Brownie: she's not what's for dinner

As I have probably mentioned, Gillian started playing violin last November. She has grown in leaps and bounds since then. She has been playing piano a while, but violin is more challenging-you have to hold the bow right, you have the make sure you bow the right direction in the music, you have to have your fingers in the right place to make a real note....not like piano. Sean works really hard with her to learn violin. And it's seriously no picnic to teach her anything.

So, we have been psyching her up for her first solo recital. We had to come up with some reward that would encourage her to practice-really practice-so she would be prepared. So we came up with this sticker chart:

This lays it on the line: to get something you really want, you have to practice-HARD-and earn it. Well, guess what she decided she wanted? I'll give you a hint: it's small, furry, alive, and looks like this:

So, you may remember the fish debacle. Or not really the debacle, but how over cleaning the fish bowl I was by the time Greta (who I didn't have the heart to tell Gillian was actually a male Betta) finally kicked it. Because something every parent on earth will tell you is when you "get your child a pet" what you are actually doing is signing yourself up for months or years of custodial pet care. The kid, if they actually have the attention span, might feed the pet for a month or two, but they won't ever get in the hang of cleaning up after it in the true sense of a pet owner. Make no mistake-at the end of the day, I bought MYSELF a Betta fish and many afternoons of scrubbing calcified and soggy fish food out of tubes, off of a tiny stone castle, and out of the pump with tiny pipe cleaners and a fish-tank-only toothbrush. Loads of awesome.

But, this violin thing was a big deal. And she was really nervous. So, we decided we could get the damned hampster-IF Gillian could get past her practice issues (which are mostly about the fact that she HATES being corrected for anything-chip off the ol' block) and promised to love the hampster and take care of it (which she did, absolutely earnestly).

So, behold, our 5 year old wonder performing at a real auditorium, with a 100+ person audience of parents, siblings, and grandparents.

We could have burst right open from pride because we knew how nervous she was-and she did GREAT. She didn't break under pressure. She kept it together. And she lingered a little too long while her adoring audience clapped for her-because it's some heady stuff to be loved by complete strangers. But then it was our time to pay the piper, and she reminded us that it was time to settle up. The next day the girls and I and Auntie Kim headed out to PetCo for the hampster accoutrements. Auntie Kim is an animal guru, you see, and even helped manage a pet store. So, she put everything we needed in the cart while the girls adored some puppies, and kittens, and fish, and rodents. But they were fresh out of hampsters. We left PetCo with $108 worth of hampster supplies and no hampster (I didn't know of the exorbitant startup costs, trust me). We went to another pet store in Evanston and they had a young female hampster that Gillian was immediately in love with-WIN! Auntie Kim bought the hampster and we were on our way. Gillian named her Brownie. She even made her a banner, not unlike the one she had on her incubator in the NICU:

(I don't know of you can see that Brownie has a crown-The Hampster Princess. She has to be royalty to run with this crowd)

At long last, her need for rodent ownership was satisfied. For a job well done, she got a rat. No, I got a rat. Because I know who will be cleaning hundreds of tiny hampster nuggets off of surfaces and out of the cage.

At any rate, for what it's worth: Welcome to our slightly crazy household. Hope you fit in well here. (and-what was I thinking?!!!)

You want to know what's ironic?

Sean's great-great grandfather, William A. Colledge-the original Colledge that came here-immigrated to the United States from Glasgow, Scotland in 1887 to Michigan (born 1856, has records of a graduate degree in in London, graduating in 1886).  In 1890, he married June Wilson, whose father was the State Treasurer of Illinois for 30 years. He got his Doctorate of Theology in Michigan in 1892. They moved to Illinois, and he taught at Columbia College, downtown, for years (the "Columbia College of Expression") where he was a professor of English Language and Literature (and wrote books! Like encyclopedias about "every department of human knowledge".) He and June had a single child, Edward. June died and Edward went on to marry Frances Marshall in Illinois. At some point, the family moved to Jacksonville, Florida, where William died in 1927, and where the Colledge family took root.

The weird thing (yes, I was getting to that) is that William Colledge commissioned an architect named Dwight Perkins to build him a house in Evanston in 1906 (the William A. Colledge House). And that house is two blocks from the place I take his great-great-great granddaughter to Wiggleworms class. Yeah-what are the odds that someone from Scotland that lived in Illinois for a part of his life and live the rest and have generations of family born in Florida would have someone 5 generations later move back to where he lived (completely unwittingly) and take a baby great-great-great-granddaughter to class steps from where her American heritage began? One of those mind-blowing things.

The William A. Colledge House in Evanston:

The St. Matthews Episcopal Church where Addie takes music class, and where William A. Colledge could have been a member:

And here is the venerable old man, himself. He looks like people should listen to him (wait, is that a dimple in his chin?).

More:



Stitches

Or How Our Easter Sunday went from this:

and this (so fun!)

 and this (see? excited!)

To this (what's this? Numbing salve??!! Giant anethesia needles?!? ER??):

and this (yup-sucked exactly as much as it looks like it would (and the bad part is inside and down):

So, Addie made it to the ER on Easter Sunday. It took far longer for her to get there than I imagined it would, since she's my daredevil. She's the one with all the nerve, but little sense of potential consequence. I suspect she will be the one who just might give me a honest-to-God heart attack when she base jumps from the Sears Tower, or something like that.

We started the day with a super fun Easter Egg hunt dressed in the fabulous dresses Nonni and G-D bought them and super awesome fancy hairdos (per request). Then we went to church and had a very nice mass about The Day. Then we came home and I got busy busy with lunch preparations. And Addie took a nap, and Gillian refused to eat the meal I worked on for several hours. After Addie woke up, we went over to our favorite park, Lazarus (2 blocks away-a trip solely intended to let them run off some energy).

Imagine-Sean and I were together at the playground with them (Two Adults! Two!!)-perfectly balanced to ensure all would be well...I thought. Well, Addie lately has been crawling on her hands and knees to get across this "bridge" (read-5x5 beams suspended by chain about 2.5 feet high) and was showing me how she could do it herself (well, because she likes to do everything by herself and because formerly, she always had to have someone hold her hand across), and when she reached the end she got distracted by someone yelling and looked over toward the sound. Her right hand missed the plank, and her face smacked down onto the rubber plated metal platform on the end of the bridge. The she fell a couple feet to the ground. Like slow motion, I ran over and scooped her up, afraid to see what teeth she had just knocked out. Or what she had done to her face or head. I held her TIGHT because I was pretty sure she had just disfigured herself for eternity. I pulled her back to take a look-blood kindof streaming out of a small slit on the bottom right side of her mouth. A friend at the playground who is a doc (how lucky is that?!?) took a look at the little gash-looking lesion and said she might have bitten through and said we might need stitches and that we should go to the ER. So we did. Addie cried for about 1 minute and then was kind of amazed by the blood and asked if she could have a bandaid now? (because I always tell her she's not bleeding so she doesn't need one).

So, Sean and I hustled back to the house to get my wallet and the car (G stayed there with friends) and I took Addie to the ER. We waited for HOURS. Thank God for iPhones and Netflix. When we got in the room, several people came to visit-a resident doc who was young and boyishly handsome, an older Indian nurse, and eventually the attending doc. The older Indian woman asked Addie "Did Mama hit you?" and Addie looked completely annoyed, gave her the chin down, brow-furrowed stink eye and snipped "NO." She would totally have rolled her eyes if she knew how. Well, the resident and attending found that the bleeding that I was having Addie hold a tissue to the whole way there and for two hours in the waiting room wasn't the problem. It was the inch long VERY deep gash on her inside bottom lip that was doing that-the one we all missed (the one most likely slit open by her freakish vampire-like canines). Oops.

Anyway, it took 2 hours in the waiting room, 2 hours in the "Rapid Care" area (oh, the irony), and because I requested a plastic surgeon (it's her FACE; don't judged me. I have seen many a botched lip repair in this lifetime) it took an extra couple of hours because they had to summon him from his  suburban home. In the meantime, the nurses crowded over Addie to put this numbing stuff on her lip, and proceeded a few minutes later to give her shots-6 of them-in her lip, gums, and cheek, while she layed there politely with her mouth open like she was asked-no whining, no crying, no tears (insert the staff collective awe at her bravery)...and they told me we could wrap her in a "coccoon" which would serve to keep her arms and legs from clawing at the hand with the needle and messing up the stitching (and put her into a full-fledged panic complete with banshee quality screaming, I am sure). I asked if I could just lay next to her and hold her and if we could NOT restrain her. So, that's what I did when Yuppy-Johnny-Cheekbones-Plastic-Surgeon (Read: middle of the night attire than included: cashmere sweater vest, monogrammed buttom up, khakis and those leather shoes that have the little tasles hanging off them) stitched her gash shut.

Midnight attire for Dr. Cheekbones included slip on tassle shoes not unlike these:

Addie did not whimper, she did not cry, she did not try to fight the doc or nurses. She laid there way longer than she is willing to keep her mouth open for a tooth brushing. The internal stitches were put in with a hook needle approximately the size of a mosquito eyelash and there was a good bit of digging around trying to find where the string went or the knot (somehow this did not phase me even though I got light-headed digging around in my leg to take my own stitches out when I had a lesion removed)). I watched from 4 inches from her face and gave her a calm steady stare and reassuring words. The upper stitches were put in with a fish hook sized hook needle and about 85% of the way through that Addie FREAKED-started crying while also obediently keep her mouth wide open. Whether the numbing stuff was wearing off or the tugging on her mouth was freaking her out, I don't know. But the surgeon said he has three daughters and none of them would have tolerated it nearly as long (or at all). So we got discharged at 12:30 am-6 hours and 22 minutes after arrival. We survived. Addie might always have a little scar in the spot on te corner of her mouth, but it could have been worse-the teeth all were fine. But, that there is another thing to add to my motherhood tackle box of training experiences for the future.

Adventures in Boundrymaking

Y'all-I'm tired. It has been an interesting couple of weeks. The girls have been testing us and eachother full throttle. I never fully appreciated how whining can make you a tiny bit crazy. Or how many times a kid can go to time out in one day.

We have entered the phase where for some periods of time the kids are constantly picking at eachother-deliberately taking the other one's stuff, only to gloat "I took your uuuuunicornnnnnnn!" so they can enjoy watching the full on melt-down drama that will ensue. Or Gillian blocking Addie from walking down the hallway. Or nagging eachother to eat their food. Or fighting over who gets to pick the show on TV. Or whether or not the sky is blue. Or they kick eachother or put their feet on eachother, or do something else that is otherwise imflammatory. I tried to impart to Gillian that there really is no point in arguing with Addie, but she can't help but continue to correct her when she says something that I usually just answer with "is that right, Addie?". Then a full out battle begins.

The misbehavin' spread to music class too. Gillian looks bored and uninterested in her group violin class. She even dropped her instrument one day because she was messing around. She wasn't paying attention when her teacher was talking, but would stare at other kids, or out the window, or at the carpet. In her private lessons she was talking like a baby, and when she was chastised, she would make this sound ("ehhhhhhhhh", breathlessly) that is driving me insane. If you knew her teacher, well, she has very little patience for that. She is good and strict, and that is the best fit for Gillian. Sean had been working with her and taking her to her lessons, but he said he was done after she dropped the violin. So, I had to think good and hard about how to turn this runaway train around. I pretty much know that positive reinforcement is a million times more effective than negative with Gillian (and probably with most kids). So, Sean and I both started working with her during practice-imagine the undivided attention of both parents at the same time!!! Her fantasy!!! (my job is to give encouragement and reward her for good work, his is to teach her bowing and finger placement, etc., since he plays violin). Each good pratice can earn her up to 5 tokens (we used tokens to reward doing chores without being asked, being nice to eachother, doing what they're asked without arguing, etc.; Each token=$.10 toward a treat or toy on Saturday), and 1 sticker for her sticker chart (see below). A good lesson earns her TWO stickers on her sticker chart ad up to 5 tokens. If she has a truly stellar private lesson, she gets ice cream afterward on a small private date with mama.

Guess what? Since we made the chart, she has had THREE out of THREE stellar private lessons (and just about every practice has earned her all the tokens possible since we started with the chart). She cannot wait to get to the end of her chart and choose a very special date to go somewhere fun with the whole family or just with Papa or just with me (smart girl-she immediately asked if we could go to Nonni and Grandaddy's, but I had to add the condition that it had to be in Chicago or nearby). We are still working on the group class, but at least she isn't laying on the floor or dropping things-she just still seems unengaged in class. She has TWO recitals the last two weekends of May, one of which she is playing solo with a pianist who is not her violin teacher. I am a wee bit concerned that her discomfort of playing in front of others or having attention put on her by strangers might be too much, but she could surprise me and be a total ham like I was as a performer. Plus, as her teacher said, she gets to wear a beautiful dress and have a party afterwards.

Now, if we could only move past this phase and have more peace at home. I'm not trying to say they never get along, because they really are sweet and loving to eachother a good bit of the time. I just think this phase is rough and my attempts to be consistent are exhausting. I am really curious to see how the dynamic changes when they're both in school next year and stay at aftercare every day. I think Gillian will turn into the lionness big sister like I have seen her do before. Like, that "I can pick on her but don't you even think about it for a second" kind of thing. Maybe that will help create a closeness that will push the petty bickering aside.