I'm calling Santa

I mentioned on Sunday that L has been such a three-year-old.  She has been such a little trouble-maker recently.  The other day, I spent almost the entire day cleaning up messes she had made.  She would dump an entire box of toys, and I'd be helping her clean it up, singing the clean-up song, and then realize she had disappeared.  I would call to her and then see her coming down the hall, giggling, rubbing her hands together.  She had gotten into the tub of vasoline, or lotion, or diaper cream.  Meanwhile, I have to hide my smile because she is so stinking cute while being naughty.

The other day, I am cleaning up our dishes from lunch and hear massive giggling from the other room.  I glance down the few steps and see L's hand flying wildly above Tessa who was laying on the ottoman.  Tessa was somewhat cowering, clearly unsure of what L was doing to her.

I turned off the water and headed to the other room, sure that L was up to no good.

And this is how I found Tessa.  With powder (anti-fungal powder we used to use around her gtube around, to be exact) all over her face and body.

I hope Santa doesn't see this post before Christmas!  L might not get any presents if she keeps this up.

Oh Luca - Redskins Edition

My child loves the Redskins.  We've known this for awhile.  Sure, she knows that I am a Skins fan and she had her first jersey when she was a wee baby.  But her love for them goes beyond what a normal 3-year-old typically has for a professional sports team.

She will spot the logo on a car from across the parking lot.  She sees cars with the Redskins flag on it and begins shouting and giggling.  When we ask her to go pick out her socks, she searches through her drawer to find her one pair of Skins socks.  If we ask her what she wants to wear for the day, she will pick out her jersey 90% of the time.  When the Skins are playing on TV, she comes running to the room with her hands up in the air, signaling touchdown.

Her obsession came to an all-time high last night at around 12:30am.  We switched her to a toddler bed over the weekend and she is doing beautifully with the transition.  She will get in and out of her bed and wander around her room, looking at books, rocking her baby doll.  All in the pitch black I might add.  But she does not leave her room.

I was watching her on the video monitor to see what she was doing (awake!).  She had been wandering around for over an hour and looking through books. Then I heard a thump.  I thought she may have fallen out of her bed.  But looking at the monitor, I could not see her.  I moved the camera around to see where she was.  I spotted her in front of her dresser.  She had opened up one of the drawers.  She had found her jersey and was trying to put the jersey on over her pajamas.  12:30am.

I went into her room quietly, took the jersey from her and put it away.  Then I helped guide her back to bed and said good-night.

15 minutes later, another thump.  Trying to get the jersey on again.  Then I saw her signing "help."  Ian went into her room and hid the jersey, then guided her back to bed.

Apparently, Redskins pajamas need to be purchased soon.  She certainly is determined.

Two little Luca tidbits

It's Friday and I am still laughing about two things that happened this week with Luca.

1 - Lounging around last night before bed, Ian and I heard laughter coming from the kitchen.  The reason?  Luca found one of my bras and decided to put it on.  She was walking around the house laughing.  Then, she went to look in the mirror.  Retelling of the story makes this sound not as funny - but seeing your almost 3  year old in a massive bra is just funny and so wrong.

2 - At night, Luca likes to come into our bed for about 5 minutes before we take her to bed.  She lays on my side and then asks me to lay next to her on Ian's side.  A few nights ago, I asked her "wait a second, if you are in my spot, and I am in Daddy's spot, where is Daddy going to sleep?"  She smirked and then scooted over and pointed to the floor.  "Daddy is going to sleep on the floor??"  Instant giggle and signing of "yes."  Not too sure how much Ian appreciated that.

A post to embarrass Luca when she is older

I tried to think of a title for this post that would not get weird people searching on the internet ending up here.  I tried to keep "pee" out of the title, but that is pretty much the topic of this post.  (If you are grossed out about pee, avert your eyes and come back tomorrow for a non-pee related post.)

Luca had a check-up and labs with her transplant team on Monday.  After mentioning a couple new (minor) things that I was concerned about, they added some labs for her next lab draw, put her on antibiotics for a sinus infection to hopefully clear up this persistent congestion she has had for over 5 weeks, and ordered a urinalysis.

I was dreading the urinalysis.  I know what you are thinking - what's the big deal?  I probably have not told you that Luca has a talent at avoiding giving urine when it is needed.  She has had to wear one of those bags over a dozen times in her life and want to guess how many times it has worked?  Zero.  Every single time, even as a baby, her NICU team would be amazed that she would manage to avoid getting even a drop into the bag.  And it has led to her needing to be cath'ed for urine samples more times than I could count.

And when she has to have a cath the nurses are amazed that she avoids getting pee where they expect her to.  Once in the ER, I warned the two nurses to be prepared for it to not work and to stand back because she gets angry and you will end up with urine on you instead of in the cup.  They kind of gave me a yeah, yeah, yeah answer and knowing my daughter, I stood back and watched from the end of the stretcher.  I knew what was going to happen before they started.  Sure enough, one of the nurses ended up with urine in her hair and all over her arms and clothes.  After they were done trying, she turned and shook her head and said, "well, you did warn me" and when I apologized she said that at least it was only urine.

So imagine my response when they gave me two mini cups to try to get her to pee in.  I was really dreading it.  But home we came and yesterday I attempted to trick her into giving me some freaking pee.

And you know what my amazing child did?  SHE PEED IN THE CUP WITHIN 15 SECONDS OF ME TELLING HER TO!  Not one drop went outside of that cup.  It was probably a total fluke that she listened to me and we succeeded.  She was so proud of herself, clapping wildly.  I closed the lid and placed it in a ziplock bag.  She insisted on carrying it herself.  When we got to the lab and I filled out the necessary paperwork, I turned around to see her shaking the baggy with the pee in it, all excitedly showing everyone in the waiting area what she had accomplished.  Luckily, everyone thought it was funny.  I was pretty mortified.  I handed it over like it was gold and said "please take good care of this because if you need another sample, it likely won't happen again."

Life with a toddler.  Always such gross fun.

Oh Luca, Wednesday Edition

I am here, alive and well.  School is kicking my ass.  But Luca could not care less that mama has work to do.  So life goes on.  Playing games.  Getting into trouble.

Monday was so very beautiful out and I took her outside for awhile.  Every car that drove by, she lifted her hand out like she's giving a cool wave.  Oh hello neighbor.  Oh hey.  I am just sitting here on my purple tricycle being pushed.  This is the life.

Luca is typically like me in that it takes awhile to wake up in the morning, and wake her before she is ready and you will pay for it.  But yesterday she woke up happy as can be, and wild.  Up and down the hall she ran, giggling like she had just had way too much sugar or something.  Then she went and got her lovies from her bed, brought them to the kitchen, signed "good night", patted each of them and walked away.  Apparently they were not ready to be awake.

She promptly walked into her playroom, to her dollhouse and grabbed the Daddy and Grandma figures from the house.  She started giggling and I knew she was up to no good.  Then she kissed each of the figures, and put each of them on a burner of her play kitchen.  Patted each of them, then signed "good night."  Um, should I be concerned that she thinks it is hilarious to cook daddy and grandma?!  Because if so, I think we just lost grandma as a babysitter and Daddy from ever watching Luca alone.  God help me.

Oh Luca

Tonight after I got home from class, I was making myself a plate for dinner and Ian came into the kitchen to get Luca's things ready for bedtime.  Luca was not joining us for some reason.  Ian went to check on her, and she followed him back out to the kitchen and repeatedly shouted "Mama!! Ma!  Mama!" until I turned around.  She took my hand and dragged me to her room.  The closer we got to her room, she started giggling and as we turned the corner into her room, she got a case of uncontrollable giggling.  And I realized why.

She had dumped all of her clothes from her dresser out onto the floor.  She let go of my hand, went over and picked up some more, and threw them onto the floor again, laughing her butt off.

Toddlerhood.  She thought it was the best of fun until I told her she had to put it all away.

Day 30: Friday tidbit

Today is the last day of NaBloPoMo.  While I hope to continue posting often, posting everyday is a challenge.  Thanks for reading and follow me if you want to continue reading stories like the following;

Luca slept well overnight but woke up with a horrific cold - but we had to expect that since she started with that croupy cough yesterday.

I made oatmeal for breakfast and took it, along with my coffee into the toy room.  Luca is clingy today so I sat on the floor and put on an Elmo dvd for her.  I turned around and she was dumping spoonfuls of oatmeal into my coffee, then taking the spoon back out and licking it.

Off to make a new cup of coffee.  Luckily I was mostly finished with the oatmeal.

Day 19: Random thoughts on a Monday

Oops - I forgot to post yesterday.  I started out November with such great intentions to post everyday - but then as the month goes on, and things get busy with holiday stuff, I inevitably miss a day or two.  Oh well - more posts in the works for the remainder of the month.

A story from this weekend:
Luca brought her baby doll out to the playroom and put her on the baby's potty.  We kept praising the baby for being a big girl and going on the potty.  Then she would pick the doll up, hug her, pretend to flush the toilet, then put the baby back on.  This little routine went on for a bit, and then I said "oh wow, what treat does baby get for peeing on the potty?"  She ran to the kitchen and pointed to the spot where the bag of ranch doritos are (Luca gets one chip each time she goes on the potty).  I could see where this was going, so I gave her a tiny piece of a chip to give to her baby doll.  She pretended to feed the doll, then quickly popped the chip into her own mouth.  Want to guess what she did next?  Ran back to the playroom, put baby doll on the potty, picked her up, pretended to flush the toilet, then brought me back to the kitchen to get another treat for baby doll.  Uh-huh kid, I saw where it was going.  She is a total chip phene.

We have family coming into town for Thanksgiving, and Luca totally wants to help me clean things up for their arrival.  Now, if only I could teach her to do the laundry.

Another moment for the books

This happened tonight.

As I was in my bathroom doing my makeup to be ready for date night, Luca kept coming into the bathroom and rubbing my pants with both hands.  Then, she would leave the room and come back a couple minutes later to do the same thing.  I thought she was pretending to wash my legs and as long as she was happily occupied, I was fine playing along.  But then after awhile of this game, I thought "I wonder if she is putting something on her hands and rubbing it on my pants?"

I quietly followed her on her next trip back to her room.  Diaper ointment.  On my pants.  Apparently my legs have diaper rash that needed her care.

Oh Luca, sigh.

Day 13: Toddler eats*

*Can I tell you how grateful I am that I can even do a post about toddler eating?  I never would have thought we could get to a point in this journey that she eats completely by mouth, without the use of her g-tube.  I sometimes just stare at her while she eats, so amazed by her progress.

A post all about feeding our toddler.  Some tricks and what works for us.

As we entered the toddler phase, Luca became a lot more picky about food.  For example, I will offer her a choice for a meal.  I will point to two different items to offer her, and her reply to both is an adamant shake of the head accompanied by some stomping of the feet.  I then say, "okay, Luca, show me what you want to eat."  She points to the first item I had offered, which she had just refused and had a tantrum about.  Welcome to the story of our life for every.single.meal.  Ohhh, Luca.

She also goes through phases where she gets obsessed with a particular food, and wants it for breakfast, lunch, snack, and dinner.  This might last a week or even a month, then she finds something new and becomes obsessed with that, and wants nothing to do with her previous obsession.  The list of food obsessions have included yogurt, guacamole, hummus, laughing cow cheese, and currently she loves cream cheese.  For all of these items, she would eat them on anything, but her favorite for any of these items is eating them on a bagel or crackers.

Luca hates sandwiches of any type - so it makes lunch a difficult meal sometimes.

I am constantly looking for new things for her to try and like so that when she gets sick of a current obsession, we have something to move onto.  And I do not know about you, but I hate making separate meals for Luca for dinner.  I try to incorporate some type of food that she can eat into our dinners.  And if I am introducing a new food, then I try to pair it with something I know she likes, even just as a side.  And finally, I try to offer her a side of fruit or veggies (although veggies are more difficult) at most meals.

So here's a list of foods that Luca will typically eat, and are the ones I can pair with a new food.  Note that all of them are vegetarian.  She does eat some meat (and loves it), but only if it is super tender or in a sauce.

• hummus
• guacamole (Wholly Guacamole is a huge lifesaver in our house)
• laughing cow cheeses
• cream cheese
• edamame (I keep a bag frozen and pour some into a bowl with a bit of water on it.  Heat in microwave for 30 seconds, stir, then pop the edamame out of the shells.)
• mini whole wheat bagels
• english muffins (We use these for breakfast or lunch items, and even for dinner with tomato sauce and cheese to make mini pizzas.)
• pasta (She loves tomato sauce on her pasta.  And if I make a bolognese sauce she loves that too.)
• fruit (kiwi, banana, strawberry, raspberry, watermelon, grapes, pear, apple)
• avocado
• ritz whole wheat crackers (her absolute fave)
• cereal
• toast
• yogurt (We buy the fage 2% for Luca.  She does not want help eating her yogurt, so the thicker greek yogurts work better and create less spilling as she learns to master the art of eating with a spoon.  Also, if we buy the plain yogurt, we just add a bit of strawberry preserves or apply/pumpkin butter to give it a flavor and a touch of sweetness.)

I will try to update this as she finds some new food faves.  What does your toddler love to eat?

Treats for Daddy

Ian leaves his work bag by one of our front doors (we have two), which is also part of Luca's playroom.  Occasionally he will get to work and open his bag to pull out his laptop, and find a treat that Luca put into his bag without either of us knowing.  A lot of times it is a toy, a granola bar, or even a pacifier.

Not yesterday.  Yesterday, I got a call from Ian.  It went something like this:

Ian - I think our daughter is a bit confused.
Me - Why?  What do you mean?
Ian - I went into a meeting first thing this morning and opened my bag.  Apparently Luca thought I needed some feminine products.  As I pulled out my laptop, two tampons came flying out onto the chair.

Hahahaaaaa.  Ohhhh, Luca.

Ohhh, Luca (sigh)

I say that phrase multiple times per day.  Normally, while shaking my head while smirking at whatever she has gotten into.  Tonight, she was helping me make dinner.  I smelled something funny all of the sudden, and looked at her.  She had dumped the entire spice jar of white pepper all over herself, and the counter.  Ohhh, Luca.