for the books

i can't tell you how many times i've referred back to my blog archives to find out important dates and milestones of my kids' first years. i've claimed many times that this blog is more of a record of these milestones than anything else. so here is what happened to kate this past week, as she is almost 21 months old.

last sunday after church jesse had to be around to help set up for VBS, so our family went and grabbed a quick lunch at wendy's. as we were cleaning up to leave, kate decided to throw a little tantrum and plopped herself to the ground just as someone was holding her hand. immediately she started to cry, and i assumed it was just the "nap-time" crankiness. trying not to make a scene, i thought i'd distract her by showing her the firetruck outside. when that didn't stop her crying, i took her outside and she only cried harder. this is when i figured there was something more wrong with her than just a tantrum. i noticed she was babying her arm, but couldn't see anything visibly wrong with it. we loaded up into the car and noticed an EMT getting into the ambulance parked next to us. kate still crying, and not letting us touch her arm, we asked the EMT to check her out, which he did, and told us he couldn't tell what could be hurting her but that we should "keep an eye on her". kate is screaming at this point. we stop at the store to buy a paci (i had forgotten to pack one and knew this would be the one thing that would calm her down) and i picked up a PEZ for her and jacob (he needed a distraction too). hello kitty for kate and thomas the train for jacob. :) PEZ wasn't working and paci wasn't helping much. kate wouldn't even move her arm and anytime you even mentioned it she would cry "no, mommy, no! no, daddy, no!" it was so pathetic and sad. :( we headed back to church and i took her straight to the nursery, where i knew her pediatrician was serving in the 2 year old room. he listened to my plea and right away said "she's dislocated her elbow". he took her in the other room, and while i held her he straightened it back out. kate cried really hard. she calmed down a few minutes later and i set her down at the toys to see if she would use her arm. sure enough, all was well, and dr. price was kate's hero.
later on that day she woke up from her nap and tried to re-hash the story for me: "owie ... arm ... fireman (EMT) .... dr. price ... all gone! (as in, owie all gone)". at least she ended on a positive note. :o)

oddly enough, after having just paid $5 for a new pack of pacifiers just last sunday, jesse decided this was the week to remove kate's paci. (this is a point where blog archives came in handy...i figured out we took jacob's paci away just around the same age). we made her quit cold turkey. she wasn't cool with it at first. night #1 she was up for 2 hours, crying off and on for the paci. we snipped the tip off and showed her it was broken. we told her she's a big girl now and doesn't need a paci anymore. jesse even had her repeat the words "i'm a big girl" and "no more paci!".
night #2 was a little easier, and so was night #3, and also night #4. nap times were a bit harder, but got a little better with each day. and now we are at night #5 and she didn't even ask for it tonight. i think she's figured it out. :o) we're in the process of trying to figure out a new bedtime routine that will hopefully keep her mind off of the paci. kissing her night-light flower, letting her have a book in bed with her, and of course cuddling puppy too.