second degree

Listening to the radio, I say "This is Baby Got Back." Hannah responds, "Baby Got Back? the very next day?" Went with Hannah to the hospital today. Her burn looks so much better than last time I saw it six days ago. She's up now, 10pm, after a long post-hospital nap this afternoon. We had a great time making cookies earlier.

Hannah gets a burn

I had the ladies over for tea today. We were waiting on the last two to arrive, but went ahead and made tea since they were late. Hannah asked for her own tea, so I let her pick one from the cupboard (lime-mint 'mojito'), and poured her a glass. "It's hot hot hot," I told her, "let's wait for it to cool down." I went and set it at her place at the table, and went to get the piano bench to make up for a missing chair. I was halfway back when I heard the mug fall to the floor, and Hannah screaming and yelling.

I looked over her, scooped her up and took her straight to the tub to splash cold water on. She was holding her pajama top away from her chest, and I saw why: dark pink skin, with the upper layer peeling off. Oh, poor baby. Andrew came up and took over while I called 8-1-1 (nurse hotline, instead of emergency). Luckily my two friends were both there, who each had first aid training. It also helped to have someone to hold Benjamin when Hannah called for mama. We did our best to cool her down, cold towels on the burn, but as she went into shock she felt too cold and wanted to be wrapped up. It took about half an hour of panic, crying, and yelling for her to calm down. We all tried to stay calm. I told the ladies to carry on as best they could with tea time, because what else could we do?

It was a first degree burn, much like a sunburn. Hannah's been calling it the "tea" on her, because of how it happened. The nurse gave some ideas of pain relief and ways to assist healing, even interesting home remedies like raw potato. Maybe we'll try that tomorrow.

One friend zipped to the store to pick up children's Tylenol for Hannah. It took a bit to coax her into taking it, but she's good with it now. It helped a lot. She lay on the couch all afternoon watching TV and asking for fresh cold towels.

Hannah didn't want to look at the burn. She would close her eyes whenever we came to check it.

She napped on the couch.

Later in the evening, Andrew comes and quietly suggests we get her a little present to take her mind off things and distract her. I had just the thing.

I was at Superstore last week, without the children. I knew it was the perfect time to pick up a Christmas gift for Hannah. I am still not sure if she prefers Anna or Elsa, but I picked her up an Anna doll.

And it did the trick. She wanted us to help her unwrap the present and open the package, but it certainly made her happy. I tried out some lines from the movie and made her 'talk'. We took her hair out of the braids because Hannah wanted to see how long it was, and to practice brushing it.

Ben was concerned for his sister. He kept trying to see what was wrong, pulled the blanket. Talked and smiled at Hannah. When I called Andrew upstairs, Ben echoed my calls, "Aanh! Aanh!" And when the burn first happen, and she was crying, he was crying too.

We wrapped her up in gauze, to protect the burn while she sleeps tonight. When she gets up, we'll unwrap it and let it dry for the day. She got THREE stories at bedtime: Arthur's Christmas, All By Myself (Mercer Mayer), and Jenny's in the Hospital.

The funny thing is, we've been reading Jenny's in the Hospital all week. Hannah has been very curious about the book and we like to discuss it. I even read it backwards the other night to make her laugh. I really love these books that take kids through real life situations where they may be a bit unsure or scared. I feel it helped today, even though we didn't go to the hospital. But it gave Hannah some of the building blocks in her mind, to understand the injury. I wonder if there's a book equivalent of what happened today? If there isn't, maybe it needs to happen. I don't seem to remember Arthur or the Berenstain Bears ever having medical emergencies.

F*ing shoes.

Hannah chose to go to bed tonight. It was 9pm. She came to me with her toothbrush, then after finishing her teeth, off she went. We did some salami-salami-baloney, read a story and 5 minutes later she was out.

What? Who is this child?

I should've shuffled her off to bed at 8, but I was done. I took a time out and let her build a 'playground' from couch cushions while her brother crawled about and watched.

It wasn't a big mess. And she had a BIG day.

Up early to say bye to dada, a little bit of TV before coming to wake mama to get ready for gym time. She seriously did that. Beat my alarm. I made oatmeal with browned butter and sugar, but she only had a little. She had already enjoyed cereal from dada and a yogourt cup she pulls out of the fridge on her own.

Gym time with her friends, followed by watching the salmon spawn in the creek. Home, bread baking, soup for lunch.

I made the most wonderful soup last night. I baked a kabocha squash, split it in two, put half in the fridge and half in the soup. The family devoured the soup. I went to warm it up today, and dumped a container of orange slop into the pot. Boy, this is like, ALL pumpkin, I thought, stirring it. Did we even get pumpkin last night? Did it all sink to the bottom or something? Totally didn't clue in, until it was all cooked. That's just squash. The soup is in the other container. Ooops.

We went to visit my grandmother, a 45 minute drive, as my aunt and uncle are in town. I love to see them, but it is hard. Both kids are in my lap glomming me, and interrupting, and making the other one cry, and I feel like I barely got past "how are you" in the 2 hours I spent there. Luckily they slept in the car there and back, else I might've sworn off taking that trip ever again.

Dinner was linguini alfredo, asparagus, and a roast chicken from the supermarket. It's hard making dinner with two tired, hungry kids on hand. And I'm all no more candy, dinner is coming, leave me alone!

I'm catching up on Once Upon A Time. Once I finish this episode, Family Reunion, I'll be all caught up. It's been a month or two, and a lot of knitting. Now I need to find a new series for the backside of my dress.

I've been wanting to make cookies for days, but I haven't decided what to make. It haunts me every night until about 11:30, when I decide it's too late anyway.

So today, Hannah goes and picks out her shoes, "Mama, I'm going to wearing my f*ing shoes."
"You what shoes? Your ... your fun shoes?" I try to plant a better word.
"Imma wear my f*ing shoes." She responds, cool as can be. It's as if she's saying she wants to wear her purple shoes.
"Who calls them your f*ing shoes?" I ask calmly, trying to match her tone of indifference.
"You do, mama."
"Oh," I backpedal, "your funny shoes. I must've called them your funny shoes."

Think she bought it?

Peeking and Eating, Hallowe'en

They're all in bed. Hannah went down early. She peeked out until mama came to tuck her in and delivered water. I didn't read a story tonight. I did read one last night - I need to more. I'd like to more. It's just that I'm usually trying to put Ben to sleep, and he tends to perk up if he hears exciting voices like Sister. Ben took a while to go down, dada had to take over. He kept waking and listening for sounds of mama, hoping I'd come. I had already done my part, he's tired, he's fed, just go to sleep.

He isn't the miracle all-night baby any more. He gets up in the dark. He gets up just before light. He's still darling, but he doesn't sleep all night. And I just have to go to bed earlier to deal with that.

And he eats. Oh does he ever eat!

Tonight was salmon, steamed broccoli, and rice. He's much like Hannah, though I don't think she was such an eater by 8 months as he has been. Both are great self-feeders. Just lay it out and baby stays busy grabbing and munching. Ben is pretty intense though. I pause between bites of my own dinner to plop three decent sized chunks of butternut squash, sweet potato, and chicken onto his tray. As I take my next bite, he reaches down, grabs all three chunks in his mitt and mashes them right into his maw. Little monster.

I've been sorting through his clothes today, preparing boxes to give away. I realize my sewing room is just filling with my old clothes, Hannah's, and Ben's. I don't know if we'll ever have a third child, yet I'm saving some baby clothes just in case. It's just a matter of how much I should even bother saving. There are some Ben never wore, some Hannah barely wore, those all just have to go. And with cloth diapers, many small pants never fit in the first place.

The cloth diapers. I ordered some new ones, I should've ordered a couple more. About a dozen of my original BumGenius are to be retired. It's time. Those diapers have been absolute tanks. 28 months of work in my house, they've served me well.

Hannah called up her crazy cousins yesterday. They love talking on the phone together. I was hoping they'd just compare their Hallowe'ens and enjoy chatting, like they had the day before (when 5 minutes in, Hannah declared a "party bum bum" and they spent the next 45 minutes squealing and chatting, Hannah sitting naked in the mirror talking to her own face but her cousin's ear through the phone), but no.

"Wanna come to my house?" her cousin asks.

Instead of being naked and having a phone party, as I had been hoping for, the kids organize a playdate. My 3 year old and her 5 year old cousin had it all set up. So despite my cold, my drippy nose and hoarse throat, I pack up both kids, take them to the grocery store, pick up supplies for lunch, then we had over to see the cousins. They had a great time, as always.

Hannah's cousins are crazy about the holidays. They particularly love Hallowe'en, and have bought a few 'scary guy' decorations. This year's new scary guy was a life size zombie with scary voice and flashing eyes. The girls wouldn't even enter the room with that thing. Hannah also wouldn't walk in the driveway alone, because of the zombie with maggots crawling out of his face.

The 5 year old thought it was funny how scared the girls were of the flashing-eye zombie guy, and kept moving him closer to them and laughing. Both girls hid under the table and when asked to come out, kept saying the zombie guy was there. Now, I figured because he was so into this new zombie guy, the 5 year old wasn't afraid of it. So I took it off the stand, and chased him around the house, croaking out "huuuug me" in my sick, hoarse voice.

Apparently he is afraid of it.

Oops.

Speaking of Hallowe'en:

The kids did an absolute marathon day. We did Mom's group, the natural foods market, the pumpkin patch, and THEN we did a full grocery shop at the regular store too. I can't even remember what we did for lunch, did I pass my daughter a granola bar and an apple or something? And I have this photo of them in the cart:

BOTH smiling and playing racing-car, at 4pm, after being out since 9am. Troopers.

They aren't always like this. I'm just posting it here as evidence that they CAN be like this. Sometimes.

Part of it is probably the 8'o'clock bedtimes we had earlier last week. It started off good. I really do like that cutoff. The baby doesn't always go down, but life is easier if the big girl is asleep. We can tidy and not have someone following behind dumping crayons or tossing the cushions off the couch. Baby dumps crayons too, but somehow it's cuter when he does it. Sorry, sweetie.

So the pumpkin patch was a big hike. We went to the very farthest corner of the patch, and back again, Hannah on foot and Ben asleep in the Ergo. Ow, my back. We picked a few green pumpkins, and it was tough just to narrow it down to 5 pumpkins for the family. One for each of us, one for good luck. Hannah thought we needed more than one for good luck, but we put those ones back.

I did some furious carving in the 24 hours leading up to trick-or-treating. My masterpiece this year:

okay, it's more of a bag lady than a wicked witch, but I did want something a little different for the green pumpkin. Hannah's adorable pumpkin,

The circles are eyes, the lines above are eyebrows. I took some artistic liberty in carving the chin. I just love the way little people draw.

Today I was trying to write down a recipe. Hannah commandeered the pen, "Is it okay if I write it in up and downs?" she asks. "Sure," I say, knowing I won't get the pen back, "2 cups flour." Hannah begins to write, /\/\/\/\/\/\/, "Okay, what next?" and I read out the recipe, and she scribbles. The last item, 2 eggs, I tell her she should write it out proper. E--G-G-S. I find the paper later, and there it is. A big E and some squiggly G's.

I'm proud of her. Maybe too much. She does a really decent job with letters. She clearly wrote her name in a colouring book the other day, HANNHA. Love!

Hallowe'en was really non-eventful. We barely got pumpkins out in time. There were maybe 30 trick-or-treaters. Hannah and Ben went out with their dada for about 45 minutes and made it all the way to our realtor's house and back, just like last year but faster. No rain. Hannah wore her Anna costume, and met a big Elsa (the real Elsa, she said), and a little Elsa.

Ben wore his kitty-cat pajamas. I couldn't even locate my eyeliner for whiskers. It's okay. Not every holiday is a pinterest miracle.

Poor little guy. He just wants his mama.

He did join us for fireworks. He sat with dada and was just sorta shocked. Hannah and I sat together, and BOY was she thrilled by them. The first few minutes she was giving standing ovations, "WOW!!!", eyes to the sky, mouth open and smiling with uncontrolled glee, hands clapping. The other kids, toddlers especially, were equally charmed. Our neighbours are fantastic, spending what might amount to a ticket to Hawaii, instead on fireworks for Hallowe'en. We do look forward to the little neighbourhood gathering every year.

Afterward, Hannah's grandparents dropped by to see her costume. I'm glad they did, she was excited to show everyone. Ben even sat for a while with his Bubby, smiling and watching his face.

We definitely needed the day of rest on November 1st. Oh wait, we had a playdate instead..., yeah, and afterward the kids came home and napped until 8pm then stayed up another few hours til 10:30, 11. Daylight savings time change makes me feel a bit better about that one.

8pm this week, 8pm.