You should have a blog!

Woah...there is a new editing form for posting on blogger and I am not used to it. Hopefully I can still get through this quickly. In the past few weeks, a few people have randomly said to me "you should have a blog". To which I replied "I do" and it made me upset that there are people in my life that don't even KNOW this blog exists when there are over 400 posts in it. Sadly the majority of those posts are from 2008 and 2009 and here we are in 2012. I really want to pick this blogging thing back up again because it is sooo worth it to look back at things that I was saying and doing months or years ago and see how things have changed. So here we go with an update.

 A few weeks ago (and I don't even know the exact date-second child), Mallory woke up crying in her crib shortly after we had gotten in bed. Normally, we'd just let her cry for a few minutes because it's never too long and she just goes back to sleep. So a minute or 2 into it the crying starts getting louder and louder as if it is walking toward us. Next thing I know shes just strolling into our room and getting into bed with us. No thump, no injury, no warning whatsoever of her being close to being able to get out of her crib. So just like that, our crib days were over. I could have tried the crib tent and all that but really it was just delaying the inevitable, she's turning 3 and we're lucky we made it this far. Plus after having a child who DID injure himself the very first time he got out of his crib and the year and a half long ramifications that followed that event, I'm not taking any risks. In case you forgot...

http://afinefamily.blogspot.com/2009/07/now-that-weve-all-calmed-down-bit.html

  So Gigi helped take apart the crib and change it into a toddler and the next few nights looked like this...

Yes those are bumpers, we never took them off and I think it actually works well so that she doesn't fall out of the bed. We had to sit with her for a little bit on some nights to get her to fall asleep and she joined us in bed in the middle of the night a few times but for the most part, it was going ok. We figured out that if we just closed her door (she is not great at opening doorknobs on her own), she would cry for a few minutes and then realize we weren't coming back and get back in her bed and go to sleep. It was definitely not as bad as when Max got out but then again, he wasn't even 2 years old and he broke his arm so he wasn't able to suck his fingers which he had done for his entire life to fall asleep. Hence the 2 year ramifications. 

Anyway, about a week later (again I forget the dates) we were having a normal weekend. Carrie was in for the weekend for Gabe's birthday so we finally got to hang out with Jett!

We went out to dinner with the kids at Olive Branch and that was a disaster. We were annoyed that we spent alot of money only to have to rush through dinner and leave without the kids even eating. Little did we know what the rest of the night would entail.

We got home early and went to a playground that is in walking distance to our house but we never knew about. The kids loved it and Mallory did not want to leave. She was having a fit when we got back to our house and having a tantrum about coming inside. I left her on the porch and went to go pick up some toys outside before coming in for the night. I yelled to Mark "get her!" so she wouldn't keep trying to run back to the playground. He picked her up, threw her over his shoulder while she's flinging herself around and she somehow ended up lunging away from him and Mark caught her by her ankle on her way down head first. He saved her from falling on her head but he says he "heard a crack" and was sure something was broken. I came inside to find her hysterical and she wouldn't stand up. It was hard to tell if she was crying because she was mad or if she was in pain but she wouldn't put any weight on either leg. It is very unlike her to exaggerate something or not be able to just walk it off. After about 5-10 minutes of her just crying and not standing up, we went into panic mode (I've been in that mode a few too many times in the last few years!), called my parents to come over and stay with Max so we could go to the emergency room. He went over to the neighbors in the mean time so we could leave right away. 

After about 3 hours in the ER, some x-rays and lots of waiting and hyperventilating (mostly by me), they told us they didn't see any broken bones and that it was probably just a sprain or pulled muscle but that we needed to come back or see another doctor if she wasn't walking in a few days. She spend the night in our bed that night and was pretty much up moaning and crying for most of the night.We finally got tylenol into her at about 6 am but she was in pain for the whole night. 

So of course...she wasn't walking a few days later. AT ALL, she was crawling, it was horrible. Crawling is fine for before a child can walk but for an almost 3 year old to be immobile when she is usually VERY active is just not good. She was miserable, we were miserable, it wasn't fun. I texted with my doctor about it (one of the reasons I am glad that we switched pediatricians a few years ago, my old doctor would have never been available by text!) he agreed that we should probably get it checked out by an orthopedic since she still wasn't walking 3 days after the injury. We had a dentist appointment that we took both kids too that morning and when that was over, Mark suggested going up to an orthopedist who was right in the building to see if we could make an appointment. Miracle of miracles, we walked in and got an appointment with one of the best doctors around and we were seen about 15 minutes after walking in the door!! I was amazed and so impressed by that office. The doctor bent her leg all around and looked at her for a few minutes and said that he was pretty confident that nothing was broken and he didn't want to do more x-rays on her and waste money and time and radiation on such a young child. He said as long as it gets better every day, we should just assume it is healing and a sprain can take a while. 

It took a whole week of crawling around until she finally started hobbling and then just slightly limping and now a whole 3 weeks later she is pretty much back to normal. She will still say that her leg hurts sometimes but I'm hoping its just a little sore or still healing. I'm worried that when she is an adult she'll have an x ray for something random and they'll tell her that she had a broken leg when she was 3 that never healed! ugh. It felt like such a setback though...she had been doing so well in school and everything and then she was off for a week for spring break, then this happened and she missed a whole additional week so that was 2 weeks off and that is a long time for her. 

And yes...my daughter got out of her crib completely safely without so much as a thump on the ground, but a week later, a temper tantrum caused her to be injured to the point of not being able to walk for 2 weeks. She's a Hyatt/Fine for sure :) 

The rest of April continued to be eventful, especially April 20th. My mother in law had her long awaited back surgery that day and it went beautifully. Couldn't have gone better and she has amazed everyone including her doctors with how well she is doing only 2 weeks after surgery. All that yoga, swimming, and organic eating has surely paid off! We are so happy that the surgery is over and she is well on her way to recovery. 

April 20th afternoon, Max had kindergarten roundup. A few years ago, I was the one giving the speech screenings at the same school so it was a little weird to be on the other side of it. Max was shy at first when he met his teachers, he did pretty well at the speech screening, but by the end of registration, he was yelling at me in front of the guidance counselor and the nurse and getting mad every time I said something about him to someone. It went like this: 

Nurse "Has he had any surgeries?"

Me: "Well, he had a dental procedure when he was 3", "He had a broken wrist when he was 2"

Max: "I DID NOT HAVE A DENTAL PROCEDURE WHEN I WAS 3!!! I DID NOT BREAK MY WRIST WHEN I WAS 2!!!"

Me: "Ok Max, whatever you say"

Nurse: "Is someone getting a little tired?"

Max: NO I AM NOT TIRED!! MOMMY I DID NOT BREAK MY WRIST 

So...it went just as I always knew it would :) but he is registered and off to kindergarten he goes in September!

April 20th evening Kelle Hampton made a surprise appearance at our book club at Lauren's house (a surprise that I knew about for months and kept a secret!!) and that was just amazing. I made it to the blog with my cake pops and felt like my life was complete!!

It was an amazing night. We talked, we ate, we drank, we cried, and the general consensus was that EVERYONE has something in their life that didn't go exactly as planned. There is no such thing as "perfect" and we are all given the life that we are meant to have so we might as well enjoy everything every day and not dwell on the way we thought it was supposed to be. The end.

We met up with Kelle and her girls, the Perlin's and a bunch of other families for crabs that Sunday night.

By the end of the weekend, she seemed more like just another mom we were hanging out with and less like the blogger I've been following for 2 and a half years and the author who was just on the New York Times best seller list!

I have so much more to talk about and I want to update on the kids and what they are doing these days but its late and this took a long time as usual but I'll try to do a 3 year old update on Mallory soon. Yes she will be THREE in 9 days. How did that happen? And we just got a preschool graduation invitation for Max!! Someone recently told me that when you have kids, the days are very long but the years fly by. Couldn't be more true. 

 More updates to come soon including Mallory's party details next week. Good night!