We celebrated May with the the May Fete parade in downtown Palo Alto. We walked with our preschool and Makena rode her scooter. My mom quickly walked ahead throughout the route and stopped to wave as we passed a few times.
I'm pretty sure I've already written about Makena's reaction when she gets hurt. Basically she acts as if her arm is falling off. Every little scrape has Pam and I sighing over how difficult the next few days will be. She cries if the hurt body part touches water, and will spend an entire bath with her foot held above the water. She cries when getting in her car seat, changing her clothes, anything. Usually it's a tiny splinter, but sometimes it's more.
Recently she's been doing SO GREAT at being dropped off at preschool, and has become so comfortable there. I am so proud of her. What a special preschool we found! The other parents and teachers are amazing and everyone is super friendly and helpful. We all pitch in and it's made this fantastic community where she really thrives. In early May there was an event at the school and she was playing outside while I went in to grab something. It was very busy, lots of people were there and she was having a blast. I didn't tell her I was going inside, I knew she'd be fine and I was going to be quick anyway. As I was coming back out I saw her talking with a friend's dad, and could tell from across the yard that he was pointing me out and showing her I was coming. She started to happily run towards me, and then suddenly slipped on a concrete walkway and fell badly. As I continued to walk to her a group of concerned parents near her stepped in to help her up. She was screaming and when I bent down (awkwardly, with Hadley on my chest in the Ergo) to hug her I saw her elbow was bleeding. Not just bleeding, but covered with dirt and sand inside the scrape.
Oh boy, this was going to be a doozy!! She calmed down a bit and asked to go home. I got her in the car and snapped this photo and sent it to Pam, saying we were heading home and to gear up for helping me get this cleaned up.
On the drive I spoke about how we needed to clean it so it doesn't get infected, and she cried and cried and I tried to keep it nonchalant and easy. It was anything but easy once we got home. Eventually I distracted her enough with a glow in the dark bath, She got in with me and we turned off the lights and played with glow sticks. I kept splashing her and making sure to get her elbow wet, and then when she complained about it I had her hold a wet washcloth there, that I "accidentally" kept pulling off a bit. When the bath was over we saw my plan worked, and it looked pretty cleaned out. I hate to trick her like that but I also didn't want to hold her down screaming and fighting. Pam had the idea to dress the wound with this "cast" that Makena wore for a couple days, since a regular band-aid was too small.
Before we had kids we wondered what would happen for Mother's Day. So far we've been having her make each of us a card, with the other mom's help. We knew there was a little special something planned at preschool so I made sure to be there even though it was a Thursday and Pam took her on Thursdays. She had told me a few days prior that she couldn't tell us about it, but she got to make TWO gifts for us. When I told Pam later that evening we said "awww!" and were looking forward to the surprise.
She gave us each a little flower pot that she painted and planted a flower in, and then at the end of class each kid was called up with the teacher to talk about what they love the most about their mom. They had previously drawn pictures and the teachers wrote out what they said. Makena didn't want to say anything, but she did go up there and smiled shyly, then came back and sat in our laps. The picture for me said, "I love Mommy because she takes me to the park" and had a picture of me. The one for Pam said, "I love Mama because she takes me to the ice cream store" and had a picture of her and some flowers. The flowers represented each of us, a tall green one for Pam, blue for me, smaller purple one for Makena, and tiny pink one for Hadley. :) It was so cute and I cried.
When Hadley was a few days old we noticed her stomach looked strange when she strained to lift her head, and as she got stronger and was helped up to a sitting position from laying down it became more obvious. I posted this photo on facebook asking what it was and a friend suggested it might be Diastasis Recti, and a quick look online had me fairly certain that's exactly it. I'll ask the doctor to confirm the next time we go in. It's a harmless condition that some babies have because their abdominal muscles aren't fully formed, and should go away on it's own in time.
Makena loves the Seussical soundtrack, we listen to it every so often in the car. I knew I wanted to take her to see it someday so I have kept my eye out for a local production. We were driving one day and pulled to a stop next to a fence that had a huge banner advertising it at the Palo Alto Children's Theater. I bought us tickets that evening, and we counted down the days! Tickets were very cheap, and without assigned seating, so I assumed it would be a cute but little dinky show. I definitely wasn't expecting it to be so great! We had such a good time. At the end we had to leave quickly to get Hadley from Pam who had taken her to babysit with her, I wished we could have mingled, she would've loved to see the kids from the cast come out! We walked to the car and she said "My favorite parts were every part. The first part, the second part, all of it!" It was a fun special time for the two of us.
For Mother's Day we went to breakfast with my mom and my sister and the kids, then went back to my parent's place for photos.
Hadley and baby K love to play! So interesting how babies always go straight for the eyes!
Later in May Makena came down with something that really knocked her out. She had a bad cough and a fever that wouldn't go away for 5 days, we took her to the doctor twice. It was so hard to see her so sick. She was miserable and couldn't sleep at night, so she napped throughout the day.
The second doctor we took her to a couple days later noticed that Makena had an ear infection, and that it was "middle ear and bulging" and possibly turned bacterial, so she started taking antibiotics and thankfully immediately got better. It was pretty amazing, the fever and cough went away and she was sleeping and eating like normal. As much as I didn't want her on antibiotics, I understand that they have their time and place and they definitely did their job. I just kept reminding myself that she is a strong healthy child and her body was working hard, still, it's not easy to have that little voice in the back of your head worrying you that it's something more serious. You hear stories of children that were completely fine and then not. And you wonder if there were signs. So after a few days went by and she wasn't getting any better, my paranoid side started to wonder if this was a sign. A huge sigh of relief that it was something curable by modern medicine. We got her on probiotics to help repair some of the damage, and she now loves to take them every morning!
And now some photos of Hadley being adorable at 6 months old!
With Grandpoppy-
Being silly, she loves to laugh!
Makena made this countdown calendar of "7 M" (months) until Christmas. Lol.
(I'd just like to note that today's date is September 17th, and I'm just now finishing my May catch up post. I always want to update this blog but find it so daunting to have so much to do. I should just stop trying to catch up and write in the present tense, but I don't want to have big gaps of our lives! This is such an important record to me, of these precious early childhood years!)
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