Category Archives: Family

“I like it!”

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Balance bikes are a relatively new item. They are very small bicycles that can be used by kids as young as 18 months. They’re different because they have no training wheels and no pedals. The kid propels himself with his feet, then he learns that once he has enough momentum, he can pick his feet up, and suddenly he’s balancing on a bike. As young as two years old. When he has the coordination to pedal, he can move up to a “real” bike easily.

I have a lot of friends who got balance bikes for their kids (all happen to be boys), and they raved about them. Then Hannah got the bug.

She is usually an easy shopper. She doesn’t have fits in stores and doesn’t even express a desire for anything that we see. Until recently. We found ourselves exiting REI with a toddler dramatically sobbing, “I need bicycle! I need bicycle!” (her Uncle Dave and Aunt Kris would be so proud).

So after lots of research, we shelled out for the name brand, “Strider,” in a gender-neutral color on the justification that we’re hoping it will get many years of use.

 

 

She is soooo happy. She kept saying, “Ride bicycle like big kids. I like it!” The helmet was also very exciting. She goes very slow right now, but I’m a little worried that I’ll have to take up jogging when she gets the hang of it.

We’ll post video eventually, but our hard drive is being weird. To summarize: Hannah gets right on the bike and takes off, then she gets distracted by an airplane overhead, then she realizes the tires spin when you lay the bike on its side, then she rides some more. Life is fun.

Memorable birthdays

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With a New Year’s Eve birthday, I get to do some seriously fun things on my special day.

Here’s my first birthday. I’m blissfully eating cake, unaware that in six short months I will cease to be the center of the universe.

I wouldn’t be surprised if my sister ate all my cake on my second birthday. But I digress.

Since it is over winter break, I’ve spent many birthdays away from home. One time, when I was really little, we were flying on my birthday and the story includes something about the passengers singing to me while the flight attendant brought a muffin with a candle. Maybe I’m messing the story up because a candle on a plane just doesn’t seem right, but Mom can straighten me out in the comment box.

Anyway, I’ve spent my birthday in Ohio, Florida, California and Utah as well as my home states. I’ve been on the beach and at Disneyland.

In Cleveland, with family when I was little, I got to go on special birthday outings with my aunt and uncle. They would take me (just me!!) to a mall (wow!) and let me pick out a present, whatever I wanted (big wow!). This was so incredibly exciting and special.

When we were at home, the church I grew up in did a New Year’s Eve talent show. We would always sing or play instruments, followed by “Skidamarinkadinkadink” (not sure what the real title is).

One set of grandparents gave me a pearl necklace, and on each birthday they would add a pearl. Such grown-up jewelry made a little girl feel very elegant.

Two years ago, we went out to eat and ran into a family from our church that we hardly knew. At the end of the meal, the waiter told us there was no check as that family had paid for our tab. What a special birthday surprise!

So whether it’s exciting locations, special time with family, or surprising generosity, my birthdays have turned out pretty good. I’m looking forward to many more.

Tell me your favorite birthday story!

Christmas catch-up

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Haven’t blogged a lot lately, probably because I’ve been sitting around doing nothing. Not exactly! This is holiday week – Christmas Eve, Christmas, New Year’s Eve, my Birthday, New Year’s Day and our anniversary.

To summarize, our normal activities were off for the last couple of weeks, but we got new front windows, re-financed our house (woohoo for low interest rates!), had Brett’s parents come visit, had several playdates and visited with friends in from out of town. Oh yeah, and all the holiday stuff. Fortunately, Brett had two four-day weekends for us to enjoy a lot of family time.

I tried out a couple new recipes for Christmas dinner: bacon-wrapped pork tenderloin and from-scratch green bean casserole. Only a couple tweaks to the recipes – I marinaded the pork in Dijon and apple juice for a little bit before cooking, would do even longer next time. For the green beans, I put those delectable fried onions on top instead of panko.

I also did some ranch mashed potatoes and rolls from a tube. It was a tasty meal. I didn’t want to get too crazy since we’d thrown a curveball and introduced my in-laws to tamales the night before (which they liked).

Now we have to get motivated to take all the Christmas decorations down. We seem to be rampantly blowing fuses in our Christmas tree; each day a new branch or section is completely out. Eh, we’ll deal with that next year.

New skills, or not

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Mommy, in the dining room, with the scissors.

There was a crime – against Hannah’s bangs. They were getting in her eyes, so I decided to be brave, borrow some hair scissors and take it on myself.

She sat still and I managed to get a fairly even line, but when I stepped back, I cringed. Instead of taking the 3/4 inch off that I was planning, I had somehow managed to chop almost two inches off.

I feel like an idiot. Luckily, she has no idea what just happened to her; she’s probably just happy she can see without hair in her eyes.

Her look reminds me a little of that chick from NCIS …

Maybe?

Adoption day

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Today is our second year anniversary of Hannah’s Adoption Day. The legal side of the adoption process is different than most people think. When you bring your daughter home from the hospital, even if both biological parents have signed the proper paperwork, that baby is not yet legally “yours.” In the state of Texas, you are legally that baby’s legal guardians for the first six months, then after a social worker visit and a court date, you are finally official parents.

In our case (back in 2009), our lawyer was somehow able to speed up the process and got us a court date after three months instead of six! Maybe the judge owed her a favor, I don’t know. To us, it wasn’t a big deal since mentally and emotionally we were already Hannah’s parents, no question. But we were excited to make it official.

We were so blessed that our closest friends were able to come share this important event with us. My sweet friend, Kay (of Kay Harmon Photography), documented the courtroom excitement, and here are a few of her pictures.

First, our lawyer, Denise, presented our case to the judge.

Then the judge said we are a family forever! And everybody clapped.

Then we went outside and took a picture. Most of our friends were from a lifegroup we were in at church several years ago. Of the people who came to our Adoption Day, three are now living in foreign countries and another family moved to Oregon. This is the last time we got to all be together. So special!

As you can see, Hannah has been hanging out with Abby and Lilly from a young age.

We had a party/lunch at our house afterwards. Hannah got to meet some of her third cousins.

It was an amazing day we will remember forever!

A year from scary

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One year ago today, Hannah had a febrile seizure. At the time, we didn’t know a lot about it, so I wanted to write a post to share our experience.

Hannah had been acting completely normal all day. She seemed to be teething a bit and was slightly warm, so I gave her a dose of ibuprofen before bed. A couple hours later, we heard her make a strange noise, sort of a groan. Brett went to check on her and immediately called for me. As soon as I saw her, i could tell she was having a seizure. Her body was rigid and shaking, and her eyes were glazed-over.

This was the scariest moment of my entire life.

I had a flashback – when I was a preschool teacher, I had to take CPR classes which included seizure training (more on this later). I put her on the floor while Brett called 911. An ambulance and a firetruck were in front of our house in about four minutes! The seizure had stopped well before then, so in that time I packed the diaper bag with anything I thought we’d possibly need for several hours in the emergency room.

The paramedics came in and put a tiny oxygen mask on her and told us that febrile seizures are caused by a fever spike. There are no lasting effects, and they are unlikely to happen again. But they told us we did the right thing by calling 911 since it was her first seizure and needed to be accurately diagnosed.

Hannah was strapped on the giant stretcher, clutching Bo (her blankie), and we got to go on our first (and hopefully last) ambulance ride.

By the time we got to our room in the Dell Children’s Hospital ER, Hannah was back to her normal self (plus tired and bored). The doctor checked her out and ran some tests in an attempt to identify an infection that may have caused the fever. All the tests came back normal, so we think it must have been caused by the teething.

We got to leave at 12:30, as in midnight, after 2 1/2 hours which I hear is pretty good for the ER. Hannah was exhausted and slept for most of the next 36 hours.

There is a possibility she could have another febrile seizure, but the likelihood decreases as she gets older. We are very careful about her being outside when it’s hot, and we don’t mess around with fevers. If we are going to be away from her for a length of time, we like to be sure that whoever is with her is knowledgeable about seizure response.

So, you never know when someone around you could have a seizure; be informed! Some general guidelines are:

  • turn the person on their side if you are able
  • clear the area of hard items
  • put something soft under the head if you are able
  • do not restrain the person or try to hold them down
  • do not try to put anything in their mouth
  • pay attention to the length of the seizure

So now you know. And knowing is half the battle. (yes, I put that in for you, Brett)

Decorating the tree

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With Hannah a year older, Christmas is very different from last year. She’s walking and running and talking and into everything. So we made tree-decorating a family project.

Hannah liked to put all the ornaments in a toddler-level row.

Then she told Brett where to put them up high.

Later, while she was napping, I evened them out a bit.

 

Christmas pictures – The reality

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I’m just keeping it real. Taking pictures of a 2-year-old is hard. Not just trying-to-clip-the-cat’s-fingernails hard, more like trying-to-get-the-cat-to-lay-an-egg hard. I was beginning to have some low self-esteem about this, then my friend, Kelly, who also has a 2-year-old, posted the real story of their Christmas pictures. So, to affirm my sweet friend, here’s what went down at my house, Kelly. :)

Let’s put on our nice dress and sit in front of the Christmas tree. Maybe we’ll take a book as a distraction.

Hmmm. Maybe holding a Christmas ornament would be better? And how about if you look at the camera, hello!

Nope, turn around. Seriously, sit still for just a minute.

Ah, the blur. A staple element of toddler photography. Let’s hold the book up for her to look at! Oh, turns out she wanted to hold the book. Now she’s pouting and crying pathetically as if she is undergoing some grave trial (that requires two stuffed animals for comfort).

Dry the tears. Give her a new ornament. Hold up the iPad with pictures next to the camera to try to get her to look in a general forward direction … while chewing on the ornament.

And that’s what we got. The really bad ones I deleted straight off the camera, so I can’t even include those.

Little kitchen addition

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My favorite appliance has become her favorite appliance.

Today, Hannah was playing in her little kitchen when she turned around and announced to us, “I need CrockPot.”

We laughed, but she was totally serious and repeated her statement emphatically. Luckily, I remembered something we had tossed in a box headed to Goodwill and ran to retrieve it – the “Little Dipper” that came with our large CrockPot. It is small, has an attached bowl and a plastic lid, perfect for kids, right? We tucked the cord behind the kitchen, and voila…

Hannah has a CrockPot, and she is delighted. I’m so proud.

Due

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Today was my due date. Last spring, we lost a baby at only six weeks along. It was an incredibly painful experience, physically and emotionally, and it’s still a little surreal that it happened at all.

I had been so excited when we found out the due date – right by Thanksgiving, what a symbol of all we had to be thankful for. But here’s the day, and there’s no baby.

In everything, give thanks. I Thes. 5:18

Give thanks? No, thanks.

Of course, I’m incredibly thankful for Hannah and so many other things. But I’m pretty sure there’s an asterisk in my Bible that says, “Give thanks* … *except in the hard stuff, or the stuff that makes you sad, or the things you don’t understand.”

Oh wait, there’s no asterisk, no escape clause.

I guess I could start by being thankful for the gift of life, however short it might be. And I’m thankful for the many amazing friends who said, “I’ve been there. It’s awful, but you’ll get through it.” And those who prayed, hugged, shed tears and sent flowers. I was so encouraged by their kindness and comforted by their shared grief for the loss of a life.

So there’s no new baby this Thanksgiving, but there is hope. There is an increased thankfulness for our support system, and a greater appreciation for each life created. And with hope and thanks we move forward.

There’s a song by Aaron Schust that has been encouraging lately: My Hope is in You.