near miss

The sickening thud that results from a child on an uncontrolled trajectory that ends in collision with a hard surface is one of those unmistakable sounds that every parent probably hears at least once never wants to.

In the moments that follow such a calamity, there are questions coming rapid-fire.  Is she hurt?  Is she OK?  Is something broken?  Should we take her for x-rays? 

Please, Lord.  Grant me wisdom to know how to handle this situation.  And please hold me together so I can help her.  

I like to think that I'm pretty good under pressure at such times, but I know I'm toeing the line when one of my bambini is injured.  For example, the two-year-old lass took a spill off a window seat cushion this afternoon in the midst of an otherwise delightful afternoon of happy family fun time.  After that terrible sound, there came the cries of a little girl in pain.  She held her arm tightly against her side.  She had landed on it, and right away the area around her elbow began to turn purple.

I went running for some ice and Arnica Montana, a homeopathic remedy indicated for bruises, muscle soreness, and traumatic injuries that we keep on hand.  We refer to it as "bonk medicine".  We scooped her up and snuggled her close.  My beloved -- aka "Dr. Dad" -- fashioned a sling out of a tea towel and tucked some ice and a baby doll inside.  She could still move her arm without much pain, but we still worried and wondered.

After a little downtime she was back up and playing, using the arm with little noticeable difficulty.  She seems to be doing OK.  We'll of course keep an eye on it.

There have been a few other times when one of the bambini has been injured when I really wrestled to discern the need to seek emergency medical attention on their behalf.  (The younger lad can claim most of these.) After the dust had settled in each case, as I did today, I can't help but conjure up images in my mind of how that would play out, and it's never a good feeling.  What if it had been worse?  Oh, how I can work myself up over such uncertainties.

Scary though it may be to think about, there is little good to come out of fretting about things that haven't happened.  It's important to be prepared, because accidents happen.  We can take every reasonable precaution to secure our bambini's safety, but we can't keep them from ever getting hurt.

So I tell myself when I'm not holding a child in pain after falling just out of my arm's reach doing something she's done a thousand times before and likely will many more times to come.

Perhaps the day will come when we will need to summon help for some medical crisis.  God forbid something like that should happen, but if it does, I pray for the courage to be the strong mother the hurting child will depend on to secure that medical care as well as offer the comfort that only comes from Dr. Mom.

made with love

On a nearly daily basis I blitz together the ingredients for the much-loved drinkable yogurt* my younger lad and two-year-old lass guzzle more than water.  I recently asked the lad if he could taste the love I had put into making the beverage as he sat sipping a fresh Foogo-full.

"That's not an ingredient," he said. 
Au contraire, mon frere.

Just as I put love into the smoothies I blend together, so too do I include it in all the baked goods we make together -- including those using alternatives to all-purpose flour such as I'm discussing today at Foodie Proclivities...

... and everything else I make, whether they can taste it or not.

*the recipe in its current version is
2 cups milk
1 cup plain low-fat yogurt
1 cup V8 pomegranate-blueberry Fusion juice
4 oz. peach baby food 

stride right

The raven-haired lass is now eight months old.  She's not a newborn anymore.  She's well on her way to being a mobile toddler, as she can now roll wherever she wants to go as well as push herself up to sitting once she gets there.  She's often seen up on her hands and knees (or toes), as though she's about to take off either crawling or sprinting. 

While she's still very sweet-natured, she does put up protests of considerable volume now on occasion. 

She's more aware of  my presence (or lack thereof).  She doesn't always initially notice my departure if I slip away for a little while (since that's as long as I would be away from her anyway given her age), but once she realizes that she and I aren't *thisclose*, her deep brown eyes fill with tears and bottom lip turns upside down.

Her brothers and sister can get her laughing with great guffaws.   Siblings are good for that.

With the passage of time (and some new thyroid medication), I have been able to reclaim a certain dimension of peace and sense of steadiness, for which I am most grateful.  In a few ways I find myself hitting a stride of sorts.  There are still plenty of harried moments, but there are also more freshly-made dinners (though still many from the freezer), smiles from bambini (along with the displays of displeasure), and moments of clarity when I have my wits about me and can thus employ my proactive tactics.  There are also renewed and deepening prayer practices that help immensely in everything from the minutiae to the big picture.

Having been down this road four times now, though, I know full well that just about as soon as I feel settled in some semblance of routine, at least one variable will change to cause that routine to be amended (again) -- summer vacation, for example.  Knowing to expect that helps.  I will do what I can to plan for that and pray for the grace to rise to the occasion.

fun in a jam jar

For the Kindergarten moms' monthly gathering last week, I took something tasty and (partly) homemade...

 Get the recipes at Foodie Proclivities!

minor victories: happy hour edition

I would love to say that I wrote my ticket to a (relatively) peaceful final few minutes of dinner preparation -- all too often the pinnacle of happy hour, but it wasn't my doing.  It wasn't like I ceremoniously set forth the box of recyclable paper that I'd been squirreling away for just this purpose so that the lads could hone their fine motor skills with scissors and scraps of paper.  I didn't have the wherewithal to do that after a few too many reminders to "use kind words and gentle hands" for one afternoon.

In fact, I had stashed all that junk mail and already-read church bulletins in a paper sack (under the sink, because it's next to the trash bin and therefore handy at the time of disposal -- key to actually separating out the recyclables and not just tossing them in with the trash), which the elder lad had discovered and decided to "sort" -- another early childhood skill that he took upon himself to refine.

The younger lad had been biding his time until his fourth birthday so he could start using scissors himself (because his mama -- following the advisory on the scissors packaging -- had said he had to wait until he was four like his brother had to undertake such an activity).  When his brother got out the signature orange-handled child-sized scissors and commenced the cutting of paper into bits that often elicits reminders to "leave no trace" (as in, "clean up after yourself"), the younger lad asked for his own green-handled ones.

And in a moment of clarity, I saw it: the win-win-win situation:

Lads happily (and safely) snipping, scraps going back into the box they came from (for the most part), Mama getting dinner on the table, lasses charming their daddy with giggles and grins even before he took off his jacket.

Bon appetit.

one of the guys

M'lady is establishing herself as one handy little gal.  Not only is she quite capable in the kitchen, but she now wields a wrench.   She likes to go "work wif Daddy" along with her brothers in the garage, and in the evenings she starts out in her brothers' room reading bedtime stories with them before flitting away ready for some snuggling with Mama. 

Should she be out of sight for very long, she is often found thumbing through books in the lads' room.  Attempting to entice her away from a round of verboten jumping on the bed is darn near an exercise in futility.  And the girl loves to dig in the dirt and sand as much as or more than her brothers.  She doesn't mind getting muddy, but she doesn't like her hands to stay dirty once she's moved on to some other activity.

Claiming dump trucks as her own while snuggling her baby dolls in her carseat, she's a complex girl with a simple sweetness that's utterly irresistable.

cultural literacy

elder lad (the family D.J.): "Mom, look! It's Paul McCartney!"