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.

Too Much Trauma for This Mama!

 Yesterday started off as a pretty normal day. In fact I love Thursdays. I have a great schedule at school with two 45 minute planning periods back to back, and then I have a help session after school where I help teachers with anything having to do with technology. I headed down the yellow hall around 2:45 and ended up helping FOUR teachers within the hour before I had to leave to get my hair cut. I just love it when I am of good use to somebody- especially lots of somebodies!

Heather, my hairdresser, washed my locks and then proceeded to trim them. While she was trimming, my cell phone rang. I didn't answer because I just think that's rude. If the call is important enough I can call them back. I am not going to talk on the phone while Heather is cutting my hair. I was a little embarrassed that I had forgotten to turn it to vibrate. I told her, "I have no idea who would be calling at this time of day. It could be day care telling to come get my kids that they'd had enough of them." We both laughed, and she started drying my hair. She decided to curl my hair once it was dry and had half of my head curled when my phone rang again. I was still embarrassed that I had forgotten to put it on vibrate. How rude of me! Anyway, she insisted that I answer it, and it was Kevin telling me that the day care was trying to get in touch with us. Sarah had fallen and cut her head and would probably need stitches. Well, Heather quickly finished with my curls, I paid her, and we set up my next appointment. 

I drove as fast as I could to get to the day care and called the pediatrician on the way to let them know we were coming and would be in need of their "after hours" services. Of course, wouldn't you know I got behind every slow person on Church Street. I could not get to my baby fast enough. When I did get there, she was getting the royal treatment. She was sitting in the director's lap watching Mickey Mouse videos on the computer and eating her second lollipop. I scooped her up along with Adam and Jackson and headed a few blocks over to the pediatrician. 

It turns out that she was running to get a toy from under the swings. Supposedly one of her friends kicked her, but we think she must have gotten cut by the swing. She has a nice deep cut coming out of her left eye onto her cheek.

As soon as we walked in the door, the receptionist had the paperwork ready for me to sign and quickly took my copay. We sat down in the waiting room for less than five minutes before the nurse called us back. Jackson decided that he did not want to go and that he promised me he would take care of Adam and that they would behave. So, thinking, "Wow, they knew I was coming and they were ready for us, they'll get Sarah stitched up and out of there in no time", I left the boys in the waiting room to play with the "doctor toy" (you know, the one with the shapes that move along those tracks) and to watch the fish. Mistake #1.

The nurse said the doctor will see us shortly. I heard voices in the hall. I believed her. Thirty minutes later, Kevin calls to say he is home in the driveway. I tell him to back out of that driveway and come get the boys. Who knows what they are doing alone in the waiting room. After waiting an hour, the doctor comes in and looks at Sarah and says, "Yep, we've got to stitch that up". He says that he'll go get the room set up and call us back when it's all ready. I thought, "Good, he'll stitch Sarah up, and we'll be home eating dinner in no time." Mistake #2. I guess he forgot to mention that he was going to see the other patients waiting before he was going to stitch Sarah up.  Another hour goes by. Sarah entertained herself with my phone and was not appreciative when I "borrowed" it to text Kevin every once in a while. He finally left and took the boys to Moe's to eat.

It was finally time to go back to the procedure room. Sarah immediately recoiled and started screaming as soon as we walked in. I must interject here to explain. Two weeks ago, Sarah had that surgery where she had tubes put in her ears and her adenoids taken out. The boys had dentist appointments on Tuesday and she sat trembling terrified of Dr. Beshears and the hygienists with their masks on. Those doctors and nurses at the surgery center told us she wouldn't remember a thing about that surgery. I do believe they were wrong!!! Doctors are now very scary to Sarah. I tried lying her on the table but she was trying with all her might to roll right off. I'd never seen her twist as much as she did. The nurse held her head and I held her hands while both of us were getting kicked by her feet. Once the doctor finally got it numbed- with a needle- YIKES! She calmed down enough for us to talk to her. The doctor covered her face up with a paper covering so that only the cut showed through the hole. That really seemed to help. She didn't have to see those awful things coming at her, and she could play peek-a-boo with me and the nurse. We started asking her questions, and she finally asked for supper and her bear. Poor thing. Traumatized and starving. 

Unfortunately I had a front row seat to view the whole thing and was surprisingly not too grossed out about it. I'd never really known how those stitches worked and now I do. I'm not saying I would want to do all that again- I am avoiding it at all possible costs. 

They did give Sarah some consolation prizes. She got TWO prizes from the prize box and another lollipop.  


We got home about 3 and half hours after this huge adventure started. Sarah asked for a peanut butter sandwich and some milk. She ate it all and was ready to go take a bath and go to bed. I think at that point I may have begun to stop shaking and was ready for a bed myself.  

 

Here Sarah is with a full belly and her bear making kissy faces at the camera. She is unfazed by all the trauma that just transpired. 

She is holding her bear (which she asked for several times- never again will we leave home without bear!) and her three prizes- an alligator car, a princess necklace, and a nice band-aid on the side of her face.

She slept fine all night and seemed OK at breakfast. She did wince once with pain when Jackson started to get a little too close. I noticed this afternoon that her eyelid was looking a little purple. I'm afraid she may end up with a black eye or half a black eye before this is all over with. 

She is supposed to go back to the doctor on Tuesday to get the stitches out. I am looking for any volunteers that are willing to take her to that appointment. My suggestion- wear padded clothes for the kicking and earplugs for the screaming. Lift some weights to build up your muscles for holding her down and you'll be fine. Oh, and if anyone has a plastic bubble we can put her in to keep her safe, we'd appreciate that, too!