parenting

Nursemaid’s Elbow

/ Shane / 3 Comments

On Saturday the weather was beautiful and Sara got the idea to go to a state park that was not too far away and go hiking. The first part of the day went really well, but around 11 or so we were walking and it was getting a little muddy. Evie wanted to walk, but whenever we came to a muddy part, Sara and I would lift her up by her arms until we were past the muddy part. On this particular one, Evie started to cry a little bit. You can probably see where this is going. She never really cried full out, she was just sort of whining a lot. It was around time for her nap, so we thought maybe she was just tired, although she did seem like she was fussier than usual. She fell asleep on Sara’s shoulder on the way back to the car, but she seemed to be sleeping very lightly and if we tried to shift her she’d wake up and cry. Finally we got back to the car and she slept most of the way home.

When she woke up she complained that her arm hurt and she kept it close to her body, refusing to use it for anything. We talked to our doctor and she told us to take her to the emergency room, making this our 3rd trip in under 6 months. It turns out that she had a dislocated ligament in her elbow, a very common ailment known as Nursemaid’s Elbow. The name apparently comes from having a nursemaid jerk your kid around by their arms, or in this case, swinging your kid up by the arms. The doctor said a lot of kids even do it to themselves. The thing is, this just happened to my boss and his daughter a few weeks ago, so it was the first thing that came to our minds. The bad news is that now that it has happened once, it is that much more likely to happen again. But she will eventually grow out of it.

So, as if hiking a couple of miles in the morning wasn’t enough for one day, we ended up spending a total of about 3 1/2 hours at the emergency room, even though it took literally about 2 seconds to fix. It was amazing, the doctor just rotated her arm a certain way and the pain seemed to go away instantly. In about 5 minutes she was acting like nothing was wrong at all, using the arm like normal. Because we thought we’d be leaving soon I didn’t go put more money in the meter, but a trauma came in to the ER and the resulting ticket means the trip to the emergency room cost $50 more than it should have. (Side note, wow have traffic tickets changed! When I got home I was able to look up pictures online of my car and the expired meter.)

Did I mention that in the middle of all of this, she apparently got two more teeth? And don’t get me started about how she is not even 2 and she seems like she is already giving up on naps. Oh well, another day, another person saying Evie looks like Shilo Pitt.

I don’t know how many times Sara or I said, “What a day!” and that was even before the power went out to our entire block. Luckily we had *just* finished our movie and we were getting ready for bed, so it wasn’t too disruptive. Plus I got to smugly use the flashlight I keep next to the bed. Sara makes fun of me for it and I’ve never had a chance to use it until now.

All’s well that ends well, I guess.

On Sunday we went to the museum. We were getting ready to go and Evie ran out into the main entry hall, with me following behind. There was an old car on display and she must have decided she wanted a closer look because she ran head first into the plexiglass around it, hard enough to knock herself on her butt. She wasn’t too hurt, just a little dazed and confused. I think even after she hit it she didn’t see it and she wasn’t sure what happened. Sara and I felt bad for her, but we just could not stop laughing about it.

She says so many cute things during the day, that I can hardly remember them all, much less put them all here.  Like when she says something like, “Can we have ice cream? Maybe, we’ll see.” Or when you ask her something and she says, “Ack-shoo-all-y…”

Evie was eating some Cheerios when she suddenly indicated one of them and said, “It’s waiting.” “What is it waiting for?” asked Sara. “Evie’s mouth. After this one and this one.”

There has been an ongoing issue with the fact that Evie has blue eyes, but she wants to have brown eyes like her mommy. The other day she said, “Mommy has brown eyes” so I said, “What color eyes does Evie have?” “I forget,” said Evie. “You have blue eyes,” I said, forgetting her displeasure with them. “I forget,” she said again. “I’m reminding you,” I said. “You have blue eyes.” “I forget,” she said menacingly. I said, “It’s okay that you forgot, because I’m telling you you have blue eyes.” “I FORGET!” yelled Evie. I guess we all have things we are trying to forget.

Terrible Twos

/ Shane / 7 Comments

What happened to my perfect little angel?

Over the weekend a switch of some kind turned in her head, and she became a holy terror. Anything you ask her to do, she is guaranteed to do the opposite. Every little thing becomes the most difficult, frustrating thing in the world. Anything she can throw or knock over, she does, all looking you right in the eye with a little mischievous grin on her face, daring you to do anything about it. She has 15 minute hysterical crying fits when she doesn’t get her way. Keep in mind, this is the girl who will make herself puke if she gets too upset. And this is a girl with a lot of opinions too, not just on what she should wear, but on what you should wear, where you should sit, if you should take your shoes off or leave them on, etc. And God help you if you don’t do exactly as she says. It’s not like it was a surprise, per say. Obviously you hear all the stories about how difficult kids her age are. But the swiftness of the change was surprising.

One interesting aspect of it is bargaining. She has become a master staller and she tries to make deals with you. Like, if you tell her it is time to put her shoes on and she doesn’t want to, she will immediately start talking about how much she wants to eat. She knows we try to get her to eat all the time, so she thinks this will work as a diversion. She understands bargains that go the other way too, since the only way Sara could get her into the cart at the grocery store was to say, “Evie, if they ask me if you can have a cookie, do you want to say yes?” after which she became a perfect angel. Unfortnately, she didn’t go for my bargin of “be good or I’ll publish nasty things about you on the Internet”, hence this post.

It has only been about 3 days of this and I just can’t see how we can make it another 3 or 4 months.

It’s not all rough times though, there were a few highlights over the weekend.

  • Saying “Nala, that is not very nice!” when Nala nipped her hand for being too in her face.
  • Making up a noise for raccoons that sounds like “da da da da da” when she didn’t know what sort of noise they made.
  • “Smiling” on command by like squinching up her eyes and doing a sort of exaggerated face stretching with her bottom teeth sticking out.

In completely unrelated news, I had the most delicious smelling shower this morning! New shampoo you ask? No sir, baking bread! Sara programmed the bread machine last night so that it would finish the loaf by the time we woke up this morning. Around 3 a.m. Sara moved the bread machine to the bathroom in hopes that the “whirrrr whirrrr whirrrr” of the kneading mechanism would be quieter with the bathroom door shut and the fan on. So right about the time I was stepping into the shower a delicious smelling loaf of bread was baking on the counter about a foot away. Needless to say, my stomach was rumbling.

I’m contemplating inventing a combination bread machine / shower water heater that would provide you with an on-demand hot shower and delicious loaf of bread. The only thing I’m missing is a catchy name. Suggestions?

Movie

/ Shane / 2 Comments

On Saturday, Sara and I went to see a movie in the theater.  It was the first time we have gone to the theater since Evie was born (she will be a year and a half tomorrow).  The two things I really noticed were 1) the smell of popcorn. It was delicious smelling!! 2) the volume.  So loud!! Since we only watch T.V. after she is in bed we hardly have them above 12 or so.  The theater just felt like it was destroying my ears. 

We saw Slumdog Millionaire.  It was pretty good. The idea behind it was really the best part in my opinion.  I liked it, but at the same time, if you only see one movie in a theater every two years or so, it almost could never be good enough to be worth it!

Still, we both enjoyed it. It was nice to have a “date”.

Miracles do happen

/ Shane / Leave a comment

When we last saw our heroes, Evie was sleeping through the night but getting up very early (4:30 or so).  At first we were pretty excited about that because it was such an improvement over what it had been.  But 4:30 sure is super, super early and it started to be a problem.  We decided to make a rule that she couldn’t get out of her crib before 5:30.  This meant that before long I was back on the floor again in her room.  Usually I drifted in and out of sleep for about an hour while she alternately slept, played or cried.  Finally, at 5:30 (or a little before if I couldn’t take it) I would get her out of the crib.

So we weren’t back to square one by any stretch of the imagination, however, the more things change the more they stay the same.  We decided that at bedtime we would try putting her in bed and letting her fall asleep on her own, rather than reading or singing until she fell asleep.  I was hoping that she would at least become more comfortable to spending time alone in her crib.  I don’t care if she wakes up at 4:30 if she just plays by herself; it was my involvement that I had a problem with!

So we figured she would howl when we left, but she really didn’t.  She cried a little bit for maybe two minutes, and then she was out.  I guess she inherited her parents’ ability to fall asleep fast!  Nap time was a little bit tougher, but she never stayed awake for longer than 15 minutes and we never had to go back in more than once.

And then the most amazing thing happened!  After maybe the second day, Evie just started sleeping in!  She went to bed around 8:10 and slept in to 6:30.  This has been going on for about a week, so it seems to be permanent now.  This morning she slept until 7!  7!  That might not sound like much to you, but 7 is a long, long way from 4:30.  Even to type the sentence fills me with joy!

Clearly she learned some skills that help her fall back asleep without our help.  That was the main thing.  But I think there were also some ancilary things going on as well.  I think that she was at the right age for it.  I think, in retrospect, I also must have been something of a distraction to her.  Certainly when I was trying to read her to sleep she would be silly: playing peekaboo behind the bars, playing with her blanket, kicking the side, etc.  So I guess it works better if I am just out of her hair.

Within just a few nights, she was certainly down with our new routine.  Now as soon as I put her in the crib she says, “Door!” and points.  So, I think our new found sleeping bliss may just be permanent!

Time Out

/ Shane / 1 Comment

About a month ago we began giving Evie “time out” as a punishment.  This was usually only for things that she does to intentionally push boundaries, like when you tell her not to throw something and she looks at you with a twinkle in her eye (like so)

picks up the object, slowly raises it above her head and says, “No throwing!” before throwing it.  

So, when she does something like that, we put her in a certain location in the hallway and make her sit there until we count to 10.  At first this seemed like such a small penalty that we kind of thought it would be pointless.  Not so!  The first couple of times she would try to get up, but after she realized it restarted the countdown, she usually just sat and cried.  After maybe 3 times of doing it, just saying, “Evie, do you want a time out?” was usually enough to make her cease and desist immediately and sometimes even make her run to the other parent for “protection”.

So we were kind of surprised and pleased at how effective it was.  Was being the operative word.

The other day she had a time out for opening the stove door after she was told not to.  After sitting and smiling through the 20 count (we upped it from 10) she asked for “more time out” and “again time out”.  When Sara refused to give her another time out she tried just going back and sitting in the time out area.  That wasn’t authentic enough though, so she came and got Sara and started tugging on her hand to pull her back to the time out area.  Finally, when that didn’t work, she intentionally opened the stove again and then marched back to time out and sat down.  Needless to say, this is not going as planned.

This morning she gave herself a time out after doing something naughty.  Afterwards, Sara asked her if she had learned her lesson.  I think it is safe to say no.