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Your four-wheel-drive vehicle does not actually mean you can safely drive at ridiculous speeds on slippery, snow-covered roads. All it means is that you might have an easier time driving yourself out of a snowy ditch.
Also, pie for breakfast is one of the best parts of being an adult.
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Since this blog was supposed to be, in part, a record of my children’s development, I suppose I should update that.
Squirt is tiny, only the 10th percentile in height and 20th in weight (still bigger than Peanut was at the same age, by far). She is both signing and talking. Her words, as follows:
mama and daddy
Kee-cat (kitty-cat, which is said for any fuzzy animal, especially squirrels)
dank-oo (thank you)
dat (that, she points and says dat when she wants you to name something)
amma (grandma)
ammy (grammy)
papa
ah-el (bottle)
up
moooo (what does a cow say?)
baaaaa (what does a sheep say?)
She signs eat, more, milk
She hums “you’re welcome”. She says a version of Peanut’s name and that of Peanut’s best friend.
She tries to brush her hair. She is learning to feed herself with a spoon. She can stack blocks 5 high, and put a series of stacking blocks inside each other. She can put the circle and the star shape in her shape sorter consistently the first time, and can usually do the square. She loves anything with buttons, and you cannot fool her with an old cell phone or remote with no batteries, or even a toy remote. She pets the cats gently, but I can’t get her to stop grabbing and squeezing the end of their tails (even getting swatted by one of them hasn’t discouraged her). She is much more of Daddy’s Girl lately, especially right after he gets home from a trip, and doesn’t want to let him out of her sight. She adores her big sister, who makes funny faces and noises at her while she squeals with laughter. She likes to wake Peanut up in the morning with squeals too. She will eat just about anything, but not every meal, her favorite stuff being savory foods. She sleeps 10-11 hours overnight, waking only when she is uncomfortable (like from teething) or cold, and then she usually goes right back to sleep. She is an enormously good-natured and happy girl, likes being around people and trying new things, but she knows what she likes and doesn’t like and doesn’t hesitate to let you know.
Also, while I was away with Peanut, she started to walk 
This last week has been pretty eventful for Peanut.
On Wednesday, she and I got on a plane and flew to Philadelphia, for a visit down to Wilmington to A.I. Dupont-Nemours Children’s Hospital and their arthrogyrposis clinic. First, however, we took a train in to New York City to visit with Uncle Carlos*. Our timing was pretty bad, though, as it was pouring rain and cold, so we didn’t get to do as much as we wanted to do.
We started out at the American Museum of Natural History, so she could see the dinosaurs. After seeing how big the barosaurus and allosaurus was in real life, she was not so keen on seeing more. So we wandered around looking at the animal dioramas, with a brief detour into the Eastern Woodlands Indians room. Then she was getting tired, so we hit up the gift shop. There she fell, cracking her elbow on the marble floor. It seemed fine, if sore, so we pressed on into the rain to Rockefeller Center, to see the Big Tree. She really enjoyed seeing all the giant ornaments and nutcrackers decorating the buildings nearby.
It was raining and gusting wind, so that was about all we were going to do. We walked over to Times Square (it makes reading “A Cricket in Times Square” more interesting for her now) to show her all the lights, and saw the Charmin public bathrooms, Carlos and I wondering just how hard-up we would have to be in order to take a job dressing up as a giant roll of toilet paper and standing in the rain outside a bathroom. Then we took the subway back to the train station. Peanut talked to a nice young woman we sat next to pretty much non-stop all the way back to the station, and we went home.
The next morning was the Please Touch Museum. We didn’t get as much time there as we wanted, partly because of morning pokey-ness and partly because of poor signage and interstate road on-ramp accidents (not us, thank goodness). We did get to see a whole lot of downtown Philadelphia, though. She was ecstatic to play in the Alice in Wonderland exhibit, and rode the carousel. Then we drove to the appointment.
One of the reasons we decided to go back to the clinic is because she needs new braces, and are not and have not been happy with the braces she has gotten here. Her doctor is very good, but somehow there seems to be communication problems between him and all the allied professionals, and nobody has ever been able to get braces made that do what they need to do or that anyone was satisfied with. So I decided that we were done dicking around and we were going to see the doctors and have them made there.
The other concern is related to the braces, and it involves her right foot, the one that was clubbed and has been operated on. Her foot is “collapsing”, the talus bone moving far out of place and her ankle rolling in. Her doctor here told us as long as it was able to be braced that he wasn’t concerned about it. But it seemed to be getting worse, and that answer just wasn’t good enough for me.
They took x-rays of her feet and an ultrasound of her knees. Her kneecaps are all right, not placed exactly where they should be but close enough. The foot x-rays showed the foot collapse, and the team was very concerned about it. They felt that without proper bracing she would need another surgery, and may need one anyway. I said we’d been told she probably would anyway, and there was a pause before they said, “well, that was usually the case.” It turns out that proper bracing in these kids can prevent the need for more surgery. And she hasn’t had proper braces.
They were kind of surprised when I said, “you make them, and we’ll come back for them”, but I didn’t know what else to do. They don’t seem to understand what she needs here. Her PT here says they are so used to seeing kids with cerebral palsy, which causes some similar issues but is NOT the same and can’t be treated the same way, so it is hard for them to switch gears. Regardless, she was casted and picked out the new colors for her braces. They will be very different than what she has now, in good and bad ways. They’ll be lighter, which is good, but they’ll have less flexibility, which is good for her bones but bad for her independence. I will be okay with it because, as one of the team explained, it will mean the difference between wearing a brace on that leg her entire life and perhaps not needing it after she is done growing. Pretty easy choice, in my mind. She also got a new hand splint to go on her left hand and help stretch out the finger that is pinned down to her palm. She will only have to wear it at night.
Oh, and one last thing. Remember the fall she took? Yeah, she was still sore when she woke up, and didn’t want to straighten out her arm nor turn her hand palm-up. How convenient we were going to be seeing orthopedists that day! A couple of x-rays later, and she is sporting a bright pink splint on her right arm. They suspect a break, but couldn’t see one, so she needs to keep it still for a week or so. Poor kid, shuffling around with braces on both legs and a big plaster splint on one arm. Let me tell you how much fun it was getting around the airports and planes on the way home with a too-small stroller and a kid unable to use one hand or climb stairs.
Peanut is a very good traveler, and was good pretty much the whole time, falling apart really only on the way home. The next time will be only a trip to Wilmington and back, which will hopefully be much cheaper and way, way less rainy.
*Carlos is not really her uncle, but one of my oldest and dearest friends. I was visiting him when I met Big Daddy, so without him there wouldn’t be a Peanut.
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Not only was I dealing with my grandpa’s memorial service and all the stuff around it last week, it seems I was suffering from a sinus infection and probably strep throat (didn’t bother testing ’cause I was getting antibiotics anyway). So that’s what happened to me. Anyway, I can now get pictures up on the blog! Woohoo! However, first I am going to give you a link to click on. We had some pictures done of the girls this weekend, and the photographer has a couple of them up on her blog. So if you are in the Madison area and need some photos done, please consider Lea Wolf. She has a wonderful way with kids, and as you can see, takes gorgeous photos, and for reasonable prices.
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So I don’t know when we find out how we did in the Best Baby Boutique contest, but I can tell you who won something from me for voting. I numbered each post that voted, and Peanut chose a number, et voila! The ever elusive Mete won! Mete has a choice between a mama gift and a baby/kid gift, so email me. When she chooses, I’ll let you know what I’m sending. Hee! That was fun! I’d do it again except that I can’t really afford it…
Grandpa’s memorial is Friday. I think that we’ve decided that Peanut can come, since it isn’t a full-on service with a casket or anything. More a gathering of family members to talk about the same old stories and how sad it is we don’t get together except at funerals anymore, you know how it is. Still, this is a branch of the family that I really didn’t get to know until I was an adult, and they happen to be the nice branch of my father’s family (as opposed to the, well, I probably shouldn’t go there).
I miss my grandfather. But I’ve really missed him for a while, because he’d been in a decline for quite some time. So in a way, I’ve already grieved him. On the other hand, I can still feel his skin under my fingers as I stroked his hand that night, and the shape of his fingers against the sheets.
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I totally blew NaBloPoMo by not posting. I was deeply involved in genealogy stuff, and completely forgot.
But that’s ok! Because I didn’t have a good story until now, anyway.
So today I go to Peanut’s preschool for parent-teacher conferences. I go early, and get to sit down with them while they eat. Peanut sits next her her “boyfriend”, J. I help J with his lunchbox, and he thanks me by putting his hand on my stomach and asking, “Is there a baby in there?”
“No, there isn’t.”
“Yes there is! There’s a lump there.”
“Well, there’s no baby, J.”
“Why is there a lump there?”
“That’s just how I’m built. There is no baby.”
He then reaches up, and grabs my breast. “But there’s a lump THERE!”
“J!” I grab his hands. “You know that touching a woman there is not ok. It is not ok to do that.”
I let go. He reaches up, this time to my face, and puts his finger on an acne cyst. “You have a red bump on your face.”
Aaaand then I got up and left.
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If you recall, a few weeks ago Peanut was having trouble with some kids in school being mean to her. Apparently, things have much improved. Tonight, she announced the following:
“All the boys in the school want me to be their girlfriend. I just know it.”
Also, while dropping her off this morning, a child I had never met before walked up to me and said, “Hi Carrie” and walked away. It was somewhat surreal. When I told Peanut this tonight, she said, “Maybe she snuck up on you and secretly met you and you didn’t even know it!”
I don’t know what they are feeding the children at that school, but I may want some of it.
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I know Veteran’s Day is supposed to be about living vets, but my granddad was alive until yesterday, so I’m going to count him in.
He served in the US Army Signal Corps during WW II. He was originally assigned to be a paratrooper, but he blew out his knee in training. Since he had a good head for numbers and mechanical stuff, so they put him there. He didn’t leave the country, but he did leave my grandmother, who spent most of the war at her family farm, where my father was born. When he was released from service, he went to college, earning a CPA degree thanks to the GI Bill. He helped support his family while he was in school and until he had a well-paying job by repairing TVs and radios, like he learned to do in the army. He was proud of his service, but he never made a big deal out of it. He mostly liked to talk about the places he got to go and the fun he got to have.
Here he is with my dad, after he got to come home. He’s in his uniform. I wish I could find a better one right now, because I think he was rather handsome:
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Rodney Vernon Lindgren 25 Dec 1913 – 10 Nov 2008.
I sat with him a while last night, swabbing his mouth with water to make him more comfortable while listening to his death rattles. I held his hand, told him that we all loved him, and that while I hoped that he would get better, I understood if he was tired. I don’t believe he knew I was there, but if he did, I wanted him to know he was loved.
We’re making the arrangements today, whatever they are. I think the worst part of all of this is going to be dealing with my aunt, who has long made it clear that she doesn’t like or care about any of us, and I don’t think that’s suddenly going to change now.
I miss him.
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I was in the middle of writing a post about all the milestones Squirt has hit recently when I got a call from the nursing home where my grandfather has been living. Something has happened in the last day or so, and while his vital signs are still strong, he is no longer really “there”. I went to visit him this afternoon and there was no acknowledgment that I was holding his hand except that he kept trying to pull it away to brush the oxygen cannula off his face. His eyes don’t focus and he is not speaking. I believe his brain has said good-bye, but the message has yet to get to his heart and lungs, but that’s only a matter of time.
My grandfather was, by most accounts (including his own), not a great father. But he’s been an excellent grandfather. He is affectionate and generous and patient, always happy to see us and never forgetting a special occasion. I have been very lucky to have him as long as I have.
I do not know what his future holds. Perhaps this is being caused by an infection that hasn’t given him a fever yet, or some other temporary condition. I don’t think so. He would be 95 on Christmas Day, and there is no cure yet for old age.
If you are reading this, and feel so inclined, I would appreciate prayers to ease his way. He is, I believe, suffering right now, and he deserves better. Thank you.
