I’ve started a new diet, officially, today.  Not going to talk too much about that I think, don’t wanna jinx it!  But here it is Friday and I’ve been such a good girl… NO, absolutely NO soda since Sunday when I said ok, cold turkey again, have to.  This time it’s gonna have to stay, at least until I reach my goal.  Only then, maybe, can I treat myself every once in a while.  Of course, getting caffeine completely out of my system and having one later may put me on overload.

I’ve also started trying to get this house whipped into shape.  It’s taking longer than I wanted it to.  I blame that on my kids.  I spent all day re-organizing their room and the very next day, Kayleigh totally trashed it.  Dumped out all the toys, even pulling drawers out and dumping them.  But I did get the living room re-organized and it looks pretty good, still gets covered in toys but not nearly as many as before.  The center room is next and that’s going pretty slow.  I also spent a lot of time putting up these adorable chalkboard decals on the kids’ door and some sweet animals on the empty wall after dismantling the crib last week… only to have to take them all down the very next day.  Turned out they terrified Kayleigh.  Who would have known??

So, yes, the crib, she is gone.  Stored in pieces, temporarily, in the garage as I’m not sure what to do with it.  I wonder if our trash men would take it away.  It’s the kind of crib that they are outlawing so I couldn’t and wouldn’t try to resell it and my kids damaged it so you have to permanently have the side up, so a lot of people wouldn’t like that anyway.  It’s just so big…  But the transition was MUCH easier than I thought it would be.  The first night I put Kayleigh in her Big Girl bed (aka bottom of the bunk bed) and she got up once so I put her back in the crib, she cried a bit then went to sleep.  The next night she got up from her bed and I put her back then she went to sleep, same thing the night after that.  The next day I removed the crib because I was sick of it.  That night was trickier because she was still scared of the decals but I put her in bed, shut the light and the door really fast, then she stayed in bed.  Since then, when I’ve been putting her to bed, she’s been staying.  I can hardly believe it.  However, this also means largely no naps.  We’re only getting naps out of her if we happen to be driving at the right time or she falls asleep somewhere in the living room.  So far she’s slept on the little trampoline and on the floor between the couch and love seat.  I actually did just put her in for a nap, we’ll see if she sleeps or not.  She was trying to fall asleep in her high chair.

Also because of Kayleigh’s new found freedom, I’ve had to buy a gate.  I got this extended width walk-through gate for between the living room and the rest of the house.  She gets free reign of the living room and their bedroom and I don’t have to worry about her sticking her hands in the toilet or trying to leave the house.  She could probably climb over the gate if she really tried to, but so far, we’re good.  Best $60 I ever spent.

As for me, I have been having these weird headaches for a while now.  They were every day for a week though when I went to the doctor on Monday.  We are hoping it’s just my sinuses and not something serious.  ’Cause to tell you the truth, they feel so weird they freak me out.  He put me on some antibiotics and my sinuses did start draining and I’m not feeling constant headaches like before but it still hurts in that strange way on the top and sides of my head when I lay down.  So falling asleep is no fun right now.  I’m going to carry the antibiotics through and if it continues will go back to the doctor again.  He said if my sinuses wouldn’t clear, the next step is cat scan to see how they look.  I may end up with one either way.  We’ll see.

Really, all this is fine, the next step of life, but it’s got me exhausted by mid-day each day and behind in my photo editing.  Where before, I’d block off the living room and she’d play in there while I edited on my laptop or maybe I’d edit while she was napping.  But with her new found courage, naps are frowned upon and she is not content whatsoever to play in the living room even one bit, not even on her new-to-her trampoline that my parents brought back from storage in their house (it was Elijah’s).

Also, and this is really the point of my post, she’s eaten very little the last several days.  I think this is simply because she doesn’t want to be in her high chair.  She wants to run.  Running is fine, but you gotta eat, too.  She cries when I put her in there and it’s not long before she’s giving me the “done” sign and/or throwing a fit.  Just a bit ago, I got her in there and she ate a bit of freeze dried fruit.  She wanted a graham cracker but then she was done and she got down.  I hadn’t even had a chance to clean up the tray yet and she was signing that she wanted a cracker and what not.  So I put her back in the high chair and she picked up the graham cracker and then started motioning that she wanted out of the high chair with the cracker.  I said “uh, no, Missy, you’re not carrying food around the house.  Eat it.”  She started to cry and act like she was going to let herself out (which she can’t yet) and I said, “No, eat your cracker, then you can get down.”  She yelled and threw the cracker on the floor where it was immediately grabbed by the dog who’s not supposed to be eating People Food.  I guess it’s a good thing I just put her on Pediasure…

I just bought an extra wide gate for our 50″ doorway between the living room and the rest of the house, it’s supposed to be here today.  Their room is off the living room so if this gate is good, that will be really nice and maybe it will help her see that these two rooms are her play area, she doesn’t need to go running around causing trouble elsewhere, the little stinker.

Guess it’s time to shower, Elijah just shut himself and Kayleigh in their room with his math book…  Hey, works for me.  If he actually gets his work done faster while on his bed than at his school desk… wow.  He went in without complaints about math, too.  Unbelievable!!

And with all of this in mind, Kayleigh is just as bad as Elijah (if not worse) at learning her lessons.  No matter what happens or how many times I tell her no or stop or whatever, she doesn’t get it, she just keeps going for it.  I’ve put her in her crib with some toys and such because I can’t take it anymore for a while.

All of this wouldn’t be so bad if it was just a little bit during the day, but it’s constant. She just won’t give it up.  She refuses to play with her toys and only wants to leave the house or do things she’s not supposed to.  I wouldn’t mind taking her outside to run around for a bit at all, but I can’t do it by myself right now, she’s too fast for me while my back is so stiff.  My back has been bothering me for a week now, I just wish I would get better already.  Of course, if I could keep from having to lift Kayleigh out of trouble.  She’s more than twice what I’m supposed to be lifting.

Sigh, I really think I might go nuts.  Someone please tell me how long this is going to last because I need to see the light at the end of the tunnel…

Since she first started with solid food, aka not baby food puree, Kayleigh has been extremely picky. At first, we thought it was a texture thing, but now I wonder if it’s not just pure stubbornness and habit.

We had an occupational therapist come see her. One thing she said was, “I’m bad with feeding issues.” Then she corrected herself to say she’s not bad, just that it’s not what she is best at. Whatever. She had no idea really. She gave me an idea of putting something like peanut butter or sour cream on something that K does like and will eat, but that really doesn’t do any good. K found very quickly that she could bite off and spit out the offending piece, then eat the rest of the item. Other than that, the OT didn’t really tell me anything and then said she would get us a speech therapist.

I think the speech therapist came in expecting to see a child with chewing, swallowing, or choking issues. But that’s not the case, K is an old pro at eating. She just refuses to. The speech therapist couldn’t tell me anything either. She had some nonsense about letting K’s hands be dirty with food but I don’t think that’s done anything. She seemed to be more concerned with the fact that K isn’t talking in words yet. Her report said that it was “very concerning” and then noted, “mom is not concerned.” No, I wasn’t concerned about that, she babbles plenty and makes plenty of noises and she will talk when she’s ready. Not to mention, DOCTORS are telling me not to worry until she’s older than two or certainly at age three. So no NEED to worry now. That was offensive and while I won’t turn away speech therapy, I think she needs more work with eating than talking (and I don’t think I want that therapist at all).

So what does she eat? She eats some Gerber and Parent’s Choice items such as puffs (little cereal-like finger foods with many flavors), crunchies (similar to cheesy poofs but healthier and softer), freeze dried yogurt bits, freeze dried bananas, and things like most types of crackers but those chicken flavored ones, Goldfish and Whales, Cheerios and maybe Chex. That’s pretty much it in the way of feeding herself and what she will voluntarily take in. I do make sure she gets the right nutrition by way of purees still so she gets chicken and other meats from that, vegetables, fruits, etc.

Here’s the thing, it’s not just a refusal to try certain things or anything new, it’s that she automatically THROWS whatever she doesn’t want. This is one reason I think it’s not really a texture issue, I will give her something that’s similar to or seems to fit the criteria of what she likes, the only thing is that it’s new, and she will still immediately and automatically throw it. It took me forever to get her to try the freeze dried yogurt and now she loves them. For instance, today I gave her a Gerber cookie. It feels like a cracker, looks similar to a cracker and even comes out of packaging that looks just like the Gerber freeze dried yogurt (oh yes, be ye not deceived, she even watches the packaging), yet she didn’t even give it a try – just threw it.

At my cousin’s wedding shower last weekend, she was saying, “Oh can I give her some cake? How about some icing. This is sweet, she will like this.” My end of the conversation was going something like, “she won’t eat it, she’ll just throw it. Good luck, if you can get her to take a bite from you, I’m all for it.” Just like I predicted, she refused it all and pushed my cousin’s hand away and then got mad when she was offered anything more. If I want her to eat from a spoon (she takes most of her purees in a feeder where I don’t even think she tastes them because she’ll actually eat things like chicken that way but not on a spoon if she doesn’t like it), I literally have to hold her hands down and force her to take that first bite. When she realizes it’s bananas or something, she’s all for it, but she’s still quite difficult for every bite. It’s like refusal is such a habit that she can’t turn it off.

Here’s an example of the packaging. When K is in her high chair, she watches everything I do, very intently. She was already eating those Stauffer’s Whales which are similar to Pepperidge Farm Goldfish Crackers. E loooooved the Whales when he was little, too, and we’ve gotten them because they are cheaper. But I had the bright idea of trying the colored Goldfish as an encouragement that just because it changes color doesn’t mean you won’t like it. I am to understand that all the colors taste the same. So I bought a big carton and I gave her some. She looked at them on her tray, looked at the carton, looked at her tray, the carton again, then threw them off her tray. She didn’t even try them. I had to go somewhere that night so I put some in this little container I keep in her diaper bag for taking snacks with us. I told Steve that while I was gone, try to give them to her again, but only give them out of that container. He did and she tried them right away and now eats them just fine, even seeing what container they come from. However, this does not work all the time – it didn’t work with the cookie today.

Speaking of the cookie… I tried several methods to get her to try it but she just kept throwing it. She got angry with me and I put it on the kitchen table just out of her reach. This also made her very angry because all she wanted to do was throw it. But she ignored it there for a little while. I left the room for a minute and when I heard a noise, I peeked around the corner and could see that she’d broken her high chair again and had the tray in her right hand and was banging it on the table which is to her right. So I headed in there to get her out before she could fall and when I entered the room I saw that she had the cookie in her other hand (guess that’s how she broke the tray off again, E broke it the first time and I had “fixed” it) and she was sort of tasting it without biting it. As soon as she saw me? She threw it. So maybe the issue is all me, I don’t know. I don’t think this is the first time she’s started to try something then thrown it when she’s seen me.

Do I even need to mention how I have to sweep the floor 50 times a day? Even the dog gets sick of Cheerios after a while.

She’s back to being her typical punk diva, too. First things first, she goes for allllll the things she knows she’s not supposed to touch…

She did well and had a pretty good recovery then napped some then even seemed to be herself for a while and now is sleeping. I am hoping she sleeps all night but the nurse just came in to give her some pain meds and check on her so she’ll probably be awake in no time. She’s a very light sleeper normally anyway.

She’s hoarse though, which I hate because it just sounds horrible. Hopefully that will go away soon. She doesn’t seem to, at this point, have noticed she has an incision, stitches, gauze, etc., on her left back. She keeps getting tangled up in her IV lines. I will be VERY glad when those are gone.

There’s a very tiny tube that is helping to drain the kidney, it goes right into her diaper. She’ll have that removed in 7-10 days, after the ureter has had some time to heal.