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Feb 13, 2013

Nightmares Feeding On Mom Anxiety

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Do you ever have those dreams that are so real that you wake up startled, disoriented, and trying to determine if it actually happened or if now, awake in your bed, is the true reality?

Now what about nightmares?

My sleep was disturbingly interrupted by one of those nightmares this morning. This one was worse than many because it didn’t involve any danger to me, but instead to one of my children. And unlike other bad dreams where I can wake and realize any danger was highly unlikely and improbable, this one involved a very real scenario that left me shaken and unable to go back to sleep.

In my nightmare, Mira died. It was a very life-like situation: she wasn’t with us (I can’t remember if she was at school or with family) and she choked on a bit of hot dog. The horrific scene played out where we received the news, and then planned her funeral. I remember sobbing that I’d never hug her again or see that impish smile. I tortured myself with “what if?” – what if she had been with me that day, what if she had only picked a different food or someone had cut up the hot dog better for her, or what if I had never encouraged her to like hot dogs? I remember walking into her room and seeing her favorite stuffed animals on the bed, and I was overcome with grief.

And then I woke up.

Terrifying, right? It took me several minutes to calm my breathing, wipe the tears out of my eyes and realize I could hear Mira arguing with her sister downstairs, perfectly healthy, perfectly alive. My mind was still on fire with the false memories from the dream, trying to push them aside and write them off as fears conjured into a hellish scenario for my brain to process.

The half hour remaining before my alarm went off was useless. I tried to go back to sleep, in the hope that more sleep would erase the lingering images from my mind, but the danger had been laid out for me and I couldn’t stop thinking about what I needed to do to prevent this from becoming a reality. After all, I had just bought hot dogs for Mira at the grocery last week after she asked for them – was this some warning, or just my mind arranging a random collection of thoughts and memories then taken to the extreme end?

I do occasionally worry about Mira choking. The kid is a talker – an excessive talker – and that includes while she’s eating. I’m often reminding her to chew and swallow, then talk. How easy would it be for her to accidentally inhale a piece of food?

And the concept of choking is one I’m personally familiar with. When I was five or six, my babysitter had given me some of the candy orange slices as a treat. (You know, the thick, sugared gummy-jelly wedges?) I was so happy to get them that I inhaled them. Literally.

I ate the first two without any trouble as I looked out the back door, trying to finish them so I could go out to play, but when I popped the third one into my mouth, it accidentally slid too far back and got stuck. I couldn’t breathe. I couldn’t yell for help. I remember the confusion and then the panic as I tried to cough or swallow to dislodge the candy. My babysitter was two rooms away and I didn’t think I could make it to her.

I walked from the kitchen to the living room, starting to hit myself in the chest, begging my lungs to work as I became light-headed. I remember stumbling over the rug (her rug had tripped me on many better days as well) and landing with my chest on the arm of the couch. And that did it – the candy popped up enough for me to cough it out. My throat burned as I gasped for air.

My experience could have ended far worse, and to this day I still won’t go near orange slices candy. I know Mira has trouble focusing on any single task, so I guess it’s only natural that I’d have a nightmare about her choking.

The hard part now is getting the nightmare out of my mind. As parents, we only have so much control over our children and we can’t guarantee their safety 100% of the time. Letting a child out of your site, even for a moment, is trusting that you’ve surrounded your child with the safest possible world and the best teaching, and that they’ll remember what you’ve taught them.

But there is no absolute safety. There are always risk, accidents you have no control over, and dwelling on all of the what if’s will only zap all of the joy out of being a parent.

When I came downstairs this morning, I sat on the couch next to Mira and she immediately threw her arms around me and said “I love you, mommy.” I pulled her close to me as she nuzzled her face into my neck, and hugged her tight.

That was my restart for the day. Instead of thinking about possible danger, I’m choosing to focus on the great moments I have with my kids. Because if something bad should ever happen to any of us, I want to know that our days were filled with love and happiness.

If anything, the nightmare was a good reminder to notice the little moments of joy in each day.

This kid cracks me up.
Filed Under: being a mom, family time, love, memories, Mira ·


Jan 9, 2013

What Happens When Your Furby Becomes Evil

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In the weeks leading up to Christmas, Mira had one toy that kept coming to the top of her list: a Furby. Other items on the list would change, but a pink Furby was always there for anyone who asked, including Santa, who got an earful about how much she really wanted a Furby.

So when Christmas arrived, she was overjoyed to get a hot pink Furby from Santa. (Cordy got a blue Furby, too.)

Now, there are a few things they don’t tell parents about the Furby. First, it has no off button. At all. The only way to immediately silence it is to take out the batteries, which requires a screwdriver. And you know that right when you want it to shut up is the same time that all screwdrivers in the house go missing.

Otherwise, you have to wait for it to fall asleep, or force it to go to sleep by placing it in a dark, quiet area and ignoring it. Once it’s asleep, you mustn’t move it or bump it at all, or it will wake up again.

The Furby also has no volume control. At all. It’s loud all the time.  And most of the time it speaks Furbish, which seems to be some kind of cross between baby talk and pig latin.

Basically, it’s the toy equivalent of a colicky baby.

I did know some of this going into our purchase of this toy. But I did not know about all of the enhancements from the previous 1998 version. The LED eyes are cool and provide the ability for more expression of personality. It has more sensors to detect touch. And it can change personality.

The old Furby would have some change in personality based on how you treated it, but this one goes far beyond that with a multiple personality disorder. It has several very distinct personalities and doesn’t come with the Furby anti-psychotic drugs it desperately needs.

Mira’s Furby started out as the furry hot pink version of a valley girl. A little annoying, but kinda cute. She fed it on demand and used the iPad app to translate what it was saying, and it slowly learned a little English, too. Well, a version of English better suited to the movie Clueless, perhaps.

After the second or third day, it had the first personality shift. I didn’t see it happen, but suddenly it was speaking like a cowboy and mooing at us, with chicks and cows appearing in the LED eyes at times. Mira found that hilarious and I suffered through the noise because she liked this toy so much.

The next day it was back to a valley girl again, and even seemed to name itself Coco. It gave itself a name? It was becoming more sentient with each passing day.

And then, in the middle of Mira trying to teach it to dance, something very bad happened. It started to shake back and forth, it made weird noises, and it’s LED eyes were flashing like strobe lights. I thought it was either having a grand mal seizure or we broke the damn thing.

Furby, mid-panic attack

Then it stopped. All was silent for a moment. And then what was in front of us was a Furby who no longer had the high-pitched girly voice, but instead a deep, growling voice with angry looking eyes.

Coco isn’t here anymore.

Mira’s Furby was suddenly possessed by a new personality who was mean. It growled at her, it snapped at her with an angry voice if she tried to pet it, and it made retching noises when she tried to feed it, as if the iPad foods weren’t good enough for it. Occasionally it showed little flames in its eyes.

WTF happened? Did we feed it after midnight?

It was now a Furby demon. And Mira was scared of it. She backed away with tears in her eyes, her five year old mind unable to comprehend what had happened to her cheery dance pal, saying she wanted her nice Furby back, and she didn’t want to play with it anymore.

So her new electronic pet wasn’t working out as well as she wanted, which means it was now my responsibility to care for. Figures. I felt like I had brought home Chucky from Child’s Play to my daughter.

Sorry for the dark photos – it apparently has a feature that prevents paparazzi from getting good photos of it, too. Little bastard.

So as I sat there, with Damien the Dark Furby glaring at me from across the room, I did what any good mom would do: I googled “How to make a Furby nice again?”

I can assure you I’m NOT alone in this type of google search.

There were a lot of suggestions about different things to try. I gathered up the little ball of hate and tried petting the dumb thing several times. I will hug you and love you until you are sweet again! It growled and yelled at me each time while my dog stared at me in confusion, wondering why I was petting a loud toy instead of him. Yes, Cosmo, you’re smarter than the humans. Still no change from the Furby. I was a little worried it might try to bite me.

Mira was still across the room, asking me to make it nice again, but too afraid to come near it. WHO MAKES A TOY THAT KIDS ARE SCARED OF? What programmer thought that a sociopath personality would be a SUPER FUN for kids? I’d like to drag that person over to our house and let him/her console my five year old and explain the reasoning for this.

Then I remembered Mira really wanted her Furby to sing and like music. Some links suggested music can change the personality. So I put it in front of the iPad, cranked the volume, and subjected the little electronic Lucifer to Owl City followed by ABBA. He growled and hissed at this musical exorcism at first, but slowly started to dance along to the music. You know, that grudging, too-cool-for-school-kid dance where he doesn’t want to admit he likes Mama Mia.

Near the end of the second song, the Furby’s eyes flashed and it shook again, and suddenly the pop star personality appeared. This one has a softer voice than the valley girl and likes to sing a lot. Let me repeat: A LOT. And instantly, all Furby offenses had been forgiven by the formerly terrified kindergartener. Mira had been hoping her Furby would sing and ran across the room to scoop up her prized possession now that it was no longer, well, possessed.

Stupid Furby.

Since then it’s slipped back to the dark side once, which then fell to me to fix again. Music does seem to be the trick to force it back to being a “nice” Furby again. Mira loves the pop star personality – hers named itself Boo – which is the least offensive personality as far as Furby personalities go.

Aww, isn’t she sweet with those hearts in her eyes? That’s how she lures you to your DOOM.

Cordy’s Furby hasn’t changed personalities once. It prefers to be a valley girl/comedian hybrid and doesn’t want to change.Which is both annoying and OK, all at the same time. I’d rather deal with devil I know rather than the devil it might become.

Luckily, the hours between Furby playtimes have already stretched into days. I’m hoping they will eventually lose interest with these gremlins before my personality changes.

This has to be my mother’s revenge for the Teddy Ruxpin I adored as a kid, right? Only it’s revenge with 30 years of interest. I’d better start planning for the next generation now.

Or the Furby will enslave our Skylanders to do what it commands with it’s sweet, chipper voice and I’ll be doomed forever.

Filed Under: family time, fate laughing at me, holidays, Mira, pop culture ·


Jan 7, 2013

Snow Days

By ·

This winter has already proven to be far better than last winter. The day after Christmas, the snow started, and kept coming in intervals of every couple of days until the new year, leaving us with a lovely blanket of the white stuff.

With the past few winters being fairly dry and lacking in snow, Mira hasn’t had a lot of experience with it, and Cordy’s experiences are vague at best. Once they saw it on the ground, it didn’t take long before they were asking to go play in it. I bought them snowsuits and new boots and decided that since it was winter break, we’d make the most of our time with the snow.

This was also Cosmo’s first experience with anything more than a dusting of snow. He nervously pawed at the snow at first, but seeing the kids run out into it helped him get over any fear.

About to be knocked over by a dog running full force.

The next day, we decided to take the kids sledding. There’s a local sledding hill that apparently a large percentage of Columbus decided to visit with this new-found snow. During the drive, we created an image of how awesome sledding was for the kids, and how much they would love it.

At the hill, Aaron took them both up the hill to wait in line while I stood near the bottom to meet them when they came down. Mira was the first one down the hill – it’s hard to see, but she’s the one in the middle of the screen after a few seconds on the pink circle sled. Also? You can watch with the sound off so you don’t hear the people beside me yelling to their friends across the hill:

She was a little scared after clipping a few people at the end, but wanted to try one more time. Cordy had a harder crash on her first trip down, colliding with another sled on the way down. She was also shaken and scared to try again, but she also agreed to give it another try.

Parents, a helpful tip: if you must wait for your children at the bottom of the hill, stand to the side or far enough back that you don’t serve as an obstacle for the uncontrolled projectiles coming down the hill. I can’t count the number of adults who served as an abrupt stopping point for random kids, and many of the adults were then upset that the kid crashed into them. If you do choose to stand in their way, pay attention to the hill and move if someone is coming your way.

Mira’s second attempt ended poorly. Two other kids had collided and stopped halfway down the hill. Mira’s round sled hit another little girl just as she stood up, taking her off of her legs again and landing on top of Mira’s head. But Mira kept going, finally ending her rough journey by slamming into a group of adults and a sled they were holding. (No photos of that because I saw the crash coming and put the phone away!)

I was still comforting Mira and wiping away her tears when Aaron got Cordy into position. I tried to wave to Aaron that maybe we needed a break, but I was lost in the crowd and Cordy came down the hill again.

Thanks to all of the snow being packed, she picked up speed quickly. I was trying to run to her to help stop her, as well as yell to a group of people to watch out, but they didn’t move. Cordy hit them but had enough momentum to keep going. I jumped right into another group of people and grabbed Cordy’s coat just as she hit me and bumped the people next to me.

At that point I felt like an awful parent as both kids told us they hated sledding and wanted to go home. We had been there for less than half an hour, and they were now hurting and traumatized by sledding. So much for that awesomely fun experience, eh?

My mom came to the rescue a few days later, suggesting they go to my aunt’s new house and try sledding on the little hills around her house. There were no obstacles, no crowds of people – they could even have their own hills! (Why didn’t we think to do that in the first place?)

It took a lot of coaxing, but they now like sledding again. Cordy won’t try anything larger than a speed bump, but at least she’s willing to try the sled again.

This weekend we all went back to my aunt’s for a little more quality time with the snow, bringing Cosmo with us as well. Squeals of joy and laughter were heard all morning.

I’m so happy to have the snow back this winter.

Filed Under: Cordy, Cosmo, daily life, family time, memories, Mira, snow ·


Dec 28, 2012

The Last Week In Photos (and A Little Text)

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Whoa, hey, how’s it going? Amazing how fast December can fly by when your to-do list is a mile long, right?

We’re in the first week of winter break here, which in our house results in two kids who are really hyper, with one of them having a very hard time being off of her usual routine. I’m doing my best to control the chaos, which would be a lot easier if I could remember where I stored their snow boots from last year so they could go play in the snow.

I’m a little short on words, so here’s a photo journal of the last week.

We went to the zoo for Wild Lights and of course had to see the polar bears:

Unfortunately, we learned that the excitement of zoo lights can sometimes be too much for a five year old. She hasn’t had a potty accident for a year and a half, but she was so excited she forgot to tell us she needed to pee until it was too late. So I spent half an hour in a cold bathroom with her while Aaron ran to the gift shop to spend way too much money on sweat pants and socks.

We didn’t get to see as many of the lights as we had planned.

Next, Cosmo got a check-up at the vet, and we celebrated having him with us for one year.

He’s quite dashing in his sweater. He may weigh 95+ pounds, but he has little fur and gets cold easily.
I then had an experiment in baking and made candied almonds. Amazingly, it turned out delicious:

Recipe can be found here.

Mira watched The Wizard of Oz for the first time over the weekend. Other than the wicked witch, she liked it.

She liked cuddling on the couch with Cosmo, too.

Christmas Eve was spent with extended family at my cousin’s house. We enjoyed catching up with everyone and Cordy and Mira had fun playing with the other kids.

Getting them to hold still for a photo was tough, though.

Christmas Day was filled with the tearing of wrapping paper and squeals of joy.

Unwrapping their Furby toys.

Cuddleuppet, Tooth Fairy pillow, and a very happy Mira.

Also on Christmas Day, Aaron and I slipped away to go see the movie Les Miserables. Amazing movie. I loved it, even if I sobbed through a large part of it. It’s very similar to the stage musical, only now the actors are up close and the emotion is super intense.

I’ve seen the musical a few times and know it by heart, so I also had to resist the urge to criticize any cuts to the score or changing of lyrics.

And then, the day after Christmas, the snow came.

Now if only I could find our snow boots.

How has your week been?

Filed Under: Cordy, Cosmo, family time, holidays, Mira, snow ·


Nov 5, 2012

Halloween Recap (Late, As Usual)

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Despite the cold and rain last week, the kids still insisted on going trick-or-treating on Halloween night. I’ve been getting over bronchitis, meaning walking outside in frigid, wet air probably wasn’t the best idea for me, so Aaron took the kids while I handed out candy with the dog.

Here’s what they looked like before they had to put on winter coats in order to go outside:

American Dream (took over for Captain America) and Snow White, escorted by Batman.

We had about half as many kids come to the door as we usually do. No wonder, considering the weather, but it meant long periods of waiting for the next group of kids. Cosmo stood watch patiently.

Captain Ameripup won’t ignore his duty.

My three returned after only an hour, ready to call it a night. The candy haul was still impressive, though. Both kids had full pumpkins, which we immediately dumped on the floor and began sorting. In our house, we have two different sorts – first is the standard “look for anything slightly open or that could have been tampered with” sort that I think most people do.

But then we have to sort Cordy’s candy for anything containing artificial colors, since she’s unable to eat them.

This is the “can’t eat” pile. Ugh.

I know it upsets her to take away over half of her candy. In previous years, this was much harder and involved some fairly hefty bribes to make her happy. As she’s grown, she’s started to understand just how bad she feels when she eats artificial dyes, and so she’s more willing to part with the loot. It also helps that a company called Unreal (no affiliation with them, I just like their candy) makes their own version of popular candies without the artificial dyes and junk. I bought a few large bags of their version of M&Ms right before Halloween so we’d be ready.

This year the offer of a new deck of Pokemon cards and the large bags of Unreal candy were accepted in trade for the candy she couldn’t keep. She still had about a third of her treats from going door-to-door, too.

Now it’s all over. The Halloween decorations have been put away (the pumpkins remain for now), the costumes have been moved to the dress-up toy bin, and we’re back to normal. (Well, aside from Ohio being the center of all things political at the moment.) It’s no wonder why November is so depressing for me – it’s that month between bright, happy, sparkly months.

And no, we won’t put up holiday decorations yet, even though they were being sold in stores before (!!!) Halloween. I’ll keep my less-fun November and let Thanksgiving have its day before I will put up any decorations. I’ll probably listen to Guns ‘N Roses “November Rain” a lot, too.

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Filed Under: Cordy, family time, holidays, Mira ·