Big Day for Anna

Today, Anna grew up in one huge leap: she willingly gave away her last pacifier.

Anna has had a pacifier obsession that started when she was just a few days old. I remember that, at the time, as a new and naive mom I was determined not to allow her to have a pacifier. I had heard all this horrible stuff about them, how they could confuse a breastfed baby and create an oral fixation and ruin your child's teeth.

And then I brought home Anna from the hospital and she cried. And cried. And then, there was more crying. She slept fitfully at night, waking constantly and nursing until I was raw. And crying, crying, crying.

The second night home, at about 2 o'clock in the morning, I sat and cried with her at the side of my bed. Then I sent Kurt to dig through the bag of leftover stuff from the baby shower and find the package of pacifiers that I had meant to return, (Thank you so much, Renee!!!).

We popped it in, and she fell asleep. It was true love. I slept more easily that night, my hand lightly propped against her mouth to hold the peacemaker, the pacifier, in. Oddly enough, it turns out that most babies have oral fixations anyway and I figured she'd grow a new set of teeth when she was 5 anyway, right? And we already knew she was an avid nursling, so... Hurrah! I was an instant convert to the paci-supporters.

That was more than three years ago. Since then, Anna has weaned down to just using her pacifier (her "binky") at nap and bed times. She used to always have two or three in bed, so she could hold one and suck at one at the same time, but in the last year she has only had one.

For several weeks now I've been telling Anna that it's about time to say bye to the binky. We decided that she could mail her pacifiers to the Binky Fairy. I had heard this idea from several sources and it seemed to have a high success rate, so it's what we went with. I suppose I could have just taken it from her outright and told her to deal with it. But why not try and make it a positive experience for her, just as having her binky these few years was positive, too?

So today she, all by herself, put all her old binkies that we could find, from under chairs and behind books, into an envelope and closed it with tape. We walked it out to the mail box to send the package to the Binky Fairy. As she put it in the mailbox, she said, "Bye bye, binkies! No more binkies for sleeping now, it's just a mouth." She was cheerful and relaxed about it, which made me feel better about taking away her special comfort. She went to bed easily and is now peacefully asleep, with "just a mouth".

In the morning, we'll go out and see what the Binky Fairy, much like her cousin the Tooth Fairy, left behind for Anna when she took away the package of pacifiers to give to some lucky baby that needs it, now that this big girl is done.

Good job, Anna! I'm so proud of you!!!

TV Makes Her Crazy

A friend asked us how the no TV situation with Anna was working out, so I thought I'd revisit that topic a bit with some surprising conclusions.

TV makes Anna bonkers. Nutso. Cuckoo.

Since turning off Little Einsteins, Wonder Pets, Backyardigans and so forth, Anna's behavior has improved dramatically. She is less whiny, she's actually listens when spoken to, she thinks about things when you ask her questions. She has also gone back to playing by herself in little imaginative scenarios with her toys; flying and swimming and rescuing and adventuring all within worlds of her own creation. She's reading more, too, rediscovering books that were getting a bit dusty and lonely in her absence.

Still, the biggest thing is that she has not been having tantrums on a regular basis like she used to, and when she does start to get upset, I am able to communicate with her through the tantrum and help her to diffuse her stress. It's an amazing change.

I wasn't sure if it was really the TV shows or just a fluke of toddlerhood, so a couple weeks ago I recorded and let her watch a Little Einsteins as a treat. Know what happened?

She was a whiny brat all day and cried the second I turned it off and argued with me and threw mini-fits all day, asking for me to turn her show back on. That pretty much decided it for me.

She still watches Baby Einstein videos a few times a week, though not every day, but those don't over-stimulate her at all. She seems to simply enjoys them the same way she enjoys listening to her music class CD's, and they are all very low-key educational in much the same way.

While Kurt was so sick I know she was watching some TV and that didn't seem to cause any problems. And while she herself was sick, I let her watch The Goodnight Show for a bit and there were also no problems there. However, I really think that something about regularly viewing of those targeted toddler shows was really scratching away at her sensitivities, leaving her raw and irritable and unable to easily process the rest of her daily life.

So, in short (ha!), TV is still out for our kids. There's occasional mild DVD viewing in the evening and certain shows as very special treats, but in general, it's just not something that was helpful to our family. I miss the easy "babysitter" sometimes, but I'm happy to trade that for a more temperate and giggling little girl.

(Now let's hope I haven't gone and just jinxed the whole phenomenon by speaking the words out loud!)

What a week!

As a family, we never do anything halfway, it seems. Nope, if we're going to get sick, then we realllllly get sick, no beating around the bush with the sniffles.

Last Monday Kurt came down with a bad case of salmonella poisoning, followed a few days later by pneumonia. We spent Friday in the ER after am ambulance came for him since he was too weak and feverish to get to the car himself. They released him late that evening, and then after a feverish and horrible night, his doctor had him re-admitted Saturday morning, at which point he was ALSO diagnosed with influenza. Poor Kurt!

Then on Sunday, Anna, who had been running a fever for a few days, spiked up to 105.5 degrees and we had to rush her in to the ER, too. I took her to the same hospital that Kurt was at, I figured it was best to have all my loved ones consolidated, you know? Turns out she was in the early stages of pneumonia, too, and had a raging double ear infection. They dosed her up with super-powered antibiotics and sent her home when the fever broke.

And now it's Wednesday, and everything is starting to get back to normal. Anna has been totally fine since we started the antibiotics and Kurt came home from the hospital Monday evening. He's still on oxygen since his poor lungs have just been thrashed about and need time to recover. But today he woke up and showered and put on real clothes and is working a bit from home and generally starting to get his energy back.

On top of all that, my sister-in-law, Monica has been battling a bad case of the flu, too, all while worrying about Kurt and Anna and taking all my panicky phone calls and keeping me steady. As of yesterday, she's lost her voice but is starting to feel much better, too.

And not to be forgotten in all the hubbub, Silvia had her 1st birthday yesterday!! She's 1! We had a small cake for her and she devoured her slice like a real connoisseur and tried to grab her candle with both hands. We'll do more of a celebration when everyone is feeling better.

And me? How's the momma? Better, definitely better. Anna is at preschool today and I'm catching up on the piles of laundry and e-mail and, thank goodness, our WONDERFUL house cleaner will be coming tomorrow to help me get everything back on track. And my friends, my friends, my friends. There are none better, I have to say. They totally jumped up, moved in and took care of everything so that I could focus on my family. Thank you! Mom and Terry, of course of course, have been amazing. Terry is going to watch Anna tomorrow, which happens to be Kurt's birthday, so hopefully I'll be able to throw together a low-key celebration.

I am so glad that everyone is getting better! We are going to aspire to no more trips to the ER for the rest of the year.