All at once

For any of you crazy followers of my blog, remember when I said something just clicked in Lilah's head and she suddenly loved books? Well, we're going through a similar phase currently. About a week ago when I got my wisdom teeth out, she started something different. Now, Lilah Rose has always been a very articulate child. More than once I've wondered if she understands more than she lets on. Maybe she's storing up all this information to be activated at a later date. Maybe she's a Cylon! Sorry, I digress...

Now, this change she underwent a week ago was the metamorphosis from thought to speech. She said her first word at around 6 months and hasn't paused since then. She picks up many new words every day, which is pretty par for the course for an almost 2 year old (is she almost 2? Dear God...). The abnormal aspect in her growth and development is her newfound ability to put words together in a stream of thought. It actually makes sense now. She always prattles away when she plays and I thought it was just babble. However, in listening to her now, she's talking and I can understand better what's going on in her brain. I'll share some of what I've overheard.

"Lilah, it's bath time."
"No bath. Shower, Mama."
"Um. Okay. Shower time."
"Squeaky clean. Clothes off. Take them off!"
(Me staring)
"Please."

~

"Hiiii Daddy. Hugs. Kissies too. I love you (growled). 

(Dano staring)

"Demon!"

"Yes, honey. You're a demon."

~

"Lilah, you can't come up on my lap right now."

"Hot coffee, Mama?"

"Yep. Hot coffee."

(Lilah blowing air in the direction of the cup)

~

"You stay away from the stove! It's hot and it will burn little girls. It's dangerous (a word she knows well)!"

(Lilah blowing air in the direction of the stove)

~

(Lilah in an attempts to crawl onto the bed with both arms full of stuff)

"Do you need help, little one? Want Mama to help you up?"

"Up your nose!" (hysterical laughter from Lilah)

~

Upon showing Lilah how to use an Advent Calendar.

(Eyes wide after learning what was housed behind each little window) "Caaandies, Mama! Chocolate! More? More, please? Candiiiies! Chocolate candies. I need it! Please? Please, more candies?" I think this was some kind of attempt to find a magic combination of words to open more Advent windows. An "open sesame" of sorts. 

~

And most recently this morning...

"Mama! All done! Finished eating! Finished it all! Now more candies!"

(Blank stare from me)

"Cleeeean up!" (Waving her dirty hands in the air)

In conclusion, I'm pretty sure she's either destined to be some sort of author, elocutionist, or poet, or she's most definitely a Cylon.

Buckets and Babies

Two subjects for today's blog. Both have to deal with obsessions of my small daughter. Once upon a time a few months back, I noticed my overenthusiastic little girl attempting to carry too many things at once, dropping them, and sitting down to cry in frustration. We went to Target and purchased 5 little green buckets with brown ribbon handles and pretty birds and mushrooms on them. She used them for everything from there on out. Morning snacks - in the bucket. Toys - in the bucket. Crayons - in the bucket. We started to worry when she wouldn't accept her meals in her high chair anymore. She would cry and say, "All done," until we let her down, then ask for her dinner to be placed in the bucket. We chose to put our collective parental foot down at that point. Most of the buckets got ruined by frequent snacks, pinecones, and full meals being placed in them. When we got rid of the last bucket, she was back to carrying a juice cup, 8 animal crackers, a fistful of craisins, and approximately 13 letters of the alphabet in her two tiny hands. And was also very frustrated. She considered herself handicapped and resorted to using tupperware and the bin that holds her blocks, neither of which were sufficient.  When she was regularly eating her meals in her high chair again, I went to Target for 4 more buckets. They only had small tin pails in holiday themes, but they were buckets. I came home and she pounced on me "Mamaaa!" After a hug as big as her arms could manage, she started rummaging through my bags. I heard a delighted shriek. "Buckets, Mama! Buckets! Buckets!" In seconds, she had not 1, not 2, but all 4 buckets in her clutches and was running around the house putting various objects in them.

Lilah has also become enraptured with something else. We prefer her not to watch excessive television, but we have exposed her to various programs from time to time. The only thing she's showed a slight interest in so far has been the Secret of Kells. We love it too. She watches out of the corner of her eye while playing and stops to pay attention to her favorite parts. Here's one of them.

One day, I watched the documentary Babies.

Lilah was enthralled from start to finish. She didn't move. She barely blinked. She has watched it approximately 700 times since then. Sometimes she asks questions. "Baby sad, Mama?" Sometimes she just watches how babies interact with the wide world around them. If she's ever having a rough day, she wants to go find her doll (she wanders through the house calling her. "Baby giiiirl! Baby giiiirl!"), finds her, picks her up, kisses her up and coos, and crawls up to the couch to get settled. It's 79 blessed minutes of silence. I don't feel guilty because it's educational. I'm very tired of it, but it's not annoying like a lot of children's programs. She's learning and enjoying watching the joy of babies around the world. I like that she's being exposed to different cultures, foods, languages, and ways of life. She likes that 4 adorable, roly-poly babies are playing on the screen in her living room. Everybody wins.

Too much

Today was one of the most terrible days I've had as a parent, if not the most terrible. It started innocently enough.

We'd had a few friends over for snacks and games the night before, and a couple of them had stayed over. We were all relaxing in the morning and having coffee and bagels, listening to music, watching silly YouTube clips, and being entertained by Lilah's endless antics. Our friend Mike followed Lilah up to her room and the happy pair were playing in her room. I can't remember what I was doing before. All I remember is hearing Lilah's cries, blinking, and being halfway up the stairs. I saw Mike holding Lilah in his arms and I took one look at her and knew something was wrong. She was squirming and screaming and I took her from him and walked back down the stairs to look at her more closely. I noticed that she didn't stop moving, like she was trying to get away from something. I'd seen that before in cases of extreme and persistent pain.

I looked her over and saw that the index finger of her right hand was dripping blood. I grabbed her by the wrist to assess it more closely while Mike explained that they had been playing peekaboo and Lilah's hand had gotten shut in her wooden bedroom door. It appeared she had tugged it free, resulting in nearly skinning her fingertip entirely. It was swollen to three times its normal size. It was purple, stiff, and dripping blood. The  skin left on the fingertip was hanging by a flap. I just stared for a few seconds. Mike and Danielle sat on the couch staring at us. Dano was standing over me with a white face. I processed the following thoughts rather quickly and incoherently: stop bleeding, reduce swelling, soothe pain, calm down, keep Dano from having a panic attack, don't have a panic attack. My daughter was screaming inconsolably and writhing in my lap, trying to shake the pain from her hand and successfully making it worse. I kept a calm tone of voice and asked Dano to bring me my bin of medical supplies from the bathroom closet. I rummaged through the bin while talking to her and telling her I'd make it better and not to worry. She kept screaming. I washed it with saline and found Steristrips (kind of like artificial stitches). I Steristripped the flap of skin over the open tissue and lined the edges with Bacitracin ointment (think Neosporin). That controlled the bleeding. I looked over my pile of supplies and a stroke of genius flashed through my alarmingly clear mind. We had Orajel swabs. I broke the seal on one and blew into the open end to get the medication into the swab faster than gravity would allow it to drip, then covered the fingertip with it. Lilah stiffened and tried to pull away, screaming louder with every ministration. I wrapped the finger in gauze and held her hand while I looked for tape. I turned back to Lilah to see that she had pulled the dressing/ointment combination off with her teeth and had resumed screaming and waving her hand hysterically.

Dano said, "I know you're a nurse, but try a Bandaid. Maybe this won't work right now." I remember feeling white rage course through every capillary. Everyone else had frozen. Everyone else had sat there white-faced and horrified. It was my face and hands streaked with my baby's blood. Not theirs.  No one had better start telling me what to try. I turned to Mike and Danielle and asked them to leave and go home. I asked Dano to get me an ice pack and go somewhere else to deal with his anxiety and leave me to deal with Lilah (still screaming, still flailing).

I held her down to ice her finger. That was actually worse, since she abhors being held down for anything. The finger looked better afterward, but I was still afraid she'd fractured or dislocated it. She wouldn't let me bend the joint without screaming harder and it was purple and edematous. The Orajel started to take effect and she quieted. I asked Dano to call the urgent care office and ask to speak to a nurse to see if we should bring her in. He dialed and had a short conversation, then hung up and relayed that all the nurses and MAs were busy, but the secretary had felt we should bring her in and stop the bleeding. The rage flared up again and I called back. Same secretary answered the phone. I wasn't about to have a woman without even the most basic first aid training give me medical advice about my baby. Working for a doctor doesn't give you any credentials. It gives you a paycheck.
"Hi, can I speak to someone who actually has some sort of medical training?"
*Long pause* "Was your daughter the one who hurt her hand?"
"Yes, and I need to speak with someone qualified to judge whether or not I need to bring her in."
*Another long pause* "Please hold." A nurse came to the line and asked a few questions and told us to bring her in for an exam and x-rays. Of course by this time Lilah Rose had fallen asleep from exhaustion.

By the time we got to the office, Lilah asked to be put down to play with the trains. A MA came out to assess her and we were seen within minutes. The doctor commented that she didn't seem too bothered, and I explained in medical terms that I had essentially numbed the shit out of her entire finger. He said that was a wonderful idea, and she clearly wasn't in any pain. I gave her a graham cracker and she pointed to the doctor and said, "Doctor," then promptly started munching. After assessing her and asking us questions about how it had happened, he led us down to the corridor to get an x-ray. Dano waited while I went in. I told her that the lady was going to take a picture of her hand with a big camera, and she'd have to be very still on my for a few seconds. I positioned her hand on the table. "All done Mama!" She was trying to pull away.
"She needs to take your picture, darling. It won't take long." I pointed up to the camera for her to see.
"Camera, Mama?"
"Yep! Just a big camera, baby bird."
"Cheeeeeese!"
And it was over. Lilah and I walked around naming different bones and body parts while we waited for them to print out. I sneaked a peek at them and breathed a sigh of relief. The finger looked pretty good to me. We were led back to the exam room to wait for the doctor to read them. She was well into her second graham cracker and requested that we sing her a song. I started "June Hymn" and Dano joined in and Lilah was pleased. Then we sang her "Bandit Queen" (a song I've been singing to her since the day she was born) and we all laughed when we got to the line that said, "She ain't fancy, she ain't fine, and while her fingers number only nine, she's the belle of the ball of the insurgency." I returned to my normal mindset while we were singing and just reveled in the joy that was our family for a few verses. Dano and I sang to her while she weaved her body in a little dance and sang along with a smattering of Bapapapa's. It's a strange family but very beautiful and my saving grace. Colin Meloy's line to his pregnant wife came to mind from the song wonder: "My darling, what wonder have we wrought here? It's weird and it's wonderful, dear."

 The doctor came back and told us to wrap it and put ointment on it every night while she slept, and ice it for 36 hours and she'd be as good as new. She'd only suffered soft tissue damage and traumatized the joint. He handed me a few samples of Bacitracin ointment and I smiled to myself, thinking about my stockpile at home. We went to Sonic and got Lilah a corndog. I went to work and she ate her corndog and watched the Secret of Kells with her daddy. To her, that was pretty much Christmas morning.

I came home from work tonight and finally had my breakdown from the day, sobbing for approximately 7 minutes. Lilah's already forgotten the whole thing.

Time for a change

I took Lilah to her 18 month appointment today. She is actually 20 months, but in the move she got to be a couple of months behind in her immunizations and appointments. This is our last trip to this family practice that "specializes" in pediatrics. I wasn't incredibly impressed with them the first three times we went, but I decided to give them one last attempt today.

We got to the office (which has no books or toys, only magazines for adults advertising various undesirable diseases and their treatment options) and I set Lilah up in a chair while I signed her in. "Setting her up" required giving her a cup of water and handing her a bucket. Everyday, Lilah Rose has a morning snack. It usually consists of grapes, orange slices, craisins, animal crackers, ginger snaps, or toast. This morning, it was toast with apple butter and animal crackers. Lilah is not like other children. Most children happily accept and eat their snack with relish (the emotion, not the condiment). Lilah, on the other hand, requires that her snack  be presented to her in a specific small pail with birds on it and a brown ribbon handle. This is her "snack bucket". It allows her snack to become portable if she so chooses to relocate, swing it over her head, save it for later, take it upstairs, or put her water cup in it for easy transport. If you attempt to take the snack bucket, she screams. Not whines, protests, or cries. Screams. So don't ever do it.

I left Lilah to her snack while I filled out paperwork. From across the room, I heard her say, "Hi." She proceeded to greet everyone in the waiting room. She then stood uncomfortably close to an older Asian woman and sang her a song, complete with a short dance number. We were called back to the exam room and the nurse weighed Lilah, her cup, her shoes, clothes, diaper, and snack bucket. I questioned this and she told me it couldn't add much to it. Lilah had one foot completely off the scale the whole time and I know for a fact it wasn't accurate, but the nurse said it was fine. She got her O2 levels, heart rate, respirations, temperature, and pulse. Lilah wasn't impressed with this and fussed and fidgeted. The nurse did nothing to distract or entertain her, just gave up and wrote down whatever she had and said "Close enough." She left the room and I heard her tell the doctor that Lilah would be difficult to give shots to. I seethed. "The only way she'll be difficult is if she has an idiot like you giving them," I was thinking.

The doctor saw her for a few minutes and told me she might begin saying more words than "mama" and "dada" soon. I just stared at him. Lilah ran around the exam room yelling "Open a window!" and "Take off the jacket!" He watched her for a few minutes, crossed something out in his notes and told me she was cognitively 2 1/2.  He also told me not to indulge in tantrums, as she would soon be testing the rules and limits. 5 minutes later, Lilah was crying pitifully because I threw away an animal cracker that had fallen on the floor and he said, "Ooooh, the poor baby! Don't cry!" I'm thinking, "Buddy, you just told me not to indulge her. You're an idiot." He spent the last few minutes trying to talk me into some unnecessary injections for her.

Him - "Hepatitis A is good to have."
Me - "Why?"
Him - "It effects the liver."
Me - "Yeah I know."
Him - "It's easy to get outside the US. Such as in Mexico."
Me - "I don' think she has plans to leave the country any time soon."
Him - "And it's orally transmitted. Babies are orally fixated."
Me - "Lilah, are you planning to lick any Mexicans?"
Lilah - "No Mama."
Me - "Well there we have it. We're all set then."

I hadn't even gotten into the car when I decided we're switching PCPs. These people have no idea how to do an assessment on a child. I miss my old doctor that spent time playing and talking with her and worked her assessment and exam in. The appointments were thorough, fun, and informative. These people got their educations at University of Phoenix, I swear to God, and I'm done dealing with it.

Nunnery nonsense

This Autumn has been wonderful. One of my goals for today (before I saw the forecast for rain) was to rake the leaves in the yard and allow Lilah to frolic in them for the first time. I was very upset because the giant tree in our backyard has so many leaves and I was only okay with the inevitability of raking millions of them because I'd get to see the colors change first. However, as the season progressed I saw the leaves change from bright green to dark green to dirty orangeish brown. I narrow my eyes at the tree whenever I look out into my backyard. I feel cheated. Like it knew all along and should have mentioned something.

Today was my bi-monthly mandatory *cough* bullshit *cough* meeting. Lilah and I went in the back employee door and I clocked in, only to find that the meeting was held in the front lobby. We have a very long building. It took 13 minutes to get where we were going. She stopped and talked to everyone along the way. She hugged Ananya from PT, she waved to patients and family members, she poked her head into offices to check for inhabitants.

I took Lilah with me because mostly when she's there people fawn over her rather than hold the meeting so I shave about 20 minutes off the time I spend at work on my day off. It worked like a charm. I really have no idea what the meeting was about and neither does anyone else. I repeated her name, age, height, weight, and favorite foods about 27 times, and everyone knows lots of fun things about her. Mission accomplished.

After the meeting we waited in the lobby for Dano to pick us up and Lilah peered into the pumpkins and said, "A ball, Mama!" I kept telling her they were pumpkins but she kept looking at me like I was crazy. They were big, round, and orange. They were clearly balls. After an exuberant greeting for everyone in the lobby, she watched the birds in the cage for a moment before spotting a 3 foot wooden statue of Sister Catherine of the Irish Sisters of Mercy Foundation, the founders of the Trinity Health System I work for. Lilah cautiously approached Sister Catherine (a thin, pale figure in dark garb and hood with a mouth that looks as if it had sampled a lemon recently drawn up into a wan smile). Lilah cocked her head to the side and said, "Hi!" They were eye to eye. Sister Catherine said nothing, moved not a wooden muscle, only stared her stately, frozen stare. Lilah offered several more "Hi!"s with no change noted in Sister Catherine's response. Lilah was not to be deterred from conquering even the most unamused person in the building. She threw her arms around Sister Catherine's spare frame in a carefree and loving embrace. Several things happened simultaneously in that moment. Lilah's weight shifted forward as she stood on her tiptoes to really give this hug her all. Sister Catherine teetered back on her base, then tipped forward into Lilah's waiting (albeit unprepared) little arms. Lilah's expression changed instantly from the wild ecstasy ("Hug, Mama!") to concern ("Uh-oh!") to utter panic ("Aaah!") as the unfortunate duo toppled to the floor. I was laughing hysterically as the other people in the lobby watched on in horror and concern. As with any other fall Lilah Rose experiences, I let her reaction dictate mine (even though I've bitten through my own lip not crying out and running to pick her up before). If she cries, I pick her up to comfort her. If she gets up and carries on, I don't do a thing. But she always looks at me first to see my face. My eyes met my daughter's (Sister Catherine's unfortunate eyes were buried in Lilah's sternum) and Lilah said, "Sorry, Mama!" I just laughed and helped her up, setting the likely-mortified Sister Catherine back upright. Lilah gave her one more pat on the shoulder and said goodbye to her before taking my hand and walking...right into the glass door.

Compromises and crackers

Lilah and I had yet another day of errands. Dano offered to keep her home, and I was surprised. I'd honestly rather go with her than have her at home without me. She's my little friend, and we have fun when we're together. First we went to Plato's Closet to look for an anniversary date outfit for me. She was very well behaved at first. She pointed to an attractive pair of brown boots and said, "Shoes!" I fell in love with them and picked them up. I picked out three sweater dresses to try on and found a fitting room. As soon as I put Lilah down, she shouted, "Baby!" and ran headlong into the mirror. Christened with a fresh red mark on her forehead, she explored the small room while I tried on the dresses. I chose two I liked best and set about getting dressed again. I was pulling my shirt over my head when I heard, "Bye, Mama." I tugged it down frantically and looked around the room. No small daughter. She had slithered under the gap in the door. I grabbed my things and rushed out into the store. Lilah had tracked down a small child and was hugging the life out of it. I rescued the poor boy and led her away, counseling her on the dangers of small people rushing out into the world without their mamas.

We put our purchases on the counter and Lilah insisted on handing my debit card to the cashier, who thought her precocious. We left and walked down the sidewalk to Joann Fabrics. Lilah tugged her little hand out of mine and made a dash for the parking lot. I used my best "stern" voice and said her name very seriously. She stopped in her tracks and I told her, "No way. You know that." She sat her butt on the curb and refused to walk. I carried her into Joann's and plopped her in a cart. She helped me choose a warm yellow and an attractive brown fleece for her Halloween costume. While waiting in line for the fabric to be cut, she got impatient. "Up, Mama." I picked her up and she tried to wriggle down. We call it her jellyfish move. She goes all limp and spineless (anyone who's ever tried carrying a reluctant toddler knows the move well) so it's like trying to hold onto water. It makes it nearly impossible to keep a hold on her. So I sat her down in the cart again and gave her my keys. The threw them defiantly on the ground and narrowed her eyes brazenly at me. "Uh oh." I counted to three in my head and picked up the keys, putting them back in my purse. She whined. "All done, Mama!" She whined a few times. I looked at her, trying to read her mind. I can never tell exactly how much she understands me, but I'm firmly committed to always treating her like a person. If she doesn't understand today, she might tomorrow. She's not stupid, and she just might comprehend more than I'm aware of. Some of her chattering might not be mindless baby babble based on what she hears. So I gave it a shot after another deep breath.
"Lilah Rose, I know you're not happy but it isn't a store for sweet little babies. Mama has this one thing to do, and then we're leaving for the next store. If you can be a patient little girl for Mama for a few minutes, you may have a cracker when after we leave." I appealed to her stomach, since it was 6:00 and I knew she was getting hungry. She looked at me and sighed. She asked to be picked up once more, and I held her. She calmly watched the older woman measure the fleece. She cocked her head and asked the woman, "Hotdog?" I told her that the woman was their to help with Lilah's Halloween costume, and did not have any hotdogs on hand. The woman noticed a tiny stain on the yellow fleece and went to find a pristine bolt instead. I told her it was unnecessary and she waved me off. I thought, "Oh dear God, I'm pushing my baby to the limit of her patience and hunger. That lady better run." The rest of the experience went off without a hitch, however. She found an unstained bolt and cut our fabric. We checked out and Lilah asked the cashier if she had a hotdog. The cashier looked confused. I could feel Lilah fidget and wiggle in my arms, and her repeated queries for food let me know she was hungry, but she had stopped acting up completely and I honestly wondered if she understood me. A woman in line had looked at me like I'd just snorted a line off my diaper bag when I had that talk with Lilah. People often do, but she's a human being, not a puppy or a teletubby. I respect her as a human and she (more often than not) respects me as a Mama.

We left and I gave her a big hug and told her how proud I was of her and thanked her for being such a good little girl. She said, "Cracker, Mama?" I kissed her cheek and wheeled her into Target and immediately picked up a small package of Goldfish crackers. She squealed and started eating them up, dancing in her seat. I talked to Dano about it, and we both agreed that she probably had a fair grasp on what I told her, even if she didn't get every nuance. She got the overall gist of the conversation and she responded. I have a good baby who just keeps getting better with age. Like wine. Or cheese.

Dark days

I started taking birth control again a month ago. I had tried before, and I had been very sick, no sex drive, headaches, and other problems. I talked with my doctor and said, "I don't want to puke or lose my sex drive. If you've got something for that, I'm willing to try it." He prescribed Yaz, which was supposed to be more mild than some of its predecessors. I decided to give it a try.

Within the first 3 days, I got the first yeast infection of my life, so I had to treat that. I got nauseated frequently but not to the point of vomiting. The vertigo got bad, and I had blood pressure fluctuation. I broke out badly and my already-frequent headaches were a daily companion. Within a week, I had gone from my usual outspoken self to downright antagonistic. Someone could say something that wouldn't normally bother me and instead of it not even being a blip on my radar, I would go off at them. In my head, I was thinking it was a good opportunity to speak my mind and tell people how I really felt and even if they were upset at first, it was just because I was being honest and they'd come to appreciate it in the long run. That's how it started anyway.

Within two weeks, I was just plain irritated. At everyone. Everything. I could have three days off and I'd return to work snapping and perturbed like I'd been there 6 days. My coworkers were taking notice. My staff was unimpressed with my irritability. My friend Melissa even said one night, "What is wrong with you? We're having a good night and you've still been nothing but crabby." I shrugged it off. "Just burnt out I guess."

By the third week, I was taking active steps to sabotage my closest friendships and nip any new relationships in the bud. I couldn't get off the couch. I cried at the drop of a hat. In my head, I was a constant victim but at the same time the sane part of me knew I was the root of the problem. We went to Zedd's soccer game and I got mad at Lilah for not wearing a hat. I looked at her and thought of how all the other kids looked clean and cute and she just looked rough and raggedy with her crazy hair and play clothes.

This photo was taken that day and I looked at it later and thought, "She's beautiful just like always! What was I thinking?!" I was good at masking it when people were around, primarily because then I was distracted from being alone with myself. But I hated being on my own because I knew something was wrong. I didn't feel like me anymore. I could recall the best memories of my life and they were oddly tainted by negativity. Pictures of me everyone complimented, I looked at in disgust. I weighed myself constantly, feeling like I was getting fat. Thoughts started creeping in my head that I was ruining everything I touched and my family would be better off without me, except for the fact they needed the income from my job to survive. I was staying up at night online to distract myself until I truly couldn't keep my eyes open anymore so I wouldn't have to lay in bed and think because my thoughts were starting to scare me.

Dano finally had a few talks with me after being my constant voice of reason for weeks. He wanted me to go off the pill. I agreed that was probably best. Even after three days of not taking the pill, I'm not all right. In fact, I feel like I'm getting worse. It just feels dark in my head. Dano is the only thing keeping me functioning, and that's only because he can talk me out of my moods where I think the world would be better off without me. I tried going to bed at a normal hour last night and we ended up arguing and I sobbed for an hour until I was exhausted. I'm not even sure what I said to him. I remember hearing breaks screeching on the highway and wondering what it would be like if it was me in the car. I want to get better. I want to feel normal and happy again. I don't know what else I can do. I feel like I'm drowning in my own head.