sarah screamed so much. 

A New Ritual

This has become our Sunday night ritual. We've had a semi-late lunch at La Cocina where everyone has filled up on chips, and I got a new popcorn popper for Christmas that makes the best popcorn. The kids have started asking for popcorn for dinner. It is an easy cop-out for cooking dinner, but I feel like a horrible mother feeding my children popcorn every other night. So we started Sunday popcorn night. We turn the TV to the last recorded Sesame Street (or whatever is on that is appropriate for everyone), pour everyone water in a lidded cup, and enjoy some popcorn. Unfortunately Sarah hasn't figured out that her popcorn has to stay in the bowl. Half of hers always ends up on the floor smushed into tiny pieces. Hence, my boys are learning how to vacuum. Maybe popcorn for dinner isn't so bad after all.

A Two Year Old With a Shiner

Here are some pictures of Sarah's injury without the band-aid. Her eye is definitely bruised. She was rubbing it earlier today so I guess it doesn't hurt too bad. 

I had a very hard time getting Sarah to sit still. I blamed Kevin for feeding her sugar all day. He is in complete denial. This is the only picture I could get where she actually looked at me and it still isn't very good.

She started to read a book and then refused to look at me at all. You can see her horrible cut a little better here. She'll tell you that it hurts but then runs around tackling Adam and Jackson every chance she gets. I don't think she has learned a lesson at all through all of this.