Tidbits I want to remember…

The train station where I pick M & S up every Monday afternoon (oh, how she loves taking the subway home from school!) is for all intents and purposes located in the midst of a dandelion field.  This week, when they came out the door of the station, Shoshanna ran to the very middle of the field and just flopped down in the midst of the flowers.

Last week sometime, Shoshanna told me she had left something in the “leaving room”.  I said, “I was just in the living room and I didn’t see it there.”  Shoshanna said, “No, mama, the LEAVING room!” and ran to the entryway to find whatever it was she had been looking for.

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Putting me in my place

This morning, as I was trying to get Shoshanna moving and into the car (we had a bit of a lazy morning but I did have a whole list of things to do today so I wanted to get her moving), she turned to me and said, “Mama, don’t ask me questions grumpy.”

I apologized and thanked her for pointing out that I was being “grumpy” at her.

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March for Babies!

Our March for Babies was Sunday morning, the 27th of April. The weather Saturday afternoon was moderately crappy (we went to the Aquarium at Niagara), but the weather folks had promised us good weather for Sunday, and boy were they right! It was bright & sunny and topped out around 65 degrees. Perfect!

This year the walk moved from downtown Buffalo to Delaware Park, which is a much more scenic location. Sabretooth was there, of course, and Shoshanna about blew a gasket when she saw him. Wouldn’t surprise me if he recognizes her at this point. There were carnival games and such for the kids, and lots of media wandering around. Marlene & her twins were the spokespeople this year, but Whitney and Mia ended up getting some camera time, too (and not just from me).

This year’s mission tent also featured a place to hang stuff about “Why We Walk” - our one-page contribution featured Aunt Jacy’s haiku along with various Then & Now pictures of Shoshanna. We dedicated our walk to Shoshanna’s honor, thinking of her NICU buddy JJ, and in memory of my friend AMM’s daughter Megan (who was stillborn at around 19 weeks last November).

Grammy and Grampa had a tummy bug so Grammy walked with us about to the zoo and then bailed to go sit under a tree and read. We walked the ring road of the park with lots of other people; Shoshanna walked a bit of it herself and asked lots of questions, especially about the boy who was riding his bike. And then we had hot dogs and went home.

Thanks to everyone who contributed - we raised over $1300 to help fund prematurity-related research!

And now the last pictures, just ’cause they’re cute. First two are from the walk, the other is from last week sometime.

We must be doing SOMETHING right…

(I promise a comment on our March of Dimes March for Babies is forthcoming… but it’s finals week and I’ve been sick.)

In the car on the way to school the other day, Shoshanna asked me to change the CD. Now, her objecting to NPR and asking for “a CD please!” is normal. But asking me to take out Joanie Bartels and put in Sgt. Pepper’s? Clearly we’ve done something right.

Language acquisition: still cool

Shoshanna has started to figure out irregular verbs. We were tossing a ball back and forth this weekend and she told me, “Mama, I caughtched it!”

Also, she is the queen of the dirt pile.

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As if there was any question as to her paternity…

I have commented a number of times that Shoshanna really is just a miniaturized version of her father. It’s true, it really really is. See, for example, this morning.

Shoshanna was quite the tired girl after a weekend of an SCA event on Saturday (no nap, passing out in the car, being half-woken to go to the airport to pick M up from a massively delayed flight, then actually in bed for real) followed by a Sunday involving groceries and a long lunch out with friends and no nap and then swimming. She was in bed by 7 pm yesterday and fell asleep basically immediately, but we still had to wake her up this morning. Normally waking her up (which we usually don’t have to do - usually when she hears our alarm go off, she comes and climbs into our bed and sits on someone’s head) just involves opening her door so she can hear us moving around, but this morning it actually took some effort. And in that process, she rolled over a couple of times only to settle back into the exact same position she’d been sleeping in, without opening her eyes. And then she grabbed for the covers to cover herself back up. Matthew had moved them out of reach, but she kept on trying to grab them.  I hauled her out of her bed and dropped her in ours while I went to get clothes for her and she snuggled down and pulled the covers back over her head again.

All of which is EXACTLY what Matthew does when you try to wake him up. All that was missing was a grumpy voice muttering “five more minutes”. (He even mutters that at the alarm clock.)

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So long, beloved ladybug boots

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A first for everything…

I’m not sure this was a milestone I was particularly looking forward to… at breakfast Monday mornings, Shoshanna said she wanted to wear her sunglasses and bracelet to school (against the rules, but not really strictly enforced by school).  I said she could wear them in the car and then I would keep them for her during the day.  Can you guess what she said next?  “But Greta does it!”

Yeah.  Mark the calendar - 3 years, 6 months, and a couple of weeks before we got “but the other kids do it!”  Fortunately for a 3 1/2 year old, the response of “Well, that’s Greta.  We don’t do that.” suffices.

We have been learning a lot about how families are different as Shoshanna gets exposed to lots of other kids - what do our two-mom family friends call their moms?  Why do some families eat on the couch in the living room when we eat at the kitchen table?  And so on…

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Tags: trex, little kid, milestones, family

Less than a month before March for Babies!

You guys all know Shoshanna’s story.  She was born 3 1/2 months before her due date.  She weighed under two pounds, she was in the hospital for almost 3 months, she came home with an oxygen canister and a heartrate monitor.  You know this.  Did you know that without research supported by the March of Dimes she probably wouldn’t have survived?  Did you know that RIGHT NOW the March of Dimes is supporting research into the causes & mechanics of preterm labor - the cause of her early arrival?  Did you know that roughly half of preterm births are due to preterm labor with know obvious/known cause?

Help us out.  Help other families out.  Help keep other families from having to go through what we went through.  I know it seems crazy for me to be making this plea when she’s so obviously an obnoxiously precocious preschooler.  But you have to believe me - we have COMPLETELY USED UP OUR KARMA.  Right now we are out of the “preemie experience” but for most families of sub-two-pound micropreemies that experience NEVER ENDS.  We’re not just talking about keeping kids from having to be in the hospital for three months.  We’re talking about keeping kids from being blind, deaf, severely developmentally delayed, tied to medical equipment for YEARS.

Last year our team (us, our friend Ilene, and my buds Heather and Lil) raised $1800.  This year it’s us and my parents and we’ve set our goal at $2000.  You can donate here.

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Tags: marchof dimes, preemie, premature infant, fundraising

Road Trip Queen!

Shoshanna and I headed out on a girls-only road trip to visit MA this week.  Yes, I am insane enough to drive six hours by myself with a three-year-old.  We left Wednesday morning and before we headed out, we sat down and wrote down the Road Trip Rules, which go as follows:

1. When Mommy pees, Shoshanna pees.
2. No Whining.
3. Hand toys back to Mommy (because I can’t reach things that she has dropped on the seat or the floor).
4. Sing Songs.
5. Have fun!

And then we decorated it with a picture of us riding in the car.  I am so glad I had that idea, too, because I can refer to the rules (particularly rule #2) and she gets very excited and usually ends up laughing about the rules.

So on the trip out, we drove as far a Syracuse and stopped for lunch; then we drove almost to Albany and had to stop a bit earlier than I had planned for a bathroom break.  During that leg, I had promised her a treat and she watched a couple of Little Einsteins episodes on the iPod.  After our second stop, I suggested that she try to close her eyes and rest a bit. She woke up when we got off the MassPike in Springfield/Holyoke.

So we’ve been staying with friends who have a lovely cat who adores Shoshanna - this evening he saved me from the process of leaving the room when I put her to bed - he hopped up and started snuggling her and stayed there for over an hour.

Yesterday we went to the Eric Carle Museum of Picture Book Art and then had lunch with some old friends from the NICU - K & A, who are three weeks older than S and were in her same pod.  The three girls were HILARIOUS together - I never thought I would meet a three year old who was MORE gregarious and talkative than Shoshanna, but K is.  Shoshanna was, while not completely dominated, definitely not the instigator in that little twosome.  “Shoshanna, can I hold your hand!?  Shoshanna, come on!  Shoshanna, do you want to eat some of my apple?! Shoshanna!  Shoshanna!  Shoshanna!!!”  It was HILARIOUS.  A is totally mellow and agreeable and a sweetheart and Shoshanna had such a blast seeing them.  We had dinner with some friends last night and Shoshanna ate octopus, spätzle, knockwurst, various kinds of salad, and 2/3 of a piece of cheesecake that was AS BIG AS HER HEAD!

Today Shoshanna put up with me dragging her all over UMass to see friends and colleagues and then have a meeting with my advisor.  She was super-tolerant of the stupid and didn’t get annoyed utnil the very end.  Then when we got in the car to head to the Alekxs’ house she passed out cold in under three minutes and didn’t wake up when I carried her into the apartment.  Or when I started talking to her, singing, jiggling, tickling.  Eventually she did wake up and eat dinner and play cars with Aleks.  After dinner and cars we hopped in the car and headed to Baystate to visit where we saw a couple of her nurses who were THRILLED to see her and very impressed at her Shoshanna-ness.

To be concluded tomorrow, when we see friends in the morning and then head home after lunch.

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Tags: trex, little kid, adventures, road trip, friends