At Reese's school, each child has been given a turkey feather. They are to decorate the turkey feather and write on there what they are thankful for.
Reese's list:
holidays
food
toys
my house
that I'm a person
For Brady, she was given the outline of a turkey. The turkey wants a disguise so that the farmer doesn't find it to sell or serve. The disguise needs to represent Brady in someway.
So I present to you:
Nutcracker Ballet Mouse Turkey
The ballet shoes are made from cut up old ballet shoes.
They will do more activities with the turkey in school. I am eager to see if she writes a paragraph about her.
So I write about 5 blog posts a day...mentally. Only about five a month get published. So the blog post about Reese's FIRST loose tooth was mentally written within hours of her discovery of her FIRST loose tooth. Well, I kept editing and revising my mental post and then before it even got published... this happened 5 days later!
People, SHE IS ONLY FOUR YEARS OLD. And no it wasn't knocked out or pulled due to decay, it naturally fell out!
So let's rewind back to the first mental post (sorry for the spoiler).
Reese discovered her wiggly tooth late (as in 6:00 pm) on a Tuesday night. She danced and sang about this tooth for the rest of the night. She let EVERYONE wiggle her tooth. She woke up the next day proclaiming "it is even looser, the tooth fairy may come tonight". I heard this proclamation SEVERAL times in that day.
an awful blurry attempt to catch the initial excitement
I thought to myself, this is going to be a LONG three months. In my experience, kids hang on to their first loose tooth for months. So to ease the pain of the wait, we discussed she will most likely turn 5 (December 15) before it falls out. She grabbed onto this and told everyone her tooth was racing her birthday.
Apparently her tooth had been training with an elite personal trainer for this race, because it smoked her birthday by almost two months.
She was spending the night at Beppa and GP's house. Eating her gluten free waffles. Beppa noticed blood on her waffle (yes THE WAFFLE was sent home with her).
Upon further inspection, a gaping hole was discovered where there once was a wiggly tooth. The tooth was no where to be found. But the lost lost tooth wasn't the only thing not present. Reese's mother was also not present. Yes, people, I missed her loosing her first tooth (yes, I got teary over this).
Reese wrote the tooth fairy a little note, luckily the tooth fairy believed her. She delivered Reese a one dollar bill with pixie dust!
Did I mention she is only four? People tell the clock to slow down... At least day light savings time gives me an extra hour to savor!
We have finally bit the bullet (again) and Reese is on a Gluten Free (GF) diet. I have toyed around with the idea for a few weeks. It is a tough lifestyle to acquire. There is no good time to dive in head first. I didn't want to deal with the repeated disappointment of off-limit foods.
Reese has always had loose stools. But for the last few months they have been frequent and painful. She would spend 30 minutes in the restroom at one time, several times a day. Once school started I thought things had gotten better. I didn't ever hear about the tummy pain so I thought it was gone. I found out that really she had just learned to deal with it. She no longer looked to me to ease the pain. But after a few emergency car ride stops and missed bus stop pick ups, I realized I needed to make change for this lovely little.
We are just experimenting with elimination diets. We have no official diagnosis. But I do know that until Reese was 18 months old she was pretty sensitive to gluten.
We are making this fun. I am letting her explore foods that I previously avoided like fruit leather. This is not elimination, it is elitist (at least that it was I am leading her to believe). Just check out this massive GF brownie a local bakery had for her. She is a happy camper. She never really got to have brownies before, but in my effort to show her life goes on while GF, she is getting all sorts of treats.
Within three days of being GF, the stomach pains have gone away. She woke up the third day with the above belly rash; detox, maybe? Either way it came and went in two days. Her stools are slowly firming up, but the frequency is much less and so is the pain. Do I dare say it is a success? We are only a week in, so I am holding my breath for now.
We are learning as we go what it means as a whole family unit to have one member that is GF. For now, breakfast and lunch is free reign for everyone, but dinners will be completely GF. This is an adjustment for some, because this family loves to chow down on bread.
In the meantime, Karl will covet all the gluten he can get his hands on.
Today, Brady and Reese had their friend Jack over after school. I got out the leftover over Model Magic clay I have from making Halloween costume accessories. This is a lightweight modeling clay that dries over night.
So I had a 4, 5, and 6 year old molding with colors of their choice.
Here are the three final products...
Now go back and guess which one the four year old girl did? five year old boy? six year old girl?
Brady simply titled hers "Abstract" Jack created a 'flower' and Reese, yes, Reese create a 'mouse' respectively.
I am reminded again that art class is Reese's calling.
Elli may hypotonia but we are conquering it head on.
Elli has begun taking a few steps here and there. The most she would take a home was 4-5 steps. We are making progress though and we are very happy. However, the last three times Elli was at Little Gym classes she took upwards of 10+ steps. She loves Little Gym. Every time you ask about Little Gym she replies "ball!"
So today I decided to go to Little Gym with my video camera in hand and ready to film. I caught several four to five step stints but nothing of the ten steps she had done before. Then I realized she always did her walking when the balls are out and the teacher announces it is time to put the balls away. So today I set the camera rolling fully expecting to catch 10ish steps on camera to share with you all. This is what I caught instead.
Sorry, the video and sideways. No matter what I try it goes back just on the blog.
Yep, try and count all those steps...you will lose count because it is so many!!!! Now, while this isn't a regular habit quite yet, it has happened which means soon it will be a habit.
Do I dare say we have a walker now?
On a side note, due to Elli's readiness signs, potty training has started. We are taking it slow, but she is interested. She has peed on the potty twice a day for the last four days!
Remember when I told you that Elli greatly favors her Great Uncle Dave (I just love genetics that passes through generations).
I finally got some childhood pictures to share with you of Dave. I get so excited about these things!
Can you believe the middle row? Dave is probably about 6-8 (judging from the mix of adult and baby teeth) and Elli is only one but they look like the same kid!
These kids just keep growing up. In a blink of an eye. I feel like I have something new I could report to you all nightly on this blog. But all that growing up keeps me busy.
You remember when I said, in this family we celebrate milestones regardless of timing? Also, there are some milestones that feel like a right of passage into parenthood. You know potty training, first day of school, tooth fairy visits, etc. We have a new thing to check off our list.
Brady rode her bike tonight WITHOUT training wheels.
This is a big deal for US.
A while back someone told me about balance bikes. When a kid learns to ride a bike, they need to learn how to pedal and balance. Most kids get a training wheel bikes (like Brady) and learn to pedal first, then balance. But if you get the kid a balance bike first, they learn to balance first and pedaling is a easy after thought. So we started Reese off on a balance bike and she is probably going to be riding a bike (w/o training wheels within the next month). Brady's bike had training wheels and Reese's balance bike was too small.
A neighbor friend suggested we take the training wheels AND pedals off Brady's bike, let her mess around with that, then just put the pedals back on. Well she only needed one week of that setup, and here she is. I know the bike is too little but we used that one for confidence. We plan to phase her up soon.
So, if you have a little one, I highly suggest you start with a balance bike and skip training wheels all together!
Elli is now 16 months old. She is every bit of 16 months old too. Her personality is really starting to show. So I thought I would give an update on my little ray of sunshine since it has been 4 months.
First off, she is ALMOST walking. She has taken her first step, back on September 9th. I was taking a video of her because she had just started standing independently. While filming, she happen to take her first step. Who actually catches a child's first step on film? This lady right here does ;)
I suggest you turn down your volume, I squeal really loud in the video.
She has taken up to 4 steps at one time, but that is not consistent yet. Once we can build her confidence, she will be off and toddling.
But she has not let the lack of upright mobility stop her from being a curious exploring 16 month old.
She loves to put of sunglasses. As soon as they are on, she looks at everyone in the room with the "aren't I fabulous" look. My response is always "Hollywood!" (Anyone remember the 80s movie "The Mannequin").
She is also really taken a liking to books in true Orthner Girl fashion. Currently her two favorite good night stories are "Goodnight Moon" and "The Dog Book"
She loves to be outside and playing in our yard or at parks.
You will often find her at the back door like this... Trying to figure out how to work that door knob. Tonight I told Brady to go outside and play and within seconds Elli was standing at the back door.
She is still a bigtime cuddler, giving some of the best hugs ever, and yes, she still loves to play with hair. All those hugs are by far my favorite benefit of Hypotonia.
I think besides outside time, she treasures playing with her big sisters most. She really thrives off their attention. She also is really showing a need to have things in order, like her oldest sister. She will always attempt to put her good night story back in the bookcase. Today the remote was left on the coffee table and she crawled with it to the stool that has a basket it is normally kept in. She pulled up on that stool remote in hand so that she could properly place it. Yes, she is taken, no, you can't borrow her.
She is also a trooper. We have to go to quite a few doctors, and she has become the queen of the waiting room! She takes the hours of driving to the hospitals and the hours of waiting to see the doctor for minutes like a champ. Love this girl!
Here is a couple more fun videos that show Elli being Elli.
Lastly, my big girl may not be walking but she is drinking out of an open cup regularly now. She wants to be just like her big sisters.
She is growing up right before my eyes. But I am okay with that, because I love seeing her grow up, such a fun journey to be on.
So as parents we fall in love with our screaming bundles of joy at first sight (most of the time; I am not judging those who let the jury deliberate for a day or two). Becoming a parent is a cosmic experience. You love those babies with more depth than you knew your heart had. And every time you have another kid, you find that your heart is way larger than you knew and can love deep and wide. We all know that though....
I am here to talk about falling in love with my child again.
The other day, I had the rare experience (especially lately with school in session) of sitting down with JUST Brady outside. Just me and her. No other kids that might possibly interrupt. Her looking into my eyes, and my looking into hers. We had a 5-10 minute conversation. But that was all I needed to fall in love. She was telling me a story about school, honestly I don't even remember what she really said. But I watched her, studied her, and learned about her all on a new level. She is different now, she is mature in a six year old kind of way, she is becoming a person; people. Then I looked back at her, all those words I was intently listening to went to a humming blur because I was struck by her awesomeness, her beauty and maturity. I was falling in love at that very moment. Yes, I loved her before, but this was a new love. A new love for her. I walked away from that conversation with her floating on a cloud because I was IN love.
Now this is why I love being a parent. I get to fall in love with the same little people over and over again. Subtle but powerful moments knock me off my feet on a regular basis. I take residence on cloud nine, because I am floating and in love all the time.
Tonight we went on a walk through our neighborhood and around base. These are the scenes on our mile walk. I was in my happy place. This is life at its finest.
