We never really had to baby proof for Ella. I think the only thing we had to do was put plugs over the power outlets. This was more of a precaution than anything. She never seemed to want to do anything dangerous. She never went in cupboards, she never pulled out drawers, and she never really messed with stuff like Andrew.
If I had hair – I would be grey … VERY grey! Andrew is into EVERYTHING!!!! Not too long ago, we bought those things for cupboards. You pull then out, then you have to push down on the plastic thing in order to open them. Yeah, he figured that out. So we literally had to add another lock on the front of the cupboards to keep him out.
Our closet in the bathroom has handles on the door that don’t need to be turned. All you have to do is pull on them and they open. Sam’s curling iron, hair dryer, my shaving stuff, the plunger, and many other things are in there. So, now we have a lock on that, too.
He knows how to open the bedroom doors, so have to lock them or put one of those plastic covers on the door knobs so he can’t get in.
He is really a brilliant kid. All he has to so is see something and he can mimic it. He knows the order of things. He knows where the dishwasher detergent goes – and he knows how to start (and stop) it. Thank goodness we figured out how to lock it when it is in a cycle. He knows how to start and stop the washer/dryer. Our water bill jumped a few bucks because he knows how to flush the toilet. He is so curious!
It really is true what they say. Ella was so well behaved that as parents you think you can tackle anything. Then that second child comes along and proves that you are in for a bumpy ride.
Ella used to eat pretty much everything we put on her plate. Now that she is three, she tends to be very selective about what she will eat. There are plenty of times when she will ask for a “staple” food and won’t eat it. It is frustrating.
Andrew on the other hand, surprises us daily by eating things we think he won’t eat. Yesterday, he surprised us by eating meatballs in marinara sauce. He loves to eat avocado with egg sandwiches (ok, he eats Sam’s sandwiches). Many times, he will eat his food and then come over and start eating off of our plate.
I don’t recall what it was this week that I gave Ella to eat, but she just wouldn’t even try it. I said to her, “Try it. You’ll like it!” As those words left my mouth, I remembered that as a kid I had a T-shirt that had those exact words on it.
My shirt was not bright yellow. It was grey and the lettering wasn’t so big. I wore that shirt so often. I remember being sad when it didn’t fit anymore.
I digress. As I told Ella to “try it” and I remembered that shirt, I remembered that those words didn’t sway me to try new stuff at all! So I was probably just offering her words that meant nothing! I suppose I am not very good at practicing what I preach.
Yes, I still am a picky eater. I have things that I just cannot eat. Sigh. I gave this to my daughter. Please don’t tell my wife.
If you are a parent, you know that your children are always a good source of stories to share. Here are a few of mine from the past few days:
Tea Party Gone Bad
While Andrew took a nap recently, Ella and I were in the living room playing with her Disney Princess Barbie dolls. She brought me the Mulan Barbie and she had her Moana Barbie. She sat them both across from each other and then grabbed a tea pot and tea cups. She set them in front of each doll. She then brought over this mushroom/muffin looking toy (she obviously thought they looked more like muffins). This is when things went awry!
I started to make Mulan (who she had given to me) drink her tea. I made slurping sounds and then did a loud fake burp. This made her laugh. Then I did it again. More laughter. Then I made really loud slurping sounds and the cup ended up on Mulan’s head. She started to do the same thing to her Moana. I was laughing just as hard as she was, especially when she was making her fake burp sounds.
Pausing Pap
Andrew has been using CPAP for over a week. Here’s the thing, it is supposed to help him sleep better. However, because of his age and the limited masks that he can use, the one he has works – when it stays on. Basically, mom and dad are the ones who aren’t sleeping now. Sam and I find ourselves pulling it back on his head or fighting him to get it back on. It is a struggle.
We e-mailed his doctor about it and we’re gonna take a break for a day or two to see if that helps. The good thing is that his apnea is mild, and we were only anticipating him wearing it for less than a year. The doc told us, if he lets us put it on – use it. If not – don’t.
All in all, whether he is rested or not, he is still giving us plenty of smiles!
Toddler Vocabulary Lesson
Ella did the cutest thing the other day. We had misplaced the TV remote and I asked her to help me find it. She reached he hand up to her eyes like she was looking through binoculars and said:
“Daddy, I can’t find the remote. I will have to use my ‘oculars’ and look for it!”
Hardest Part of Parenting
As a father of four children, I have taken each of them in for shots more times than I can count. There is always that look of, “How could you let them hurt me like that, Daddy?” after they get poked. It kills me every time.
Last week, Ella had her three year old well visit. We noticed that she is bruising very easily. She jumps around a lot and (as most toddlers do) bumps into just about everything. The bruising concerns us a bit, so her primary doc wanted to run some bloodwork to make sure she is ok. Sam was with her at that appointment and she was told she could just go next door to the lab to get the blood draw.
Ella was extremely scared and voiced that numerous times. I guess they poked her a couple times and could not get the draw. They were going to try to do the other arm and Sam said, “No, we’ll do it another day.” Ella had been through enough. So, today, it was my turn to take her to get it done.
I had picked out a short sleeve short for her, but she wanted to wear a dress. There were no sleeves on it and so the tourniquet the wrapped on her arm bothered her a lot. She sat in my lap and said she was scared. I did what I could to keep her calm, but after the first poke, she moved and wound up blowing the vein. The tech decided to try the other arm. In my head, I decided I would let them try one time and if they didn’t get it, we’d leave.
They found a good vein, got the poke and Ella and I took deep breaths and counted to 5 (over and over). That helped a lot! Once they were done and pulled the needle out, she was still crying, but she looked at the techs who did the draw and said, “Thank you.” They offered her a pack of graham crackers, and she was all better.
Hopefully, the test results will be normal.
Heavenly Visitor?
I’ve never been one to believe in supernatural stuff, but today something happened that made the hair on my neck stand up. I’m still scratching my head over it.
When I woke up for work today, Sam asked me what my oldest son called my mom (he is the only one of my kids who knew my mom before she passed away). I told her that he always called her “grandma.” She asked further, “Did he ever call her Grammy?” He didn’t. My ex’s mom was “Grammy,” but my mom was always “Grandma.”
I asked her why she wanted to know. She proceeded to tell me that Ella had said something to her today and when Sam asked her where she heard it (or maybe it was who told her that), she replied, “My Grammie in heaven.” So this peaked my curiosity and I asked her what else she had told her. She said something about princesses, but Sam and I think she was just talking about the princesses that we got for that Tonie.
The longer I sat in the living room drinking my first cup of coffee, the more I wondered about what she said. I have no pictures of my mom hanging in the house. I don’t have photo albums that we can look through. All the physical photos I do have are in a box and the rest are digital. For some reason, this really bugged me. So I took it a step farther.
I grabbed my phone and opened up my Facebook page. I went to the photo albums and found one that contains pictures of my mom. I pulled up one from before she got sick and opened it on my phone. I showed Ella this picture:
It had been a few minutes and I was sure she had already forgotten our mention of my mom. I asked her, “Ella, who is this?” Without missing a beat, she said, “My Grammie in heaven.” I was dumbfounded. I truly don’t know that Ella has seen but one or two pictures of my mom, yet she recognized her immediately.
When we found out that we were going to have a baby, my wife bought a special onesie that brought me to tears.
Who am I to question whether or not mom and Ella still talk?
The anecdotes in the blog today are a hodge podge of things that really wouldn’t work as a complete blog, so I thought I would just throw them together here in one. Please forgive the randomness …
Missed Milestone
Somewhere over the last couple weeks, I neglected to mark a milestone. I would have never guessed that I would post over 900 blogs when I started this site, but I have! Many of you have been here from the start and I thank you for reading. Thank you for reading about everything from diaper changes to my favorite movies and music. Thank you for listening to my many rants. Thank you for supporting the many changes my life has gone through and for your wonderful encouragement.
Maybe I have enough written to compile that book I have been meaning to write?
No More High Chair
Andrew has officially outgrown the high chair. I admit, it was nice to be able to put him in there and know that he would stay in one spot while he ate, however, it was time. So Sam and I brought out Ella’s table and now they can eat together. The above picture is in the middle of the living room temporarily while we rearranged the room.
We Got a Tonie
A funny thing happened this week. My wife was telling me, “I think I wanna get one of those Tonie Boxes.” I had no idea what she was talking about. She told me that it was like an Alexa for kids. You place this “Tonie” on the top and it reads books or plays stories. I had no idea what it looked like, but I pictured a small speaker with like a flash drive on it or something.
That same day – not 2 hours later – a box was out on the porch. My friend Margaret had sent the kids a birthday/Christmas present. I opened the box and I saw what looked like a package you might find a set of books in. Nope, it was a Tonie! My wife and I looked at each other in disbelief.
When I called Margaret so the kids could say thank you, I told her the story of our conversation and the arrival of her box. She couldn’t believe it. She told me that she saw it while walking through Meijer. She had no idea if the kids would even like it, and made sure to include the gift receipt in case we wanted to take it back. She included a few extra Tonie characters in the box and they kids love it!!
There are many Tonie characters you can get that tell stories and play music. You can even create your own content. If you have a little one, it is worth it!
Family Comedian
My daughter, Ella, is a constant source of laughter. Many times that comes at my expense. The following conversation took place this week:
Ella (with a hairbrush): Daddy, can I brush your hair?
Me: Baby, I don’t have any hair to brush
Ella: Yes you do!
I posted this picture on my Facebook and a friend commented, “Throw that brush away! She doesn’t want to catch the BALD!”
Parental Funny
I saw this posted on one of the Instagram pages I follow and got a good chuckle. ALL parents can relate to this!
My son, Andrew, has had a hard time sleeping since he was born. We took him to an ENT and they found that he had laryngomalacia. A sleep study was ordered and it showed that the laryngomalacia was leading to sleep apnea (That’s what the photo above is). This led to a minor surgery to try to correct it. I blogged about that here:
A few months after the surgery, Andrew was back in my sleep lab to see if the surgery had indeed corrected the sleep apnea. This time around, our pediatric neurologist wanted to check for seizure activity and muscle movements as well. The study results showed that the apnea got better, but hadn’t gone away completely.
My wife and I knew exactly what that meant – CPAP. We both have run many sleep studies on children and many CPAP titrations as well. They are not always an easy thing. I will be honest, I was not looking forward to running his CPAP study, anticipating that he was going to fight us all night long. However, to our surprise, he actually did quite well and slept most of the night.
Sam went and picked up his CPAP machine today. Before going on, I will tell you that the past week has been very difficult for us (more for her). They terrible twos are kicking in BIG time with Ella. Both kids have been a handful and hard to deal with. That being said, knowing that Sam was going to be the one to be with him for his first night at home with CPAP had me praying that all went well.
Sam said he cried for a little bit, so she put on Elmo. He calmed down and when she told him it was bed time, he laid down and went to sleep! She sent me this picture:
I couldn’t be more proud of my little C-Papper! What a champ! I know that this is going to really help him in the future. Hopefully, he will only need to wear it a few months.
I’m finally getting back into a normal routine again. Last week I had a couple nights off work for Ella’s birthday and all the days have been running together. Here are a few things I neglected to post about over the past couple days.
PAP for the Little Man
Last Wednesday, Andrew was back at the sleep lab. He has apnea and he was back to try CPAP. I can tell you it is difficult to get some adults to use CPAP, let alone a 15 month old child. My wife and I expected a night of hell! At first, it looked like that was going to be the way it was going to go. There aren’t many pediatric CPAP masks, and the one he started with seemed to really be bugging him. We collectively decided to try the only other mask we knew of, and it worked like a charm. He went right to sleep with the new mask and slept through the night.
We got the call today that his machine and mask will be ready on Friday. The doctors hope that he will only have to wear it for a few months. Fingers crossed.
Fruity Call
My best friend Jeff came over the other day. Sam and Andrew were both sleeping. Ella gets excited whenever folks come over. So she’s running around, hopping and hollering. Sam woke up for work and comes out and joins the conversation.
As we are talking, Ella grabs this toy banana, puts it to her ear and begins yelling, “Hello!? Hello?! I can’t hear you! I’ve got a banana in my ear!”
She repeats this over and over and each time she laughs harder at her joke!
No idea whether she heard this somewhere or she made it up, but it made us all chuckle!! She’s my little comedian!!
What Football Game!?
It’s funny. For years I always had a Super Bowl party to go to. Over the past couple years, I just watched it from home. Over the past few days, anyone I have talked to asked if I watched the game on Sunday. “No.” I had to reply. You see, when you have a three year old, you basically watch what she wants or you suffer with a melt down.
No. I did not see the game. However, I did get a couple hours getting to know Gabby and her dollhouse!
Yesterday, Ella celebrated her 3rd birthday. It was a pretty busy day!
She woke up and had a breakfast picnic. Her choice of breakfast food? A grilled cheese sandwich!
After I got home from a dentist appointment (that I should have cancelled), we piled in the car and we took a trip up to the Mid-Michigan Children’s Museum in Saginaw. We have a membership there and the kids always have a blast!
They have a water area like the Sloan Museum, but its a bit smaller. The kids still love to play there. They also have slides, a fake doctor and dentist office, a barn, lots of fake cars, and other neat science-type stuff.
The thing behind Ella is a wall of marbles. Both kids love it.
Not sure Andrew knew what this mirror was all about.
One of many cars the kids can play on. One of them sits next to a bank drive thru teller!
These floating balls are always fun to watch.
We went home and Ella got to pick what she wanted for lunch. We got dinosaur chicken nuggets and French fries and again, had a picnic before nap time. I think she was too excited about her birthday to nap, so her and I played out in the living room.
She is all about Disney Princesses, so we decorated in that theme.
She even had a princess cake!
Big brother Dante’ came over to have dinner (Pizza) and cake with us. Dimitri was not feeling well, so he stayed home. We all sang “Happy Birthday” and she made her wish and blew out the candles.
One of her presents was nail polish. Each bottle had a different Disney princess on it. The color of the polish matched the dress color of the princess. Well, we just HAD to have a spa day …
Mommy got her nails painted all one color. Daddy, on the other hand, got a different color for each nail!!
Dante’ left before he had to sit in the chair!
It was certainly a fun day for her and for us!
You may recall that we had some 3rd birthday pictures done. They came out so good! Beth, our photographer, always seems to catch the best pictures, even when the subject (Ella) won’t sit still!
This is the dress that Ella picked out for her pictures. This is one of my favorites!
She wanted a picture in her “Belle” dress, which is the dress that she wore for Halloween when her and Andrew went out as Beauty and the Beast. She also had to have her Tiana stuffy that my brother sent her in the picture.
She LOVES these rain boots, and they really do go well with this dress. I love the look on her face in this picture. Probably our favorite picture from the session is just amazing. Beth asked Ella to jump up and down like she was splashing in puddles with her boots ….
This is PURE Ella! What a capture!!
While I still cannot believe she is three years old, I am glad to have a platform like this blog to write things down so that she can look back at them and read them in the future. She has provided us with three years of amazing memories!!
Because of work schedules, it is not often that I get a night with the family. I swapped nights with a coworker because I had hoped to go to a daddy daughter dance with Ella. Tickets went fast and I was put on a wait list for that, and it never panned out. However, the program that is helping Andrew with his speech had a family night scheduled at one of the local museums, and we went there instead.
I hadn’t been to the Sloan in some time because Dante’ and Dimitri are older now. A couple years ago they had something on the ballot about funds for the Cultural Center area. I voted for it and it passed. So they put a bunch of funds into it and the newly opened Sloan Museum of Discovery was part of the results.
Thursday evening was our first visit there and the renovations are just amazing. They brought over some of the stuff from the old museum, but also added SO much more! Only parts of the building were open that night, so I hope to be able to go back and check out everything we missed.
There is an entire area of water play that the kids just loved!!
The water room was long with a TON of things to do. In the above picture, the water in front of the kids has smoke under it. When you turn the orange thing in front of that, the water turns off and the smoke rises. It’s actually very cool.
In the middle of the water is a little “Michigan” with trees and clouds to make rain. It is the little details that I was really impressed with.
Another new addition to the museum is a HUGE tree house. Both kids played in it, but Ella loved climbing up to the top!
One of the things that came over from the old museum was an ambulance. This one may have been a newer model than the old place. Andrew spent a lot of time in it!
All of the switches do something. Some turn on the siren, some turn on the flashers, some turn on the dome lights, etc. Andrew was just happy to be at the wheel!
Another things that came over from the old museum was a “car” that you can work on. Ella wasted no time tackling the battery on it!
They had crafts set up for the kids to do when we arrived. One of them was “marble painting.” You took a piece of construction paper and put it in a tray. Then you put drops of paint on the paper. Then you rolled a marble all over the place and the marbles “painted” the paper. They really came out neat.
They had a place to make friendship bracelets, but Ella saw the water room and that was where she wanted to be! At one point they gathered the families who were there into an area in front of the tree house for story time. They read a book and each kid got to take a copy home. Ella was angry that she had to stop playing for the story. All she wanted to do was run around and play. When we tried to get her to sit for story time – she dropped on the floor and it was obvious she was not happy!
I shouldn’t laugh, but this is my favorite photo from the night!
Her and I ended up walking away from the story and she played in the “store” at the museum. They have food items you can shop for and a cash register where you can scan items and pay for them. They also have a “post office” there where you can address envelopes or boxes. She kept very busy.
Andrew stayed for story time and they had some music to dance to afterward. It truly was a wonderful night out with the family. There is a planetarium nearby and I would like to take them there when Andrew is a little older. We are lucky to have such a cool place nearby!
The past week has been fairly typical. Nothing too out of the ordinary for me. There have been some nice highlights, however.
Sunday, we got a little snow. Sam promised the kids that we could go out and play in it. So we all bundled up and went outside as the snow fell.
Andrew LOVES being outside in the snow. He is a lot like his sister at that age. He tends to just be in awe of the snow.
Ella wanted to build a snow “castle.” We grabbed one of her sandbox toys thinking we could make bricks, but the results weren’t so good, despite the fact that the snow was a bit wet.
We attempted to build a snowman, but Andrew kept tackling it or picking up the snowballs to throw. Ella was in the middle of the yard and said, “Let’s take a walk, daddy!” So we did.
Andrew held my hand for most of the walk, but occasionally wanted to run up to Ella. She was happy to see her puppy friend, Louie. He was out on the porch (waiting to be let back inside!). She was yelling, “Hello, Louie! Merry Christmas!” It really was a nice little walk.
On Tuesday morning, Ella had her third birthday pictures taken. She won’t be three until the 10th of next month, but we got her in at our photographer friend. Sam and Ella went out looking for a dress and she actually picked out the one she wanted pictures in.
Sam asked her if she wanted to take her Elsa dress that she got for Christmas for an outfit change. She said she wanted to wear the Belle dress that she wore for Halloween. We may have gotten more pictures in that dress. Urgh!
The area got hit with a good snow that started Tuesday Night and continued through the day on Wednesday. Sam had a physical on Wednesday morning. She had to drive in the snow there and I was driving home from work in it. I met her at the doctor and picked up the kids so they weren’t running around during her appointment.
When we got off the expressway, we were passing the row of restaurants and Ella says, “Daddy? I would like chicken nuggets and French fries. I chuckled and said, “Baby, it is 8:30 in the morning. I don’t think they have any made this early.” She paused for a minute and then blurted out, “Are you serious!? Are you kidding me?” It was hilarious.
Having to stay indoors can be boring for the kids. So we took the “nugget” (which you can see on the floor to Ella’s right in the picture above) and built a mountain for them to climb and play on. I tried to get some pictures of them playing on it and I snapped a cool one of Andrew.
I wish it wasn’t so blurry, but I love him jumping up on there!
They have been at each other’s throats all week. The sibling arguments have been plenty. My wife shared a fantastic photo of them, today. Proof that they really do love each other!
I finished The Word is Murder this week. I really enjoyed it. I timed it perfect as the library emailed me to let me know that the author’s Sherlock Holmes story, The House of Silk, was there for me to pick up.
I just started that tonight. I will let you know how it is.
Later today, I have a follow up with my doctor. Blood pressure check/Medication check/Weight check. I’ve tried to be careful, but I know I have gone over my points more than enough times. I know I have put back on some weight since the holidays. I really need to get back on track.
I hope you are having a great week! The weekend is almost here!
I have never been diagnosed with OCD. That being said, I do tend to be a creature of habit. I tend to take the same way to work every day, I like my coffee the same way every day, and such, but I don’t think I am OCD. My books and DVDs are NOT alphabetized, crooked pictures don’t bother me, etc… There are, however, some things that take my anxiety through the roof.
I love my wife, but I think sometimes she suggests things that she knows will drive me crazy. (Side note: This is probably because I do NUMEROUS things that drive her crazy. She is WAY more OCD than I will ever be!) So let me give you an example of what happened this morning.
After breakfast this morning, she sat with the kids and I for a bit before going to bed. She received some text messages from Andrew’s speech people about things we could do with him. One of those things was to so some sensory games with beans or rice. She came out of the bedroom and went to a cabinet in the kitchen and grabbed a bag of beans.
She told me as she grabbed some Tupperware and cookie sheets what she was doing. She suggested I get a blanket or sheet to put down on the shag rug we have in the living room so they wouldn’t get stuck in the rug. She then grabbed a box of elbow macaroni and opened it. She said, “Ella will want to play, too.”
I put the sheet down and out came the beans and macaroni. Sam gave them a couple mixing cups so they could scoop from one Tupperware dish to the other.
It started out fine. Ella was playing with the macaroni and Andrew had the beans. At some point they swapped.
They also were good about just dumping from one container to the other … for a while.
I’m truly surprised that this photo didn’t catch the beans and macaroni that Andrew was throwing up in the air and all over the living room. (Side Note: Yes, he is wearing his sister’s underwear over his pants. She is potty training and he wanted to wear a pair, too. Does he look ridiculous? Yes, and I am happy if he is happy.)
Half the battle was getting Andrew to NOT eat the raw beans or noodles.
Slowly, but surely, the beans mixed with the macaroni and vice versa. My anxiety was at an all time high as I was trying to keep the beans and noodles out of the carpet. It was everywhere!
Eventually, they lost interest and got lost in a show on TV. When the alarm went off to tell Ella it was time to use the potty, I took advantage of her being off the sheet and wrapped all the beans and macaroni in it. I wrapped it in a big ball and put it in a shopping bag.
Hours later I was still finding beans and noodle on the carpet! I’m sure as a kid, I was making messes with stuff like this, but it was all I could do to not wrap it all up 10 minutes into them playing with it!!
I know my wife, and I am sure the beans and noodles will reappear sometime in the near future. I guess I will just wear socks when I am walking around in the living room ….
Various Ramblings of a Nostalgic Italian 