Reflux 3.0

Ugh. It's not what it sounds like. The title, I mean. It is, but it's different this time. Let's back up. Once upon a time, Ellie got potty trained. If I had written a post about it last year instead of this year, I might have titled it something like, "Riding the Potty Train," (which she asked to do several times) or "Every Party Needs a Pooper," or even a simple, "Potty Party!" (Man, just totally stole my thunder for if I ever write a post about Charlie potty training.) Because with Ellie, everything kind of has to be a party to really get her motivated.

We had to turn potty training into a party because my first attempt to even get her started turned out like this: 

I thought I had gotten her all psyched up to start potty training, but I guess the whole idea of underpants after the security of diapers was a little overwhelming. So our compromise was that she could have a pair on the top if she would also wear a pair on the bottom.

It seemed to take, for a while. If she had an accident and needed a clean pair, she would usually get a pair on her head too, explaining to me, "I'm just being a pirate, Mommy." But she had a pretty rough time of it. In retrospect, starting potty training so soon after our move away from Grandma and Grandpa's house probably didn't help matters. She was losing sleep over it, getting bags under her eyes, anxious beyond what I'd seen her. So I went against the expert advice and decided we'd take a break.

We hit it again a few months later with everything we had. I mean a real potty party, with real party hats to wear. This was an EVENT.

 If there is one thing Ellie will respond to, it's a party.

Balloon party in her tent bed at the time. I think Charlie is in there somewhere.

 Big celebrations all the time.

 All kinds of drinks gatorade and other drinks, which she insisted on having a little bit of all of all the time.

 And of course we had to have a sticker chart. Ellie didn't really get into the whole fill up a grid with stickers and get a prize (totally responds to that now). For her, the sticker chart WAS the prize. She was really into surfing at the time (don't ask me where that came from), so I made this poster and we printed and cut out these surf boards that she got to put up every time she was successful. And lo and behold, she hung in there, and we hung in there, and (eventually) she got it. Huge sigh of relief!

So hooray! It's over! Except it wasn't. Isn't. Still potty trained. But then about the time she really had it nailed, she started complaining about it hurting when she went to the bathroom and she had more accidents. Doctor confirmed a urinary track infection, gave some antibiotics, and we were set. Accidents cleared up, and so did the pain. But she kept getting them. I honestly don't know how many she's had at this point. Right now we're treating the third one since Christmas. We tried to do everything we could to prevent them. Making sure everything was really clean, no bubble baths, drinking extra water, no more pull-ups at night, cranberry juice, etc. Nothing was helping. 

Finally her pediatrician ordered some tests that we had done a couple days ago. Ultrasound of her kidneys and x-ray with contrast (that was a really rough, painful one, Ellie was so tough!). It turns out that when her bladder empties, a little bit flows back up toward the kidney. To put it another way, she has reflux. Again! I'm really starting to hate that word. We'll meet with a urologist next week to see what treatment this will entail, and whether it's something that will need correction or she's likely to outgrown.

So this, and not any extrinsic factors, is what's causing all the infections. Also probably made it pretty hard to get the hang of potty training. Sheesh! Way to hang in there kiddo! Sometimes she would really get sad about having an accident or setback, but she really learned to stay calm and keep trying. Pretty big lessons for such a little kid.

This is a picture of her about that same time. Mindy came to visit and caught the tail end of potty party. Ellie liked wearing her boots. I seem to remember her calling them "happy boots."

This Christmas greeting is NOT late . . .

I know it seems like I'm way behind on blogging, and I really am, but I am NOT too late to send out a little Christmas card.

I know, most of you have probably already packed up the decorations, put away the treats and presents, moved on with the new year's resolutions, all that jazz. We kind of stay in holiday mode until school starts again for Brady, which is tomorrow, so we haven't caught up to all you productive people yet.

And seriously, who can't even get it together for a measly electronic card? It's not like there's any postage, envelope stuffing, address gathering, or mail delivery timing to factor in. Seems kind of pathetic, I know. (You can see that Charlie is clearly disappointed in me too.)

Well, one of these days (or over the period of several days) I will get caught up here (I'm not letting go!), and tell you all about our busy (and sick--blech) season. But I will not excuse myself for being late here. Because I'm not. Did you know that it is technically still Christmas time? Or Christmastide, I should say. You know that song, "The Twelve Days of Christmas"? It's not about the 12 days leading up to Christmas. It's about the days following Christmas. True story. Look it up. Or don't, since I just told you. Tonight is the twelfth day of Christmas, or twelfth night. Tomorrow is the feast of Epiphany (so everyone be brilliant). We technically only celebrate the first day in our culture these days. So there you go. I totally just enriched you lives and maybe just helped you out if you're ever on Jeopardy! You're welcome. Merry Christmas. Hope you all had a lovely Christmas and a happy new year. We love you all.

There. Mission accomplished. And here is a special, happier greeting from Charlie. It's not his best rendition of these phrases, but it's what we caught on film on Christmas Eve. We worked so hard on it all month (since his "Happy Thanksgiving" came out sounding more like "Happy Pig-skin!"), and he was usually a pretty good performer for us, except, of course, when the camera was on him. Here it is anyway.



VID 20131224 205529 from Annalisa on Vimeo.



P.S. I promise we didn't torture Charlie with Santa Claus. He sat on Santa's lap for all of maybe 15 seconds before we rescued him. But I couldn't resist the pictures, which were taken in very quick succession (and, boy, that Santa was a pro). Ellie was so thrilled when Santa showed up at the end of our ward Christmas party, she pushed her fingers up into her cheeks, smiling really hard. I asked her what she was doing, and she said, "I just don't want my smile to go away!"

Halloween

I doesn't seem like I should be that far behind, but we have too many things happen in a row around here this time of year, so if I'm ever going to keep up, you're all just going to have to put up with a few posts too close together.

Halloween is one of the big markers of the year because Ellie knows that this directly precedes her birthday. So it is super exciting. I had so many projects with the house going on that I decided I wasn't going to really do a lot for making the kids' costumes. I outsourced Charlie's (thanks again, Mom) and Ellie's was supposed to be a super easy, no-sewing project that would have taken less than half an hour. Supposed to be.

She was going to be a pink ninjago (think lego ninja). She was all excited to be this since that's what a bunch of her cousins were going to be. They are all really into this show, and when we visited last summer they all wanted to have Ninjago ("ninja-cago") parties at Grandma's house. Ellie loved it and was totally all about learning spinjitsu and everything. So about five days before Halloween I decided I ought to get her costume together. When I tried to do the hood part (using a long-sleeved t-shirt--I practiced with one she already had before I went and bought a pink one for the ensemble), she sort of panicked. It looked right, but she was a little claustrophobic having everything but her eyes covered. So she started to melt down and didn't want to be ninjago anymore. Soooo, plan B. Then she wanted to be "Super Martian Robot Girl," which is a real character. I'm not making her up. I asked her months ago if she wanted to do this for her costume, mostly because I loved hearing her say "Super Martian Robot Girl." It was all she wanted to be suddenly. So, off to the store to find fabric and figure out how to fashion a costume. To look like this:

No big deal. She's a great character. Other characters in the comic will be in distress because, say, they will be having a dance party and no one is dancing (yikes!). They will whine, "I need Super Martian Robot Girl!" and she comes, declaring, "Here I am to help!" Then she solves everyone's problem by pointing out that no one is dancing because there is no music, gets some awesome music going, and everyone is super excited again. She has a great theme song too.

Yeah, it's okay. No one else knew who Ellie was either.

Charlie was Pocoyo. Charlie looooves Pocoyo. Another obscure cartoon character. This one is very accessible on YouTube, do yourself a favor and find it on there. So charming. Little British baby who lives in this simple world with a duck (Pato) a dog (Lula) an elephant (Elly) and bird (Sleepy Bird) and narrated by Stephen Frye. Charlie adores these little videos. He jumps up and down, talks to them, laughs and is just overjoyed to see these little guys. Ellie likes them too.

No one knew who Charlie was either. But they all appreciated his efforts to say "Trick-or-treat" and "Thank you."

Charlie hates hats, but when he saw that he was Pocoyo, he went with it.

Super Martian Robot Girl also has a mask, but I guess a painted paper plate with large holes cut in it is not as scary as lots of fabric around your mouth. Either way, she kept it on all the time she was in costume.

Pretty excited about the green hair. The gloves and boots are shiny duct tape and velcro.

 Unfortunately, probably the best shot I got of Charlie's full costume.

 Not sure what she's doing here. Possibly a '4' since it's almost her birthday. The green is not as bright in the pictures for some reason.

Just ready to go already. Nice warm fleece costumes for a cold, drizzly Halloween night.

Speaking of bad weather, we found out at the last minute that we were supposed to have costumes for one of the events we went to. Not eager to spend a ton of time or any money on more costumes, this is what we came up with: struck by lightning. Mostly inspired by the old, broken umbrella I found in one of the boxes I recently opened up. To really get the fried look I just washed my hair and did nothing to tame it. Also, no covering the dark circles under my eyes to add to the dark, sooty look. Apparently all my grooming efforts are to try to make me look NOT electrocuted.

Saying Good-bye to Autumn

I've noticed that lately the kids have been living from one countdown to another. It's how their small world stays so exciting, I guess. Some are big events ("____ more days until Grandma and Grandpa come!"), some are small, but still generate big excitement ("_____ more days until we go to the doctor for flu shots!") Whatever milestone, big or small, we can look forward to, getting us out of our routine is exciting for a preschooler and a "tuggler" (toddler in Ellie-speak). A trip to the dollar store is an adventure, and a trip to the "humongous store" (Sam's Club) is epic. There's probably a lesson to be had in living life with so much excitement and optimism about the future. For me, though, it's usually just another enticement to hold over their heads to get them to behave ("Uh-oh. We better brush teeth and get jammies on if we want the baby-sitter to come play tomorrow . . .").

Usually it's Ellie doing most of the countdown. Charlie is pretty content to just be along for the ride most of the time, and gets really enthusiastic for when we tell him it's time to get excited ("Let's goooo!" "Let's go car!" "Let's go dressed!" "Let's go 'side!"). One of the big events for Ellie's countdown this fall (aside from finally getting moved into the house) was a big party for employees of the university and their families. I don't remember the name of the place it was held, but you can imagine the build-up of excitement for this little girl when she heard there would be face painting, pony rides, games, candy, and so much more. Kind of made it hard to keep up the the anticipation for preceding events, like filling prescriptions or going to the post office, I think any opportunity to leave the house is still a pretty big deal for her.

For Ellie, the party lived up to the hype we gave it. Here are a few pictures of our day.

Any baby who wouldn't hold still very well got to be a cat. Charlie rubbed most of his face paint off within about 10 minutes and just looked like he had a dirty face the rest of the time, with a particularly dark smudge just below his nose that we decided was just a charming Charlie Chaplin mustache and nothing more.

 Ellie still talks about how the red canoe was too wobbly and is sure that if we try a green one next time it won't be nearly as wobbly.

 This is (ahem) "fishing." More experienced wranglers in the family, don't mock. Brady was pretty disappointed with this set-up, but there it was.

 Ellie would not touch the fish once it was caught.

  She did amuse herself trying to teach me to use the "hoopla-lupes." Probably the most fun was wandering up the hill to the farm and climbing with her on the straw bails. I think I don't take enough time to just listen to this kid talk, and talk, and talk. I told her about how I used to help on my grandpa's farm, how we had straw bails just like these, how I drove and tractor (which I think all went over her head, especially the part about me having a grandpa), but both of us just rambling together was fine with her. We tend to appreciate these warm-enough autumn days more and more around here, knowing that we're already living on borrowed time from the long cold winter day ahead.

More pictures of the kids not holding still

This time it was okay for the kids to move around in the pictures. That was the point. And the person taking them (Mindy) apparently knows how to deal with that in clean up. And used a real camera. So I guess there's a lesson in that.

As you can see, fall has flung. Is that how the saying goes? At any rate, it's cold and leaves are falling off trees. Anyway, we have already had several visitors to our new house (someday I will post pictures of that). Brady's mom came for a quick visit, and then my parents came and my sister Mindy came all in the same weekend. The kids were delighted and we loved being able to have visitors and people to distract the kids while we tried to get some things set up around the house.

Here are some pictures that Mindy took of the kids playing at the park between sessions of conference. Lots of leaf throwing. It's hard to walk anywhere with Charlie these days because he has to stop and throw leaves in the air. For a long time. (I've been meaning to thank Mindy for teaching him that . . .)

Hope you are all having a lovely Autumn.

Family pictures (but not really)

While we were all dressed up for the wedding, I thought it might be nice to get an updated family picture. So we found a nice spot out of the way before the reception and asked some siblings to help us out. I figured if they just kept shooting, we'd get one that works, right? I think I have well over 100 to choose from. Scrolling through them is like looking through those flip books we used to make in elementary school with stick figures in different position, and when you go fast it looks like they are running or dancing. Only this is the flip book of my children's wiggling and inability to look straight ahead. Eventually someone thought of getting bubbles out to get their attention. That was really helpful. So here's a small sampling. Which one goes on the wall?