*crickets*

Ok, well, even if you’re not, here you go:

My kid is potty-trained!  Yay!!!!!

We haven’t changed a diaper in almost a month.  . . . → Read More: The good news]]> In my last post I alluded to some good news and then disappeared for a week.  I know you’ve all been on edge and just dying to know, haven’t you?

*crickets*

Ok, well, even if you’re not, here you go:

My kid is potty-trained!  Yay!!!!!

We haven’t changed a diaper in almost a month.  It’s practically like getting a raise, not having to buy diapers anymore.

This might seem odd, but ever since she was an infant I stressed about potty-training.  I mean, how in the world do you train a completely irrational and easily distractable little person to do their business in a wee potty?  No one trained me on how to train someone to do this, and I certainly don’t remember my own training!  The whole set-up seems rather preposterous.

There were a few basic tidbits offered by our pediatrician and the interwebs:

-  Let her observe us using the bathroom.  I realize that sounds disgusting and strange, but her doctor said at her 1 year appointment that this would lay the building blocks for potty training.

-  Make it sunshine and rainbows and one big party all the time!  Negativity is a big, fat no-no.

-  Bribes are awesome

-  It only works if the kid is ready

Over the last several months we’ve toyed around with potty training a bit, thinking she was ready, but then quickly realized she was NOT ready so we backed off.  This time around though, I knew she was ready and declared that it was time and come hell or high water, we were jumping in and not looking back.  We hid the leftover diapers (because if she knew we still owned any she would simply insist she wear the diapers instead) and stocked up on tiny underpants and carpet cleaner.

It was a Tuesday.  The diapers had been stashed away, the M&M’s had been purchased, the towels were draping the couch, and our schedule had been cleared for the next several days.  That morning, after a few brief tears of not wanting to grow up quite yet (I may or may not have shed some myself), the little potty was put to use and everyone rejoiced!  But then, that very same day, The Great Hand Catastrophe occurred and I thought for sure the whole thing would go right out the window.  But wouldn’t you know it, my little champ of a child persevered and through all the tears and trauma she stuck with it.  I couldn’t have been more proud.

So here we are, four weeks later, and I haven’t changed (or purchased!) a diaper in ages.  Overall, things have been going well.  At first I thought she had it down within just a few days, but then she kind of regressed a little bit?  Now we seem to be dealing with little accidents here and there, so instead of being all MY KID IS POTTY TRAINED, EXCLAMATION POINT!  I’m kind of like, MY KID IS POTTY TRAINED, QUESTION MARK?  I’m kind of at a loss of how to get her 100% there.  Suggestions?  Is this something she just has to do on her own time?  Seriously, I have no idea what I’m doing here, people.  Teach me.

Either way, the whole thing is pretty fantastic, if you ask me.

P.S.  In other good news, her hand is healing up very nicely, finally!  Just one little band-aid left on the most mangled finger, but she is using her hand like normal now and all is well.  HALLELUJAH!

So, do you want the good news or the bad news first? Bad news?  Ok then, glad we agree.

Two weeks ago the husband was running on the treadmill in the basement while our daughter played and watched cartoons in the same room.  We’ve had . . . → Read More: I think I’ve found a good excuse to never run on the treadmill again]]>

My cute girl with two functioning, non-mangled hands

So, do you want the good news or the bad news first? Bad news?  Ok then, glad we agree.

Two weeks ago the husband was running on the treadmill in the basement while our daughter played and watched cartoons in the same room.  We’ve had this set-up for a while, we’ve had conversations about never ever ever touching the treadmill while it is on, and all has gone smoothly.  You can see where this is going.  For some inexplicable reason my little girl decided to wander on over and stick her sweet, soft, innocent little hand under the moving treadmill belt and IT GOT STUCK.

My husband called me at work, in a panic because Claire was completely freaking out and would not stop screaming, even to the point of throwing up.  I was trapped, having joined a carpool (which is a post in itself) the week before.  From what I could gather there was very little blood, but a lot of skin had been taken off and my poor girl was miserable. There wasn’t anything that looked like it needed to be stitched up, even though her hand was quite mangled, so we didn’t go to the ER.  It looked like what it needed was some good old fashioned antibacterial ointment, some time to heal, and some major TLC.  That day (and the next few as well) that girl got whatever she wanted in our desperate attempt to bring her any sort of comfort and happiness.  Watch movies all day?  Sure!  You want popsicles for dinner?  You got it!  Here, have some chocolate too!!

The following days were downright heartbreaking and completely stressful for all of us.  Her hand had to be bandaged and protected.  The first night I loosely taped some gauze to her hand, slathering it all with antibacterial ointment.  The next morning, to my horror, the gauze had dried to her oozing, open wounds.  We had to try to force her hand underwater per her doctor’s suggestion (which is painful on such sensitive wounds) and then yank the gauze off.   Just typing that sentence makes me ill all over again.  I’m sure I don’t even need to describe the howling on my daughter’s part.   I raced to the nearest pharmacy in a frenzy, sweeping into my basket non-stick gauze and antibacterial sprays and band-aids with cartoon characters on them and anything else that looked remotely helpful.

In an effort to protect her damaged hand, my girl would keep it in a fist and wouldn’t let anyone or anything near it.  While I praised her basic survival instincts and tenacity at keeping us from touching it, that hand absolutely had to be tended to in order to prevent infection and ensure proper healing.  Even in her sleep, if I would try to touch her hand to adjust the bandages she would quickly jerk it away. Changing the bandages became a 3-man job that I would dread for over an hour before the appointed time to make it happen with the assistance of one of her grandmothers.  Grandma would hold her tightly in her lap, while my husband gingerly pried her shredded fingers open and I sprayed and bandaged and taped as quickly as my inexperienced hands would allow.  Claire made sure to fulfill her role in this as well and would scream and thrash as much as she possibly could.  Each bandaging session left me feeling guilty for causing her pain, frazzled, and beyond anxious.  Luckily, after several days this process was downgraded from a 3-man job to a 2-man operation and now, finally, is one-woman gig.  (Lucky me).

Things looked like they were making slow but steady progress on most of her hand, but her 4th finger (the ring finger on her left hand, no less) just is not keeping up.  That poor finger got the worst of the damage, it seems, and has had great difficulty healing.  For almost a week I couldn’t even get a good look at it because she would not open her hand for anything, and when we’d force her hand open all the thrashing about prevented me from seeing much.  A few days ago she FINALLY started opening her hand on command, even patiently allowing me to bandage her up with only minor whimpering, and one part of her finger is still all gooey and oozy and fleshy and mangled and just…awful.  On Monday she began acting lethargic and feverish, and I panicked thinking infection had set in at last and called the doctor.

Fortunately, the doctor didn’t seem as panicked as I felt and offered some good advice and prescribed an antibiotic to stave of what looked to be just the beginnings of a bacterial infection.  He did say, though, that while it looked like tissue was regenerating in the deepest part of the wound, it appeared there was still dead tissue stuck in there that needed to come out.  I’m pretty sure I lost all color at that point, because he quickly assured me I wouldn’t have to scrub it, for heavens sake, but we still would need to care for it.  He suggested wrapping it in regular gauze as opposed to the non-stick kind, allowing it to dry and stick to the wound, soaking it in water and then taking it off in an effort to remove the dead tissue with it.  My stomach immediately knotted up and I wanted to positively beg him to take my daughter home with him for the next 3 days so he could take care of it, because I was done.  I could NOT intentionally cause my daughter any more pain.  No no no no no.

The unfortunate thing about being a parent is that you cannot simply drop your child off with someone else when the tough stuff happens.  You now must be the hero.  I remember reading an article once in my pre-child days where the writer described his young child dealing with some sort of worm/parasite thing?  And for weeks when they changed a diaper, they had to search for the appearance of said worm emerging from his child’s bowels, and then pull the worm the rest of the way out.  (I really hope you aren’t eating right now.) As the author described it: “it’s a damn horror show.”  That’s pretty much what played through my head and provided some tiny bit of comfort as I drove home from the pediatrician.  I may have to rip tissue out of my sweet daughter’s hand, but at least I’m not pulling a worm from her butt.

That night, as I placed regular gauze on her hand I couldn’t help but shed a few tears.  My dear girl had been so brave, so long-suffering and upbeat through this whole ordeal and still had a ways to go.  I was so proud of her.  How could I possibly inflict more pain on her?

Happily, this gauze treatment has been relatively smooth sailing.  We have to get pretty creative with ways to get her hand wet, since she still doesn’t like doing that, but she has tolerated the bandage changing like a true gem and it looks like we’re making progress.  Hopefully a couple more weeks and everything will be back to normal.

So, let’s recap what we’ve learned here:

1.  Treadmills and young children do not mix.  AT ALL.

2. Don’t put regular gauze on an open and oozing wound immediately after it happening unless you want to make the situation 100 times worse.

3.  Dora The Explorer band-aids, in fact, DO make the owie feel a little better.  So do popsicles.

4.  Being a kid is tough.  Being a parent is tough.  But we’re all stronger than we think we are.

As for the good news…well, this post is long enough, don’t you think?  That will have to wait for another day

I love the idea of taking days to recognize our parents.  Good golly, I would probably die without my mom.  She’s always been so great.  I know I definitely needed her as a kid- depending on her for all my physical and emotional needs.  We were . . . → Read More: Mother’s Day]]> Did everyone have a nice Mother’s Day weekend?

I love the idea of taking days to recognize our parents.  Good golly, I would probably die without my mom.  She’s always been so great.  I know I definitely needed her as a kid- depending on her for all my physical and emotional needs.  We were always always always well taken care of.  The funny thing is though, even though I’m all grown up and on my own, I feel like I need my mom just as much now, especially because I’m a mother myself.  I don’t think I can count the number of times I’ve called her all in a frenzy, worry and anxiety weighing down my voice, asking how to best handle yet another mothering situation that I’m clueless about.  I’m so lucky to have such a wonderful example of both a mother and a kind, generous, righteous, and selfless woman.

This mother’s day was hectic yet nice.  My sweet baby girl came into my room bearing a gift bag, accompanied by a big smile and a twinkle in her eye.

“Here, mommy!”, she chirped in her tiny voice.  “I have a su-pwise for you!”

Good heavens, do I need any other gift after such a sweet visual of a darling little girl who is happy to please her mother?  Even with the exasperating negotiations and power struggles, just having her in my life is the greatest gift I could ask for.

As I’ve mentioned in the past, sometimes the Internet makes things so very muddled thanks to the massive availability of everyone’s opinion.  Many in the world do not value motherhood.  Happily, many do and I think that more and more women are embracing it after the previous decades of trying to stuff it into a box labeled “family” and not letting the corporate world see it, lest a career be damaged.  Many recognize motherhood as being of the divine, and not merely limited to those who have borne children but extended to those who nurture all of God’s children.  I recently read and loved this article from Sheri L. Dew.  So many beautiful reminders for women, both those currently with and without children of their own!

One of the opinions that I’ve come across on the Internet is debates within my own faith about whether women are discriminated against and repressed because they do not hold the Priesthood.  In my heart of hearts, I have not felt that this is so.  But by feeling that way, am I falling prey to old-fashioned and incorrect notions and turning away from the feminist ideas that I am typically passionate about?  Despite feeling peace over the fact that worthy men hold the Preisthood and I do not, am I somehow wrong in this and should be outraged over gender inequality, as many other female bloggers are?  No, I don’t think so.  I think that if, as faithful women, we feel that way we are forgetting something vitally important about our roles on this earth and in heaven as well as our very natures.  Sister Dew puts it best:

“President Gordon B. Hinckley stated that ‘God planted within women something divine.^{‘ 6} That something is the gift and the gifts of motherhood. Elder Matthew Cowley taught that ‘men have to have something given to them [in mortality] to make them saviors of men, but not mothers, not women. [They] are born with an inherent right, an inherent authority, to be the saviors of human souls … and the regenerating force in the lives of God’s children.’ ⁷

Motherhood is not what was left over after our Father blessed His sons with priesthood ordination. It was the most ennobling endowment He could give His daughters, a sacred trust that gave women an unparalleled role in helping His children keep their second estate. As President J. Reuben Clark Jr. declared, motherhood is ‘as divinely called, as eternally important in its place as the Priesthood itself.^{‘ ”}

Some might say that Mother’s Day is a nice way to honor the woman who birthed and raised us.  The cynical might even say that is is just another ploy by retailers to con you into buying pricey cards and flowers.  Personally, I’d like to think of it as a day not only to honor the kind women in our lives and kiss the cheeks of the little ones who depend on us, but also to remember the divine calling all women have to nurture and lead God’s children home again.

Last weekend I got a flat tire that couldn’t be fixed, and since my car needed new tires anyway we had . . . → Read More: When it rains, it pours]]> I totally fell off of the NaBloPoMo wagon.  I was doing so well, too!  Oh well, there’s always next year.  This year a little thing called life got in the way, I’m afraid.

Last weekend I got a flat tire that couldn’t be fixed, and since my car needed new tires anyway we had to deal with the whole rigmarole of arranging driving and all that fun stuff until we could finally take my car in on Tuesday, which also happened to be the day that I was irrational and emotional, probably due to lack of sleep and hormones, and the hubby was the same way so that equaled out to some marital discord.

The previous night, Monday, all was going fairly well (except the car thing) and since the hubby had to pick me up from work he thought it would be nice for us to go out for a family dinner to my favorite restaurant.  We didn’t have a baby-sitter or anything, but figured Claire would be just fine and would enjoy getting out for a bit.  Everything started off great- Claire was happy watching all the people and playing with crayons and we were enjoying our salads and bread.  I look up from my salad to glance at Claire in her high chair and HOLY CRAP!  She’s spewing vomit everywhere! Not a sound did she make, nor was there any inclination whatsoever of her not feeling good.  But out of the blue she starts barfing copious amounts,which is a mystery to me, since she was still avoiding eating that day.

I grabbed all the napkins I could find, including ones off of other peoples’ tables in an attempt to catch/clean up some of the mess.  The poor girl is crying pretty hard now and we’re trying to figure out a way to get her to the bathroom without smearing puke all over ourselves, all the while pretending that all the other diners aren’t staring at us in horror.  I finally managed to escape to the restroom, strip her down, clean her up, and put her in the spare onesie in the diaper bag.  We hung out in there for a little while, just in case, and when I felt the coast was clear we headed back to the table.  However, the second I rounded the corner and approached our table…

“BLEEEEEHHHHH!!   WAAAAAAAHHHHHH!!!”

She barfed again.  Back to the restroom we went, leaving the hubby to get everything boxed up and in the car.  So much for the nice evening.  One of those things you put under the “WHY DO WE EVEN TRY?” category.

I do have to pause for a second though and mention that while I was in the restroom with my crying, half-naked, smelly child that I felt very grateful for the sense of camaraderie I felt with the other women in there.  None of them stared, none of the pretended to ignore us in the hopes of avoiding something unpleasant and uncomfortable.  Each woman that came through offered her sympathies and help and shared stories of when their child had done something similar.  It made me feel as though I was part of this network of mothers that understood and cared.  We didn’t really know each other, but we had an understanding of what the other had been through.  For some odd reason feeling as though I wasn’t alone in my struggles made everything easier.

So with Monday and Tuesday both in the crapper, the week was off to a pretty un-promising start.  More to come of the remainder of the week’s events…