My Kid Circus

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!