Peyton was playing with the Duplos, and fished out one of the people. She held it up and said, “Ma’am-ma” (this means Grandma in Peytonese). I looked up to see to what she was referring, and it was the old man Duplo. I called my mom immediately, and told her, chuckling through explaining to her what had happened. First, in my mom’s defense, the duplo looks nothing like her! My mom said, “What does it have glasses?” Yes, the duplo has glasses. And gray hair. And actually, is a man. Oops. Peyton is trying to lose her “Favorite granddaughter” badge in a hurry.
A stitch in time
From the day she was born, she was destined for stitches. There was the scare at 4 weeks, then the fall down the stairs, the finger in the door, the fall off the bed. All crises averted. Until today. Well, actually, there was Sunday. We were touring a castle in wine country, taking pictures on the drawbridge. The stone was all hand-cut from Italy, made to look the way it did back in the day. Peyton sat down, then leaned back and konked her head on one of the stones. She cried, then stopped, and when I went to rub the owie on the back of her head, my hand was faintly bloody. Unfortunately, they had no ice at the castle, but the bleeding stopped. The lump in the back of her head was like that in the cartoons, when the bad guy gets a lump and birdies start to encircle it. She was acting normal, so I wasn’t too worried. She took a bath, and was playing, and rubbed against the couch. She got some blood on the couch, and I realized it was still oozing. Dave said it wasn’t that big of a deal, but I called early Monday morning just to be sure. Her hair smelled irony, and it was matted down. She wouldn’t let us touch it, not even to put ice on it when we got home the day before. Dave took her in Monday morning, and the RN said they would’ve probably put a staple in there, and would have had to shave her. I’m glad we didn’t since that would have been traumatic for her, and her head was healing and closing on her own. As long as she never shaves her head, there will be no reminder of the event, hopefully. The teachers kept an eye on her, making sure she didn’t fall backwards and re-injure the area. I did the same when she was walking around at home. Brandon knew to be careful, too.
Flash forward to today. I had just finished telling Kathy about Peyton’s accident over the weekend. At 1030am, I get the call from school to say that she’s fallen again. This time, it was because she was putting her hands in her pockets (she likes pockets!) and tripped. Instead of breaking her fall with her hands, she broke it with her face. More specifically, her chin. They said there was a 1″ gash in her chin, and that I should come look at it since it hadn’t stopped bleeding. I rushed over, and called the advice RN on the way. Since I wasn’t with her, they asked me to call back. In the time it takes to call back, I might as well have waited on the phone until I got to school. As I was informed over the phone the prior day with the back of the head, they told me that stitches are only done in the ER, not in the clinic. I called the advice RN again, just as a formality, but really, I was going to head to the ER no matter what. This time, it was on her face, and it would matter. When I got to school, she was watching the other kids play in the corner of the playground. She had a bandage on her chin, and was just observing quietly. She didn’t see me at first, even after the teachers were trying to get her attention. As soon as she did see me, the waterworks were turned on!! She is so like me. She can keep it together for the most part, but when she sees mommy, it’s all over. The teachers kept her while I was talking to the RN. I grabbed her things, and headed back to work. She was calm in the car, which I was happy about, since it was just me driving. The last time she was in so much pain with her finger, she fell asleep. She did the same thing on the way back to work.
Luckily, she wasn’t bleeding profusely, even though the bandage was soaked. We waited about 45 minutes before they finally saw us. Luckily, I had one diaper in the car, and grabbed her snacks from her lunch. She had just finished her blueberries when they came in, and was trying to get to her cheese. She had bitten through the plastic, and was unhappy when I told her she had to wait for it. I was somewhat worried about her teeth, not knowing if the fall would have somehow jarred them loose. She was just becoming impatient by the end of the 45 minutes. Otherwise, she was content to hang out on me, and look around the casting room at all the crutches and gauze. Hopefully she doesn’t get too used to being there. The PA came in, and took a look. Once the bandage was off, it started to bleed again. The PA thought I had come in for the back of her head. I told her this was something new. She felt that stitches would be better than the glue, which may be pulled apart. I told them I wasn’t good with blood, one major factor in my choice of careers. They said they’d have to swaddle her, and that I should pull up a chair. They were afraid I’d go down, like they had seen other parents. Not wanting to risk being a patient myself, I did as they recommended. Poor thing was strapped down, almost in a straight-jacket position. She did NOT like this at all. My job was to hold her down, while the RN held her head straight. The PA was the one doing the stitches. She kept screaming out for me, yelling out, “MOMMY! MOMMY!” It was heart-wrenching. I was never the one to go with her to her other procedures, since I do not have the stomach for it. I was able to be strong for her, but I was crying for her inside. What I couldn’t do was watch the stitching, which was sad for her, because I was below where she could see me, because I was holding onto her body. I did keep talking to her the whole time, so she knew I was there. Right about stitch 5, Peyton stopped crying long enough to say, “All done! All done!” I guess she had had enough. Surprisingly, she had hung in there as long as she had and hadn’t said all done sooner. What seemed an eternity was finally over. I got to pick her up and comfort her. She recovered nicely, and by the time we were wrapping things up, she was only at a whimper. They told me that she needed to return in 5-7 days to get the stitches removed (Dave was sooo taking her to that). There were 6 in total. She got an orange popsicle which she was happy about. She ate the whole thing, and handed me the stick saying, “Here, Mommy.” We came home, and I thought she’d go down right away. It was almost 130pm by the time we got home. She had only slept briefly from school to the ER. It took me until about 230pm to get her to go down. But down she went! She was out until 5pm when I heard Dave come in. I was just thinking about how I was going to pick Brandon up, with Peyton totally out. I had drugged her before she went to sleep, in case she was in pain. We all went to pick Brandon up and got our Christmas tree. We had to salvage the day somehow. We brought it back, and we think it’s the nicest one we’ve picked out in the last few years. It’s straight, and has a great place for our tree topper. Brandon sat down next to Dave, who was putting up the tree, and said, “How can I help? I’m here to help!” He sounded so mature. I did give him the task to bring water back and forth from the sink to Dave at the tree. He took it seriously and did a great job! Luckily, we did Santa pictures early, otherwise we’d have her bandage in our pictures 
Also, school photos were two weeks ago, so we really lucked out! Even after sleeping so late, she is out cold now, and it’s only 830pm. Must’ve been all that crying she did. Poor thing – after Sunday, she couldn’t lie down on her back. She tried and looked up at me, and gave me this funny look, and promptly rolled over. Now, she can’t lie on either her back or her front!!
When Brandon saw Peyton, he didn’t say anything. I asked Dave (who went in to get Brandon) if he told him what happened. He said he didn’t want to say anything, he wanted to see if he would notice. It was dark, so I can’t blame him for not seeing her. We went to dinner, since we were headed out to get the tree after. When we got there, I asked Brandon if he saw what happened to his sister. He looked genuinely concerned, and said, “Oh no! What happened? Are you okay, Peyton?” He was also gentle with her, even making sure she didn’t hurt herself again, and said, “Oh, Peyton, be careful of your chin.”
Angry birds
I downloaded the game onto my aunt’s iPad after playing the game on Mike’s iPhone the last time we were in LA. Whenever we see my aunt, both kids have fun playing on it. Brandon figured out how to make the bird go backwards. We were playing MJ while Peyton was playing nicely on her own. We started her off on level 1. She ended up getting the little piggies with the birds! The only thing she didn’t understand was how to advance the screen to the next level. It was appealing to her competitive spirit, as she was quiet, except when she got the piggies, then she let out a cheer for herself. She ended up making it up to the first 4 levels before getting bored and sending the birds in all different directions. Dave thought we were all silly to play the game, until I got stuck and handed him the game to see if he could help out. Then he proceeded to open up the next round
New Song
Peyton’s been singing a song from school, “Peyton’s here today, Peyton’s here today, I’m so happy Peyton’s here today.” It sounds like the “Farmer in the dell”. Tonight, while we were trying to get her to go to sleep, she covered herself up with her blanket, and said, “Peyton’s all gone, Peyton’s all gone, I’m so happy Peyton’s all gone.” She’s learning her opposites? Dave was just laughing that she made up her own song.
No, THIS!
I was holding onto Peyton today, while wearing a scarf underneath my jacket. She pointed to the scarf and said, “What’s this?” I thought she was pointing to my zipper, so I said, “Zipper.” She said, “No, THIS!” At that point, I looked down to see what it was she was pointing at. Then I said, “Oh, my scarf!” Then she nodded in satisfaction, and that I had correctly answered her.
We were trying to head out to some wineries today, and Peyton was too busy playing with her blocks. I told her, “Peyton, let’s go!” She answered, “I wan play. I wan play right now.” She’s getting too much influence from Brandon. She also does this funny thing when she is either imitating Brandon, or when she is faking being upset. She’ll cross her arms over her chest, grunt, and then an added twist – she goes cross-eyed. We’ve not been able to catch it on film, mostly because we don’t want to encourage her, but she does it so quickly. It’s one of those “It’s going to stay that way” faces. Maybe that’s what she thinks Brandon looks like when he gets upset.
Finger Lickin’ Good, Drinking
Dave made ribs yesterday, and we discovered Peyton LOVES ribs. She ate two of them, and had sauce all over her face and hands. She made nice work of the ribs. They didn’t even have a chance. She proceeded to lick off all the sauce from her fingers, too.
Today, I handed her her milk and told her to drink it nicely. She then replied, “No babbles (bubbles).” She knew what I meant; she knows what “nicely” means. She tends to blow bubbles in her milk, and has learned I will take it away when that happens.
Commend? Or discipline?
We stayed home most of the day, since it was raining. Our ambitions to take in a museum never got off the ground. We ended up going to the mall right around 4pm to use a coupon we got, and did some more Christmas shopping. Brandon bought a new toy so we could donate it to those less fortunate than he. We’ve been doing this with him for the past couple of years now. He picked out police legos, which is funny, because that is what he has been asking for, too. We reminded him this wasn’t a trip for him, and he was well-aware he was not going home with anything. That wasn’t entirely true, because we were able to find foam blocks there, too, and they are a hit with both kids. They also spare our hardwood floors, unlike most of the other toys we own.
So, we were ready to give the kids their baths, when Dave found Brandon’s Doodle-pro with the following spelled out “STOO PID” (it was wrapped around on two lines, since apparently the writer could not squeeze it all onto one line). On one hand, I commend him for spelling out his words, and for writing things down, and not verbalizing the “bad” words. On the other hand, REALLY? What was so bad that he felt that he had to write that. It’s like tagging something up. Granted, it could have been worse. Like the choice word Dave had to say when dropping an unopened bottle of wine on Kenny’s driveway, which was supposed to be enjoyed INSIDE the house. Fortunately, neither kid picked up on it, at least we don’t think so. We asked Brandon about it, but he feigned ignorance. Dave had erased it, so he couldn’t confront him with it. We did send him up to his room for not being gentle with the blocks, and maybe that is when the act occurred. Who knows. I wonder if this is how he will communicate with us when he is a teenager – via doodle-pro message.
Weekend funnies
No shortage of laughs being home with the kids for 48 hours thus far. Like this morning, when we were watching clips from SNL’s B. Mars musical performance, and we heard a new teaser, “Tune in Monday to find out how to stop moms from drinking.” Brandon chuckled and repeated, “How to stop moms from drinking water.” Dave and I were just cracking up, and that was just to start the day!
Peyton proved she is a partial Mah after responding to a request to pick some piece of food off the floor by using her toes. She tried several times. She will refine the craft, I’m sure, over the years. There have been at least two generations before her, if not more, of which I may not be aware.
Yesterday, I wore my orange WS champion shirt. Dave was NOT happy to see me I picked Peyton up while wearing it, and she said, “GO GIANTS!” pointing to my shirt. Dave was NOT happy to hear this. What is strange is that I have never worn the shirt before, and I’m truly surprised she made the connection. Maybe she is not color blind after all, as Dave had suspected.
At bedtime last night, Peyton was asked to give everyone a hug and then go upstairs to bed. Even with family, she is somewhat hesitant and shy. She definitely prefers the men to the women, like when we tell her we’re going to see grandma to get her motivated, and she doesn’t move. But when we say, “Let’s go see Papa,” and she really gets going. Anyways, so she went around to give everyone a hug. Some people got a second round. I told Dave I thought she was totally stalling given she is not normally that friendly. So each and every family member got a Peyton hug.
Brandon changed up the words to “5 little monkeys jumping on the bed”. Peyton has been singing it; it’s quite funny when she sings it because she gets really serious and stern when she says, “No more monkeys jumping on the bed.” Brandon has revised it to now be, “5 little mommies jumping on the bed. One fell off and bumped her head. The monkey called the doctor, and the doctor said, ‘No more Mommies jumping on the bed.'”
We’re trying to figure out something to do in the rain. We’re looking into going to a museum.
Turkey?
Last night, The Chao’s hosted us with a ham and turkey meal. Peyton and Brandon joined Cameron and Caroline at their own small table. Both of the kids were eating nicely, and when she was done with her meat, Peyton said, “More fish?” I think she was referring to the turkey, since that was the only meat we had served her. When we gave her turkey, she gobbled it up! She kept asking for more, so we kept giving it to her. Rachel had made a yummy pumpkin pie, and that’s how we got Brandon to eat the rest of his salad. We found he is not a fan of stuffing, but he did give it a try. We were hoping all the trytophan in the turkey would put them both out. We got home a little after 9pm, so I don’t think it took too much to get them to sleep. Peyton woke up at Brandon’s usual time, 7am, while Brandon slept until 730am! That’s considered “sleeping in” for us these days! We are now hosting the family today. The celebration never gets old
Peyton as…
Sue Sylvester. Well, we like the hood on, but it’s close.
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