five. 5! FIVE!!!!!

My "baby", my first little girl is turning 5. Everything about this monumental occasion blows me away because it seems so huge. The truth is, hanging out with her is like hanging out with a 10 (sometimes even 18) year old, but I know she is still little. Except now she is not little anymore - she is five and she will go to school full time and be a kid and it is a big freaking deal!

So, to my five year old...
I love you. I cannot figure out how we were so blessed to get such good kids, but I am sure not going to question that either! I think a big part of why your younger sister is so good is because of you. You are so sweet and loving, it is hard to be anything other than filled with joy in your presence. You have the sweetest smile that comes on in a little wave - starting with a small curve of your mouth and then working its way through you until your teeth show and your eyes light up with happiness. You love to make people laugh and are getting very good at remembering jokes. This is perfect actually, because your daddy loves silly kid-level jokes!

You are mature, so mature for your age. It is beautiful and heartbreaking really. I worry that your maturity and intuitiveness combined with your sensitivity will make you too vulnerable later in life. It is also hard to watch you try and find yourself - you want to be silly to get people to laugh (like the munchkin does), but that child-like silliness does not come naturally to you. When daddy was painting recently, he pretended to paint you and the munchkin. She laughed and screamed "no", but you looked at me and said "he is so weird, right?"

For Christmas, Grammy took you to get a haircut and you got this short bob that came down longer around your face and it was amazing how that haircut transformed you from a little kid to a big kid! Your feet are growing, your body is growing, and you trip over things and run into things all the time. This is tough because you are so sensitive and it makes you cry every time you get a bump or a scrape. That does not stop you from running around and playing hard - and you have plenty of bumps and bruises to show! Your knees are almost always scabbed over and we love it because it means you are playing hard and getting dirty.

Your vocabulary is as strong as ever and is still a constant amazement. You are phenomenally well spoken and now you are moving into the reading stage. You want to write all the time and are constantly asking how to spell things. We are doing word flash cards during meal times and you cannot get enough. We have to force you to take breaks and eat or else you would go all day. Words are not your only interest - you also love the addition and subtraction flashcards (very exciting to my math-loving self!). We have been collecting coloring and activity books for years and you just recently discovered how fun the activities are! You are a master of identifying the "different" picture, love playing tic-tac-toe, and are really getting into word searches, fill in the blank, and other word puzzles.

Personality-wise, you are frighteningly similar to me. You are super organized, you get up early and wake up ready to face the day (as opposed to daddy and the munchkin, who take a while to hit their stride). You have a love for learning and can sit quietly and color for hours. Once you learn to read, I imagine we will be forcing you to close the book and go to sleep (something Grammy and Pop-Pop had to do for me!). You are a bit shy sometimes, something I seriously struggled with, but not the point where I worry. You are intuitive, inquisitive, and sensitive. It is awesome how similar you are too me in personality and I get a kick out of looking at you and thinking "where did you come from?!" only to realize how much you sound like me!

I am looking forward to this next phase, to seeing you go off to school and learn and grow. You make friends so easily and are such a sweet girl, I think you will do well in Kindergarten. I cannot wait for you to master reading and start devouring books. You cannot wait to lose a tooth! I imagine you have some other things you are looking forward to as well, but that is the one most-voiced.

Happy Birthday, Princess!

Thanks for listening!
~Erin

Bummed

This whole special needs thing is a real roller coaster. The highest of highs definitely, but also the dips (and I will not say the lowest of lows because honestly, there have not been any super low points). I look at my four month old baby rolling over front to back and now back to front, and I see where she is right on track developmentally and think "how amazing! she has these short arms, this lack of muscle, and yet is right on track". Most of the time I do not even think of her differences because they play such a minor role in her life. It is easy to look at how she is doing and feel elated.

But then there are the other random things. Like today, I saw a picture online - a common phrase - "who has two thumbs and..." and it jolts you to think about your baby, who doesn't have two thumbs. Bummer.

It is not the saying that gets me - that is a silly saying anyway - or the fact that she does not have thumbs - she has 5 fingers she can use. It is more just that punch in the gut reminding me of the fact that she is different and she will have some tough times.

Thanks for listening!
~Erin

On a lighter note

This conversation between the munchkin and the princess happened last night:

Princess does you likes lotion?
(she says no)
He don't wants some

Her misunderstanding of pronouns is something I have been working on, but it is a habit she is struggling to break. I really don't care, I absolutely adore her horrible grammar.

Thanks for listening!
~Erin

Nigthmares

I had a nightmare last night. I am always a little afraid of the dark, shadows in the closet, the shower curtain in the dark bathroom - but I can attribute all of that to watching Criminal Minds right before bed time! Last night was different, it was a real nightmare, and woke me up panting, shaking, and with a racing heart.

In my dream, I dropped my older kids off a mall daycare center sponsored by Nintendo Wii and then left them even though I had a bad feeling about the place. I was in an unfamiliar city - I think NYC - and got lost trying to get back to them. While running around, I got pulled into a work meeting and sat there for a while before remembering I was trying to get the kids, so I ran out and got lost some more trying to find this damn mall. I eventually found the mall and this guy stopped me to tell me my kids had started crying immediately after I left and how could I do that? I asked him to hold on while I went to get the kids, but I was too late. The place was dark. I could not find the stairs. So I was jumping around the mall screaming their names. And then I woke up and could not close my eyes for what seemed like ages.

I can rationalize the dream to understand where these scenarios came from - I worry about being a workaholic, I frequently find myself running late to the last minute, some lady said something to me about parenting at church - but the thing that is bothering me is the nightmare itself. No longer am I afraid of silly childish fears like the boogeyman under my bed or monsters in the closet. Now, my nightmares are the things of reality - am I protecting my kids? Do I make the right decisions? Can I keep them safe? I will try. I will do everything I can to be the best mother and caregiver they deserve. But, even the best parents lose children. Even the most vigilant mothers do not see the signs of abuse on their daughters. The most loving parents forget about the change of schedule and accidentally leave their child in the car. And that - that fear of what I do not know or what I can not stop - is what hits me like a lightening bolt.

The nightmare is over. My girls were safe and snuggly and all smiles this morning. They are happily off at daycare playing with friends and adoring their teachers. But me? I am here moving through the day, trying to shake off the residual fear. I want to live in each day, cherishing every moment. But sometimes, I want to fast forward 20 years and see my kids are all still here, still healthy, still happy.

Thanks for listening!
~Erin

Blah

One of the amazing things about having a child with differences is the community of support available. The hand specialist gave us a sheet with about 10 websites listed that she recommended we check out for support. All of these websites have community support pages. And the community support pages link to other pages and so on and so on. My facebook news feed has all the regular news of my friends and people I went to high school with along with inspirational messages and requests for prayers. It is fantastic!

One of these groups is a very private yahoo group limited to parents of kids with limb differences or kids with limb differences. I love this group. But, I need to set up a filter in gmail to put all these in a folder because sometimes the posts get to be a little much filling up my inbox (okay, that's done)! One of the posts recently was about staring. A new mom wrote in how she feels the need to "explain" her child to everyone she runs into on the street, which is ridiculous and also awkward for everyone. I do not really relate to this as I honestly forget sometimes that my baby even has a limb difference and then remember when people give me that "aww, poor thing, cute baby" smile/grimace thing. But then I went to a friend's house for her child's birthday party and none of the adults asked (one kid did and we explained it very quickly). After leaving the party, I felt a little strange because no one had asked. It was obvious as the baby was wearing short sleeves. Maybe no one asked because they did not want to be rude, maybe because they already knew everything from my friend, but whatever the reason I still felt a little awkward. So now I understand this new mom's desire to explain. If you just put it out there, you do not have to wonder what people think or know. I will not start explaining everywhere I go, but I know I will think about it more than I did up until now. I am feeling apprehensive about taking the baby to work next week because I do not know how many people already know (some I've told, some I'm sure heard through the grapevine). I do not know if I will be faced with a ton of questions or with no questions and I do not know which I prefer.

All this to say, my biggest issue with this aspect of my life is the emotional one. I hope I am emotionally strong enough to handle everything that comes our way, I hope I am emotionally tough enough to help my baby handle everything, but I just do not know how it will go. And those worries are the things that keep me up at night.

Thanks for listening!
~Erin

FUZZ!

The munchkin walked into our room, saw her blanket on the floor, and said "Daddy, there is fuzz on my blanket! Can you please throw it away?" It was a split second moment, but for my husband and I, it was a rush of memories. From the time she was rolling over until about 2 years old, the munchkin was terrified of fuzz. She would point at carpet fuzz or stuffed animal fuzz and screech until someone - usually the princess - swooped in and threw it away. I have no idea what sparked this incredible fear, but she was terrified. If you came near her with fuzz she would scream and cry as if it were a spider (for me at least - maybe not everyone hates them the way I do!). I completely forgot about this huge phase of our lives until that moment this weekend. I now have a mental note to make sure I include this factoid in her baby book, something I forgot to do when filling it out on her third birthday (the second child gets the shaft around here - I just filled out her "baby" book!).

Strange fear. I wonder if she will always hate fuzz just a little bit and for no particular reason!

Thanks for listening!
~Erin

Impressive

I feel like my last post totally ragged on my four year old for being overweight, which was totally not the point. The point was, I have this issue that I have been carrying around forever and am terrified of imparting on my kids. Lately the princess has been blowing my mind with her vocabulary (once again!). She ran into the kitchen the other day and said "mom, I am going to show you something that will really impress you" - okay, that sentence alone impressed me! Then the next day, I brushed her hair out of her face and she said, "It always falls back down, so I prefer if you tuck it behind my ear". Seriously, "prefer"?!

And then there is the talking with her hands. Not in the toddler way of flapping hands about as she tries to gather her thoughts, but more in a perfect imitation of the way I use my hands to exaggerate a point. It is so adorably distracting to watch her tell a story, using her hands to help you visualize or understand the importance of what she is saying.

And then the questions. She still has "why" as her favorite word. And sometimes I feel like it would be easier to stand in front of a firing squad than handle the question bullets she shoots at me in rapid succession. But, I cannot complain because she listens. She rarely asks the same "why" question again as she remembers the answer. Her questions follow a train of thought until she feels satisfied. We once spent 30 minutes discussing lighthouses before she moved on to dinosaurs. This morning on the way to daycare we talked about the Earth's atmosphere and she was able to ask me questions referencing other things we have talked about in space, things that happened on Mickey Mouse Clubhouse Space episode, and things in the Dr Suess Space book. It was amazing to see her pulling from her own knowledge base to ask deeper questions. After we got through the atmosphere, we talked about bird migration and then where souls go after death/who goes to Hell. Of course, by the time I dropped them off - all before I had my morning cup of coffee - I was mentally exhausted, but also super thrilled with my little smarty-pants :)

Thanks for listening!
~Erin