Mama's takin' us to the zoo tomorrow...

That happens to be one of their favorite songs. I remember singing that song when I was little in the car with my Uncle John. I seem to recall that my cousin Eowyn had the Peter, Paul and Mary record with kid songs and that was one of them. I think that record inspired our plays we would put on for adults during pot luck dinners. My version is certainly not as good but my kids seem to like it. In fact, it inspires our activities. I sang it before bed on Saturday night and we went to the Zoo on Sunday morning.
The day did not start off well because once they knew we were going to the Zoo then Eloise started to whine and didn't stop until say an hour later until we got in the car to go. Since we go to the Zoo pretty frequently and frequently I am by myself I have a very specific route I take to try to avoid the big hills and to hit all the highlights in a short period of time. The first stop (after a potty break for Miss Addy) is always the farm to feed the goats. The kids love to talk about feeding the goats but ever since Beckett's hand was nearly swallowed by a goat they have all been pretty timid. Eloise was wild all the way to the farm area yelling and whining about the goats and then...the goats were not out.
My heart sank a little but I figured distract, distract, distract and we already had tickets to feed the giraffes in 15 minutes I thought it would be fine between the playground and the elephants.
I was so wrong. Eloise whined and pointed and kicked and whined some more. We were told not to make loud noises while feeding the giraffe and she was causing such a ruckus I fully expected to be escorted behind the yellow rope away from the feeding. Luckily my mom was there and was so incredibly patient. I hate to say it but I think at one point I was threatening to feed her to the giraffes. It was an empty threat because giraffes are vegetarians and only eat tree branches and Rye Crisps as far as I could tell.
I've always said that my favorite animals start with the letter P. Pugs, pigs, and penguins are my animals of choice right now. But oh, those eyes, those lashes, that long black-blue tongue. Giraffes may have reached right up into the top spot after seeing them this close.

My mom and Beckett feeding. Well, my mom at least. Beckett's safe place is in the choo-choo wagon so after about 2 minutes he was yelling- Choo-choo!!!!
I don't think I was following protocol with my method of putting the cracker right in his mouth. I think I was supposed to let him lick it off my hand. Oh well, they don't bite, you just can't turn your back on them because their head weighs between 60-80 lbs and they can hit you with it. Notice Eloise can't even look at the giraffe? Poor thing could only point in the general direction of the goats and cry.
Guess who is on the other end of that lick? .
Rich and Addy. Addy didn't mind the giraffe too much but it certainly wasn't the big hit I thought it was going to be. Oh it was a big hit after we got home and now we talk about feeding the goats and the giraffes but at the time- not so much.
After the giraffe fiasco I couldn't take it anymore and said that had to head back to the goats and if the goats were still not out, we were just going to have to go home. Of course on the way back Eloise didn't want to ride, she wanted to either push or pull the choo-choo which just prolonged the crying. Can you tell I'm at my breaking point?

Ahh- at last!!!!!
This time she insisted on me feeding the goats while I held her. That's progress. Usually she will not go inside the gate.
Hi little fella. Please know that you are extremely loved.
For those moms with more than one kid out there- have you ever noticed that when one child is incredibly challenging it seems that the others just seem to be on their best behavior?
Or maybe it just seems that way. Either way, Beckett and Addy just soaked up every minute of the Zoo. Normally the kids are a little scared of the cows but today they seemed to enjoy them. I think Eloise was even ticked off she couldn't pet them. I'm not sure what was going on because I was totally enthralled with the cow that was in labor. She was in a separate pen and it indicated she was pregnant and she was due the following day. The vet said they thought she was in labor and that they thought she would probably give birth that day. She gives birth right there in the pen for visitors to see. Oh man, what amazing luck it would have been to have seen that. My mom grew up on a dairy farm and said it is just a total mess. I'm sure the kids would have freaked out but I love that stuff. The grosser the better.
Here she is all smiles and wandering away from the farm with not a care in the world now that she saw her precious goats and cows. What are the giraffes Eloise? Chopped liver??

Oh yea, and the kids always tell me the Zoo stinks. Eloise was walking plugging her nose. Yep, it stinks. That's life little one.

I'm not telling this whole whining Zoo story for pity because believe me, I've thrown myself quite a few pity parties this week. I'm telling it prove a point. Eloise is extremely rigid and is unable to shift focus. She is sensitive to smells and loud noises and transitions. She doesn't like change in routine or a change to what she was expecting to happen. Don't get me wrong, she is the sweetest, most wonderful little girl which is why we frequently call her "little doll" but when she does not get her way or she gets mad, watch out because she is incredibly strong willed and physically strong so if there ever is a toddler throw down at the park, you better hope she is on your side.
It is not really fair to compare the 3 kids but sometimes I can't help it. I was getting worried that sometimes her reaction to things was a little out of ordinary and she was much more sensitive to certain things than the other two. After a month of speech therapy and talking over some things with our pediatrician we decided that an occupational therapy evaluation was needed which happened earlier this week.
It was determined that Eloise has sensory integration disorder (SID) or sometimes called sensory processing disorder. Basically she does not process sensory information the same way most people do. It is like she is not able to organize, process or integrate sensory information and it gets in a traffic jam in her head. I don't really understand it and this is certainly the case where going to the internet is probably more harmful than helpful. It seems to be very complicated and the severity and scope can be so very different for each child so we are just going to have to wait and see how things go as she starts therapy.
They gave me a one page (really, one page) handout with some recommendations for books and we have started some therapy at home. From what I understand we need to start to figure out her triggers and gradually try to desensitize or introduce her triggers to help her figure out a way to process the information in a manageable way.
For example, she is petrified of loud noises like the blender or vacuum or hair dryer- hence I can only blow dry my hair when the kids are sound asleep. The other day I had made tomato sauce from some tomatoes from our neighbor lady, Kit (just love her name), and I had cooked them down and put them in the blender jar in fridge with the plan to puree them after the kids went to sleep. I opened the fridge to get something out and Eloise saw the blender jar and started to scream and point and say, No! No! No! Now, this is where the pity party comes in. We need to do things like leave the blender on the counter so she can figure out how to deal with it then eventually have her push the button the blender using noise cancelling headphones. All the while she will be crying. Thus the pity party. I'm already at my breaking point with the whining and now we are just going to add to it. But I'm hopeful that once we have a better understanding of Eloise's needs that we can start to address them and make everyone much happier.
Sorry if I'm totally butchering the concept of sensory integration disorder to anyone who knows more about this than I do! I have yet to even read the one page handout in depth because I'm still pretty freaked out. I'm worried about what this means for her short term and long term not to mention the few weeks leading up to this evaluation were incredibly challenging so I was not in a good place to accept this news. Well, I was freaked out until I got a few emails from some of my fellow triplet moms who have been dealt with this to varying degrees. Below is an excerpt from one of the emails-

In time she will get better, that is, you and she will learn how to get along with SID. Now it sounds like a verdict. In a couple of years it will just be SID and your daughter will be, just that, your daughter (on who someone once put a sticky that is long lost).

Thank you to all of my fellow triplet moms for your insight and support. She's my daughter that needs our help, understanding, patience and love.
Pity party over.

Are they trying to drive me insane?

So Addy is potty trained. It is way more work to have children that are potty trained than to deal with diapers- just so you know. While it may "save money" as my cousin Eowyn told me the other day, "Peace of mind is more valuable than money." I'm torn on the whole potty training thing. I'm so proud of Ms. Smartypants for her quick study but the whole potty routine takes about 5 minutes with Addy alone and about 20 minutes once the other two catch wind of what is going on. We have a small half bath on the first floor that is pretty tight quarters with two stools in front of the sink, a potty chair on the floor, 3 kids and one adult. I learned the hard way that the toilet paper must be kept out of reach or we will need to keep a plumber on retainer.

So usually it is Addy on the regular toilet with an Elmo potty seat, Eloise at her feet trying to push her off thinking it is her turn and Beckett playing in the water at the sink. Oh yea, and Addy wants her undies, pants, socks and shoes totally off and usually tries to get her shirt off as well so when she is done she can run yelling- "I neeket, I neeket!" I get Addy off, wiped and the toilet flushed and then there is some discussion about who wiped and no more wiping and no more flushing and no more toilet paper is needed and whatnot before she joins Beckett at the sink. I get Eloise undressed and on and then starts the pushing and splashing with Addy and Beckett at the sink. Eloise usually just sits for a minute (does nothing) and then wants to get off to flush and start the whole hand washing routine. So I have to get Beckett down and Addy to stop playing and wash her hands. I've found that I have to do a lot of counting to three such as "You have to the count of 3 to finish. One, two, three." Addy wants to do everything herself so if I turn the water on or off she says, "No, Mama." and does the opposite of what I just did and then does the same thing herself.

Beckett never wants to sit on the potty but he is there to get in on the treats afterwards. Through trial and error I've discovered that I have to get the girls dressed again before they get a treat or they are likely to run around for a while without pants. And I have to hide the fact that Addy wears panties because Eloise wants to wear panties too and if I'm not paying attention Eloise will put on Addy's panties and not want to take them off which is a huge disaster since Eloise is not potty trained. Ugg. So all of that for one trip to the bathroom.

Since Addy really likes to wash her hands and really likes treats, she has figured out that I have not yet put limits on the number of times she can go the bathroom. Last week the kids got up at 7:15 and by 9:00 we were still breakfast because I had to do that whole routine at least 4 times, maybe more in the hour and 45 minutes they were up. Anyone have suggestions on how to limit the number of bathroom trips? She has even figured out how to delay going to bed and to get out of nap with the whole bathroom thing. Before nap she always says she has to go poop and tries to sit in the bathroom with the door closed as long as possible. Today I found her sitting on the little potty facing the wall with her hands full of soap rubbing the wall. When I walked in she said, "I clean Mama." Thanks for the help.

Little Ms. Smartypants has figured out how to use her waste to get out of nap. The first couple days of potty training she would say she had to go pee and I would get her out. If I didn't get her out she would take off her diaper and pee in her bed and I would get her out. Then last Sunday she pooped and took off her diaper and then I got her out. Won't go into detail but let's just say that it was my fault to not specify to her that excrement is not an appropriate art medium. Earlier in this week I waited outside the door and went in every time I heard the Velcro of the diaper and put it back on. Then the next two days I taped her diaper on her. None of that really worked to help her nap.

I'm kind of at a loss about what to do. All of this is kind of rolled up in the issue that I NEED her to nap. As I've probably said a million times, 12-14 hours a day with toddlers and no break is just not doable. I think she only napped one day this week and that was when my sister was here helping and Addy listened to her when she sternly told her to lay down and close her eyes. I feel like I can make it through the day without help if I have just an hour to clean, email, nap or whatever. I need need an hour when someone is not whining or crying or requesting something and I'm not scolding or reminding. Not that I am trying to make it sound like that is all our days are filled with but with three, there is a good chance at any given moment one of those things are going on. If anyone has any, and I mean any advice for me, it would be gladly received.
Seriously, I can't keep Addy dressed. The other day the other two were napping and Addy was playing and I took Bella in the front yard. I was talking to our neighbor and all of the sudden he pointed to our house and Addy is standing totally naked in 60 degree weather on the front porch. That was a little unusual, but this is a pretty typical picture with no pants and my shoes...

Are these shoes too much with the stripes???
My typical shoes are clogs or tennis shoes so they were pretty wild about my heels one day. Hmmm, I wonder why I was wearing high heels in middle of day- the same day my sister was over taking care of the kids????

One last story before I drown my no nap sorrows in some frozen cookie dough goodness. We went to to Zoo today followed by lunch at a restaurant followed by no nap for Addy followed by playing outside. Addy kept dry all day. Then at bath time she said she wanted to go to bed to she climbed into her crib- okay, didn't know she could do that- and snuggled up. Fine, no bath tonight and I will do anything to encourage this girl to sleep. Rich was with the other two in the bathroom and I ran down to get their milk and came back up and she was standing in her crib naked yelling, "Pee, pee, potty, down." I got her down and she went scampering off to the bathroom. I started to pick up her clothes and realized she had peed in her crib.

Pints just don't cut it around here. Ben & Jerry would be my best friends if they realized that the real world takes half-gallons.

What they say...

This age is so frustrating but so funny at the same time. Tonight over an hour after I had put the kids down Addy was yelling for me. I walked in and she had her pajamas off- luckily her diaper was still on this time. She knows she is supposed to be quiet with her eyes closed. So of course when I walked in she was pretending to sleep with her eyes closed and her lovey in her mouth.
This is how it went down from there:

ME- "Addy, do you need something?"
ADDY- No response
ME- "Addy, are you sleeping?" (insert sarcasm here)
ADDY- "Yes."
ME- "Why are your pajamas off? You know you have to keep your clothes on in the crib."
ADDY- "Beckett do dat."
I don't want to be a name caller but her pants were on fire just then- in a pile next to her.

She told me she wanted a back rub so I started to rub her back to try to get her to sleep. She reached up and rubbed my arm and said, "I help Mama, I help."

See? Funny, sweet and frustrating all at the same time. Some days are longer than others when it starts at 5:30 am when Beckett starts to yell, "Need out! Need out! Need down! Mama down!" until now at 9:51 pm when Eloise is yelling for me and will cry if she hears me go down the stairs to do something like say laundry or dishes.

Speaking of the little pumpkin, she had an amazing week. Her speech therapy session last week was a little scary because they are talking about bumping up the frequency of her sessions and we are having an OT eval. They encouraged me to keep signing with her just to give her a form of communication and even offered signing hand outs. So that was freaking me out but then she goes and I'm not kidding you probably doubled her vocabulary this week. She probably said 10-15 new words this week alone.
I have been signing "more" to them since they were probably 6 months old. Today for the first time, Eloise signed and vocalized "more". I couldn't believe it. Not only that, she sat down in the bathtub for the first time in months. Hopefully that is a sign that some of the sensory issues are resolving.

So I'll leave you with an amazing video. The last couple of weeks have been hard dealing with her speech and sensory issues because it appears to much more serious that we thought and I don't have a clear picture of what we are dealing with. So this is pretty amazing to me. Here is the little doll SITTING in the bathtub trying to count. Then the grand finale of yet another new word- ball. Oh sweet little determined girl with the scraped up chin.

A lot but still so little

I was going through clothes to sell at a multiple mom rummage sale last weekend and came across a few skirts. Remember these pictures? It was one of the first times I put real clothes on the girls and not just a sleeper. They were 4.5 months old.

They were still wearing infant or size 0-3 clothes.

If I had known it still fits I would have kept it in rotation!!!
They've grown so much and come so far but this was a reminder that they are still so little. Come on kids, let's eat!

One down

Addy is officially potty trained. She still wears a pull-up when she naps- okay who am I kidding. Let me rephrase, she still wears a diaper during the hour long afternoon fight we have about napping. When she is tired of fighting with me and just wants to win she takes off her diaper and either pees or poops in the crib. Or she screams "Beckett!!!!!!" at the top of her lungs to wake him up knowing I'll come running and take her out of the crib. And she wears a diaper at night. But she is trained and last week was one of the longest of my life. Potty training and all the kids were sick with runny noses.
I have to give Addy all of the credit. She basically trained herself. She was ready, it was me who was not. She is a brilliant little girl. A little too brilliant because she just plain wears me out. Which is why I'll have to finish with the stories later because I'm plum tuckered out and most are still a little too fresh to think they are funny- yet...

Hat Envy

This was actually a continuation post about our visit to pick apples but as I was going through the pictures I realized that I just continued to admire the hat pictures.
I'm all about hats. I love them. I love that the winter is coming and there are these beautiful 1940's hats in all of the stores from Anthropologie to Target. My head is generally just to large (lots of brains) to for any hat besides the adjustable kind to fit but that doesn't stop me from jamming every hat in the store on my head in the remote chance that it was made extra large. Or some other poor soul with a head larger than mine tried it on first and stretched it out.

Two years ago when the kids were just little bitty things I saw these pumpkin hats at the store on like 90% discount and had to buy them even thought they probably could have napped in them at the time. Finally they fit. Beckett would only wear his at home. He prefers the gangsta' hoodie look although his hoodie matches his Grandpa's hoodie which was purchased for his visit to Florida. So that is totally gangsta'. Addy would only wear either her hat OR her jacket but not both which is fitting given her penchant to run around with the least amount of clothes possible. But Eloise, oh sweet little Eloise loved her hat. I'm saying this because I'm insanely jealous- that girl can rock a hat like nobody's business. Any hat, it doesn't matter and the funny thing is that she actually likes to wear them. And shoes, and underwear over her jeans any accessory for that matter.
Umm guys, I think the better trees are this way...

Addy and Beckett are BFF. I didn't realize the extent until the other day when I figured out that the first thing they do in the morning is look for one another. Addy just waits for Beckett to wake up from nap and the other morning Addy was in bed with us and Beckett woke up and started to yell for Addy. Love this picture. I asked Addy to give Beckett an apple. So sweet.

All the kids wanted to do was climb the ladders. If you know Beckett you can just hear him yelling- climb, climb-ING, climb, up. Eloise was a little hesitant as first as she usually is in a new situation but left the safety of Rich's shoulders for the safety of the ladder.

They really didn't understand the ladders were for picking apples. They just thought they were for entertainment- and for picture taking.
I was initially thrilled when Eloise was comfortable enough to start picking up apples then I realized they were picking up the rotten, half eaten apples and the apples with worms. Oh well, they looked pretty darn cute doing it.

Holdover Pictures

Last weekend we spent 4 days and 3 nights in Madison for the Ironman which was a welcome break from our normal schedule. The schedule of meals, snacks, naps, bath and bed is so essential but can be incredibly tedious. So running wild in hotel rooms, crank calling the front desk, jumping on beds, eating at restaurants for every meal and best of all flexible bedtimes and sleeping in bed with us was so liberating and quite frankly a total hoot for everyone but the adjustment back to our schedule and having the kids sleep in their own bed without us in the room has been a nightmare. So this past week was a little rough with naps and bedtime and particularly crying in middle of the night. I think I got up 5 times one night and ended up sleeping on the floor in the kids room in the middle of the night just to get Addy to stop crying. Also, Addy is still taking her diaper off and peeing in the crib almost daily so that is wearing me out. Despite the poor sleep we had a super busy week with play dates, a pajama birthday party with our Meighbors (Happy Birthday Anton), the Children's Museum, JCC, speech therapy, walks to the park and the most important event of all- apple picking.

I feel like I can never catch up with anything anymore and this week is just going to get crazier so I wanted to post a few pictures from our apple picking adventure. You pay by the bag despite how full it is. We paid for 2 bags that were only partially full of rotten and bruised apples, apples with bites out of them, unripe apples, rocks, and if the kids had it their way, a pile of dog poop. Oh yeah, and we ended up with 5 pumpkins as well.







The 5 pumpkins we brought home now sit on our front porch. Anytime we are out front, the kids want to sit on the pumpkins like they did at the farm. Good lesson- they remember everything. And imitate everything which I'm hoping will come in handy this week. More on that later...

Ironman 2011

Yes, yes he is. (x4!)

Taking Advantage

We have been taking advantage of the unbelievable weather this summer and spending much of our time outside in our yard where the kids can play for hours. They got this slide for their birthday and although they really like to climb bigger things, it is still the perfect where they can climb and not get hurt if they fall and all three can use it at once. People who watch them play on the slide are always amazed that they "take turns" going down but the truth is they just haven't figured out the beauty of King of the Slide and how much screaming that would cause. Beckett does like to occasionally sit at the bottom of the slide waiting for a good "pile up" as he calls it. Looks like she is hugging him but I think she is trying to throw him to the side.
The rocking horse from our neighbors is also a big hit except that I had to take it off the concrete and put in the on the grass because Addy can rock it over. And two can ride it.

I was trying to eat a lot of meals outside because it is always such a fight getting them to come and much less clean up but they were not eating too well- the lure of toys was too much. I don't know why I didn't use it too much before but now we are using the kiddie picnic table which works so much better. Guess which one of these kids is not like the other?


They spend more time sitting than eat on it as eating is still somewhat of a struggle with these little rascals.

Part of the reason they never want to go in is that they have become best friends with our neighbor boy, Felix. He is 2 1/2 with an 11 month old brother and has a yard even more full of toys than ours which our kids can see from the windows of our house. For those of you lifelong Texans, the yards here are very unlike the TX yards and almost no one has privacy fences so you have to be very comfortable with your neighbors. We lucked out and we play almost every day together in the front, in our yard, in their yard, and many times yelling from window to window. Whenever we go somewhere and Felix sees us he yells, "Hi Meighbors!!!" In fact, he and his brother Antoine loved our choo-choo wagon so much they ended up getting their own. Their dog rides in the third car. And there are teenage girls across the street that play soccer in the street and come over whenever we are out to play with the kids. Here's the Choo-choo crew that rules the block...

The big thing we did in the last month to maintain what's left of my sanity was to join the Jewish Community Center (JCC) or Cece as the kids call it. It is just incredible with several indoor play areas for kids, climbing equipment, fitness center, water park, Pilates, yoga, you name it with best of all... DROP OFF HOURLY DAY CARE!!!!! The first week we joined I took the kids 5 days in a row. One of the days I took they to the day care, worked out for 45 minutes and when I came back I could hear Eloise screaming down the hall. They said she was fine for about 15 minutes until she realized I was gone and screamed for the next 30. Beckett and Addy were fine and didn't want to leave. There is a 2 hour limit so I could really work out, shower and sit in the cafe with my computer and relax for an hour. Amazing. But after a week of constant playing in a new environment around other kids, the germs got the best of us and this is what all 3 looked like on and off for 2 weeks- runny noses and crusty faces. But Addy learned how to blow her nose and I think we got some teething running noses out of the way at the same time.

So, we stayed away from the J for a couple of weeks for everyone to recover and started back this week with two 1 hour visits to the day care. Both times I had to pry Eloise away from me and I could hear her screaming down the hall on my way to the gym and BACK again. She screamed for a solid hour both times. The second time they actually took her out of the room because it was so upsetting to everyone else and walked her in the hallway where she was totally fine. Hmm, not sure what to do about this one. We are still trying to figure out if her separation anxiety is related to her communication skills or there is something else going on. We started speech therapy this week for Beckett and Eloise and the therapist wants to watch Eloise for about a month to see if she is having some stimulation integration issues which might account for the problems in new environments. So we'll see. Beckett was borderline if he even qualified for therapy but after the first visit the therapist said that Beckett kinds of evens out when you look at quantity versus quality - that is my interpretation. He does not have a lot of words but how he uses the words he has is advanced for his age. For example, he will put "ing" at the end of words which is advanced. I know, I'm a total obnoxious bragging mom. As long as I'm at it, Addy doesn't need speech therapy but because the therapy is once a week and done pretty informally at our house, I'm sure she will benefit from it as well which is fine with me.
Beckett is still wearing some shorts in size 12 months is which is just soooo skinny. I took him to Urgent Care the other day because he had a little accident at the bike shop- no stitches needs thank goodness but they weighed him and fully clothed with probably a super pee diaper he is 24.5 lbs. So his weight it up but I think it just means he is getting taller and not putting any meat on his bones. I struggle daily to find things the kids will eat that are nutritious with lots of calories and not total junk. You know how you hear that kids develop a taste and preference for foods that the mother ate while pregnant? Guess what we found out Beckett likes?
Hint- when I was pregnant I ate lots of good old Texas BBQ. My mouth is watering just thinking about it. I sure didn't gain those 80 lbs by eating turkey breast. It's a slab of BBQ beef brisket. He ate the whole thing.
We had BBQ at our house last week when my grandparents were visiting from Florida. I'm not going to tell you their age because my grandma would kill me but let's just say that in just a little over a decade they will three digits old. We had an unbelievable time with them and I'm so fortunate that my kids get to enjoy time with their great-grandparents and they got to experience a slice of our life here in Milwaukee. Addy ate so much watermelon that my Grandma thought she was going to get sick.
"This doll could use a blow-out." - Grandma. No kidding, that is exactly what she said. It is so funny because I can't tell you how many times I've called their house and Grandpa said that that Grandma isn't home- she is at the beauty parlor. I have about 6 dolls that I should have sent back to Florida with her that need some pretty extensive work.
Right now they call all insects either "bees" "ants" or "cicadas". Eloise pretty much stomps as hard as she can on any insect she sees on the ground. I'm trying to discourage that since I'm the type that would catch a spider and put it outside. I found some weird inch worm type thing on the white couch the other day. Why is there a worm on the couch? You are just wasting your time asking those kinds of questions with toddlers. I just scooped it up and set it out the front door. Addy and Beckett are the bug lovers. They collect the circadian shells and occasionally luck out and find a live one.

This live one they tried to take for a boat ride.

Wonder why he stopped flapping his wings after the water ride of his life?

Then they found this one- just a shell. Beckett was really concerned he wasn't flying to he picked him up and held him running around the yard yelling- FLY! FLY!

I don't know if Beckett thought it was dead but the death conversation came up this week with Addy. We were reading books one night before bed and she said, "Pickles go?" They hadn't mentioned Pickles or talked about her since we put her to sleep unless I mentioned it. I told her that Pickles was very sick and old and she died and that she is happy now playing with other dogs and safe. Addy just kept saying, "No, no, no. Pickles go?" and shaking her finger at me. We had about a 10 minute talk about Pickles and then I started to ask Addy questions about Pickles. I was dumbstruck and in awe of her comprehension and concern and frankly with her confidence that she knew better than I did about the whole matter. I was trying to figure out how much the other two were picking up on the conversation and had a clear snapshot of their personalities right at that moment. Addy's brow was furrowed in concern shaking her finger at me in middle of a serious discussion, Beckett was howling in laughter as he was pretending to bucked off a 6 foot stuffed caterpillar and Eloise was deep in thought sitting next to me as she carefully stacked blocks and assembled pieces of a train.
She was still fretting about it before I turned off the light so I showed everyone a picture of Pickles all dressed up in her Halloween bumble bee costume. They all laughed and pretended to be her with her tongue hanging out of her mouth. A few times a day she still will ask about Pickles particularly if she is upset about something else and occasionally has said, "See Pickles" which I'm assuming means she wants to see her picture but she also will say, "Sick NO!" when talking about her.
It was one of those moments when the enormity and absolute responsibility of being a parent left me breathless. It was a reminder of the careful path of parents and the things that may seem the most benign to us may actually be what sticks in the end.

On a lighter note, I was a big talker and my original plan was to potty train Addy this week. Not brave enough quite yet to fully go through with it. But I need to soon because I have had to wash the sheets on her crib every single day this week because she takes off her clothes and diaper and either pees on the bed or twice took off her poop diaper and then sat on the bed. Thank goodness she doesn't touch it and is still a little fearful of poop or I would have had a real mess on my hands. Anyway, last night I tried putting panties on her for an hour. She peed 3 times in one hour, twice on Rich's lap. If I'm doing the math correctly that means that if she is up for 12 hours (because she refuses, REFUSES to nap) that I need to have at minimum 36 pairs of panties ready for one full day of potty training. Times 3? Not brave enough yet.