The Taste of September

September was our chance to change the last few bites of summer so that the memory of our favorite season of the year would leave us with a sweet aftertaste.  We had one last swim at our favorite pool with some of our favorite people...

...we enjoyed outdoor treats and our neighbor even tried his hand at strawberry shortcake as a thank you for all of the summer baked goods we have shared with him.

We played outside and the girls built more fairy houses.  And after Charlie smashed them, and then Violet smashed them, Lucy and Emma built the fairy houses again.

I know it's hard to believe that cuteness like Violet and Charlie are not friends of the fairies, but maybe in time one of them will build houses for fairies too.  In the below left hand picture, Charlie was sunbathing next to my Sweet Autumn clematis, one of my favorite flower blooms in my garden each autumn.

For the most part, the girls play with one sister while one sister is excluded.  That is why I am always so happy when all three play harmoniously together.  In the below pictures they have all agreed unanimously that a hockey net makes a better bed in a play house than a goal for a game, and that slip and slides are a great way to spend the afternoon on your first day of school.  Oh, and also that sidewalk chalk is fun for everyone and if you gang up on your parents - as in all three girls asking pretty please for the same thing - chances are pretty high that you will get what you are asking for.

We are homeschooling again this year, and despite it's many challenges, still believe that the benefits for our family outweigh the drawbacks.  Violet is happy to join in our school day and I have even planned out some preschool activities for her, despite the fact that she is on the young side.  She just loves to be included and it is exciting to see how fast she picks up on things.  The day before school started I surprised the girls with all of their new books, a new educational game for each girl as well as art supplies and other fun school accessories.  This grand reveal has become a tradition now, and helps to build the excitement for the new school year and gives our year a fun start.

Our first day of school started out crazy busy.  We are getting into the routine now more and more, but the simple truth is that we have bitten off more than we can chew this semester.  We found out almost the same week that school started that Lucy would benefit from vision therapy to help with her reading challenges.  It is a steep financial and time commitment and because of that, is our top priority.  If we don't put our all into this, then we might as well flush our money down the toilet because it is the equivalent of a really nice family vacation complete with airfare, a rental car and a nice resort.  For two weeks.  Yup.  BUT, we are already seeing major improvement with her eyesight and watching her grow by leaps and bounds with her reading.  Priceless.  However, we had already committed to a lot of extracurricular activities, all of which require a deeper level of involvement than just showing up.  Below are the kids in their piano classes, drawing class and knitting class - all of which take place in the same two and a half hour time block, with a half hour worked in there for a lunch break.  Very efficient and a great group of homeschoolers, but definitely a long time to keep Violet out of trouble.

Something else I didn't account for was how much waiting that Violet would have to do while Lucy and Emma were in their activities.  Our first knitting class, Violet got her hands on a ball of yarn and although it wasn't as bad as the time she knotted herself to the shopping cart at the craft store, she had made several circles of the classroom, students' feet and chair legs before I realized what she was doing.  She doesn't seem to mind the waiting so much though - it is really me that ends up exhausted and cranky.  In the below, top left hand picture, Violet is very content watching dancers get ready for their lesson while Lucy and Emma are in their ballet class.  Violet also waited at a nature center while  her sisters enjoyed a class about birds, and she doesn't seem to mind playing with the blow dryers after Lucy and Emma's swimming lessons.

Yes, we already had more than we could reasonably handle BEFORE we had the twice a week commitment to vision therapy.  This semester has definitely been a learning lesson for me.  In order to learn something with any speed, you need to have singular focus - to be involved in so many things makes it impossible to put in the time required to master anything.  You better believe I will remember this when it comes time to sign up for next semester.  

I am trying to make the best of it though, and one of the things that helps is to make sure we are done with school before the extra curriculars start for the day, and to pack a lunch so that wherever the day may take us, we can enjoy a picnic lunch somewhere, which always helps to make the day feel more adventurous.  Lucy and Emma take a yoga class at our local community center and Violet and I play at the park while they are in class, and then we all enjoy a picnic together after.  In the top, right hand picture below, Violet is excitedly showing me that the tunnel on the playground that day is clean and dry!  So many times it is filled with mud and she can't crawl through it.

Lucy's vision therapy is an hour long, and I pack a giant bag full of storybooks and games that I would otherwise not play if we were at home and I had things like food prep, dishes or cleaning to take care of.  Don't get me wrong, I still leave the appointment feeling completely worn out, but at least I got to have some quality time with my youngest two in an environment free of household distractions!  Now if only I could find the silver lining of the car ride there and back - vision therapy is an hour and a half round trip for us and the girls fight so much in the car.  That last sentence may be the most understated sentence of this entire blog post.     

It's cider mill season and you better believe we are enjoying it.  My youngest sister got a job at our favorite cider mill so that is even more trouble for us.  

We have been on several fall hikes this past month - with my parents, with friends, and Will and I even had a couple of dates out where we were able to hike our favorite trails in record time.  We finished one trail and had to think for a moment why we were done so quickly.  And then it hit us that we didn't have to carry any one, stop for random bug bites, water breaks, snack breaks, etc.  I love hiking with my kids but wow, hiking with my husband kid-free is an entirely different and wonderful experience!  The photos in clockwise order from top left below:  the girls and I playing in the creek after yoga class, a honeybee we spotted on a date-hike, the girls holding up what they want me to buy them in a store, an enormous Sweet Autumn clematis it the school by our house, and all of us enjoying a picnic dinner at dusk on a Friday night after our town's annual art show in the park.

We also enjoyed the annual cemetery tour in our neighborhood and the center picture below is of an actor depicting the man who founded our favorite cider mill!

I had the honor of being the God Mother of my cousin's sweet baby daughter this past month and we had a wonderful morning celebrating the newest member of our clan.  Two of my favorite pictures below are the top left of my sweet God Daughter just hanging out as her mom changed her diaper in the pew, and the top center picture of Lucy and her cousin's face as my God Daughter was baptized.  Can you believe that she slept through the entire thing?

We also spent time with friends new and old this past month.  Pictures in clockwise order from top left below: running into our friends at the craft store and realizing we had BOTH received letters in the mail with coupons for being the top customer!?, jumping in the bounce house at our friends' baptism party (same day as my God Daughter's baptism!), making sidewalk art with friends, at the park, friends all packed into the backseat of our car to play, a picnic with friends and chopsticks and finally in the center picture, getting to hold our friends' hamster.

We had a good honey crop that we harvested this past month...

...with lots of help from Will and the kids...

...sticky fingers, sticky floors and sticky grins...

...and several honey bee classes and a Honey Open House to end the season.

Our backyard harvest this past month was meager if you don't count the honey, but I compensated by going to a freezer meal workshop with a friend where we made 10 healthy freezer meals in two hours.

Imagine the irony then, when the following day Will ended up having a health crisis that checked him into the hospital for six days.  Cue the thawing of my first freezer meal...

Will was diagnosed with ulcerative colitis when he was 18 years old.  After years of steadily becoming allergic to each drug he was prescribed to get his condition under control, several hospital stays and a multitude of kidney stones stocked up in his kidneys as a side effect from the colitis we were left with two options - removal of his colon or a chemotherapy type drug that he would need infusions of every six weeks for the rest of his life.  Neither of these were acceptable options for us, and that is how we started the journey that became the life we have today.  We radicalized how we ate and realized that very few ingredients bought off of store shelves were healthy enough to keep Will healthy.  After our lifestyle change, we enjoyed ten years - almost to the date - of Will in complete remission from ulcerative colitis.  That is why several weeks ago it came as a surprise when his symptoms started coming back - fast and furious.  We had a very stressful summer with Will's job, the loss of our chickens and the peace of our own backyard, lice, and finally, the car accident he was in this past month.  We cleaned up our diet and Will went back on the supplements that he utilized ten years ago to put him into remission.  Despite these changes, his symptoms continued to get worse.  When he spiked a fever, the on call doctor at the gastrologist told us to take him straight to the ER.  After almost three weeks of symptoms he had lost over twenty pounds and was exhausted.  He was motivated to take care of his own health and would get cranky anytime I suggested that perhaps this was more serious than he realized and we should call in backup.  I didn't realize just how scared I had become over the last couple of weeks watching Will's health steadily decline until we were waiting in the ER for the cat scan results.   Around midnight we were told that the good news was that there were no unusual masses found in his abdomen but that 50% of his colon was inflamed and starting to perforate.  It wouldn't be until the next morning that we spoke with his doctor, but for that moment, we at least had the relief of knowing it was just a bad case of colitis.  We began to relax and while Will waited for the morphine to start working, we had a chuckle when we realized that he was on the Brown Team in the ER.  The following day we met with the doctor and were told that it was a miracle that Will was still alive and that we should have never waited as long as we did to come in.   This was hard news to hear, as was the fact that he is still left with the same options as ten years ago - drug infusions or colon removal.  After the doctor left the room, I started praying and pleading to God.  Finally I called out to Luke, and asked him to take a note from his sister Violet, and take God's face in his hands, force Him to turn his face towards us and ask God to heal Will.  No sooner did I finish that prayer when I looked out of the fourth floor hospital window and saw a monarch butterfly take it's time flying past me.  Above smoke stacks and cooling towers in an industrial wasteland IN THE RAIN - a monarch butterfly that I am certain was a gift from God to tell me that He has not left our side, and yes, Luke does have His face in his hands and will make sure that his earthly family is going to be okay.  Will saw the butterfly too and we watched in awe as it danced outside of the window on a gray, rainy day.  No matter what happens, God is with us.

Through the help of Will's and my parents, friends and family, we made it through Will's six day hospital stay.  At one point I was driving home from visiting Will in the hospital and realized that I had a flat tire.  To further complicate matters, my other car was already in the shop.  Thanks to my father and father-in-law, my cars were taken care of and everything worked out.  It just makes you wonder why it all hits the fan at the same time though!  And through it all, the exhaustion, the loneliness of having your life partner so sick that I have to hold it all together without him, I had my girls.  There is nothing like a crisis to make you look forward to the simple things - giving them a bath, reading them a story, and just being together.  Kids make it so much easier to live in the moment and to really savor the simple things in life.  They missed Will so much, but thanks to FaceTime and the generosity of our family and friends, they were okay too.

I will save the recovery journey for next month's blog post as we are still currently living it right now.  Will is a very optimistic guy though, and our prayer right now is that we can get him back into remission without the drastic measures we were left with ten years ago.  He is currently on a heavy dose of steroids to help reduce the inflammation in his body and if you could join us in prayer that this is enough to heal him, we would greatly appreciate it!

We have lived a lot of life in the last ten years, all of which would have been drastically different if we hadn't discovered an alternative way to get Will's colitis in remission.  We have had four beautiful kids, something that wouldn't have happened if he had been put on the blood transfusion medication, and we have found a way of life that would otherwise have never been on our radar.  Our gardening, our cooking, our chickens and even our bees are all gifts from Will's colitis and we are confident that this latest bout will also offer us many gifts as well.  Until then, we are taking it day by day and trying to find the lessons and gifts amongst the pain.  September, we thought you were going to leave a good taste in our mouth to last us until spring but I'm afraid if given the choice, I would spit you out and demand my money back!  I'm not the one calling the shots though, and so because I have no other option besides despair, I am going to believe these last bitter bites of summer will be acting like medicine to our soul and the end result will be amazing still!

Baby Bear at 29 Months

Our sweet and feisty Violet has really grown in her speech this past month.  This morning after another rough night of sleep I asked her if she had a bad dream.  She nodded her head and then I moved on.  A moment later however, she launched into a several minute description of her dream that would have caused me to sleep badly if I had dreamed it too!  Long story short, Violet said that in her dream Emma went to bed with a necklace on even after I told her to take it off and then died.  Will was there when she told us this too and it made us so sad and also amazed at what is actually going on in her head.  Violet loves us all so fiercely, but has a special place in her heart for Emma which we attribute to Emma's being the closest in size to her, as well as Emma's habit of giving Violet whatever she wants when Violet is upset.  Emma and Violet also play house every single morning while I make breakfast and share their dolls with each other - sometimes peacefully and sometimes not.

Violet loves playing with baby dolls and talks to them in full conversation.  She also likes to tell me that she is her baby's mom and I am the grandma.  Violet also loves playing with play doh...

...and also enjoys getting into things that she knows she shouldn't.  Here she is below, after I found her in her sisters' closet with scissors and Emma's washi tape.  Emma of course told me that she didn't mind.  I had to tell Emma that although I appreciate how well she shares with Violet, scissors are something that shouldn't be shared.

Her expanded vocabulary includes testing the waters with words like poop and she has taken to calling everyone, including my parents, "poo poo pants".  We have tried replacing it with "popcorn" pants but it isn't sticking.  The most challenging part is that it is hard not to laugh when she says it and unfortunately that is reinforcing her habit.  Will has had a recurrence of ulcerative colitis this past month, and perhaps that is partly to blame for her new vocabulary.  My brother John walked into the house the other day and Violet greeted him by saying some pretty graphic stuff about Will's health.  In an effort to maintain some class, I will just say that I think my brother was scarred for life!  Violet does seem to have a sense of humor, if even it is stuck in the potty phase right now.  She does enjoy making us laugh though, and being silly, refers to Will as Papa Bear and to herself as Baby Bear.

I was telling someone the other day that as the third girl in our family, Violet moves on pretty quickly when we tell her "no" or "wait a minute".  She will throw a fit for a moment, but then picks herself up and takes it upon herself to obtain the item or service that we denied her.  In the above picture, she found the screw driver and batteries all on her own and brought them to Will after he told her that he would fix her toy phone later.  She is very independent and I like her ability to help herself most times - unless of course I told her no to say, candy and a little bit later I found her up on the counter unwrapping a piece of the forbidden candy.

Violet is still a great eater, and has a special love for condiments.  Here she is below eating butter straight out of the package at a restaurant, as well as eating salsa with a spoon.  Forget double dipping, how about double scooping?  Also, for Violet, chips are just a utensil to eat salsa with.  I say that because tonight I finished the chips on Violet's plate, all the while knowing why they were slightly soggy.  They were Chipotle chips and she is my baby so that makes it okay that I still ate them, right?  Will told me it was equivalent to eating chocolate covered peanuts that someone else had sucked the chocolate off.  I told him that I have standards, and would never eat that - unless of course they were dried out and I was in need of some protein.

We had some breakthroughs this month with Violet's ectodermal dysplasia.  She now helps herself to the freezer for cooling gear when she starts to feel hot at home.  In the below picture she has a necklace made by a friend out of sponges that you get wet and then put in the freezer.  It is her favorite way to cool off because it is like an accessory.  It is so nice that she is starting to help herself as at the beginning of the summer it was a toddler/parent battle to help her cool off.  We also finally got the official letter from U of M Children's Hospital stating that Violet is now on the wait list to be seen by their genetic team.  That was a huge relief and we are excited for when we finally get the call to make an appointment.  We also found someone who makes weighted blankets which are supposed to help you get into a deeper level of sleep.  It has definitely helped Violet to push past the 30 minute mark which is when she normally wakes up and now it is about every hour instead.  The problem we are having still is that the weighted blanket gets hot on her and so she wakes up overheated.  I'm hoping as we get into the colder months that this will work itself out, but in the meantime I am keeping her room extra cool and the blanket has definitely helped more than it has not.  

Violet had one major overheating episode this past month in a bounce house at our friend's baptism party.  Fortunately Lucy and Emma came and alerted me that Violet was acting funny in the bounce house and when I went to investigate I found her slurring her speech and moving around like she was drunk with a face that was a red as a tomato.  I pulled her out of the bounce house and she then began to throw an epic fit.  This is typical when she is overheated, but it was made worse by the fact that she really really really wanted to stay in the bounce house.  Because it is now fall, I haven't been bringing her cooling mist fan with us anymore and so had to rely on my friend to get us the supplies we needed to help her feel better.  Needless to say, Violet was NOT happy and we ended up leaving the party.  Lesson learned and we were reminded that we should always have her cooling kit with us and that despite the progress Violet has made in regulating her own temperature, she is still a toddler and wants what she wants!

Surviving August

Our August started out horribly.  We discovered the girls had lice while sitting in church one Sunday morning, and as it slowly dawned on me that Emma didn't in fact walk into a swarm of fleas on her way into church, I quickly whisked her out of church, with my faithful side kick Violet in tow.  As I sat with them in a back room used for choir rehearsals, I became more and more frantic as I searched through Emma's hair like a madwoman.  Once I knew without a doubt that we were in fact dealing with lice, I turned to pick up Violet and realized she was standing on a chair in a puddle of what could only be her own urine.  To think a day that had started out so smoothly, so together - after all we had arrived to church 15 minutes early and 20 minutes earlier than our usual entrance time, could take such a turn so very fast while in a house of GOD really left me shaking my fist towards the heavens.  I turned to Violet and Emma and told them in no uncertain terms "Do NOT move a muscle" and I went into the congregation alone to get Will and Lucy.  I then took all three girls out of church while Will took on the task of cleaning up the puddle that was now dripping off of the chair and onto the floor.  Once in the car, I remembered some friends who had dealt with the nightmare of lice earlier in the year and so I reached out to them for advice and support.  One of my friends dropped everything and brought her supplies to begin the painstakingly slow process of eradicating lice from my children and my house.  She stayed with us for hours on our front porch, combing through our hair and offering stories and love to keep our spirits up.  I mentioned to her that I was frustrated that God would allow this to happen - and to discover it in church no less - when He knows I am already borderline crazy from my lack of sleep with Violet.  It was then that she pointed out that perhaps BECAUSE we discovered we had lice in God's House, He was trying to reassure me that yes, bad things will happen, but He is right there with me, through it all.  After thinking about it for a while, I believe that God sent my friend as my angel of hope that day, and I will be forever grateful for her generosity and love.

Lice may very well be the straw that broke the camels back though and sent me straight to burned out crazy town.  We had a heck of a time getting rid of the lice - they only stayed on Violet's head for a day, Emma's for two weeks but Lucy had them for three weeks.  We were seriously considering buzzing her hair off.  Not to mention that Lucy and I mixed like oil and water during the comb through process that I did every single day for my own peace of mind.  It took hours each day to go through every family member's head and I although all of the sources I read said that you didn't need to search every day, my mind could not rest unless I knew exactly what I was dealing with.  Lucy screamed "OW" every time I ran the comb through her hair and it was pure torture for both of us.  And don't even get me started on the amount of laundry it caused us.  Laundry detergent that normally would last us three months, was used up in the three weeks we dealt with the pesky parasites.  Add to that, Violet regressing on potty training since Will went back to work, and I have done so. much. laundry.  So, when we discovered Charlie had fleas two days after we discovered the kids had lice (not related, just bad luck although my mom is convinced fleas and lice are the same thing) I took the option of just throwing out any cloth bedding he had.  Poor kitty still doesn't have any bedding, but as the weather is still warm, I am going to wait to give him any blankets until it gets cooler again - and the risk of fleas is gone.

Not long after we had recovered from lice, Will text me early in the morning to let me know that he was okay, but he was pretty sure his car was totaled.  This is not the way I would prefer to wake up in the morning, but the main focus for me was that he was okay.  It was raining that morning, and he had been sandwiched between two cars.  The car ended up being totaled out, which was a bummer because it was the nicer car that we had.  BUT, chances are pretty high that if our other car was totaled out, the kids would have been in it and who knows if they would have been okay.  It is what it is, and Will is okay and being taken care of by our chiropractor for low back and neck pain.  We ended up finding a new to us car the very day Will totaled out his car and it has been a long time coming for us.  It is bigger, has better air conditioning for Violet (additional air vents in the back seats) and a much bigger trunk for all of our bee equipment and the accessories that come with having three kids.  We had enjoyed many years of having no car payments, but had also planned ahead for the day when one of our cars either died or was totaled out and so it was as smooth as a transition as a car accident can be.  Plus, since Will was okay (and didn't have lice) nothing else really matters.

We spent a lot of time at home this past month which was mostly because of a lice-forced quarantine. This made it even more depressing to be in our yard without our chickens and a hostile neighbor still using passive aggressive ways to show us that he is still angry with us.  He called the city on us because we didn't give in to his threat to move our chicken coop.  Fortunately we had already been to the city the day our neighbor tore down our fence and let our chickens loose to the neighborhood, and so when the city ordinance guy came out, he recognized me and already knew of the situation.  He pretty much told us that as long as our "play house" was moved five feet off of our property lines that we would be fine.  He also encouraged me to continue pursuing the city council to change the ordinance about chickens so that we could get our chickens back.  I am grateful that we had taken the proper steps but to have our neighbor continue to yell at us and refuse to have a conversation is no way to live in a place that should be a safe haven from the rest of the world.

I do feel like we were robbed of our summer, a time of year that we really look forward to with Will's crazy school year schedule.  We spent more time indoors than usual to avoid the hostility of our neighbor and also because it was just too hot outside most days.  Below are pictures in clockwise order from top left of us hanging out at home: Will goofing around with Emma, Lucy learning how to clean the bathrooms, Lucy learning how to text from Will's phone to mine, snack time, and the kids playing with play doh so I could get some computer work done in relative peace.

A silver lining to lice is that we spent so much time on our front porch - mainly because it is more private than our backyard, and also because I didn't want to pick for lice in the house in case one fell off a head and landed on my furniture.  Another silver lining from our lice experience is it took our mind off of our chicken troubles.

We went for bike rides after the quarantine period was up on the bike helmets, harvested from our garden and even had people share some of their garden harvest with us.  In clockwise order from the top left below: a garbage can filled with weeds going out to the compost but which would have normally been consumed by our chickens and made into compost ten times faster, peaches from our tree, Lucy with a peach, zucchini from a coworker of Will's which really is just a cruel hand off and a reason why we never grown our own zucchini, Will picking peaches, Emma with a lice treatment on her hair while holding peaches, and a flashback photo of Emma at age two with our first peach harvest.

Amphibians and reptiles can't catch lice, so our kids were at least able to have some creatures besides their parents and siblings and a cat to interact with.  Below are creatures found in and near our yard.  So far it seems that Violet shares a similar interest in creatures like Lucy while Emma is content to just observe from afar.

We enjoyed lots of water play and noticed that Violet is starting to realize what to do when she starts to overheat.  In clockwise order from top left below: Violet sitting in the water table to cool off, playing with water and color tablets at the picnic table, more color mixing, a cute picture when I realized my baby girls were lined up in size order with their adorable feet, and Emma and Violet enjoying the sprinkler and the water table at the same time.

Violet LOVES water play, and so if we were outside, she demanded the sprinkler, the water table or the slip and slide at all times.  We really enjoy our slip and slide and the girls spend hours slipping and sliding until their lips are blue and their butts are bruised.

When we were finally able to venture back out into public, we went all out.  We hit a food truck rally for dinner one night, went to the dentist...

...started back up with swim lessons...

...attended library events...

...and enjoyed a surprise garden of pollinator friendly plants next to the library.  We also went to the Bee Festival an hour or so from our house and spent the night there too.

I hosted a booth at a Bee Festival at Belle Isle in Detroit and was helped by a friend who was an awesome salesperson.  We were both pretty giddy that day, enjoying a kid-free Saturday together.  Our math posters have been selling online as well as my bee signs and decals so we had many trips to the post office this past month too.  In fact, as I read Will's text that our car was in fact totaled out, my phone dinged to let me know we had made an online sale.  It was like God was trying remind me that everything was going to be okay.

 As much as having lice over our summer vacation was frustrating, the timing really couldn't have been better.  We were lice free in time for a camping trip with friends that we had planned months in advance.  We had a wonderful time filled with lots of fun activities...

 ...snuggles and food...

 ...crafts and conversations...

...fake mustaches and laughter...lots of laughter...

 ...and dance parties, campfires... and dare I say it... Violet's best sleep of her LIFE.  Yup, on a polyester sleeping bag in a tiny cabin, in a bed shared by Will and I that creaked anytime you blinked your eyes.  She slept the best sleep of her life.  And to think I was stressed when I found out a couple of days before our trip that sleeping bags are made of synthetic materials which are not comfortable for Violet and cause her to overheat faster than a humid day in August.  Was it because she was put to bed in her parent's bed?  Was it because of the sleeping bag?  Was it because she played outside all day in that Up North, fresh air?  Was it because there was an air conditioner unit 5 feet from her body?  I don't know, but you do know I am trying to recreate the situation at home, short of declaring Will's and my bed as hers.  I am considering laying the sleeping bag out on the floor of her bedroom and seeing how that goes.

When we came home from our camping trip we spent time with my sister Jane in town, my mom's birthday and my sister Cate's birthday.  We hadn't seen my sister Jane since Christmas, so it was a very happy reunion and we made lots of new memories to tide us over until this Christmas when we will see her again.  The girls and I even surprised her and bought her favorite movie from when she was a kid on Amazon and then had her over for a movie afternoon.  I was nervous that she wouldn't remember it, but of course she did and now my kids love it too.  The bottom left hand picture below is Violet hugging her Aunt Jane goodbye.  What a squishy good bye hug!

We ended the summer with a trip to a local water park and wondered why we waited years to go, despite our friends inviting us multiple times every summer.  Next year we promise to go often and I truly, truly hope that next summer will be easier on us than this past summer was.

I am sad that summer slipped through my fingers like lice through a comb (too soon?) and I am also angry and disappointed that we didn't have the summer that I had hoped for.  It has been helpful for me to compile the pictures for this blog post though, as really, despite it all, we still managed to find pockets of fun and through it all, we were together.  Together, through lice and fleas, car and potty accidents and heck, no chickens and no sleep.

Violet at 28 Months

This is our second month of potty training and when I look back at where we started, things are improving but we are still not on easy street yet.  Truly, with Violet still sleeping worse than a newborn, I wasn't ready to potty train her.  Potty training requires a well-rested parent to be able to handle all of the extra logistics to go anywhere with a newly potty trained toddler, all of the extra laundry and all of the interruptions with accidents and needing to drop everything the moment a little voice tells you that she has to go potty.  BUT, Will was more than ready to potty train her and kept comparing her to the age of Lucy and Emma when they potty trained.  Not to mention how every time he bought a box of diapers he would make comments like, "hopefully this is the last box of diapers we have to buy for her!"  I kept Will in check until Violet started using the potty to poop and wanting - no, demanding! - big girl undies.  Fortunately the first week or two of potty boot camp Will was still home on his summer break.  However, after Will went back to work, Violet had some major regression.  To the point where I lost my calm, shame-free execution of the potty-training process.  Twelve accidents and clean ups in one day is just too much.  Especially since just the week prior she had maintained dry and clean status for entire days at a time.  That is when my cousin stepped in and promised Violet a present if she stayed dry and clean for a week.  Eureka!  It worked.  Violet was all about what she called, "a birthday present from my step mom."  Whatever you want to call it Violet, as long as I don't have to clean carpet or bathe you more than once a day.

The bribe worked, and got Violet out of her regression funk.  Here she is in the above picture, waking up from her nap to find a doll crib filled with twin baby dolls and accessories.  Violet was more than pleased and so was I!

Although, she still has not adjusted to her daddy being back at work all day.  Each morning she still wakes up looking for him and greets him at the end of the day with pure joy and excitement.

 We had hoped to catch up on sleep over Will's vacation, but unfortunately Violet had other plans.  I have been trying to get Violet into another Children's Hospital as we have been unhappy with the current Children's Hospital.  Six months ago I thought I had all of the paper work in to get on the waiting list for the new hospital.  When I called this past week to check on the status, thinking it had been six months and we should be seen soon, I found out that they had never received the proper paperwork, and so Violet was not in the system but if we resubmit the paperwork again, we can be placed on the now 6-8 month waiting list.  Oh, the frustration!  Plus, I am trying to send paperwork from one hospital who needs a doctor to request paperwork to another hospital who will not assign a doctor to Violet's case unless they receive her paperwork.  Each hospital is about an hour drive from our house, but it was coming to the point where we were going to make a day trip of it and just drive paperwork to where it needed to be.  I think we are finally set, after two solid weeks of calling doctors offices and hospitals every single day and sitting on hold and fumbling through phone menus while my kids tried killing each other.  Although I still haven't received a confirmation letter to let us know if we are in fact on the wait list.

It will be nice to have some more answers on how to help Violet, especially since sleep is such an important part of life.  Despite our struggles, Violet is still the light of our life and never fails to remind us what life is about.  Here she is below at the library, dressed in Emma's dress and flip flops, and Lucy's fashion glasses.  All items were given to Violet with her big sisters' blessing and she wears her "dip dops, spinning dress and glasses" with pride.  She loves her "spinning dress" so much that it has turned into her new incentive to stay dry and clean as if she gets pee on it, she has to put it in the wash.

Her fashion sense is unique and confident and she definitely has an opinion about what she wears.  Dressing her for public is a battle every single day - and more realistically, every single time we leave the house!

 Violet still holds the title for most adventurous and varied eater in our family, and so at least I don't have to worry about her nutrition.  She eats very well and it is so nice to have a child that actually appreciates my cooking.  I'm trying not to get too excited though, as she is still young enough to change her mind.  I turned some leftover oatmeal into cookies that no one else in the family would eat (including myself) but Violet found a way to enjoy them still - dunked in milk!

I just love the toddler age and seeing the world through their inquisitive and energetic eyes.  I especially love that I have a toddler and knowing her world more than anyone else is something I treasure.  The sweet hugs, kisses, goofiness and yes, even sleeplessness are all mine and I wouldn't trade this level of connection that I have with Violet for anything in the world.