I have a lot of friends whose children started kindergarten this year.  Most of them started weeks ago.  Many of them posted facebook statuses about how hard it was to let them go.  I empathized with them, and took a minute to think about my own baby boy going to kindergarten.  Then the weeks dragged by, and yesterday was finally Z’s first day of school!  Probably since he is not yet going to a new school with “big” kids, it didn’t feel like the huge moment that many people make it out to be.  Instead,  I felt excited, thrilled, etc., to be putting this summer behind us, and moving into the more predictable rhythm of school days. (I feel sure the tears will come next year when he changes schools!)

Z had a great first day.  When I picked him up, he said that it really wasn’t too much different than last year.  Then he told me that his good friend told him that he had the sweetest Mommy.  Aww.  Z was so proud and happy that his friend thought I was sweet, which completely made my day!

He was also the one in his class who found their snacks by solving a treasure hunt, so the day was definitely a success!

D is only going to school three days a week, so he was home with me yesterday.  I thought he might miss his big brother, but no.  As soon as Z got in the car, D told me, “Okay, now we are going to go do puzzles, watch one Little Einsteins, play train track, and then play Buzz.”  Wow.  I guess he has been waiting for his turn in line with me.  Poor middle child. I let him choose everything we did yesterday, but it might be tough when he realizes that sometimes I actually have to do other things besides playing.  Unfortunately.

My husband asked me (jokingly) the other day why I didn’t like him right now.  It was hard to explain to him that I was angry at him for all of the things he keeps doing in my dreams.  I have been having a lot of  bad dreams recently.  Most all of them have revolved around him.  I continue waking up feeling angry, frustrated, and hurt by him, for all of the ridiculous things he keeps doing.

Luckily, these are not things that my husband makes me feel in waking life.  He is the most wonderful, thoughtful, caring person I know.  I feel a little bad that my subconscious is working through some of the stresses of this summer by targeting him.

Thank goodness my husband is not the man of my dreams!!

(Although I have to say, my last dream involved someone stealing my husband’s iPhone, and he cried and cried.  He might actually be the man of THAT dream. )

Since having a girl, people have asked me how being a mom to a girl is different than being a mom to boys.  Up until now, it has really been very much the same (except for the abundant supply of adorable clothes in every store I walk into).  Lately though, she is doing things that are so fun, but so different than the boys.

First of all, this girl loves shoes.  Many times, I am getting her out of the crib in the morning and she is pointing at her shoes yelling, “shoes, shoes”, until I put them on her.  She also, at only 16 months, seems to have a fashion sense.  She likes to look at a pile of clean laundry, and seems to carefully consider everything before her before pulling one outfit out and trying to pull it over her head.  Needless to say, my boys are not so discriminating.

She has also started to love to play dolls.  All of my children have had dolls, trucks, etc., at their disposal, but in another show of the strength of nature over nurture, she is my first child that has had more than a passing interest in her dolls.  She already loves to rock them, feed them, wrap them in blankets, etc.

The last major difference we are seeing is her love of music.  I know this is not really a gender difference, but it is different between K and her brothers.  K LOVES to dance.  If she hears just a short tune on a commercial, for example, she starts moving.  She can also hum the entire tune to “Elmo’s World”, and “Twinkle Twinkle”.  Since this is our first time having a child who can do that, we might be a little bit too impressed with this talent.

My aunt told me that when she found out she was pregnant with a boy, after already having a girl, that my grandmother told her, “now you get to have both kinds of fun”.  I am so excited about beginning to see the other side of fun.

Life in our house is slowly turning back to normal.  K has her bandages off now, and she seems to be happy to freely move her hand again.  The boys have not talked about it very much.  D has proudly told his grandparents that everyone else was scared, but he wasn’t.  At the same time, his new favorite game has been to play “baby”.  Maybe he wasn’t scared (which I doubt), but I’m afraid that he was a little bit jealous of all the fuss over little K.  Poor guy.  Like me, he probably also thought his stitches would be one of the most talked about moments of the summer!

Z, on the other hand, has been so sweet to his little sister, and yet a bit concerned that we haven’t yet replaced the shredder.  Hmm, that will happen NEVER!!

We have almost 3 weeks left until the boys start school again.  I think we are all ready for the fall rhythm to start again.  I feel a little guilty saying that.  I feel like time just flies by, and I want to treasure these summer days with my 3 little ones.  At the same time, this summer has been long and hard, and some days are harder to treasure than I want them to be.

Here are some of the moments I DO want to hold on to:  

Z's favorite new skill- crossing the monkey bars

The water slide with no life vest!

D watching an inch worm in the mountains

K chasing her brothers

D and K longingly watching their brother play tennis :)

I just got back from meeting with the surgeon with K.  She closely examined all of her cuts, and said they look like they are healing well. They tested her fingers for range of motion, etc., and said that although she might be hesitant to use them for a while, they should be okay.

Her main concern is with one of the deeper cuts on the top side of her pointer finger.  She said that her nail will probably be deformed.  For a large part of our appointment today, she was saying that she thought we should go ahead and surgically repair her nail bed.  My heart dropped to my stomach as I imagined this poor baby in the hospital AGAIN with fresh pain in her hand.  Maybe it was the look on my face that made her say, “Well, we could be a little more conservative with her since she is so young.  Let’s see what happens over the next three months and then re-evaluate the need for surgery.”

Woo-hoo!!  I know I went out of there with a smile on my face.  If a deformed fingernail is the worst that K will have from this ordeal, I think we will be okay.  I will, however, go ahead and prepare myself  for her tears as she gets ready for junior prom and can’t have perfect looking fingernails. I think I will just hug her and say, “but thank God you have your fingers!”

We  just had a really great night.  One of those nights that I want to have burned in my memory forever so I can go back to the happiness any time.  It was a beautiful picture of all 3 kids happily dancing together to the music, each of them learning new moves from each other, and the smiles and laughter went on and on.  I loved it!

It was an evening that we have all been needing, I think.  K is absolutely doing great.  Her hand is still bandaged, but she gets around just fine with it.  She is sleeping well, and doesn’t seem to be in pain.  For me, however, my heart still aches, and sleep seems like a distant memory.

On Thursday, we will go to an appointment with the plastic surgeon.  They told me to expect 2 to 3 hours for that appointment.  They will re-evaluate her x-rays, examine the cuts, decide whether her fingernail needs to be removed, and she will be evaluated by a physical therapist for any nerve damage.  If, in any of these examinations, there is something surgical that needs to be done, that will happen on Thursday also.  My gut tells me that she is going to be just fine, and no surgery will be necessary.  Still, I will be glad when that appointment is over.

I want to say thank you so much for all of the support that we have gotten over the last few days.  It has meant so much to me to hear the encouraging words of so many people that we care about, not to mention the shared stories of the things that kids can get into.  Thank you!!  I will update again on Thursday!

For some crazy reason, I thought that D’s stitches would be the “big event” this summer.  I called that one wrong.

Last night we got back from 24 hours at the Children’s Hospital with little Miss K.  There is no nice way to put this. She got her hand stuck in our paper shredder.

Thursday afternoon I had just turned to my computer to download some pictures from my camera when I hear the paper shredder turn on and K start to scream.  I’m pretty sure this was immediately mixed with my own screams.  I got it turned off, but there was no way to get her hand out.

I think I was in a state of shock, but managed to call my mother-in-law to see if she could come get the boys, and when I told her what happened, she called 911.

I sat on the floor with K, both of us crying, while Z stood looking out of the window for the firetruck, also crying, and D ran back and forth between us trying to pat our backs and comfort us.  Our wonderful next door neighbor came by and got the boys right when the firetrucks arrived.

The firemen attempted to get the shredder off of her hand, but were obviously hurting her, so I kept yelling at them to stop.  They seemed frustrated with me, and told me they would just have to transport us to the hospital.  I said that would be just fine.

In the ambulance, I held K with one arm, and the shredder with the other.  We reached the hospital, and were taken immediately to a trauma room, where my husband met us.  There were approximately 20 people in the room; doctors, nurses, a chaplain, child life specialists, etc.  It was overwhelming, but I do remember feeling relieved that this team of people would figure out how to take care of my baby, and all I had to do at that point was hold her and comfort her, and let them do their jobs.  I was also reassured when I heard one of the doctors say to another, “Well, last time what we did was…”.  I was so glad they had had a last time, and I wasn’t the only one out there competing for the “worst mother” award.

The doctors assessed the situation, and attempted several things to remove the shredder.  These things didn’t work, so they had to call someone from the maintenance department to bring down a saw.  They attempted a small saw, which didn’t work, and then told us all to shield our eyes while they tried a bigger saw. (At this point K had morphine and something to calm her down.  She was still crying, but I don’t think she was in too much pain).  Luckily they had a sheet up, so Kaitlyn and I could not see what was happening with the shredder, or what her fingers looked like when they came out.

Her poor little fingers were smashed and badly cut.  Initially it was hard to tell how badly they were injured, but over the next few hours, and x-rays, we found out that there were no broken bones, and most likely her fingers would heal okay.

They kept us overnight to monitor blood flow in her fingers, and to give her antibiotics and pain medicine.  She really did great, the entire time.  Thank goodness for Elmo.  We watched, “Adventures of Elmo in Grouchland“, four times straight that night.

Of course, as a mother, there are really no words to express how terrible this was.  I was overcome with guilt that this happened to my baby, fear about the future of her poor little hand, and absolute anguish over my baby in pain.  Today these feelings are all still fresh, but I am also so grateful that she is really and truly okay, and that she is navigating her world with one hand and a smile on her face.

So happy to be home!!

Yesterday morning I was making lunches for the boys to take to day camp.  The little guy was helping me, apparently a little too well.  That night, my husband took out the cheese for some cheese and crackers.  Here is what he found:

Hmm, suspicious.

On another note, Z has been badly needing new sneakers.  He has always had some opinions on what kind of shoes I bought him, but these usually were, “I want the spiderman kind that light up”.  This time, however, he told me, “I want ‘Sketchers’.  They are SO cool!  They are on TV!!”.  Oh no.  I was initially taken aback at what a “mature” request this was.  Later, however, he made me feel a little better.  He told me that he was pretty sure that superheros wear light-up Sketchers, and that he was thinking he might actually be a superhero, he just hasn’t discovered his powers yet.  I was so relieved that he really is still five.  I bought the Sketchers.

Z has really been into bargaining lately too.  The most recent thing has been when he is wanting to watch TV, and I have said no.  He will turn to me and say, “PLEASE, Mommy!  I will say, ‘I love you’”.  Then he tries to up that with “I will say ‘I love you’ AND give you a hug!”.  Hmm, not taking the bait on that one.

For a long time now, my husband and I have joked that our little guy is going to be the one that we will be rushing to the hospital for stitches and broken bones.  He is just such a rough and tumble little guy with pretty much no fear.  Last night, we had our first chance.

The boys were running around the house after dinner while I was changing baby K.  My mother-in-law tells me that she and her siblings were NEVER allowed to run in the house.  We, however, have been somewhat lax about that, and generally if the kids are enjoying each other, we let them.  I may need to be more on top of that now, as the little guy tripped in the dining room, and cut his forehead pretty badly.

As soon as I heard my husband call my name, I knew it was not good, and ran in to see both of them covered in blood.  We jumped in the car, dropped off Z and K with Grandma, and rushed to the Childrens’ Hospital.

Luckily, everything seemed to work in our favor when we got there.  There was no one in the waiting room, and Toy Story was playing on TV.  D seemed to be starting to enjoy himself sitting with both of his parents while volunteers brought him crayons and coloring pages.

We were taken back to a room quickly, and the little guy just sat quietly while they numbed his head, we waited, and they came back to stitch him up.  For a bad looking cut that had a huge amount of blood, it only took 3 stitches.

As we got home, a very concerned Z ran out to check on D.  D yells out, “It was SO fun!  I got a bandaid and a popsicle!” All in all, not such a bad day for a 3 year old.  Not at all a fantastic day for us parents!!

The last few weeks of school we started getting consistent reports from the little guy’s teacher that he is a “ladies man” at school.  One of his teachers’ quotes was, “he really knows how to take care of the ladies”.  She said that he likes to put his arm around them, walk them into the class, and “give them those big blue eyes!”.  Yikes, this guy is 3!  What are we going to have on our hands at age 16??

Shortly after this report, his teacher put him into the car and said, “Well, D was kissing today”.  Whoa.  I really wanted to laugh, but I also thought that I better take the mom role and tell him that kissing is not allowed at school.  I attempted to do that, and he looked at me in all seriousness and said, “I didn’t kiss her.  She kissed me.  I didn’t like it, and I did NOT smile.” Well, what is a guy to do, I guess.  I decided to let that one drop until the very next school day when I was told that he was kissing again, only this time a different girl.  Yikes.  Still, his story didn’t change.  ”Mommy, she kissed me on the head.  I didn’t like it”.

A short time later, D told me that this second little girl is his “princess”.  Oh my.

His two teachers told me they have a bet going that he will marry another girl in the class. I think this is mainly because he looks at her adoringly and does whatever she wants him to do.  What every good marriage is made of.

I think we are going to have our hands full with this guy…