Spiders Have Families, Too.

Claire has a love/hate (mostly hate) relationship with bugs. She appreciates the occasional butterfly and ladybug, but finds all other bugs and insects repulsive and disturbing. She freaks out if she sees a fly, roly poly, or spider in the house. Sometimes, she freaks out when she sees a bit of dryer lint that she believes closely resembles a bug. Usually, she moans, tells us she's really scared, and looks something like this...

So yesterday, there was a spider in my bedroom. I grabbed a paper towel and took care of business, as I have done many times before. (Unless Josh is around. Then I make him do the dirty work.) Anyway, Claire was freaked out at the mere mention of a spider, but I assured her that I killed it. Then, she asked to see the spider. I explained to her that I had killed it, it was dead and gone. She looked confused, pondered this for a moment, and then asked, "Is he with his Mommy and Daddy? Is the spider with his Mommy and Daddy and baby brother?"

Ummmmmm... yes? Yes. Let's go with that, instead of "Well, honey. Mommy killed him. Crushed him. He's dead. He's not alive anymore. Did you know living things like animals and people can die? They can just stop being alive. Especially if Mommy crushes them into an unrecognizable assembly of body parts and fluid. Sweet dreams tonight!"

She might be a little more obedient for a few days, but I don't know if that would make up for the 2am night terrors for the next year.

Okay, so I know that's probably not the recommended "death talk" for preschoolers, but I'm starting to think I should find out what is appropriate. I think it's something that comes up for a lot of kids in the 3-5 year old range and I want to be prepared to explain the circle of life without completely freaking her out. Maybe we could just watch "The Lion King" and listen to that Elton John song? ;-)

Google, here I come.

Jingle Bells

What?!? It's January 21?!?

Well, merry late Christmas, because I'm posting about a classic holiday song gone toddler. As is the case for many households, things got busy around here during the holidays and I am just now back to blogging. So before we say an official goodbye to my favorite holiday of the year, I want to share these videos of Claire belting out the festive and (at the time) seasonally appropriate "Jingle Bells". Enjoy!

This first video is one of her hilarious home practice sessions after we introduced her to hot chocolate. Please excuse her wardrobe. She wanted to show off her big girl panties, so she decided regular pants were an unnecessary part of her pajamas.



This video is her preschool's performance at their annual Christmas sing-along. This was Claire's first time on stage and I am proud to say she was fully clothed and quite docile during the performance. Her first taste of fame did leave her wanting more though. We didn't catch it on video, but when they dismissed the two year olds to sit with their parents for the rest of the show, Claire did NOT want to go. She cried and went limp on the floor when we tried to remove her from the stage. I think we may have a Broadway star on our hands. ;-)

Claire's New Floor

We had new carpet installed upstairs this weekend and Claire had a funny reaction to all the chaos. We had been talking to her about how she was going to have a new floor and she seemed excited. We started clearing out our upstairs rooms early in the week, but saved Claire's room and most of the big stuff for Friday while she was in preschool.

When she came home from preschool, she didn't even notice the giant pile of stuff we had moved into our living room. (A testament to my housekeeping, perhaps?) But when we went to the staircase, she immediately noticed the gate was gone. She asked me if it was broken. I explained it was not broken, but that we moved it because we were getting a new floor tomorrow. She insisted that it was broken and that "when Daddy gets home, he will fix it." Satisfied with her understanding of the situation, Claire proceeded to climb the stairs. When she reached the top, she was astonished to see the gate at the top of the stairs was also missing. She looked confused, then said, "Hey, what's going on here?" I couldn't stop laughing long enough to answer her.

Then, she walked into her room, which was empty except for her bed. I could literally see her brain trying to process that discovery. She gazed silently at the empty place where her dresser used to be. Then, she looked around at her bare walls. Suddenly, a look of horror crossed her face. I knew exactly what she was thinking, but before I could say a word, she whipped around to the face the vacant spot her bookcase used to occupy and cried "My books! Hey, where did my books go?". Immediately, I knelt down to reassure her that we had just moved her books downstairs and offered to show her where they were. She looked relieved, and from that moment on, she has been perfectly happy and easy-going about all the change.

She really likes that all the furniture is out of her way, so she has lots of room to frolic upstairs. After the carpet was installed, she ran into the empty guest room and said, "This is my gymnastics room!"

She's also loved having the freedom to go up and down the stairs whenever she wants. She's really good on them and always holds onto the rails, so we're thinking of leaving the gates off for now. As long as she continues to be careful and doesn't start playing on the stairs, I'm trying to let go of my mommy worries and allow her some freedom. Plus, Josh really likes not having to deal with the gates any more, and even I can admit it makes it easier to carry laundry up and down the stairs.

Anyway, I was pleasantly surprised (once again) by how easily Claire deals with changes like this. I'm so thankful that she's flexible and can handle a little chaos because, frankly, life gets a little crazy around here sometimes (although most days, Claire is responsible for at least half the craziness at our house). :-)

The Results Are In

The doctor called yesterday to let me know all the test results have come back... normal, completely normal. The good news here is that I don't have any scary, miscarriage-causing diseases. The bad news is there's no treatment that can help if there's no identifiable cause for the miscarriages. If they had found something, medication might have lowered my future miscarriage risk dramatically. Instead, my risk for another miscarriage will be pretty high (over 40%). The worst part of the testing is that it came with a really ugly label - habitual aborter. The doctor warned me I would see that on some paperwork from the tests, but what an awful term. You would think whoever comes up with medical terminology would have a little sensitivity to the fact that patients are likely to see or hear how you're referring to them. Regardless of where she may stand on abortion issues, I think any pregnant woman with repeated pregnancy losses would find that label a bit jarring. Can't they just write "multiple miscarriages" on the paperwork?

Anyway, now that the testing is over, I won't have to look at the label again for a while. The doctor said we could try again when we're ready. While we really are eager to grow our family, I think we might wait a little while. I want to feel excited about the decision to have another baby, but right now I just feel sort of scared of the idea. I don't feel ready to risk another miscarriage, another heartbreak. I'm surprised at myself for wanting to wait awhile. Usually, I'm the kind of person who goes straight for what I want and keeps working until I get it. But I guess something this personal affects me differently. I feel like I could use some time to process everything that's happened over the last six months. So we're going to just relax and enjoy the holidays with our sweet Claire Bear.

Thanks for all of your kind words, prayers, and support through all this. We're hoping a new year will bring some better luck and new blessings to our family.

Candy, Candy, Candy!!!

Last year, we went to several Halloween events, but we didn't actually go knocking on any doors. This was the first year we took Claire trick-or-treating in our neighborhood. As you can see from the picture above, she was a little uncertain when we went outside and she saw other little ghosts and goblins running around. But after hitting up a few neighbors for candy, she decided Halloween was her new favorite holiday (at least until Christmas). As soon as we left the front porch of one house, she would tell us we needed to find a new house and get some more candy.

Overall, she was a very polite little trick-or-treater (saying "thank you" to everyone and even "Happy Halloween" a few times when we prompted her), but her enthusiasm for candy did cause a few small issues. It took a few discussions for her to understand that we weren't going to eat any candy until we got home. Then, once she realized that we had to get all the candy home safely before she could have any, she became a little protective of her loot. She seemed to think someone handing out candy might look into her bag and be so overcome with candy envy that they would steal her stash instead of adding to it. So, she really wouldn't let people get close enough to her bag to put candy in it. Instead, she wanted people to put the candy in her hand, so she could inspect it and then put it in her bag. If anyone made a move to put the candy directly into her bag, she would look up at them suspiciously and slowly back away until the bag was out of their reach. If it was a particularly special candy (aka lollipop), she didn't think it was safe to leave it in her bag at all. The lollipop had to be carried in her hand for safe keeping.

After an hour of running around the neighborhood, Claire's footsteps got a little slower. She asked us to carry the candy bag she had so closely guarded at the beginning of our adventure. Then she asked us to carry her. We knew it was time to call it a night, so we headed home.

She looked over her loot and picked out a couple of pieces to enjoy while we watched a Halloween cartoon and handed out some candy to other trick-or-treaters. Then, she went to bed and slept the long, deep sleep of a sugar coma. Once she drifted off, Josh and I looked through her bag and scarfed down took care of all the choking hazard candies. Overall, it was a great night.

Update and Cute Kid Pictures

Okay, I'm feeling much better today. I saw the doctor and she is running some tests to see if we can find a cause for these miscarriages. Yesterday, I gave what felt like half my blood to be tested for a variety of disorders, imbalances, and defects. Hopefully we'll find something minor and treatable so this won't happen again. The doctor did warn me that sometimes they run all the tests and still don't find anything conclusive, so we'll just have to wait and see. For now, I'm no longer in the "angry phase", so there won't be any ranting in this post. ;-) And since we all made it through my venting in the previous post, I think we've earned some cute kid pictures!

Yesterday, we took Claire to a Halloween Kids Night Out. She got to wear her costume, decorate cookies, and go trick-or-treating. She had a blast!

Of course, that was a lot of activity for a two year old and she was up well past her usual bedtime. She was so exhausted that she apparently didn't even have the energy to climb all the way into her bed before falling asleep.

Even after a good night's sleep, she's still been a little zombie-like all morning. She did, however, have the presence of mind to add a cute sweater dress over her pajamas - always the fashionista!

Miscarriage #3

We've been in a sort of pregnancy limbo the last two weeks - getting good test results then not so good ones, feeling pregnant sometimes and not pregnant other times. We were waiting for more test results today after a discouraging ultrasound yesterday. But this morning, I woke up and told Josh, "I don't I feel like today's headline is going to be We're Having Another Miscarriage." I was wrong.

I've had way too much practice telling people this, but we're having (another) miscarriage. I was six weeks along, and just got the news that it's another blighted ovum.

Really?!? Another one?!? It almost doesn't seem real right now. I never thought we would be the couple with fertility problems. We're young, we have a reasonably healthy lifestyle, and no family history of serious genetic disorders. How is this happening? I am heartbroken and so scared of what this third loss means.

Will we be able to have another child on our own? A blighted ovum usually means there is genetic material missing. Maybe all my remaining eggs are missing the genetic material necessary for a healthy pregnancy. Can't cure that. Or what if I have some serious medical problem that's causing me to lose these pregnancies. I just heard about some famous woman who was having infertility issues and it turned out she has cancer. Is that going to be me?

Logically, I know that those are worst-case scenarios and it's far more likely that there is a treatable issue here or possibly no issue at all, just bad luck. I know I shouldn't let myself think the worst right now. I'm trying to be positive, but the statistics aren't very encouraging. I was just reading about recurrent miscarriage. One prior miscarriage gives you about a 20% risk of another miscarriage (pretty much the same as a woman with no history of miscarriage). Two prior miscarriages gives you about a 28% risk of another miscarriage, which is a little higher. But three miscarriages? That raises your risk of another miscarriage to 43%. So, my odds of a successful pregnancy next time around are now only a little better than 50/50. Great. Flip a coin and predict whether or not I'll have a baby next time.

I know I probably sound a little angry right now (it's one of the stages of grief, right?), but I am trying to stay mostly positive. I'm trying to think of all the fun things I can do while we wait to try again - eat a medium rare steak, drink a gingerbread latte, dye my hair, wear skinny jeans. Those things are all fun, but my heart knows I would rather be pregnant right now than have any of that.

Truthfully, I know I am blessed because we have already been given a beautiful little girl. I am so thankful for her. She is such a smart, healthy, and happy toddler. And I'm certainly hugging her a little bit tighter these days.

The thing is, I really don't want her to be an only child for too long. I was an only child for 12 years and I always wished for a sibling growing up. When I finally got a baby brother (Jonathan, you rock), I was so happy. But we were so far apart in age that I was leaving for college when he started kindergarten. So I feel like we missed out on a lot of the sibling experience you get when you grow up together, close in age. I always wished we had more time together before I left home, and I really want Claire to have that time with her siblings.

I'm going to talk to the doctor tomorrow. She wants to run some tests and I'm hoping we find something minor and treatable. I used to think the miscarriages were a fluke. I don't want to find out that the real fluke was my ever having a healthy pregnancy.

Please pray for us. I know God's here. I know I have to trust Him. We just need prayers.