Weaning Lauren is bittersweet

We've been working on night weaning for the last two weeks which has been going really well thanks to Woody's help. She just doesn't seem to give him the same grief that she gives me. She's only been asking to nurse every morning, after bath and before bed with the occasional boredom request thrown in. I was able to distract her most of the time from all but the morning, bath and bedtime nursing sessions but I even tried to distract her from those and make them shorter.

Many of you remember that I suffered from congestive heart failure after I had Lauren. One of the things they recommended at the time is that I get a cardiac stress test every two years. So I scheduled that last month and yesterday was the day. I didn't know that they were going to inject radioactive material into me. The Dr. told me that I absolutely was not to nurse for at least 3 days and to pump and dump in addition to not holding the kids for long periods of time. I figured if we are going to suffer through that, we may as well go ahead and call an end to it for good. I seriously considered checking into a hotel for a few days just to stay out of her line of sight thinking that whole "out of sight out of mind" theory may work, but Woody needs to work and I wouldn't want to just abandon him like that.

So with the decision made, we all made a big deal about Lauren being a big girl and we explained that num nums could make her sick and Dr. said no more num nums. She seems to understand. She's asked a few times but didn't throw the expected fits when I said no. We took her to the store and let her pick out some "special big girl snacks" and "her own big girl juice boxes" that she can have instead of num nums.

So, the time has come. I am finally going to stop nursing after almost 4 solid years of it. It's a bit bittersweet. I really have mixed feelings about this. Happy because I will finally get my body back and possibly be able to get some decent sleep, but a little sad too. I mean, nursing is the most intimate thing you can do with your child. It's so special and it's been such a huge part of our lives. Seeing her little starfish hand on my chest while she drifted off to sleep nursing on Wednesday is burned into my mind. It's just so sweet and natural.

I won't know the results of the test until next month but they didn't check me into the hospital so I'm assuming it's ok. Any tips about the sore boobage? I couldn't even sleep on my stomach last night because I'm so swollen. She'd been mostly nursing on the left side so I'm SUPER lopsided today too. This is not so fun at all.

Lauren is doing ok with it. She pitched a big fit at 2 so we were up until 3 with her but she finally gave up. She was begging for num nums this morning and really whiny but I managed to distract her and got some breakfast into her. I really didn't intend to do it like this. She's so pitiful with her "momma, I want num nums". I mean, you've seen the pictures of her. You know she has those big brown eyes and let me tell you, she knows how to use them to give the sad puppy dog eyes. It's quite possibly the most pitiful thing ever.

I believe Katherine may be a vegetarian soon

Today was a fun one. Rainy and cool, Woody home sick sleeping most of the day, two insane kids and a mommy who is a little busy with work and hasn't had time to really get my act together as far as indoor activities. I'd really been depending on the whole "sunshine state" hype and had not planned much more than playground trips lately. I managed to whip up some "magical raindrop" crafts (crayon shavings between two pieces of waxed paper and ironed on low glued onto a blue construction paper raindrop outline) and umbrella coloring pages. We also played whack-a-mole for the whole 5 minutes that it held the kids attention. Ran to the grocery store for a milk run, did the alphabet flash cards, read some stories, played some instruments...that only left about 7 hours to fill. Hmmmmmmm Actually, it was a pretty good day. The girls were pretty good considering.

At dinnertime tonight, Katherine held up her beef patty and said "mmmmm doggy likes this. What is it?". Woody and I exchanged looks. How far do we go? Knowing her, she may seriously turn vegan if we tell her it's from a cuddly cow. Crud! I stumble and mumble "It's a hamburger patty. Isn't it yummy puppy?". See, I'd rather let her be a puppy than risk the other but Noooooo. "Mom, is it from an animal?". Dad and I exchange looks again. I say "yes, cow" and as I do, I see Woody's eyebrows rise. I know he's thinking "oh great, she went THERE!"....it's ok hon, I'm thinking it too. Was it a mistake? We wait to see what she will do. She takes another bite and I finally breathe. She asks more and we tell the truth but only answer her questions, no more, why make it more difficult?

She finally finishes her beef patty and asks if spaghetti comes from animals. We explain that no, spaghetti noodles come from plants all the while I'm wondering "can a child survive on spaghetti alone?". "How about meatballs?" she asks. "Cows" is our answer. I really wish I could peer into that little brain sometimes because next she asks where the meatballs are on the cows. She's never seen them (like she's seen a beef patty hanging off of a cow bum all the time) are they near the bones? How do they get the bones out? blah blah blah blah. Even if she isn't a vegan soon, I may be. I really don't like overthinking my food. Just shove it in my pie hole and be done with it. Geez.

Enough with the poop already!

I'm sure my readers would agree, there is only so much poop talk one can take. My advice? Stop reading and don't ever live with children.

Lauren has finally started "moving" her stuff so that's great. She currently has a really awful diaper rash which is bleeding and quite painful. But, I think we have a handle on it now. A lot of "air time" seems to be helping. Now I just have to be vigilant about keeping track of her "movements" to make sure we nip any future problems in the bud. <---I was going to say "nip them in the butt" but that would have been too juvenile...yet somehow totally appropriate to my state of mind right now.

So. Wanna hear more poop talk? Have a chat with a 4 year old and you will most likely meet your quota. About a week ago, Katherine was in the bathroom and when I walked by, she had her chin in her hand (classic thinking position). I said "what are you thinking so hard about K?" to which she replied "Mom, dogs must really like the taste of poop since they eat it right?". Ummmmmmmmm it was like my brain rebooted and gagged. I had no great mommy response. Instead, I said something brilliant like "maybe honey, lets get dressed ok?". Later I did look the answer up online and found out way more about animal ingestion of dung than I ever wanted to know. I stupidly passed this info on to K. Tonight, we were playing stuffed animals and she made her poodle and cat eat their poop. The giraffe (me) was gagging and saying how icky that is, and she thought that was plain old high-larious. She said it was for the protein...which is true. Can't argue with that.

Preocupation with constipation

I'm sooooo over poop. Not that I was ever a big fan in the first place. And crying. I'm over that too. Way over it.

We've now had our third doctor visit in regards to Miss L's buns. The poor girl is pitiful. She is literally shaking when she tries to go and it's still not coming. We are going on 3 weeks of this now. Luckily, this last Dr. is taking it more seriously and gave me more options than "decrease dairy and increase fiber". I am now an expert in the stock of laxative/hemorrhoid sections of our Super Target and Walgreen's. I never really wanted that knowledge but I'm stuck with it now. I also posted to parenting club knowing that some of the moms there have been through this. I came away with the miracle of MiraLax which has worked for 3 of them. In the desperate quest for a poop, I immediately packed up my stuff, quit working and went to the drugstore to get some. If she doesn't go in the next day or so, it's going to get ugly. I'm really hoping this doesn't cause a vicious cycle that will cause problems when we start potty training.

Besides the poop patrol, we've been gearing up for Easter. Decorating eggs etc. The girls are excited. I got sick and laid low for a few days and accomplished basically nothing. I'm now working on editing last months videos for the youtube page so go check that out. They will be uploaded soon.

For those of you into sending vibes or prayers....please pray for poop. lots and lots of poop. TIA

March 2007

 

March 8, 2007

 

Wow! I haven’t written in awhile. The webpage is still not up for February because we upgraded our home PC’s to Vista and somehow lost my webpage creating software in the process.

 

We’ve been trucking along doing the same old things lately. Mondays are usually spent at the Museum’s kids area or the playground. Tuesdays are play date days that we have with Kristin and her boys and we switch between their house and ours. Wednesdays are the day that we go to the inside playground and the girls go to Mrs. Candaces’ on Thrusdays and Fridays. The schedule seems to be working pretty well.

 

Lauren is not up to anything really terribly exciting. The girl has a temper but she’s also a big hug a boo too. It’s impossible to stay angry with her for long. Katherine is enjoying the switch to Mrs. Candaces’ and she’s excited about her upcoming dance recital and summer…she really wants to go swimming. Katherine has also started exhibiting a slightly irritating yet amusing habit. She’s a squirrel. She keeps hiding things in the oddest places. I was looking for Lauren’s bear (which K covets and therefore hides on a regular basis…kind of an “if I can’t have it, you can’t either” mentality) and I found all kinds of weird stashes. Under my bed a pair of her panties and one sandal. Behind the blinds in the kitchen, a small collection of toys. What’s up with that?

 

March 23, 2007

took Lauren to the after hours pediatricians after she complained of her belly hurting. Then she'd cry every time she urinated so I figured bladder infection, off we go at 10pm. I was trying to get her to pee (she was holding it because it hurt) so she was drinking Gatorade. She'd put on the lid, take it off, drink some and repeat over and over again. When the Dr. came in, she was putting the lid on and she looked right at him as she tightened it down and said "there, that should do it!" He even laughed.

But the funny part of the night was when we were leaving. Some car had just dropped a drunk guy off on the side of the road, outside of the clinic. He was hollering, gesticulating wildly and uh, barfing. Since it's a pretty busy 6 lane road, I figured I'd call the police to get him out of there. I'm on my cell phone with the dispatcher telling him about the drunk guy when, I KID YOU NOT, I see two big honking bovines strolling down the shoulder of this busy road like they own it. So I tell the dispatch guy, "dude, I need to tell you something but please don't think I'm nuts. I'm just heading home after taking my toddler to the dr....but I swear there are also two cows rambling down the side of the road, just around the bend from the drunk guy.". After I hung up with the police, I just started cracking up. I mean, that fella was snookered. What is he going to think when he runs into those cattle in the middle of Tampa at midnight? I'd love to see his face.

 

 

Oh the humanity!!!!

I sent these 3 innocent purple peeps out into the harsh climate of our dining room table after dinner. I began to wash dishes and turned around only when the children scurried out of the kitchen with gleeful giggles. That's when I saw it. The carnage! It was terrible. I had to look away. Then I slowly looked back, realizing that someone...someone must preserve and record the crime scene until the proper authorities could be notified. I took the following graphic photograph immediately. Along with the clues I captured in this picture, and the knowledge of my individual children's tastes in food and their personalities, I've decided that I know who preformed these heinous acts. The greasy little toddler fingerprints on the table next to the torso, the fact that the eyes have been eerily retained in their original form (for the most part, except for that whole missing head thing), the fact that Katherine doesn't really like peeps, and the teeth marks on the amputated ears bunny all lead me to name Lauren as my prime suspect. That naughty girl! Why on earth would anyone just take one bite from each body part but leave the rest? I think she may need therapy. Lots and lots of therapy.

Today I took the girls to Kid City. It is precisely what you'd expect from a place named Kid City. It's a big fenced in area with lots of little kid sized buildings and roads on which to ride tricycles and scooters. It's really quite cool. The bank has a non working teller station and deposit slips for kids to fill in and a bunch of counting activities. The fire station and grocery store have uniforms for the kids to wear and other fun items that you'd expect to find in those types of places. The library was stocked with books and a puppet theatre and there was also a nice grassy Park area where we ate our snack. The only downsides are

1. it's mostly outside so it's dependent on the weather.

2. some of the buildings (the fire station in particular) have that moldy smell that comes from damp carpets and wall a/c units. Blech!

3. McDonalds has invaded. There is a small McDonalds complete with drive-thru and uniforms, where the kids can feed junk food to their peers. That makes me sad. I really do my best to keep my girls away from that stuff and here it is popping up in their playtime. Darn marketers.

The pro's outweighed the cons and we will be back.

More crime stories to come on Easter morning when Mom solves the "Mystery of the missing bunny ears" bwahahahahaha!!!!!!!!!!!!

A day at the park

So I figured I'd better start getting my money's worth from this GPS that Woody gave me for my birthday. So I sat in our driveway and plugged in "Parks and recreation" and picked one that sounded good. Off we go to the Hillsboro River Sate Park.

The park itself was lovely. Tons of wildlife, a huge pool, lots of walking trails, clean etc. The playground equipment was a bit too old for Lauren but we had fun none the less. We had a nice picnic lunch. Fed a squirrel a ton of grapes and bananas, befriended an inchworm and in the process learned about love and loss. Of course I'm talking about Katherine. My little animal lover who wanted to bring the inchworm (who I suspect was actually a Caterpillar) home and let him live the good life with us, surrounded in the glow of her love. I talked her out of it by telling her that he would miss his mommy and daddy so after many kisses and snuggles, she set him free...then proceeded to talk about him every three minutes and muse about what he may be doing right at this very second. Really now. Aren't we all a little bit like that after a loved one leaves? LOL

After lunch and the inchworm drama, I loaded the girls into the double stroller and headed off along the river to see the sights. Between the girls chatter, we heard a lot of birds, the babbling of the river and the wind in the trees. We saw a couple of alligators, some fish, some turtles and lots of poison ivy.

As much as Katherine loves the outdoors and animals, Lauren is not nearly as fond of it. She screamed on the suspension bridge (I wanted to scream too but I swallowed my fear for K's benefit...for future reference, I hate bridges, and wobbly ones really make me nervous) she screamed about walking over a spider web, she screamed about the bugs that made themselves at home on our picnic blanket and she screamed about the woodpecker pecking.

All in all however, it was a fun trip. We are home. Lauren is napping. Katherine is playing quietly and I'm getting ready to work a bit. Then we are off to dance class and hopefully Daddy will be home when we return.