Emma-Bug

Awesome. YOU GUYS ARE AWESOME! I have a huge (yuge!) list of books now and Emma and I will be taking a trip to the book store this weekend. I'm so excited! Thank you so much.

To answer your question, I wish I still had my childhood books. I had hundreds of them, pop-ups, those three dimensional board books, my mom scoured stores for perfect stories. Unfortunately, while she wanted to save them for me, she made the mistake of storing them in She of Yard Sale's attic, also known as my grandmother. Yep, sold. No doubt for like a nickle. Try as I may to remember them, I just can't. It makes me sad to think about.

Anyway, fairs fair. Here are Emma's current favorite reads...

The Mouse and the Buddha.  I love this book. I love the gentleness of the story, I love the colorful illustrations and love, love, love the message.

Whoever You Are. A book that teaches tolerance and the beauty of diversity, that it's ok to be different - that we're all different. And the illustrations are nothing short of magnificent.

Where the Wild Things Are. A classic we read twice, back-to-back, every night. She loves "They roared their terrible roar and gnashed their terrible teeth and rolled their terrible eyes and showed their terrible claws", she acts it out which renders me stupid and drooling with the cuteness.

The Belly Button Book. We've read this one so many times that all of us, including Ems, can recite it from heart.

Green Eggs and Ham. Need I say anymore?

Miffy is Crying. This has been a staple since we first brought her home. The pages are ripped and repaired with tape, there's medicine and god only knows what else on it - the marks of a well loved book.

As far as adoption books go (other than her Welcome Home book)...

Families are Forever. I have a hard time getting through it without choking up. It's about a little 5-year old Chinese girl and her stuffed hippo named Bo. It's adorable, it will make you weak.

Shoey and Dot. Yeah I know some people really like this book, but it kind of makes me want to stab forks in my eyes. The story's ok, but the illustrations kind of skeeve me out. That ladybug is nothing short of creepy. (I can't even find it on Amazon, it's that lame.) (Ok I also hate that "When Love Takes You In" song by the Chapman dude so that may bleed over into the book) (No. No, that ladybug is disturbing) (But seriously? Can we find another anthem because I may have to hurl myself off the nearest overpass if I am forced to listen to it again) (AND FOR THE LOVE OF GOD DON'T MAKE IT BACKGROUND MUSIC TO YOUR BLOG) (ew) (What's up with the bug wearing mismatched shoes?)

I Love You Like Crazy Cakes. The standard.

Ok, so I have to tell you this story because it so clearly shows I am somewhat of a hypocrite and something came up that directed that mirror RIGHT at me....

Mark and Ems and I are at our favorite Chinese restaurant last Friday, we're munching away when in walk two Asian woman who are speaking Chinese to each other. I sort of glanced over and they see Emma, smile and wave. As they get closer I see there's a little girl with them who's maybe a little older than Emma and who is also speaking Chinese, but the little girl was very much...well, white. She was dressed in what I would call "classic Chinese", the shoes, the pants, dressed for the artic tundra even though it was 70 degrees. So there I am, my mind just whirling away at the possible scenarios that would bring two Chinese woman and an Anglo baby together...husband's kids from a previous marriage? Certainly not adoption? When it occurred to me I was staring. I was doing the very thing I practically shoot the eye daggers of death to when it happens to us.

Hyp.O.Crite.

Later in the evening it became pretty clear they didn't speak any English and damn if I'm still not just curious as hell.

I kinda suck.

OH, and today we were at Walgreens and I was picking out a magazine and right at Emma's eye level are the fitness mags (yeah I'm unfamiliar with those) and it was if someone handed her a megaphone and out comes - at an incredible volume - BOOBIES!

Fantastic.

I dont know where she picked up this word, but I may have to kill someone.

Boobies. Christ.

When I was a little girl my mother allowed me to read anything I wanted, no rules, just as long as I read. That single gesture opened up a world wider and more colorful than I could have ever imagined. In books I found places that made my heart swoon and my imagination fly. It was without question one of the largest and most important gifts I have ever been given; and a gift I want to give my daughter.

Emma's collection of books is pretty vast for a 2-year old. Some were bought, some were given, some are loved and some are ignored. We read A LOT. And it breaks my heart to say this because I truly wish it weren't true, but 99.5% of children's books are shit on toast. Dumbed down to the point they are nothing more than saccharin husks with little to no imagination. It's an atrocity. I have spent countless hours scouring the big book stores and Amazon to find beautiful stories with engaging pictures only to find literary fecal waste deposits.

There seems to be a gap between the baby books and the books for older children. And trust me when I say I CAN'T WAIT to read chapter books to Ems. "The Great Glass Elevator" and the "The Secret Garden", I have waited a long, long time to read these books aloud. But what about the toddler who needs to be engaged? I can only read "Where the Wild Things Are" so many times and I'm afraid when she tires of it, I'm out of ammunition.

So, I'm turning to you oh wise parents. What are you reading to your kids? Have you found something spectacular?

Three weeks of my precocious baby girl being sick with a sticky, mutant virus from the very depths of hell.

Fevers. Oh sweet mother of Jesus the fevers. One was 105.8. The freak? It was epic.

Thrown up on? Mark. Twice.

Times spent sucking the babe's hair up in the Dyson because DEAR GOD WE'VE BEEN COOPED UP IN THIS HOUSE FOREVER and needed amusement? Once.

Two different antibiotics. One steroid. One nebulizer. Enough Tylenol and Advil to bring down a water buffalo.

Three doctor's visits.

New job? Gaaaaaaaaaaawd. Debate with myself if I have time to pee ya'll.

Weight loss? Don't judge me.

Getting back on my feet? Slowly.

MANY email to return. Sloppy virus filled kisses for all of you.

(YES, that is an awful greasy picture of me, but DUDES! My girl's giving up the kisses)

(Also? Note to self...sun damage spot on cheek, BE GONE!)

Guess what?

No really, guess because you ARE NOT going to believe it.

Everyone, you remember our little friend Nebbie...

Nebbie, everyone...

Universe: Not amused. Not amused at all. Also, stop it.

So tell me oh wise mothers of the interent, does this whole "ill child" thing every get any easier? And also, when will I stop freaking the hell out every, single, solitary time Emma gets sick? Seriously, I need to know?

We're coming up on our one-year anniversary of the worst, absolutely worst, sickness I ever want to experience with her and to celebrate the momentous occasion, Emma decided to spike a fever over a 104 this evening. And began to breath rapidly. Out of the blue. With no warning. And I swear to kittens I almost started hyperventilating. All of a sudden I was there again, right at that moment last year, pacing in our living room waiting for the nebulizer to be delivered and feeling her struggle for every, single breath and frankly, being scared shitless, more afraid than I thought possible without having heart failure.

And I keep repeating to myself "It's not RSV, it's not RSV" and being so terribly worried it's RSV. Logically I know her breathing is rapid because of the fever, I KNOW THIS, but the irrational, fear-based portion of my brain takes over and....and...before you could say "boo" I had her shirt whipped off and I'm counting her breaths.

I'd REALLY like to never have to count my baby's breaths EVER again.

She's sleeping comfortably now, with certainly no help from me as I've gone in there every 30 minutes to check her temperature.

I've worked myself into a frenzy. Certainly not the calm-under-pressure mom I'd like to be, more the teary and slightly panicked mom you roll your eyes at.  I don't want to be that mom, I want to be strong! and I'm not. Not when it comes to her, and because of that, I feel like I fail her when she needs me the most.

It is a horrendous pink princess nightmare isn't it? It all but screams bedazzle me with rhinestone goodness. And Emma loves it. And it's going back to Target. Not because of the Pepto Bismol color, or the crowns, or my feminist sensibilities but because I read this, courtesy of Jean.

Thank you Jean.

When I thought about car seat failure, I thought of.....well...car seat failure; poorly constructed, cheap seats. It never occurred to me that those failures, those tragic, heartbreaking, soul crushing failures were ultimately the failure of the car's basic safety feature, its seat belt.

The seat belt.

I feel like such an idiot.

The thought of it is so unacceptable to me. I've spent countless hours researching car seats, strollers, cribs, everything...but a car seat belt failing, my car seat belt failing, it never crossed my mind. And it's not as if I can run out to the garage and test it, the only way I would know is if I was in a catastrophic accident. I'm just supposed to trust it will work properly and you know what? I don't. Not anymore.

Emma does meet the weight and height requirements for a booster and I have no doubts Graco makes a safe booster. I simply don't trust the seat belt to do its job in my car. I mean if I die in a car accident, that's one thing, if Emma...if something ever happened to Emma...I couldn't go on living.

I ordered the Sunshine Kids Radian65 car seat. 

And then I raced home to hug my girl.

Mark:  "Don't be a tool"

Me:  "I'm not!"

Mark:  "Did you or didn't you tell her she could pick whichever one she wanted?"

Me:  "That was before I knew THIS existed. I mean my GOD look at it!"

Mark:  "Doesn't matter, she wants that one."

Me:  "Dude."

Mark:  "It's not about you."

Meet our new carseat. Our pink princess carseat. I have hives People, hives.