Diary

Grace has a new diary. She couldn't find it the other day. She yelled to me from another room, "Mom? I can't find my diarrhea book!"

Grace's first dentist appointment

Grace had her first appointment February 21 and she did great. Her teeth are close together, so they did x-rays and everything. She loved it. I'm glad it went so well. I did the pediatric dentist route, and they recommend that you wait in the waiting room, so I did. It was surprising at first mention, but it makes sense when you think about it.

I'm guessing since her baby teeth are already close together, and both her dad and I had crowded teeth ... we'll have an orthodontist bill in our future.

Valentines day, ruby slippers and the Easter bunny

Let me tell you a little story. Grace is obsessed with The Wizard of Oz since she first saw it. She asked Santa for it months after she saw it, and got it. She asks to watch it every chance she can, tortures all her friends with Wizard of Oz fantasy play, and so on.

She was telling me that she was hoping the Easter Bunny would bring her ruby slippers for Easter. Some days I would spy her meditating while looking at the DVD cover, repeating, "I wish I had ruby slippers. I wish I had ruby slippers." Exaggeration? I'm not that clever.

On Valentines day, as we were almost ready to leave for daycare, she asked me, "How come the Easter bunny didn't come?" Evidently, she had her holidays a bit confused. I briefly explained and dropped her off at daycare.

Fortunately for me, I still had not picked up a Valentine for her. So, since I now realized she had hoped for her ruby slippers to arrive on Valentines day, I get to be her hero and buy her them. And we all lived happily ever after.

My rookie mother story

Right around mid January Grace had croup, but I didn't get a chance to post my funny rookie mother story about how we found out she had it. I woke in the middle of the night to this horrible sound coming from her room. So, I went running in her room to find her sitting up in her bed, eyes watering, and making what I think sound like gasping for air noises. I ask her if she can breathe (Rookie move #1) and she shakes her head no.

The panic begins. I run to her, turn her around, and start applying my feeble and untrained version of the Heimlich (sp?) (Rookie move#2) and begin screaming "SHE'S CHOKING!" at the top of my lungs. (Rookie move#3). I look at her to see if my fancy anti-choking technique is working and she is still making that awful noise. Now I'm turning her upside down and screaming "KEVIN!" (Rookie move #4). I'm in pure panic and terror mode and screaming and terrorizing my poor child and now my husband has joined me and he's in that panic too. Fortunately for us all he's able to remove her from my grips and figure out that she's coughing and not choking. The poor child was abused for coughing.

I took her to the doctor the next day and told the doctor my story. I laughed so hard telling my sister the next day that I cried. We joked that I have to tell the doctor, "Ignore the marks on her ribs and her ankles - those were not child abuse... they were my attempts to revive her."

I'm cool as a cucumber under pressure.