Tuesday, August 18, 2015
My two little girls are growing up! Last week, I went to the park district to register Maddie for pre-school. It was a surprisingly emotional experience for me as I worked through the excitement of having a few hours of time alone with just Sarah while Maddie is at school and sadness as I realized that Maddie is becoming more independent and won’t always be by my side every moment. I know my job is to raise her up to go out into the world on her own, but I just didn’t expect her to be branching off so quickly.
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| We had a picnic outside the Park District building the day that we registered Maddie for school |
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| It was such a beautiful day, that I wanted to capture the moment |
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| I wanted to capture this cuteness, too |
Maddie turned 3 just a couple of weeks ago. We celebrated her actual birthday by taking a trip to Brookfield zoo. We had a lot of fun! Then we had cake and opened gifts back at home. Maddie wanted to blow out her candles so badly that after every break in the birthday song, she leaned in to do it. Haha! Poor Maddie didn’t know that we sing a million birthday songs!
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| "...Fingers in the frosting, blow out the candles...." |
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| My little lady on her 3rd birthday |
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| She loved watching the dolphins swim |
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| Daddy pointing out the monkeys to our 3-year-old. |
We also celebrated with a BBQ at Auntie Danielle’s house again this year. Danielle set up a couple of blow up pools and we had tons of food. Family on both sides came and we had just a wonderful time.
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| Celebrating 3 and 33 at the second annual joint birthday party extravaganza! |
And, it’s official, this three-year-old is potty trained!!! That was an experience… I must say that,thus far, potty training is my least favorite parenting duty. It was eight days of pure torture while Maddie figured out what to do. She would hold her pee as long as she could (for hours and hours!) and just when we thought she was about to burst, she’d hold it longer. We would wait with her next to the potty until finally!!!!!!! she would pee on the floor. right.next.to.the.potty. ::sigh:: I swore off having more children so I wouldn’t have to go through this three times, I was about to throw my hands up in the air and give up when, all of the sudden, one day, it clicked! Maddie was all of the sudden a proficient pottier. A few days later, she became comfortable going in public, too. and she has been doing outstanding ever since! We’ve had an accident here and there, but she’s a rockstar for the most part. I’m so proud of her!
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| Enjoying our time at the pool while it's hot. It's been such a short summer, but we were able to go a couple of times with Auntie Danielle and cousins, Menia and Brandon. |
It is just so fun to watch the different stages she goes through as she is growing up. Right now, she loves to role play with dolls. Her favorites are her Minnies and Mickeys and her pluto. She plays with them for hours pretending one is sad, and giving it a hug, or that one is falling and needs help, or they simply need to have “rest time” and get under their blankets. She also likes to have them go potty and “now they get a candy!” All day long, we hear, “Mommy? Daddy? Do you want to play?????” How can I say no to that sweet girl? She shares her toys well with Sarah, when she’s not trying to tip her over (hopefully this is a short phase), and I just love watching those two interact. They love to mimic one another and see who can scream the loudest. My poor ears.
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| Attack of the sister! |
Sarah, too, is growing by leaps and bounds! She is still a little girl at only around 17 pounds, but her brain is growing bigger and bigger every day! She repeats back new words all the time! She says “daah” when she sees our dog, Luka, and “dat” when she sees the cats. Her clearest first word, though, is “baby”. She was playing with one of Maddie’s baby dolls when I heard it slip out of her mouth and now she repeats it all the time. Last night, Phil was holding her and asking her to say all kinds of random words and she was actually repeating them (until I took out the camera, that is). And at Maddie’s birthday party, she said, “grandpa”! My favorite thing she does, though, is what she says when she is having fun. I first witnessed this at the grocery store. Every time I would start pushing the shopping cart from a stop, Sarah would exclaim, “weeeeeee!” She does it in the swing, too, or just when having fun in general. She really is a talker and an all around happy baby!
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| Oh, my heart. |
Sarah is so close to crawling. She is moving around really well on the floor by scooting, getting onto her tummy and pushing her self backwards and rotating in circles. She gets onto her hands and knees but doesn’t know how to move forward, yet, but it’s coming!
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| Smiley Sarah during our zoo outing |
And her fine motor skills are fabulous! She loves to self-feed and does a little baby sign language, too. she knows how to ask for milk, freqently tells me with her hands that she is “all done”, claps when I say, “good job,” and waves hi and bye. She also can shake her head, “no,” which is adorable because she kind of tilts it to the side when she does it, too. It’s super cute. It’s amazing how much she can comprehend and very apparent that she wants so badly to be able to move around and communicate with us.
So, another thing about Sarah, which a lot of people have heard about already, is her seizure a few weeks ago. It was the most terrifying experience of my life. She had fallen backwards from a seated position and hit her head on the tile floor, but we thought she was fine. The neurologist doesn’t think the fall was related, but still, it wasn’t long afterwards when Sarah started acting strangely. Phil was holding her in the backyard and her whole body began to slump over and she was staring off into the distance in a daze. I brought her inside to try to nurse her to try to perk her up, but while nursing her, she stopped and started to drool from the side of her mouth. She started staring off into the distance again, and that’s when her right leg started to shake. I just looked at her in confusion for a few seconds and that's when her whole body went rigid, her eyes rolled into the back of her head and my tiny 10-month-old little baby started to convulse uncontrollably. I was screaming to Phil, who was in the basement with Maddie, “Phil, Sarah’s having a seizure!” He ran upstairs, called 9-11 and the paramedics were there within minutes. As soon as they flooded my tiny living room, I started to cry hysterically. How could this be happening?! Sarah had stopped seizing by that point (it lasted about 2 minutes), and they checked her vitals which all were normal. They still instructed us to go to the hospital, though, which we did right away.
At the hospital, they checked all her vitals again and ordered a head CT to make sure there were no signs of trauma from her little fall. The CT came back normal, but I will never forget that experience, either. When I walked into the room with Sarah in my arms and saw the huge machine her tiny body would be put into, I broke down and cried. I just kept thinking, “we shouldn’t be here,” and, “I can’t believe this is happening.” I wanted so badly to trade places with her, but all I could do was comfort her. When they pushed her into the machine and turned it on, I laid my hand on her chest and sang quietly to her, “It is well with my soul,” we gazed into each others’ eyes with a peace and calm I have never experienced before. It was a beautiful moment to share with my daughter and remind ourselves through a hymn that God is with us through the storm.
Upon leaving the hospital, we discovered that we had hundreds of people praying for us from our church! It was so encouraging and overwhelming to see the amount of people reaching out to us and lifting us up to God. Such a blessing.
Since the one incident, Sarah has been acting completely like herself. We have had a follow-up with our pediatrician and the neurologist, which both went well, and we have an EEG test scheduled for early September, which will monitor Sarah’s brain activity to make sure there are no electrical misfirings going on. We are praying that the EEG is normal and that this truly was a one-time event.
In other non-children news, Phil and I celebrated our 10 year wedding anniversary this year! Danielle came to spend the night with the kids for us so that we could spend an evening alone. We stayed at a nearby hotel and ate over a pound of crab and lobster at Shaws crab house. We had a really nice time and are so grateful for Danielle’s gift to us!
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| Auntie sure is fun! |
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| Maddie after her Auntie and Menia slumber party (on her birthday, too). |
The garden isn’t doing super well this year… oh well. But, I am running like crazy! I did 17 miles this past weekend and will be running a 20 mile race next month.
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| After my 17 miler |
So, it has been an eventful summer, that’s for sure! Thank you all for your prayers and for being such an encouragement to us through our excitement and our turmoil. :)
