worried mama

I know that is part of our job description to worry as moms.  As soon as we have our children, before they have hardly finished their first cry we are already worried.  Do they look healthy?  Do they have all their fingers and toes?  To be honest, it starts before that, when they are growing inside of us.  What should I eat?  Is this safe?  Should I exercise or not?  We can pretty much drive ourselves crazy wondering and worrying over our children. 

Recently, as in the past eight or nine months, this little lady has been at the top of my Mommy worrying list.  You can hardly tell from the picture.  The sweet curls, the silly smile and laugh, and those piercing blue eyes.  They don’t give any strong clues to what we have been experiencing at home with Gracie.  I know I wrote recently about her rocking in her bed.  She rocks to fall asleep, she rocks in her sleep, and she rocks when she wakes up.  It is so hard to watch.  It is gut wrenching to walk pass the monitor night after night and see her on all fours in her crib rocking endlessly back and forth.  Sometimes it is quiet, sometimes she is fussing, and sometimes she full on cries while she is doing it.  We have video taped it, and showed it to the pediatrician.  At first he said that lots of children do rhythmic movement to fall asleep.  That this behavior could continue until she is 2 or 3.  But, now she does different things during the day.  She crawls across the floor back and forth and rubs her head along the carpet.  She seems to need/crave a lot of sensory input.  I still have a lot to learn about children’s sensory needs, so I am trying to gather as much information to help her with this. 

But, to add to our worries Grace really isn’t speaking very much.  I thought at first I was just comparing her to her amazingly chatty older brother and sister.  I kept telling myself, all children are different, she just might need more time, she has older siblings that is why she doesn’t talk much, etc. etc..

We have now reached and passed that big 18 month milestone and still the words are sllllloooowwwwlllyyy coming.  She may learn a new word for a week, and then it is forgotten.  She may use a word for two months, and then it disappears.  To communicate Gracie mostly signs for things she wants or needs. Currently she actively says Dada and this (when she wants you to label an object).  She just learned ‘down’ and ‘braaa braaa’ is her new little term for Bradley.  She has had and lost Hershey, night night, out, shoe, eyes, and a lot more.  But, mostly she signs…more, please, all done, drink, music, and most of the common signs. 

All of the sudden all of this concern and worry has come to a boiling point.  In the past two weeks we have had a hearing screening at the university, a formal speech evaluation, a visit from Early Intervention, and tomorrow we are taking her for an eye exam.  I am pretty much in mommy overload.  She qualified for speech therapy, so we will be beginning that next week.  We will also find out by next week if she will qualify for services with Early Intervention.  The representative felt that she would definitely qualify for some speech and occupational therapy services to help her with these sensory needs.

The speech therapist gave us some wonderful things to work with her on and we are trying to quickly implement them to help her asap!

Right now I am just treading water, hoping that we will get the right people to help Gracie through this bump in the road.  If I only had the crystal ball that said it was all going to be alright….

We Made It

I just need a moment to talk about this little and slightly big boy right now…

He is growing up WAY too fast.  Kindergarten is almost finished, only 8 more days left!  I am actually super duper excited to have him home this summer.  I am looking forward to playing at the pool, going to the library, and just giving him lots and lots of down time.  School is intense.  They are gone ALL week, and I am excited to have him around.  He is all sorts of fun, helpful, easy going, and just so sweet to be around.

He came home from school today all excited about this new website they played on at school today.  He kept telling me, “Mom, can we go to a,b,c,y,a dot com and play the games on there?  Please?!”  I had no idea what he was talking about.  First I had never heard of that website, and I wondered if he had gotten the web address wrong.  I told him we would look on the computer for it.  There is was… ABCya.com is totally and completely a website, and a really cool one at that.  He immediately wanted to play the first grade games online. 

“Mom, I need to know what first grade is all about. I need to practice the work I need to know for first grade.”

Ummmmm, ok?!  It is sometimes shocking when you put in years and years of child rearing and hard work.  you wonder, am I doing enough?  do I give them each enough time and attention?  Then they haul off and do something that to them just seems like a minor comment or a fun activity on the computer.  But, as a mom you see it differently.  You get a chance to give yourself a quick pat on the back.  Yep, I did some things right. This little boy loves learning, he loves school, and he is one motivated little kid.

What kid wants to already work on First Grade work with 8 days left of Kindergarten???

This little guy does!  The one who lost his front tooth last week and then lost the second one last night!!

Oh sweet happy boy, this proud mama cannot wait to have you home this summer!  The pool is calling our name!  I love you Bradley and I can’t believe that you are just a few days away from being a first grader.

Dinner Dates

These two monkeys bring me so much joy!  I took them out on a dinner date the other evening, and it was all smiles, silliness and giggles.  Ellie decided that she didn’t mind if her hair was a mess.  No need for a brush or a pony tail.  So, we hopped out of the house and let Daddy put Gracie to bed.  We ate at the kids favorite little place, Otto’s.  The menu consists of quesadillas and hot dogs.  What more could a kids ask for??

After dinner they took turns passing the ipad back and forth while sipping on strawberry milkshakes and ice cream with sprinkles.  It is all of these little moments that you hope don’t pass you by.  The giggling, the random sticker on her dress, the tongue rolling six year old that thinks he is hilarious, and the little sister that thinks that tongue rolling is just as funny.  These are the moments.  The small ones that matter.

The big moments are just as special.  But there is just something magical about a normal Wednesday night and dinner at their favorite little place in town. 

Summer is right around the corner.  Kindergarten is ending in just a few weeks.  Soon I will have a first grader.  I really can’t even say the words.  It is just absolutely terrifying how quickly this year went by.  School, bus pick up and drop off, lunches packed and eaten, snacks to be made, library books to return to school, show in tell to bring each week.  The week is so packed full of “to dos” that you forget all of the little things that happened in between.  And how little time I have with Bradley each week, makes it fly by even faster.  I am so looking forward to having him around this summer.  I have missed him so much.  But, first grade, really?!!

Somebody pinch me, it is going so fast already!

The Best of Charlottesville

We might just live in the best place on Earth.  Really, it can be magical. 

It all starts with where you live.  Our neighborhood might just be straight out of a different era.  We have camp outs and cook outs, movie nights, and 5k runs.  Halloween bashes, and Christmas carolers.  Our pool overlooks the Blue Ridge Mountains, and there is so much beauty right in our neighborhood.

campouts…

 

pool play dates with a view…

strawberry fields just minutes behind our neighborhood…

Another little gem of Charlottesville is the wineries.  There are many of them just begging for a visit.  Two of my friends put together a winery tour a few weeks ago.  We hit up some new spots (for me) and had a lot of fun in the process.  We ended our wine crawl at Blenheim Vineyards which was designed by Dave Matthews.  We managed to get a group shot with the beautiful view in the background.  Amazing day!!! 

The best part of this wine tour adventure was the lack of seats in the passenger van.  The previous van renters must have removed the seats to pick up some cargo or furniture.  Well, we unfortunately didn’t inspect the van very closely when we picked it up…..SOOO we all took turns riding in the back of the van between wine stops.  Part hilarious and part car sickness.

Rachel, Fotini, and I hanging out in the back of the van…

We also visited Pippin Hill Farm, which was absolutely breathtaking!  I really want to go back again with the kids and take a picnic.  (check out the pictures on the website, stunning!!)  In the middle of our wine tour we went to the new Trump Winery.  It was recently purchased by Donald Trump (duh) and it was really fun to get to visit there and try their wines.  Very yummy!

I had to grab an action shot of people loading into the back of the van between stops.

I really think we might just live in a little slice of heaven.  So many fun places at our fingertips.  It was a great day with friends and I can’t wait for another girls winery tour!!

what NOT to do during a nature walk

I really have so so much to share.  Family stuff.  Girlie Fun.  Gracie updates.  But, I have been stuck for a few days in technology hell.  I have been trying to switch my main email account for awhile now, but just haven’t had the energy to face getting everything changed and set up. 

Well, I decided that it needed to be done.  So five hours later, I finally have my new email working.  Whew.  Why did it only take 2 seconds to change on my iphone and several HOURS with Chris and I both looking at it in Windows Live Mail to get it working on my PC??  Once you can’t send outgoing messages for a few days, you quickly realize how much we rely on technology to communicate. 

On to more important things, like our spring adventures and nature walks.

We decided to go on a little adventure the other afternoon.  It was one of these beautiful spring afternoons that is just begging you to step outside, take a deep breath, and get excited for summer.  We love to visit our neighborhood creek and wooded area.  When we were down there finding sticks our neighbor told us about some standing water that had hundreds of tadpoles.  After going to look at them with her, we decided to head back there again with our buddies, Evan, Max, and Molly. 

 

Bradley really wanted to bring back some tadpoles to our house.  I wasn’t too thrilled, seeing as we just got done releasing our butterflies and I can sometimes hardly keep up with our dog.  I told him to bring a small container and we would take just a few home.  As you can see from the photo there were hundreds of tadpoles (all of these little black dots are tadpoles!!!).  I actually caught a picture of Bradley doing the WRONG thing.  He collected so much mud and barely enough water for our little tadpoles.   Needless to say our tadpoles were dead when we arrived home!! 

After a huge crying session Bradley and I headed back out to the small pond at 7 pm to collect another batch of tadpoles.  We made a much larger aquarium for them, and I used a net to get them out this time!!  All is right with the world, and we now have 9 tadpoles in our new, very large aquarium in the basement.  I figure it can be a part of the preschool this fall too! 

I am sorry that I am truly a city girl at heart sometimes.  Who knew that tadpoles would drown in lots of mud??

This is our second attempt at a temporary aquarium….not bad!  

Talk about multitasking….Here is Sarah getting tadpoles with a 12 month old on her hip, her six year old supervising beside her, and Max deciding if walking in the mud is a good choice.  Oh, life with three!! 

This little family has become some very special friends.  Not only are our children pretty much the exact same age, Max (her three year old) is going to be in my preschool this fall, and Sarah used to teach Kindergarten too.  Sometimes you just meet a mommy and you know that you are kinder spirits, and going to be life long friends.  Thanks for joining us Sarah!  She of course has a blog too Live Laugh and Learn, and wrote about our adventure here… 

Thanks for joining us Sarah! 

After our tadpole collecting we took the kids to the creek.  That didn’t go as planned either.  Bradley was holding Ellie’s hand while they made their way into the very shallow, but FREEZING water.  You can pretty much guess where this is going…

Bradley falls while holding Ellie’s hand and Ellie gets dragged into the freezing cold stream too.  I was proud of them, Bradley laughed it off, and Ellie didn’t get too bent out shape.  Grace was going crazy, because I was wearing her in the Eurgo and she wanted in on the action.  Not long after our spills I called it quits.  I slowly walked home two dripping, freezing children, and a screaming toddler in the Eurgo.   

Unfortunately this is what a lot of my mornings and afternoons look like lately.  Grace crying uncontrollably over something.  Anything pretty much.  The above photo was her crying because I carried her out of the bathroom in the basement.  She kept going in there and closing the door on herself and then getting upset because she couldn’t get out.

After three children I still have no clue about the mind of a toddler.  none.

I pretty much covered what not to do on a spring adventure. 

Don’t…

Don’t drown your tadpoles in mud, it makes Kindergarteners cry. 

Don’t let your kids going into a freezing creek while they hold hands with each other. 

Don’t wear your toddler near the creek.  She will scream at you to get in the water, and go crazy when you don’t let her.

Do…

bring a friend, it always make adventures with three kids more fun.

laugh at yourself.  parenting is a humbling experience. I am constantly reminded of this, and how I often don’t know what I am doing.

bring a really big container to collect tadpoles, and a net.  They won’t drown in mud and then your children will be happy.

lessons learned.

Head Banging

No, I am not referring to my love of rock concerts here. 

I am talking about my sweet AND not so sweet 18 month old toddler Grace, and her affinity to rock back and forth while banging her head on her crib slats.  Yep, you read that right, we have a head banger in the house, and she is stressing this mama out.

Just looking for this picture makes me a bit sad.  I almost forgot how sweet, soft, and cute this little mama once was…

Grace has been a topic of conversation between Chris and I more and more in the past few months.  Right around 9 or 10 months we noticed that Grace would rock back and forth in her crib.  Many babies do this when they are learning to crawl, it is a very normal stage of physical development.  Well, long after she was crawling and even walking Gracie continued with her rocking habit.  We would catch her down in the basement rocking back and forth into Bradley’s big bean bag chair, and in other weird places and moments around the house. 

Right around her one year well visit I spoke with our amazing pediatrician about this weird rocking phenomenon.  I have never had a child do it this much.  Chris still insists that Bradley did it some in his crib (I don’t remember that….).  The doctor told us to tell her to stop if we “caught” her doing it outside of the crib, but lots of babies body rock, head bang, and do lots of repetitive movements at night to comfort themselves or to fall asleep.

It seems that in the past few months the rocking has become more and more of a habit.  Grace does it when she is falling asleep at night, right when she wakes up in the morning (until you get her up out of her crib), she does it in her sleep (I have thought she was up from a nap because I saw her rocking, only to come into her room and find her fast asleep), she does it in the middle of the night (Chris will be up late working and check the monitor at 11pm or 12am and see her rocking back and forth).  The head banging is so loud, even though she is bumping the top of her forehead into the bumper on the crib, that you can hear it in the kitchen which is right below her room.

Bradley and Ellie would wake up in the morning or from a long nap and babble, talk, call for mama, play with their lovies in the bed, etc.  The first thing Grace does when she wakes up is head bang and body rock.

It is really one of the most disturbing things to watch as a mom.

She now only does it outside of the crib if she is throwing a tantrum or gets in trouble.  She was throwing a fit right before her afternoon nap, and I was warming up her milk in the microwave.  Grace was crying and rolling around on the floor, found the wall, lined her self up and started banging her head into the WALL!!!!!!!!!!!

It is so upsetting to witness.  Of course I ran right over to her and stopped her by picking her up and consoling her.  I have done a lot of reading about body rocking and head banging in the past few weeks.  Apparently it is extremely normal and up to 20% of babies do it at some point or another.  Some children will do it until they are 2 or 3 years old (Lord, help me!!).  They will do it to fall asleep, while they are sleeping, and when they are in their cribs.  Many infants find the repetitive movement comforting and similar to being rocked in a rocking chair. 

Unfortunately these aren’t our only concerns about this little one.  She isn’t talking much.  By that I mean she really doesn’t talk at all.  She communicates extremely well with gestures, pointing, screaming, and a few signs (more, all done, and please).  Grace probably has a total of 12 words, but doesn’t use them in her day to day life.  She said the word “Hershey” our dogs name, for probably two months, long before her first birthday, but then we haven’t heard it since then.  She consistently says, mama, dada, and night night.  Many words have come and gone.  This is so much different then our first two children as well.

We are in the process of doing a regimen of ear drops to try to clean out her ears (apparently they are extremely waxy).  Then we are going to the doctor this week for a look to see if she has any fluid build up.  It is my intuition that she cannot hear very well.  She is REALLY REALLY loud.  She can bring down the house with her screeching and crying.  I get the feeling that she almost doesn’t hear herself or realize how loud she really is. 

If her hearing seems to be alright we are going to move forward with some speech intervention this summer.  The doctor insists that she is still well within the “normal” range for a toddler her age.  But, some of these factors have me worried.

All of this has really come to a head in the past few weeks because of her frustration levels, her attachment to me, and her head banging during the night.  We have had a few REALLY ROUGH nights with Grace in the past month.  It started with the molars coming in, and Chris and I popping in at night to give her some Oragel or Tylenol.  Then these episodes escalated and only I could get her back to sleep.  Then if I left her in her bed, she would head bang to the point of exhaustion, screaming her lungs out (you really have never heard anything like it), and get herself so worked up that Chris and I were in tears too.  I would have to get her out of bed, give her milk, or rock her to get her to stop head banging and body rocking. 

I really feel like I am a “seasoned” mom.  I have done this two times before.  I have sleep trained babies and infants.  I have two other kids will a full set of teeth that never did this much crying to get my attention.  Gracie is so dominate and only wants me.  It isn’t cute or endearing, at this point it is exhausting.  Chris tries with her, but she doesn’t make it easy.  She once cried so hard for a babysitter that she vomited her bottle all over her bedroom.  The poor babysitter that watches her while I volunteer in Bradley’s classroom finally has a great relationship with her, but it has taken almost a year.  The first time I left to go to his school I could hear her screaming from the road while I got into my car to leave.  The screaming is on another level. 

I guess I am writing all of this for a few different reasons. 

One to vent.  It has been a tough few months. 

The second to remember.  Hopefully when she is heading off to Kindergarten this will all be a distant memory. 

Thirdly, I want to remember all this someday when my kids are older, or they are having their own children.  Times with three are tough lately.  It hasn’t been as hard as those first newborn days, but it hasn’t been easy either.  I have been worried about her, concerned, and exhausted by her at the same time.  My Dad was over helping one afternoon and it was a nut house while I was trying to get everyone down for nap.  Kids were cranky and whining.  I asked my Dad if he remembered my sister and I like this.  He said, you just don’t remember, you forget a lot of it.

I don’t want to forget the hard parts.  Motherhood is a journey.  There are amazing moments and many times when I know I am doing exactly what I am supposed to be doing with my life.  But, there are also lows like everything.  I question my abilities, my confidence wavers, my enjoyment for the day to day wans when times get tough.  I know these hard parts make us cherish the good moments even more. 

Right now, I am just hoping for a little less head banging and toddler screeching.  And a little more peaceful sleeps with some happy toddler moments squeezed in during the day. 

Mostly right now I am just saying a little prayer that all is well with Gracie and we will come out of this on the other side soon.  Right now I am just one worried mama.

Glammed Up

Chris and I were excited to get dressed up for the Big Gig two weeks ago.  It isn’t very often when you are mom that you get a chance to don a tuxedo and your best dress.  In true crazy style we had the most hectic day with ballet, t ball, chris has two sales appointments for work, and I took Bradley to a birthday party in the afternoon.  It was a small feat to get the children settled and us showered, let alone in fancy clothes. But, we made it happen!

It was a fun night out for a good cause.  All of the proceeds went towards the local Boys and Girls club in our area.  We got to drink, eat a yummy dinner, and get entertained by Terry Bradshaw and Howie Long…

I was trying to just snap pictures with my iphone and they are hard to make out our celebrity hosts.  We lived it up, if only for a night.  Good friends…look at these boys!

The amazing Jessica and Wes!!

It is always fun in the moment and then the aftermath is never pretty.  Gracie woke up at 6:15, screaming for us in her crib.  I came down later to relieve Chris and I found him curled up on the couch downstairs, the basement trashed, and Ellie playing a triangle instrument over and over again in his ear. 

It is fun to do once in a while though!!  Until next time!