What would you do?

It's ironic that I just found this video after writing my last post.

http://www.cnn.com/video/#/video/bestoftv/2010/03/11/kaye.young.hero.cnn?hpt=C2

What this little boy did to protect himself and his family is truly amazing. Thank goodness nobodywas hurt.

I am rethinking the little white lie that I told Arielle about burglars so she knows how to react if {God forbid} this situation ever happened to us. I've already discussed 9-1-1 with her numerous times but I am thinking that I should go over good hiding places in our home now.
What would you do?

~Momma to Bug n' Bear~

Dissapearing words and warning signs!

I love how the 4 year old minds work...if only I could peek inside and see the wheels spinning! Last night Arielle was reading the label on her kids mouthwash bottle {she reads everything in sight these days} and she asked me "When it gets old will the new go away?". I had absolutely NO IDEA what she was talking about so I said "What?" like three times before I finally understood what she was getting at with her question. The label on the mouthwash bottle had the word "NEW" on it so she thought that once the bottle got old that the word would disappear! I then tried to explain why the word was on the label in the first place and the only way that it could "go away" but sort of gave up because it was rather difficult for her to understand. Plus she got distracted by the fact that the label was removable and all she could think about was getting it off so she could have a new sticker!

A few days ago she also asked me why there was a sign that said "BEWARE OF DOG" on somebodys fence. It wasn't hard to explain why but this came just days after she asked me if burglars are real or pretend {just in books}. I had to lie about this one and there is a good reason for this. When I was a child I had a reoccuring nightmare about somebody breaking into our house. I didn't want this to happen to her. Do you blame me?

~Momma to Bug n'Bear~

Thursdays are Bad Luck

Yesterday was the third Thursday in a row that I have picked my daughter up from school only to find out that she had injured herself. It started two Thursdays ago when this happened to her finger. We went straight to Urgent Care that evening where they told us she had a gentle finger fracture. We followed that up with a visit to a hand specialist who discovered that there were actually two fractures.

Last Thursday when I picked her up I discovered that she had a run-in with another child and badly bruised her cheek. This wasn't a big deal but the bruise is still slightly visible. The story is that she was jumping off a big rock {to see how far she could jump} and that is how it happened. The playground that she was in is covered in small pebbles so the fact that she was jumping off rocks didn't concern me too much.


Yesterday, which was Thursday, as I walked into her school to pick her up I heard someone saying her name in the front office. Sure enough, there she was holding a tissue on her bloody chin. She had been running on the blacktop playground and fell on her knee and her chin. There was a cut about a half inch long that looked pretty deep so off to Urgent Care we went again. Fortunately she didn't need stitches, just a good would cleaning and a few steri-strips and she was good to go. Poor Arielle. She had a couple of little holes in her pants where she fell on her knee and she kept asking if she would be able to wear them again after I washed them.



What is a parent to do? Is the only way to teach her to be careful and not get hurt is by learning the hard way? She is already deathly afraid to open up doors and/or hold them open. Every time she touches one she asks me if it closes automatically. Now I have tried to convince her that she should not run on cement or blacktops anymore but all the other kids are going to be doing it so why shouldn't she? I guess she is just more accident-prone than most other kids, maybe because she is tall for her age.

One thing is for sure, the supersticious being in me is really dreading picking her up from school next Thursday.

Finger Fracture

Arielle has her first broken bone. Fortunately it is not too serious but it is painful none-the-less and looks absolutely horrible. It happened yesterday morning at her school when she got her finger slammed in a {very big, heavy} door. The thing that breaks my heart the most is that she told me she was holding the door open for her friends. The teacher didn't realize this and let the door close. I am so not happy that the school didn't call me. Nor did they give her any motrin to ease the pain or the swelling. Sounds like they put some ice on it and a bandage then forgot all about it. I guess the fact that she wasn't acting like herself all day and she actually laid still at nap time and slept wasn't a big red flag for them that something was wrong. I don't know whether to be angry or just cry imagining the thought of her asking for her mommy when she was in pain {which she told me she did}.

When I brought her home it took several minutes for me to convince her that I needed to take the Hello Kitty band-aid off to check it out. Well, I was not prepared for what I saw underneath the band-aid. It was big and purple and there was white stuff around it. My maternal instincts kicked in at that point and I carried her off to Urgent Care without hesitation. When we got there they gave us an ice pack which Arielle kept on her finger the whole time without and resistance. This made the swelling and purple decrease quite a bit so I started to feel relieved.

Next, they took x-rays and discovered that the tip of her bone was fractured. So they cleaned the wound and created a splint {that looks more like a cast}. When she came home and I held her so tightly. I am so proud of how well she handled the whole ordeal. It helps that she got to watch the movie, The Little Mermaid while she waited and her bandage is purple {one of her favorite colors}.

One of the things I will never forget about this accident was the fact that she asked me several times if her finger was going to fall apart. I think that is what she is worried about the most. She also told me, "I shouldn't have held the door open. Next time I will tell the teacher that I can't hold the door because I don't want to get my finger pinched."

I am such a sap, I can't imagine anything worse happening to her. This is hard enough. Today Zak is taking her to a hand specialist, hopefully they can get her in at the last minute. We just want to take every precaution that we can to ensure that her finger will heal.

Fortunately, my girl is in good spirits as long as we are not touching or looking at her finger. That's always a good sign that we are doing something right!

~Momma to Bug~

What's Been Going On Lately?

Here is a list of recent events in our lives since I last blogged:

Strep Throat

Two Pink Lines

Caffeine Withdrawl

Home Improvement x 3

Vanishing Terrible Threes

First, Arielle came down with her first case of strep throat this month. Fortunately it wasn't as bad as I imagined it would be especially knowing that she might have had an ear infection on top of it. We didn't lose much sleep, if any, and she handled it like a pro. Lucky for us Arielle loves medicine so there were no issues other than a few days of painful swallowing and lack of an appetite. I am happy to report that she has fully recovered.

Second, we found out that we are expecting baby # 2 this October {this actually happened in January but I wanted to wait a few weeks to announce}!

Third, what I thought was a really bad case of morning sickness {lasting all day long} turned out to be symptoms of caffeine withdrawl. Silly me...I stopped drinking coffee cold turkey for a whole week! It wasn't because I am pregnant and worry about the effects that caffeine has on a fetus {because I have done enough research to know that 2 cups a day is harmless}. It was because one morning coffee just didn't taste good to me so I decided I was done with it. Thank goodness a co-worker pointed out to me that I could be experiencing caffeine withdrawl because no more morning sickness!

Fourth, we have done a few home improvement projects this month. One of them I just posted {although I realized that I didn't take any pics of our sink which is far better looking than the toilet}. Aside from the bathroom bead board projects, we also changed Arielle's bedroom up a bit by removing the closet doors, putting her dresser in the closet and placing her bed against the wall. By making these changes we tripled the amount of floor space that she has in her room! I'll post these pics soon too but it too remains totally UN-finished until I decide about hanging curtains or not.

Fifth, I have had the pleasure seeing what life will be like when the terrible three's are no longer a part of it. As Arielle nears her fourth birthday, I have had the pleasure of experiencing the sweeter side of her personality more often than not and let me just say that it. is. wonderful.!

So, that's what has been going on this month! Now I need to start planning Arielle's fourth birthday party. She wants to do a Barbie theme this year.

~Momma to Bug~

My {Baby} Girl

I can't believe how grown up Arielle has become over the past week. It's like all of the sudden she is saying and doing stuff that is so unbabylike {for lack of a better description}. The other day at the store I told her that I just had one more thing to get and then we could go buh-buh's. She told me not to say it like that. Today I called her baby girl at the end of a sentence {it's just a pet name I've always had for her}. She told me she wasn't a baby.

Something else we have been going through this week is bedtime procrastination. Practically every night she has walked out of her bedroom after we tucked her in and said goodnight, sometimes crying. One of the nights she was upset because she could tell we were playing the Wii Fit test and she wanted to watch. We let her stay up late. Another night she had apparently hit her face on her bookshelf/nightstand. Tonight she messed up her covers and needed them fixed then she decided that the sound her humidier makes scares her so we had to turn it off. She has had a humidifier in her room since she was one so I'm not sure why all of the sudden it's an issue.

The older Arielle gets, the more at ease I feel about parenting. It doesn't mean things have gotten easier, it just means I have gotten more comfortable with things the way they are.

~Momma to Bug~

My Family Heirloom

I am a big fan of craigslist. I like to sell stuff so I can buy new stuff and I don't like keeping stuff around for no reason at all. Recently I decided to post Arielle's bAbY furniture for sale on craigslist just because I felt like it. I received a couple of emails from people asking me if I would be willing to split up the crib and dresser/changing table but I declined. Something told me that was not a good idea. Then I got an email {two emails to be exact} from a lovely young lady that wanted bo buy both pieces. Sold. She lived quite far away and was not sure how she would pick up the furniture so we talked over the past couple of weeks. Just yesterday, her nice mother drove to my work to drop off some earnest money because they didn't want to lose the furniture to someone else while they figure out how to pick it up. Immediately something didn't feel right...I started to get butterflies in my stomach and my heart sank. I didn't know why I felt this way...after all I always said that iF we had another baby I would buy white baby furniture which is what I had wanted for Arielle. Furniture is replaceable so I shouldn't be this upset, right? But I was very upset and I woke up early this morning with the same feeling of loss and anguish over selling Arielle's baby furniture. I phoned the lovely young lady who had been waiting nearly two weeks to buy this furniture and explained that it was no longer available for sale. I think I made the right choice. I feel happy now, not sad at all. Well, sad that I may have caused another mother heartache but this is my baby's furniture...not anybody elses. Today I made a vow that this furniture will stay in my FaMiLy foreVer and the thought of that makes me happy beyond belief.

Regretably I do not have any pictures of Arielle's first nursery room...or her second one after the move come to think of it. However, during her first year on the day she would turn a month older I always hung a sign up on her crib along and took a picture. I looked forward to this day every month and now I love to look back at each month's picture to see how much she grew. How could I get rid of a crib filled with this many mEmOrIeS of my baby?

Where were you on 9/11?

IF ANYBODY READS THIS POST, it would be fun to copy the title and post it on your blog so we can find out where you were on 9/11...

I was living in my first home purchase (an 850 sq ft condo in Denver). I don't exactly remember but I think my roommate of six months had just moved out and my parents lived four hours away on the western slope, so I was {FELT} alone in the world. I was getting ready for work when one of my co-workers called me to see if I had heard the news. I never watch tv in the morning or listen to the radio so I had no knowledge of what was happening and wouldn't have known until I got in my car if he hadn't called me. That is when I turned the tv on and heard the reports and saw the first tower smoking and debris falling. I had tuned in before the second plane hit so it was even more of a shock to see that happen after soaking in the first plane hit. Then on top of that watching the towers collapse was like watching a movie...of course I couldn't believe what was happening. I picked up the phone and called my mom and we just sat there in silence at disbelief of the events on 9/11. I ended up having to go into work a couple hours later but needless to say we did not get much work done on that day.

Despite not being personally affected by 9/11 {THANK GOODNESS} there was the fact that less than 2 weeks later, I flew to Philadelphia to visit my best friend. The biggest highlight of the visit is the fact that it was to be my FIRST trip ever to New York City! This means that I never got to see the towers standing but I did get to see their remains and the remarkable clean-up that had already occured in just a handful of days. I was very scared to board that plane on 9/20 and I remember it very clearly. There couldn't have been more than a dozen people including the stewards and there was complete silence for much of the flight. I consider myself to be very brave for flying that soon after 9/11 despite many rumors of more terrorism to come.

I always think of what I would have done if 9/11 had occurred after my daughter was born. I know I would have held her so tight in my arms and thanked God for her safety. My heart still breaks for the friends and family of those that were lost on 9/11. I wish there was more I could do to show my pride for the USA and the HEROS (fallen and living) that made 9/11 just a little less worse than it was.

God Bless America...my home SWEET home.

The photos that I am posting were taken by me on my second trip back to NYC in the following year. There was still so much clean up going on at the site of 9/11 otherwise known as "GROUND ZERO".

Leaving Blankie behind...

Arielle has made so much progress in the past two weeks. She has officially "detached" herself from Blankie, thereby decreasing the amount of time spent thumb sucking to practically never! No more carrying blankie from room to room and turning around to go back for it when we leave the house. As of this morning, the only place we had to take it with us was to school for naptime but that all is about to change...

Today when I picked Arielle up at daycare, her teacher informed me that we needed to start bringing a blanket to school that she could leave there and not take home every day {my heart stopped beating at the very thought of this}. "She needs blankie to go to sleep." Did I really just say that out loud? Yes, and as soon as I said it I knew how silly it sounded. Fortunately Arielle chimed in and announced that she was going to pick a different blanket to bring to school and leave the yellow blankie at home in her bed FOREVER! When we got home I opened up the big container of baby blankets and Arielle picked a new one for school that we will take on Wednesday and leave there. I still keep wondering if this is really happening to me because it feels like a dream. Really, it's too good to be true!

A little bit of the past and the present

I found these baby pictures of my girl and I just had to share them. They were on the internal memory of my camera and were a nice surprise for me to see! I can't wait to get them in prints so I can do one final scrapbook page of when she was a baby. I think she had just turned one around the time of this picture. Isn't she adorable?
The No-Thumb-Sucking is going well this week...she is up to six stickers! We have gotten Arielle out of the habit of bringing blankie everywhere we go. We let her have it for naps {which have been too little and few lately} and bedtime so who knows if she has actually put an end to her habit once and for all but I know she is trying very hard. Zak and I think it's great that we actually get to see her entire face and her expressions now when she is in the car and on the couch instead of a blankie attached to her face. I'm actually quite amazed at how easy it has been to "detach" her from Blankie but I really hope that taking it away from her doesn't take away a part of her.

Bye Bye Blankie?

Blankie has been in our lives since Arielle was born but we never really knew how important it would be until Arielle was about four months old, if my memory serves me correctly. The way that Blankie came to be such a huge necessity in our lives is simple. Arielle hated being in the car from the time she was born. She almost always cried and even if she did fall asleep she would usually wake up every time we stopped {I swear this kid has never wanted to miss a thing that was going on around her}. This was so frustrating for me and I would usually end up being more upset than she was by the end of the car ride. As the weather starting to turn colder, one day I decided to bring a blanket with us to keep Arielle warm in the car. To my surprise and enjoyment, Arielle did not cry once on that entire ride. From then on I decided that Blankie was going with us every time we left the house. I even started putting it in her crib with her when she went to sleep. Little did I know how attached she would become to it and how it would change her life for good.
Not only did my new-found lifesaver keep Arielle quiet in the car but it also gave her the determination to suck on her thumb whenever she was holding it. If it weren't for Blankie I don't think Arielle would have ever been a thumb sucker. I have seen her just think about blankie and automatically her thumb goes in her mouth. There was one day a few weeks before Arielle turned two, that we lost Blankie #1 at the mall. I don't know who was more panicked over it...me or her. After an hour of going back through stores and the lost and found we left empty handed. Thank God I had my mom make a backup Blankie just in case anything every happened because we surely needed it! Arielle knew that it was a different Blankie but since she had no other choice except to live without a Blankie so it was good enough for her. In retrospect, having a backup Blankie was probably the worst thing for all of us because now that Arielle is almost four the Blankie is becoming more of a nuisance than a lifesaver.
All of this is leading up to the fact that Arielle had her first dentist appointment today and we found out that her teeth have already become bowed out from all the thumb-sucking. I asked if this would only affect her baby teeth and when the answer was no, I became determined more than ever to wean her off the Blankie. I'm pretty sure that if we can get Blankie out of the picture that Arielle will stop sucking her thumb and we'll have a better chance of her not needing braces. So we had a long talk with Arielle about not sucking her thumb anymore and she agreed to try to stop doing it. We decided to make a "No-thumb-sucking Chart" {similar to a potty chart which was very successful for her with potty training}. For the past almost 24 hours she has been more than cooperative in defeating the thumb sucking urge. She even tried to take a nap yesterday without Blankie {it was entirely her idea} and went a whole car ride to school this morning without it! I think with a lot of encouragement, several stickers and probably a few tears that she is going to be successful. Wish us luck!!!

Fever

As we set out to run errands yesterday and attend a friend's one-year birthday party, it became obvious that Arielle was running a very high fever. Immediately when we stepped outside in the driveway she told me how hot she was and tired (it was only 10:30 am so I didn't really believe her) and I told her she could sleep in the car. Well, she did just that much to my surprise but when she woke up her whole body was burning up. The temperature was hot enough outside but there was no mistaken that my baby had a fever. We ran in the grocery store across from the party and got her some medicine. At first I thought maybe she was feeling the affect of being at the pool for three hours the day before in 100 degree weather but her temperature persisted throughout yesterday and today. Needless to say we left the party very early and although Arielle was very dissapointed that she did not get to eat the cake (I mean the frosting), she was happy to go home and rest.

The thing I love about Arielle when she is sick (that doesn't sound like I mean it) is that she is so calm and peaceful. She is not one of those kids that gets very upset and cries when they are not feeling well. Like the time she threw up in her bed from the cream corn, she just calmly told us that she threw up and talked the entire time we were cleaning her and up until she threw up again. Last night when she woke me up at 3 am and her temp was 103, she just calmly said, "Mommy I don't feel good. I need medicine." That is another thing I should mention...this kid loves medicine. Always has and always will I guess. Her favorite thing to do when she take medicine is fill the little cup up with water to drink several times. Right now she is sleeping and she went to bed so easily. I hope her fever breaks and she doesn't wake up with another temp.

I'm glad I got to stay home from work today but I hope she feels better soon...

My Mommy Card

Did you ever wonder if you had a mommy card what it would look like? My three year old decided that my mommy card was of all things, my driver's license! She got a hold of my wallet several months ago and told me she wanted to hold my mommy card. I had no idea what she was talking about until I looked down and saw the picture of me that was taken less than a month after I got married. Oh to be that young again! I have actually had a handful of strangers tell me what a pretty picture it is...what, like I don't look good now? LOL

I love the mommy card that Arielle chose for me! It is a symbolic reminder of my youthful past which is what I see when I look at my daughter every day.

Yesterday Morning

Yesterday morning Arielle woke up with a big smile on her face and was very cheerful! She came into our bedroom laughing and told us that "laughing is better than crying". She used her manners when she asked to watch a show so I happily agreed. I set her clothes down beside her and didn't even ask her to get dressed...she just did it all by herself than was very proud of afterward! There was no crying when she asked me what day it was and I told her it was a school day. I didn't even have to remind her three times to use the potty and to put her shoes on. Shockingly she didn't get upset when I dropped her off at school or make me come back for one last hug and kiss three times in a row. Thankfully, it was a pleasant and uneventful morning filled with very memorable moments that I will always cherish.

This morning was completely the opposite of yesterday morning but hey, the glass is half full so I'll just blame it on the rainy weather and know that tomorrow morning will be pleasant again.

New Mantra

Arielle taught me a new song yesterday. She told me, remember:

"You get what you get and you don't throw a fit!"

Even though this made me laugh hysterically, what she said really stuck with me and I can't get it out of my mind today. I used to tell her, "We can't always get what we want" but that just wasn't catchy enough and perhaps she never fully understood it. So I want to thank Arielle's teachers for coming up with such a good mantra for me to use from now on!

While we are on the subject, how is it possible that my sweet little three year old daughter can drive me over the edge of insanity in just the blink of an eye? I long for the days when I can get her to do something without bribes and/or threats. And can't I just for once sit down at the dinner table to eat my meal without having to get up two or three times and have to eat my food cold? Is it too much to ask for me to get out the door to go somewhere without having a hundred things to remember and have to go back in the house for something?

I'm not throwing a fit or anything but I'm just wondring if my life will ever be "sane" again...

Favorite Part of the Day

In the past couple of weeks I have spent more time with Arielle than usual since my mom was sick in the hospital. In this time that I have spent away from work, Arielle and I have shared many hugs and kisses as well stories and personal likings. We have invented a new game to play while I am in the shower. I ask Arielle all about her favorite things. Some of her answers just astound me. One of the questions was, "What is your favorite part of the day"? Her response: School Days!

Lately it seems as though Arielle has reached a higher level of maturity which has really turned my world around. I know I am probably jumping to conclusions and assuming that this new change is forever but I have been so happy (and more calm) recently with her new found sense of confidence and self-control. Has the terrible two phase not leaped into the terrible three's that I have been hearing about and dreading? If so, YIPPEEEE (this is one of Arielle's favorite words)!

Last night Arielle said, "I'm done throwing my tantram" after I put her in time out for telling me no to almost everything I asked her to do. That was hilarious! She just stopped in mid-cry and said this to me. She even took it well when I reminded her that she lost one of her bedtime stories...unbelievable! If this is a dream, please don't wake me up :-)

Security

Last night I went to bed after Zak and forgot to set the alarm. Instead of remembering this at ten thirty pm as I laid down, it came to me at two thirty am and I was instantly awake with fear. My mind was wondering through the worst possible scenarios that could have happened in the past four hours since I had fallen asleep and forgotten to set the alarm. Even worse, we have been sleeping with our door completely shut since we brought the puppy's crate into our bedroom. I had to fight back the urge to check on Arielle {does this make me a bad parent?} because I didn't want to wake the puppy up in the middle of the night. My daughter is obviously more important than the puppy but for some reason I was able to convince myself that Arielle was still sleeping safe and sound in her bedroom and not roaming the house or even worse, outside. We have gone many, many nights without setting the alarm and I have never worried before so why all of the sudden was I freaked out? Probably has something to do with leaving the backdoor open last week and the feeling that came over me when I realized it had been open all night. In any case, I think the $35 a month that we pay for our security alarm is well worth it now if only I can remember to set it.

Close Call

This morning Lexi woke us up at 4:45 am with a howling cry, not just her usual whimpering. At first I tried to ignore her because we're trying to let her "cry it out" so we don't have to wake up at the crack of dawn every day. However, she was relentless and I worried about Arielle waking up too early so I went down to let her out of the box. I was shocked and scared to realize that our sliding glass door was open about six inches! This must have been why Lexi was howling because her box is right next to the door and the poor little thing was probably cold. Well, at first I feared the worst...had Arielle had gotten outside and it snowed overnight...was there was somebody in the house...I could not think straight and my stomach was in knots. I let the dogs out and ran upstairs to check on Arielle...THANKFULLY she was asleep in bed and tucked in safe and sound. Even though I thought I remembered setting the alarm last night, I must have forgotten to do it and accidentally left the door open when I put Lexi in her box. Zak had gone to bed earlier than usual and let me sleep on the couch because he knows how much I enjoy doing this occassionally. Wow, talk about a close call...I still can't believe I did that. Needless to say, I am counting all of my blessings today.

Perfection is possible

If I could summarize this weekend in one word it would be PERFECTION! I don't know if it is my new outlook on life's daily battles or the fact that my daughter just turned 3 but this weekend was as perfect as I can imagine. Arielle's birthday party was on Saturday and even though the weather wasn't as nice as I had been hoping it would be things turned out great! She and her friends had a wonderful time celebrating! Thanks everyone for the wonderful "princess"gifts...Arielle is still sorting through them all.


On Sunday, Arielle and I got to keep our jammies on all day long and be with each other and no one else. I think it was time that both of us needed and it felt fantastic to not have to think of much else all day long other than her needs and her wants. It made it very hard to go to work and school this morning but I wouldn't have changed it for anything. On the drive to school a catchy song came on the radio and Arielle started singing and dancing in her seat so I know she had a great weekend too!

Unbelievable Sadness

I debated about whether I should share these links with anyone else due to the act that this tragic story of Ava has stuck in my mind for the past couple of days and has brought such sadness to me. At the same time though, it has also brought a new perspective on the order of things in my life and how I should change my perspective to pay more attention to the things that are most important. Further, there is a BIG lesson to be learned by reading this story about Ava's accident and that is to teach your children how to save themselves if they ever find themselves in this situation (God forbid). I have already taught Arielle how to honk the horn and a few additional things. Please be prepared with a box of tissues and loved one to hug before you read on...

Ava's Memorial Website - http://avarosemeyer.memory-of.com/About.aspx

Ava's Mommy's Blog (Sheye Rosemeyer take the most beautiful photography and has the most creative writing) - http://sheyerosemeyer.blogspot.com/

God bless all of your families today, tomorrow and forever!