Changes for Elly

Well, the past week has been a bit radical for little Elly.

First, she has progressed fully into the realm of toddler.

Second, she has completely abandoned the bottle.

Okay. So this isn't like nuclear fission kind of radical. But it's a little wild. And very cool.

I have decided that I really like the fact that Elly waited until she was 14 months old to walk. Really! I mean, I know I have spent almost 6 months worrying if something might be wrong with her or if she was ever going to walk since she didn't start at 10 months like big sister. But unlike Evie, who spent her first several months of walking falling into stuff, Elly hasn't fallen. Like at all. No bumps and no bruises. Only one tip over that caused a big meltdown. And of course she wasn't hurt then. Just wounded pride.

Once I got over the worrying, it has been a much less stressful experience. I spent all my time with Evie trying to keep her from breaking herself. And feeling super embarrassed going out into public with a baby that looked like I beat her with a sack of bricks.

Last night we had our first big game of chase. Evie is a big fan of running through the house screaming after each other. And for the first time Elly got to participate. I'm not sure Evie knew what to think. But Elly loved it! She laughed so hard she couldn't breathe. hehe. Too precious. I really need to get it on video.

And as of last Saturday, Elly no longer gets a bottle. And I'm a little sad. Especially since Elly doesn't care. No. Really. She doesn't care. I just told her that we weren't doing a bottle anymore. And she hasn't asked for it once. She just gets a small cup of milk during the same time. And she wants to drink it sitting in her little chair, not snuggled up in my lap like we did with the bottle. But thankfully, she wants to come snuggle after the milk and after we brush their teeth. So I do still get some loving time! But it makes me sad that she didn't miss the bottle.

So our next step will be ditching the paci. Then potty training and moving to a big bed. Eesh.

We have already cut back the pacifier to naps and bed time only. So it won't be hard to cut it out the rest of the time. Hopefully. She is cutting more teeth now, and I have always heard that pacifier sucking can help ease that pain. So I will wait until after she cuts these to take away the paci. But we might as well go ahead and do it.

After that I'm not sure which to do first. Evie did bed, then bottles, then paci then potty. I don't know if there is an issue with potty training while a child is still in a crib or not. Crib kind of screams baby. While potty training is definitely a big kid thing. So seems like we should do bed first. And I don't know that Elly and I are ready for that. Probably mostly me. Since Elly does fine climbing in and out of her sister's bed. But right now I can put her in her crib, close the door and be done with her for the night. If she wants to play, she plays and then she goes to sleep. With Evie we certainly don't have the battles we used to have at bed time, however, there is a certain amount of reminding and reasoning that we do every night.

"Remember, you have to stay in bed, Evie."

"How do dinosaurs say good night, Evie?"

"If you get up again I will take Duck away!"

You get the idea. Some nights it's merely a "Good night Evie!" "Good night Momma." "Sweet dreams Evie." "Sweet dreams Momma." "Love you Evie." "Love you too Momma." And I close the door and don't see her until 8 a.m. the next day. Sometimes I put her to bed at 10 p.m. and I am in there seizing stuffed animals still at 10:30 p.m. while she pleads and begs to get back up. But the bad nights are less and less common. So I'm hesitant to throw any premature wrenches in what seems to be a well-oiled bed time routine.

So what age is the "right age" to move to a bed?

Evie moved into a toddler bed at her first birthday. I think life might have been simpler if we had kept her in a crib longer. BUT I don't know that we had more problems than we would have had if we had waited.

The other challenge for when Elly moves into a bed will be the fact that Evie and Elly are going to be sharing a room. That will be a whole new challenge I'm sure.

So I guess we will go with paci, bed, then potty? Maybe we will all be ready for the bed transition by Evie's third birthday this August. Then start potty training Elly around her second birthday. Maybe after. I have learned the hard way with Evie that it will be easier to wait until she's ready. Rather than dealing with panties and pull ups and clean ups. Waiting until she's older and ready will be easier in the long run. Even if it means she spends more time in diapers. At her age she's only using three or four diapers a day. So it's less than $1 per day in diapers. I probably spend more than that in soap, water, time and aggravation on a day when Evie decides that she doesn't want to be potty trained. So I think that it will be worth the wait.

I don't look forward to changes in our routine causing upheaval, especially at bed time. But it'll be nice when the girls are snoozing together. And of course, change is just part of lil Elly growing up!

The Decision to Expand...or not?

When I was pregnant with Elly, I worried frequently about how Evie would handle life with a sibling. How we would ever have enough time to spend time with both girls? A part of me feared that we were ruining Evie's life by bringing another little person into it. Another part dreamed of the close friends they would become, of their precious giggles as they splashed in the bath, and the joyful racket on Christmas with both girls tearing into presents.

I'm sure most parents struggle with similar back and forth when they add to their family. A mixture of joy and guilt. I completely understand why so many choose to have just one child. It's hard to struggle with a decision that's not just going to affect you and your husband. But affect other little lives. Forever. Think how much different one will grow up...an only child. One child of two. Or maybe one child of many. Each is a dramatically different life path.

I didn't always know if I wanted kids. And when I had Evie I loved her so much I didn't know whether or not I wanted more. Didn't know how I could love someone else the way I loved my Evie. How I could love someone else as much as I loved my Evie. When Elly came along I found I was partially right...I didn't love her the same way I loved Evie. I don't think you can love any two people in the SAME way. Evie will always have a special love. Just as Elly will always have a special love.

Our first six months was incredibly hard. I think it always is when your life changes so dramatically. With Elly sick, then jaundiced, then colicky...and Evie still not talking. Life was incredibly difficult. And during that time we swore off having any more kids. Simply couldn't imagine putting all of us through that again.

But I have always been told that when you're done...you just KNOW. You have that second baby and life is complete. Or you have that first baby and life is complete.

And recently, I've come to the realization that the gosh awful baby phase, the one full of sleepless nights and spit up and poopy diapers, it doesn't last very long. A year of Elly's life has flown by in an instant. Nearly three years of Evie's life have passed in the blink of an eye. The days will come far too soon when my babies aren't dragging me out of bed in the morning, and instead it is me dragging them. It won't be very long before my Friday nights are not spent refereeing an argument over who gets to sit on my lap while we watch Cinderella. So it seems awfully unfair to make a lifelong decision based on a miserable 6 months.

Watching the girls play in the living room floor, I feel like someone is missing. Just maybe.

No, I do not have baby fever. I don't look at pregnant women and dream about returning to that state of swollen ankles and not being able to wear my clothes. I don't glimpse families toting ginormous infant carriers and long to have those days back. Nor do I see darling babies and miss the bottles and the burping and the days of a little being that has minimal personality and does nothing but eat and sleep. If I could somehow skip the first six months of having a third child I might just sign right up. Maybe.

Children are an amazing, wonderful, impossible blessing.

There are moments when I look at my two girls and wonder how on earth I could want anything more. How unbelievably greedy of me. And there are moments when the very idea of adding another voice to the chaos of yelling and crying and screaming makes me feel like I should have a drink and then check myself into the closest mental health facility.

In closing let me state, quite conclusively, that there will NOT be an addition to the family any time soon. I am not pregnant now. And do not intend to be pregnant soon. And I don't know that we will have a third one. It is quite a hefty decision. No permanent decisions have been made. But who knows. Maybe once the girls are off to school and things have settled down. Or maybe by then I will be far too attached to sleeping through the night to worry about that missing person.

Dealing with Loss

Losing a family member is never easy. 

Not even when that family member is tiny, four-legged, fuzzy and isn’t really “gone.”

In spring 2008, Josh bought me Mushu, a Yorkie-Shih Tzu mix, as a combo anniversary and birthday present. Mushu was a teensy ball of fuzz and he was really our first baby. Unfortunately for Mushu, in August of 2009 we had a real baby. A human baby. When little Evie came along I was not sure how Mushu would deal. I thought he would hate her. Be jealous. Maybe even bite her. But he didn’t. 

Instead he became very protective. And as a result very stressed. 

By the time Elly came along, Mushu’s protectiveness had turned into violence. Not towards any of us. But towards anyone who came to our house. Or near our yard for that matter. 

Mushu preferred to spend much of his time outside. We had a wireless electric fence and Mushu and our beagle, Emily, each had collars. So Mushu could pass much of his day running around the yard doing whatever he pleased. But this meant that when the mail ran Mushu was typically in the yard. Same goes for UPS, visitors, neighbors, whoever. And Mushu started to bite. 

Now, fully grown Mushu weighed a whopping 8 lbs. He was certainly no Rottweiler barreling down on you. But he was fast, and due to his size most people ignored him. Even after I would TELL them that he would bite. They just marched on up to the porch. Usually getting nipped on the calf as a result. 

It started off that his bites were pretty light and tentative. Never broke the skin or did damage. But over the last six months, Mushu’s bite has gotten much more serious. It escalated into a very bad bite on the calf of one of our friends who came by after church a few weeks ago. 

We could take no more. 

I started talking about rehoming him through one of the local rescue groups. 

I cried to my husband. I cried to my mom. I cried alone in my car. I cried about it a lot. 

I certainly didn’t want to get rid of Mushu. But I couldn’t have him biting everyone who came to my house. And I didn’t want to risk him escalating further and possibly biting one of us, maybe even one of the kids. 

I felt like my hands were tied. Mushu had to go.

And he did. 

Mushu seems to be much happier. He loves us, I know. And he loves the girls. But he just couldn’t handle the stress of my girls 24/7. 

Fortunately for Mushu, and for us, my mom had developed something of a soft spot for Mushu over the last four years. And she knew that he had developed a soft spot for her over the last year coming to day care. So, Mushu has moved to my mom’s house. We still get to see him 3 or 4 days a week when the girls go there for day care. But then the girls go home and he gets a break. Mushu loves it. He is getting the best of both worlds. He gets the stability and quiet of my mom’s house with the fun and love of family when the girls are there. Now I don’t have to worry about him eating up some of our visitors. But I know he is well taken care of and loved. 

I have still missed him. It’s been really weird not having him around the house. Much quieter, for one thing. But it has been nice not to worry about whether or not the mail was going to run when he was outside or making sure he was put up before anyone came to visit. 

Now we have to make sure that Maiko doesn’t grow up to be a psycho attack dog…*sigh*

New phase of terrible twos

So, when you hear people discussing the terrible twos, they all tell you about the tantrums. The arguing and the “no’s” and the horrifying outbursts in public places.

Everyone failed to tell me about the whining.

I think they must have just subconsciously blocked it from their minds. Because when you ask a fellow, more seasoned parent, about this horrific whining phase…a look of shock seems to cross their face, followed by a panicked memory, and completed by a look of shared misery. Ah yes. They remember the whining. It seems that girls may be worse than boys for the whining. While boys are worse for the public outbursts. And boys seem to have cornered the market on deliberate destruction. Because despite my two in terrible twos, minus one disgusting fish food experience, there hasn’t been a lot of destruction. Deliberate or otherwise.

Not to say my girls don’t tear stuff up. But they’ve never given an iPod a bath. Nor have they colored the walls or rubbed play-doh into the carpet. You give them a magazine and the go ahead and they’ll give you back confetti in less than 10 minutes. Heck, let them accidentally get ahold of a magazine without immediately shrieking no and seizing it and you’ll have confetti in 15 minutes. It takes them a little longer to shred a magazine quietly.

And there have been two hurricane glass fatalities. One of which was caused by my husband. And several chewed up crayons. A few ripped books with chewed corners. All in all, three years with pretty minimal loss.

But the whining.

Holy cow.

I’d rather hear nails on a chalk board for an hour straight instead of 10 minutes of a two year old whining. It is HORRIBLE.

I’ve tried ignoring it. Whining back. Ignoring it some more. Asking her to stop. Yelling at her to stop. Leaving the room. Leaving the house.

Nothing really seems to work.

So, really. What’s up with the whining? The worst part is that my typically happy-go-lucky Elly seems to be affected by her sister’s whining and usually follows suit with crankiness of her own.

There have been some changes for Evie lately. She is beginning to transition out of napping, going from a 3 hour siesta to a mere 45-90 minutes if anything. This has meant a slightly earlier bed time and a slightly later wake up call. Which I have enjoyed. But it has also meant more entertaining of the toddler. Most days this isn’t a problem for me. I just put her to work. Last weekend we cleaned out the basement and the week before she helped me get all the outside toys out of the building. But some days I just really REALLY need a break. And Evie won’t let me have it.

And when I’ve had no break and there is a lot of non-stop whining…well, it can lead to a stressful evening in the Dowd household.

So, why does she whine? Your guess is as good as mine. Maybe just practicing a new form of communication? Dealing with growth and changes? I don’t know.

But how do we deal with the whining? Just stick it out and hope she outgrows it?

Pointers please?

Preparing for Surgery

I think one of the scariest things to hear as a parent is that something might be wrong with your child. Like…really wrong.  Or even the possibility that something could maybe be wrong…even when it is contrary to what you have seen over the last 12 months.

I have blogged before about Elly’s “birthmark” or her boo-boo as Evie calls it. The plastic surgeon that her pediatrician referred us to was pretty confident that the place was a hemangioma. They are largely harmless and the only potential complication was if it grew and interfered with her eye. After a year of plastic surgery visits and check-ups, the doctor now says it is NOT a hemangioma. Yeah. Frustration.

The doctor said at our last visit that he believes Elly has a vascular abnormality. I don’t suppose it really changes our view on the last 12 months or anything. But it does change our future. Unlike a hemangioma, a vascular abnormality will not fade on its own. So the doctor wants to go ahead and perform several laser treatments.

Also, with vascular abnormalities there is a risk of other complications. The doctor said that with it being so close to her eye, she could have abnormalities inside her eye, putting her at risk for vision issues and glaucoma. He told us to schedule an eye check and said that she may need yearly eye exams for the rest of her life. In addition, there could be vessel clumps on Elly’s brain. These abnormalities could cause seizures, learning problems and developmental issues.

Insert heart stopping terror here.

Yeah.

The doctor added that the brain abnormalities were very rare and the fact that Elly hasn’t had any complications, either in the form of delays or seizures, by her age then she probably doesn’t have any problems.

To be safe, we do have an appointment with a pediatric ophthalmologist. Try to say that three times fast. It’s at the end of May. In the meantime, we get to prepare ourselves for Elly’s “surgery.” She will be undergoing three laser treatments on the abnormality on her face. The treatments will be about 6 weeks apart. So May, June and July. Hopefully by Evie’s third birthday Sissy will be all done and no more big boo-boo on her face.

On May 3, we find out what time we need to be at Baptist hospital.

And on Friday, May 4, we take Elly to Baptist, hand her over to the anesthesiologists and sit in a waiting room to pray.

The surgeon said that the whole procedure will probably only take an hour. The actual laser treatment will only take about 10 minutes.  But Elly will have to be put under for it. Which scares me to death, just to be honest. He said the laser won’t cause any blistering, so there won’t be any bandaging to deal with or anything. Hopefully pain will be minimal to non-existent.

I’m a little aggravated with the doctor for not having told me a year ago that the mark might have been something far worse than a hemangioma. Although the doctor said that even if there had been complications like a vascular abnormality on Elly’s brain, the only thing we could do would be medicate her to treat her symptoms. Meds to prevent seizures, therapy for delays, etc. And me knowing that her birthmark might have caused other problems would have just lead to wasteful fretting and worrying. Probably for nothing. So I suppose it truly worked out for the best how it has.

All in all, I’m trying not to worry about it. I’m hoping and praying and giving her lots of extra kisses. It’s a huge challenge to not worry. Especially for ME. Your prayers over the next few months will be really appreciated.