It was rough going some nights, especially when she was sitting on her bed, her body all tense, sobbing that she just wanted someone to snuggle her and love her.
I held my ground. Several nights, my husband stepped in and took over settling her down. I'm not sure how he did it -- although I know it involved some taking of deep breaths -- but there she'd be in the morning, her hair mussed and her face a little blotchy but in her own bed nonetheless.
This means Sam earned the grand prize she'd been working toward: A giant wooden dollhouse from Target.
]]> The thing's as tall as she is, and we shelled out quite a chunk of change for it. But she really worked hard for it, and we wanted to reward her with something we knew she'd love.We bought it last Friday, and it took me more than an hour to put it together (hey, I'm not the carpenter in the family). Sam was patient the whole time. She kept Noah occupied and away from the parts until he finally crashed and I put him to bed. She even waited calmly, playing with the pieces until I asked for the next one I needed.
I got it together well after her bedtime, but I let her stay up for 45 more minutes so she and I could play with it.
And play we did: with the dollhouse, the Barbies she moved in there, the styrofoam from the box (which was pulled apart into balls for the doggie to chase and into pieces of "cereal" for the Barbies to eat) and the box itself (which became the barn for the horse and, toward the end, a campsite for the Barbies and their visitors).
To keep her sleeping in her bed, we've made a deal that, for every 7 nights in a row she's in her bed, she can pick out one more accessory for the dollhouse. Right now, she's eyeing up food for the kitchen and the big pink, wooden car.
As we were talking earlier this week about which thing she's going to pick next, she suddenly said that she had decided to ask Santa to bring her the wooden car for Christmas.
"That way," she told a delirious Daddy one morning, "Mommy doesn't have to worry about driving all the way to the store, and finding the car, and paying for it, and driving it back home, and taking it out of the box for me. I'll just wish for it, and it'll show up all by itself!"
I can't wait to tell her this one once she knows the truth about Santa. *smile*
In the meantime, I'm really proud of her. I miss holding her warm little body at night and listening to her breathing, but I'll admit that we're probably both getting better sleep. OK, maybe just her for now, since Noah's decided to get up between one and four times a night, but that's another blog for another day.
]]>This means I've had to drastically rearrange my work schedule, which is usually 10 a.m. to 7 p.m. Monday-Thursday and 3 p.m. to 1 a.m. Sundays.
First, ain't nobody gonna babysit my kids until 2 a.m. Monday morning.
Second, ain't no way I'm gonna try to leave my kids with the sitter -- even if I could -- until 7:45 or 8 p.m. during the week.
So this means our lives and routines have been drastically altered.
And this, my friends, is something Samantha does not like.
]]> She's most defiant in the evening, after I pick her and Noah up. She simply disagrees with or argues about anything I say.Me: "What do you want for dinner?"
Sam: "Aw, Mom, can't I just have a snack?"
Me: "Come over to the table, please. It's time to do your homework."
Sam (after 10 seconds of silence and my repeating myself twice): "Huh? I don't have any homework. Oh, wait, right, I do, but I don't wanna do it now."
Me: "Okey-dokey, kiddos, it's time to go get in the bathtub."
Sam: "Mom, can you wash me first and do Noah second? Cuz I hate staying in the tub and getting all cold. And -- hey, it's not even my bedtime yet! It's only 7:47! I don't go to bed until 8:30! Can we play a game of Chutes and Ladders first? Pleeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeease??"
And then there's the baby voice and the baby talk. I hate the baby voice and the baby talk. I've tried ignoring it, figuring the official advice I've read will be right and she'll just get tired of doing it when she realizes it doesn't get her what she wants.
So far, no luck.
I must say, "Sam, talk like a 6-year-old" and "I can't understand you when you talk baby talk" at least 100 times in 3 hours.
Finally, two nights ago, I asked her what was up.
Me: "I'd really like us to have nice, calm, fun nights when we get home, Sam, without any whining or disagreeing. Doesn't that sound good?"
Sam: "Yeah."
Me: "Then why do you argue so much with me and ignore what I tell you to do? And why do you keep talking in a baby voice when I've told you to stop over and over again?"
Sam: "Well, it's just because I want some loving."
Me: "I'd like to be giving you more loving, Sam, but I can't do that when I have to spend so much time arguing with you --"
Sam (interrupting): "Actually, it's just because I want some attention."
And there it was. The thing child psychologists always say kids want, regardless of whether it's negative or positive: attention.
I sat back that night after bedtime, and I thought about it. She's right. I've been paying lots of attention to Noah, who's in an extra-adorable stage right now (OK, when isn't he in an adorable stage?) and who runs over to me every few minutes for big hugs and kisses.
Sam doesn't do that. But she does come pester me just about as often, which I neglected to realize was the 6-year-old's version of what Noah's doing.
Last night, I tried harder. I snagged her and smooched her more, I snuck in hugs when she least expected them. It wasn't a much easier night -- I still had to defend my ruling that cheese balls are NOT an acceptable dinner food -- but it went a tad more smoothly.
And about the time we get this routine down pat, it'll all change again.
]]>Last night, on our way home, I heard Noah in the backseat saying, "Whoa! Mommy, ky! ky!" I glanced in the rearview mirror and saw he was pointing out the window, up toward the sky.
"It IS beautiful!" I said, looking at the horizon. The sun was beginning to set behind the mountain, and it cast a pink-and-purple tinge across the sky. The fluffy clouds, lilac and cotton candy dotted with white, were almost glowing. "Look at those beautiful clouds!"
"Whoa!" he said again. "Mom, whoa! Ky!"
Even Sam chimed in on the momentous occasion. "Mom, he's talking about the sky! Good job, buddy!"
This morning, as we were headed to the sitter's, he pointed it out again: "Mom, ky! Bwoo ky."
He was right: It was a baby-blue sky, with stringy white clouds wafting across it.
Not even 2 yet, and my son's already an aesthete. I love it.
]]>Sam wandered, playing with the belt from my jean jacket and trying to make friends with the unsociable kids in front of and behind us.
It was hot, it was cramped and it was hugely unfair that other people came and went within 10 minutes because their last names didn't start with any letter between F and L.
But in the end, Sam was vaccinated against swine flu.
Well, halfway vaccinated. She has to get a second shot in a month. At the same place. Probably with the same divisions of last names, meaning I'll be in line for a long time again because I chose to marry a Gulli.
I've gotta say, though, once we were inside, it all went smoothly. And all the folks who were involved were wonderfully patient and calm -- an amazing feat considering they were all volunteers.
Anyway, we're part of the way to safety. I'm celebrating it as a small victory.
]]>Except by "helping" I mean that he was taking things I was returning into their rightful places and putting them back to where they didn't belong.
At one point, he came barreling into the bathroom, yelling "Mom Mom!" and carrying an open box of baking soda.
]]> I keep a box of baking soda beside his changing table so that we can sprinkle some into poopy diapers, therefore cutting down the smell significantly and extending the life of the trash bag in the diaper pail.Anyway, I took the box, thanked him very much and, feeling grateful that he didn't leave a trail of baking soda from his room to the bathroom, I put it up out of his reach and moved on.
A few minutes later, I went into his room to put something away, and I stopped dead.
Apparently, when Noah found the baking soda box and discovered that beautiful, fluffy white stuff comes out of it if you shake it, he decided to make a work of art. He got a dark-purple bucket from his sister's room, placed it upside down on his floor and poured away.
It was quite lovely, if you weren't the person who had to clean it up. I sighed, then turned around to get the vacuum.
Noah ambled into the room, stopped and looked at the mess, then looked up at me and began slowly shaking his head.
"Ooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooh, Mooooooooooommy," he drawled in a voice that clearly indicated he had never been so disappointed in me in his little life. "Oooooooooooooooooooooooooh, Mommy."
I pointed my finger at him. "Hey you," I said. "YOU're the one who made this mess, not me."
He didn't fall for it. The head shaking continued, and he chastised me again. "Oooooooooooooooooooh, Mommy."
What a little actor. I'm now wondering how many things he's made me believe were Sam's fault when, in fact, he was the instigator. I always assumed Sam doth protest too much when it comes to claiming innocence, but I've been less inclined to just take Noah's side lately.
I can't wait to see what he'll pull when he's 5. Sheesh.
]]>I've got smushed Pop Tart on my left shoulder and the inside crook of my right elbow. I've also got a faint air of milk and brown-sugar Pop Tart, too -- hmmmm, wonder if I could bottle this smell and sell it as Eau de Mommy?
I mean, it's a flu. People get the flu all the time. My household even had a collective bout of flu last month.
But the news today that a Littlestown kindergartner died because of complications from swine flu scared the bejesus out of me.
]]> I picked up the phone as soon as I came out of a meeting this afternoon and called my pediatrician's office.Do you have seasonal-flu vaccines available now? I asked. Are you getting swine flu vaccines soon? When can I bring my kids in?
Well, no and no, the receptionist said. They don't have any seasonal-flu shots yet and don't know when they'll get them, and they're supposed to maybe get a shipment of swine-flu shots this month.
Not YET? Maybe this MONTH? Don't they know a little girl in relatively close proximity -- and only a year younger than my Sammy -- has died?
I haven't gotten any official news from Sam's school that they're getting swine-flu vaccines and will administer them (I got a sheet of information about the vaccine, but nothing else, like a permission slip). I could take her to a pharmacy for a seasonal-flu shot, the doctor's office said, but they probably won't administer one to Noah because he's younger than 4.
Again, I know it's the flu. I get that. But it just seems more real now.
]]>He's got quite the repertoire now. Among them:
]]>And then there's my favorite, the thing that sounds absolutely adorable when he says it in his baby voice:
"Hi, Statue!" ("statue" is two distinct sounds, always separated by a pause, so it's more like "hi sta ... tue.")
We drive by the mini Statue of Liberty on the Susquehanna River north of Harrisburg often, and every time we go by, Sam and I say, "Hi, Statue!" and wave. Noah finally caught on to what we were doing, so now he calls anything standing still a statue.
During our recent home-wreckage project, Noah was home one day. As we were trying to rip up carpet and diagnose an electrical problem, Noah was running around getting into everything he wasn't supposed to be touching.
At one point, he climbed up the two-step plastic stepstool we have, balanced himself with one hand on the nearby wall, stood as still as his little body could and said, "Mommy -- hi, Sta ... tue!"
So adorable.
I smothered him in kisses. Funny how that statue sure could wiggle then.
Thanks to my incredibly bad math skills, I found out that I had a bunch of vacation days left over that I have to use by Nov. 5.
Whoopie! I thought. Let's get cracking on painting over that heinous blue-and-pink-diamond-esque-patterned wallpaper on my bedroom wall and ripping up that other-shades-of-blue-and-pink-randomly-patterned rug off my bedroom floor.
Except it's never that easy, is it?
Five days and five trips to Home Depot and Lowe's later, we've got an exposed 114-year-old wood floor that might not be able to be refurbished; painted plaster walls that look like we used a faux finish when, in fact, it's just barely hiding all the crazy crap the previous people in our house did to them; and further proof that the entire electrical system in our house needs to be rerun before the place burns down.
Yippee. Five days off.
I was almost ready to come back to work today.
]]>So much for my mental anguish over whether to get the seasonal flu and H1N1 vaccines, huh?
No school for Sam today. She told me seven kids were absent (or, as she spells it, "absit") from her class one day last week.
This morning, she wanted to know why I kept her home. I said, "Because your fever is almost 102 degrees when you don't take medicine."
She said, "So I don't have to go back until FRIday??"
Not sure how she got that out of what I said, but heck, at this point it could be true.
Anybody else dealing with flu already in your house? Any tips for keeping the kids -- and, let's face the truth here, husbands -- comfortable?
]]>I think they even added that requirement to the Journalists Handbook of Topics You're Required To Overreact About and Overreport On.
But here's what I really want to know: Are you going to get your kids regular flu vaccines and H1N1 vaccines this fall? Have you previously gotten them flu vaccines?
I'm on the fence about this -- which, as you all can guess, is pretty unusual for me.
If there's a shot or nasal mist that will be uncomfortable for Sam and Noah for just a minute but will prevent their being sick for 7 to 10 days, then it seems like common sense to get it.
But I've got this nagging concern about the H1N1 vaccine. It was created awfully quickly, wasn't it? I'm not worried about the actual H1N1 part to it, but I am worried that we'll be running stories in a year that say the vaccine "accidentally" contained some sort of hazardous substance and that all the people who got it are at a higher risk for some worse kind of disease.
I'm not saying I think the H1N1 vaccine will give my kids cancer. I'm just saying I'd rather be overly cautious with this one, especially since swine flu isn't as deadly as experts predicted in the beginning.
And hey, since my last poll turned out so well, I thought we'd try it again!
On Monday, she tried to pull the "Mo-om, I don't feel good. I don't think I can go to school" act. I didn't buy it, especially when I said, "How about if we give you some medicine before you go so your throat doesn't hurt today?" and she said, "Nah, I don't feel bad enough to take medicine."
But, we agreed, I'd send the Triaminic along to school so that if she felt worse, she could go to the nurse's office and take a dose.
Who knew an ordeal would follow?
]]> I put the bottle in a baggie, and I wrote a note to the school nurse. I wrote that Samantha was allowed to have one 2-teaspoon dose during the day if she felt she needed it, and I wrote that the nurse had my permission to give it to her.My cell phone rang about 20 minutes after school started.
Even over-the-counter medications, she said, require a doctor's permission. My permission alone isn't enough.
She could accept a faxed note from the doctor, the nurse said. But if Sam stopped in for the medicine and the doctor's note hadn't arrived, then she could get a dose only if my husband or I came in and gave it to her.
So, let's stop for just a minute here and ponder this:
1. Triaminic is an OTC medication.
2. This means the federal government agrees that I have the right to administer this medication to my child if I deem that she needs it.
3. I, in turn, gave another adult my permission to administer this medication to my child in my stead.
4. My permission, however, is not enough for the school. It must also have my doctor's OK to act in my stead.
There's something not right about this.
Just to share the rest of the fun I had, when I called my doctor's office -- and after I waited on hold for 12 minutes since it was a Monday morning -- and asked if they could please fax a permission note to the school, I was told that "we, as a clinic, do not fax schools. It's just not something we do."
"Really?" I wanted to holler. "Really?? Why is that?"
Do they realize that the people who work in schools have had to go through more background checks and drug tests than most of the people at pharmacies?
In the end, my husband said he'd be able to go to the school if she asked for it. Which she never did.
I find this ridiculous, if not entirely unbelievable. Makes you wonder who filed a lawsuit somewhere against a school nurse for giving their kid medication.
By the way, the doctor's office told me they could mail a permission note to the school. I figured that would get there in about 7 to 10 days, when she'll be feeling better anyway.
Thoughts? Rants? Outrage? Concern?
]]>I work Sunday nights until about midnight, then I drive 45 minutes home, try to get to sleep within about an hour, and then get back up again about 7 a.m. So I'm naturally a little sleepier on Monday mornings.
But I forced myself to get up today, get Sam's breakfast, get Noah out of bed, get him breakfast, pack Sam's lunch, double-check her folder to make sure we didn't miss any homework, write out a note to the school nurse so Sam could take some Triaminic for her cold if she needs it (that's another post coming shortly), make sure Sam got dressed in something that matched and didn't have feathers or other princess-esque accessories, and get her out the door to the bus.
Only now did I consider the fact that I packed her three peanut butter cracker sandwiches (she won't eat bread right now), applesauce and -- uh, well, apples.
I remember I had an apple and a bag of pretzels on the counter side-by-side, and I remember thinking, "Why would I give her pretzels if I can give her a fresh apple slices?"
Duh.
$10 says she doesn't notice. Or at least that's what I'm telling myself.
]]>Here are all the words you need: baby, Beyonce, imitative dance.
Enjoy!
There's also this one. And man, can this baby move!
]]>