Scout and updated pics of kiddos

About a month ago someone new joined our family. No, no, not a baby. This little guy.

He is a golden retriever named Scout and we adore him, especially now that he's learned to go potty outside.

And of course, updated photos of my crazy Jack (now 3, loves playing in the snow and riding his bike and frolicking in the mud when it's warm enough) and gorgeous Lily (14 months and loves blueberries and walking now that she's figured out how).

A thought post

The other day, an acquaintance shared the following rather offensive (in my opinion) parenting diatribe on facebook. (I'd rather not cite who it was, and since I'm pretty sure all of maybe 5 people read my blog, I highly doubt I'll get busted for plagiarism. So suffice it to say,an anonymous facebook acquaintance of mine posted it from someone else, so I don't even know who wrote it originally).

 Dear Mom On the iPhone,

I see you over there on the bench, messing on your iPhone. It feels good to relax a little while your kids have fun in the sunshine, doesn’t it? You are doing a great job with your kids, you work hard, you teach them manners, have them do their chores.

But Momma, let me tell you what you don’t see right now…..

Your little girl is spinning round and round, making her dress twirl. She is such a little beauty queen already, the sun shining behind her long hair. She keeps glancing your way to see if you are watching her.

You aren’t.

Your little boy keeps shouting, “Mom, MOM watch this!” I see you acknowledge him, barely glancing his way.

He sees that too. His shoulders slump, but only for a moment, as he finds the next cool thing to do.

Now you are pushing your baby in the swing. She loves it! Cooing and smiling with every push. You don’t see her though, do you? Your head is bent, your eyes on your phone as you absently push her swing.

Talk to her. Tell her about the clouds, Mommy. The Creator who made them. Tickle her tummy when she comes near you and enjoy that baby belly laugh that leaves far too quickly.

Put your eyes back on your prize…Your kids.

Show them that they are the priority. Wherever you are, be ALL there. I am not saying it’s not ok to check in on your phone, but it’s a time-sucker: User Beware!

Play time at the park will be over before you know it.

The childhood of your children will be gone before you know it.

They won’t always want to come to the park with you, Mommy. They won’t always spin and twirl to make their new dress swish, they won’t always call out, “WATCH ME!”

There will come a point when they stop trying, stop calling your name, stop bothering to interrupt your phone time.

Because they know…

You’ve shown them, all these moments, that the phone is more important than they are. They see you looking at it at while waiting to pick up brother from school, during playtime, at the dinner table, at bedtime…..

I know that’s not true, Mommy.

I know your heart says differently.

But your kids can’t hear your words, Mommy. Your actions are screaming way too loudly.

May our eyes rest upon those we love, first and foremost, and may everything else fall away in the wonderful, noisy, sticky-fingered glory of it all."

I have several major issues with the kind of attitude that would make someone write this. 

1. My first thought, of course, is "stop watching my kids so closely, creep." Seriously, you were so busy watching this woman ignore her kids that you were probably ignoring yours, making you a hypocrite.

2. So you saw a mom on her phone for 45 minutes out of her day (all of which was likely spent with her kids). How do you know she hasn't been paying full attention to them for the rest of the day? You rather arrogantly assume that she spends ALL her time on her phone. She isn't allowed to take a break and unwind? Email a friend, do some shopping, read or watch a tv show while her kids are entertained elsewhere for a small part of the day? Yes, yes, of course taking a break means you don't care about your kids, right?

3. The fact that they are continually trying get their mother's attention means that she probably DOES answer them most of the time. She's probably already watched the little girl spin around in her dress 500 times today. She's probably already tickled the baby 100 times and played games with her little boy. So can the judgement and don't assume you know how someone parents her kids by watching for a few minutes at the park. You know what they say about assuming.

4. Looking at your iPhone is simply this generation's version of moms at the park chatting with other moms. When I was a kid, sometimes my mom ignored my screams to "look at me, look at me" so she could chat with her friends, or read a book, or (if we were at home) watch her favorite show. Guess what? I never thought my mom didn't love me or cared about those things more than me. I also learned that it's not all about me and that I don't get to be the center of attention all the time. It taught me that my mom is an individual, with her own interests, and that I was not her sole reason for existing. Those are important lessons for kids to learn, and I fully intend to teach them to mine. 

5. I also can't stand admonitions to enjoy the "noisy, sticky-fingered glory of it all." As a parent, I deal with noise and sticky fingers ALL DAY LONG. Taking a break from it when I get a chance doesn't make me a bad mother.

6. Lastly, I am of course annoyed that it's addressed only to a mom. Where are the obnoxious admonitions to dads to enjoy these glorious "sticky fingered" moments? Are moms the only ones who are obligated to sacrifice their entire sense of self to devote every second of every day to making their kids feel like extra special flowers?

My kids are still young enough that when we go to the park, I generally have to supervise so they don't get hurt (although at 3, Jack is getting pretty independent). But once they are old enough to get on the swing by themselves and climb without falling, then you better believe I will be sitting on the bench, chatting with people or playing on my phone. Because it's a GOOD thing for them to learn to entertain themselves and play with other kids without mommy being constantly involved.

In conclusion, I adore my kids. They are the light of my life. But I don't sugar-coat it, either, and I freely admit that I often need a break. So I want to know--what do you think? Am I overly sensitive to find this to be obnoxious and judgmental tripe? Do you agree? This will tell me if anyone is still reading my blog (since I basically never update it.) Next up, I'm posting pictures of my kids. Promise. 

Some cute pictures of some cute kids

Pictures from fall 2012, in no particular order. Jack is 2.5, Lily is now 10.5 months! The first one includes their cute little cousins who live in Georgia.

Um...

I promise I did not write that in one giant paragraph. Don't know why blogger did that.

Still Alive!

Well, after a year I have finally decided to write another blog post! I can't promise much more than that, though. Here's the big stuff that has happened in the last year.

1. On January 4 2012, we welcomed baby Lily into our family. She is perfect in every way and we are so glad to have her. Her big brother adores her and she adores him too.

2. I started working again. About three months after I got laid off, my boss called and offered me my job back. I took it, because I love that job. So I've been back at work full time since July, minus my 12-week maternity leave. It actually worked out really well for me--I had horrific morning sickness the whole time I was laid off and I don't know how I would have worked through it.

3. My sweet Jack is two, and is not always so sweet. But even during the worst tantrums, I can't stay mad at that little boy. He says the funniest things. It is so entertaining to see how his mind works and catch a glimpse of what he is thinking. I'm always amazed by the things he picks up from people around him. When I'm surprised by something he says, I can usually trace it back to something Derek or I say regularly, but not always. Some examples: -after his absolute favorite treat of chocolate milk, he sets his cup down and exclaims "that's deLICious chocolate milk" (he says that with lots of foods, but is particularly enthusiastic about chocolate milk)-the other day I told him we were going to the zoo, and he replied "that's fanTASTic! See tigers!"-when Lily is crying, he asks "what's the matter, Lily? Hug and kiss" then gives her a hug and kiss. When she stops crying, he says "Lily not sad anymore. Lily happy"-I could go on all day, but I will spare you.

4. Derek is almost done with this phase of medical school. He is taking his board exam in June, and after that he will start rotations in the hospital. Meaning that he is done with sitting in a classroom and studying 24/7 forever. We can't wait. We chose to stay in Erie for rotations since I already have a job here (other options were at various towns in PA and Ohio). So two more years in Erie we will be. Until I can find a peaceful moment with Derek to help me figure out how to upload pictures onto the iPad, this post will remain pictureless. Sorry for the boringness.

The cast is off!

Jack got his cast off yesterday! Thank goodness. This was the third one! The first one (green) started to slide down when the swelling went down. So we went back in and got an orange one. It was on tighter so I thought we were good.

Less than 24 hours later, Jack was in a shopping cart at the grocery store. I heard something hit the floor and saw the cast bouncing away. So back to the doctor we went. And since nothing else would stay on his leg, we had to get an above-the-knee cast.

Fortunately, Jack didn't care much. Within a few days he had figured out how to walk on it. It was with a pretty bad limp, but still. He didn't let it get him down!


And now, it's off! The x-ray showed that he had healed completely in just 3 weeks. He has relearned how to walk with two good legs and is happy to be himself again. Personally, I was the most happy that I could give him a real bath (which I did as soon as we got home). In case you noticed in the video, we buzzed his hair so it would be easier to clean when when he could only have sponge baths. It did make it easier but I miss that hair! It was getting so long!

Trip to the ER

I figured a trip to the ER was bound to happen sometime, since Jack is a curious kid who gets into everything. It was only a matter of time before he hurt himself. I just never thought the first time it would actually be my fault. I've never had to go to the ER for myself, never had a broken bone, never needed stitches. Oh, the irony.

So yesterday morning I was walking down the stairs holding Jack. I slipped and slid down 5 or 6 stairs on my butt. I didn't let go of Jack, and once I had stabilized myself Jack had started to scream. It looked to me like he had hit his head on the wall. He's hit his head lots of times, so I comforted him and waited for him to calm down. He normally stops crying and forgets all about it in a minute or two, but this time he didn't stop screaming. Jack has never cried for long, even as a newborn. After 15 or so minutes of trying to calm him down I started to get worried that something was seriously wrong. I called the pediatrician and as soon as I said he hit his head and was acting different than usual, they said to go straight to the ER. So off we went.

He cried the whole way there, which I was grateful for, because I thought he might have a concussion and I didn't want him to go to sleep. We got there and he didn't have any kind of a bump on his head, or any signs of a head injury at all. He just wouldn't stop screaming, which is really abnormal for him. The resident first said that it was probably nothing, and since there were no outward signs of a head injury, I should just go home and watch him for any changes. We had skipped breakfast (the fall happened first thing in the morning) so they thought he might just be hungry. He had a snack and then resumed screaming. Then the attending doc came in. He said that the cutoff for him is if a kid is acting abnormally, and I insisted that I didn't want to overreact, but that this was certainly not normal. So he ordered a CT scan.

After the CT, Derek came from school to help out. Jack had finally calmed down by now but he still wasn't his usual self. He wasn't trying to get off of my lap and explore everything like he usually does. I slowly started to put together all of the evidence of what had happened that morning. A few times I had tried to put him down to walk around to see if that would make him feel better (it usually does) but it only made him scream more. I remembered that while he was having his snack I had touched his leg and he had started to cry. So I told Derek to try standing him up. He of course screamed. We looked closer and saw that his left ankle was swollen and he cried if we touched it. I realized that instead of hitting his head, I must have landed on his leg. I have no idea why I jumped right to assuming he hit his head. Just then the resident came over and here's how the conversation went:

Resident: Well, the CT looks fine so you guys are good to go. How's he doing?

Me: I really hate to do this to you, but I think it's his ankle. Look at the swelling.

Resident: You're right, let's do an x-ray.

(After the x-ray)
Resident: Well, his leg is broken.

Yes, that's right folks, I broke my baby's leg. And I didn't figure it out until after a CT scan for a suspected head injury. I think Jack has now been exposed to more radiation than I've been exposed to in my entire life. The break is right above his ankle, a partial fracture of the lower tibia. I spent most the night crying about it. Fortunately, I think it's been harder on me than him. The worst part for me is thinking about how much his leg was hurting him, and I had no idea! I wasn't being at all careful with it, I probably bumped it when I put him in the carseat and changed his clothes. I feel terrible about that! I wish I had realized that it was his leg, not his head! Now that he's getting some pain medicine and his leg is in a cast, he seems rather unfazed by the whole thing.

They sent him home in a splint and ace wrap with instructions to come back the next day for a cast. An orthopedic surgeon saw him and reassured me that kids heal from broken bones really well, and that the break was not near the growth plates so it won't have any lasting problems. He does have to be in a bulky cast that can't get wet for 4-6 weeks. So sponge baths only and no swimming. Now for some pictures.
This is the first day, before the real cast. It breaks my heart how sad he looks.
This is shortly after the cast. He looks much happier than yesterday.
It's all downhill from here. He is fine now except for when he tries to stand up, so we're back to crawling for now. Here's to hoping for a quick and easy recovery for Jack.