Busted

The doorbell rang today, just like it does every other weekday at 3 p.m. However, the little girl that met me on the porch after walking home from the bus stop looked decidedly different than usual.



In her own words: "I tried to find the face-painter at field day today, but I couldn't. So on the bus ride home I used a marker and did my own face. I'm sorry, Mama. I'm sorrier than I've ever been."

Ana's spill

Friday afternoon when I found out that Bekah had to be wearing a very specific pair of tights for her dance recital the next day (and the store that sells the tights would close for the weekend in one hour), I carted the girls off to All American Dance to purchase said tights.

Everything was swell and dandy until Ana tripped on the sidewalk. We've gotta work on that kid's reflexes, because her face hit the sidewalk before she could catch herself with her hands.

I could tell that it hurt. But as she started to pull herself up from the sidewalk, we found out that we had a bigger problem on our hands than pain.

Blood poured from her nose and spattered on the sidewalk. I ran to the van, threw Miri in and rushed back to aid Ana.

She was terrified of the blood. I did the best I could with the box of tissues and the case of wipes we had on hand. It only took a couple of minutes to stop the bleed, but it was the longest two minutes of my life because Ana was in hysterics the entire time. I don't even want to guess what the lady sitting on the nearby bus bench was thinking.

When all was said and done, we had six blood-soaked tissues, three blood-soaked wipes, two blood-spattered shoes, and a pair of blood-spattered khakis. Oh, and a swollen lip and series of facial wounds.

Analee the day after her trip on the sidewalk. When Bekah told Ana she had "smoochy lips," it made the situation a whole lot happier.

Tiny dancer

Bekah has toiled long and hard this year at the dance studio. This is her first year taking lessons, and although she wasn't sure how much she'd enjoy it at first, she's definitely grown to love it. (Disclaimer: She was DYING to take classes; I didn't push her into it. She was hesitant only after I had signed her up and she realized that she didn't know anyone in her class. She's a very social creature. But after making some friends, she decided it was worth it.)

This last Saturday, we got to experience our first rehearsal/recital. Exciting times.

(Ironically, I got better pictures at the rehearsal than at the recital. So enjoy the little girls in their curlers.)

Bekah sitting with her class waiting for their turn on the stage at the dress rehearsal. I told her we'd do her hair all fancy later that day, but she insisted on at least wearing makeup for the rehearsal.

Being a scary tiger.

Skipping to her place.

Supposedly doing a toe-touch.

Skipping with her partner.

Her final pose with a couple of the other girls.

All ready for the recital. She had to show off her tail.

This is what happened when I asked her to show me how excited she was.

After the two-flippin'-hour-long recital, Bekah was rewarded with a bouquet of flowers from her daddy (who had sat in the Civic for six hours to save our seats). Seth was rewarded with a tired backside. I was rewarded with two extremely tired little girls, one of which had to be removed from the auditorium to carry out the rest of her tizzy fit. Despite the hardships, we were very proud of our tiny dancer.

Zoo

After we finished all the housework and yard work Saturday, we figured we deserved a little break, so we packed up the wee ones and went to the zoo.

This trip's highlights:

• Miriam is old enough to really enjoy the animals now. However, the zoo is either infested with snakes or Miriam doesn't understand that only snakes hiss. She pointed at nearly every moving thing and enthusiastically said, "Sssssss!"
• Although several of the animals weren't on display yet because of the cooler weather, the number of baby animals on display almost made up for it. We got to see a baby ring-tailed lemur, a baby camel, two baby servals and a baby snow leopard.
• Bekah wants to enter the zoo's annual photo contest, so she brought her camera and snapped photos all along the way.

Bekah taking Ana's picture on the lion statue while Seth watches.

Bekah's picture of Ana.

All right, all right. Miri DID hiss at most of the animals, but when Seth told her this was a monkey (which is hard to see because of Miri's reflection), she actually made the appropriate sound.

The serval kittens.

Bekah's picture of the zookeeper bottle-feeding the baby camel.

Bekah, Ana, Miri and Andrea atop the tiger statue. We were roaring like a tiger. Ana must have missed the memo.

To see more pictures, click here.

Lucky

I'm a lucky momma. Lucky 'cause I have these:

Analee (trying to a princess pose), Andrea, Miriam (mesmerized by the flash) and Rebekah before church today. The girls are wearing the Easter dresses I made. I would have included Seth in the picture, but he was at pre-church meetings. And I tried to take a picture of him later in the day, but he politely declined to be photographed. The poor man is suffering from some nasty allergies and an equally nasty sunburn.

Lucky 'cause my husband gave me this:

A beautiful orchid. Let's hope it fares better than the orchid he got me several years ago ...

Lucky 'cause I received no fewer than four cards for Mothers' Day.

Yup. Like I said, one lucky momma.

Stairs

Once upon a time, we had a baby. Her name was (is) Analee.

Ana at 3 1/2 months.

Now this wily kid knew that, being the second child, she needed to do something dramatic in order for her parents to remember her. So one morning while I was supervising Rebekah's bath and reorganizing the bathroom drawer with all the hair accessories, Analee rolled over. Although it was a brand new skill she had just acquired, Ana knew that wasn't enough to get her mother's attention. So she rolled over again. And again. Under normal circumstances, this would be exciting at most, but Ana wanted to be more than exciting ... she wanted to be daring. So she rolled until she was perched at the top of the stairs. With one arm dangling over the top stair.

Yes, I realize my carpet is incredibly green.

Needless to say, she got my attention.

Seth and I figured that would be our closest call when it came to children tumbling down the stairs. But Miriam has proved to be equally wily. She knew that, as the third child, she'd have to step it up even more.

Yesterday as I read stories from the Friend to the big girls on the living room couch, Miriam was busy looking things over at the top of the stairs. Yes, those stairs. But Miriam has mastered going up AND down the stairs. She's a pro. We've even taken down the gates because she's such a confident stair ascender and descender.

So it's a good thing I happened to glance up from the magazine in time to see Miri's attempt to one-up (or many-down, as the case may be) her older sister. She had leaned over to retrieve her beloved blankie without realizing how close she was to the top of the stairs. By the time I had thrown Ana off my lap and dashed up the stairs, Miri was using every once of strength in her puny baby-arms to keep herself upright. She had both hands one step down while the rest of her body was still on the landing. She was on the brink of tumbling down headfirst.

Gratefully, I prevented her from the possible concussion that would have followed. And so Miriam wins the title of Most Dramatic Near-Fall.

Miriam plotting another way to gain attention. Actually, she's doing her popcorn hands because I was singing "Popcorn Popping" to try and make her smile for the camera.

Analee dances again

Following a ballroom dance fund raiser/dinner show at the high school, Ana took to the floor to show off some of her own moves. If it looks low-quality, that's because it is. All I had to shoot with was the cell phone.

Let's go fly a kite

Months ago when we were all experiencing some serious cabin fever, the girls BEGGED me to fly kites with them. (It didn't help that I had bought each of them a $1 kite from Wal-mart.) I insisted that we wait until there was no more snow. And it wasn't too cold. And it wasn't TOO windy.

When I finally ran out of excuses, we gathered the kids and their kites up and drove to the church's field. And boy, am I glad we did.

Bekah took her Barbie kite on its maiden voyage into the wild blue yonder.

Bekah concentrates on keeping her kite in the sky.

Analee running to keep her Ariel kite up.

And tries out some unconventional kite-flying stances.

Despite her dislike of the grass, Miriam attempts to escape from the stroller.

When the front didn't work, she tried to go out the back.

Seth flies the pretty pink Barbie kite.

Recent past

And just to overshadow the happiness and cuteness of the previous post, here are some pictures my dad shot the day Miri had her surgery. ('Cause you can never have too many posts link back to any "Miri's procedure" post. I'm going for a record.)

A drugged out Miri resting on Grandma Scott. After the surgery, I had to go to my parents' house to pick up the big girls who had spent the night at their house.

Me reading to Bekah, Miri and Ana before packing up to go home. I had planned on taking all of them with me, but my parents kindly insisted on keeping Ana so that I could spend the day alone with Miri once I had shipped Bekah off to kindergarten.

After Miri's tube went missing, all we could do was pray that her tear ducts would stay open so we wouldn't have to repeat anything we've already endured. Since then, I've witnessed one day when her left eye was a little crusty and runny. I was afraid that things had closed up again. However, her eyes since then have seemed to be clear. We'll keep watching and waiting and hoping and praying.

Easter, Easter and more Easter

Because the girls can't have enough sugar (Bekah has nearly finished off her stash of trick her treat candy!), we attended no less than three Easter egg hunts this weekend. Count 'em, folks.

#1 The Ucon hunt
Bekah brought home a flier from school advertising this one. It was quite the adventure since we had to find parking at or around Simmons Park, hike all the way back to the west entrance of the park and then find an open spot on the edge of the field on the east side of the park. After the countdown, the girls scurried out and filled their baskets. By the time the deluge of children swept down from the west side of the park, we were finished.

Analee finding eggs in the field at Simmons Park.

Rebekah taking her pick from the Easter egg cache in the middle of the field.

Ucon likes to recycle their eggs, so we found an empty dugout to sit down in and empty the candy into our baskets. Along the way, I spotted two kids who were holding near-empty baskets and looking a little forlorn. I asked them if they had arrived late. They told them that they had. So I asked the girls if they could share some eggs with the boy and girl. Neither Bekah nor Ana hesitated; they immediately grabbed several eggs from their baskets and placed them in the girl's and boy's baskets. I'm not ashamed to admit it ... I was a very proud mama.

#2 The Grover hunt
For the past several years, the glorious Aunt Rachel has taken it upon herself to host a hunt for the wee ones. And since Grandpa Dennis' birthday is so close to Easter this year, we combined the celebrations and had one giant bonanza complete with pizza, an egg hunt, playing with Buddy, skinning elbows on trees, cake and ice cream.

Grandma Susan holding Miriam while Miriam holds a plastic egg and drops a jelly bean.

Seth helping Bekah play the "ocarina whistle" she found while egg hunting.

#3 The Scott hunt
Yesterday after church (where Ana gave her very first talk in Primary), we headed over to Grandma and Grandpa Scott's house where we dined on ham and found more eggs. We also played a repetitive game of button, button (for Bekah and Ana's sake), a game of charades (in which Bekah and Ana acted everything out) and made easter baskets (well, Bekah and Ana did).

Analee and Rebekah finishing off the egg hunt while Grandma Scott supervises.

Bekah climbing the swing set while Ana swings.

Bekah and Ana play on the slide while Cousin Bennet watches.

To see more pictures of egg huntin' (and some funny expressions Seth pulls while giving underdogs), click here.

Miri-ism #1

I know, I know. The kid's 1. She doesn't talk (besides "Mama," "Dada," and a few animal sounds). But perhaps an -ism can apply not only to words but also to actions? Sure it can! This is my blog, dangit! (To be said in a Picard-esque voice:) Make it so!

Note: Miriam has been reluctant to even try walking. She's taken a few occasional steps here and there, but mostly she resorts to crawling and cruising around the furniture.

Today after loading dishes, Andrea closed the door to the dishwasher. Miriam, who had been leaning on the door and exploring the contents of the dishwasher, was suddenly standing on her own in the middle of the kitchen.

Andrea: Miriam! Look at you! You're standing all by yourself!
Miriam: Slowly looks down at her feet and legs. When it dawns on her exactly what she's doing, she teeters, totters and topples onto her bum.

Ana the artist

Yesterday Analee drew pictures of (most of) the family. Maybe it's because she has an older sister who models behaviors for her, but Ana draws and writes much better than I would expect from a not-even-4-year-old girl.

Ana made sure to point out that I have a heart-shaped mouth.

(Each of these is a separate piece of paper, but I scanned them and made a composite image.)

Bekahism #39

Bekah had been invited to a birthday party at a restaurant. As Andrea was dropping her off, she reminded Bekah that she had gone to the restaurant once before with her cousins. Bekah tried to remember ...

Bekah: Was it when I was four? 'Cause 5-year-olds don't remember when they were four. That's the weird thing about 5-year-olds.

Miri's 12-month checkup UPDATE

Who knew a 12-month checkup warranted an update?

Yesterday when I got home from chauffeur duties (picking Ana up from preschool, taking Bekah to dance, shopping and picking up Bekah from dance), I noticed that we had a message on our answering machine. I called the pediatrician's office back as they had asked and heard some surprising news. Apparently when the lab ran Miri's blood to check for lead poisoning (because our house was built in 1972), they saw that she's somewhat anemic.

What I don't understand is why that didn't crop up after the hospital's blood test from our recent ER visit. But hey ... maybe the hospital wasn't looking for that?

Anyway, it's a good thing Miriam is such a champ at taking medicine (unlike her eldest sister who always threw it up). We'll be supplementing her diet with iron for the next 30 days and then take her back in to the pediatrician's office to see if it's helping her.

Miri's 12-month checkup

Lucky girl! Miri got to see two doctors in one day! The first was the aforementioned ophthalmologist (DANG! I'm getting so good at spelling that one! I did it on the first try!). The second was the pediatrician. Miriam got more immunizations yesterday (poor girl can't catch a break ... she's getting poked and prodded by everyone, it seems) and her 1-year checkup. Here's how she measured up:

MIRIAM (12.5 months)
Height: 29.75 inches (75th percentile)
Weight: 19 pounds, 5 ounces (20th percentile)
Head circumference: 18.5 inches (93rd percentile)

She still is shrimpy (but if you've seen her at mealtime, you KNOW she's not underfed ... she wolfs down everything in sight), but long and big-headed (as per Grover tradition). I'm still amazed she HAS head circumference percentile.

And because all good parents constantly compare and contrast their children, here are the other girls' stats from about the same time:

ANALEE (13 months)
Height: 30.25 inches (70th percentile)
Weight: 20 pounds, 15 ounces (35th percentile)
Head circumference: I don't have the exact numbers, but it was completely off the charts.

REBEKAH (12 months)
Height: 28 inches (25th percentile)
Weight: 18 pounds, 9 ounces (10th percentile)
Head circumference: See Ana's.